Froude would have us believe,
divorced Catharine of Aragon because he desired to have sons, as one
way to avoid the breaking out of a civil war; and yet it was a sure way
to bring Charles V. into an English dispute for the regal succession,
as the supporter of any pretender, to repudiate the aunt of that
powerful imperial and royal personage. The English nation, Mr. Froude
truly tells us, was at that time "sincerely attached to Spain. The
alliance with the House of Burgundy" (of which Charles V. was the head)
"was of old date; the commercial intercourse with Flanders was
enormous,--Flanders, in fact, absorbing all the English exports; and as
many as fifteen thousand Flemings were settled in London. Charles
himself was personally popular; he had been the ally of England in the
late French war; and when, in his supposed character of leader of the
anti-Papal party in Europe, he allowed a Lutheran army to desecrate
Rome, he had won the sympathy of all the latent discontent which was
fomenting in the population." Was it not a strange way to proceed for
the preservation of peace in England to offend a foreign sovereign who
stood in so strong and influential a position to the English people?
Charles was not merely displeased because of the divorce of his
relative, his mother's sister, a daughter of the renowned Isabella, who
had wrought such great things for Christendom,--promoting the discovery
of America, and conquering Granada,--but he was incensed at the mere
thought of preferring to her place a private gentlewoman, who would
never have been heard of, if Henry had not seen fit to raise her from
common life, first to the throne, and then to the scaffold.
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