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1531.] spite of excommunication, interdict, and the Nun of Kent, towards the object which his country's interests, as well as his own, required.

It would have been well if his private behaviour as a man had been as unobjectionable as his conduct as a sovereign. Hitherto he had remained under the same roof with Queen Catherine, but with that indelicacy which was the singular blemish on his character, he had maintained her rival in the same household with the state of a princess, and needlessly wounded feelings which he was bound to have spared to the utmost which his duty permitted. The circumstances of the case, if they were known to us, though they could never excuse such a proceeding, might perhaps partially palliate it. Catherine was harsh and offensive, and it was by her own determination, and not by Henry's desire, that she was unprovided with an establishment elsewhere. There lay, moreover, as I have said, behind the scenes a whole drama of contention and bitterness, which now is happily concealed from us; but which being concealed, leaves us without the clue to these painful doings. Indelicate, however, the position given to Anne Boleyn could not but be; and, if it was indelicate in Henry to grant