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    <Metadata name="Content">Secondary Sources: The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, by JA Froude: Introduction</Metadata>
    <Metadata name="Page_topic">Secondary Sources: The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, by JA Froude: Introduction</Metadata>
    <Metadata name="Author">Marilee Mongello</Metadata>
    <Metadata name="Title">Secondary Sources: The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, by JA Froude: Introduction</Metadata>
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    <Metadata name="dc.Subject">Tudor period|Others</Metadata>
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    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;7&quot;&gt;The Divorce of&lt;br&gt;Catherine of Aragon&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;
    &lt;font size=&quot;5&quot;&gt;by 
    JA Froude, 1891&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
    &lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;_httpdocimg_/aragon-new1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;miniature portrait of Katharine of Aragon by Lucas Horenbout&quot; width=&quot;325&quot; height=&quot;321&quot;&gt;&lt;/td&gt;
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&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;blockquote&gt;
    &lt;font style=&quot;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
    &lt;font face=&quot;Times New Roman&quot;&gt;
    &lt;div align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;
      &lt;b&gt;INTRODUCTION&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;THE mythic element cannot be eliminated out of history. Men 
    who play leading parts on the world's stage gather about them the admiration 
    of friends and the animosity of disappointed rivals or political enemies. 
    The atmosphere becomes charged with legends of what they have said or done 
    -- some inventions, some distortions of facts, but rarely or never accurate. 
    Their outward acts, being public, cannot be absolutely misstated; their 
    motives, being known only to themselves, are an open field for imagination; 
    and as the disposition is to believe evil rather than good, the portraits 
    drawn may vary indefinitely, according to the sympathies of the describer, 
    but are seldom too favourable. The more distinguished a man is the more he 
    is talked about. Stories are current about him in his own lifetime, 
    guaranteed apparently by the highest authorities; related, insisted upon; 
    time, place, and circumstance accurately given -- most of them mere 
    malicious lies; yet, if written down, to reappear in memoirs a hundred years 
    hence, they are likely to pass for authentic, or at least probable. Even 
    where there is no malice, imagination will still be active. People believe 
    or disbelieve, repeat or suppress, according to their own inclinations; and 
    death, which ends the feuds of unimportant persons, lets loose the tongues 
    over the characters of the great. Kings are especially sufferers; when alive 
    they hear only flattery; when they are gone men revenge, themselves by 
    drawing hideous portraits of them, and the more distinguished they may have 
    been the more minutely their weaknesses are dwelt upon. &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;C'est un plaisir 
    indicible,&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; says Voltaire, &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;de donner des décrets contre des 
    souverains morts quand on ne peut en lancer contre eux de leur vivant de 
    peur de perdre ses oreilles.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; The dead sovereigns go their way. Their 
    real work for good or evil lives after them; but they themselves are where 
    the opinions expressed about their character affect them no more. To CÊsar 
    or Napoleon it matters nothing what judgment the world passes upon their 
    conduct. It is of more importance for the ethical value of history that acts 
    which as they are related appear wicked should be duly condemned, that acts 
    which are represented as having advanced the welfare of mankind should be 
    duly honoured, than that the real character of individuals should be 
    correctly appreciated. To appreciate any single man with complete accuracy 
    is impossible. To appreciate him even proximately is extremely difficult. 
    Rulers of kingdoms may have public reasons for what they do, which at the 
    time may be understood or allowed for. Times change, and new interests rise. 
