Page:The Queens of England.djvu/332

 292 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. who had so long enjoyed a princely revenue, seemed little short of poverty — a striking example of the vicissitude of fortune and the instability of royal favor. Just five and twenty days after his arrest, the fallen cardinal breathed his last. The vengeance of an injured woman was sated by his ruin and his death. It was probably the interviews sought by Cromwell with Anne, to solicit her pity for the cardinal, that established a con- fidence and good will on her part toward him, which finally led to the accomplishment of the object for the attainment of which she had so long pined. A friend faithful in adversity to the fallen favorite of a powerful and despotic sovereign is, unfor- tunately for humanity, a character as rare as it is respectable, and must have impressed Anne strongly in Cromwell's favor, even while she declined the suit he urged. Whatever was the origin of Cromwell's interest in Anne, certain it is that he ren- dered her efficient service when, notwithstanding the king's passion for her, she stood in the greatest need of some aid to strengthen his wavering mind. The divorce still desired, and the efforts to obtain it now universally known all over the con- tinent, were opposed by all professing the Roman Catholic faith. Nor were the reformers less inimical to it. It is a curi- ous circumstance, that for once, and only once, the pope and his most dangerous opponent, Luther, agreed in thinking it better that Henry the Eighth should be permitted to have two wives than to divorce one — an opinion which did not satisfy any of the three individuals most interested in the affair. Henry, alarmed at the untiring opposition offered to his wishes on every side, might probably have abandoned the pro- ject had not Cromwell's courageous sufp'estion of freeing Eng- land from the papal rule opened a way to the enamored mon- arch for arriving at the final accomplishment of his wishes. The first step taken on the new and tortuous path Henry was now entering was the expulsion of the queen from Windsor, and the establishment of her rival in her place, which step was followed, in four or five months, by her being created Marchioness of Pembroke, the first instance of the creation of a female peer. No state nor ceremony was omitted to confer solemnity on this act ; it took place in Windsor Castle, in presence of the king and a vast train of the highest lords and ladies in the land, among whom were those of the relations of Anne most likely to add splendor to the ceremony. The choice of the title proves Henry's desire to confer more than ordinary honor on his beloved mis-