3-052-567 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn" by G.P. Folingsby, National Gallery of Art, Melbourne, Australia, 1880. Engraving of a painting. 'In this picture...two well-known personages of English history are represented, of whom the saddest and most shameful tale is to be told...The spirit of ecclesiastical partisanship has also inclined many zealous friends of the Protestant Reformation, as by law established in the reign of Henry VIII., to condone the gross crimes of which that selfish profligate and hypocrite was guilty, in putting away a true and faithful wife under pretence of religions scruples, forcing the Church to sanction this foul iniquity, and instantly seizing, by his marriage with Anne, the object of a base and licentious desire. Throughout the series of intrigues consummated by that most unholy union...the part of Anne Boleyn could not have been an innocent part; and her conduct then, in supplanting her Royal mistress, was really far worse than the alleged infidelities to Henry which he afterwards made a pretext for killing the woman he had ceased to fancy...the crafty prelate-courtier [Archbishop Cranmer] is discerned in the background...sneaking away from the enamoured pair, yet slyly watching their demeanour to each other'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.