that she had offended unto the said Earl as she had."

The friars were also to plead with her son for the Lady Margaret
Douglas, the daughter whom she had so remorselessly abandoned, and to
beg him that she might have some of her mother's goods. And thus,
making what reparation she could, with penitent words on her lips,
Margaret Tudor passed away.



II. NOR WIFE NOR WIDOW

The history of the first two marriages of Henry VIII. is of such vital
importance, affecting as they did the whole course of religion in
England, from the first whisperings of the divorce down to the present
day, that it is not to be wondered at if the royal Bluebeard's
subsequent matrimonial alliances have been considered negligible
quantities. And yet, at least one of them was of extreme political, and
even religious, importance, and was fraught with so much mystery that
until the most recent investigations, the true inwardness of the matter
has been totally misapprehended. The story of Anne of Cleves' portrait,
and Henry's supposed disappointment when he saw the lady herself for
the first time, is authentic in so far as it was exactly what the king
chose to have circulated about his fourth marriage. But if it contained
half the truth, it was the other half that really mattered.

After the fall of Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell had by his astute policy
succeeded in bringing about a religious state of things in England that
approached very nearly to Lutheranism. Taking advantage of Henry's
pique and anger at the Pope's refusal to grant him a divorce from