ation
for the sake of keeping England under his authority, he well knew that
Henry could only be moved by fear; and all the thunderbolts of the Church
were being secretly forged to launch upon the King of England.

On the 23rd March 1534 the consistory of Cardinals sat, the French
Cardinals being absent; and the final judgment on the validity of Henry's
marriage with Katharine was given by the head of the Church. The cause
which had stirred Europe for five years was settled beyond appeal so far
as the Roman Church could settle it. Katharine was Henry's lawful wife,
and Anne Boleyn was proclaimed by the Church to be his concubine. Almost
on the very day that the gage was thus thrown down by the Pope, Henry had
taken similar action on his own account. In the previous sitting of
Parliament the King had been practically acknowledged as head of the
Church in his own dominions; and now all appeals and payments to the Pope
were forbidden, and the bishops of England were entirely exempt from his
spiritual jurisdiction and control. To complete the emancipation of the
country from the Papacy, on the 23rd March 1534 a bill (the Act of
Succession) was read for the third time, confirming the legality of the
marriage of Henry and Anne, and settling the succession to the crown upon
their issue to the exclusion of the Princess Mary. Cranmer's divorce
decision was thus ratified by statute; and any person questioning in word
or print the legitimacy of Elizabeth's birth was adjudged guilty of high
treason. Every subject of the King, moreover, was to take oath to
maintain this statute on pain of death. The consummation was reached: for
good or for evil England was free from Rome, and the fair woman for whose
sake the momentous change had been wrought, sat planning schemes of
vengeance against the two proud princesses, mother and daughter, who still
refused to bow the neck to her whom they proclaimed the usurper of their
rights.

CHAPTER VI

1534-1536

A FLEETING TRIUMPH--POLITICAL INTRIGUE AND THE BETRAYAL OF ANNE

In the previous pages we have witnessed the process by which a vain,
arrogant man, naturally lustful and held by no moral or material
restraint, had been drawn into a position which, when he took the first
step that led to it, he could not have contemplated. In ordinary
circumstances there would have been no insuperable difficulty in his
obtaining a divorce, and he probably expected little. The divorce,
however, in