forthwith separate, and declared their issue ill^ithnate ; and
her resentment at this attack led Anne to favor, in some de-
gree, the rising party of the reformation. But, as she held to
the doctrine of transubstantiation and to the entii'e ritual of
the Romish church, it is idle to call her a Protestant. Du-
ring her period of ascendency, moreover, Frith^ Bilney, and
many other eminent reformers, perished in the flames, without
her making, so far as the records show, the smaUest eflfort to
rescue them ; although, says Miss Strickland, justly, "it could
not have been harder to save them, than to destroy her politi-
cal adversaries." That she did favor and patronize TindaTs
translation of the scripture and procure for it Henry's sanction,
and that she was liberal, even to profusion, in her charities, is
infinitely to her credit I would willingly admit her to have
been, as Miss Benger will have it she was, an earnest pupil
and patroness of Latimer ; but I find that she quotes, as au-
thority, only that very school of Protestant writers, who have
assumed that, because she was the original cause of the schism
of Rome, Anne was herself a Lutheran, and " a most sainted
queen, oftener upon her knees than on her feet," — ^an assumption
of no weight, whatsoever, and utterly controverted by all ascer-
tained facts. In this year. Friar Peyto boldly preached, be-
fore the fe,ce of Henry and his new bride, in the royal chapel, at
Greenwich, denouncing his divorce ftora Katharine, and threat-
ening that the dogs should lick his blood, as they had done that
of Ahab ; a prophecy, which, by a curious chance, was fill
filled, no less than that, threatening Anne with decapitation,
m case of her supplanting Katharine. It is, perhaps, yet more
curious, that Henry only laughed, and suppressed the monas-
tery, without either beheading or burning the monk. About
this time, it is certain, that a great change came over Anne's



Digitized by VjOOQIC



THE CRXIKLTY OF COWARDICE. 