such a continuance a Sute moved upon Sr. Tho. Boleyn's return were publick matters and must have lien open to a discovery The whole Recital is impossible as it is told for if she was born after Sr. Tho. Boleyn return'd from an Embassy to which King Henry had sent him that he might enjoy his Wife and in which he staid two years as Sanders says then since King Henry came to the Crown in the year 1509 she must be born in the year 1511 and then the 15th year of her Age will fall in the year 1526 and it being certain that the King began to court her in the year 1527 here is not time enough for her Leudness and her long stay in France But it is certain that she was born in the year 1507 two years before K. Henry came to the Crown and when he was but 14 years old and that at 7 years old she went over to France with K. Henry's Sister when she was married to Lewis the 12th and thô upon that King's Death the Queen Dowager of France came soon after back into England yet Anne Boleyn staid still in France and was in the service of Claud Francis's the first 's Queen and after her Death the King's Sister the Dutchess of Alençon took her into her service and these two Princesses were so celebrated for their Vertue that this alone is enough to shew that she was then under no infamy since she was of their Family She was also Maid of Honour to our Queen Katherine who even by Mr. Varillas's Character was of too severe a Vertue to admit a common Prostitute to that degree of Honour So that here is more than enough to discredit all those Calumnies 25. He says thô there is not Evidence enough in the former Reports yet there is a certain proof for K. Henry's disorders with the Elder of the two Sisters Mary Boleyn since in the demand that K. Henry made for a permission to marry Anne he confessed his disorders with her Sister and offered to do Pennance for them and to vouch for this he cites King Henry's Petition to P. Clement the 7th Here Mr. Varillas shews how little he understands the advantages that he has to maintain his Assertions since there is an Authority for this last that has more appearance of truth in it than all his other Citations put together thô his ignorance made him incapable of finding it out For Cardinal Pool in his Book against K. Henry objects this to him and this has a fair appearance whereas the Petition that he cites is a Dream of his own that was never before heard of But thô I have said more for the honour of Cardinal Pool than all the Panegiricks that have been given him amount to yet I am very well assured that in this particular he was abused by Reports to which he gave too easy a belief for as all the Original Instructions and Dispatches that were made upon that Affair are yet extant in which there is not one Word relating to this matter so it is plain that the Affair was never so far advanced as to demand a permission for a second Mariage since that could never be so much as asked till the first was dissolved and that not being gained there was not room made for it If the King had given such advantages against himself as to have put such a Confession in a Petition to the Pope is it to be imagined that the Popes would not have discovered this in some Authentical manner and even have put it in the Thundering Bull that was afterwards published against him for this alone proved his Hypocrisy of pretending scruples of Conscience at his Mariage beyond exception and if the King acted in this matter without any regard to Conscience it is unreasonable to represent him as so strictly Conscientious and that he would have confessed so scandalous a secret and so to have put himself in the power of those of whom he could not be well assured 26. He gives us a long account of Wolsey's design to engage the King to marry the Dutchess of Alençon Of the Bishop of Tarke's being sent over to bring the English Princess into France upon her being contracted to the Dauphin And of Wolsey's prevailing with him to let that Proposition fall and to set on another for a Mariage between the King of England and the Dutchess of Alençon And that the Bp. of Tarke was cheated by Wolsey and being in the interests of the Dutchess of Alençon he demanded a publick Audience of the King in the presence of the Council in which he imployed all his Eloquence to persuade him to divorce his Queen and to marry the most Christian King's Sister In all this matter Mr. Varillas is only the Copier of Sanders yet he cannot tell another Man's Lie without mixing some additions of his own for the Bp. of Tarke's being sent over to demand the Princess is one of the fruits of his own Religion But thô a Pedant of a Priest such as Sanders had told so improbable a Story yet it ill became a Man that pretends to know Courts and the Negotiations of Ambassadours as Mr. Varillas does to assert such improbabilities as that an Ambassadour sent express to demand a Princess