CHAPTER THE THIRD. HENRY THE EIGHTH (CONTINUED).
AFTER the banquet, the kings came out of the tent, and Hall, the English annalist, got a near view of the French sovereign. Whether Hall had been immersed too thoroughly in "ipocras" to allow of his taking a clear view of matters in general, or from any other cause, it is certain that the picture he gives of Francis the First is very unlike the portrait which Titian has left to us. Hall makes the French king "highnosed and big-lipped," with "great eyes and long feet," as if Hall saw everything double while under the influence of "ipocras;" but Titian, by toning down the nose, so as to make its bridge in conformity with the arches of the eyebrows, has turned out a not unpleasing portrait of the great original.
It had been previously announced that jousts would form part of the festivities, and accordingly, on the 11th of June, these entertainments began in a very spirited manner. The "braying" of trumpets made an appropriate introduction to the sports, ana the overture was echoed by braying of a more animated character. Each king fought five battles every day, and, of course, came off victoriously in every one; for the nobles and gentlemen of those times were most complacent in submitting their heads as dummies to aid the amusements of royalty. The season of the Field of the Cloth of Gold terminated with a fancy dress ball, in which Henry made himself very conspicuous by the character and richness of his disguises. The vastness of his wardrobe enabled him to astonish everyone by the effectiveness of his "making-up" and two or three of his masks were models of quaint ugliness.
At the end of a fortnight of foolery and feasting the two monarchs separated, and the memorable meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold passed from the hands of the costumier, the carpenter, and the cook, into those of the historian. Its chief result was to beggar many of the French and English nobles who had taken part in it, and gone to expense they could not support to outdo each other in magnificence. Thus did the Field of the Cloth of Gold prepare the way for a sort of threadbare seediness, into which many belonging to both nations were plunged by their having done themselves up in an insane attempt to outdo each other.
Our account of the great meeting on the Field of the Cloth of Gold would not be complete without the following anecdote. Francis rose very early one morning, and made his way to the quarters of Henry, who was in bed and fast asleep on the arrival of his illustrious visitor. The French king shook the English monarch cordially by the whipcord tassel on the top of his nightcap, when the latter, springing out of bed, responded to the playful summons. "You see," said Francis, "I am up with the lark," to which Henry added, "And I am ready for the bird you have specified." The English king then expressed himself much obliged for such a mark of attention, and cast over the neck of Francis "a splendid collar," being, no doubt, the "false one" taken off on the night previous. It is believed by some that Henry, not knowing the object of the intrusion, collared the intruder at once; but the version of the story which we have already given appears to be the more probable. Francis, in his turn, clasped a bracelet on Henry's arm, or rather, according to an ill-natured reading of the affair, one cuffed the other for the collaring he had experienced. Henry rang his bell for his valet, but Francis would not permit the attendance of any servant, but laid out Henry's clean things with his own hand, taking in his shaving water, putting out his highlows to be cleaned, and taking them in again. *
* The minuteness with which these particulars are detailed,
may cause a doubt of their veracity, but we refer the reader
to Mr. Fraser Tytler's "Life of Henry the Eighth," in p. 123
of which the anecdote we have given is fully recorded.
Henry, on his return from the Field of the Cloth of Gold, took Gravelines in his way, and gave a look in upon Charles of Castile, who saw him home as far as Calais. This far-seeing prince saw that Wolsey had it all his own way with the English king, and the emperor took every possible opportunity of trying to "come over" the proud prelate. Charles promised his "vote and interest" to Wolsey, in the event of any vacancy occurring in the papal chair, and gratified his avarice by making him bishop of Placentia and Badajos.
