the Princess Mary, the surprise could only be equalled by the alarm he experienced, when Henry revealed his matrimonial engagement with Anne Boleyn. Aware that to attempt to shake the king's resolve on this point would not only be utterly useless, but would inevitably draw on himself the displeasure of his sovereign, he concealed his feelings, and determined, by delaying as long as he possibly could the proceedings for the divorce, to give Henry time to be weaned from Anne Boleyn before its accomplishment, counting on the natural fickleness and caprice of his master for the probability of this result.

Cardinal Wolsey felt a peculiar repugnance to Anne Boleyn. Whether it originated in having observed certain demonstrations of dislike on her part, occasioned by the recollection of his having broken off her engagement with Percy, the only man she ever really loved, or that his suspicions of her disposition towards the tenets of Luther had been excited, has never been proved; but certain it is, that Henry's choice of a wife from among all his subjects could not have fallen on any one so objectionable to the cardinal as Anne. Yet, when he believed that Henry's views were directed to her in a dishonourable way, Wolsey, forgetful of the conduct it behoved his sacred profession to pursue, in direct violation of all morality and decency, encouraged the attachment, and gave fêtes expressly to afford opportunities for Henry and Anne to meet. Two letters, written by Anne to Wolsey soon after she was led to believe that he was exerting all his energies to forward the divorce, prove that she was either wholly imposed on by him, or that she practised an artfulness and hypocrisy towards him for which even her most zealous advocates cannot furnish an excuse. The style of the letters, too, is mean and undignified, resembling more that of a poor suppliant to a superior, than the address of a lady who believed

herself on the eve of becoming a queen, to him who was to be one of her future subjects.'

The decorum of Anne's conduct for a long time prevented the queen from discovering that her husband's desire to divorce her did not originate wholly in the scruples of conscience which he affected to feel on the subject, or, at least, that another motive urged him more impatiently to accomplish it. At a splendid entertainment given to the French ambassador at Greenwich, the homage offered by Henry to Anne was so openly displayed, that it excited general remark, and led to Catherine's discovery of the truth. The reproaches of the indignant queen awakened no remorse in the selfwilled and selfish Henry, who only became more anxious to break the bond that still tied him to an injured woman, whose presence had grown odious to him. It had been noticed ever since Catherine had first heard that a divorce had been whispered, that she had taken more pains in her dress, and had assumed a gaiety and love of pleasure always foreign to her nature, but now peculiarly so, when her heart was wounded in its tenderest affections, and her mind tormented by all the feelings of jealousy and fear. This was the last effort of a despairing but still loving wife to win back her husband, by adopting the light pleasures he enjoyed. She even encouraged music and dancing, and mingled in scenes of festivity ill suited to her sober tastes and tortured heart. But vain were the attempts to please and conciliate him who looked for happiness in another's eyes! The grave and stately Catherine, formed to inspire respect, could ill compete with the young and fascinating Anne Boleyn, whose smiles and graces won admiration and created love. If all beholders were ready to acknowledge the contrast between the past and present possessor of Henry's affection, how much more power

1 See Harleian Miscellany, vol. i. pages 199-200.

C

fully did he feel it! The very attempt of Catherine to please and lure him back offended and disgusted him; and his timeserving courtiers, seeing his increasing dislike to his unhappy queen, and growing passion for her rival, transferred to Anne Boleyn the obsequious demonstrations of respect which they had previously paid to Catherine. The great mass of the people, however, swerved not from their allegiance to their queen, and so strongly manifested their dissatisfaction at the neglect and injustice which she experienced, that it was found expedient that Anne should leave the court for a time. How impatiently she submitted to this step was proved not only by her angry declaration when it occurred, "that she would return no more," but by the sullen silence which she maintained, not deigning to return any answers to the loving and submissive letters addressed to her by Henry during the two months she remained in the country.' The humiliation of her compelled absence from the court so offended the pride of Anne, that to soothe her, a magnificent residence was prepared for her in London; but even with this peace-offering she long resisted the pressing requests of the king and the commands of her father, ere she consented to return to court. The mansion provided for her was Suffolk House, on which Henry expended a large sum, to prepare it for her reception. So impatient was her royal lover for her arrival, that he wrote to urge her to abridge by two days the one named for that event. When Cardinal Wolsey busied himself in procuring this dwelling for Anne, which was near York House, his own abode, and probably selected for the convenience it afforded for Henry's constant visits to her, he little anticipated that he was preparing the way for the final loss of that stately pile, which he lent to the king on that occasion, but of which Henry ever after kept possession.

