Page:The Queens of England.djvu/313

 KATHARINE OF ARRAGON. 273 would be to expose his dignity to the animadversions of his sub- jects. Baffled and insulted by the pope, and tormented no less by the firmness of Katharine to maintain her rights than by the impatience of Anne Boleyn to usurp them, and angered by the treaty between Francis the First and Charles the Fifth, Henry found himself in a very annoying position. Whatever respect he might have hitherto entertained for Katharine, had now ceased : the woman who opposed an obstacle to the gratification of his passions, could only be an object of hatred to one so utterly selfish as he was, and gladly would he have avenged his disappointed hopes on her, had he not feared to incur greater odium than he had yet excited. The delays which had occurred in the affair of the divorce had excited the suspicions of Anne Boleyn that Wolsey had not been sincere in his attempts to remove them. He had formerly incurred her hatred by interfering to prevent her marriage with Percy, afterward Earl of Northumberland, and though his hatred had slumbered while she believed Wolsey necessary to her new interests, and willing to assist in her elevation, it awoke afresh when the unaccountable delays to the divorce- led her to doubt his zeal or his truth. Nor was she wrong in her sus- picions. The fact was, that while Wolsey believed that Henry's passion for Anne Boleyn was only a light one that fruition would pall, and that, if free, he would wed the Duchess d'Alen- con, the sister of Francis the First, whose portrait he had pro- cured to tempt him, he was extremely desirous for the divorce from Katharine, whom he disliked. But when he found that Anne Boleyn, whose ill-will toward him he had long suspected, was to be queen, he wished the divorce not to be granted, though he dared not let it appear. It was at this period that Henry became acquainted with Thomas Cramner, a skillful doctor in theology, who being questioned as to his notion of the best means of procuring the divorce, replied, that it would be to procure the opinions in writing of all the universities in Europe, and of the persons the most versed in theology, on the legality of the marriage of Henry with Katharine ; that the result would be, either the universities and theologians would pronounce the dispensation granted by Julius the Second sufficient, or invalid, and that the pope would not dare to decide against the judg- ment of the most learned men of the time. No sooner had Henry heard the opinion of Cranmer, than, struck by its good sense, he exclaimed with his usual grossness, "At length I have