for his Master's Son which was the greatest advantage that France could have possibly hoped for should be so far wrought on by the Minister of the Court to which he was sent as not only to let all this fall but to make a new Proposition for the illegitimating of the young Princess and for offering his Master's Sister to King Henry and all this without any Instructions from his Master and thereby exposing the Dutchess of Alençon to the scorn of being rejected after she was so publickly offered to the King of England thô every Body knows that the first offers of Princesses are made in secret And after all this that the Bishop of Tarke who not only exceeded his Instructions but acted contrary to them in so important a matter was neither recalled nor disgraced but on the contrary he was afterwards promoted to be a Cardinal by the recommendation of the Court of France and he being a Cardinal and seeing afterwards how he was abused if we may believe this Fable is it to be supposed that he either out of his own Zeal for the Court of Rome or by the Accusations that naturally such a Proposition begun by him must have brought on him would not have told all this secret afterwards In short as this Relation contains many particulars in it that are not according to the Forms of our Court such as his demanding an Audience in the presence of the Council for it seems as Mr. Varillas set our Parliaments above our Kings he will make the Privy Council equal to them so the whole is so contrary to all the Methods of Ambassadours that this would scarce pass if it related to the transactions of the Courts of
scrupulosity of writing truth yet that profound Policy to which he always pretends should oblige him to take a little care that the falsehoods that he advances may not be easily discovered 3. He says Henry the 8th was 12. year old when his Brother died and that his Father had designed him for the Ecclesiastical State This was taken up by the Writers of the last Age to make the Parallel between Iulian the Emperour and him seem to agree that as Iulian had been a Reader in the Church so King Henry should be represented as an Abbot with a little band But as King Henry was not 12 year old when his Brother died for he wanted some Months of 11 and as at that Age young Princes considering the respect that is payed to them in their Education have seldome been found far advanced in Learning so it does not appear that he had then any other Education different from what was given his Brother who understood Latin and some of the beginnings of Learning Learning was then in great reputation and K. Henry the 7th engaged his Children to study either to raise their Authority the higher by that means or perhaps to amuse them with Learning that they might not think of pretending to the Crown during his Life since the undoubted Title to it resting in the Person of their Mother it had devolved upon them by her Death thô they did not think fit to claim their Right 4. He says that when K. Henry the 7th intended to marry his younger Son to P. Arthur's Widdow the Privy Council of England approuved it the more easily because of the precaution that had been taken to hinder the consummation of the former Mariage and to confirm this he cites on the Margent the Petition that the Parliament of England offered upon this matter to P. Alexander the 6th But as the Depositions are yet extant of the Duke of Norfolk that was then a Privy Councellour and of two others that there was no precaution used to hinder the consummation so Warham that was at that time Archbishop of Canterbury opposed the second Mariage as being neither honourable nor well-pleasing to God as he himself did afterwards depose upon Oath The Parliament took no cognisance of the matter nor did it make any address to the Pope so that this citation is to be considered as an effect of Mr Varillas his notion of Religion 5. He runs out in his manner into a long speculation concerning the different interests of England and Spain that made the Spaniards go backwards and forwards in the agreeing to the Match that was proposed for P. Henry and the Princess whom by an extravagant affectation he calls always Duke of York and makes the Princesse's Parents represent to K. Henry the 7th the danger of his Son 's growing weary of the Princess since he was 4 year younger than she was and that in order to the procuring of a dissolution of the Mariage from the Court of Rome he might pretend that his Father had forced him to marry her whenever he should grow weary of her All the other Writers of that time put K. Henry the 7th's desiring this second Mariage meerly on his covetousness which made him equally unwilling to repay the Portion or to send a great jointure yearly after the Princess and the Prince of Wales was too great a Match to be so uneasily admitted by the King and Queen of Spain He whom he calls by the