from the
greatest potentates, he could ill brook that dependence to which this
unhappy affair seemed to have reduced him. Amidst the anxieties with
which he was agitated, he was often tempted to break off all
connections with the court of Rome; and though he had been educated in
a superstitious reverence to papal authority, it is likely that his
personal experience of the duplicity and selfish politics of Clement
had served much to open his eyes in that particular. He found his
prerogative firmly established at home: lie observed that his people
were in general much disgusted with clerical usurpations, and disposed
to reduce the powers find privileges of the ecclesiastical order: he
knew that they had cordially taken part with him in his prosecution of
the divorce, and highly resented the unworthy treatment which after
so many services and such devoted attachment, he had received from the
court of Rome. Anne Boleyn also could not fail to use all her
efforts, and employ every insinuation, in order to make him proceed to
extremities against the pope; both as it was the readiest way to her
attaining royal dignity, and as her education in the court of the
duchess of Alencon, a princess inclined to the reformers, had already
disposed her to a belief of the new doctrines. But notwithstanding these
inducements, Henry had strong motives still to desire a good agreement
with the sovereign pontiff. He apprehended the danger of such great
innovations: he dreaded the reproach of heresy: he abhorred all
connections with the Lutherans, the chief opponents of the papal power;
and having once exerted himself with such applause, as he imagined, in
defence of the Romish communion, he was ashamed to retract his former
opinions, and betray from passion such a palpable inconsistency. While
he was agitated by these contrary motives, an expedient was proposed,
which, as it promised a solution of all difficulties, was embraced by
him with the greatest joy and satisfaction.

Dr. Thomas Cranmer, fellow of Jesus College in Cambridge, was a man
remarkable in that university for his learning, and still more for
the candor and disinterestedness of his temper. He fell one evening by
accident into company with Gardiner, now secretary of state, and Fox,
the king's almoner; and as the business of the divorce became the
subject of conversation, he observed that the readiest way either to
quiet Henry's conscience, or extort the pope's consent, would be to