1 See Harleian Miscellany, vol. i. pages 189-199.

While Anne Boleyn was impatiently anticipating the divorce which was to enable her to ascend the throne she so ardently longed to share, the disease known by the name of "sweating sickness" broke out, and caused universal alarm in the court. Henry, who had only completed his pedantic treatise on the illegality of his marriage with Catherine a short time previously, a production of which he was not a little vain, and of the labour which it cost him he made not a slight merit to Anne, was struck with such superstitious dread by this alarming epidemic, that he consented to the representations of Wolsey to send Anne to her father's seat in Kent. To her, he pretended that this step was taken in order to preserve her from infection, while in truth it was the result of his own superstitious fears, as was proved by his effecting a reconciliation with his queen, his belief in her sanctity leading him to think that near her he would be safe. He, nevertheless, did not abandon his suit to his absent mistress, but continued to address to her letters filled with professions of affection for her person, and anxiety for her health; while by this temporary reconciliation with his injured queen he was deceiving her into a belief that all might yet be well between her and her still beloved husband.

Anne did not escape the dangerous malady then raging with such fury. It assailed her a month after she arrived in Kent, and for some time her life was in danger, and Henry in the utmost alarm.' He sent his own physician to attend her, and visited her himself soon after her convalescence. It was probably during this visit that the joint letter supposed to be addressed by Anne and Henry to the Cardinal Wolsey was written, but which letter, in a mutilated form, we find given in Sir Henry Ellis's Original Letters as being written by Queen Catherine and Henry. It certainly bears

See Henry's twelfth letter to Anne, in vol. i. p. 196, Harleian Miscellany.
Ellis's Original Letters, vol. i. p. 274.

internal evidence of being the joint production of Anne and Henry, rather than of Catherine and Henry, and the relative positions of the parties considered, we should be disposed to incline to this opinion. Nevertheless, the well-known accuracy of Sir Henry Ellis prevents our questioning his judgment, although Miss Strickland, to whose indefatigable industry and researches her readers are so much indebted, has adopted a different opinion, and cites the letter as being Anne's and Henry's.'

Once established in Suffolk House, the open court paid to her by her enamoured sovereign and his courtiers left no doubt on the minds of all those who witnessed it, that her position was of a most compromising nature; and to a proud mind like hers, conscious of no actual guilt, however appearances implied the existence of such, must have occasioned deep mortification; for the adulation showered on her must have proved to her in what a light she was viewed by those who offered it. It is painful to contemplate a woman, who had not yet really sacrificed her virtue, although she had accepted so false and indelicate a position, writhing under the consequences entailed by her own unwise condescension, and appearing before the injured queen, to whom her presence under existing circumstances must have been an insult. Scandal, ever ready to judge by appearances, blazoned forth the imagined culpability of Anne, who must have consoled herself for present humiliation by the anticipation of future dignity and grandeur, when the homage then offered to her would be justified by her elevation to the throne. It was not alone in England that intelligence of her position at court was circulated. The ambassadors from foreign courts' reported it to

1 Strickland's Queens of England, vol. iv. p. 196.

2" Mademoiselle de Boulan," writes the French ambassador, "has arrived, and the king has placed her in very fine lodgings, immediately adjoining his own, and there every day more court is paid to her than she ever made to the queen.”— Strickland's Queens of England, vol. iv. p. 204.