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ANNE BOLEYN,

SECOND QUEEN OF HENRY VIIL

CHAPTER II.

Anne Boleyn's marriage with Henry VIII.—Its public celebration-Her coronation-Pageants and festivities-Opposition by the Catholics-Birth of princess Elizabeth-Settlement of the crown on Anne's issue--Henry and Anne excommunicated-Anne supports the Reformation and translation of the Scriptures -Her altered manners-Protects Latimer-Exults in queen Katharine's death-Loses Henry's affection-Discovers his passion for Jane SeymourBears a dead son-Anger of the king-Arrest of Brereton-Anne's dialogue with Smeaton-Jousts at Greenwich-King's angry departure-Arrest of Anne's brother and others-She is carried to the Tower- Her despair-Accused by Smeaton-Her letter to the king-Trial of Anne-Sentence-Her speechHer marriage dissolved-Execution of her brother and others-Her poemsBehaviour on the scaffold-Fidelity of her maids-Gift to Wyatt's sisterDying speech-Beheaded-Hasty burial-Norfolk tradition-King Henry's

remorse.

THE time and place of Anne Boleyn's marriage with Henry VIII. are disputed points in history. Some authors have affirmed that she was privately united to the king at Dover the same day they returned from France, being the festival of St. Erkenwald;' according to others, the nuptials were secretly performed in the presence of the earl and countess of Wiltshire, and the duke and duchess of Norfolk, in the chapel of Sopewell-nunnery. This report, perhaps, was caused by a temporary retreat of Anne to that convent after her return from France, and the secret resort of the king to meet her there at a yew-tree, about a mile from this cloistered shade, of which the learned lady Juliana Berners was formerly the prioress. The unpopularity of this union was the cause of

It is an odd coincidence that the papal bull, denouncing the sentence of excommunication against king Henry and Anne Boleyn if they presumed to marry, is dated the day after their interdicted nuptials are said to have taken place at Dover.-Hall. Holinshed.

the profound secrecy with which the nuptials between Henry and his fair subject were solemnized; for the same cause it was necessary to keep the fact from publicity as long as it was possible to do so.

It is among the historical traditions of Anne's native county, Norfolk, that she was privately married to the king at Blickling-hall. Blomfield says,' that Henry came there expressly for this purpose. This report is alluded to by a Norfolk poet, Stephenson, in his lines on the visit of Charles II., and his queen, Catharine of Braganza, to Blickling-hall: Blickling two monarchs and two queens has seen;

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One king fetched hence, another brought a queen."

The testimony of Wyatt, however, who was not only a contemporary, but a witness too deeply interested not to be correct on such a point, confirms the assertions of Stowe and Godwin that this event, so fatal to the bride, who was to purchase the brief possession of a crown with the loss of her head, took place on St. Paul's-day, January 25th, 1533. "On the morning of that day, at a very early hour," says a contemporary, "Dr. Rowland Lee, one of the royal chaplains, received the unwonted order to celebrate mass in an unfrequented attic in the west turret of Whitehall. There he found the king, attended by Norris and Heneage, two of the grooms of the chamber, and the marchioness of Pembroke, accompanied by her train-bearer Anne Saville, afterwards lady Berkeley. On being required to perform the nuptial rite between his sovereign and the marchioness, in the presence of the three witnesses assembled, the chaplain hesitated; but Henry is said to have assured him that the pope had pronounced in favour of the divorce, and that he had the dispensation for a second marriage in his possession. As soon

1 Blomfield's History of Norfolk.

2 Le Grand. Tytler. Lingard. Benger. Mrs. Thompson.

3 This portion of the narrative we are inclined to doubt; since Henry, weary of the delays attending the prosecution of the divorce, which in its procrastinated tedium can only be compared to a modern chancery-suit, had resolved upon the bold measure of treating his marriage with queen Katharine as a nullity. As for the scruples of Rowland Lee, they were more likely to have been overcome by the promise of the mitre of the bishopric of Lichfield, than by the fiction of a papal dispensation for the interdicted marriage.

as the marriage ceremony had been performed, the parties separated in silence before it was light, and viscount Rochford, the brother of the bride, was despatched to announce the event in confidence to Francis I. Such is the account preserved in a contemporary MS.' of the romantic circumstances, as to time and place, under which the fair ill-fated Anne Boleyn received the nuptial ring from the hand that was so soon to sign her death-warrant, and also that of her fellow-victim, Henry Norris, one of the three witnesses of her marriage. That this step had been taken by the king, not only without the knowledge but against the advice of his council and most confidential advisers, may be inferred from the fact that even Cranmer knew not of it, as he himself writes to his friend Hawkins, "till a fortnight after the marriage had been performed," which, he says, "took place about St. Paul's-day." He was himself consecrated archbishop of Canterbury two months afterwards.

crown.

