ne, the
tragedy of whose fate has blotted the remembrance of her sins--if her sins
were, indeed, and in reality, more than imaginary. Forgetting all else in
shame and sorrow, posterity has made piteous reparation for her death in
the tenderness with which it has touched her reputation; and with the
general instincts of justice, we have refused to qualify our indignation at
the wrong which she experienced, by admitting either stain or shadow on her
fame. It has been with Anne Boleyn as it has been with Catherine of
Arragon--both are regarded as the victims of a tyranny which catholics and
protestants unite to remember with horror; and each has taken the place of
a martyred saint in the hagiology of the respective creeds. Catholic
writers have, indeed, ill repaid, in their treatment of Anne, the
admiration with which the mother of Queen Mary has been remembered in the
Church of England; but the invectives which they have heaped upon her have
defeated their object by their extravagance. It has been believed that
matter failed them to sustain a just accusation, when they condescended to
outrageous slander. Inasmuch, however, as some natural explanation can
usually be given of the actions of human beings in this world without
supposing them to have been possessed by extraordinary wickedness, and if
we are to hold Anne Boleyn entirely free from fault, we place not the king
only, but the privy council, the judges, the Lords and Commons, and the two
Houses of Convocation, in a position fatal to their honour and degrading to
ordinary humanity; we cannot without inquiry acquiesce in so painful a
conclusion. The English nation also, as well as she, deserves justice at
our hands; and it must not be thought uncharitable if we look with some
scrutiny at the career of a person who, except for the catastrophe with
which it was closed, would not so readily have obtained forgiveness for
having admitted the addresses of the king, or for having received the
homage of the court as its future sovereign, while the king's wife, her
mistress, as yet resided under the same roof, with the title and the
position of queen, and while the question was still undecided of the
validity of the first marriage. If in that alone she was to blame, her
fault was, indeed, revenged a thousandfold,--and yet no lady of true
delicacy would have accepted such a position; and feeling for Queen
Catherine should have restrained her, if she was careless of respect for
he