couraged and amazed' at the prospect which was opened before him. He forgot his present; he almost forgot his courtesy. He did not stay in the room 'to speak twenty words.' He would not even stay in Rochester. 'Very sad and pensive,' says Brown, he entered his barge and hurried back to Greenwich, anxious only to escape, while escape was possible, from the unwelcome neighbourhood. Unwilling to marry at all, he had yielded only to the pressure of a general desire. He had been deceived by untrue representations, and had permitted a foreign princess to be brought into the realm; and now, as fastidious in his tastes as he was often little scrupulous in his expression of them, he fouud himself on the edge of a connection the very thought of which was revolting.[1] It was a cruel fortune which imposed on Henry VIII., in addition to his other burdens, the labour of finding heirs to strengthen the succession. He 'lamented the fate of princes to be in matters of marriage of far worse sort than the condition of poor men.' 'Princes take,' he said, 'as is brought them by others, and poor men be commonly at their own choice.'[2]
- ↑ Those who insist that Henry was a licentious person, must explain how it was that, neither in the three years which had elapsed since the death of Jane Seymour, nor during the more trying period which followed, do we hear a word of mistresses, intrigues, or questionable or criminal connections of any kind. The mistresses of princes are usually visible when they exist; the mistresses, for instance, of Francis I., of Charles V., of James of Scotland. There is a difficulty in this which should be admitted, if it cannot be explained.
- ↑ Deposition of Sir Anthony Denny: Strype's Memorials, vol. ii.
