Never king came to his throne more blessed by nature, fortune, and circumstance than the eighth Henry. Nature had fashioned him as the handsomest and ablest monarch in Christendom. “He was tall and well proportioned . . . his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short in the French fashion, and a round face that would become a pretty woman.” But there was no effeminacy about him. He was devoted to tennis and extremely fond of jousting and hunting—“never taking his diversion without tiring eight or ten horses.” Nor was there a more accomplished king living. He spoke good French, Latin, and Spanish; he was a musician and an author, and even as a boy his ability and address most favourably impressed the great scholar Erasmus. With all these gifts and graces, Henry began his reign with the highest promise; but as the years went by he steadily changed for the worse. His unbridled self-will grew upon him until he became a cold-hearted despot, who made his whim the law of the land, and ruthlessly sent to the scaffold all on whom his displeasure fell. From the first he was absolute master of the realm, and could say, _L’état, c’est moi!_ Nevertheless, he was always careful to make his acts legal by getting Parliament to endorse them. He greatly valued his popularity with the people, and his ministers had to bear the blame of all his unpopular acts. During the later years of Henry the Seventh’s reign, Arthur, the heir to the throne, had been married to Catherine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Arthur died young, and the miserly old king, unwilling to part with Catherine’s rich dowry, proposed to marry her to her brother-in-law, Henry, who was six years her junior. Such an alliance was against the law of the Church, but a dispensation was readily obtained, and shortly after his accession Henry married her. For many years they lived happily together. “The king adores her, and her Highness him,” wrote her confessor, and never had any man a more faithful helpmeet. She was a fair-haired, gentle, pious woman, of a lively and gracious disposition, but not beautiful. As she grew older her health failed, and she became prematurely old and lost much of her attraction. All her children died except one—the Princess Mary. After eighteen years of married life Henry fell violently in love with Anne Boleyn, one of the queen’s maids of honour.