when he inspired fear, it
was rather the fear of a mad dog than of a watch-dog. In this change
doubtless the inconsistency and even ignominy of his Bluebeard weddings
played a great part. And it is but just to him to say that, perhaps with
the exception of the first and the last, he was almost as unlucky in his
wives as they were in their husband. But it was undoubtedly the affair
of the first divorce that broke the back of his honour, and
incidentally broke a very large number of other more valuable and
universal things. To feel the meaning of his fury we must realize that
he did not regard himself as the enemy but rather as the friend of the
Pope; there is a shadow of the old story of Becket. He had defended the
Pope in diplomacy and the Church in controversy; and when he wearied of
his queen and took a passionate fancy to one of her ladies, Anne Boleyn,
he vaguely felt that a rather cynical concession, in that age of cynical
concessions, might very well be made to him by a friend. But it is part
of that high inconsistency which is the fate of the Christian faith in
human hands, that no man knows when the higher side of it will really be
uppermost, if only for an instant; and that the worst ages of the Church
will not do or say something, as if by accident, that is worthy of the
best. Anyhow, for whatever reason, Henry sought to lean upon the
cushions of Leo and found he had struck his arm upon the rock of Peter.
The Pope denied the new marriage; and Henry, in a storm and darkness of
anger, dissolved all the old relations with the Papacy. It is probable
that he did not clearly know how much he was doing then; and it is very
tenable that we do not know it now. He certainly did not think he was
Anti-Catholic; and, in one rather ridiculous sense, we can hardly say
that he thought he was anti-papal, since he apparently thought he was a
pope. From this day really dates something that played a certain part in
history, the more modern doctrine of the divine right of kings, widely
different from the mediaeval one. It is a matter which further
embarrasses the open question about the continuity of Catholic things in
Anglicanism, for it was a new note and yet one struck by the older
party. The supremacy of the King over the English national church was
not, unfortunately, merely a fad of the King, but became partly, and for
one period, a fad of the church. But apart from all controverted
questions, there is at least a human and his