Henry, after making a short stay at Calais, returned to Dover, and reached London, without a penny in his pocket, for both he and his courtiers were completely cleaned out by their recent extravagance. On the king's arrival, Buckingham got himself into trouble by his impertinent remarks on the expedition to France, and the dreadful waste of money that it had occasioned. He particularly pointed his sarcasms against Wolsey as the originator of all the expensive fooleries that had been committed, and he took every opportunity of gain saying all the fooleries that had been committed, and he took every opportunity of occasion, Buckingham had been holding a basin for Henry to wash his hands, when Wolsey, anxious to have a finger in everything belonging to the king, plunged his paws into the same water. The duke, desirous of administering a damper to the cardinal, spilt a quantity of the liquid over his shoes, when Wolsey becoming angry, threatened to "set upon his skirts," which meant in other words, that the cardinal would be down upon him.
There is no doubt that Wolsey took every opportunity of damaging Buckingham; but the duke himself was obnoxious to the king, and gave particular offence by hiring a servant who had been a member of the royal household. Buckingham had been leading the life of a country gentleman, at what be modestly called his "little place" in Gloucestershire, when he received an invitation to Court; and, foolishly flattering himself that this little attention was shown to him on account of his merits, he unsuspectingly obeyed the summons. When he had proceeded some way on his journey, he found he was dodged by three disagreeable looking fellows in block tin, who turned out to be members of the king's body guard, and who were sure to be at his heels whenever he looked round over his own shoulder.
Having put up at Windsor for the night, he had no sooner been shown to his bedroom than he saw the same three fellows loitering in the yard of the inn he was stopping at. Once or twice, after occasion, Buckingham retiring to rest, he looked out of his window and fancied he saw one of the three knights crouching in a corner beneath his lattice, and he called out to the figure to be off; but the approach of daylight revealed to him the outline of an innocent water-butt, which he had during the hours of darkness imperatively desired to quit the premises. "I know you well," he cried several times to the tub, "and you had better go at once;" but his expostulations were of course disregarded in the quarter to which he was idly addressing them.
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Declining to stop at Windsor, he determined to breakfast the next morning at Egham; but he had no sooner entered the coffee-room than he was insulted by one Thomas Ward, a creature of the Court, which completely took away the appetite of the duke, of whom it was cruelly said that he could eat neither egg nor ham in the hostel at Eg-ham. He then rode on to Westminster, where he got into his barge and 'pulled down with the tide as far as Greenwich, but stopped at Wolsey's house on the way, and sent in his card to the cardinal, who sent out word that he was indisposed, and declined seeing his visitor. "Umph," said the duke, "I'm sorry to hear that, but I'll step in, and take a glass of wine, if you've no objection!" After a good deal of whispering among Wolsey's servants, Buckingham was shown into the cellar, where he took a draught of wine from the wood; but finding no preparations made for him, he changed colour—that is to say, he looked rather blue—and proceeded on his journey. As he continued pulling along the river, a four-oared, manned by yeomen of the guard, whose captain acted as coxswain, hailed Buckingham in his barge, which was instantly boarded by the crew of the cutter.
The duke having been towed ashore, was at once arrested, and marched in custody down Thames Street, with a mob at his heels, all the way to the Tower. There were a few cries of "Shame!" and other demonstrations of disapproval, but the sympathy of the bystanders having evaporated in a few yells and a mud shower of cabbage leaves, Buckingham was left in the hands of his captors. On the 13th of May, 1521, Buckingham was brought to trial on the charge of tempting Friar Hopkins to make traitorous prophecies. This Hopkins was an old fortune-telling impostor, who had predicted all sorts of good luck to poor Buckingham, none of which ever fell to his lot; so that he had the double mortification of having been cheated out of his cash, for promises that never came true, and being punished for them just as much as if they had all been literally verified. Buckingham defended himself with great courage; and on being convicted as a traitor, he solemnly declared that he was "never none:" an indignant mode of exculpation, in which grammar was sacrificed to emphasis. He died, very courageously, on the 17th of May, 1521, and the barbarous ceremony of his execution created the greatest disgust among the populace.
