This page has been validated.
250
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 17.
step which would undo their victory in Parliament. The occasion was not allowed to cool. May 11.Parliament was prorogued on the 11th of May, with an intimation from the Crown that the religious question was not to be regarded as finally settled.[1] The treaty with Cleves was so far advanced on the 17th of July that Lord Hertford[2] was able to congratulate Cromwell on the consent of Anne's brother and mother.[3] The lady had been previously intended for a son of a Duke of Lorraine; and Henry, whom experience had made anxious, was alarmed at the name of a 'pre-contract.' But Dr Wotton, who was sent over to arrange the preliminaries, and was instructed to see the difficulty cleared, was informed and believed that the engagement had never advanced to a form which brought with it legal obligations, and that Anne was at liberty to marry wherever she pleased.[4] Of her personal attractions
- ↑ 'Animadvertens sua clementia quod maxime hoc convenerat parliamentum pro bono totius Regni publico et concordiâ Christianæ religionis stabiliendâ, non tam cito quam propter rei magnitudinem, quæ non solum regnum ipsum Angliæ concernit veruni etiam alia regna et universi Christianismi Ecclesias quantumvis diversarum sententiarum quæ in eam rem oculos et animum habebant intentos, sua Majestas putavit tam propriâ suâ regiâ diligentiâ et studio quam etiam episcoporum et cleri sui sedulitate, rem maturius consultandam, tractandam et deliberandam.'—Speech of the Lord Chancellor at the Prorogation: Lords Journals, vol. i. p. 137.
- ↑ Brother of Jane Seymour; afterwards Protector.
- ↑ 'I am as glad of the good resolutions of the Duke of Cleves, his mother, and council, as ever I was of anything since the birth of the prince: for I think the King's Highness should not in Christendom marry in no place meet for his Grace's honour that should be less prejudicial to his Majesty's succession.'—Hertford to Cromwell: Ellis, first series, vol. ii. p. 119.
- ↑ 'I find the council willing enough to publish and manifest to
