-
Universal satisfaction--The Princess Mary--Proposal for a General
Council--Neutrality of England in the war between France and the
Empire 436

CHAPTER XXIV.

Expectation that Henry would return to the Roman Communion--Henry
persists in carrying out the Reformation--The Crown and the
clergy--Meeting of a new Parliament--Fresh repudiation of the
Pope's authority--Complications of the succession--Attitude of
the Princess Mary--Her reluctant submission--The King empowered
to name his successor by will--Indication of his policy--The
Pilgrimage of Grace--Cost of the Reformation--The martyrs,
Catholic and Protestant 450

INDEX 465

THE DIVORCE OF CATHERINE OF ARAGON.

INTRODUCTION.

The mythic element cannot be eliminated out of history. Men who play
leading parts on the world's stage gather about them the admiration of
friends and the animosity of disappointed rivals or political enemies. The
atmosphere becomes charged with legends of what they have said or
done--some inventions, some distortions of facts, but rarely or never
accurate. Their outward acts, being public, cannot be absolutely
misstated; their motives, being known only to themselves, are an open
field for imagination; and as the disposition is to believe evil rather
than good, the portraits drawn may vary indefinitely, according to the
sympathies of the describer, but are seldom too favourable. The more
distinguished a man is the more he is talked about. Stories are current
about him in his own lifetime, guaranteed apparently by the highest
authorities; related, insisted upon; time, place, and circumstance
accurately given--most of them mere malicious lies; yet, if written down,
to reappear in memoirs a hundred years hence, they are likely to pass for
authentic, or at least probable. Even where there is no malice,
imagination will still be active. People believe or disbelieve, repeat or
suppress, according to their own inclinations; and death, which ends the
feuds of unimportant persons, lets loose the tongues over the characters
of the great. Kings are especially sufferers; when alive they hear only
flattery; when they are gone men revenge themselves by drawing hideous
portraits of them, and the more distinguished they may have been the more
m