"Perfectly correct! Catharine had grown old, and Henry was still a
young man, and his blood shot through his veins like streams of
fire. Hut he was yet somewhat virtuous and timid, and the main
peculiarity of his character was as yet undeveloped. He was not yet
bloodthirsty, that is to say, he had not yet licked blood. But you
will see how with each new queen his desire for blood increased,
till at length it has now become a wasting disease. Had he then had
the system of lies that he now has, he would somehow have bribed a
slanderer, who would have declared that he was Catharine's lover.
But he was yet so innocent; he wanted yet to gratify his darling
lusts in a perfectly legal way. So Anne Boleyn must become his
queen, that he might love her. And in order to attain this, he threw
down the glove to the whole world, became an enemy to the pope, and
set himself in open opposition to the holy head of the Church.
Because the Holy Father would not dissolve his marriage, King Henry
became an apostate and atheist. He constituted himself head of his
Church, and, by virtue of his authority as such, he declared his
marriage with Catharine of Aragon null and void. He said that he had
not in his heart given his consent to this marriage, and that it had
not consequently been properly consummated.[Footnote: Burnet, vol.
i, p. 37.] It is true, Catharine had in the Princess Mary a living
witness of the consummation of her marriage, but what did the
enamored and selfish king care about that? Princess Mary was
declared a bastard, and the queen was now to be nothing more than
the widow of the Prince of Wales. It was strictly forbidden to
longer give the title and to show the honor due to a queen, to the
woman who for seventeen years had been Queen of England, and had
been treated and honored as such. No one was permitted to call her
anything but the Princess of Wales; and that nothing might disturb
the good people or the noble queen herself in this illusion,