laden with the scent of many herbs, was freshened by the salt of neighbouring seas.

2. The pile was square in form and built of light grey stone. A gateway, flanked by towers, opposed the entrance of a foe, who, unlike Cupid, had to enter by the door. One pathway only led into this bower; a pathway barred by triple gates; each gate being built of oak and bound by clamps. Within these gates were guard-rooms for the halberdiers, with slits for those who threw out burning pitch and poured down molten lead. A courtyard occupied the inner space; round which the castellated walls and chambers rose. Pleasant and quaint her castle was within. Above her room, and that of her brother George, a gallery ran from end to end; a gallery with mullion windows, oaken panels, and a fretted roof. This gallery was the hall of state.

3. Her family was large and scattered over many shires. She had no mother to direct her steps, but in a mother's stead she had a stepmother, a grandmother, a step-grandmother, and a host of aunts on both her father's and her mother's sides. Anne's family connexions threw themselves into three primary groups; first the Boleyns; then the Butlers; afterwards the Howards; each of which might be divided into two or three separate sets.

4. First of all came her father, her father's second wife, her sister Mary, her sister Mary's husband, and her brother George. After her mother's death, Boleyn, like a man fatigued with the ascending greatness of his family, had made a match of the affections; giving his hand and fortune to à se

cond Elizabeth, but one of humble birth and loving nature, whom Anne regarded as her "own mother." Boleyn was in Spain, negotiating with the Emperor, and Henry in his absence was creating him a baron of the realm. A garter waited his return. Mary was married to Carey, an esquire of the King's body, and was still in some disgrace with all her family, as a woman who had thrown herself away. George, her brother, was a quick and handsome boy, a wit, a scholar, and the darling of his sister's heart. While yet a child he had been introduced at court by a mother proud of his beauty and his talents, and had played his little part in masque and mummery. Like his father and his sister, George had taken to the liberal learning of his day, and in his Oxford course had won by his abilities a noted place. Early in life he had begun to toy with verse, the fine accomplishment of a liberal age, and by his talents he was helping that revival of English poetry which his playmate Wyat and his cousin Surrey were to foster into vigorous life.

5. Next came her father's brothers and sisters, with their several wives and husbands. William, her eldest uncle, was a priest, a man of homely talents, who never rose beyond the occupancy of a prebendary stall. Sir James, her second uncle, lived at Blickling Park, a man of busy brain, and jealous of her father as the eldest born. Edward, her youngest uncle, was a country gentleman, living on his Norfolk property and holding up his head extremely high. One of her aunts was married to Sir John Shelton, a second to Sir Thomas Bryan, and a third

to Sir John Sackville. Anne's cousin, Sir Richard Sackville, of Buckhurst, was the father of Thomas Sackville the poet.

6. Next came the Irish grandmother, Lady Margaret, and her Kilkenny kith and kin; her far-off, uncle Piers, and her unwelcome suitor James. A tough and hectic creature, filled with a sense of wrong, Lady Margaret was eager for revenge on Piers the Red. Piers still kept the title he had seized; but suit and counter-suit were running in the Irish courts. Lord Boleyn appealed to his grant of livery under the great seal of England; Piers replied by reference to his Brehon law and to the customs of an Irish sept. Wolsey was watching them with curious eye; not caring whether Boleyn won or lost his suit; but anxious to depress Kildare, and bent on marrying Anne to James if such an act seemed likely to achieve his ends.

7. In the group of Howards, stood her mother's father, the Great Duke; her mother's brethren, Thomas and Edmund, and their several wives. Lady Muriel, her aunt, was gone. "Lady Lisle," her cousin, had now married Henry Courtney, nineteenth Earl of Devon, the King's first cousin of the royal blood. Norfolk was seventy-eight years old; a wonder in an age when men were counted old at fortyfive. But he was sinking towards his rest; his duty to his sovereign and his country done. The voices of his children ruled in Howard House and Kenninghall. Her uncle Surrey's union with Elizabeth Stafford had been blessed in a fine boy; that cousin Henry, who in after ages was to share with Wyat

the imperial crown of English song. Lord Edmond, her younger uncle, was married to Joyce Lady Lee, a widow, who was bringing him a brood of little ones; among them that cousin Kate, who was to succeed her in the perilous post of Henry's queen and wife.

8. Except in giving birth to that fair boy who was to gild the name of Surrey with poetic gold, nothing but misery had come to any one from Surrey's union with Elizabeth Stafford. Neville, her youthful lover, had consoled his heart with Lady Catharine; but Elizabeth, a fretful and imperious creature, was unable to endure the man who in his lust of pelf had torn her from a lover's arms. Her mother, Elinor, had lived in doubtful happiness with the Duke, her father; but the brawls at Thornbury had been nothing to the strife at Tendring Hall. The Countess closed her husband's doors against her husband's kin. She left his house. She drove him by her temper from the roof under which his children slept. Yet she contrived, with the perverted genius of a young and lively woman, to withdraw him from his ancient friends, and even the connexions of his blood. Except his father, whom she could not easily exclude, few members of his family were seen at Tendring Hall. Dorset and Kent, Fitzwater and Arundel, were asked. No Boleyn ever figured in her list of guests.

CHAPTER VII.

The Wyats.

1523.

I. ON Anne's return from France she had been named to a position in the Wardrobe, and had fallen naturally into the circle of the Howards and the Wyats. Nothing in her face and form was likely to attract much notice from the King, who saw in her no more than the rather plain woman of Celtic air and pallid skin whom he had long been trying to unite with the son of Piers the Red. Her qualities were of a kind that hardly take the eye. Her wit and mirth, her depth of feeling, and her joyousness of heart, required a nearer knowledge to perceive. A poet might have felt her value at a glance, and he who was to be the prince of poets in his age and country, took her before a host of lovelier women as the inspiration of his song.

2. From childhood Anne had known the Wyat family. Their home was Allington, an ancient manor on the Medway, near Boxley Abbey, one of the most popular shrines in Kent; the chapel in this abbey having a Rood of Grace, in front of which a crowd of pilgrims daily knelt, and as well as a test of chastity to which suspected wives and maids were brought to purge their fame. Boleyn and Wyat had for many years been close and steadfast friends;