History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume V Part 38

[Sidenote: WOLSEY SEPARATES THE YOUNG LOVERS.]

Wolsey hated the Norfolks, and consequently the Boleyns. It was to counterbalance their influence that he had been first introduced at court. He became angry, therefore, when he saw one of his household suing for the hand of the daughter and niece of his enemies. Besides, certain partisans of the clergy accused Anne of being friendly to the Reformation.[675]... It is generally believed that even at this period Wolsey had discovered Henry's eyes turned complacently on the young maid of honour, and that this induced him to thwart Percy's love; but this seems improbable. Of all the women in England, Anne was the one whose influence Wolsey would have had most cause to fear, and he really did fear it; and he would have been but too happy to see her married to Percy. It has been a.s.serted that Henry prevailed on the cardinal to thwart the affection of the two young people; but in that case did he confide to Wolsey the real motive of his opposition? Did the latter entertain criminal intentions? Did he undertake to yield up to dishonour the daughter and niece of his political adversaries? This would be horrible, but it is possible, and may even be deduced from Cavendish's narrative; yet we will hope that it was not so. If it were, Anne's virtue successfully baffled the infamous plot.

[675] Meteren's Hist. of the Low Countries, folio, 20.

But be that as it may, one day when Percy was in attendance upon the cardinal, the latter rudely addressed him: "I marvel at your folly, that you should attempt to contract yourself with that girl without your father's or the king's consent. I command you to break with her."

Percy burst into tears, and besought the cardinal to plead his cause.

"I charge you to resort no more into her company," was Wolsey's cold reply,[676] after which he rose up and left the room. Anne received an order at the same time to leave the court. Proud and bold, and ascribing her misfortune to Wolsey's hatred, she exclaimed as she quitted the palace, "I will be revenged for this insult." But she had scarcely taken up her abode in the gothic Halls of Hever Castle, when news still more distressing overwhelmed her. Percy was married to Lady Mary Talbot. She wept long and bitterly, and vowed against the young n.o.bleman who had deserted her a contempt equal to her hatred of the cardinal. Anne was reserved for a more ill.u.s.trious, but more unhappy fate.

[676] Cavendish's Wolsey. p. 123. Cavendish was present at this conversation.

This event necessarily rendered her residence in this country far from attractive to Anne Boleyn. "She did not stay long in England," says Burnet, following Camden; "she served queen Claude of France till her death, and after that she was taken into service by King Francis'

sister." Anne Boleyn, lady-in-waiting to Margaret of Valois, was consoled at last. She indulged in gaieties with all the vivacity of her age, and glittered among the youngest and the fairest at all the court festivities.

In Margaret's house she met the most enlightened men of the age, and her understanding and heart were developed simultaneously with the graces. She began to read, without thoroughly understanding it, the holy book in which her mistress (as Brantome informs us) found consolation and repose, and to direct a few light and pa.s.sing thoughts to that "mild Emmanuel," to whom Margaret addressed such beautiful verses.

[Sidenote: CAPTURE OF ROME--CROMWELL.]

At last Anne returned definitively to England. It has been a.s.serted that the queen-regent, fearing that Henry after the battle of Pavia would invade France, had sent Anne to London to dissuade him from it.

But it was a stronger voice than hers which stopped the king of England. "Remain quiet," wrote Charles V to him; "I have the stag in my net, and we have only to think of sharing the spoils." Margaret of Valois having married the king of Navarre at the end of January 1527, and quitted Paris and her brother's court, it is supposed that Sir Thomas Boleyn, who was unwilling that his daughter should take up her abode in the Pyrenees, recalled her to England probably in the winter or spring of the same year. "There is not the least evidence that she came to it earlier," says a modern author.[677] She appeared once more at court, and the niece of the Duke of Norfolk soon eclipsed her companions, "by her excellent gesture and behaviour,"[678] as we learn from a contemporary unfriendly to the Boleyns. All the court was struck by the regularity of her features, the expression of her eyes, the gentleness of her manners, and the majesty of her carriage.[679]

"She was a beautiful creature," says an old historian, "well proportioned, courteous, amiable, very agreeable, and a skilful musician."[680]

[677] Turner, Hist. Henry VIII. ii. p. 185.

[678] Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 120.

[679] Memoirs of Sir Thomas Wyatt, in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p.

424.

[680] Meteren's Hist. of the Low Countries, folio. 20.

While entertainments were following close upon each other at the court of Henry VIII, a strange rumour filled all England with surprise. It was reported that the imperialist soldiers had taken Rome by a.s.sault, and that some Englishmen were among those who had mounted the breach.

One Thomas Cromwell was specially named[681]--the man who nearly twenty years before had obtained certain indulgences from Julius II, by offering him some jars of English confectionary. This soldier carried with him the New Testament of Erasmus, and he is said to have learnt it by heart during the campaign. Being gay, brave, and intelligent, he entertained, from reading the gospel and seeing Rome, a great aversion for the policy, superst.i.tions, and disorders of the popedom. The day of the 7th May 1527 decided the tenor of his life. To destroy the papal power became his dominant idea. On returning to England he entered the cardinal's household.