    The circumstances no longer exist which would explain their conduct. The 
    student looks therefore for an explanation in elements which he thinks he 
    understands -- in pride, ambition, fear, avarice, jealousy, or sensuality; 
    and, settling the question thus to his own satisfaction, resents or 
    ridicules attempts to look for other motives.&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;&lt;font style=&quot;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;&gt;
    &lt;font style=&quot;font-family: Times New Roman&quot;&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;So long as his moral judgment is generally correct, he 
    inflicts no injury, and he suffers none. Cruelty and lust are proper objects 
    of abhorrence; he learns to detest them in studying the Tiberius of Tacitus, 
    though the character described by the great Roman historian may have been a 
    mere creation of the hatred of the old Roman aristocracy. The manifesto of 
    the Prince of Orange was a libel against Philip the Second; but the Philip 
    of Protestant tradition is an embodiment of the persecuting spirit of 
    Catholic Europe which it would be now useless to disturb. The tendency of 
    history is to fall into wholesome moral lines whether they be accurate or 
    not, and to interfere with harmless illusions may cause greater errors than 
    it aspires to cure. Crowned offenders are arraigned at the tribunal of 
    history for the crimes which they are alleged to have committed. It may be 
    sometimes shown that the crimes were not crimes at all, that the sufferers 
    had deserved their fate, that the severities were useful and essential for 
    some great and valuable purpose. But the reader sees in the apology for acts 
    which he had regarded as tyrannical a defence of tyranny itself. Preoccupied 
    with the received interpretation, he finds deeds excused which he had learnt 
    to execrate; and in learning something which, even if true, is of no real 
    moment to him, he suffers in the maiming of his perceptions of the 
    difference between right and wrong. The whitewashing of the villains of 
    tradition is, therefore, justly regarded as waste of labour. If successful, 
    it is of imperfect value; if unsuccessful, it is a misuse of industry which 
    deserves to be censured. Time is too precious to be squandered over 
    paradoxes. The dead are gone; the censure of mankind has written their 
    epitaphs, and so they may be left. Their true award will be decided 
    elsewhere. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Times New Roman&quot;&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;This is the commonsense verdict. When the work of a man is 
    done and ended; when, except indirectly and invisibly, he affects the living 
    world no more, the book is closed, the sentence is passed, and there he may 
    be allowed to rest. The case is altered, however, when the dead still live 
    in their actions, when their principles and the effects of their conduct are 
    still vigorous and operative, and the movements which they initiated 
    continue to be fought over. It sometimes happens that mighty revolutions can 
    be traced to the will and resolution of a single man, and that the conflict 
    continues when he is gone. The personal character of such a man becomes then 
    of intrinsic importance as an argument for attack or defence. The changes 
    introduced by Henry VIII. are still denounced or defended with renewed 
    violence; the ashes of a conflict which seemed to have been decided are 
    again blown into a flame; and what manner of man Henry was, and what the 
    statesmen and churchmen were who stood by him and assisted him in reshaping 
    the English constitution, becomes a practical question of our own time. By 
    their fruits ye shall know them. A good tree cannot bear evil fruit, neither 
    can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Roman Catholics argue from the 
    act to the man, and from the man back to the act. The Reformation, they say, 
    was a rebellion against an authority appointed by God for the rule of the 
    world; it was a wicked act in itself; the author or the authors of it were 
    presumably, therefore, themselves wicked; and the worst interpretation of 
    their conduct is antecedently probable, because a revolt against the Church 
    of Christ could only have originated in depraved hearts. Or again, inverting 
    the argument, they say with sufficient plausibility that the sins and crimes 
    of the King are acknowledged facts of history; that from so bad a man no 
    good thing could ever rise; that Henry was a visible servant of the devil, 
    and therefore the Reformation, of which he was the instrument, was the 
    devil's work. If the picture drawn of him by his Catholic contemporaries is 
    correct, the inference is irresistible. That picture, however, was drawn by 
    those whose faith he wounded and whose interests he touched, and therefore 
    might be regarded with suspicion. Religious animosity is fertile in calumny, 
    because it assumes beforehand that every charge is likely to be true in 
