eady received;
he must have relinquished the prospect of the moiety which had yet to be
received. The negotiation was renewed. Henry VII. lived to sign the
receipts for the first instalment of the second payment;[120] and on his
death, notwithstanding much general murmuring,[121] the young Henry, then a
boy of eighteen, proceeded to carry out his father's ultimate intentions.
The princess-dowager, notwithstanding what had passed, was still on her
side willing;--and the difference of age (she was six years older than
Henry) seeming of little moment when both were comparatively young, they
were married. For many years all went well; opposition was silenced by the
success which seemed to have followed, and the original scruples were
forgotten. Though the marriage was dictated by political convenience, Henry
was faithful, with but one exception, to his wife's bed--no slight honour
to him, if he is measured by the average royal standard in such matters;
and, if his sons had lived to grow up around his throne, there is no reason
to believe that the peace of his married life would have been interrupted,
or that, whatever might have been his private feelings, he would have
appeared in the world's eye other than acquiescent in his condition.

But his sons had not lived; years passed on, bringing with them premature
births, children born dead, or dying after a few days or hours,[122] and
the disappointment was intense in proportion to the interests which were at
issue. The especial penalty denounced against the marriage with a brother's
wife[123] had been all but literally enforced; and the king found himself
growing to middle life and his queen passing beyond it with his prayers
unheard, and no hope any longer that they might be heard. The disparity of
age also was more perceptible as time went by, while Catherine's
constitution was affected by her misfortunes, and differences arose on
which there is no occasion to dwell in these pages--differences which in
themselves reflected no discredit either on the husband or the wife, but
which were sufficient to extinguish between two infirm human beings an
affection that had rested only upon mutual esteem, but had not assumed the
character of love.

The circumstances in which Catherine was placed were of a kind which no
sensitive woman could have endured without impatience and mortification;
but her conduct, however natural, only widened the breach which personal
repugnance and radical