ct, which for half a century
afterwards inspired so many vain hopes and was the subject of so many
fruitless negotiations, was already proposed as an article of a treaty
between France and England.

Henry had caused an act of succession to be passed, by which his divorce
was confirmed, the authority of the pope disclaimed, and the crown
settled on his issue by Anne Boleyn. But, as if half-repenting the
boldness of his measures, he opened a negotiation almost immediately
with Francis I., for the purpose of obtaining a declaration by that king
and his nobility in favor of his present marriage, and the intercession
of Francis for the revocation of the papal censures fulminated against
him. And in consideration of these acts of friendship, he offered to
engage the hand of Elizabeth to the duke d'Angouleme, third son of the
French king. But Francis was unable to prevail upon the new pope to
annul the acts of his predecessor; and probably not wishing to connect
himself more closely with a prince already regarded as a heretic, he
suffered the proposal of marriage to fall to the ground.

The doctrines of Zwingle and of Luther had at this time made
considerable progress among Henry's subjects, and the great work of
reformation was begun in England. Several smaller monasteries had been
suppressed; the pope's supremacy was preached against by public
authority; and the parliament, desirous of widening the breach between
the king and the pontiff, declared the former, head of the English
church. After some hesitation, Henry accepted the office, and wrote a
book in defence of his conduct. The queen was attached, possibly by
principle, and certainly by interest, to the antipapal party, which
alone admitted the validity of the royal divorce, and consequently of
her marriage; and she had already engaged her chaplain Dr. Parker, a
learned and zealous reformist, to keep a watchful eye over the childhood
of her daughter, and early to imbue her mind with the true principles of
religious knowledge.

But Henry, whose passions and interests alone, not his theological
convictions, had set him in opposition to the old church establishment,
to the ceremonies and doctrines of which he was even zealously attached,
began to be apprehensive that the whole fabric would be swept away by
the strong tide of popular opinion which was now turned against it, and
he hastened to interpose in its defence. He brought to the stake several
persons who denied th