reasoned with the young lady,' and brought her to confession that she had been in fault; court scandals declare she acknow ledged her guilt to the queen, but this is scarcely consistent with the disinterested love Mary then cherished for an honourable gentleman at court, whom she directly after married. SirThomas Boleyn renounced Mary as his daughter, because she persisted in marrying this lover, whose name was William Carey.' He was a younger brother and wholly without fortune, yet he was a near kinsman of king Henry by descent from the Beauforts. In all probability the discussion between the queen and Mary Boleyn led to the result of that young lady marrying the man she loved; for if king Henry had provided his kinsman as a husband to rid him of Mary Boleyn, would he not have rewarded him so amply as to have satisfied her father? Instead of which, it is incontestable from Henry's own statement, (which will be subsequently quoted,) that the young pair were destitute. Mary Boleyn's marriage took place January 31, 1521. The court were present, and there is every reason to believe that the queen made the usual offerings at the altar. The duke of Buckingham, whose sad tragedy takes fatal precedence in the long list of executions in the reign of Henry VIII., had been one of Katharine's earliest friends in England, and they were always on terms of amity. He ordered a costly present to be prepared for her against New year's day, 1520,3 being a large pomander or globe of gold, perforated, and formed to open and enclose a ball of perfumed paste. The pomander had the king and queen's badges embossed thereon, and was suspended by a gold chain to hang at the queen's girdle. This jewel was presented to her majesty by Buckingham's confidential servant, Mr. Scott. Queen Katharine and cardinal Wolsey had lived in the greatest harmony till this time, when his increasing personal pride urged him to conduct which wholly deprived him of the queen's 1 Sanders affirmed she had confessed her guilt to the queen.-See Burnet, vol. i. p. 260. For sir Thomas Boleyn's opposition, see Love-letters of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. For Carey's illustrious descent, see Milles' Catalogue of Honour; articles Boleyn and Beaufort. Carey is named as of Henry's privy-chamber in a list of his household in 1522.-Rutland Papers, p. 102: Camden Society. 3 Ellis Historical Letters; third Series, vol. i. 221. esteem. One day, the duke of Buckingham was holding the basin for the king to wash, when it pleased the cardinal to put in his hands. The royal blood of the duke rose in indignation, and he flung the water in Wolsey's shoes, who, with a revengeful scowl, promised Buckingham "that he would sit on his skirts." The duke treated the threat as a joke, for he came to court in a jerkin; and being asked by the king the reason of this odd costume, he replied, that "it was to prevent the cardinal from executing his threat, for if he wore no skirts they could not be sat upon." As Wolsey could find no crime to lay to the charge of Buckingham, he had recourse to the example of the preceding century, and got up among other charges an accusation of treasonable sorcery against the highspirited noble, which speedily brought his head on the block. The just and generous queen, after uselessly pleading for him with the king, did not conceal her opinion of Wolsey's conduct in the business. The next year her nephew, the emperor, paid a long visit at her court, the secret object of which was to excite a war against France. He landed at Dover, and came with king Henry by water to Greenwich-palace, where Katharine then was. The queen received him standing at the hall-door, holding the princess Mary by the hand. Charles bent his knee and craved his aunt's blessing, which she gave him, perhaps in the character of mother-in-law, for his ostensible errand was to betroth himself with her daughter Mary, a little girl of six years old. The emperor stayed six weeks in England. During his visit a bon-mot of his was circulated at court, which obtained for himself and his aunt the active enmity of Wolsey. When Charles heard of the execution of Buckingham, he said, in allusion to Wolsey's origin and Buckingham's title, "Then has the hatcher's dog pulled down the fairest buck in Christendom." Queen Katharine passed the Christmas holidays of 1523 at Eltham-palace, where Longland, bishop of Lincoln, undertook to show and explain to her the noble foundation of Christ's college, Oxford, just then established by cardinal Wolsey. It was the eve of the Epiphany, the queen's dinner was done, when the bishop (who is well known in history as the king's confessor) entered with the other lords into the queen's chamber. Henry himself, with Katharine, approached the place where bishop Longland stood, and said to her these words: "Madame, my lord of Lincoln can show of my lord cardinal's college at Oxford, and what learning there is and shall be."-"And so the king departed, and I," wrote the bishop to Wolsey,1 “showed the queen's grace the effect of all, and what great good should come of the same, likewise in the exposition of the Bible; and expressed to her grace the number of the house, the divine service of your college, and of the great suffrages of prayer ye have made her participant of." Wolsey had not been in favour with queen Katharine since the death of the duke of Buckingham, but he took the opportunity of thus informing her, by his friend, that she was particularly prayed for in the chapel of his new college. The queen was mollified by an attention which came home to her Catholic predilections. "I thank my good lord," she said, "for his remembrance, and that it please him for to make me partivor of that good prayers." Here is a little instance of Katharine's broken English,-perhaps quoted on purpose to prove to Wolsey that the conversation had taken place. The queen "was joyous and glad to hear of this notable foundation and college, speaking great honour of the same." The war with France, which followed the emperor's visit to England, occasioned the return of Anne Boleyn to her native country, when she received the appointment of maid of honour to queen Katharine, of whose court she became the star. The queen rejoiced much at the triumphs of her nephew Charles V. in Italy over Francis I. Just before the disastrous battle of Pavia, news-letters were brought to her court from Pace, the king's envoy, which anticipated a signal reverse to the French. "The king," says sir Thomas More in a letter to Wolsey, "fell merrily to reading the letters of maister Pace, 1 Cott. MS., Vit. B v. f. 8, printed in Ellis's Historical Letters, vol. i. p. 182: letter of Longland to Wolsey. ? Lord Herbert, confirmed by Dr. Lingard, vol. v. p. 110. the contents of which highly contented him; and forthwith he declared the news on every material point, which he well noted, reading aloud to the queen's grace and those about him, who were marvellous glad to hear it." Queen Katharine, with ome national pride, observed, "I am glad the Spaniards have lone somewhat in Italy, in return for their departure out of Provence." The court was at that time, November 1524, at Hertford-castle, where king Henry was planning a match etween young Mr. Broke and one of queen Katharine's naidens. The recent passion of Henry for Mary Boleyn probably linded the queen to the fact, that he had transferred his love, with increased vehemence, to her more fascinating and accomplished sister. His love for Anne Boleyn was nevertheless concealed even from its object, till his jealousy of young Percy caused it to be suspected by the world. Meantime the queen's health became delicate, and her spirits lost their buoyancy. Her existence was in a very precarious state from 1525 to 1526. Probably the expectation of the queen's speedy demise prevented the king from taking immediate steps for a divorce after he had separated Anne Boleyn and young Percy. Katharine herself thought the end of her life was near. This is apparent in a letter she wrote to Wolsey, concerning the settlement in marriage of one of her ladies, who had been very attentive to her during her long affliction: "MY LORD, "It hath pleased the king to be so good lord unto me, as to speak unto Arundel, the heir, for a marriage to be had between him and one of my maids; and upon this I am agreed with him, having a sum of money which, being offered auto him, he shall make her sure jointure during her life, the which she cannot be sure of without the licence and goodwill of his father, being on lice, [alive]. For the which cause I beseech you to be good and gracious lord to the said Arundel for business which he hath now to do before you, to the intent that he may have time to go to his father, and make me sure of her jointure in this present term time. "And if this be painful inconvenient] to you, I pray you my lord pardon me, for the uncertainty of my life and the goodness of my woman causeth me to 'Original Letters, edited by sir Henry Ellis, vol. i. p. 254. * Cavendish mentions Thomas Arundel as one of the gentlemen of cardinal Wolsey's privy-chamber, hence the queen's request of leave of absence for him : the name of the queen's lady does not occur. The letter, in its original orthoraphy, is printed in the Retrospective Review, 502. make all this haste, trusting that she shall have a good husband and a sure living; and if God would call me the next day after, the surer it shall appear before him that I intend to help them that be good, and taketh labour doing me service. And so I make an end, recommending me unto you. "At Ampthill, the XXV day of January." "KATHARINE THE QWENE Katharine is scarcely mentioned in history from 1525 to 1526, which time she passed in lingering malady, and to this period certainly belongs the above letter, in which she shows her usual gratitude and consideration for those who had served her. The style of the letter is different from the confidential manner of those she formerly wrote to Wolsey, yet it is in a far more friendly strain than she would have indited to him after the events which took place in the year 1527, when the king's long-meditated divorce from her was publicly agitated' by Wolsey's agency. The first indications of the king's intentions were his frequent lamentations to his confessor, Dr. Longland, that his conscience was grieved by his marriage with his brother's widow, mixed with regrets for the failure of male offspring, and of the queen's hopeless state of ill health. Wolsey's enmity to the queen and her nephew caused him to be an inciter of the divorce; he had always, for the promotion of his power, kept a circle of court spies about Katharine, and all his insidious arts were redoubled at this juncture. "If the queen was intimate with any lady, to that person he was familiar in conversation and liberal in gifts, in order to make her reveal all she said and did. . . . . . I know one lady," adds Tindal, the celebrated scriptural translator, "who left the court for no other reason than that she would no longer betray her majesty." As a means of introducing the subject of the invalidity of his marriage with Katharine to his privy council, Henry asserted that, at Easter 1527, the French ambassador, being the bishop of Tarbes, had questioned the legitimacy of the princess Mary. Of course the most confidential of the king's advisers suggested cautiously the expediency of a divorce. These particulars came to the queen's ears about a month after, but how, notwithstanding 1 Charles V. was aware in 1525 or 6 that the king meant to divorce his aunt. State-Papers, Wolsey's letter to the king, vol. i. pp. 194, 196, 198, 220, fər these particulars; but there is not the least evidence that the bishop of Taros ever acted in this manner |