abundance, to which were added hens, pigeons, and rabbits, On fast-days their mess was supplied with salt salmon, salted eels, whitings, gurnet, plaice, and flounders. Such of the ladies as were peers' daughters had stabling allowed them."

There was a striking resemblance between Anne Boleyn and her sister Mary, the previous object of Henry's attention; but Mary was the fairest, the most delicately featured, and the most feminine of the two. In Anne, the more powerful charms of genius, wit, and fascination triumphed over every defect which prevented her from being considered a perfect beauty, and rendered her the leading star of the English court. Yet it was her likeness to her sister which, perhaps, in the first instance constituted her chief attraction with the king, who soon became secretly enamoured of her, though he concealed the state of his mind. As for the fair Boleyn herself, at the very time when most surrounded with admirers she appears to have been least sensible to the pride of conquest, having engaged herself in a romantic love affair with Henry lord Percy, the eldest son of the earl of Northumberland, regardless of the family arrangement by which she was pledged to become the wife of the heir of sir Piers Butler. Percy, like herself, had been destined by paternal policy to a matrimonial engagement wherein affection had no share. He had exhibited great reluctance to fulfil the contract into which his father had entered for him in his boyhood with the daughter of the earl of Shrewsbury, and it was still unratified on his part when he appeared at court as an élève of cardinal Wolsey. The office which Percy filled about the person of the minister required that he should attend him to the palace daily, which he did; and while his patron was closeted with the king, or engaged at the council-board, he was accustomed to resort to the queen's ante-chamber, where 1 Household-books of Henry VIII.

2 Lodge's Illustrations, vol. i. pp. 20, 21. In a letter to the earl of Shrewsbury from his priest, Thomas Allen, concerning the contract between the earl of Northumberland and the earl of Shrewsbury for their children, Thomas Allen says, "The question hath been asked of my lord of Northumberland of the marriage of his son; he hath answered, 'I have concluded with my lord Shrewsbury. He hath been desired to bring lord Perry to court. He answered, When he is better learned, and weli acquainted with his wife, shortly after he shall come to court." Such was the intelligence written to the earl of Shrewsbury by his family priest so early as May 24, 1516.

he passed the time in dalliance with the maids of honour. At last he singled out mistress Anne as the object of his exclusive attention, and, from their frequent meetings, such love was nourished between them that a promise of marriage was exchanged, and, reckless alike of the previous engagements which had been made for them in other quarters by their parents, they became what was then called troth-plight, or insured to each other.'

Percy, like a true lover, gloried in his passion and made no secret of his engagement, which was at length whispered to the king by some envious busybody, who had probably observed that Henry was not insensible to the charms of Anne Boleyn. The pangs of jealousy occasioned by this intelligence, it is said, first awakened the monarch to the state of his own feelings towards his fair subject, in whose conversation he had always taken the liveliest pleasure, without being himself aware that he regarded her with emotions inconsistent with his duty as a married man. As for the young lady herself, she appears to have been wholly unconscious of the impression she had made on her sovereign's heart. In fact, as her whole thoughts were employed in securing a far more desirable object, namely, her marriage with the heir of the illustrious and wealthy house of Percy, it is scarcely probable that she incurred the risk of alarming her honourable lover by coquetries with the king. Under these circumstances, we think Anne Boleyn must be acquitted of having purposely attracted the attention of Henry in the first instance. On the contrary, she must, at this peculiar crisis, have regarded his passion as the greatest misfortune that could have befallen her, as it was the means of preventing her marriage with the only man whom we have the slightest reason to believe she ever loved.

If Anne, however, regarded the king with indifference, his feelings towards her were such that he could not brook the thought of seeing her the wife of another, though aware that it was not in his power to marry her himself. With the characteristic selfishness of his nature, he determined to sepa

Cavendish.

1 Cavendish. Nott's Life of Surrey.

Herbert. Tytler.

