mained in the Tower, but
mostly longing for the rapid death she felt in her heart must come. Little
knew she, however, why her sacrifice was deferred yet from day to day. In
one of her excited, nervous outbursts she had cried that, no matter what
they did, no one could prevent her from dying Queen of England. She had
reckoned without Henry's meanness, Cromwell's cunning, and Cranmer's
suppleness. Her death warrant had been signed by the King on the 16th May,
and Cranmer was sent to receive her last confession. The coming of the
archbishop--_her_ archbishop, as she called him--gave her fresh hope. She
was not to be killed after all, but to be banished, and Cranmer was to
bring her the good news. Alas! poor soul, she little knew her Cranmer even
yet. He had been primed by Cromwell for a very different purpose, that of
worming out of Anne some admission that would give him a pretext for
pronouncing her marriage with the King invalid from the first. The task
was a repulsive one for the Primate, whose act alone had made the marriage
possible; but Cranmer was--Cranmer. The position was a complicated one.
Henry, as he invariably did, wished to save his face and seem in the right
before the world, consequently he could not confess that he had been
mistaken in the divorce from Katharine, and get rid of Anne's marriage in
that way, nor did he wish to restore Mary to the position of heiress to
the crown. What he needed Cranmer's help for was to render Elizabeth also
illegitimate, but still his daughter, in order that any child he might
have by Jane Seymour, or failing that, his natural son, the Duke of
Richmond, might be acknowledged his successor.

At intervals during Anne's career her alleged betrothal to the Earl of
Northumberland before her marriage (see p. 126) had been brought up to her
detriment; and the poor hare-brained earl had foresworn himself more than
once on the subject. He was dying now, but he was again pressed to say
that a regular betrothal had taken place with Anne. But he was past
earthly fear, and finally asserted that no contract had been made. Foiled
in this attempt, Henry--or rather Cromwell--sent Cranmer to the Tower on
the 16th May on his shameful errand: to lure the poor woman by hopes of
pardon to confess the existence of an impediment to her marriage with the
King. What the impediment was was never made public, but Anne's latest
biographer, Mr. Friedmann, adduces excellent reasons for arriving at the
c