His conscience was clear, whatever other people might think of the maze of apparent inconsistencies in which he was involved.

In 1528 he was in some fear of death from the plague; fear of death is fatal to the peace of a guilty conscience, and it might well have made Henry pause in his pursuit after the divorce and Anne Boleyn.

But Henry never wavered; he went on in serene assurance, writing his love letters to Anne, as a conscientiously unmarried man might do, making his will,[581] "confessing every day and receiving his Maker at every feast,"[582] paying great attention to the morals of monasteries, and to charges of malversation against Wolsey, and severely lecturing his sister Margaret on the sinfulness of her life.[583] He hopes she will turn "to God's word, the vively doctrine of Jesu Christ, the only ground of salvation--1 COR.

3, etc."; he reminds her of "the divine ordinance of inseparable matrimony first instituted in Paradise," and urges her to avoid "the inevitable damnation threatened against (p.

210) advoutrers".