“And you, Anne Boleyn, you also confess, acknowledge, and swear before God, and in presence of his holy church, that you now take for your husband and legitimate spouse Henry of Lancaster, here present.”
“Yes,” stammered Anne Boleyn, who had no relatives, no friends around her—no one except two valets and a femme de chambre.
“You promise to keep to him faithfully in all things, as a faithful wife should her husband, according to the commandment of God?”
“Yes,” she answered more distinctly.
Then the priest took the nuptial ring, and, placing it in the hand of the king, made a sign to give it to his wife.
Henry VIII., leaning toward Anne Boleyn, gave it to her, seeming scarcely conscious that he did so. The sight of this ring recalled the one he had given Catherine on a former and similar occasion, the sanctity of the engagements he had
contracted with her, the love he then bore her, her youth, her sincerity, her charms, her virtues, the tranquillity of his own conscience; now, he had dissipated all these blessings—dissipated them wilfully and through his own fault; he felt himself despised and despicable. His legitimate wife driven forth and discarded, while he took another by means of a disgraceful falsehood which must be very soon discovered. He no longer had children; he had renounced at the same time all the rights of a man, a father, a husband, in order to recommence, at his age, a new career, already branded with disgraceful recollections and shameful regrets.
“May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob unite you, and may he shower his benedictions upon you! I now pronounce you man and wife, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said the priest, making the sign of the cross over them.
“Amen!” responded the assistants.
“No benedictions! Don’t talk to me about benedictions, wretches!” replied Henry in a stifled voice.