while those who figure in such sights are pleased to exhibit their finery, forgot, in the excitement occasioned by the coronation, the causes they might have had for the disapproval of the marriage, after the evil reports so long in circulation relative to Anne. Queen Catherine, too, had many wellwishers, who considered her an ill-used woman, and these persons, as well as all who still adhered to a belief of the supremacy of the pope, were naturally the enemies of Anne. Nevertheless, all causes for enmity were forgotten by the mass in the anticipation of the pleasures to be enjoyed at the coronation, more especially as such a fête had the additional attraction of novelty, thirty years having elapsed since Henry had crowned his former Queen Catherine. Nor were the expectations of the people disappointed. The preface to the regal festival, namely, the conducting the queen from Greenwich to the Tower, presented one of the most brilliant sights ever beheld in England, and well calculated to enlist the patriotic sympathies of the nation at large, by exhibiting the splendour of the civic fleet, of which all were proud. "The queen embarked at Greenwich in a state barge, escorted by no less than fifty barges, with awnings of cloth of gold or silk, emblazoned with the arms of England, and ornamented with various curious devices, among which the queen's appropriate one of a falcon was eminently conspicuous. The lord mayor's barge was next to the royal one, in which, superbly attired in cloth of gold, sat Anne, surrounded by her ladies. A hundred barges belonging to the nobility followed, magnificently ornamented with silk or cloth of gold, gliding on in harmonious order, and to measured strains of music. The river was covered with boats; the shores were lined with spectators; and it might be supposed that London was deserted of its inhabitants, but for the innumerable multitudes collected near the Tower, to witness the queen's disembarkation." 1

1 Benger's Memoirs of Anne Boleyn, vol. ii. p. 419.

The heroine of this splendid pageant was well calculated to enhance its attractions. Graceful, and if not perfectly beautiful, allowed by most, if not all her contemporaries, to possess peculiar fascination of countenance and manner, Anne perhaps never looked so lovely as on this, the proudest and happiest day of her life-a day which saw her elevated, in the eyes of a great people, to the highest pinnacle to which her lofty ambition had ever aspired, and which, by its splendour and solemn state, threw a halo around her that effaced from the minds of those who witnessed it the dark shade that had previously obscured her fame. Happiness, it has been said, is the best of all cosmetics for conferring beauty, and this was now her own. Her delighted eyes read admiration in every glance of those of her subjects; her ravished ears drunk in the plaudits and blessings of those who beheld in her the object whom their king delighted to honour. The consciousness of the feelings she excited lent such new animation to her beauty, and benevolence to her countenance, that those who gazed on her no longer wondered nor censured the monarch who had raised her to his throne, however blameable the steps which led to it might have been. Little could Anne have imagined that she, the admired of all beholders, the object of a great sovereign's passionate love, and of a people's homage, should ever have cause to lament the day which now seemed to insure her earthly felicity and grandeur! Could some spirit have whispered in her ear that the same hand which raised her to the giddy height she had this day attained would, ere little more than three fleeting years should have elapsed, sign her condemnation to a scaffold, that the head which a diadem should so soon encircle, amid the applauding shouts of thousands, would fall from the ensanguined block by the will of him who now doted on her so fondly, as to subvert the religion sanctioned by ages, in order to make her his queen,-how would she have spurned

the prophecy! Fortunately for poor erring mortals, their destinies are hidden, and often does the period which they deem the commencement of happiness prove but the entrance to wretchedness. On the following day,' Anne was conveyed in a litter through the streets of the metropolis, attended by a brilliant procession, and attired in a style of regal splendour that lent new charms to her person; and on Whit Sunday the ceremony of her coronation closed. Never was the rare gracefulness of Anne so conspicuous as on this occasion, when, feeling herself now indeed a queen, she added a calm and decent dignity to the winning softness of a woman, sure of pleasing all who beheld her, that might justify him who had selected her to fill that high station. The king, who viewed the whole ceremonial from a window where he had taken his place, was delighted by the dignity, propriety, and grace with which she performed her part in it, and, more enamoured than ever, lavished on her the most tender attentions.

