opposition of character had already made too wide.
So far Henry and she were alike that both had imperious tempers, and both
were indomitably obstinate; but Henry was hot and impetuous, Catherine was
cold and self-contained--Henry saw his duty through his wishes; Catherine,
in her strong Castilian austerity, measured her steps by the letter of the
law; the more her husband withdrew from her, the more she insisted upon her
relation to him as his wife; and continued with fixed purpose and immovable
countenance[124] to share his table and his bed long after she was aware of
his dislike for her.

If the validity of so unfortunate a connection had never been questioned,
or if no national interests had been dependent on the continuance or the
abolition of it, these discomforts were not too great to have been endured
in silence. They were not originally occasioned by any latent inclination
on the part of the king for another woman. They had arisen to their worst
dimensions before he had ever seen Anne Boleyn, and were produced by causes
of a wholly independent kind; and even if it had not been so, when we
remember the tenor of his early life we need not think that he would have
been unequal to the restraint which ordinary persons in similar
circumstances are able to impose on their caprices. The legates spoke no
more than the truth when they wrote to the pope, saying that "it was mere
madness to suppose that the king would act as he was doing merely out of
dislike of the queen, or out of inclination, for another person; he was not
a man whom harsh manners and an unpleasant disposition (_duri mores et
injucunda consuetudo_) could so far provoke; nor could any sane man believe
him to be so infirm of character that sensual allurements would have led
him to dissolve a connexion in which he had passed the flower of youth
without stain or blemish, and in which he had borne himself in his trial so
reverently and honourably."[125] I consider this entirely true in a sense
which no great knowledge of human nature is required to understand. The
king's personal dissatisfaction was great: if this had been all, however,
it would have been extinguished or endured; but the interests of the
nation, imperilled as they were by the maintenance of the marriage,
entitled him to regard his position under another aspect. Even if the
marriage in itself had never been questioned, he might justly have desired
the dissolution of it; and when he recalled th