emorable occasion; and, if her motive to so signal a forbearance were
really consideration for the interests of her infant daughter, it must
be granted that she exhibited, in the farewell act of her life, a
grandeur of self-conquest which no man could have anticipated. For
this act she has never received the homage which she deserved; whilst,
on the other hand, praise most unmerited has been given for three
centuries to the famous letter of self-defence which she is reputed to
have addressed to the king at the opening of her trial. This letter,
beyond all doubt a forgery, was first brought into effectual notice by
the _Spectator_ somewhere about 1710; and, whether authentic or not,
is most injudiciously composed. It consists of five paragraphs, each
one of which is pulling distractedly in contradictory directions.

Meantime, that or any other act of Anne Boleyn's was superseded by a
fatal discovery, which changed utterly the relations of all parties,
which in effect acquitted Anne of treason, and which summarily
rehabilitated as untainted subjects of the king those five men who had
suffered death in the character of traitors. The marriage of Anne to
the king, it was suddenly discovered, had from the beginning been
void. It is true that we have long ceased to accredit those objections
from precontracts, &c., which in the papal courts would be held to
establish a nullity. But we are to proceed by the laws as then
settled. Grounds of scruple, which would now raise at most a mere case
of irregularity, at that time, unless met _ab initio_ by a papal
dispensation, did legally constitute a flaw such as even a friendly
pope could not effectually cure; far less that angry priest, blazing
up with wrath, and at intervals meditating an interdict, who at
present occupied the chair of St. Peter. Here was a discovery to make,
after so much irreparable injustice had been already perpetrated! If
(which is too certain), under the marriage laws then valid, Anne
Boleyn never had been the lawful wife of Henry, then, as Bishop Burnet
suddenly objected when too late by one hundred and fifty years, what
became of the adultery imputed to Anne, and the five young courtiers?
Not being the king's wife, both _she_ was incapable in law of
committing adultery as against the king, and by an inevitable
consequence _they_ were incapable of participating in a crime which
she was incapable of committing.

When was this fatal blunder detected? Evidently b