until some difference grew between Henry and Francis, which caused the English students to be recalled to their own country, at which time she also returned to her family. Fiddes adds, that Francis the First complained to the English ambassador "that the English scholars and the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn had returned home."

It is known that Anne's return was advised by the king for the purpose of arranging a marriage between her and Sir Piers Butler, the heir of him who contested the inheritance of Anne's great-grandfather, the last Earl of Wiltshire, this union being considered the best mode of stopping all vexatious suits between the contending parties. Strange are the freaks of fortune, which shapes the destinies of men-nay more, sometimes make themselves the instruments to work out her will! When Henry recalled Anne Boleyn to wed another, he little thought he was bringing back a future wife for himself. It appears that the order for her recall was given late in the year 1521, which would fix the date of her return to 1522. She soon afterwards was appointed one of the maids of honour to Queen Catherine, little dreaming that she was to supplant her royal mistress. To the sober court of this virtuous lady Anne Boleyn transported not only the fashion in dress, but all the wiles and graces which she had acquired in the gay circles of the bewitching Marguerite. Her presence excited great admiration; her musical skill, sweet voice, and piquant manners still more; while her sprightliness and uncontrolled (if not uncontrollable) vivacity drew around her many admirers, among whom to one only did she accord encouragement; this one was Henry, Lord Percy, the eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland, and, like herself, contracted by his father to form a marriage based not on affection, but interest. This double engagement was forgotten on both sides in the delirium of a first love; or, if remembered, this hindrance

only served to increase, as obstacles generally do, the passion of the youthful pair.

The position of Anne at court furnished opportunities for frequent meetings and conversations between Percy and the fair maid of honour, he forming one of the suite of the Cardinal Wolsey, and, accompanying him daily to the palace, was wont to remain in one of the waiting-rooms which communicated with that of the ladies of the queen, while the ambitious cardinal was engaged in those téte-à-tétes with Henry which often led to such grave results. These interviews, always in the presence of other maids of honour, ripened the affection of the lovers. But "never did the course of love run smooth." The affection of the youthful pair was revealed to the king by some envious court spy, and the pain the intelligence inflicted rendered Henry aware of the extent and nature of the interest with which he regarded the fair Boleyn. So wholly occupied was Anne's heart and head with Percy, that if she indeed suspected it, she never betrayed the least consciousness of the king's growing attachment to her. Indeed, the probability is that she had not then discovered it; and, if she had, the prospect of becoming the wife of the man she loved, and that man born to fill a high station, and possess great wealth, must have been infinitely preferable to aught that could spring from the attachment of Henry, a married man, king though he was. History offers no evidence of Anne's ever encouraging the attentions of Henry before the prospect of becoming his queen had excited her ambition and dazzled her brain, and that was long after the enforced marriage of Percy with another had banished every hope of her becoming his.

Henry had no sooner discovered the mutual love of the young pair than he commanded Cardinal Wolsey to take immediate steps to break the engagement between them,

artfully giving, as an excuse for his angry interference, the arrangements previously made for the marriage of both parties with persons selected by their respective families. Whether the cardinal, who was as expert in discovering the secret feelings and thoughts of others as in concealing his own, divined those of his self-willed sovereign or not, we have no evidence to prove; but, entrusted with the command to separate the lovers, he vigorously carried it into immediate execution, to the grief and dismay of Anne Boleyn and Percy. The rudeness and tyranny of Wolsey's treatment of Percy, during their interview on this occasion, offers a striking proof of his natural insolence and brutality, which not even his elevation and long contact with a court could subdue. The young man was reproached and insulted with all the contumely with which a parvenu loves to visit those of high birth whenever chance gives him the power; and, unfortunately for Anne, although of an honourable mind and good intentions, Percy had not sufficient moral courage to resist the tyranny so unjustly exercised over him. It excites disgust to peruse the account handed down by history of the manner in which the haughty cardinal presumed, on the strength of Henry's favour, to treat even the highest nobility in the land, proving that he had either wholly forgotten his own mean origin, or that he remembered it with a bitterness that urged him to insult those of high birth. He not only angrily rebuked Percy, but forthwith despatched a messenger for the Earl of Northumberland, and strictly commanded Percy to see Anne Boleyn no more. Rebellious sons of our own time would do well to read the grave reproofs and tyrannical commands of the Earl of Northumberland, when, in pursuance of Cardinal Wolsey's summons, he arrived, and poured out the vials of his wrath on the head of his unhappy son, and in the presence, too,

of the serving men of the cardinal, whom he charged not to omit reproving his son when they saw occasion. Our young scions of nobility should see the respect in which parents were held by their sons in the days to which we refer, and be thankful that civilization and refinement have changed the tyrannical master into the considerate friend and confiding resource in all difficulties.

That Percy, however fondly attached to Anne Boleyn, yielded implicit obedience to his stern father's commands, is proved by his marriage with the Lady Mary Talbot, the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1523,' which confirms the belief that Anne Boleyn returned to England in the previous year.

That Anne Boleyn long grieved for the defeat of her hopes to become the bride of Percy, to whom she was fondly attached, there can be no doubt; and this grief proves her innocence of encouraging Henry's attentions. It also had the effect of exciting the anger of that tyrant so much, that she was dismissed from court to her father's seat, there to expiate in solitude the grave offence, at least in the king's eyes, of returning the affection of one who would have been in every respect a suitable husband for her.

Anne's was not a nature to forgive or forget injuries speedily. Unsuspicious of the real motive of her separation from the object of her affection, she believed it originated wholly in the malice and love of interference of the cardinal, and by the extent of her displeasure against him may be judged the warmth and sincerity of her love for Percy, and the bitterness of her disappointment for his loss. But time, that best soother of regret, in due season softened, if it did not eradicate, hers; and Henry, who probably found a longer absence from her insupportable, surprised the family at Hever by a visit, without

1 Strickland's Queens of England.

however beholding her for whom it was undertaken; for Anne, either through wounded pride or maidenly reserve, confined herself to her chamber, nor left it until he had departed: nor did her father wish her to see Henry, otherwise he would have commanded her presence. This conduct on the parts of father and daughter indicated a desire to avoid, rather than to encourage, the royal visitor, and probably piqued him more to pursue his object than a kind welcome might have done, it being a peculiar characteristic in the self-willed and obstinate to be incited into persistance by opposition. At all events, this avoidance of Henry by Anne proves that she held out no lures to attract him, and is honourable to her father.1

Some time elapsed before the king again presumed to visit Hever. The first visit had taught him that the conquest he meditated could not be as easily achieved as he had expected, and he set to work to conciliate both father and daughter, by showering favours on the first, hitherto held back, though well merited by the services of Sir Thomas Boleyn, until his newly-formed passion for his fair daughter inspired him with the desire of cultivating the good-will of the family for his own selfish and dishonourable aims. Sir Thomas Boleyn was created Viscount Rochford, and appointed treasurer of the royal household, and Sir William Carey, the husband of Mary Boleyn, the elder sister of Anne, was made gentleman of the privy chamber.

The propriety of Sir Thomas Boleyn and his daughter Anne's conduct on Henry's first visit, unsuspicious as they were of its motive, furnishes a strong reason for disbelieving

1 That Sir Thomas Boleyn stood high in the estimation of honourable and wise men is proved by the dedication of Erasmus to him of his work "De Præparatione ad Mortem," while the proceedings of Henry for the divorce from Catherine were pending. Harleian Miscellany, vol. i. page 189.