To this feeling of insecurity and apprehension, more than to
any real cruelty, do I attribute her triumph, odious and re-
volting as it was, at the death of Katharine. Katharine had
never wronged her ; she could not, therefore, cherish feelings
of resentment or hatred against Katharine. But she feared
her. And of all passions, fear is the most cruel. She feared
Wolsey, Fisher, More, and, fearing, she destroyed them. She
feared even the desolate orphan, Mary, and she was a cruel
stepmother to her.
All (a-uellest of men have been cowards — Augustus, Tibe-
rius, Nero, Hebert, Marat, Robespierre — perhaps, the reason
why the English and the Americans are rarely, if ever, cruel,
is because they are rarely, if ever, cowards. I believe, I hope,
the source of Anne Boleyn's cruelty was her cowardice.
If it were, she was mistaken. She dreaded Katharine, in
ner aguish prison-castle at Kimbolton; she overlooked the



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