been stated in confirmation of such aspersions, she was probably innocent of any thing beyond levity of manner. Even in the present age it may be observed, that ladies who aim at becoming leaders of the beau monde, not unfrequently acquire that species of undesirable notoriety which causes them to be regarded as blaze. It is possible that Anne Boleyn might be so considered by the more sedate ladies in the service of queen Claude. Anne Boleyn is not mentioned as one of the company at the field of the cloth of gold,' yet it is almost certain that she was present in the train of her royal mistress, queen Claude. Her father, her stepmother, her uncle sir Edward Boleyn and his wife, and all her noble kindred of the Howard line were there, so that we may reasonably conclude that she graced that splendid réunion of all that was gay, gallant, and beautiful in the assembled courts of France and England. Our limits will not permit us to enter into the details of that last gorgeous page in the annals of chivalry: records of darker hue and deeper interest are before us than those of the royal pageantry in the plain of Ardres, where, if Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn looked upon each other, it was not as lovers. His fancy, we can scarcely venture to say his heart, was at that time occupied with her younger sister, Mary Boleyn; and Anne would naturally aim her brilliant glances at the young and noble bachelors, among whom she might reasonably expect to find a fitting mate. At what period Anne Boleyn exchanged the service of the good queen Claude for the more lively household of that royal belle esprit, Margaret duchess of Alençon, and afterwards queen of Navarre, the sister of Francis I., is not exactly known. Her return to England, according to the most authentic accounts, took place in the year 1522. Some historians of modern date have supposed that she remained in France till 1527, but this is decidedly an error, as we shall very soon prove from incontrovertible evidence.' Lord Herbert, who gives the first date, assures us that he has examined very carefully many manu 1 From Du Tillet, Fiddes, Herbert, State-Papers, Lingard, Duplex, Tindal's notes on Rapin. scripts and records, both French and English, on this subject, and, as he gives a very favourable view of Anne Boleyn's character, there is no reason why he should have misrepresented a point of some consequence in her life. We give the noble historian's sketch of Anne at this period, transcribed, as he tells us, from the then unpublished manuscripts of George Cavendish, gentleman-usher to cardinal Wolsey :-"This gentlewoman, being descended on the father's side from one of the heirs of the earl of Ormond, and on the mother's from the house of Norfolk, was from her childhood of that singular beauty and towardness, that her parents took all possible care for her good education. Therefore, besides all the usual branches of virtuous instruction, they gave her teachers in playing on musical instruments, singing, and dancing, insomuch that, when she composed her hands to play and her voice to sing, it was joined with that sweetness of countenance that three harmonies concurred; likewise when she danced, her rare proportions varied themselves into all the graces that belong either to rest or motion. Briefly, it seems that the most attractive perfections were evident in her. Yet did not our king love her at first sight, nor before she had lived some time in France, whither, in the train of the queen of France, and in company of a sister of the marquess of Dorset, she went A.D. 1514. After the death of Louis XII. she did not return with the dowager, but was received into a place of much honour with the other queen, and then with the duchess of Alençon, where she staid till some difference grew betwixt our king and Francis; therefore, as saith Du Tillet, and our records, about the time when our students at Paris were remanded, she likewise left Paris, her parents not thinking fit for her to stay any longer.'" In confirmation of this statement, Fiddes also informs us that Francis I. complained to the English ambassador, "that the English scholars and the daughter of sir Thomas Boleyn had returned home." When a disputed matter happens to be linked with a public event, there can be no real difficulty in fixing the date, at least not to those historians who, instead of 1 Lord Herbert's Henry VIII.; in White Kennett, vol. ii. fol. 122. 2 Fiddes' Wolsey, 268. following the assertions of others, refer to the fountain-heads of history. There was another cause for Anne's return to England in that year; this was the dispute between sir Thomas Boleyn and the male heirs of the Butlers for the inheritance of the last earl of Wiltshire, Anne's great-grandfather, which had proceeded to such a height, that the earl of Surrey suggested to the king that the best way of composing their differences would be by a matrimonial alliance between a daughter of sir Thomas Boleyn and the heir of his opponent, sir Piers Butler.' Henry agreed, and directed Wolsey to bring about the marriage. Mary Boleyn had been married to William Carey nine months before Wolsey received this interesting commission in November 1521; therefore Anne was recalled from France for the purpose of being made the bond of peace between her father and their rival kinsman, Piers the Red.2 With so many graces of person and manners as were possessed by Anne Boleyn, it is remarkable that she had not previously disposed of both hand and heart to some noble cavalier in the gay and gallant court of France; but she appears to have been free from every sort of engagement when she returned to England. She was then, lord Herbert tells us, about twenty years of age, but according to the French historians, Rastal, a contemporary, and Leti, (who all affirm that she was fifteen when she entered the service of Mary Tudor queen of France,) she must have been two years older. The first time Henry saw her after her return to England was in her father's garden at Hever, where it is said3 he encountered her by accident, and admiring her beauty and graceful demeanour he entered into conversation with her; when he was so much. charmed with her sprightly wit, that on his return to Westminster he told Wolsey, "that he had been discoursing with a young lady who had the wit of an angel, and was worthy of a crown."