Almost at the very moment that Henry was being guilty of the enormity we have described, he was putting himself forward as the champion of Religion. He professed the greatest horror of the errors and heresies of Luther, whom, in a letter to Louis of Bavaria, he proposed to burn, books and all, in an early bonfire. Finding that the great Reformer was not to be thus made light of, Henry turned author, and by taking up the pen, he, instead of consigning his antagonist to the flames, regularly burnt his own fingers. There is no doubt that the royal scribbler had been thoroughly well crammed for the task he undertook; and Leo the Tenth having read the book, was good-natured enough to say, in the language of our old friend the Evening Paper, that "it ought to be on every gentleman's table." He published a sort of review of it in a special bull, and made the remark, that the author might fairly be called "The Defender of the Faith," a title which was not only adopted by Henry himself, but has been held, to this very day, by all subsequent English sovereigns.
Francis and Charles, the respective monarchs of France and Spain, had all this time continued their bickering, and they at length agreed to ask the arbitration of Henry. He declined interfering personally, but sent Wolsey in his stead, and the cardinal arrived at Calais on the 30th of July, 1521, with a magnificent retinue. His establishment consisted of lords, bishops, doctors, knights, squires, and gentlemen in crimson-velvet coats, with gold chains round their necks, which gave to the whole party an aspect of exceeding flashiness. Wolsey, notwithstanding the number and splendour of his followers, was at a very trifling expense, for he billeted the whole party at Bruges upon the unfortunate emperor, or rather upon his more unfortunate subjects, who were ordered by their sovereign to find everything that was wanted and put it all down to him in that doubtful document, the bill, which between a potentate and his people seldom meets with settlement. Rations of candles, wine, sugar *, were served out every evening to the whole of Wolsey's suite, so that all who wanted it had the ingredients of grog, while the candles enabled such as were so disposed to make a night of it.
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After spending ten days in the enjoyment of every luxury, at the cost of the contending parties, thus showing that he understood how to make the very most of his position as an arbitrator, Wolsey suddenly declared that he saw no chance of Charles and Francis being reconciled. The wily cardinal, having been regularly got hold of by Charles, drew up a treaty extremely favourable to the emperor, and even arranged that he should marry Henry's daughter Mary, though the young lady had been previously betrothed to the son of Francis.
This alteration in the domestic arrangements of the parties concerned was simply declared to be "for the good of Christendom," ** and Henry agreed to the plan with a nonchalant assurance that he really thought it the best thing that could be done, for he did not see "how his said affairs might have been better handled." *** Pope Leo the Tenth, who was in league with Wolsey, the emperor, and Henry, in their joint arrangements for smashing France, agreed to give the dispensation for the proposed marriage; but Leo died before the nuptial treaty had been ratified.
* Cavendish.
** Galt's "Life of Wolsey," book ii., p. 43.
***State Papers.
On the death of Leo the Tenth, Wolsey lost no time in offering himself as a candidate for the vacant popedom. Secretary Pace was sent off at a slapping pace to Rome, to see the members of the conclave, and solicit their votes and interests for the English cardinal. Pace, however, seems to have been too slow to be of any use, and Adrian, Cardinal of Tortosa, who was put up almost in joke, and certainly to create a diversion against Giulio de Medici, one of the other candidates, was returned by a large majority. Wolsey's name does not appear to have been even mentioned on the occasion, and Pace took no step to further his employer's interests.
Francis having been thoroughly disgusted at the treatment he had experienced, tried, in the first place, to win Henry back to his cause by entreaties, and next by intimidation, in pursuance of which he shabbily stopped the pension of the English sovereign. When two kings fall out, their subjects are usually the sufferers; and accordingly, the English in France and the French in England became the objects of royal spitefulness. Francis stopped all the British vessels in his ports, and arrested the merchants, while Henry took his revenge by imprisoning the French ambassador and making a wholesale seizure of all property belonging to Frenchmen. At length, the English monarch became so angry, that he sent a challenge by the Clarencieux Herald, offering to fight Francis in single combat, that each might have the satisfaction of a gentleman; but whether one refused to go out, or the other drew in, we are not aware, for we only know that the dispute did not end in a duel.
