pected him to make. That pontiffs have no power to supersede the word of Scripture was a view supported by the English episcopy, and by the first authority in his courts of law.

CHAPTER IV.

Anne and Marguerite.

1524-25.

1. As Anne would yield to neither King nor Cardinal, Butler pressed his suit on her in vain. Her place at court was lost; but she had books and flowers at Hever, and a spirit not unequal to the highest strain. The girl had need for all her strength, for in these days of persecution by her uncle and the Cardinal, she was very much alone. Her brother was at college, and her father was at court. A great calamity fell on her, in addition to the loss of Percy, the banishment of Wyat, and the doings of her Irish kin. Norfolk was gone; that good and noble grandfather who might have been her refuge and defence. In Thetford Priory, beside the ashes of her royal aunt, the warrior lay at rest; and her ungracious uncle was the ruling prince at Framlingham and Howard House. To Anne the change was great and sad; for she was now a stranger in her mother's home.

2. The new master at Howard House lived on bad terms with nearly all his family, whose principles he had abandoned and betrayed, but he was more annoyed with his sister's family than with any other branch. The Boleyns, he conceived, were doing him many injuries. Anne was thwarting his

great project for creating a loyal party in the Irish Pale. Boleyn was concerned, he fancied, in an intrigue of the closet for depriving him of his favourite house. Some years ago, the victor of Flodden had received a grant of the royal manor of Hunsdon; a stately lodge and noble park, in which Lady Margaret of Richmond used to live. The house stood high and dry, bathed in a wholesome air, and lapped in sheltering woods. Norfolk, having a dozen houses, had lent Hunsdon to his eldest son, and there the acrimonious couple, and their young children, Henry the poet, Thomas and Lady Mary, had passed the winter months for several years. Liking his winter home, the new duke tried to get the grant renewed, but he was unsuccessful in his suit. Henry took his manor back. To make such grants from life to life was bad in policy, as tending to create a vested right; but Norfolk saw in the King's refusal nothing but an act of personal spite. In no long time, his rage was doubled by discovering that Hunsdon had been taken from himself in order to enrich his upstart brother-inlaw.

3. His power to persecute his niece was greatly strengthened by his rise in rank. As Duke of Norfolk, he was her family chief, and chiefs of families like that of Howard were little used to opposition on the part of girls and younger sons.

4. But Anne was of a spirit no less lofty than his own. Rather than marry at his bidding, she was ready to quit her country and reside abroad. Archduchess Marguerite, who was then at Mechlin,

invited her to come and stay with her. Marguerite's court was one of the most refined and brilliant in the world, and Marguerite was a staid and pious lady, no less eminent for her talents than her birth. Anne accepted the imperial invitation; but, unwilling to ask the Cardinal's leave to go abroad, she had to leave her home in Kent by stealth. Her father, as an officer in the royal household, could not openly defy the Cardinal; but a Kentish neighbour, Nicolas Boughton, had the courage to accompany her across the Straits, and to present her with a letter from Lord Boleyn in the court of Marguerite. Boleyn reminded the Archduchess of his former visits, and in gratitude for her kindness to his daughter, hinted that he might return. The Queen of wit and song was charmed with Anne.

5. "I have received your letter," the Archduchess wrote in answer to Boleyn, "by the hand of Sire de Boughton, who has brought to me your daughter; a present more than welcome in my sight. I hope to treat her in such a way that you shall be quite satisfied with me. Let there be no other interpreter between us till the day of your return, than she. I find in her so fine a spirit, and so perfect an address, for a lady of her years, that I am more beholden to you for sending her than you can be to me for receiving her."

6. Anne in her strange home was free from the persecution of her uncle and the Cardinal. She was used to foreign food and manners. Perfect in her French, a poetess, a wit, and a musician, she was

certain to adorn the Flemish court. Her heart was now at rest., Except that she was parted from her father, she was nearly as much at home in Mechlin as in Greenwich. Marguerite wished to keep her; and the weary woman seemed disposed to stay abroad, where she would see no more of Percy's face, and hear no more of Butler's suit. Her visit was prolonged, and Marguerite, to place her in the best position, signed a warrant naming Anne Boleyn one of her maids of honour. That act was dated March the first, 1525; on which date, the poetical and persecuted Anne Boleyn seemed lost for ever to the English court.