the statements that Henry had entertained a passion for Mary Boleyn previous to her marriage, and had not been an unsuccessful suitor. Another reason may be found in the fact, that rumours were circulated imputing similar guilt to Lady Boleyn (the mother of Anne and Mary) with the king -rumours as inconsistent with probability as with truth. Some maligners went so far as to assert that Mary and Anne were the offspring of Henry, born during the absence of Sir Thomas in a foreign land; but there is no evidence to prove aught against the reputation of Lady Boleyn or her daughter Mary, while certain dates wholly controvert those malignant rumours, invented, there is little doubt, to blacken the fame of Henry when he was seeking to divorce Catherine of Arragon, by leading the world to believe that he who could be capable of such enormities could entertain no scruples of conscience on the grounds of consanguinity, such as he alleged was the motive of his seeking to divorce the Queen Catherine. These infamous rumours do not appear to have been in circulation before the divorce was commenced, which further indicates their falsehood.

Some months elapsed before Anne Boleyn was recalled to court, and it does not appear that even then she entertained any notion of the king's attachment towards her. Nor, if she had, would it have either surprised or alarmed her; for such were the freedoms allowed in those times, that what in ours are termed flirtations, and censured, were then considered harmless, and tacitly permitted, if not approved in society. Those flirtations which were confined to writing verse or prose in praise of the lady admired, in paying her attentions and compliments, in adopting the terms of mistress when addressing her, and of servant or slave when signing such epistles, were viewed as only the remnant of the manners of the chivalrous age that preceded the actual period, and

drew no stain on the reputations of those who accepted such idle homage, it being well known that guilt seldom, if ever, was attached to them.

The tournays, masques, and festivals of those times tolerated, if they did not excuse, this system of gallantry, when every preux chevalier had his lady-love, whose virtue, it was his duty to maintain, was as peerless as her beauty. The age to which we refer, though still retaining some of the vestiges of chivalrous times, was so far from arriving at the civilization, refinement, and sense of propriety of our own, that a freedom, which though not implying guilt, was nevertheless remote from the decorum maintained at present, entailed no evil consequences, though it furnished appearances which might serve to form a basis for slander to build her malignant rumours on. Nor were married men excluded from this idle gallantry, as witness the romantic friendship of the poets Surrey and Wyatt for Anne Boleyn, before and subsequently to Henry's avowed homage to her. She had not long returned to court, when Henry presented her a costly jewel, to which gift she attached so little importance, it being then a common custom to make similar ones, that she wore it without any reserve or fear of misconstruction. Emboldened by her gaiety of manner, Henry some time after avowed his flame, the confession of which, far from meeting encouragement from its object, excited her anger and indignation; nor was it until after many apologies, and entreaties for pardon, that he was forgiven. It was on this occasion that Anne is said to have told him, in the words used by the Lady Elizabeth Grey, that "she was too good to be a king's mistress." From that moment, unaccustomed to resist the impulse of his ill-regulated passions, Henry determined to remove all obstacles to the indulgence of that which bound him to the fascinating Anne Benger's Memoirs of Anne Boleyn, vol. i. p. 263

Boleyn, and pursued the necessary steps to procure a divorce from Catherine with increased vigour.

Henceforth he addressed Anne with more respectful homage; and now, for the first time, ambition, hitherto dormant in her breast, or lulled to sleep by her deep affection for Percy, awoke, as the brilliant prospect of ascending a throne was opened to her by her sovereign. How many hearts has ambition corrupted, and rendered insensible to the heavy price, to others, by which only its object could be attained! Anne's was not a cruel nature; nay, previously to the awaking of the all-engrossing passion of ambition in her breast, she would have shrunk in dismay at the notion of the misery which a divorce must inflict on her royal mistress. But now she forgot, in the aspirations for the greatness for which she longed, what the loss of it must cost to her who had for above twenty years enjoyed it, and stifling the reproaches of conscience, became more impatient for this imagined good than even Henry himself.