[681] Foxe, vol. v. p. 365.

However, the captive pope and cardinals wrote letters "filled with tears and groans."[682] Full of zeal for the papacy, Wolsey ordered a public fast. "The emperor will never release the pope, unless he be compelled," he told the king. "Sir, G.o.d has made you _defender of the faith_; save the church and its head!"--"My lord," answered the king with a smile, "I a.s.sure you that this war between the emperor and the pope is not for the faith, but for temporal possessions and dominions."

[682] Plenas lacrymarum et miseriae. State Papers, vol. i.

[Sidenote: WOLSEY'S EMBa.s.sY TO FRANCE.]

But Wolsey would not be discouraged; and, on the 3rd of July, he pa.s.sed through the streets of London, riding a richly caparisoned mule, and resting his feet on gilt stirrups, while twelve hundred gentlemen accompanied him on horseback. He was going to entreat Francis to aid his master in saving Clement VII. He had found no difficulty in prevailing upon Henry; Charles talked of carrying the pope to Spain, and of permanently establishing the apostolic see in that country.[683] Now, how could they obtain the divorce from a _Spanish_ pope? During the procession, Wolsey seemed oppressed with grief, and even shed tears;[684] but he soon raised his head and exclaimed: "My heart is inflamed, and I wish that it may be said of the pope _per secula sempiterna_,

"Rediit Henrici octavi virtute serena."

[683] The see apostolic should perpetually remain in Spain. Ibid. i.

p. 227.

[684] I saw the lord cardinal weep very tenderly. Cavendish, p. 151.

Desirous of forming a close union between France and England for the accomplishment of his designs, he had cast his eyes on the princess Renee, daughter of Louis XII, and sister-in-law to Francis I, as the future wife of Henry VIII. Accordingly the treaty of alliance between the two crowns having been signed at Amiens on the 18th of August (1527), Francis, with his mother and the cardinal, proceeded to Compiegne, and there Wolsey, styling Charles the most obstinate defender of Lutheranism,[685] promising "perpetual _conjunction_ on the one hand [between France and England], and perpetual _disjunction_ on the other." [between England and Germany],[686] demanded Renee's hand for king Henry. Staffileo, dean of Rota, affirmed that the pope had been able to permit the marriage between Henry and Catherine only by an error of the keys of St. Peter.[687] This avowal, so remarkable on the part of the dean of one of the first jurisdictions of Rome, induced Francis' mother to listen favourably to the cardinal's demand.

But whether this proposal was displeasing to Renee, who was destined on a future day to profess the pure faith of the Gospel with greater earnestness than Margaret of Valois, or whether Francis was not over-anxious for a union that would have given Henry rights over the duchy of Brittany, she was promised to the son of the Duke of Ferrara.

It was a check to the cardinal; but it was his ill fortune to receive one still more severe on his return to England.

[685] Omnium maxime dolosus et haeresis Lutherianae fautor acerrimus.

(State Papers, i. p. 274.) By far the most cunning and violent favourer of the Lutheran heresy.

[686] Du Bellay to Montmorency. Le Grand, Preuves, i. p. 186.

[687] Nisi clave errante. (State Papers, i. p. 272.) Unless by an erring key.

[Sidenote: ANNE BOLEYN'S SUCCESS.]

The daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, (who had been created Viscount Rochford in 1525,) was constantly at court, "where she nourished in great estimation and favour," says Cavendish, "having always a private indignation against the cardinal for breaking off the pre-contract made between Lord Percy and her," little suspecting that Henry had had any share in it.[688] Her beauty, her graceful carriage, her black hair, oval face, and bright eyes, her sweet voice in singing, her skill and dignity in the dance, her desire to please which was not entirely devoid of coquetry, her sprightliness, the readiness of her repartees, and above all the amiability of her character, won every heart. She brought to Greenwich and to London the polished manners of the court of Francis I. Every day (it was reported) she invented a new style of dress, and set the fashion in England. But to all these qualities, she added modesty, and even imposed it on others by her example. The ladies of the court, who had hitherto adopted a different fashion (says her greatest enemy), covered the neck and bosom as she did;[689] and the malicious, unable to appreciate Anne's motives, ascribed this modesty on the young lady's part to a desire to hide a secret deformity.[690] Numerous admirers once more crowded round Anne Boleyn, and among others, one of the most ill.u.s.trious n.o.blemen and poets of England, Sir Thomas Wyatt, a follower of Wickliffe. He however, was not the man destined to replace the son of the Percies.

[688] For all this while she knew nothing of the king's intended purpose, said one of his adversaries. Cavendish's Wolsey, p. 129.