    proportion to its enormity, and Catholic writers were credulous of evil when 
    laid to the charge of so dangerous an adversary. But the Catholics have not 
    been Henry's only accusers; all sorts and sects have combined in the general 
    condemnation. The Anglican High Churchman is as bitter against him as 
    Reginald Pole himself. He admits and maintains the separation from Rome 
    which Henry accomplished for him; but he abhors as heartily as Pole or 
    Lingard the internal principles of the Reformation. He resents the control 
    of the clergy by the civil power. He demands the restoration of the 
    spiritual privileges which Henry and his parliaments took away from them. He 
    aspires to the recovery of ecclesiastical independence. He therefore with 
    equal triumph points to the blots in Henry's character, and deepens their 
    shade with every accusation, proved or unproved, which he can find in 
    contemporary records. With him, too, that a charge was alleged at the time 
    is evidence sufficient to entitle him to accept it as a fact. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Again, Protestant writers have been no less unsparing, from 
    an imprudent eagerness to detach their cause from a disreputable ally. In 
    Elizabeth's time it was a point of honour and loyalty to believe in the 
    innocence of her mother. If Anne Boleyn was condemned on forged or false 
    evidence to make way for Jane Seymour, what appears so clearly to us must 
    have been far clearer to Henry and his Council; of all abominable crimes 
    committed by tyrannical princes there was never one more base or cowardly 
    than Anne's execution; and in insisting on Anne's guiltlessness they have 
    condemned the King, his ministers, and his parliaments. Having discovered 
    him to have murdered his wife, they have found him also to have been a 
    persecutor of the truth. The Reformation in England was at its outset 
    political rather than doctrinal. The avarice and tyranny of the Church 
    officials had galled the limbs of the laity. Their first steps were to break 
    the chains which fretted them, and to put a final end to the temporal power 
    of the clergy. Spiritual liberty came later, and came slowly from the 
    constitution of the English mind. Superstition had been familiarised by 
    custom, protected by natural reverence, and shielded from inquiry by the 
    peculiar horror attaching to unbelief. The nation had been taught from 
    immemorial time that to doubt on the mysteries of faith was the worst crime 
    which man could commit; and while they were willing to discover that on 
    their human side the clergy were but brother mortals of questionable 
    character, they drew a distinction between the Church as a national 
    institution and the doctrines which it taught. An old creed could not yield 
    at once. The King did much; he protected individual Lutherans to the edge of 
    rashness. He gave the nation the English Bible. He made Latimer a bishop. He 
    took away completely and for ever the power of the prelates to punish what 
    they called heresy &lt;i&gt;ex officio&lt;/i&gt; and on their own authority; but the 
    zeal of the ultra-Protestants broke loose when the restraint was taken off; 
    the sense of the country was offended by the irreverence with which objects 
    and opinions were treated which they regarded as holy, and Parliament, which 
    had put a bit in the mouth of the ecclesiastical courts, was driven to a 
    substitute in the Bill of the Six Articles. The advanced section in popular 
    movements is usually unwise. The characteristic excellence of the English 
    Reformation is, that throughout its course it was restrained by the law, and 
    the Six Articles Bill, tempered as it was in the execution, was a 
    permissible, and perhaps useful, measure in restraint of intemperance. It 
    was the same in Germany. Anabaptists continued to be burnt in Saxony and 
    Hesse long after Luther's revolt; Calvin thought the stake a fitting penalty 
    for doubts upon the Trinity. John Knox, in Scotland, approved of 
    witch-burning and sending mass-priests to the gallows. Henry could not 
    disregard the pronounced feeling of the majority of the English people. He 
    was himself but one of them, and changed slowly as they changed. Yet 
    Protestant tradition has assumed that the bloody whip with six strings was 
    an act of arbitrary ferocity. It considers that the King could, and ought 
    to, have advanced at once into an understanding of the principle of 
    toleration -- toleration of the new opinions, and a more severe repression 
    of the old. The Puritans and Evangelicals forgot that he had given them the 
    English Testament. They forgot that by setting his foot upon the bishops he 
    had opened the pulpits to themselves, and they classed him among the 
    persecutors, or else joined in the shallow laughs of the ultramontane 
    Catholics at what they pleased to call his inconsistency. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Thus from all sides a catena of invective has been wrapped 
    about Henry's character. The sensible part of the country held its tongue. 