Among the persons whose society Anne Boleyn preferred, were the celebrated Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and her own brother, Lord Rochford, three men whose literary acquirements, refined taste, and elegance of manner, were remarkable at a period when these qualifications were far from being general. They, too, took especial delight in her company, and encouraged her in her taste for literature.

Conversing with her one day while she worked, Wyatt playfully snatched from her a jewelled tablet which hung by a lace from her pocket, and suspending it around his neck, beneath his dress, refused to return it, though repeatedly pressed to do so by her. Henry remarking that Wyatt frequently hovered around Anne, and feeling somewhat jealous of him, entreated her to give him a ring, which he wore on his little finger, intending on the first occasion by

displaying it to Wyatt to make him sensible of Anne's preference to himself. Playing at bowls shortly after with several nobles and gentlemen, among whom was Wyatt, Henry affirmed a cast to be his, which the others declared not to be so, he, pointing with the finger on which was the ring, repeatedly addressing himself to Wyatt, said, "I tell thee, Wyatt, it is mine," laying a peculiar emphasis on the word mine. Wyatt recognizing the ring, took the jewelled tablet from his breast, and holding the lace from which it was suspended in his hand, replied, "If it may please your majesty to give me leave to measure it with this lace, I hope it will be mine," and he stooped down to measure the cast. The king recognizing the tablet, having frequently noticed it in Anne Boleyn's possession, angrily spurned away the bowls, and exclaimed, "It may be so-but then I am deceived!” 1 and broke up the game. He then hastened to the lady of his love, to whom he revealed his suspicions, which she quickly dissipated by declaring the truth, and Henry became more in love with her than ever, in consequence of the jealous pangs he had for a brief interval endured.

From this time Henry kept up a correspondence with Anne, some of the letters of which still remain in the "Harleian Miscellany;" but several were purloined and taken to Rome, where they were lodged in the Vatican. The motive for the theft of the letters taken to Rome may be easily accounted for by the desire of some one of the papal emissaries to possess aught which could prove that the urgency of Henry to expedite the divorce originated in his passion for some object, to the indulgence of which his marriage with Catherine opposed an obstacle. This fact he and his advisers were peculiarly anxious should be carefully kept concealed

1 Extracts from the "Life of Anne Boleign," by George Wyatt, Esq., p. 7, printed in Cavendish's "Life of Cardinal Wolsey," p. 427.

from the pope, whom it was Henry's interest to make believe that scruples of conscience only actuated him in his desire to repudiate the queen. The letters were in French, and breathe a fervour and tenderness of feeling hardly to be anticipated from such a man. The answers to Henry's letters do not appear; but that they contained a maidenly reserve and decorum, which exonerates the fair writer from the charges of undue familiarity with her sovereign before she was wedded to him, a charge so frequently brought against her, various passages in his letters acknowledging the receipt of hers go far to prove, as they complain of coldness, and even of the agonies occasioned him by fear and suspense.'

For a longer period than so subtle a man and so keen an observer could be supposed to remain ignorant of a circumstance which so nearly concerned his sovereign, and the result of which might have a great influence over his own interest, Cardinal Wolsey was not aware that his master's intentions towards Anne Boleyn were more serious than a mere fleeting fancy, that would pass away when crowned with success. He did not give the lady credit for the principles or propriety which she really possessed, nor did he imagine that Henry could, for a moment, entertain a thought of raising her to a throne, even if no obstacle existed to oppose such a measure. It is an error peculiar to the worldly-minded and cunning to judge others by themselves, and of this error was Wolsey guilty, when he connived at the growing attachment of the king to Anne, while he believed it dishonourable. Thus, when the cardinal returned from his embassy to France, whither he had been sent to conciliate a friendship between Francis the First and Henry, as well as to propose a marriage between the Duke of Orleans, the second son of Francis, and

1 See letter the fourth, from Henry to Anne, in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. i. page 191.