wife, Henry's relations with some of the ladies at court were not
above suspicion. By one, Elizabeth Blount, he had a son whom he
created Duke of Richmond and to whom at one time he thought of
bequeathing the crown of England. In a short time Mary, the eldest
sister of Anne Boleyn, succeeded to Elizabeth in the affections of the
king. The fact that Catharine was some years older than her husband,
that infirmity and sorrow for the death of her children had dimmed her
charms, and that there could be no longer any hope for the birth of an
heir to the throne, preyed on Henry's mind and made him not unwilling
to rid himself of a wife, whom, however, he could not but admire even
though she had forfeited his love. Were he to die there was no one to
succeed him but the Princess Mary, and her right to the throne might
be contested. Even though she succeeded, her marriage must inevitably
create great difficulties. Were she to marry a foreign prince, he
feared that England might become a province; were she to accept the
hand of an English nobleman, a disputed succession ending in civil war
was far from being improbable. His gloomy anticipations were shared in
by many of his advisers; and Wolsey, who had set his heart on uniting
the forces of England and France against the Emperor, was not
unwilling to set a seal on the new French anti-imperial alliance by
repudiating Henry's marriage with the Emperor's aunt, if such a
dissolution could be brought about without infringing the laws of God.

Though it would seem that doubts had long since arisen in Henry's mind
regarding the lawfulness of his marriage to his deceased brother's
wife, and that questions of policy may have influenced the attitude of
his advisers towards the projected separation, yet it is certain that
it was the charms of the young and accomplished Anne Boleyn, that
brought matters to a crisis. With her experience of the gay and
corrupt court of France, she was not likely to be mistaken about the