Her mouth was wide, her bosom low and flat. A body, somewhat thin and wiry, was surmounted by an oval face, of an Italian surface, and by locks of auburn gold. Although her neck was long and marked by moles, she wore her head with such exceeding grace that people only felt the charm. Freckles were visible on her skin. Her hands were finely moulded; yet with one remarkable defect. A boss and second nail appeared on one of her fingers, which allowed her enemies to say she had six fingers; a defect of nature which destroyed the symmetry of an otherwise perfect pair of hands. 3. No eye in search of physical beauty would have rested for a moment on that face and form. No artist called this damsel beautiful; nor could her laureate, when he sang her praises, venture to go beyond her brilliant eyes. All other points were left in mist. The poet named her goodly face, and spoke in general terms about her "beauty," as a bard was bound to do; but he affected no rapture of the sense. He was content to sing of— "The bright beams of those fair eyes." What a poet, in the license of adoring verse, could say for her, was said by Wyat, in his picture of such a one as he could love,— "A face that should content me wondrous well, "She was taken at that time," says the younger Wyat, "to have a beauty, not so whitely, as clear and fresh; which appeared much more excellent by her favour, passing sweet and cheerful." Such was the image of Anne Boleyn stamped on all the Wyat family. To have called her ugly, would have been unfair; to have painted her, like Sanders, as deformed in body, would have been absurd; yet such a foe as Chapuys might have thought himself honestly free to speak of her as lank and plain. 4. Anne's charms were of the mind. Lady Wyat, in describing her to George, the poet's grandson, said the Queen's "graces" were those of nature, "graced still more by gracious education." Boleyn, a reader and a student as well as a financier and ambassador, had trained his child, not only to the contemplation of a holy life, but an acquaintance with the liberal arts. Since Lady Elizabeth's death, she had been living in a liberal court, under the immediate eyes of Claude and Renée, two of the best-educated women in the world. 5. At Blois and Paris she had lived in the society of poets, painters, scholars, and divines: of Clement Marot, who was six years older than herself: of Leonardo da Vinci, who had followed François to the Loire: of Guillaume Budé, then librarian to the King and Queen: of all the brilliant wits and writers whom François drew to the most liberal court in Europe. Nature and events made the reigning family friends of that new learning, which was pushed in all the colleges of France, as something popular and patriotic. Laughing at the clerical grey-beards of the Sorbonne, with their antique rules and forms, François established his new College de France; an institute that was to give his country her most eminent lawyers, thinkers, and divines. Anne Boleyn had been trained among these liberal men, and in their liberal school. The girl was widely read. Her French was perfect, and her English of a style which few, except the poets, either spoke or wrote. 6. And yet the best of Anne's good gifts were those of nature, not of art: the wine and harvest of her Celtic blood. An ordinary girl in Catharine's court could sing and broider, play the virginals, and converse in French; but Anne, besides these feminine arts, had wit and fancy, warmth and taste, knowledge and thought, beyond the reach of ordinary girls. "Under sun yet never was her peer, Of wisdom, womanhood, and discretion," sang her laureate. A blending of these several qualities made her charm. Anne was a poetess no less than a musician. Flat bust, long neck, stain, patch, and second nail, were all forgotten in a moment when the girl, so sage, and yet so elfish, smiled and spoke. 7. The pulse of life beat strongly in her veins. No pain surprised the gladness in her eyes. Her spirits never flagged, her brightness never faded, her invention never failed. The soul of every circle into which she came, she made, without an effort of her own, a friend of every generous woman, and a knight of every noble man. That yearning for a holy life which she had felt at Hever, and had set before her fancy as the prize of filial love, had touched her animal spirits with an ideal grace. Her eyes were always lit with fire; her lips were always curved with mirth. An air of mischief hovered on her brow; yet under this bewitching Irish manner lay a deep and tender sense of things unseen. Now playful, now sedate, she could be everything in turn. If Renée loved her for the beauty of her ways, Marguerite de Valois found in her a kindred thinker. Neither Catharine, nor the ladies of her closet, could resist the charm of Anne. In her society, the day was never dull, and in the sparkle of her talk the old of heart felt young and fresh. History of two Queens. V. 2 CHAPTER VI. Hever Castle. 1523. 1. HEVER was poetic and retired. Her chamber window, a projecting oriel, opened on a moat and garden; down to which a private stair gave access by an ancient tower. Beyond the moat and garden lay an orchard and a bowling-green. Not many paces off the river Eden brawled and chafed among the stones. Grass-land and wood-land stretched on every side; here swelling into mound and ridge, there dropping into flat and marsh. A quaint old church, in which the ashes of her brother lay, stood on the nearest ridge, and was the only building seen from Anne's window. Woods of oak encompassed her about, with only here and there a break in sunny patch and leafless hill. Some rare and famous nooks lay screened amidst these depths of wood. Seven miles north stood Knole, where Warham dwelt among his books and papers. Seven miles east rose Tunbridge, where Buckingham used to keep his state. Nearer still lay Penshurst Park, of which her father was the ranger. To the south, beyond the level grounds, rose Ashdown Forest. In and out among these woodlands, becks and rivulets sang their pilgrimage towards the sea. Sweet-briars grew in every hedge, and linnets built in every copse. The pools were rich with lilies, and the air, though |