He had seen Jane Seymour, and she without doubt was handsomer than Anne Boleyn, for she was not as yet the king's consort, and there was an obstacle to his possession of her--the Queen Anne Boleyn.

This obstacle must be got out of the way.
"Henry, by virtue of his plentitude of power, might again have been divorced from his wife, but he did not like to repeat himself, he wished to be always original; and no one was to be allowed to say that his divorces were only the cloak of his capricious lewdness.
"He had divorced Catharine of Aragon on account of conscientious scruples; therefore, some other means must be devised for Anne Boleyn.
"The shortest way to be rid of her was the scaffold.

Why should not Anne travel that road, since so many had gone it before her?
for a new force had entered into the king's life: the tiger had licked blood! His instinct was aroused, and he recoiled no more from those crimson rills which flowed in the veins of his subjects.
"He had given Lady Anne Boleyn the crimson mantle of royalty, why then should she not give him her crimson blood?
For this there was wanted only a pretext, and this was soon found.

Lady Rochfort was Jane Seymour's aunt, and she found some men, of whom she asserted that they had been lovers of the fair Anne Boleyn.

She, as the queen's first lady of the bed-chamber, could of course give the most minute particulars concerning the matter, and the king believed her.