CHAPTER VIII. Sequel of the History of Queen Anne Boleyn. IN ardent minds, the aspirations of ambition are often associated with the amiable sympathies of benevolence, the love of power becomes identified with the love of virtue, and beautiful images of felicity are blended with romantic and magnificent illusions of glory. In ascending the throne, Anne appears to have expected that such dreams of youthful fancy were to be realised: her first impulse was to exalt her family, and to dispense all the goods of fortune to her most remote connexions; her next, to justify the confidence reposed in her efforts by the reformers; from all eyes, all hearts, to receive spontaneous homage; to reign in the affections of her husband and his people; these were the objects for which she had so long submitted to voluntary penance and privation, and for these she exulted in possessing a crown. A short time was sufficient to prove to her the fallacy of these ex pectations. After the first few days devoted to festivity and congratulation*, she became sensible of the onerous duties attached to preeminence. In regal state, the gratification of novelty was soon exhausted; its constraint continued; its cares redoubled. The weight of St. Edward's crown, of which she had felt the momentary pressure on the memorable day of coronation, was every day experienced,* unaccompanied by those emotions of joy and complacency which it originally created. Independent of the anxiety, the doubts, the diffidence, with which she must have watched the fluctuations of Henry's capricious fancy, she had a constant source of uneasiness in the discordant views which prevailed among her nearest connexions. Whilst the Countess of Wiltshire coalesced with the Howards, in whose hereditary pride she participated, the Earl regarded with distrust and aversion the Duke of Norfolk, who repined that his own daughter, the beautiful Lady Mary, or at least some relative of the name of Howard, had not been elevated to the throne. Insensible to the * At one of those civic feasts to which Henry condescended to accompany his bride, was introduced the elegant novelty of a lemon, a luxury hitherto unknown to an English table. To an epicure, such as Henry, perhaps the acquisition of a castle in France would have been less acceptable; and such was the importance attached to the discovery, that, in a bill belonging to the Leathersellers' Company, it was recorded that this royal lemon cost six silver pennies. kindness with which Anne employed her influence to promote the union of Lady Mary with the Duke of Richmond, whom the King once intended to include in the succession, he artfully coalesced with Gardiner, the determined enemy of Lutheranism; not without the hope that, like another Wolsey, he should acquire unbounded influence in the King's counsels. As the brother-in-law of Henry the Seventh, he spurned the title of the Queen's uncle, but passionately desired to become the despotic minister of his sovereign. On his part, the Earl of Wiltshire was mortified at the preference shown to the Duke of Norfolk ; as the King's father-in-law, he had, perhaps, expected a ducal coronet, or some signal mark of royal favour. Prudence might keep him silent; but his chagrin could not but be visible to his daughter, when he resigned his public employments, and retired from public life. With the Earl of Surry Anne lived in cordial friendship, and was apparently idolized by his beautiful sister; but little reliance could be placed in the sincerity of this lady, who, some years after, with unblushing perfidy, furnished the evidence, however frivolous, on which her brother was convicted of treason. With Elizabeth*, Duchess of Nor *The Duchess lived in Hertfordshire, on a stipend of three hundred marks per annum; but she was destined for trials more severe than indigence and neglect, or even injustice. She saw her gallant son devoted to death; her unnatural daughter conspire against a bro-'. ther's life; whilst her ungrateful husband survived a folk, the ill-fated daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, Anne could have had no intercourse, since she was supplanted in her husband's affections, and driven from his house by injurious treatment. Of all her domestic connections, the individual most endeared to her heart was George Boleyn Lord Rochford: but even this fraternal friendship was embittered by his wife, from whom she had receiv long imprisonment, to die in peace and honor under the auspices of his congenial kinswoman, Queen Mary. The remains of this unfortunate woman were consigned to the magnificent mausoleum of the Howards, at Lambeth; and it seemed the consummation of her wretched destiny, that even her dust should be mingled with that of her enemies and persecutors: but her tomb was insulated; and the following epitaph, written by her brother, Henry Lord Stafford, commemorates her virtues : "Farewell good lady and sister dear, By thy most bounden Brother, HENRY LORD STAFFORD." Aubrey's History of Lambeth. ed repeated proofs of aversion and hostility. With a true sense of dignity, she scorned, as a queen, to resent the injuries offered to Anne Boleyn; for her brother's sake, she permitted even her ancient enemy to be one of the ladies of her bedchamber; and, by this fatal generosity, eventually furnished the opportunity, so long desired, of accelerating her own ruin. With the same liberal spirit she recalled her aunt, Lady Edward Boleyn, to the place she had occupied under Catherine, although of all women she appears to have been the least congenial to her tastes and feelings. With Wiatt, now promoted to the office of ewerer of the royal household, she no longer permitted any familiar intercourse, and in this instance her prudence appears to have been repaid with gratitude and honor: she continued, however, to admire and patronize his talents, and was, perhaps, still unconsciously the muse that inspired his happiest effusions; whilst his sister, Mrs. Margaret Lee*, a woman of irreproachable character, became one of her chosen and confidential attendants. Amongst the other ladies of her establishment, were the Countesses of Worcester and Oxford, women of unsullied fame, whose presence seemed to guarantee the honor and discretion of their mistress. An extreme susceptibility to praise was, perhaps, the vulnerable point of Anne's cha *Nott's Life of Wiatt. |