posed by him, which was quite as bad as his treatise, De Septem Sacramentis. He certainly did bore his poor wife terribly with his musical compositions and theological authorship. The best in Henry was his feeling for plastic art, and it may be that his worst sympathies and antipathies were due to his predilection for the beautiful. Katharine of Arragon was still attractive in her twenty- fourth year when Henry at eighteen married her, though she was the widow of his brother. But her beauty in all probability did not increase with years, all the more since she, from pious motives, chastised the flesh with flagellation, fasting, vigils, and afflictions sore. Her husband bewailed bitterly these ascetic practices, and truly they would have been a source of desperation to any of us.
And there is something else which strengthens my prejudice against this queen. She was the daughter of Isabella of Castile, and the mother of Bloody Mary. What could come from a tree which grew from such sinful seed, and which bore such evil fruit?
And though we find in history no evidences of her cruelty, still the wild pride of her race breaks out on every opportunity where she will vindicate her rank or press its claims. In spite of her long-practised Christian humility, she bursts into almost heathen wrath when any one offends the