Title of the Duke of York was indeed only Duke of York for some Months after his Brother's Death during which time it was supposed that the Princess might be with child by his Brother which proves beyond exception that it was believed that the first Mariage was consummated But when there was no more reason to apprehend that then he carried the Title that belongs to the Heir apparent of our Crown But it seems the King and Queen of Spain were more easily satisfied in this matter than Mr. Varillas would make us believe they were for two years after the Bull was granted when P. Henry came to be of Age he instead of entring into any engagement to marry the Princess made a solemn protestation in the hands of the Bishop of Winchester by which he recalled the consent that he had given during his Minority and declared that he would never marry her But it is very likely Mr. Varillas had never heard of this thô the instrument of that Protestation was not only mentioned but printed by many of the Writers of that Age and it is confessed by Sanders himself who after all Mr. Varillas's flourish with his Letters is his only Author And for this foresight that he thinks he may justly ascribe to the King and Queen of Spain because they are represented by the Writers of that time to have had an extraordinary Sagacity the reason that he makes them give shews it was a contrivance of his own since a moral force such as the Authority of a Father was never so much as pretended to be a just ground to annul a Mariage after it was made and consummated otherwise most of the Mariages that have been made might have been dissolved 6. He adds to this another speculation that is worthy of him he pretends that the King and Queen of Spain apprehended that K. Henry the 7th had acquired the Crown of England and by consequence had a right to dispose of it at his pleasure upon which the Crown of Spain was afraid least he should have disinherited his Son and given the Crown to the Duke of Suffolk that was then at Brussels and was preparing an Invasion of England from which they did not know but K. Henry the 7th might save himself by declaring Suffolk his Successour and that upon those fears they were unwilling to consent to the Match Here is such a mixture of Follies that it is not easy to tell which of them is the most remarkable This Doctrine of the Crown of England's being alienable at the King's pleasure might have passed well with those that some years ago thought to have shut out the next Heir and yet even these did not pretend that it could have been done by the King alone But here is a new Theory of Politicks for which we are sure Mr. Varillas can cite no Authorities from the Laws and Constitutions of England K. Henry the 7th had indeed acquired the Crown by defeating that Tyrant and Usurper Richard the 3 d but as he pretended to be Heir of the Lancastrian Race himself so by marrying to the Heir of the House of York that was the right Heir he by a conjunction of all Titles made the matter sure But this gave him no right to alienate the Crown at his pleasure and to fancy that a King might be induced to give away his Crown from his own Son to the Person in the World that he hated most and whom at his Death he ordered his Son never
to forgive who by the way was not Duke but only Earl of Suffolk is a Dream better becoming so slight a brain as is that of Mr. Varillas than the consummated wisdome of the King and Queen of Spain But thus it falls out when a Library Keeper turns Statesman and when from being a teller of tales he will turn a Writer of Histories which he composes out of his own Imaginations he must needs fall into childish errours When do Kings fall under those weaknesses as to disinherit an only Son to cover them from a remote fear and a very remote one it was for the Archduke needed at that time the assistance of England against France too much to be in a condition to raise a Civil War in England and to support a competition to the Crown which could have no other effect as to him but to give France an opportunity during the distractions of England to come and destroy him In short here is a Vision of a poor-spirited Pedant which is too much considered when it named and laught at 7. He pretends to enter into the reasons that were alledged at Rome both for and against the granting of the Bull but at last he concludes that Pope Alexander the 6th would not consent to it that he might not give occasion to accuse him of having broken the Discipline of the Church But here is such a false representation of the Court of Rome at that time and in particular of P. Alexander the 6th that since Mr. Varillas will needs write Romances I must put him in mind of one Rule that as Painters shew their Judgment and Learning in that which is in one Word called le Costume observing the Air Manners and Habits of the Ages and Scenes to which their Pieces belong