-" It is sufficient if your majesty finds her worthy of your love," was the shrewd rejoinder. Henry said "that he feared she would never condescend in that way."—" Great princes," observed Wolsey, "if they choose to play the lover, 1 State-Papers, published by Government, ii. 57. have that in their power which would mollify a heart of steel." Our author avers "that Wolsey, having a desire to get all the power of state into his own hands, would have been glad to see the king engrossed in the intoxication of a love affair, and that he was the first person who suggested Anne Boleyn's appointment as maid of honour to the queen.' "There was at this time presented to the eye of the court," says the poet Wyatt, "the rare and admirable beauty of the fresh and young lady Anne Boleyn, to be attending upon the queen. In this noble imp the graces of nature, adorned by gracious education, seemed even at the first to have promised bliss unto her in after times. She was taken at that time to have a beauty, not so whitely, clear, and fresh, but above all we may esteem, which appeared much more excellent by her favour, passing sweet and cheerful, and was enhanced by her noble presence of shape and fashion, representing both mildness and majesty more than can be expressed." Wyatt is rapturous in his commendations of her musical skill and the exquisite sweetness of her voice, both in singing and in speaking. In the true spirit of a lover, the courtly poet, when he mentions the malformation of the little finger of the left hand, on which there was a double nail with something like an indication of a sixth finger, says, "but that which in others might have been regarded as a defect, was to her an occasion of additional grace by the skilful manner in which she concealed it from observation." On this account Anne always wore the hanging sleeves, previously mentioned by Chateaubriant as her peculiar fashion when in France. This mode, which was introduced by her into the court of Katharine of Arragon, was eagerly copied by the other ladies. Her taste and skill in dress are mentioned even by Sanders, who tells us," she was unrivalled in the gracefulness of her attire, and the fertility of her invention in devising new patterns, which were imitated by all the court belles, by whom she was regarded as the glass of fashion." The same 1 In Leti's Life of Queen Elizabeth there is a modernised Italian translation of a letter purporting to be from Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII., expressing great delight at her appointment as maid of honour to the queen, as it would afford her the means of being oftener in his presence; but independently of the absence of those traits that generally verify a genuine letter, it bears every appearance of being a common-place forgery. Anne Boleyn never wrote in a coarse, fulsome style, under any circumstances. author gives us the following description of her person from a contemporary,' not quite so enthusiastic in his ideas of her personal charms as her admirer, the poetical Wyatt: "Anne Boleyn was in stature rather tall and slender, with an oval face, black hair, and a complexion inclining to sallow: one of her upper teeth projected a little. She appeared at times to suffer from asthma. On her left hand a sixth finger might be perceived: on her throat there was a protuberance." This is confirmed by Chateaubriant, who describes it as a disagreeably large mole, resembling a strawberry; this she carefully covered with an ornamented collar-band, a fashion which was blindly imitated by the rest of the maids of honour, though they had never before thought of wearing any thing of the kind. "Her face and figure were in other respects symmetrical," continues Sanders; "beauty and sprightliness sat on her lips; in readiness of repartee, skill in the dance, and in playing on the lute, she was unsurpassed." Having thus placed before our readers the testimony of friend and foe, as to the charms and accomplishments of the fair Boleyn, we will proceed to describe the allowance and rules that were observed with regard to the table of the ladies in the household of queen Katharine, to which Anne was now attached. Each maid of honour was allowed a woman-servant and a spaniel as her attendants; the bouche of court afforded ample sustenance, not only to the lady herself, but her retainers, both biped and quadruped, were their appetites ever so voracious. A chine of beef, a manchet, and a chet loaf, offered a plentiful breakfast for the three; to these viands was added a gallon of ale, which could only be discussed by two of the party. The brewer was enjoined to put neither hops nor brimstone into their ale, the first being deemed as horrible an adulteration as the last. The maids of honour, like officers in the army and navy at the present day, dined at mess, a circumstance which shows how very ancient that familiar term is. "Seven messes of ladies dined at the same table in the great chamber. Manchets, beef, mutton, ale, and wine were served to them in Which contemporary is cardinal Pole, in whose Latin letters we have seen all Sanders' intelligence concerning Anne Boleyn, who was, withal, Reginald Pole's kinswoman. |