Henry VIII. came to the throne with splendid opportunities. He was gifted far above the average: his manners were genial and taking; he could talk many languages; he was devoted to sport, a good musician, an admirable wrestler; fond of amusement, but fond also of more serious things; and the people were prepared to love their King Hal, for he was in every way a contrast to his father, who had never won their affections. Henry was a strong man, who resolved to be no puppet in the hands of any party or minister. Yet it was his will which ruined his character, for it was a will entirely bent on gaining its own ends, unchecked by any sense of duty, untouched by any appeal to high or noble motives. What he desired he must have, and all that stood in his way must be swept aside: he would spare no one who thwarted him; nothing weighed in the balance against the gratification of his own whims and fancies. You will remember that he was not the eldest son of Henry VII. His brother Arthur, Prince of Wales, had died in 1501, a few months after he had married Katherine, the Infanta of Spain, and chiefly because the idea was at first strongly opposed, Henry made up his mind to marry his widowed sister-in-law. When he came to the throne, he at once carried out his will in this matter, and brushed aside all the objections that were raised on account of the close relationship existing between the two. The marriage took place at Greenwich, and the double coronation followed at Westminster on Midsummer Day in the year 1509, "amid all the rejoicings in the world." Katherine made a beautiful queen, dressed in white with cloth of gold, her long hair hanging down to her feet, and little dreamt any of those who cheered her on her way of all that was to spring out of that marriage, for Henry seemed to be the most devoted of husbands. In 1511 their son was born, and had such an elaborate christening that he took a cold from which he never recovered. "His soul returned to among the Holy Innocents of God," says a Westminster manuscript, and we are told how "the queen made much lamentation, but by the king’s persuasion she was at last comforted." The baby prince was certainly buried in the Abbey, though exactly where is unknown. But his death, unimportant as it must have seemed at the moment to those who took part in the funeral, had in reality a deep significance. Henry was incapable of loving any one for long, and as he began to grow weary of Katherine, he made it a grievance that her other child was a daughter and not a son. Furthermore, he argued to himself that he had done wrong in marrying his brother’s widow, so that the death of his son was the sign of God’s wrath, and then he began to devise how he could dissolve his marriage with her, to wed instead her fascinating maid of honour, Anne Boleyn. Only the Pope could grant him the divorce that he desired, and accordingly Henry sent his all-powerful favourite, Wolsey, to Rome to get this consent.