so Poets when they bring unknown Names into their Plays they may clothe them with what Characters they please but if they represent Men whose Histories are known they must not confound Characters nor represent a Nero as a grave Philosopher or as a good natured Prince nor a Marcus Aurelius as a wanton Stage-player or as a bloody Tyrant And therefore thô Mr. Varillas may shew his pretended discoveries concerning Men that are less known yet when he brings in an Alexander the 6th on the Stage it is too bold a violation of Poetry to lay a strictness of Conscience or a sense of Honour to his charge and thô there is one part of this Period true that there had never been any dispensation of this sort formerly granted to serve as a Precedent for it yet that exactness in which he represents the Enquiry that the Divines of Rome made concerning this matter agrees ill with the State of the Court of Rome at that time and a Painter may as justly represent the old Romans in Pantalaons and with Hats in their hands 8. He says K. Henry the 7th was preparing all things for the Mariage of his Son to the Princess when he died And a little before that he had said that her Parents sacrificed the Interest of their Family to the satisfaction of the King of England by consenting to it A Match with the Heir of the Crown of England was no very costly Sacrifice and for his vision concerning the design of marrying her to the Duke of Calabria and by that means of restoring the Kingdome of Naples it does so ill agree with the Character of the King of Arragon that since there is no proof brought of this I must look on it as one of those Imaginations with which Mr. Varillas loves to entertain his Readers But for K. Henry the 7th he was so far from making any preparations for the Mariage that one of the Writers of that Age assures us that at his Death he charged his Son to break it apprehending perhaps a return of a new civil War upon the issue of a doubtful Marriage 9. He gives us a new tast of his unskilfulness in ordering his Scenes He had found that when Henry the 8th's Divorce came to be started there was some discourse of a Match between him and Francis the first 's Sister afterwards the Queen of Navarre and therefore he thought a proposition for her might come in before the Mariage as a pretty ornament to his Fable But the silence of all the Papers of that Time which I have seen is a much better evidence against it than his pretended negotiation of Mr. de Piennes is for it to which no credit is due It is well known that in the Archives of Venice there are Recitals laid up of all the Negotiations of their Ambassadours and Mr. Varillas having perhaps heard of this he fancied it would have a good grace to cite such Recitals as to French Affairs thô all that know the State of France know that this has not been the practice of that Court But as there is no proof to shew that there was any such Proposition made at that Time so the State of K. Lewis the 12th's Court differs extreamly from it in which the Count of Angoulême afterwards Francis the first and his Sister were not so favourable as to give us reason to think that pains was taken to raise that Lady to the Throne of England 10. He tells us that King Henry the 8th calling a Parliament in the beginning of his Reign they thought themselves bound in point of Honour to oblige to execute his Father's Orders relating to his Mariage who had not only made it the chief Article of his Testament and charged his Son to do it upon his last Blessing but had laid the same charge on the Men of the greatest Credit in England as he spoke his last Words to them upon which the Parliament being careful to maintain this Authority to which they pretended over their Master did oblige him by repeated Remonstrances to marry the Princess Here he goes to show how implacably he is set against the Crown of England formerly he had debased their Birth but he thought that was not enough now he will degrade them of their Dignity and give the Parliament a Superiority over them But it is a fatal thing for an ignorant Man to write History for if Mr. Varillas could have so much as opened our Book of Statutes he would have found that the first Parliament that K. Henry the 8th held was assembled the 21. of Ianuary 1510. almost 8. Months after the Mariage which was celebrated six Weeks after he came to the Crown in which time if Mr. Varillas had understood any thing of our Constitutions he would have known that it was impossible for a Parliament to have met since there must be 40. Days between a Summonds and a Meeting of Parliament so that if the new King had summoned one the Day after his Father's Death it could not have met sooner than the day before the Mariage 11. He says the Queen bore five Children the first three Sons and the other two Girls
