ENGLAND.] KATHARINE OF ARRAGON.

a calamity:-And the King was thus impelled, both by his private passions, and by considerations of public interest, to seek the dissolution of his inauspicious, and as he now esteemed it, unlawful marriage, with Katharine. He asserted, that his scruples arose entirely from private reflection. Himself a casuist and divine, he examined the question with, what he imagined to be, impartial attention, and thought he had discovered in his favourite polemical author, Thomas Aquinas, a passage that precisely involved his own case, and as decidedly condemned it. Armed with this, and other authorities, he opened himself to his confidential ministers, and, receiving from them opinions favourable to his design, he dispatched a secretary to Rome, to solicit a divorce. It is well known, however, and we need not enlarge upon it in this place, that Henry was swayed, though not, perhaps, first excited, by a motive still more powerful, and that his growing love for Anne Boleyn greatly accelerated, if it was not the principal inducement to, this measure. It would lead us too far to detail the proceedings of this extraordinary divorce, which so long occupied the attention of England and of Europe. It will be sufficient to state, that Clement the Seventh, after the most tedious. delay, which the impatience and irascibility of the King, perhaps, increased, and many struggles between his desire of obliging Henry, and his dread of offending the emperor, the powerful nephew of Katharine, at length granted a commission to Campeggio and Wolsey, to inquire into the circumstances of the case.

The conduct of the Queen, upon this trying occasion, was dignified and interesting; and forcibly recommends her to our pity and esteem. Though naturally of a mild and placid disposition, she could, when it was necessary,

be firm and resolute. She was engaged, by every motive, to persevere in protesting against the injustice to which she saw herself exposed. The imputation of incest which was cast upon her marriage with Henry, struck her with the highest indignation;-the illegitimacy of her daughter, which followed as a necessary consequence, gave her the most lively concern;-the reluctance of yielding to a rival, who, she believed, had supplanted her in the King's affections, was also a very natural motive. Actuated by these considerations, she never ceased soliciting her nephew's assistance, and earnestly entreated an appeal of her cause to Rome, where, alone, she thought she could expect justice. She refused to acknowledge the right of any court to try the validity of her marriage, which was partly composed of the King's subjects: when, therefore, the two legates opened their commission in London, and cited the King and Queen to appear before them, they both presented themselves, and the King answered to his name when called; but the Queen, instead of answering to her's, rose from her seat, and throwing herself at the King's feet, addressed him in a pathetic speech, which was rendered still more affecting by her virtue, her dignity, and her misfortunes. She told him, "that she was a stranger in his dominions, without protection, without council, without assistance-exposed to all the injustice which her enemies were pleased to inflict upon her;—that she had quitted her native country without other resource than her connexion with him and his family, and had expected that, instead of suffering thence any violence or iniquity, she was insured in them of a safeguard against every misfortune:-that she had been his wife during twenty years, and would appeal to himself whether her affectionate submission to his will had not merited better.

ENGLAND.] KATHARINE OF ARRAGON.

treatment than to be thus, after so long a time, thrown from him with so much indignity;-that she was conscious, he himself was assured, that her virgin honour was yet unstained; and that her connection with his brother had been carried no further than the ceremony of marriage:—that their parents, the Kings of England and Spain, were accounted the wisest princes of their time, and had undoubtedly acted by the best advice, when they formed the agreement for that marriage, which was now represented as so criminal and unnatural; and that she acquiesced in their judgment, and would not submit her cause to be tried by a court, whose dependance on her enemies was too visible even to allow her any hope of obtaining from them an equitable or impartial decision." Having thus addressed the King, she made him a profound reverence, departed from the court, and would never again appear in it. Henry himself acknowledged,when she was gone, that she had ever been a dutiful and affectionate wife, and that the whole tenour of her behaviour had been strictly conformable to the laws of honour and probity.

Had the completion of this extraordinary divorce depended on the court of Rome, it certainly never would have taken place. Campeggio, the legate, obstructed its progress in every stage, and left the kingdom, at last, without pronouncing any sentence, referring the parties to the ultimate decision of the Pope. But Henry determined to cut the Gordian knot, by appealing to the principal Universities, and, having received from them all judgments favourable to his cause, he, in defiance to the Pope, and of his own authority, on the 23d of May, 1533, commanded Cranmer to pronounce the definitive sentence, which abrogated his former marriage, and legalized his union with Boleyn.

The unfortunate and deserted Katharine had retired to Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, where, while the divorce was yet pending, the King continued to treat her with respect and distinction; and endeavoured, by every persuasion, to engage her consent to their disunion; but she continued inflexible in maintaining the validity of her marriage, and would admit no person to her presence who did not approach her with the accustomed ceremonial. Henry, forgetful of his wonted generosity to her, employed menaces against such of her servants who complied with her commands in that particular, but could never make her relinquish her title and pretensions. A jointure was assigned her only as Princess-Dowager. She died at Kimbolton, in Huntingdonshire, on the 6th of January, 1636. A short time before she expired, she wrote a very tender letter to the King, in which she calls him her most dear Lord, King, and Husband; and conIcludes with these words-I make this sow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. The obdurate heart of Henry was softened by this last tender proof of her affection, and he wept as he perused her dying expressions, but the rival queen is said to have enjoyed this completion of her triumph, beyond what decency or humanity allowed.

Katharine was a devout and pious Princess; and latterly led a severe and mortified life. She worked much with her hands, and kept her women always employed about her. When the two legates announced their commission, she appeared before them with a skein of silk round her neck. She was buried in the cathedral church of Peterborough.