is difficult, if not impossible, now to determine with perfect certainty the precise drift of the portion of it referring to the subject in hand; but the conclusion is probably correct. From what remains of the letter it appears that, even when entire, there was in it more than met the eye-somewhat of mysterious obscurity. It relates to some point, evidently a matrimonial one, which was likely to bring about a better understanding between the Pope and the king; and the Pope, who in great wrath had so recently fulminated a sen tence of excommunication against him for marrying Anne, is exceedingly anxious to gratify the monarch's wishes as to the point involved. "He [the Pope] told me," says Cassalis, "that he would ask the advice of divers learned men of the said cause, meaning those whom I write of. I speaking generally told him only that if he shall so do, he shall do as it becometh a good bishop to do, and consult for his wealth and the profit of this church. I letted not to speak and show your majesty's puissance, force, and strength, and the stability of your own matters and of your friends. And in the said matter I intend to speak and answer none other thing until such time as I shall have answer from your majesty." If this letter does refer to the con templated repudiaion of Anne, then the Pope knew all about it when yet it was a secret in London. His agents, delighted with it themselves, and knowing that it would equally delight him, were in haste to communicate to him the joyful tidings, and he hallooed and cheered them on to violence and blood. Gardiner, who was then in France, and who maintained correspondence both with England and with Italy, would, in all probability, communicate the information to the Papal court. He had been abundantly active in endea vouring to obtain for Henry a divorce from Katharine of Aragon, and had thus promoted the elevation of Anne; but from his inveterate animosity against the Reformers, he became the mortal enemy of Anne because she supported them; and into any scheme for compassing her ruin he would enter with all his heart and soul.

Another circumstance, creating suspicion that her conspirators at home were in communication with her enemies abroad, is that Richard Pate, the English ambassador at the court of Charles V., is writing so early as the 12th of April to the king, in ciphers, about legitimating the Princess Mary, and enforcing the subject with great earnestness. But was the ambassador likely to have ventured to press the legitimating of that princess on the attention of such a man as Henry, had not the subject been included in his embassy? And may it not reasonably be questioned whether the mysterious ciphers had not some connection with the evil meditated against Anne and her daughter?

While Popish conspirators combined with Henry in the destruction of Anne, the two parties, equally anxious for her death, performed each its own work, and were each actuated by its own motives. The Papists, by exciting Henry's jealousy and framing accusations, placed the arrow in the bow. He pulled the string. Their object was the removal of a woman whose influence, so far as it went, had been exerted on the side of the reforming party. His object was to get quit of her, in order to substitute in her place another to whom his affections were now transferred.

The Pope luxuriated in the great advantages he anticipated to the Romish

1 Cotton MS. Vitellius, B. xiv., folio, p. 177, in British Museum.

Church from her ruin. He flattered himself that, were she out of the way, a very serious obstacle to the return of Henry and of England to the communion of the Popish Church would be removed; and, with the artful blandishments of a thorough-bred parasite, he now made eager advances to the schismatical monarch. This we learn from Cassalis's despatch to Henry of the 27th May, in which, after the passage already quoted, he observes that the Pope praised his majesty's liberality and magnanimity in having often shown himself ready to supply the church with sums of money, together with all assistance and counsel, and in having valiantly defended her doctrine against the furious attacks of Luther. "The Pope," he adds, "said that the Roman Church, were your majesty joined to it, would, without doubt, have so much authority as to be able to command at once the emperor and the King of France, and to compel both to peace, the honour of which is to be shared with your majesty by no one; both because it is evident that, though he [the Pope] had endeavoured by every means to accomplish this, he had effected nothing; and because it is manifest that your majesty, if you have with you the Roman pontiff, might authoritatively command the other princes as you pleased. He would pledge himself to obey you in this business. He desired nothing but peace; nor was he addicted to factions, nor disposed to strive covetously to increase his fortune in immense sums, or to extend the boundaries of the Pontificate. Your majesty ought not to regard him with angry, but rather with friendly feelings; for he had always most earnestly sought to gratify you in your affair, and had never wished to damage it, having given many tokens of love and attention in the cause of your marriage, and done all things in his power for you in the consistories with Clement VII., both publicly and privately, and at Bologna with the emperor. This duty he had done from his heart, considering that God would call him to account for it. did he wish to offend your majesty in anything, although he understood something was daily doing in England against the apostolic see.' The Pope then apologized for having made John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, 1 a cardinal; acknowledged that he had erred in that step; and that in what followed, referring to the excommunication pronounced upon Henry, he had acted at solicitations on all sides urging him to avenge the death of the cardinal, not from his own inclination, which had not gone along with it. After other intimations equally humble, obsequious, and wheedling, he was asked by Cassalis whether he wished these sentiments to be reported to the king. "You may say," said the Pope, after a deliberative pause, "that you had found the pontiff in such a good disposition, that his majesty might without doubt be assured of everything concerning himself.”