but the eldest Son lived only 9 Months the other two Sons and the eldest Girl died immediately after they were born only the youngest that was born the 8 of February 1515 was longer lived Mr. Varillas has a peculiar talent of committing more Errours in one single Period than any Writer of the Age and here he has given a good essay of his art for the Queen bore only three Children the first was a Son born the 1. of Ianuary that died the 22 of February thereafter which was not two full Months much less 9 Months the second Son died not immediatly but about a Fourtnight after he was born and the Daughter afterwards Q. Mary was born the 9th of February 1516. So that thô by chance he has hit the Month right yet he is mistaken both as to the Year and the Day of the Month. So unadvised a thing it is for an ignorant Writer to deliver matters of fact so particularly for thô this may deceive others that are as ignorant as himself by an appearance of exactness yet it lays him too open to those that can find the leisure and the patience to expose him and the last is no easy matter 12. He runs out into a very copious account of K. Henry's Disorders and dresses up Q. Katherine's Devotions in a very sublime strain It does not appear that in all that time he had any other Mistress but Elisabeth Blunt and during all that while he had the highest Panigyriques made him by all the Clergy of Europe upon his Zeal for Religion and Piety possible so that if we did not live in an Age in which Flattery has broke loose from all the restraints of Decency they would appear very extravagant Commendations and if the sublimities of Flattery were not rather a just prejudice against a Prince which give a character of a swelled Ambition and an imperious Tyranny that must be courted by such abject methods so that it is hard whither we ought to think worse of the Flaterers or the Flatered we would be tempted to judge very advantageously of K. Henry the 8th by the Dedications and other fawning Addresses that were made him As for Q. Katherine it does appear that she was indeed a vertuous and devout Woman but Mr. Varillas being more accustomed to Legends than to true Histories could not set out this without a considerable addition of his own for the half of it is not mentioned by any Author that ever I saw nor by any quoted by himself but a Poët must adorn his matter and if he has not judgment he overdoes it 13. He says the King designed to marry his natural Son the Duke of Richmont to his Daughter Mary upon which he makes that long digression concerning the Names of the Race of Tudors that was formerly considered When a Man affirms a thing that is so notoriously injurious to the Memory of a Prince he ought at least to give some sort of proof of its truth for thô in the accesses of Mr. Varillas's Religious Fits he does not think fit to trouble himself with those inconsiderable matters of Truth and Falsehood yet all the World is not of his mind and some colours of Truth are at least lookt for It is true a Negative is not easily proved so a bold Affirmer fancies he has some advantages but in this case it is quite otherwise for the whole series of the Original Instructions Messages and Letters that passed between Rome and England in that matter are still extant in all which there is not the least tittle relating to this Proposition And there are some things of such indecency that nothing but a temper like Mr. Varillas's can bring them together For when K. Henry was pretending a scruple of Conscience at his own marrying his Brother's Wise it is very improbable that he would have asked a Dispensation for a Mariage in a much nearer Degree For Sanders that is Mr. Varillas's Author says that both Propositions were made at the same time There were many Libels printed against K. Henry about that time but the strongest and the best writ was that of Cardinal Pools in which it is visible that he spares nothing that he could alledg with any colour of Truth yet he says nothing of this matter thô it had more weight in it to discover the King's Hypocrisy in pretending to scruples of Conscience than all the other things he alledges and I never could find any other Author for this Story before Sanders whose Book was printed 60 years after 14. He gives another essay of his skill in History and that he is equally ignorant of the Histories of all Kingdomes when he represents to us the endeavours of the King of Scotland for the obtaining of a Mariage with the Princes Mary in favours of his Son upon whose Person he bestows a kind dash of his Pen and he enters into a speculation of the danger that King Henry apprehended from this Proposition and that if he had rejected it the King and Prince of Scotland might have addressed themselves for it to the Parliament and that the Parliament would have raised a general Rebellion rather than have suffered King Henry to reject it The dislike that Mr. Varillas has conceived against the Crown of England seems