o ignore the existence of substantial disaffection
though all society may be undermined; they can build their hopes, When it
suits their convenience, on the idle trifling of superficial discontent. In
the present instance there was some excuse for the mistake. That in England
there really existed an active and organised opposition, prepared, when
opportunity offered, to try the chances of rebellion, was no delusion of
persons who measured facts by their desires; it was an ascertained peril of
serious magnitude, which might be seriously calculated upon; and if the
experiment was tried, reasonable men might fairly be divided in opinion on
the result to be expected.

In the meantime the government had been obliged to follow up the coronation
of the new queen by an act which the situation of the kingdom explained and
excused; but which, if Catherine had been no more than a private person,
would have been wanton cruelty. Among the people she still bore her royal
title; but the name of queen, so long as she was permitted to retain it,
was an allowed witness against the legality of the sentence at Dunstable.
There could not be "two queens" in England,[441] and one or other must
retire from the designation. A proclamation was therefore issued by the
council, declaring, that in consequence of the final proofs that the Lady
Catherine had never been lawfully married to the king, she was to bear
thenceforward the title which she had received after the death of her first
husband, and be called the Princess Dowager.

Harsh as this measure was, she had left no alternative to the government by
which to escape the enforcement of it, by her refusal to consent to any
form of compromise. If she was queen, Anne Boleyn was not queen. If she was
queen, the Princess Mary remained the heir to the crown, and the expected
offspring of Anne would be illegitimate. If the question had been merely of
names, to have moved it would have been unworthy and wicked; but where
respect for private feeling was incompatible with the steps which a nation
felt necessary in order to secure itself against civil convulsions, private
feeling was compelled not unjustly to submit to injury. Mary, though still
a girl, had inherited both her father's will and her mother's obstinacy.
She was in correspondence, as we have seen, with the Nun of Kent, and aware
at least, if she was not further implicated in it, of a conspiracy to place
her on the throne. Charles was engaged