Doubts have been thrown upon the sincerity of Henry in thus inviting Francis to a personal encounter, but there is every reason to believe that, in the words of the Bell's Life of the period, "the British Pet meant business, though the Gallic Cock, having already won his spurs in other quarters, was not disposed to place them in jeopardy." Henry, with the customary determination of the English character had, no doubt, put himself regularly into training for the event to come off, and it is not unlikely that he may have frequently amused himself by a little practice on the effigy of his intended antagonist. The skill he thus acquired in planting his blows and putting in the necessary punishment at the proper points would have been highly serviceable had he ever been allowed to meet his man, and it is even said that a bottle of claret was placed in the middle of the head of the figure, so that Henry might fully realise the result of his sparring exercise. We know not how far we may put faith in these ancient records, but we are justified in giving them to the reader, who will separate, no doubt, the wholesome corn of fact from the chaff of mere tradition.
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In the meantime, Charles came over on a visit to his intended father-in-law, and was introduced to his infant bride, who was a child in arms, at his first interview. Henry and Charles indulged in a succession of gaieties, for which neither possessed the means, and Charles even borrowed money of Henry, while the latter made up the deficiency by running into debt to a frightful extent with his own people.
The king now began to find that he "must have cash," and he at once applied to Wolsey to assist him in raising more money. On these occasions Henry spoke in the most flattering manner to the cardinal, calling him endearingly his "Linsey Wolsey," in a word, "his comforter." The prelate readily entered into his master's views, but candidly pointed out the difficulties of extracting anything more from the London merchants. They had lately advanced £20,000 in a forced loan, and it was determined to vary the demand upon them, by substituting direct taxation for the empty form of borrowing. Wolsey ordered the mayor, the aldermen, and the most substantial citizens of London to attend at his chambers, * when he announced to them the fact that the sovereign was hard up, and required pecuniary assistance. "What, again!" cried a voice which the cardinal pretended not to hear, but proceeded to say that he should require a return of the amount of their annual moneys from all of them. This proposition was the origin of that income-tax with which England has since been burdened; and the lovers of antiquity will feel some consolation in the knowledge that they suffer under a grievance which is hallowed by its ancient origin. There is to many a great comfort in being victimised under venerable institutions, and there are individuals who would rather be plundered in conformity with what are termed time-honoured principles, than be fairly dealt with upon any new system.
While, however, we are talking of the simpletons of the present day, the dupes and victims of the period of Henry the Eighth are being kept waiting in the presence of Wolsey. "Gentlemen," said the cardinal, "the country is in danger, ana the king wants your hearts;" an announcement which was received with cheers of assent, until it was followed up by a declaration that he must also try the strength of their pockets. Murmurs of dissent followed this intimation; but Wolsey went on boldly to say that the king would only require one-tenth of what they had, and if they could not live on the other nine-tenths, he did not know how they would ever be satisfied. "How will his majesty take the contribution?" at length exclaimed one of the aldermen. "In money, plate, or jewels," cried the cardinal; "but at any rate the thing must be done, and therefore go about it." ** A promise was made that the money should be repaid out of the first subsidy, which would have been a sort of improvement upon the old practice of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, for it would have been picking Peter's two pockets at once, and ransacking one under the pretext of replenishing the other.
* Supposed to have been over the gateway of Inner Temple
Lane, where Henry and Wolsey shared the rooms now occupied
by their successors, Honey and Skelton the hairdressers.
** Hall, by the salient wit of More, who had a new joke for
every new star, and appropriate puns for all the planets. He
was the original author of that brilliant but ancient series
of pleasantries on the "milky whey," which have since become
so universally popular; and to him may perhaps be attributed
the venerable but not sufficiently appreciated remark, that
the music of the spheres must proceed from the band of
Orion.
Henry certainly had the knack of making his people's money go a great way, for it went so far when it passed into his hands, that it never came back again. The enormous sums he had extorted from the citizens soon melted away in dinner parties, pageants, and other expenses, so that he was at last, after a lapse of eight years, obliged to summon a Parliament. It was opened in person by the king, and the Commons elected Sir Thomas More as their speaker.