deeply rooted in him for it returns very often Here he represents forreign Princes complaining to Parliaments when the Kings do not accept of Propositions for their Children as if our Princes were less at liberty in the disposal of their Children than the meanest of their Subjects are but he knows our Constitution as little as he does the History of Scotland otherwise he could not have represented the King of Scotland as pretending to the Mariage of the Princess Mary for his Son since K. Iames the fourth that had married King Henry's Sister was kill'd at the Battel of Floddun the 2 September 1513 above three years before the Princess was born he left an infant Son between whom and the Princess a Treaty of a Mariage was once proposed but no progress was made in it for K. Henry neglected it And he had always his Parliaments so subject to him to apprehend any of those vain Schemes with which Mr. Varillas would possess his Reader There are many that make no great progress in History but yet know somewhat of the Death of Kings and that carry some small measure of Chronology in their Head Yet since Mr. Varillas has not yet got so far he had best buy some common Chronological Tables and have them always before him when he writes and this will at least preserve him from such childish Errours 15. He tells us that there were many Pretenders to the young Princess and to make a full Period he tells us that all the Souverains of Europe courted her both the Emperour the Kings of France Spain and Scotland and so he gives us a fantastical speculation of King Henry's balancing those Propositions one against
Grandfather of this Henry had matched with one that was very near the Crown and Cosen German to K. Iames the 4th's and Sister to Hamilton Earl of Aran this Lord Darly's Mother was also Uterine Sister to K. Iames the 5. being the Daughter to the Queen Dowager of Scotland that was K. Henry the 8th's Sister who by her second mariage with the Earl of Angus Dowglass had Lady Isabel Dowglass who was bred in the Court of England and whom K. Henry the 8. maried to the Earl of Lennox that had by her this Lord Darly who as he was the Queen of Scotland's Cosin German was also the next Heir to the Crown of England after her and might have been a dangerous Competitour to her in that Succession having been born and bred in England so that this mariage was so far from making her contemptible to her Subjects that it was considered as the wisest act of her life and Mr. Var. could not Imagine any thing more honourable to the Earl of Morny's memory than to make him the adviser of so wise a choice It is no wonder to see Mr. Var. make so bold with meaner persons when he takes so much liberty wiht the Royal Family of England as to stain their descent for which if the consideration of the Crowns they wear did not restrain him yet the particular regard to the King that now reigns ought to have taught him so much respect as not to have ventured to blot his Scutcheon so far as to call his Great Grandfather a single Gentleman and if he had payd the respect he owed to the Memory of that unfortunate Princess he had no◠enlarged so much on her Story but I know what is due to the Memory of a crowned Head even when it is laid in ashes and thô he makes an easy weakness to be her prevailing Character upon which he would discharge all her Misfortunes this Picture is so different from the Truth that she was certainly one of the wittiest and highest spirited Women that ever lived But it seems Mr. Varillas has pretended to some Pension from the Crown of England and in revenge for the disappointment he has resolved to debase the Race all he can Here he affords our Kings the honour to be descended at least from a Gentleman thô one of the ordin ariest sort but upon another occasion he is not so liberal for in his History he says that Henry the 8th had reasons to desire the mariage of his Bastard Son the Duke of Richmond with his Daughter Mary that were too well known for libels had been spread over all Europe reproaching him that his Great Grandfather was not a Gentleman but that by his credit at Court and by the vast riches that he had acquired he had obtained leave to marry a Daughter of the Family of the Plantaganets that was then 16. degrees distant from the Crown and yet by that means his Grand-child came to reign upon which he makes a long speculation concerning the King's Reflections on that matter and the reasons that restrained him from writing on that subject as if it were an ordinary thing for Princes to become their own Heralds He also tells us how he comforted himself by the remembrance of the meanness of Arbaces K. of Persia that was the Son of a Locksmith whose Posterity had reigned so long and with so much glory and therefore he says he designed to marry his Natural Son and his Daughter together Here is such a mixture of Impertinencies that it is