Sir Roger Twysden’s MS. note.
[94] “Not above seven yeares of age, Anno 1514.” as appears from a fragment of this life with notes by Sir Roger Twysden, of which a few copies were printed in 1808, by Mr. Triphook, from whence also the following note is copied.
[95] “It should seeme by some that she served three in France successively; Mary of England maryed to Lewis the twelfth, an. 1514, with whome she went out of England, but Lewis dying the first of January following, and that Queene (being) to returne home, sooner than either Sir Thomas Bullen or some other of her frendes liked she should, she was preferred to Clauda, daughter to Lewis XII. and wife to Francis I. then Queene (it is likely upon the commendation of Mary the Dowager), who not long after dying, an. 1524, not yet weary of France she went to live with Marguerite, Dutchess of Alançon and Berry, a Lady much commended for her favor towards good letters, but never enough for the Protestant religion then in the infancy—from her, if I am not deceived, she first learnt the grounds of the Protestant religion; so that England may seem to owe some part of her happyness derived from that Lady.”
[96] This expression, unless the author himself were misinformed, must not be extended to imply an absolute precontract. Lord Herbert, in his Life of Henry VIII. p. 448, has published an original letter from this nobleman, then Earl of Northumberland, written in the year 1536, a short time before Q. Anne’s suffering, in which he denies any such contract, in the most solemn terms. This letter will be found in the Appendix. W.
I have placed this letter in the Appendix ([Letter VIII]) for the convenience of the reader.
[97] Geffrey Bollen, a gentlemen of Norfolk, Mayor of London, 1457, marryed one of the daughters and heyres of Thomas Lord Hoo and Hastings, by whome he had William Bolleyn (knight of the Bath at Richard 3ds coronation) who marryed the Earl of Ormonds daughter (he though of Ireland, sate in the English parliament above English Barons), by her he had Thomas Bollen, whome the Erle of Surrey after Duke of Norfolk chose for his son-in-law; of which marriage this Anne was born, 1507.
Note from Sir R. Twysden’s MS. Frag.
[98] This was the Lady Mary Talbot, daughter to George Earl of Shrewsbury, by whom he had no issue. "Though little ceremony, and probably as little time, was used in patching up these nuptials. As might be expected, they were most unhappy. So we are told, on the authority of the earl’s own letters, in the very laboured account of the Percy family given in Collins’ Peerage, ed. 1779, perhaps the best piece of family history in our language. “Henry, the unthrifty Earl of Northumberland, died at Hackney in the prime of life, about ten or twelve years after he had consented to this marriage. Of this term but a very small portion was spent in company of his lady. He lived long enough, however, not only to witness the destruction of his own happiness, but the sad termination of Anne Boleyn’s life. In the admirable account of the Percy family, referred to above, no mention is made of the lady who, on these terms, consented to become Countess of Northumberland, in her long widowhood. She sequestered herself from the world at Wormhill, on the banks of the Derbyshire Wye, amidst some of the sublimest scenery of the Peak. Wormhill is about eighteen miles from Sheffield, where Lady Northumberland’s father, brother, and nephew, successively Earls of Shrewsbury, spent the greater part of their lives.”
Who wrote Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey? p. [30].
The reader will be pleased to refer to the note as it now stands in Mr. Hunter’s Essay, prefixed to the present edition. He thinks that Wreshill, and not Wormhill, must be meant, as there is no other evidence to show that Lady Percy had a house at Wormhill.