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Updated: June 6, 2025
This quarrel need never have arisen had not Henry, perjured and adulterous, desired to make the Pope his accomplice in putting away his lawful wife in order that he might marry Anne Boleyn. Because the Pope refused to aid him in this crime Henry destroyed the Catholic Church in England, and he and his successors founded the so-called Church of England, with himself as first Supreme Governor.
Gardiner, then secretary to Henry, that the proper way to settle the difficulty about the divorce was, to appeal to learned men, who would settle the matter on the sole authority of the Bible, without reference to the pope. This remark was reported to the king, and Cranmer was sent to reside with the father of Anne Boleyn, and was employed in writing a treatise to support his opinion.
Soon there was a livelier peal of music, and the dance began. The king danced with the most beautiful of the maids of honor, whom he smiled lovingly upon, while the poor queen looked very unhappy. So the Lady Mary knew that this fair maid must be Anne Boleyn. When the dance ended, the gay court passed out; but again there was music, and another swept in.
He beheaded two queens, but few will be found to assert to-day that either Anne Boleyn or Catherine Howard were innocent martyrs. People must agree to differ to the crack of doom as to the justice of Catherine's divorce. It is one of those questions which different men will continue to answer in different ways. But one thing is abundantly clear.
Thus Diogenes talks with Plato, Æsop with a young slave girl in Egypt, Henry VIII with Anne Boleyn in prison, Dante with Beatrice, Leofric with Lady Godiva, all these and many others, from Epictetus to Cromwell, are brought together and speak of life and love and death, each from his own view point.
But Henry had new domestic difficulties long before the suppression of monasteries the great political act of Thomas Cromwell. His new wife, Anne Boleyn, was suspected of the crime of inconstancy, and at the very time when she had reached the summit of power, and the gratification of all worldly wishes. She had been very vain, and fond of display and of ornaments; but the latter years of her life were marked by her munificence, and attachment to the reform doctrines. But her power ceased almost as soon as she became queen. She could win, but she could not retain, the affections of her royal husband. His passion subsided into languor, and ended in disgust. The beauty of Anne Boleyn was soon forgotten when Jane Seymour, her maid of honor, attracted the attention of Henry. To make this lady his wife now became the object of his life, and this could only be effected by the divorce of his queen, who gave occasion for scandal by the levity and freedom of her manners. Henry believed every insinuation against her, because he wished to believe her guilty. There was but a step between the belief of guilt and the resolution to destroy her. She was committed to the Tower, impeached, brought to trial, condemned without evidence, and executed without remorse. Even Cranmer, whom she had honored and befriended, dared not defend her, although he must have believed in her innocence. He knew the temper of the master whom he served too well to risk much in her defence. She was the first woman who had been beheaded in the annals of England. Not one of the Plantagenet kings ever murdered a woman. But the age of chivalry was past, and the sentiments it encouraged found no response in the bosom of such a sensual and vindictive monarch as was Henry
The father of Anne Boleyn, now created Earl of Wiltshire, was sent in 1530 on this errand to the Imperial Court. But Charles remained firm to Catharine's cause, and Clement would do nothing in defiance of the Emperor. Nor was the appeal to the learned world more successful.
In the spring of 1536, while the dissolution of the monasteries was marking the triumph of the new policy, Anne Boleyn was suddenly charged with adultery, and sent to the Tower. A few days later she was tried, condemned, and brought to the block.
"Through that door" the heads of the American tourists who were doing the Tower all turned in unison "you may see the block upon which many a royal head has rested, and beneath these very stones lie buried two dukes between two queens Dukes of Northumberland and of Somerset, with the Queens Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard all beheaded."
As a strict matter of law, Mary was rightful heir to the English throne, and Elizabeth was an usurper. Parliament, at Henry's request, had declared that Elizabeth, his issue by Anne Boleyn, was illegitimate, and that being true, Mary was next in line of descent.
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