187) credible that all this energy was expended merely to satisfy a sensual passion, which could be satisfied without a murmur from Pope or Emperor, if he was content with Anne Boleyn as a mistress, and is believed to have been already satisfied in 1529, four years before the divorce was obtained.[532] So, too, the actual sentence of divorce in 1533 was precipitated not by Henry's passion for Anne, but by the desire that her child should be legitimate.

She was pregnant before Henry was married to her or divorced from Catherine.

But, though the representation of Henry's passion for Anne Boleyn as the sole _fons et origo_ of the divorce is far from convincing, that passion introduced various complications into the question; it was not merely an additional incentive to Henry's desires; it also brought Wolsey and Henry into conflict; and the unpopularity of the divorce was increased by the feeling that Henry was losing caste by seeking to marry a lady of the rank and character of Anne Boleyn.
[Footnote 531: _Ibid._, iv., 4858.] [Footnote 532: No conclusive evidence on this point is possible; the French ambassador, Clement VII.
and others believed that Henry VIII.

and Anne Boleyn had been cohabiting since 1529.

On the other hand, if such was the case, it is singular that no child should have been born before 1533; for after that date Anne seems to have had a miscarriage nearly every year.