Nor

How different the language of his holiness now from what it was in August, 1535, when he issued his famous bull of excommunication against Henry! Then, raging and foaming like a demoniac, he could hardly find in the Papal Vocabulary, so exuberant in terms of opprobrium and execration, words adequate to express his fell spirit of revenge against the reprobated monarch.

Fisher, when nearly eighty years of age, had been thrown into prison for denying Henry's ecclesiastical supremacy. The Pope, apprised of his situation, sent him a cardinal's hat, foolishly intended, perhaps, to express his contempt of Henry, and to excite the popular sym pathy in behalf of the prelate. This irritated the monarch, and hastened the destruction of Fisher, who was tried on the 17th of June, 1535, and beheaded on the 22d of that mouth. See an account of his trial and death in Archæologia, vol. xxv., pp. 61-6J.

But now, when the prospect of Anne Boleyn's destruction has awakened in his breast bright anticipations as to his returning ascendency in England, to regain the favour of Henry he becomes all at once tamed into submission, is now as fawning as before he was insolent, and as lavish of his flattery as formerly of his curses. Nor does he conceal that the cause of this sudden, this marvellous change, was because he was dreaming of now recovering his lost supremacy in England.

The hopes of the Pope were happily doomed to disappointment. Henry made no advances for a reconciliation with his holiness, and the ecclesiastical condition of England remained unchanged. Various causes combined to produce this result. In the first place, the new queen, like her predecessor, was favourable to the Reformation. Had Henry's affections and hand been disengaged when he received Cassalis's despatch, its artfully earnest and submissive tone would very likely have produced a more powerful impression on his mind. But long before this communication had reached him, and even before it was written, he had married Jane Seymour, and her heretical leanings interposed a formidable barrier to renewed friendship with Rome. Secondly, he was now reaping the benefit of the confiscated wealth of the monasteries, and had the agreeable prospect of still farther augmenting his revenue from the same source. Add to this that he had now lost his educa. tional veneration for the Roman see; and from the growing obstinacy of his character, he was not to be stayed in any course which self-interest, passion, or caprice might dictate, by the cajolery of the Vatican or by its direst anathemas. Under the joint operation of these influences, in which we cannot fail to mark the merciful hand of Providence in continuing to overrule for good the evil passions of the monarch, England escaped the restoration of Papal despotism. Finding that Henry was not to be lured back into the arms of the Papacy, and that it was not to derive the least advantage from the death of Anne Boleyn, his holiness quickly altered his tone and conduct towards the intractable monarch, changing his praises into vituperation, and his blessings into curses.

No. III.-(p. 302.)

Lady Jane Grey's Letter to her Father, written Three Days before her Execution.

"FATHER,-Although it hath pleased God to hasten my death by you, by whom my life should rather have been lengthened, yet can I so patiently take it, that I yield God more hearty thanks for shortening my woful days than if all the world had been given into my possession, with life lengthened at my own will. And, albeit I am well assured of your impatient dolours, redoubled many ways, both in bewailing your own woe, and especially, as I am informed, my woful estate; yet, my dear father (if I may, without of fence, rejoice in my own mishaps), meseems in this I may account myself blessed, that, washing my hands with the innocency of my fact, my guiltless blood may cry before the Lord, Mercy to the innocent! And though I must needs acknowledge that, being constrained, and, as you know well enough,

continually assayed, in taking [the royal authority] upon me, I seemed to consent, and therein grievously offended the queen and her laws; yet do I assuredly trust, that this my offence towards God is so much the less, in that, being in so royal estate as I was, my enforced honour never blended with mine innocent heart. And thus, good father, I have opened unto you the state wherein I presently stand. My death at hand, although to you, perhaps, it may seem right woful, yet to me there is nothing that can be more welcome, than from this vale of misery to aspire to that heavenly throne of all joy and pleasure, with Christ our Saviour, in whose steadfast faith (if it may be lawful for the daughter so to write to the father) may the Lord, that hath hitherto strengthened you, so continue to keep you, that at the last we may meet in heaven with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I am, your obedient daughter till death, "JANE DUDLEY."2

No. IV. (p. 305.)

