Pope or Emperor,
if he was content with Anne Boleyn as a mistress, and is believed to
have been already satisfied in 1529, four years before the divorce was
obtained.[532] So, too, the actual sentence of divorce in 1533 was
precipitated not by Henry's passion for Anne, but by the desire that
her child should be legitimate. She was pregnant before Henry was
married to her or divorced from Catherine. But, though the representation
of Henry's passion for Anne Boleyn as the sole _fons et origo_ of the
divorce is far from convincing, that passion introduced various
complications into the question; it was not merely an additional
incentive to Henry's desires; it also brought Wolsey and Henry into
conflict; and the unpopularity of the divorce was increased by the
feeling that Henry was losing caste by seeking to marry a lady of the
rank and character of Anne Boleyn.

[Footnote 531: _Ibid._, iv., 4858.]

[Footnote 532: No conclusive evidence on this point
is possible; the French ambassador, Clement VII.
and others believed that Henry VIII. and Anne
Boleyn had been cohabiting since 1529. On the other
hand, if such was the case, it is singular that no
child should have been born before 1533; for after
that date Anne seems to have had a miscarriage
nearly every year. Ortiz, indeed, reports from Rome
that she had a miscarriage in 1531 (_L. and P._,
v., 594), but the evidence is not good.]

* * * * *

The Boleyns were wealthy merchants of London, of which one of them had
been Lord-Mayor, but Anne's mother was of noble blood, being daughter
and co-heir of the Earl of Ormonde,[533] and it is a curious fact that
all of Henry's wives could trace their descent from Edward I.[534]
Anne's age is uncertain, but she is generally believed to have (p. 188)
been born in 1507.[535] Attempts have been made to date her influence
over the King by the royal favours bestowed on her father, Sir Thomas,
afterwards Viscount Rochford and Earl of Wiltshire, but, as these
favours flowed in a fairly regular stream from the beginning of the
reign, as Sir Thomas's services were at least a colourable excuse for
them, and as his other daughter Mary was Henry's mistress before he
fell in love with Anne, these grants ar