Know you which, of all his wives, possessed these in the highest degree?
It was his first consort, Catharine of Aragon! By Heaven, she was a sensible woman, and born a queen! Henry, avaricious as he was, would gladly have given the best jewel in his crown, if he could have detected but a shadow, the slightest trace of unfaithfulness in her.

But there was absolutely no means of sending this woman to the scaffold, and at that time he was as yet too cowardly and too virtuous to put her out of the way by poison.

He, therefore, endured her long, until she was an old woman with gray hairs, and disagreeable for his eyes to look upon.

So after he had been married to her seventeen years, the good, pious king was all at once seized with a conscientious scruple, and because he had read in the Bible, 'Thou shalt not marry thy sister,' dreadful pangs of conscience came upon the noble and crafty monarch.

He fell upon his knees and beat his breast, and cried: 'I have committed a great sin; for I have married my brother's wife, and consequently my sister.