that his marriage with Queen Katherine was null and void, and that he was therefore at liberty to marry another wife. This was promptly followed by Cranmer's formal sentence (May 23) as to the nullity of the former marriage, and the coronation of Anne Boleyn (June 1).
Much discussion has arisen about the date at which Anne Boleyn's marriage took place. From the expression 'about St. Paul's Day' (January 25), used in a letter of Cranmer's to Hawkins, his successor as ambassador to Charles V., together with the date of Elizabeth's birth, viz. September 7, it has been too hastily assumed that Anne Boleyn had become Henry's mistress before she was married to him.[1] Mr. Pococke, however—certainly no partisan of Anne Boleyn or of the Protestant party—has shown good reason to believe that this inference is not warranted, and certainly the general probabilities of the case appear to support his view. Henry's character and conduct generally would not lead us to suppose that he would be likely to make his mistress his queen; nor is it probable, on the other hand, that Anne, who had kept him at a safe distance for several years, should have endangered the great object of her ambition, viz. the chance of becoming queen, when almost within her grasp, by yielding to him at last prematurely.
The subsequent history of Anne Boleyn, and especially the vexed question of her guilt or innocence of the charges on which she was divorced and beheaded, infinitely as it affects the characters of the various persons concerned in her condemnation, does not properly belong to my subject. It is well that it does not, for no more insoluble problem is to be found in history.
