Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/199

] manner of rich apparels or jewels that money could purchase."

The understanding betwixt Henry and Anne Boleyn now became obvious to the whole Court. The queen saw it as clearly as any one else, and upbraided Henry with it, but does not seem to have used any harshness to Anne on that account, though she occasionally gave her some sharp rubs. For instance, the queen was playing at cards with Anne Boleyn when she thus addressed her, "My Lady Anne, you have the good hap ever to stop at a king; but you are like others, you will have all or none." Cavendish, Wolsey's secretary, says the queen, at this trying crisis, "behaved like a very patient Grissel."

Henry now having resolved to marry Anne Boleyn, as he found he could obtain her on no other terms, felt himself incontinently afflicted with lamentable scruples of conscience for being married to his brother's widow, and entertaining equally afflicting doubts of the power of the Pope to grant a dispensation for such a marriage. For seventeen years these scruples had rested in his bosom without disturbing a moment of his repose. It is true that these doubts had been started before the marriage by Archbishop Warham, but they had no weight with Henry or his father. Henry had gone into the marriage at the age of eighteen with his eyes open, having some time before, by his father's order, made a protest against it for state purposes, and had been ever since, till he saw Anne Boleyn, not only contented but jovial. Now, however, he soon ceased to be merely scrupulous—he became positive that his marriage was unlawful, and set to work to write a book to prove it. In the summer of this very year 1527, in a letter to Anne Boleyn, he tells her how hard he was labouring at the treatise that was to convince everybody, and brush away all obstacles to their marriage:—",—I am right well comforted, insomuch that my book maketh substantially for my matter. In token whereof I have spent above four hours this day upon it, which has caused me to write the shorter letter to you at this time, because of some pain in my head." And, in the consciousness of his triumph over all obstacles, he wrote, for he was no contemptible poet:—

The king communicated to Wolsey fully his views regarding the divorce, and Wolsey, who had now his decided quarrel with the emperor for deceiving him in the matter of the Papacy, and who was equally the enemy of Catherine, she having openly expressed her resentment of his procuring the destruction of the Duke of Buckingham, readily fell into the scheme. Little did he dream that Henry proposed to put Anne Boleyn in Catherine's place; for Wolsey, by being the instrument of breaking her engagement with Lord Percy, had been unlucky enough to make her too his mortal enemy. Wolsey was undoubtedly as well aware as any one of the love affair going on between Henry and Anne Boleyn; nothing that was moving at Court could escape him; but he supposed this affair was only of the same kind as the rest of Henry's gallantries, and his notion would be that some foreign princess would be selected for Henry's second queen. That Henry now took every public opportunity of showing his affection for Anne, is evident by what took place at Greenwich in May of this year. The French ambassadors, the Viscount de Turenne and the Bishop of Tarbes, were over at London settling the terms of the marriage of Henry's daughter Mary with Francis, who was now a widower; and before they returned Henry gave them a fête. There was a tournament held at Greenwich on the 5th of May, in which 300 lances were broken in the lists. After the tournament there was a banquet, with orations and songs, followed by a ball. At this ball Catherine and all her ladies were present, who, according to the glowing description of the writer of the time, "seemed to all men to be rather celestial angels descended from heaven, than flesh and bone." The king drew Turenne from the ball into a tiring-room, where, with six other nobles, they put on Venetian dresses of gold and purple satin; and, with vizards on their faces, and beards of gold, they entered the ball-room, attended by a band of musicians, and each took out a lady for the dance. Anne Boleyn was the lady selected of Henry, thus marking his preference to all the world.

But during the discussions on the marriage betwixt the English princess and the French prince, a circumstance had taken place which showed that Henry was resolved to let slip no opportunity of carrying his divorce at all costs. The Bishop of Tarbes suddenly asked the question whether, in proceeding to this marriage, the legitimacy of the Princess Mary was beyond all legal and canonical doubt, considering the nature of the king's marriage with her mother, the queen. Henry and Wolsey affected to be much astonished and agitated at the question; and Henry afterwards made it an argument that the idea of the illegality of his marriage, though it had originated with himself, had been greatly strengthened by the question of the bishop, as it showed how apparent the fact was to strangers and even foreigners. Yet the suggestion had undoubtedly been made to the bishop by Wolsey on Henry's behalf. The meaning of the question was quite obvious—it was to serve the cause of the divorce, which must be an object highly pleasing to Francis I., in his resentment of the treatment of himself by the emperor; but it was not believed for a moment to be a real doubt even by the man who made it, or he would not proceed to confirm the choice of an illegitimate maiden for the Queen of France, or the wife of his son.

At the close of this treaty, Wolsey was sent over to France, rather to show to Europe, and particularly to the King of Spain, the intimate footing betwixt France and England, than for any real use. We have detailed that pompous journey of the cardinal. It was believed that Anne Boleyn and her friends were at the bottom of Wolsey's being sent abroad for a time, that the affairs regarding "the king's secret" might proceed without his cognisance; and, indeed, before his return, it had ceased to be a secret to any one. Anne was become openly acknowledged as the king's favourite, and had assumed an air and style of great magnificence and consequence on account of it. Meantime, Wolsey, misled by his idea that the king meant to marry a foreign princess, had committed himself deeply, and added fresh and serious