Anne remained in great retirement, as the nature of the case required, for her royal consort was still, in the opinion of the majority of his subjects, the husband of another lady. It was, however, found impossible to conceal the marriage without affecting the legitimacy of the expected heir to the For this cause, therefore, on Easter-eve, which this year was April 12th, the king again openly solemnized his marriage with Anne Boleyn, and she went in state as his queen. "On the 8th of May, Cranmer presided at the public tribunal at Dunstable, which it was thought expedient to hold on the former marriage. The proceedings terminated May 23rd, when Cranmer pronounced, not a divorce, but a sentence that the king's marriage with Katharine had been, and was, a nullity and invalid, having been contracted against the divine law. Five days after, he gave at Lambeth a judicial confirmation to Henry's union with Anne Boleyn."

1 This narrative was presented to queen Mary. It is quoted by four modern historians, Dr. Lingard, Mr. Tytler, Miss Benger, and Mrs. Thompson.

2 Archæologia, vol. xviii. p. 81.

3 In this brief, clear statement from Sharon Turner are condensed the voluminous proceedings of this affair from all the heavy documentary records which have been collected by carlier historians, and which we have also examined.

Anne's queenly establishment was immediately arranged, in which two of her own relatives, with whom she had hitherto been on bad terms, were given appointments; namely, her brother's wife, lady Rochford, and lady Boleyn, the wife of her uncle sir Edward Boleyn.

At the establishment of Anne's household, a great multiplication of her portraits took place, all in one costume, which has given the general idea of her style of person and dress. The only one of this kind, painted on oak panel “as a tablet," which possesses a genuine pedigree, having been in the family of the late general Thornton' nearly three hundred years, is copied as our engraving. It was the etiquette for each of the officers of a royal household to possess a portrait of the king or queen. Before the art of locket miniatures was brought to perfection, these official portraits were painted on oak panel, about eight or nine inches square, and the face and bust appear within a ring. These were called tablets, or table-portraits. The wellknown features of the oval-faced beauty are, in the Thornton portrait, painted with exquisite delicacy, though in the brunette style; the eyes are rich brown, the hair entirely drawn back under a species of banded coif; the lips beautiful, with a remarkable depth between the chin and under lip. The majesty of the head, and proud composure of expres sion, are remarkable; the contour of the chest, though it is long, and the form of the throat and shoulders, assist the fine air of the head. The gown is square in the bust; it seerus of amber or tawny velvet, studded with emeralds: a drapery of green velvet is on the shoulders. A double string of pearls passes round the throat, and between them appears some indica tion of the enlargement which no engraver can be induced to copy. The "Anne Boleyn" cap in this original portrait is wel defined: a frontlet made of the five-cornered frame of double strings of pearls, is first fitted to the face; at the back is a green velvet hood with broad scarf lappets: one of these s

1 It was purchased at the sale of his effects after his decease, at his Les Grosvenor-gate, and is now the property of the author.

thrown over the back of the hood, the other hangs on the right shoulder, in graceful folds.

Among the first tributes offered to Anne on her new dignity, was a small present from her zealous partisan Richard Lyst, who took an early opportunity of reminding her grace of the uncomfortable predicament in which he had placed himself with his brethren the Observant-friars, by his opposition to friar Forrest in her honour, and requesting her to be good and gracious unto him. His letter on this subject is addressed to Cromwell, whom he favours with some particulars of his former mode of living, which are illustrative of the domestic statistics of the period. He says,

"I have made and composed iij glasses with waters, and I have sent two of them to the queen's grace for a poor token; and so now, by my kinsman the bearer of this letter, I send unto your mastership the third glass with water for a poor token. I was in time past my lord cardinal's servant, and also dwelled in London in Cheapside viij years, and made many waters for my lord cardinal, and much ipocras also, and served him of much spice; and I was both a grocer and a poticarrier, [apothecary]. And so now I have exercised one point of mine oold occupacion in making of the foresaid waters, which waters will keep in their virtue and strength these two years, if they be well kept. I beseech your mastership to have me meekly commended unto the quyne's grace, and desire her grace to remember my poor mother, her continual beedwoman."

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As early as the 28th of April, Henry had issued his letters of summons to the wives of his peers, requiring them to give their attendance, they and their women, at the approaching solemnity of his dearest wife queen Anne's procession from Greenwich to the Tower, and at her coronation, which is to take place on the feast of Pentecost; wherefore he requires. them to be at his manor of Greenwich on the Friday before that feast, to attend his said queen from thence to the Tower of London that day, and the next day to ride with her through the city of London with her on horseback." The ladies are commanded in this circular to provide themselves and their women with white or grey palfreys for the occasion, promising that "the caparisons of those to be ridden by themselves shall be furnished by the master of the horse to our said dearest wife

Original Letters, sir H. Ellis; third Series. Richard Lyst left his convent and became a secular priest in 1535: he was presented to the vicarage of St. Dunstan's West.

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