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544 bishops and nobles, attended him with great pomp and parade wherever he went.

Henry as Defender of the Faith.—It was early in the reign of Henry VIII. that Martin Luther tacked upon the door of the Wittenberg church his epoch-making theses. England was stirred with the rest of Western Christendom. Henry wrote a Latin treatise replying to the articles of the audacious monk. The Pope, Leo X., rewarded Henry's Catholic zeal by conferring upon him the title of "Defender of the Faith" (1521). This title was retained by Henry after the secession of the Church of England from the Papal See, and is borne by his successors at this day, though they are "defenders" of quite a different faith from that in the defence of which Henry first earned the title.

Henry seeks to be divorced from Catherine.—We have now to relate some circumstances which changed Henry from a zealous supporter of the Papacy into its bitterest enemy.

Henry's marriage with Catherine of Aragon had been prompted by policy and not by love. Of the five children born of the union, all had died save a sickly daughter named Mary. In these successive afflictions which left him without a son to succeed him, Henry saw, or feigned to see, a certain sign of Heaven's displeasure because he had taken to wife the widow of his brother.

And now a new circumstance arose,—if it had not existed for some time previous to this. Henry conceived a violent passion for Anne Boleyn, a beautiful and vivacious maid of honor in the queen's household. This new affection so quickened the king's