    The speakers and writers were the passionate and fanatical of both 
    persuasions, and by them the materials were supplied for the Henry VIII. who 
    has been brought down to us by history, while the candid and philosophic 
    thinkers of the last and present centuries have accepted the traditional 
    figure. In their desire to be impartial they have held the balance equal 
    between Catholics and Protestants, inclining slightly to the Catholic side, 
    from a wish to conciliate a respectable body who had been unjustly maligned 
    and oppressed; while they have lavished invectives upon the early Reformers 
    violent enough to have satisfied even Pole himself, whose rhetoric has 
    formed the base of their declamation. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Liberal philosophy would have had a bad time of it in 
    England, perhaps in all Europe, if there had been no Henry VIII. to take the 
    Pope by the throat. But one service writers like Macaulay have undoubtedly 
    accomplished. They have shown that it is entirely impossible to separate the 
    King from his ministers -- to condemn Henry and to spare Cranmer. Protestant 
    writers, from Burnet to Southey, have tried to save the reforming bishops 
    and statesmen at Henry's expense. Cranmer, and Latimer, and Ridley have been 
    described as saints, though their master was a villain. But the cold 
    impartiality of Macaulay has pointed out unanswerably that in all Henry's 
    most questionable acts his own ministers and his prelates were active 
    participants -- that his Privy Council, his parliaments, his judges on the 
    bench, the juries empanelled to try the victims of his tyranny, were equally 
    his accomplices; some actively assisting; the rest, if these acts were 
    really criminal, permitting themselves to be bribed or terrified into 
    acquiescence. The leading men of all descriptions, the nation itself, 
    through the guilt of its representatives, were all stained in the same 
    detestable colours. It may be said, indeed, that they were worse than the 
    King himself. For the King at least may be pleaded the coarse temptations of 
    a brutal nature; but what palliation can be urged for the peers and judges 
    who sacrificed Anne Boleyn, or More, or Fisher, according to the received 
    hypothesis? Not even the excuse of personal fear of an all-powerful despot. 
    For Henry had no Janissaries or PrÊtorians to defend his person or execute 
    his orders. He had but his hundred yeomen of the guard, not more numerous 
    than the ordinary followers of a second-rate noble. The Catholic leaders, 
    who were infuriated at his attacks upon the Church, and would if they could 
    have introduced foreign armies to dethrone him, insisted on his weakness as 
    an encouragement to an easy enterprise. Beyond those few yeomen they urged 
    that he had no protection save in the attachment of the subjects whom he was 
    alienating. What strange influence was such a king able to exercise that he 
    could overawe the lords and gentry of England, the learned professions, the 
    municipal authorities? How was it that he was able to compel them to be the 
    voluntary instruments of his cruelty? Strangest of all, he seems to have 
    needed no protection, but rather to have been personally popular, even among 
    those who disapproved his public policy. The air was charged with threats of 
    insurrection, but no conspiracy was ever formed to kill him, like those 
    which so often menaced the life of his daughter. When the North was in arms 
    in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and a question rose among the leaders whether in 
    the event of victory the King was to be deposed, it was found that anyone 
    who proposed to remove him would be torn in pieces by the people.&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Granting that Henry VIII. was, as Dickens said of him, &amp;quot;a 
    spot of blood and grease&amp;quot; on the page of English history, the contemporary 
    generation of Englishmen must have been fit subjects of such a sovereign. 
    Every country, says Carlyle, gets as good a government as it deserves. The 
    England of the Cromwells and the Cranmers, the Howards and the Fitzwilliams, 
    the Wriothesleys and the Pagets, seems to have been made of baser materials 
    than any land of which mankind has preserved a record. Roman Catholics may 
    fairly plead that out of such a race no spiritual reform is likely to have 
    arisen which could benefit any human soul. Of all the arguments which can be 
    alleged for the return of England to the ancient fold, this is surely the 
    most powerful. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Yet England shows no intention of returning. History may say 
    what it pleases, yet England remains tenacious of the liberties which were 
    then won for us, and unconscious of the disgrace attaching to them; 
    unconscious, also, that the version of the story which it accepts contains 
    anything which requires explanation. The legislation of Henry VIII., his 
    Privy Council, and his parliaments is the Magna Charta of the modern world. 
    The Act of Appeals and the Act of Supremacy asserted the national 
    independence, and repudiated the interference of foreign bishop, prince, or 
    potentate within the limits of the English empire. The clergy had held for 
    many centuries an &lt;i&gt;imperium in imperio.&lt;/i&gt; Subject themselves to no law 
    but their own, they had asserted an irresponsible jurisdiction over the 
    souls and bodies of the people. The Act for the submission of these persons 
    reduced them to the common condition of subjects under the control of the 
    law. Popes were no longer allowed to dispense with ordinary obligations. 
