378 OBSERVATIONS ON BISHOP BURNETT'S 
loose? *—a mode of attire emblematical, in those days, that she was 
a maiden when introduced to the royal bed. From a letter, also, of 
Peter Martyr, we learn that Arthur, instead of being the vigorous 
youth described by Burnett, was deemed incapable of performing 
the hymeneal rites, from the inherent debility of his constitution. 
It is impossible, certainly, not to feel some scepticism on this sub- 
ject; but when we refer to the qeeen’s appeal to Henry, without 
meeting any denial on his part, de integritate corporis usque ad se- 
cundas nuptias servatd, and couple with this appeal the attestations 
of several grave matrons ; and when we are told also that the Bi- 
shop of Ely declared before the privy council that Catherine had 
often denied the consummation sub testimonio conscientize sue, one 
can hardly venture to set up presumptions, even if they were of still 
less ambiguous or doubtful character, in opposition to the testimony 
of a woman respected, both at home and abroad, as a wife, by pro- 
testant as well as papist. 33 
Most historical readers are aware that Burnett is our chief autho- 
rity for the story of Henry’s divorce from Catharine, in which the 
traces of Providence are so visible.2+ And the same proneness is 
here observable in him to furnish the most plausible arguments for 
the king’s proceedings in this, what is called “his secret matter ;” 
the same tendency to overlook or mistake those facts which are the 
least favourable to his cause ; and to use a leniency of language upon 
the worst parts of it, which only can be justified on the monstrous 
pretext that Henry was an exempted being, privileged to remove 
all the restraints of duty, honour, and humanity, which stood in 
the way to the accomplishment of his wishes: so that, in his per- 
son, crime was to lose its nature. 
The question whether his union with Catharine was incestuous, 
which Henry, after the beauty of Anne Boleyn had caught his af- 
fections, very soon brought himself to think, was not only debated 
upon scriptural grounds, but the fathers, the schoolmen, and the 
pope's decretals, were all introduced into this formidable and com- 
32 See Sandford’s Genealogical History of the Kings of England, p. 480. 
33 'The news of the old Quenis deth ben her divulged, more than x daies 
passed and taken sorrowfully, not without grevous lamentacions, for she was 
incredibly dere unto all men for her good fame, which is grete glorye among 
al exterior nations.”—See Ellis’s Historical Letters, second series, v. ii, p. 76. 
34 « Wow many strange accidents concurred,” is the just observation of 
South, “in the whole business of Henry the Eighth’s divorce! Yet we see 
Providence directed it and them to an entire change of the affairs and state 
of the whole kingdom.”—Sermon on Prov. xvi, vol. i, p. 211. 
