Catharine's cause was taken up at Rome; Clement's brief forbidding the king to remarry was followed by final sentence in Catharine's favor.

Her last years were rendered miserable by humiliation and acts of petty spite.
When she died her late husband, with characteristic indecency, [Sidenote: January 1536] celebrated the joyous event by giving a ball at which he and Anne appeared dressed in yellow.
[Sidenote: March 1534] The feeling of the people showed itself in this case finer and more chivalrous than that prevalent at court.

The treatment of Catharine was so unpopular that Chapuis wrote that the king was much hated by his subjects.

[Sidenote: January, 1536] Resolved to make an example of the murmurers, the government selected Elizabeth Barton, the "Holy Maid of Kent." After her hysterical visions and a lucky prophecy had won her an audience, she fell under the influence of monks and prophesied that the king would not survive his marriage with Anne one month, and proclaimed that he was no longer king in the eyes of God.

[Sidenote: April 1, 1534] She and her accomplices were arrested, attainted without trial, and executed.