not easy to know at what one is to begin and if there were but this one period it is enough to let the World see how incapable Mr. Varillas is of writing History I shall not in this place shew the falsehood of that Imputation on Henry the 8th that he designed this incestuous Match for that will come in more property upon another occasion only if his Birth was defective on his Great Grandfathers side it was an odd method for the correcting of it to think of adding a new blot and of bringing a Bastard into the 5th Succession so the reason is as foolish as the matter of fact is false and the Ignorance that Mr. Var. shews here is the more remarkable because this matter belongs to the most extraordinary transaction that is in the whole French History in which he pretends to be so conversant I need not say any more to prove the Tudors to be Gentlemen but to tell that they are Welshmen of the Race of the Ancient Britons who do all pretend to the highest Birth of any in the English Nation and do run up their Pedigrees to Iulius Cesar's time among whom is the Race of the the Ap Theodore's or the Sons of Theodore that by a corruption of some Ages were called Tudors but knows Mr. Varillas so little of the French History as to have forgot that the Daughter of France that was maried to Henry the 5th of England in whose right both Henry the 5th and her son Henry the sixth were crowned Kings of France in Paris did after King Henry the 5th's death marry Owen Tudor by whom she had 3. Sons the two eldest were made the Earls of Richmont and Pembroke being the Kings Uterine Brothers and the next heirs to that Title that he claimed to the Crown of France in the right of his Mother which I am far from thinking was a good one This being the case it was no extraordinary thing for a man of the Earl of Richmont's rank to marry a Lady that was then at such a distance from the Crown thô it was only in the 6th and not the 16th degree but I do not insist on this because it may be only the fault of the Printer and I will not descend to a doubtful fault when I have such material ones in my way I know there are a sort of men that are much more ashamed when their Ignorance is discovered than when their other vices are laid open since degenerate minds are more jealous of the reputation of their understanding than of their honour And as Mr. Varillas is very like to be of this temper so if a simpathy with Mr. Maimbourg has not wrought him up to the like pitch of assurance such discoveries as these ought to affect him a little and here a man is apt to lose his patience when he finds such a Scribler pretend to defame the Noblest blood in the world There is nothing else in the first Prophetick Rhapsody that relates to our matters so I was inclined to go from hence to a more particular enquiry into our English affairs only the Ignorance that he discovers in the next paragraph is so surprising that I will bestow a short remark on it He says that the Switzers were so prevailed on by this pretext that their separating themselves from the Roman Communion was the best expedient to preserve them from falling under the Dominion of the House of Austria
shewed that the proposition of a Mariage between the Dauphin and the Princess was in the year 1518 long before Francis the first 's Imprisonment but the Treaty set on foot after his Liberty was either for himself or his second Son and this sort of a Treaty being somewhat extraordinary where the alternative lay between the Father and the Son for the same Lady Mr. Varillas shews his great ignorance of the Affairs of that Time since he says nothing of it for this would have given him occasion enough to have entertained his Reader with many Visions and Speculations 21. He says that Wolsey dealt with Longland the King's Confessour to possess him with scruples concerning the lawfulness of his Mariage that Longland refused to do it but engaged Wolsey to begin and he promised to fortify the scruples that the Cardinal should infuse into the King's mind Upon which the Cardinal did open the matter to the King and the King being shaken by his proposition laid the matter before his Confessour who seconded the Cardinal In this he has taken the liberty to depart from Sanders thô he is the Author whom he generally copies but it is easy to pretend to tell secrets but not so easy to prove them The King himself did afterwards in publick not only deny this but affirmed that Wolsey had opposed his scruples all he could and that he himself had opened them in Confession to Longland and the King himself said to Grineus that he was disquieted with those scruples ever from the year 1529 which was three years before the matter was made publick 22. He says the King upon that consulted the Divines of England concerning the validity of the Mariage and that all those that were Men of probity and disinteressed answered in the affirmative