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to enable a false-hearted sensualist to rid himself of his legitimate wife. Bishops were executed for objecting to his contemplated divorce; the laws of earth and heaven were confused in the struggle of one wild and reckless will; Rome was alternately appealed to and defied; till on a Sabbath day in September 1532, at Windsor Castle,—while Katharine was yet his nominal Queen and nominal wife,—a sort of rehearsal of a future coronation was made, by creating Anne Boleyn, Marchioness of Pembroke. The Defender of the Faith himself put the demi-circular coronet on that lovely head, which was so soon to usurp the crown; so soon to be severed by the axe! The Duke of Norfolk's daughter carried her mantle and coronet; the Countesses of Rutland and Sussex waited upon her; the Bishop of Winchester read aloud her letters patent of new nobility; and from that day she was attended upon with royal state, like a princess. From that day, for how long? For one,—two,—three months, or more? Historians cannot tell. They dispute the date of Henry's unhallowed union; and this fact only appears clear, that he married Anne Boleyn before the sentence of divorce from Katharine was actually pronounced by Cranmer.
Retribution was in store. Soon, too soon, that fair Aurora of the Reformation,—that woman with such generous impulses, such strong ambition, such passionate attachments, such universal fascination,—was to perish as a victim, where she had reigned as sovereign. Vain were her appeals to the tyrant-heart, whose flame of lust being burned out, held no other light to read a woman's prayer by. The echo of the same call which had once insulted her mistress, predecessor, and superseded Queen,—"Catharine, come into Court!" was repeated for Anne Boleyn. She, too, came into Court—to be tried and condemned. The lover who wooed her in girlhood,—Percy, Duke of Northumberland,—saw her stand that trial: her condemnation he did not hear: he pleaded illness and withdrew, before the close of the proceedings; taking with
