Competition for Henry's hand--Solicitations from France and from the Emperor--Overtures from the Pope--Jane Seymour--General eagerness for the King's marriage--Conduct of Henry in the interval before Anne's execution--Marriage with Jane Seymour-- Universal satisfaction--The Princess Mary--Proposal for a General Council--Neutrality of England in the war between France and the Empire 436 CHAPTER XXIV. Expectation that Henry would return to the Roman Communion--Henry persists in carrying out the Reformation--The Crown and the clergy--Meeting of a new Parliament--Fresh repudiation of the Pope's authority--Complications of the succession--Attitude of the Princess Mary--Her reluctant submission--The King empowered to name his successor by will--Indication of his policy--The Pilgrimage of Grace--Cost of the Reformation--The martyrs, Catholic and Protestant 450 INDEX 465 THE DIVORCE OF CATHERINE OF ARAGON. INTRODUCTION. 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. "C'est un plaisir indicible," says Voltaire, "de donner des decrets contre des souverains morts quand on ne peut en lancer contre eux de leur vivant de peur de perdre ses oreilles." The dead sovereigns go their way. Their real work for good or