ry VIII._,
vol. 4, part 2.

[51] Several long speeches stated to have been uttered by her to Henry
when he sought her illicit love are given in the Sloane MSS., 2495, in the
British Museum, but they are stilted expressions of exalted virtue quite
foreign to Anne's character and manner.

[52] Although it was said to have been suggested by Dr. Barlow, Lord
Rochford's chaplain.

[53] The dispensation asked for was to permit Henry to marry a woman, even
if she stood in the first degree of affinity, "either by reason of licit
or illicit connection," provided she was not the widow of his deceased
brother. This could only refer to the fact that Mary Boleyn, Anne's
sister, had been his mistress, and that Henry desired to provide against
all risk of a disputed succession arising out of the invalidity of the
proposed marriage. By the canon law previous to 1533 no difference had
been made between legitimate and illegitimate intercourse so far as
concerned the forbidden degrees of affinity between husband and wife. In
that year (1533) when Henry's marriage with Anne had just been celebrated,
an Act of Parliament was passed setting forth a list of forbidden degrees
for husband and wife, and in this the affinities by reason of illicit
intercourse were omitted. In 1536, when Anne was doomed, another Act was
passed ordering every man who had married the sister of a former mistress
to separate from her and forbidding such marriages in future. Before
Henry's marriage with Anne, Sir George Throgmorton mentioned to him the
common belief that Henry had carried on a _liaison_ with both the
stepmother and the sister of Anne. "_Never with the mother_," replied the
King; "nor with the sister either," added Cromwell. But most people will
conclude that the King's remark was an admission that Mary Boleyn was his
mistress. (Friedmann's "Anne Boleyn," Appendix B.)

[54] It would not be fair to accept as gospel the unsupported assertions
of the enemies of Anne with regard to her light behaviour before marriage,
though they are numerous and circumstantial, but Wyatt's own story of his
snatching a locket from her and wearing it under his doublet, by which
Henry's jealousy was aroused, gives us the clue to the meaning of another
contemporary statement (_Chronicle of Henry VIII._, edited by the writer),
to the effect that Wyatt, who was a great friend of the King, and was one
of those accused at the time of Anne's fall, when confronted with
Cromwell,