Sir Thomas More presented one of those rare unions of wisdom and waggery which may occasionally be found, and he was often sent for to the palace to make jokes for his sovereign. The king would often take him out on the leads at night, where after scrambling through the cock-loft, and getting out upon the tiles, Sir Thomas and his royal pupil would stand for an hour at a time, conversing on the subject of astronomy.
The king and Wolsey congratulated each other on having got Tom More as Speaker, for they thought he would act like one of themselves, and that he would soon laugh the people out of all the money they might be required to furnish. Henry and the cardinal foolishly imagined that the man who sometimes made a joke could never be serious; but they found out their mistake, for he proved himself an excellent man of business when occasion required. Wolsey thought to produce an effect by attending the House in person, and making a speech on that most unpromising topic the "crisis," though it was not such a threadbare subject in those days as in our own, when a "crisis" may almost be looked for as a quarterly occurrence. Happily, if we are remarkable for our rapidity in getting a "crisis" up, we have also a wonderful knack of putting it down again with equal promptitude.
The speech of Wolsey was listened to without reply; for, every member of the House considering the cardinal's intrusion a breach of privilege, remained mute and motionless. Irritated by their silence, the crafty churchman called up one of the members by name, and asked him for a speech; but the call might just as well have been for a song, since the individual indicated said nothing more than rise up and sit down again. Finding it impossible to get a good word, or indeed any word at all from the Commons, the cardinal lost his temper, and declared that, having come from the king, he should certainly wait for an answer; but Tom Moore, the Speaker—who, by-the-by, deserved the title, for he was the only one that spoke—began to show his wit by saying that the fact was, the Commons were too modest to open their mouths in the presence of so great a personage. Wolsey withdrew in dudgeon, and after a few days' debate, it was at length agreed to give the money that had been asked, but to take five years to pay it in. Though Henry would no doubt have been perfectly willing to make a sacrifice for ready money, and allow a considerable discount on a cash transaction, his minister tried to accelerate the mode of payment without offering any equivalent for a restriction of the term of credit.
The autumn of the year 1525 was rendered remarkable by the confusion into which the Londoners were thrown, in consequence of the almanack-makers and astronomers having tried to give an impetus to their trade by throwing into the market a parcel of very alarming prophecies. It was predicted that the rains would be so tremendous as to convert the whole wealth of the metropolis into floating capital; and the merchants, fearing they might not be able to keep their heads above water, ran in crowds to the suburbs. Several parted with everything they possessed, and their foolish conduct in making their arrangements for being swamped formed a precedent, no doubt, for a case of recent occurrence, in which an individual of average income, having been led away by a prophecy that the world had only two more years to run, invested the whole of his property in the largest possible annuity he could procure for two years, being under the firm impression that beyond that time neither he nor his heirs, executors, or assigns would have the opportunity of enjoying a farthing of any surplus. As the world did not keep the appointment that had been made for it by the calculator of its final arrangements, he was left without a penny when the time he had assigned for its duration was up; and thus many had got rid of everything in 1525, under the expectation that all their sorrows and possessions would be drowned in the inundation that did—not happen.
During the time the panic prevailed, a few of the tradesmen and artificers did their best to put it to a profitable account, and a turner of the time, who was so clever at his business that he could turn a penny out of anything, constructed several thousand pairs of stilts, and, placing them in his window labelled "Stilts for the inundation," he obtained numerous customers.
Wolsey's attention was suddenly called off from matters at home by a fresh vacancy in the popedom, occasioned by the death of Adrian.
The English cardinal immediately despatched a letter to his royal master, saying how unfit he was for the pontificate, when Henry, instantly taking the hint, and saying to himself, "Oh! ah! exactly! I see what Wolsey wants," wrote off strongly to Rome in favour of his election. Powerful efforts were made to secure his return and push him to the top of the poll, but though he got several votes, he was completely beaten by Giulio de Medici, who was elected to the papal chair by a very large majority. Wolsey bore his disappointment, to all appearances, exceedingly well, but the probability is that he saw the policy of keeping on good terms with the new pope, who made the cardinal his legate for life, and granted him a bull empowering him to suppress a number of monasteries, for the purpose of taking the money they possessed to endow his own colleges.
