Englishman could exult with more than half a heart. It is foolish to blame lightly actions which arise in the midst of circumstances which are and can be but imperfectly known; and there may have been political reasons which made so much pomp desirable. Anne Boleyn had been the subject of public conversation for seven years, and Henry, no doubt, desired to present his jewel to them in the rarest and choicest setting. Yet to our eyes, seeing, perhaps, by the light of what followed, a more modest introduction would have appeared more suited to the doubtful nature of her position.
At any rate we escape from this scene of splendour very gladly as from something unseasonable. It would have been well for Henry VIII. if he had lived in a world in which women could have been dispensed with; so ill, in all his relations with them, he succeeded. With men he could speak the right word, he could do the right thing; with women he seemed to be under a fatal necessity of mistake.
It was now necessary, however, after this public step, to communicate in form to the Emperor the divorce and the new marriage. The King was assured of the rectitude of the motives on which he had himself acted, and he knew at the same time that he had challenged the hostility of the Papal world. Yet he did not desire a quarrel if there were means of avoiding it; and more than once he had shown respect for the opposition which he had met with from Charles, as dictated by honourable care for the interests of his kinswoman. He therefore, in the truest language which will be met with in