    Clerical privileges were abolished. The spiritual courts, with their 
    intolerable varieties of iniquity, were swept away, or coerced within 
    rational limits. The religious houses were suppressed, their enormous wealth 
    was applied for the defence of the realm, and the worse than Augean dunghill 
    of abuses was cleared out with resolute hand. These great results were 
    accomplished in the face of papal curses, in defiance of superstitious 
    terrors, so despicable when bravely confronted, so terrible while the 
    spectre of supernatural power was still unexorcised; in the face, too, of 
    earthly perils which might make stout hearts shake, of an infuriated 
    priesthood stirring the people into rebellion, of an exasperated Catholic 
    Europe threatening fire and sword in the name of the Pope. These were 
    distinguished achievements, not likely to have been done at all by an 
    infamous prince and infamous ministers; yet done so well that their work is 
    incorporated in the constitution almost in the form in which they left it; 
    and this mighty revolution, the greatest and most far-reaching in modern 
    times, was accomplished without a civil war, by firmness of hand, by the 
    action of Parliament, and a resolute enforcement of the law. Nor has the 
    effect of Henry's legislation been confined to England. Every great country, 
    Catholic or Protestant, has practically adopted its chief provisions. Popes 
    no longer pretend a power of deposing princes, absolving subjects from their 
    allegiance, or selling dispensations for offences against the law of the 
    land. Appeals are no longer carried from the national courts to the court of 
    the Rota. The papal treasury is no longer supplied by the plunder of the 
    national clergy, collected by resident papal officials. Bishops and 
    convocations have ceased to legislate above and independent of the secular 
    authority, and clerks who commit crimes bear the same penalties as the 
    profane. The high quality of the Reformation statutes is guaranteed by their 
    endurance; and it is hard to suppose that the politicians who conceived and 
    carried them out were men of base conditions. The question is not of the 
    character of the King. If nothing was at issue but the merits or demerits of 
    a single sovereign, he might be left where he lies. The question is of the 
    characters of the reforming leaders, who, jointly with the King, were the 
    authors of this tremendous and beneficent revolution. Henry in all that he 
    did acted with these men and through them. Is it possible to believe that 
    qualities so opposite as the popular theory requires existed in the same 
    persons? Is it possible, for instance, that Cranmer, who composed or 
    translated the prayers in the English Liturgy, was the miserable wretch 
    which Macaulay or Lingard describes? The era of Elizabeth was the outspring 
    of the movement which Henry VIII. commenced, and it was the grandest period 
    in English history. Is it credible that so invigorating a stream flowed from 
    a polluted fountain? &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Before accepting a conclusion so disgraceful -- before 
    consigning the men who achieved so great a victory, and risked and lost 
    their lives in the battle, to final execration -- it is at least permissible 
    to pause. The difficulty can only be made light of by impatience, by 
    prejudice, or by want of thought. To me at any rate, who wished to discover 
    what the real history of the Reformation had been, it seemed so 
    considerable, that, dismissing the polemical invectives of later writers, I 
    turned to the accounts of their conduct, which had been left behind by the 
    authors of it themselves. Among the fortunate anomalies of the situation, 
    Henry departed from previous custom in holding annual parliaments. At every 
    step which he took, either in the rearrangement of the realm or in his own 
    domestic confusions, he took the Lords and Commons into his council, and 
    ventured nothing without their consent. The preambles of the principal 
    statutes contain a narrative clear and precise of the motives of everything 
    that he did -- a narrative which at least may have been a true one, which 
    was not put forward as a defence, but was a mere explanation of acts which 
    on the surface seemed violent and arbitrary. If the explanation is correct, 
    it shows us a time of complications and difficulties, which, on the whole, 
    were successfully encountered. It shows us severe measures severely 
    executed, but directed to public and necessary purpose, involving no 
    sycophancy or baseness, no mean subservience to capricious tyranny, but such 
    as were the natural safeguards during a dangerous convulsion, or remedies of 
    accidents incidental to hereditary monarchy. The story told is clear and 
    distinct; pitiless, but not dishonourable. Between the lines can be read the 
    storm of popular passions, the beating of the national heart when it was 
    stirred to its inmost depths. We see established institutions rooted out, 
    idols overthrown, and injured worshippers exasperated to fury; the air, as 
    was inevitable at such a crisis, full of flying rumours, some lies, some 
    half lies with fragments of truth attaching to them, bred of malice or dizzy 
    brains, the materials out of which the popular tradition has been built. It 
    was no insular revolution. The stake played for was the liberty of mankind. 
