LXXXIX. With regard to Anna Bolene herself, he represents her, from her tender youth, to have been an infamous prostitute; for, he says, that at fifteen years of age, she surrendered her person, to the embraces of two of the domestics in her father’s house; that soon afterwards she went to France, where her prostitution was so public and scandalous, that they called her by the opprobrious name of the English Mare: that, after a while, she introduced herself into the palace of Francis the First, who was then king of France, and that this prince, was universally known to have made use of the English prostitute, for the gratification of his lewd inclinations: that upon her return to England, she was admitted as a domestic into the houshold of Henry, where he fell violently enamoured with her; but his solicitations to obtain her as a mistress, proved abortive; for Anna, feigning herself to be a most virtuous person, made her pretensions to modesty subservient to her views of ambition; and always replied resolutely to the king’s intreaties, that no man but her husband should have the dominion of her virginity; and upon this, the unhappy Henry, blinded by his passion, solicited and obtained a divorce from his queen Catherine, to enable him to marry Ann. XC. There is nothing in this whole relation, which does not appear either very difficult to be credited, or absolutely chimerical. The triple incest of Henry, is so much out of the common course, and so horrible, that nothing can excite our belief of it, but proofs which are clearer than the sun at noon-day. That the gallantries of the king of France with Anna Bolene, which were so public and notorious, should not have come to the knowledge of Henry, is by no means credible; for irregularities of this sort, committed by princes, are generally well known at their own courts, and are soon communicated to those of other countries, and especially, when they are so near together as those of London and Paris. Neither is it credible that Henry, after he came to know that Ann had deceived him with respect to her being a maid, and when he had gratified the first cravings of his appetite, should not take a disgust to, or, at least, put her away from him: Henry, I say, who was so delicate in these matters, that he repudiated his fourth wife Ann of Cleves, for no other reason than his coming to understand, that before she espoused him, she had been under an engagement to marry another person. According to the chronology of the English History, this relation is not only improbable, but even impossible; because this tells us, that Anna Bolene was born in 1507, and Henry the Eighth was crowned in 1509; that in 1514 Anna went to France in the suite of queen Claudia, who was the sister of Henry, and wife of Francis the First; that Thomas Bolene did not go ambassador to France till the year 1515; and that the return of Anna Bolene to London, is placed between the years 1525 and 1527. From this account, there