Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/198

184 language, he abused him and his work as broadly as he would have done that of the obscurest mortal. Henry, in his estimation, was a fool, a liar, an ass, and a blasphemer. Henry complained to Luther's patron, the Elector of Saxony, and Luther tried to write an apology; but it turned out to be a more bitter infliction than the original, for he excused his rudeness by saying that he now believed the book not to be written by Henry himself, but to have been falsely attributed to him. He went further, and abused the Cardinal Wolsey in good round terms, pronouncing him the bane of England, "the caterpillar," "the monster," "the nuisance to God and man." He concluded by offering to write a book in praise of Henry, insinuating that he was quite of opinion that Henry was in secret a favourer of the new doctrines. This was worse than all. If ever there was a man puffed with vanity of his handiwork, it was Henry; if over there was a bigot to the old opinions, he was that man; and to find himself treated as a sham author, a protector of a mischievous minister, and a secret disciple of the heretics, was too much for his endurance. He again took the field with his pen, owned himself the author of the book, defended Wolsey as the best, the most faithful, religious, and beloved of men, and declared that he should now love him the more for Luther's abuse. He did not forget to taunt Luther with marrying a nun, he being a monk: and Luther, incensed at this reception of that for which he expected praise, declared that he deserved this treatment, for the folly of supposing "that virtue could exist in a Court, or that Christ might be found in a place where Satan reigned." Henceforth, he said, let his enemies beware; he would use no more blandishments, but treat them according to their deserts.

The great defender of the faith, at the time at which we are now arrived, was growing dissatisfied with his wife, and was about to seek a divorce from her, which must necessarily involve the Pope in difficulties with the queen's nephew, the emperor. Henry was married to Catherine when she was in her twenty-sixth year. So long as the disparity of their ages did not appear, for he was five or six years younger, and she was pleasing in her person, he appeared not only satisfied with, but really attached to her. But she was now forty-two years of age, had undergone much anxiety in her earlier years in England, had borne the king five children, three sons and two daughters, all of whom died in their infancy, except the Princess Mary, who lived to mount the throne. Catherine, of late years, had suffered much in her health, and we may judge from the best-known portrait of her that she had now lost her good looks, and had a bowed-down and sorrow-stricken air.

Anne Boleyn had been living in France, at first as attendant on Mary, King Henry's sister, the queen of Louis XII., and afterwards in the family of the Duke of Alençon. She returned to England on the breaking out of the war with Francis I., in 1521 or 1522; and seems, by her beauty, wit, and accomplishments, to have created a great sensation in the English Court, where she was soon attached to the service of Queen Catherine. Henry is said to have first met her by accident, in her father's garden, at Hever Castle, in Kent; and was so charmed with her that he told Wolsey that he had been "discoursing with a young lady who had the wit of an angel, and was worthy of a crown." She is supposed at that time to have been about one-and-twenty, tall, of a most graceful figure, of a brunette complexion, and extremely accomplished. Her great admirer, Sir Thomas Wyatt, the celebrated poet, describes her as of "a beauty not so whitely, clear, and fresh, but above all we may esteem; which appeareth much more excellent by her favour, passing sweet and cheerful, and was enhanced by her whole presence of shape and fashion, representing both mildness and majesty, more than can be expressed." He is quite rapturous about her musical skill and the sweetness of her voice, both in singing and speaking. "Beauty and sprightliness sat on her lips," says Sanders; "in readiness of repartee, skill in the dance, and in playing on the lute, she was unsurpassed."

Such was Anne Boleyn when the fading beauty of Queen Catherine ceasing to retain the eye of her unscrupulous husband, it fell on this fascinating object, brilliant with all the gaiety of youth and the graces of her foreign education.

At the Court of Henry she was soon surrounded by lovers; but a real attachment seems to have sprung up betwixt her and Lord Percy, the son of the Duke of Northumberland. Percy was in attendance on Wolsey, and had thus daily opportunity of seeing Anne at Court. But the jealous eye of Henry soon detected this attachment; and he sent for Wolsey in great wrath; chiding him for permitting this engagement, and insisting on its being broken off. The poor young nobleman was severely snubbed by Wolsey, who sent for the duke; and they forced the young man into a marriage with Lady Mary Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, for whom he had no affection. Anne Boleyn was sent for a time home to her father's. It was clear that Henry had now marked Mistress Anne, as she was called, out for himself, and woe betide any man who should cross his path. After a time, Anne was recalled to Court, and Henry soon avowed his passion for her. The proud beauty had probably received a lesson from the fate of her sister, and she replied to the royal lover with great dignity: "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 was probably still smarting under the loss of her accepted lover, Lord Percy; and, believing that the cardinal had had a chief hand in that matter, she never forgave him; and the tearing asunder those two young hearts eventually contributed no little towards his fall. But now Mistress Anne must have begun to see that there was a mover in it beyond the cardinal. There is every reason to believe that Anne did not forgive the royal lover either this circumstance for a long time. She disappeared several years from the Court at this time, and is supposed to have gone back to France. Her father, now created Viscount Rochford, was ambassador in France about this time, and Anne was probably with him, and is said to have returned with him at his recall this year, 1527. Henry's passion had by no means cooled, and the lady would appear to have been more disposed to receive his addresses; for, says Cavendish, "at last knowing the king's pleasure, and the depth of his secrets, she began to look very haughty and stout, lacking no