    All Europe was watching England, for England was the hinge on which the fate 
    of the Reformation turned. Could it be crushed in England, the Catholics 
    were assured of universal victory, and therefore tongues and pens were busy 
    everywhere throughout Christendom, Catholic imagination representing Henry 
    as an incarnate Satan, for which, it must be admitted, his domestic 
    misadventures gave them tempting opportunities. So thick fell the showers of 
    calumny, that, bold as he was, he at times himself winced under it. He 
    complained to Charles V. of the libels circulated about him in France and 
    Flanders. Charles, too, had suffered in the same way. He answered, 
    humorously, that &amp;quot;if kings gave occasion to be spoken about they would be 
    spoken about; kings were not kings of tongues.&amp;quot; Henry VIII. was an easy mark 
    for slander; but if all slanders are to pass as true which are flung at 
    public men whose policy provides them with an army of calumniators, the 
    reputation of the best of them is but a spotted rag. The clergy were the 
    vocal part of Europe. They had the pulpits; they had the writing of the 
    books and pamphlets. They had cause to hate Henry, and they hated him with 
    an intensity of passion which could not have been more savage had he been 
    the devil himself. But there are men whose enmity is a compliment. They 
    libelled Luther almost as freely as they libelled the English king. I 
    myself, after reading and weighing all that I could find forty years ago in 
    prints or manuscripts, concluded that the real facts of Henry's conduct were 
    to be found in the Statute Book and nowhere else; that the preambles of the 
    Acts of Parliament did actually represent the sincere opinion about him of 
    the educated laymen of England, who had better opportunities of knowing the 
    truth than we can have, and that a modern Englishman may be allowed to 
    follow their authority without the imputation of paradox or folly. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;With this impression, and with the Statute Book for a guide, 
    I wrote the opening portion of my &amp;quot;History of England, from the Fall of 
    Wolsey to the Defeat of the Armada.&amp;quot; The Published criticisms upon my work 
    were generally unfavourable. Catholic writers inherited the traditions and 
    the temper of their forefathers, and believed the eatena of their own 
    historians. Protestants could not believe in a defence of the author of the 
    Six Articles Bill. Secular reviewers were easily witty at the &amp;quot;model 
    husband&amp;quot; whom they supposed me to be imposing upon them, and resented the 
    interference with a version of the story authenticated by great names among 
    my predecessors. The public, however, took an interest in what I had to say. 
    The book was read, and continues to be read; at the close of my life, 
    therefore, I have to go once more over the ground; and as I am still 
    substantially alone in maintaining an opinion considered heretical by 
    orthodox historians, I have to decide in what condition I am to leave my 
    work behind me. In the thirty-five years which have elapsed since those 
    early volumes appeared large additions have been made to the materials for 
    the history of the period. The vast collection of manuscripts in the English 
    Record Office, which then were only partially accessible, have been sorted, 
    catalogued, and calendared by the industry of my friends Mr. Brewer and Mr. 
    Gairdner. Private collections in great English houses have been examined and 
    reported on by the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Foreign archives at 
    Paris, Simancas, Rome, Venice, Vienna, and Brussels have been searched to 
    some extent by myself, but in a far larger degree by able scholars specially 
    appointed for the purpose. In the despatches, thus made accessible, of the 
    foreign ambassadors resident at Henry's court we have the invaluable, if not 
    impartial, comments of trained and responsible politicians who related from 
    day to day the events which were passing under their eyes. Being Catholics, 
    and representatives of Catholic powers, they were bitterly hostile to the 
    Reformation -- hostile alike on political grounds and religious -- and 
    therefore inclined to believe and report the worst that could be said both 
    of it and of its authors. But they wrote before the traditions had become 
    stereotyped; their accounts are fresh and original; and, being men of the 
    world, and writing in confidence to their own masters, they were as 
    veracious as their prejudices would allow them to be. Unconsciously, too, 
    they render another service of infinite importance. Being in close 
    communication with the disaffected English peers and clergy, and engaged 
    with them secretly in promoting rebellion, the ministers of Charles V. 