3 Ibid. Guthrie.

rate the lovers. Accordingly he sent for Wolsey, and, expressing himself very angrily on the subject of the contract into which Anne Boleyn and Percy had entered, charged him to take prompt steps for dissolving their engagement.' The cardinal, in great perplexity, returned to his house at Westminster, and sending for lord Percy, there, before several of his servants, he rudely addressed him in these words: "I marvel not a little at thy folly, that thou wouldst thus attempt to assure [contract] thyself with a foolish girl yonder in the court, Anne Bullen. Dost thou not consider the estate that God hath called thee unto in this world? For, after thy father's death, thou art likely to inherit and enjoy one of the noblest earldoms in the kingdom; and therefore it had been most meet and convenient for thee to have had thy father's consent in this case, and to have acquainted the king's majesty therewith, requiring his princely favour, and in all such matters submitting thy proceedings unto his highness, who would not only thankfully have accepted thy submission, but I am assured would have so provided thy purpose, that he would have advanced thee much more nobly, and have matched thee according to thy degree and honour, and so by thy wise behaviour mightest have grown into his high favour, to thy great advancement. But now, see what you have done through your wilfulness! You have not only offended your father, but also your loving sovereign lord, and matched yourself with such a one as neither the king nor your father will consent to; and hereof I put thee out of doubt that I will send for thy father, who, at his coming, shall either break this unadvised bargain, or else disinherit thee for ever. The king's majesty will also complain of thee to thy father, and require no less than I have said, because he intended to prefer Anne Bullen to another, wherein the king had already travailed [taken trouble]; and being almost at a point with one for her, (though she knew it not,) yet hath the king, like a politic prince, conveyed the matter in such sort that she will be, I doubt not, upon his grace's nention, glad and agreeable to the same."

1 Cavendish's Wolsey. Herbert.

2 The whole scene is in the words of Cavendish, who was present.

"Sir," quoth the lord Percy, weeping, "I knew not the king's pleasure, and am sorry for it. I considered I am of good years, and thought myself able to provide me a convenient wife as my fancy should please me, not doubting but that my lord and father would have been right well content. Though she be but a simple maid, and a knight to her father, yet is she descended of right noble parentage, for her mother is high of the Norfolk blood, and her father descended of the earl of Ormond, being one of the earl's heirs-general. Why then, sir, should I be any thing scrupulous to match with. her, in regard of her estate and descent, equal with mine when I shall be in most dignity? Therefore I most humbly beseech your grace's favour therein, and also to entreat the king's majesty, on my behalf, for his princely favour in this matter, which I cannot forsake."-" Lo, sirs," quoth the cardinal to us, pursues Cavendish, who was a witness of this conference, "ye may see what wisdom is in this wilful boy's head! I thought that, when thou heardest the king's pleasure and intention herein, thou wouldst have relented, and put thyself and thy voluptuous act wholly to the king's will and pleasure, and by him to have been ordered as his grace should have thought good."-" Sir," quoth the lord Percy, "so I would, but in this matter I have gone so far before so many worthy witnesses, that I know not how to discharge myself and my conscience."-" Why," quoth the cardinal, "thinkest thou that the king and I know not what we have to do in as weighty matters as this? Yes, I warrant thee; but I see no submission in thee to that purpose."-" Forsooth, my lord," quoth lord Percy, "if it please your grace, I will submit myself wholly to the king and your grace in this matter, my conscience being discharged of a weighty burden thereof.""Well, then," quoth my lord cardinal, "I will send for your father out of the north, and he and we shall take such order as-in the mean season I charge thee that thou resort no more into her company, as thou wilt abide the king's indignation." With these words' he rose up, and went into his chamber.

1 Cavendish.

Nor was this unceremonious lecture the only mortification the unfortunate lover was doomed to receive. His father, the earl of Northumberland, a man in whose cold heart and narrow mind the extremes of pride and meanness met, came with all speed out of the north, having received a summons in the king's name; and, going first to Wolsey's house to inquire into the matter, was received by that proud statesman in his gallery, "where," says Cavendish, "they had a long and secret communication." Then (after priming himself for the business with a cup of the cardinal's wine) he seated himself on a bench which stood at the end of the gallery for the use of the serving-men, and calling his son to him, he rated him in the following harsh words,' while Percy stood cap in hand before him: "Son," quoth he, "even as thou hast been, and always wert, a proud, licentious, and unthinking waster, so hast thou now declared thyself; and therefore what joy, what comfort, or pleasure, or solace shall I conceive of thee, that thus, without discretion, hast misused thyself? having neither regard unto me, thy natural father, nor yet to the king, thy sovereign lord, nor to the weal of thy own estate, but hast unadvisedly assured thyself unto her, for whom the king is with thee highly displeased, whose displeasure is intolerable for any subject to bear. But his grace, considering the lightness of thy head and wilful qualities of thy person, (his indignation were able to ruin me and my posterity utterly,) —yet he, (being my singular good lord and favourable prince,) and also my lord cardinal my good lord, hath and doth clearly excuse me in thy light act, and doth lament thy folly rather than malign me for the same, and hath devised an order to be taken for thee, to whom both I and you are more bound than we conceive of. I pray God that this may be a sufficient admonition to thee to use thyself more wisely hereafter, for assure thyself that, if thou dost not amend thy prodigality, thou wilt be the last earl of our house. For thy natural inclinations, thou art masterful and prodigal to consume all that thy progenitors have, with great travail, gathered together; but I trust (I assure thee) so to order my succession, that

1 Cavendish.