but some that did aspire or that were corrupted thought it doubtful others who were very few in number affirmed it was unlawful This is so false that all the Bishops of England Fisher only excepted declared under their Hands and Seals that they thought the Mariage unlawful 23. He gives a Character of Anne Boleyn in which he takes up the common Reports of her ill shape her yellow colour her gag tooth her Lump under her chin and her hand with six fingers but because all this agrees ill to the Mistress of a King he to soften that adds a long Character of her Wit her Air and Humour in which he lays her charms and here he takes all the licences of a Poët as well as of a Painter But as several of her Pictures yet extant shew the folly of those Stories concerning her Deformity so the other particulars of this Picture are for most part fetcht out of that Repository of false History that lies in Mr. Varillas's Imagination 24. He says the English Historians and some other Catholicks agree to those things and for his Vouchers he cites on the Margent Sanders Ribadeneira and Remond but they add many other particulars thô they differ concerning them and thô he will not affirm them to be true yet he thinks it worth the while to set them down They say that Anne Boleyn's true Father was not known that she was born in England while he was Ambassadour in France that Henry the 8th being in love with the Mother had sent away her Husband that so he might satisfy his Appetites more freely but that he soon quited the Mother for her eldest Daughter Mary that Sr. Thomas Boleyn at his return to England finding his Wife with Child begun a Sute against her but that the King forced him to be reconciled to his Wife and to own the Child that she bore some time after who was Anne Boleyn that this Daughter at the Age of 15 was dishonoured by two of her Father's Domesticks upon which she was sent to France where she was so common a Prostitute that she went by the Name of the English Hackney that she was a common subject of Raillery that she became a Lutheran thô she made still profession of the other Religion He says others make her pass for a Heroïne that cannot be enough commended yet he acknowledges there are not Authentical Evidences left to discover their imposture Here is a way of writing that agrees well with Mr. Varillas's other Qualities he was here in a cold fit and so his Religion did not operate so strong as to disengage him quite from all regard to truth only it produces one start that is sufficiently extravagant for he accuses all that is said in favours of Anne Boleyn of imposture thô at the same time he acknowledges there are not Authentick Evidences to disprove it but how then came he to know that those Commendations were Impostures He answers that in the beginning of this Paragraph and cites in general the Historians of England and other Catholick Writers and for the Historians of England he gives us Sanders alone thô he can hardly make a plural out of him unless he splits him into three or four subdivisions as he had done Charles the 5th when he reckoned up the Emperour and the King of Spain as two of the Pretenders to the Princess Mary But thô I have in my History demonstrated the falsehood of all this Legend so evidently that I had perhaps wearied my Reader by prooving that too copiously yet since I see that nature can croud so much impudence in Mr. Varillas alone as might serve even the whole Order of the Jesuites and that he is resolved to keep up the credit of the blackest falsehoods as the Church of Rome preserves still in her Breviary a great many Lessons with Prayers and Anthems relating to them that are now by the consent of learned Men exploded as Fables I must again lay open this matter thô I thought I had so fully confuted those Lies that even a Pension could not have engaged a Man to support them any more It may seem enough to an impartial Mind that Sanders was the first that ever published those Stories above 50 years after Anne Boleyn's Death that thô Card. Pool and the other Writers of that Time had left nothing unsaid that could blacken K. Henry yet none of them had brow enough to assert Sanders's Fictions and that after Anne Boleyn's Tragical Fall when her Misfortunes had made it a fashionable thing to blacken her yet these impostures were reserved for Sanders and for an Age in which he and many others of his Church were setting on many Rebellions and Conspiracies against Q. Elisabeth they were so powerfully acted by Mr. Varillas's Spirit of Religion thô they had not the folly to own it as he has done as to give themselves the liberty to say the foulest things against the Mother without giving themselves the trouble to enquire whither they were true or false and the things here advanced are of such a nature that either they must be evidently true or they are notoriously false for an Embassy into France of