[689] Ad illius imitationem reliquae regiae ancillae colli et pectoris superiora, quae antea nuda gestabant, operire cperunt. Sanders, p. 16.

In imitation of her, the other ladies of the court began to cover their neck and bosom which formerly they had worn exposed.

[690] See Sanders, Ibid. It is useless to refute Sanders' stories. We refer our readers to Burnet's Hist. of the Reformation, to Lord Herbert's life of Henry VIII, to Wyatt, and others. We need only read Sanders to estimate at their true value the _foul calumnies_, as these writers term them, of the man whom they style the _Roman legendary_.

[Sidenote: ANNE REJECTS THE KING.]

Henry, absorbed in anxiety about his divorce from Catherine, had become low-spirited and melancholy. The laughter, songs, repartees, and beauty of Anne Boleyn struck and captivated him, and his eyes were soon fixed complacently on the young maid of honour. Catherine was more than forty years old, and it was hardly to be expected that so susceptible a man as Henry would have made, as Job says, _a covenant with his eyes_ _not to think upon a maid_. Desirous of showing his admiration, he presented Anne, according to usage, with a costly jewel; she accepted and wore it, and continued to dance, laugh, and chatter as before, without attaching particular importance to the royal present. Henry's attentions became more continuous; and he took advantage of a moment when he found Anne alone to declare his sentiments. With mingled emotion and alarm, the young lady fell trembling at the king's feet, and exclaimed, bursting into tears: "I think, most n.o.ble and worthy king, your majesty speaks these words in mirth to prove me.... I will rather lose my life than my virtue."[691]

Henry gracefully replied, that he should at least continue to hope.

But Anne, rising up, proudly made answer: "I understand not, most mighty king, how you should retain any such hope; your wife I cannot be, both in respect of mine own unworthiness, and also because you have a queen already. Your mistress I will not be." Anne kept her word. She continued to show the king, even after this interview, all the respect that was due to him; but on several occasions she proudly, violently even, repelled his advances.[692] In this age of gallantry, we find her resisting for nearly six years all the seductions Henry scattered round her. Such an example is not often met with in the history of courts. The books she had read in Margaret's palace gave her a secret strength. All looked upon her with respect; and even the queen treated her with politeness. Catherine showed, however, that she had remarked the king's preference. One day, as she was playing at cards with her maid of honour, while Henry was in the room, Anne frequently holding the _king_, she said: "My Lady Anne, you have good hap to stop ever at a _king_; but you are not like others, you will have all or none." Anne blushed: from that moment Henry's attentions acquired more importance; she resolved to withdraw from them, and quitted the court with Lady Rochford.

[691] Sloane MSS. No. 2495; Turner's Hist. Eng. ii. p. 196.

[692] Tanto vehementius preces regias illa repulit. (Sanders, p. 17.) So much the more vehemently she repelled the king's entreaties.

[Sidenote: HENRY'S LETTER TO ANNE.]

The king, who was not accustomed to resistance, was extremely grieved; and having learnt that Anne would not return to the court either with or without her mother, sent a courier to Hever with a message and a letter for her. If we recollect the manners of the age of Henry VIII, and how far the men, in their relations with the gentler s.e.x, were strangers to that reserve which society now imposes upon them, we cannot but be struck by the king's respectful tone: He writes thus in French:--

"As the time seems to me very long since I heard from you or concerning your health, the great love I have for you has constrained me to send this bearer to be better informed both of your health and pleasure; particularly, because since my last parting with you, I have been told that you have entirely changed the mind in which I left you, and that you neither mean to come to court with your mother nor any other way; which report, if true, I cannot enough marvel at, being persuaded in my own mind that I have never committed any offence against you; and it seems hard, in return for the great love I bear you, to be kept at a distance from the person and presence of the woman in the world that I value the most. And if you love me with as much affection as I hope you do, I am sure the distance of our two persons would be equally irksome to you, though this does not belong so much to the mistress as to the servant.

"Consider well, my mistress, how greatly your absence afflicts me. I hope it is not your will that it should be so; but if I heard for certain that you yourself desired it, I could but mourn my ill-fortune, and strive by degrees to abate of my great folly.

"And so for lack of time I make an end of this rude letter, beseeching you to give the bearer credence in all he will tell you from me. Written by the hand of your entire servant,

"H. R."[693]

[693] Pamphleteer, No. 42, p. 347. It is difficult to fix the order and chronology of Henry's letters to Anne Boleyn. This is the second in the Vatican Collection, but it appears to us to be of older date.

It is considered as written in May 1528; we are inclined to place it in the autumn of 1527. The originals of these letters, chiefly in old French, are still preserved in the Vatican, having been stolen from the royal cabinet and conveyed thither.

The word _servant_ (serviteur) employed in this letter explains the sense in which Henry used the word _mistress_. In the language of chivalry, the latter term expressed a person to whom the lover had surrendered his heart.