384 OBSERVATIONS ON BISHOP BURNETT'S 
Perhaps it may be argued that the silence of Henry and of con- 
temporary writers—with the exception of one, a decided enemy te 
the whole race of Boleyn—ought to turn the scale against an hypo- 
thesis so insulting to that family. But, if under a free government 
it is not always safe to arraign the character and vices of its ruler, 
under an absolute monarchy, such as ours was in the time of Henry, 
the court chronicler or satirist, with great reason, might dread that 
the slightest insinuation against royal seduction, and the fickleness 
of royal attachments, would be punished with the forfeiture of his 
head. Nor does the well-known circumstance of Anne’s determina- 
tion not to fluctuate between the state of a wife and the shame of a 
concubine, at all Jessen the credibility of her sister’s fall; since it 
would more powerfully impress the salutary caution on her mind 
that, however dangerous it might be to resist, it was only by a steady 
course of resistance, by being “cunning in her chastity,” to use a 
quaint phrase of Fuller, that she would realize her ambition of be- 
coming Queen of England.++ 
44 Pole was afraid even to trust himself to the friendship of Henry; yet 
while he admits that Anne preserved her virtue to the last, or at least to the 
last year, he grudges to allow her any merit, when she is entitled to the 
highest, for having so long maintained her honor against the incessant 
opportunities and importunities of the lustful king.” Concubina enim 
tua fieri, pudica mulier nolebat, Uxor volebat. Illa cujus amore rex depire- 
bat, pertinacissimé negabat sui corporis protestatem nisi matrimonio conjunc- 
tam, se illi unquam facturam.—Poliad Reg. Scot. p. 176. 
M.R.S.L. 
(To be concluded in our next number }: 