    reveal with extraordinary clearness the dangers with which the Government 
    had to deal. They make it perfectly plain that the Act of Supremacy, with 
    its stern and peremptory demands, was no more than a legitimate and 
    necessary defence against organised treason. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;It was thus inevitable that much would have to be added to 
    what I had already published. When a microscope is applied to the petal of a 
    flower or the wing of an insect, simple outlines and simple surfaces are 
    resolved into complex organisms with curious and beautiful details. The 
    effect of these despatches is precisely the same -- we see with the eyes, we 
    hear with the ears, of men who were living parts of the scenes which they 
    describe. Stories afterwards elaborated into established facts we trace to 
    their origin in rumours of the hour; we read innumerable anecdotes, some 
    with the clear stamp of truth on them, many mere creations of passing wit or 
    malice, no more authentic than the thousands like them which circulate in 
    modern society, guaranteed by the positive assertions of personal witnesses, 
    yet visibly recognisable as lies. Through all this the reader must pick his 
    way and use his own judgment. He knows that many things are false which are 
    reported about his own eminent contemporaries. He may be equally certain 
    that lies were told as freely then as now. He will probably allow his 
    sympathies to guide him. He will accept as fact what fits in with his creed 
    or his theory. He will share the general disposition to believe evil, 
    especially about kings and great men. The exaggerated homage paid to 
    princes, when they are alive, has to be compensated by suspecting the worst 
    of them as soon as they are gone. But the perusal of all these documents 
    leaves the broad aspect of the story, in my opinion, precisely where it was. 
    It is made more interesting by the greater fulness of particulars; it is 
    made more vivid by the clear view which they afford of individual persons 
    who before were no more than names. But I think now, as I thought forty 
    years ago, that through the confusions and contradictions of a stormy and 
    angry time, the statutebook remains the safest guide to follow. If there be 
    any difference, it is that actions which till explained appeared 
    gratuitously cruel, like the execution of Bishop Fisher, are seen beyond 
    dispute to have been reasonable and just. Bishop Fisher is proved by the 
    words of the Spanish Ambassador himself to have invited and pressed the 
    introduction of a foreign Catholic army into England in the Pope's interest.
    &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Thus I find nothing to withdraw in what I then wrote, and 
    little to alter save in correcting some small errors of trivial moment; but, 
    on the other hand, I find much to add; and the question rises in what way I 
    had better do it, with fair consideration for those who have bought the book 
    as it stands. To take the work to pieces and introduce the new material into 
    the text or the notes will impose a necessity of buying a new copy, or of 
    being left with an inferior one, on the many friends who least deserve to be 
    so treated. I have concluded, therefore, on writing an additional volume, 
    where such parts of the story as have had important light thrown upon them 
    can be told over again in ampler form. The body of the history I leave as it 
    stands. It contains what I believe to be a true account of the time, of the 
    immediate causes which brought about the changes of the sixteenth century, 
    and of the characters and principles of the actors in them. I have only to 
    fill up certain deficiencies and throw light into places hitherto left dark. 