Lady Jane Grey's Letter to her Sister, Lady Katharine, written on the Evening before her Execution, in the end of the Greek New Testament which she sent to Lady Katharine.

"I HAVE here sent you, my dear sister Katharine, a book, which, although it be not outwardly trimmed with gold, or the curious embroidery of the artfulest needles, yet inwardly is more worth than all the precious mines which the vast world can boast of. It is the book, my only best and best beloved sister, of the law of the Lord; it is the testament and last will which he bequeathed unto us wretches and wretched sinners, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy. And if you with a good mind read it, and with an earnest desire follow it, no doubt it shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life. It will teach you to live and learn you to die; it shall win you more, and endow you with greater felicity, than you should have gained by the possession of our woful father's lands; for as, if God had prospered him, you should have inherited his honours and manors, so if you apply diligently to this book, seeking to direct your life according to the rule of the same, you shall be an inheritor of such riches as neither the covetous shall withdraw from you, neither the thief shall steal, neither yet the moths corrupt. Desire, with David, my best sister, to understand the law of the Lord your God; live still to die, that you by death may purchase eternal life, and trust not that the tenderness of your age shall lengthen your life; for unto God, when he calleth, all hours, times, and seasons are alike, and blessed are they whose lamps are furnished when he cometh, for as soon will the Lord be glorified in the young as in the old.

"My good sister, once more again let me entreat thee to learn to die; deny the world, defy the devil, and despise the flesh, and delight yourself

This, in addition to what is stated in her letter to Queen Mary, and in her dying speech, affords a complete refutation of Dr. Lingard's assertion, that Lady Jane's "contempt of the splendour of royalty, and her reluctant submission to the commands of her parents," are to be considered as the fictions of historians.

Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. vi, p. 417.-Nicolas's Literary Remains of Lady Jane Grey.

only in the Lord; be penitent for your sins, and yet despair not; be strong in faith, yet presume not; and desire, with St. Paul, to be dissolved and to be with Christ, with whom even in death there is life.

"Be like the good servant, and even at midnight be waking, lest, when death cometh and stealeth upon you like a thief in the night, you be, with the servants of darkness, found sleeping; and lest, for lack of oil, you be found like the five foolish virgins, or like him that had not on the wedding garment, and then you be cast into darkness or banished from the marriage. Rejoice in Christ, as I trust you do; and, seeing you have the name of a Christian, as near as you can, follow the steps, and be a true imitator of your Master, Christ Jesus, and take up your cross, lay your sins on his back, and always embrace him.

66

Now, as touching my death, rejoice, as I do, my dearest sister, that I shall be delivered of this corruption, and put on incorruption; for I am assured that I shall, for losing of a mortal life, win one that is immortal, joyful, and everlasting; the which I pray God grant you in his most blessed hour, and send you his all-saving grace to live in his fear, and to die in the true Christian faith, from which, in God's name, exhort you that you never swerve, neither for hope of life nor fear of death; for if you will deny his truth to give length to a weary and corrupt breath, God himself will deny you, and by vengeance make short what you, by your soul's loss, would prolong; but if you will cleave to him he will stretch forth your days to an uncircumscribed comfort, and to his own glory; to the which glory God bring me now, and you hereafter, when it shall please him to call you. Farewell, once again, my beloved sister, and put your only trust in God, who only must help you. Amen.-Your loving sister, "JANE DUDLEY."

No. V.-(p. 313.)

Notice of Lady Katharine Grey, sister of Lady Jane Grey. LADY KATHARINE GREY, after the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne, became one of her majesty's maids of honour. It was while she was residing in the court that a secret marriage took place between her and the Earl of Hertford. The queen having gone one morning to Eltham to hunt, Lady Katharine, accompanied by Lady Jane Seymour, the Earl of Hert ford's sister, who was also one of Elizabeth's maids of honour, according to previous concert, left the palace at Westminster by a private door, and proceeded by the sands to the earl's house in Chanon Row. Lady Jane then went for an ecclesiastic, and the parties were married; after which the two ladies returned to the palace, and were in time for dinner. Having con summated his marriage, Lord Hertford, with the queen's permission, travelled into France. It being rumoured in course of time that Lady Katharine was pregnant, the queen was greatly indignant. To soften her majesty's displeasure, Lady Katharine revealed that she had been married; but Elizabeth, who was inexorable, committed her prisoner to the Tower,

1 Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. vi., p. 422.-Nicolas's Literary Remains of Lady Jane Grey.