sation which, if maintained, would have been absolutely
decisive, is never alluded to in any public document till the question had
passed beyond the stage of discussion. The silence of all responsible
persons is sufficient proof of its nature. It was a mere floating calumny,
born of wind and malice.

Mr. Brewer does indeed imagine that he has discovered what he describes as
a tacit confession on Henry's part. When the Act of Appeals was before the
House of Commons which ended the papal jurisdiction in England, a small
knot of Opposition members used to meet privately to deliberate how to
oppose it. Among these one of the most active was Sir George Throgmorton,
a man who afterwards, with his brother Michael, made himself useful to
Cromwell and played with both parties, but was then against the divorce
and against all the measures which grew out of it. Throgmorton, according
to his own account, had been admitted to an interview with the King and
Cromwell. In 1537, after the Pilgrimage of Grace, while the ashes of the
rebellion were still smouldering, after Michael Throgmorton had betrayed
Cromwell's confidence and gone over to Reginald Pole, Sir George was
reported to have used certain expressions to Sir Thomas Dyngley and to two
other gentlemen, which he was called on by the Council to explain. The
letter to the King in which he replied is still extant. He said that he
had been sent for by the King after a speech on the Act of Appeals, "and
that he saw his Grace's conscience was troubled about having married his
brother's wife." He professed to have said to Dyngley that he had told the
King that if he did marry Queen Anne his conscience would be more troubled
at length, for it was thought he had meddled both with the mother and the
sister; that his Grace said: "Never with the mother," and my Lord Privy
Seal (Cromwell), standing by, said, "nor with the sister neither, so put
that out of your mind." Mr. Brewer construes this into an admission of the
King that Mary Boleyn had been his mistress, and omits, of course, by
inadvertence, that Throgmorton, being asked why he had told this story to
Dyngley, answered that "he spake it only out of vainglory, to show he was
one that durst speak for the Commonwealth." Nothing is more common than
for "vainglorious" men, when admitted to conversations with kings, to make
the most of what they said themselves, and to report not very accurately
what was said to them. Had the conversation be