    For the rest, I do not pretend to impartiality. I believe the Reformation to 
    have been the greatest incident in English history; the root and source of 
    the expansive force which has spread the Anglo-Saxon race over the globe, 
    and imprinted the English genius and character on the constitution of 
    mankind. I am unwilling to believe more evil than I can help of my 
    countrymen who accomplished so beneficent a work, and in a book written with 
    such convictions the mythical element cannot be wholly wanting. Even things 
    which immediately surround us, things which we see and touch, we do not 
    perceive as they are; we perceive only our own sensations, and our 
    sensations are a combined result of certain objects and of the faculties 
    which apprehend them. Something of ourselves must always be intermixed 
    before knowledge can reach us; in every conclusion which we form, in every 
    conviction which is forced upon us, there is still a subjective element. It 
    is so in physical science. It is so in art. It is so in our speculations on 
    our own nature. It is so in religion. It is so even in pure mathematics. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;The curved and rectilineal figures on which we reason are 
    our own creation, and have no existence exterior to the reasoning mind. Most 
    of all is it so in history, where we have no direct perceptions to help us, 
    but are dependent on the narratives of others whose beliefs were necessarily 
    influenced by their personal dispositions. The first duty of an historian is 
    to be on his guard against his own sympathies; but he cannot wholly escape 
    their influence. In judging of the truth of particular statements, the 
    conclusion which he will form must be based partly upon evidence and partly 
    upon what he conceives to be likely or unlikely. In a court of justice, 
    where witnesses can be cross-examined, uncertain elements can in some degree 
    be eliminated; yet, after all care is taken, judges and juries have been 
    often blinded by passion and prejudice. When we have nothing before us but 
    rumours set in circulation, we know not by whom or on what authority, and we 
    are driven to consider probabilities, the Protestant, who believes the 
    Reformation to have been a victory of truth over falsehood, cannot come to 
    the same conclusion as the Catholic, who believes it to have been a curse, 
    or perhaps to the same conclusion as the indifferent philosopher, who 
    regards Protestant and Catholic alike with benevolent contempt. For myself, 
    I can but say that I have discriminated with such faculty as I possess. I 
    have kept back nothing. I have consciously distorted nothing which conflicts 
    with my own views. I have accepted what seems sufficiently proved. I have 
    rejected what I can find no support for save in hearsay or prejudice. But 
    whether accepting or rejecting, I have endeavoured to follow the rule that 
    incidents must not be lightly accepted as authentic which are inconsistent 
    with the universal laws of human nature, and that to disprove a calumny it 
    is sufficient to show that there is no valid witness for it. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;Finally, I do not allow myself to be tempted into 
    controversy with particular writers whose views disagree with my own. To 
    contradict in detail every hostile version of Henry VIII.'s or his 
    ministers' conduct would be as tedious as it would be irritating and 
    unprofitable. My censors have been so many that a reply to them all is 
    impossible, and so distinguished that a selection would be invidious. Those 
    who wish for invectives against the King, or Cranmer, or Cromwell, can find 
    them everywhere, from school manuals to the grave works of elaborate 
    historians. For me, it is enough to tell the story as it presents itself to 
    my own mind, and to leave what appears to me to be the truth to speak for 
    itself. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;The English nation throughout their long history have borne 
    an honourable reputation. Luther quotes a saying of Maximilian that there 
    were three real sovereigns in Europe -- the Emperor, the King of France, and 
    the King of England. The Emperor was a king of kings. If he gave an order to 
    the princes of the Reich, they obeyed or disobeyed as they pleased. The King 
    of France was a king of asses. He ordered about his people at his will, and 
    they obeyed like asses. The King of England was king of a loyal nation who 
    obeyed him with heart and mind as loyal and faithful subjects. This was the 
    character borne in the world by the fathers of the generation whom popular 
    historians represent as having dishonoured themselves by subserviency to a 
    bloodthirsty tyrant. It is at least possible that popular historians have 
    been mistaken, and that the subjects of Henry VIII. were neither much better 
    nor much worse than those who preceded or came after them. &lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;hr&gt;
    &lt;p align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;From &lt;i&gt;The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon: 
    The Story as Told by the Imperial Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry 
    VIII&lt;/i&gt; by J.A. Froude.&amp;nbsp; Published in New York by C. Scribner's Sons, 
    1891.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  &lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=1&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2ffroudeone.html&quot;&gt;
&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;to Chapter One&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=1&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fsecondary.html&quot;&gt;
&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;to Secondary Sources&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;_httpextlink_&amp;amp;rl=1&amp;amp;href=http:%2f%2fenglishhistory.net%2ftudor%2fmonarchs%2faragon.html&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;to 
Katharine of Aragon website&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
  &lt;blockquote&gt;
    &lt;font style=&quot;font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;&gt;
    &lt;font face=&quot;Times New Roman&quot;&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;&lt;font style=&quot;FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
    &lt;p class=&quot;3text&quot; align=&quot;left&quot;&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
    &lt;/font&gt;
  &lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;



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