human character, and of woman's even more than of man's. For the
first time the actors in this long tragedy appear to us as no mere
bodiless and soulless names, but as beings of like passions with
ourselves, comprehensible, coherent, organic, even in their
inconsistencies. Catherine of Arragon is still the Catherine of
Shakspeare; but Mr. Froude has given us the key to many parts of her
story which Shakspeare left unexplained, and delicately enough has
made us understand how Henry's affections, if he ever had any for
her--faithfully as he had kept (with one exception) to that loveless
mariage de convenance--may have been gradually replaced by
indifference and even dislike, long before the divorce was forced on
him as a question not only of duty to the nation, but of duty to
Heaven. And that he did see it in this latter light, Mr. Froude
brings proof from his own words, from which we can escape only by
believing that the confessedly honest 'Bluff King Hal' had suddenly
become a consummate liar and a canting hypocrite.

Delicately, too, as if speaking of a lady whom he had met in modern
society (as a gentleman is bound to do), does Mr. Froude touch on the
sins of that hapless woman, who played for Henry's crown, and paid
for it with her life. With all mercy and courtesy he gives us proof
(for he thinks it his duty to do so) of the French mis-education, the
petty cunning, the tendency to sensuality, the wilful indelicacy of
her position in Henry's household as the rival of his queen, which
made her last catastrophe at least possible. Of the justice of her
sentence he has no doubt, any more than of her pre-engagement to some
one, as proved by a letter existing among Cromwell's papers. Poor
thing! If she did that which was laid to her charge, and more, she
did nothing, after all, but what she had been in the habit of seeing
the queens and princesses of the French court do notoriously, and