Whatever might have been the errors of Anne previously to her ascending the throne, she evinced soon after that event every desire to fulfil the duties it imposed. Her long-cherished desire to become the wife of Henry now gratified, and the novelty of her position for some time deceiving her into the erroneous belief that the possession of grandeur and power must secure felicity, she was so grateful to him who had conferred them, that the first wish of her heart was to give happiness to the king and his people, and for a brief period she imagined she possessed the power as well as the will. But of short duration was this fair illusion, and Anne soon discovered that a crown may weigh so heavily on the head of its wearer, as to banish repose and scare away happiness. The jarring interests of her relations, who beheld with jealousy and anger every favour accorded by her, occasioned her fre

Benger's Life of Anne Boleyn, vol. ii. p. 421.

quent pain and solicitude, and she early discovered that the affection they had formerly entertained for her was lost in the ambitious projects to which her elevation had given rise. Her absorbing desire to keep alive the passion of Henry rendered her days a scene of anxiety and alarm. She knew that if once his passion became sated, she could no more count on those gentler and less selfish sentiments of affection which take the place of it in the breasts of better men. Hence she regarded with terror every indication of even a transitory coldness in her husband, or any symptom of attention to any other woman, well aware that he who broke down the many barriers that interposed between him and herself, would not scruple to crush her, whenever she stood between him and the gratification of a new flame. And yet this never-dying anxiety must be concealed from every eye, but most of all from his who caused it. She must dress her face in smiles to meet him, while her heart was tortured with dread, unconscious that the constraint imposed on her by her desire to please, and fears of not always succeeding, greatly deteriorated from her power to amuse the capricious tyrant whose fickle heart she wished to retain.

In her uncle, the proud Duke of Norfolk, the queen had a secret enemy; for, a firm supporter of the ancient faith, he looked with aversion on her who was accused of leading to its subversion, and eyed with bitter jealousy her father and brother, whose influence over her he knew to be great. He likewise was enraged that the choice of Henry had not fallen on his own daughter, the fair Lady Mary Howard, instead of on his niece; and thus discontented, and bent on injuring those he envied, he formed an intimacy with one whose enmities were as stubborn and implacable as his own, urged on by a bigotry still greater. This ally was no other than Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, a man more desirous of

gratifying his own ambitious views, than fastidious as to the means to be employed for carrying them into effect. The Earl of Wiltshire, who had looked for greater aggrandizement when he became the father-in-law of the king, was dissatisfied that his expectations had not been realized, and thought that his daughter might have accomplished this point; so that in only one branch of her family could Anne hope for sympathy and affection, notwithstanding that she had done all in her power to forward the interests of all. The branch to which we refer was the Lord Rochford, her brother, no less endeared to her by the ties of consanguinity than by a congeniality of tastes and pursuits. Lord Rochford, the friend and companion of the Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt, possessed, like them, a refinement of taste and manners, and a talent. for, as well as a love of literature, which rendered his society peculiarly agreeable to Anne. In his fraternal heart all her thoughts and cares were reposed, and in this dear brother she found her truest friend. He had wedded a woman utterly unsuited to him, and who, instead of correcting the evil qualities which rendered her so distasteful to her husband, resented with bitter hate the indifference he could not conceal. The affection between the brother and sister—an affection in which only a base and depraved mind could dream of evil-excited a rage and jealousy in her breast - which only required an opportunity to blaze forth into a destructive flame. This bad woman, in right of her connexion with the queen, was suffered to be near her at court, as was also the Lady Edward Boleyn, the wife of her uncle, although both these ladies had always been peculiarly disagrecable to Anne.

Whatever might have been the levity and love of pleasure attributed to Anne previously to her ascending the throne, it was allowed by all who approached her afterwards that her

D