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Henry and Wolsey declared that the cash should be devoted to "putting down" that "Monster Luther," as they sometimes called him, or that "fellow Luther," as they spoke of him now and then, by way of change, though his fellow did not exist at the period when the term was applied to him. Among the many irons that Henry now had in the fire was an Italian iron, with which he stood a pretty fair chance of burning his fingers, for he had interfered in the disputes between Francis the First of France and the Emperor Charles, who was at war in Italy. Francis had laid himself down on the pavement before Pavia, resolved to leave no stone unturned to place a curb on the foe and pave his own way to victory. As he lay under the walls, the cream of the Imperial army was poured down upon him with a savage violence that causes the blood to curdle at the bare recital. Thoroughly soured in his hopes, Francis plunged into the very thick of the Imperial cream, and beating around him with his sword in all directions, reduced seven men, with his own hand, to the inanimate condition of whipped syllabubs. His valour availed him little, for he was removed—to adopt the spelling of the period—in custardy. He was kept in captivity in Spain, at the strong fortress of Pizzichitone, from which he wrote home to his mother—probably for the means of replenishing his sac de nuit—and concluded his note with the memorable words,"Tout est perdu hors l'honneur," which, for the benefit of that portion of the public who may have learnt their "French without a master," and have, consequently, never mastered it at all, we translate into "All is lost, excepting honour."
Francis being now completely down, Henry and Wolsey proposed to Charles that they should combine in making the very most of the helpless position of their prostrate enemy. Fortunately for the French king, his two opponents were not only deficient in funds, but had begun to quarrel; on the old principle, perhaps, that when Poverty stalks in at the door, Love hops out at the window. The pay of Charles's forces had fallen fearfully into arrear, and they declared they would no longer go on fighting on half salaries. It was therefore determined to bring the military season to a close; and the grand ballet of action, having for its plot the invasion of France—of which Henry had drawn out the scheme, and which was to have put forward the strength of a double company, comprising a powerful combination of the English and Imperial troupe—was postponed for an indefinite period.
Henry, who was ready to sell himself to either party, finding Charles too poor to purchase him, offered himself without reserve to Francis. Terms were soon arranged, by which Henry was to receive by instalments two millions of crowns, with a permanent annuity when the chief sum was paid off; and Wolsey was also handsomely provided for—at least in the shape of promises. While the agreement was most solemnly ratified by Francis himself and the chief of the French nobility, the Attorney and Solicitor-General of France privately popped a protest on to the file, in order that the king, who was particular about his honour, might not have his scruples shocked should he subsequently feel disposed to break his word and fly off from his agreement. He found considerable difficulty in effecting his release without swearing to at least a dozen things he never intended to perform, and when the document was brought to him, full of concessions to Charles, he affixed his signature with the indifference of a man putting his name to a bill, regardless of the amount, which he does not mean to liquidate. He had no sooner got out of custody, and found himself comfortably seated before his palace fire, than Sir Thomas Cheney and Dr. Taylor walked in with a message from Henry the Eighth, to congratulate Francis on his delivery. "If you'll take my advice," said one of the visitors, at the same time handing his card, with
Dr. Taylor,
Jurist.
upon it, to give weight to his words, "you will pay no attention to the liabilities you have entered into with regard to the Emperor."
"Indeed, Doctor, I don't mean to trouble myself upon the subject," was the king's reply; "and in fact I have kept up a running accompaniment of private protests to every obligation I have undertaken." Dr. Taylor explained to him that he was on the safe side, for the bonds he had given were bad in law, having been executed while the king was under duress, and therefore not legally responsible. Thus did the chivalrous Francis, who had written so nobly about having lost everything except his honour, present an early instance, of which later times have furnished so many, of the largest talkers being the smallest doers, or perhaps rather the greatest dos in the universe.
