The doctrines of Zwingle and of Luther had at this time made considerable progress among Henry's subjects, and the great work of reformation was begun in England. Several smaller monasteries had been suppressed; the pope's supremacy was preached against by public authority; and the parliament, desirous of widening the breach between the king and the pontiff, declared the former, head of the English church. After some hesitation, Henry accepted the office, and wrote a book in defence of his conduct. The queen was attached, possibly by principle, and certainly by interest, to the antipapal party, which alone admitted the validity of the royal divorce, and consequently of her marriage; and she had already engaged her chaplain Dr. Parker, a learned and zealous reformist, to keep a watchful eye over the childhood of her daughter, and early to imbue her mind with the true principles of religious knowledge.
But Henry, whose passions and interests alone, not his theological convictions, had set him in opposition to the old church establishment, to the ceremonies and doctrines of which he was even zealously attached, began to be apprehensive that the whole fabric would be swept away by the strong tide of popular opinion which was now turned against it, and he hastened to interpose in its defence. He brought to the stake several persons who denied the real presence, as a terror to the reformers; whilst at the same time he showed his resolution to quell the adherents of popery, by causing bishop Fisher and sir Thomas More to be attainted of treason, for refusing such part of the oath of succession as implied the invalidity of the king's first marriage, and thus, in effect, disallowed the authority of the papal dispensation in virtue of which it had been celebrated.
Thus were opened those dismal scenes of religious persecution and political cruelty from which the mind of Elizabeth was to receive its early and indelible impressions.
The year 1536, which proved even more fertile than its predecessor in melancholy incidents and tragical catastrophes, opened with the death of Catherine of Arragon; an event equally welcome, in all probability, both to the sufferer herself, whom tedious years of trouble and mortification must have rendered weary of a world which had no longer a hope to flatter her; and to the ungenerous woman who still beheld her, discarded as she was, with the sentiments of an enemy and a rival. It is impossible to contemplate the life and character of this royal lady, without feelings of the deepest commiseration. As a wife, the bitter humiliations which she was doomed to undergo were entirely unmerited; for not only was her modesty unquestioned, but her whole conduct towards the king was a perfect model of conjugal love and duty. As a queen and a mother, her firmness, her dignity, and her tenderness, deserved a far other recompense than to see herself degraded, on the infamous plea of incest, from the rank of royalty, and her daughter, so long heiress to the English throne, branded with illegitimacy, and cast out alike from the inheritance and the affections of her father. But the memory of this unhappy princess has been embalmed by the genius of Shakespeare, in the noble drama of which he has made her the touching and majestic heroine; and let not the praise of magnanimity be denied to the daughter of Anne Boleyn, in permitting those wrongs and those sufferings which were the price of her glory, nay of her very existence, to be thus impressively offered to the compassion of her people.
Henry was moved to tears on reading the tender and pious letter addressed to him by the dying hand of Catherine; and he marked by several small but expressive acts, the respect, or rather the compunction, with which the recollection of her could not fail to inspire him. Anne Boleyn paid to the memory of the princess-dowager of Walessuch was the title now given to Catherinethe unmeaning compliment of putting on yellow mourning; the color assigned to queens by the fashion of France: but neither humanity nor discretion restrained her from open demonstrations of the satisfaction afforded her by the melancholy event.
Short was her unfeeling triumph. She brought into the world a few days afterwards, a dead son; and this second disappointment of his hopes completed that disgust to his queen which satiety, and perhaps also a growing passion for another object, was already beginning to produce in the mind of the king.
It is traditionally related, that at Jane Seymour's first coming to court, the queen, espying a jewel hung round her neck, wished to look at it; and struck with the young lady's reluctance to submit it to her inspection, snatched it from her with violence, when she found it to contain the king's picture, presented by himself to the wearer. From this day she dated her own decline in the affections of her husband, and the ascendancy of her rival. However this might be, it is certain that the king about this time began to regard the conduct of his once idolized Anne Boleyn with an altered eye. That easy gaiety of manner which he had once remarked with delight, as an indication of the innocence of her heart and the artlessness of her disposition, was now beheld by him as a culpable levity which offended his pride and alarmed his jealousy. His impetuous temper, with which "once to suspect was once to be resolved," disdained to investigate proofs or to fathom motives; a pretext alone was wanting to his rising fury, and this he was not long in finding.
On May-day, then observed at court as a high festival, solemn justs were held at Greenwich, before the king and queen, in which viscount Rochford, the queen's brother, was chief challenger, and Henry Norris principal defender. In the midst of the entertainment, the king suddenly rose and quitted the place in anger; but on what particular provocation is not certainly known. Saunders the Jesuit, the great calumniator of Anne Boleyn, says that it was on seeing his consort drop her handkerchief, which Norris picked up and wiped his face with. The queen immediately retired, and the next day was committed to custody. Her earnest entreaties to be permitted to see the king were disregarded, and she was sent to the Tower on a charge of treason and adultery.
Lord Rochford, Norris, one Smeton a musician, and Brereton and another gentleman of the bed-chamber, were likewise apprehended, and brought to trial on the accusation of criminal intercourse with the queen. They were all convicted; but from the few particulars which have come down to us, it seems to be justly inferred, that the evidence produced against some at least of these unhappy gentlemen, was slight and inconclusive. Lord Rochford is universally believed to have fallen a victim to the atrocious perjuries of his wife, who was very improperly admitted as a witness against him, and whose infamous conduct was afterwards fully brought to light. No absolute criminality appears to have been proved against Weston and Brereton; but Smeton confessed the fact. Norris died much more generously: he protested that he would rather perish a thousand times than accuse an innocent person; that he believed the queen to be perfectly guiltless; he, at least, could accuse her of nothing; and in this declaration he persisted to the last. His expressions, if truly reported, seem to imply that he might have saved himself by criminating the queen: but besides the extreme improbability that the king would have shown or promised any mercy to such a delinquent, we know in fact that the confession of Smeton did not obtain for him even a reprieve: it is therefore absurd to represent Norris as having died in vindication of the honor of the queen; and the favor afterwards shown to his son by Elizabeth, had probably little connexion with any tenderness for the memory of her mother, a sentiment which she certainly exhibited in no other circumstance.