We have now to relate a curious personal anecdote of Henry the Eighth, which might have caused a considerable abridgment of his reign, much in the same way that the want of strength in the bowl in which the three wise men of Gotha went to sea, put a premature period to their little history. * Henry, in his early manhood, was one day running after a hawk, perhaps to put a little salt on its tail in the idle hope of catching it. The bird was actively retreating before its royal pursuer, and had just quitted a hedge by hopping the twig, when it traversed a ditch on the other side, which Henry endeavoured to clear by the aid of his leaping-pole. The attempt somehow failed, and the monarch pitching on to his head in the soft mud, sunk into it as far as his neck, and became planted with his legs in the air for several seconds. Happily a footman named Edmund Moody—"You all know Tom Moody" though you may never have heard of Edmund—came up at the instant and pulled the king up from the ground by the roots—at least by the roots of his hair—with wondrous promptitude. Had this accident proved fatal, Henry would have been the first instance of a monarch losing his crown by being planted instead of supplanted, which had been the fate of some that had preceded him.
* "Three wise men of Gotha
Went to sea in a bowl;
Had the bowl been stronger
My story would have been longer."
—Old Nursery Ballad.
Though the fact is not stated, the inference clearly is,
that the "wise men" bowled themselves out of existence by
that rash proceeding.
It is now time for us to speak of the commencement of that spirit of Bluebeardism which ultimately gave the most glaring colouring to Henry's character. He had always been a little flighty and indiscriminate in his attentions to the fair sex, but he had hitherto treated Catherine with respect, until he met with Anne Boleyn, or Bullen, the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who was descended from a former Lord Mayor of London, but by a series of clever match-making—a talent for which was inherited by Miss Anne—the family had succeeded in allying itself, by marriage, to some of the proudest aristocracy in the land.
One of their earliest "dodges" had been to repair the plebeian word Bullen, by omitting the U and substituting an O, which got it to Bollen. In the course of time, having been allowed an inch in the way of licence, they took an L, or at least one liquid absorbed another, and the word now stood Bolen. Subsequently a Y, without a why or wherefore, was dropped in, and the Bullens, who had probably acquired their name, originally, from having been landlords, or perhaps potboys, at the "Bull," had now assumed the comparatively elegant title of Boleyn, which has since become so famous in history. Sir Thomas Boleyn, the father of Nancy, had long lived about the Court, and had been employed as a deliverer of messages, or ticket-porter, for Henry the Eighth, on some important occasions. Anne, who was born in the year 1507, had in very early life gone out to service as maid—of honour—to the king's sister, Mary, who, when going over to be married to Louis the Twelfth, took the girl abroad, where she picked up a few accomplishments. On Mary's returning home, a widow, Anne Boleyn found another situation with Claude, the wife of Francis the First, but after remaining in another family or two for a short time in France, she returned to England, where we find her, in 1527, engaged as maid of honour to Catherine of Aragon.
Henry having become deeply enamoured of Miss Boleyn, who had shown a strong determination to stand no nonsense, was suddenly seized with religious scruples as to his marriage with the queen; for he found out, seventeen years after the event, that he had done wrong in allying himself with his brother's widow. The fact of her being now an oldish lady of forty-three added no doubt considerably to the pious horror of the king at the step which he had taken. He accordingly began to think seriously of a divorce; and when Wolsey was sounded on the subject, the cardinal, for reasons of his own, yielded a prompt concurrence. He was anxious to pay off Catherine on account of a quarrel he had had with her nephew, the emperor; and thus, in the words of the poet of Dumbarton Castle,
"He sought to consummate his fiendish part
By breaking a defenceless female's heart."
He was sent as an ambassador to Francis, ostensibly to arrange about the marriage of Henry's only daughter Mary, but really, as it is believed, to induce the French king to consent that Wolsey should be a sort of acting pope during the investment of the castle of St. Angelo, where the Spaniards and Germans had made the real pontiff a prisoner.
Poor Clement bore his ill fortune with patience, though, as long as the investment of the castle lasted, he used to say it was one of the most unprofitable investments in which he had ever been involved, and that nothing but the excessive tightness prevented him from selling out, for he was quite tired of the security.