[99] i. e. fumed. This metaphorical use of the word has not occurred to me elsewhere.
[100] The charms of Anne had also attracted Sir Thomas Wyatt, and some of his poems evidently allude to his passion; he was afterwards closely questioned as to the nature of his intimacy with her. A very curious narrative of some particulars relating to this attachment, from the pen of a descendant of the poet, has fortunately been preserved among the MS. collections of Lewis the antiquary. A few copies of this memoir were printed in 1817, but as it has still almost the rarity of a manuscript, I shall enrich my Appendix by reprinting it as a most curious and valuable document relating to this eventful period of our history.
[101] In the very interesting memoir of Anne Boleyn, by George Wyat, which the reader will find in the [Appendix], the queen’s prudent conduct is mentioned, and the following anecdote related: ‘These things being well perceived of the queen, which she knew well to frame and work her advantage of, and therefore the oftener had her (i. e. Anne Boleyn) at cards with her, the rather also that the king might have the less her company, and the lady the more excuse to be from him, also she esteem herself the kindlier used, and yet withal the more to give the king occasion to see the nail upon her finger. And in this entertainment, of time they had a certain game, that I cannot name, then frequented, wherein dealing, the king and queen meeting they stopt; and the young lady’s hap was, much to stop at a king. Which the queen noting, said to her, playfully, My Lady Anne, you have good hap to stop at a king, but you are like others, you will have all or none.’
[102] Yet nothing can be more strong than her expressions of gratitude and affection to the cardinal at this period when his assistance was of importance to her views. Two letters of hers to the cardinal have been published by Burnet, I. 55, [see our Appendix, [Letter XI].] in which she says: “all the days of my life I am most bound of all creatures next the king’s grace to love and serve your grace; of the which I beseech you never to doubt that ever I shall vary from this thought as long as any breath is in my body. And as touching your grace’s trouble with the sweat, I thank our Lord that them that I desired and prayed for are scaped, and that is the king and you. And as for the coming of the Legate, I desire that much, and if it be God’s pleasure, I pray him to send this matter shortly to a good end, and then I trust, my lord, to recompense part of your great pains.” In another letter she says: “I do know the great pains and troubles that you have taken for me, both day and night, is never like to be recompensed on my part, but al only in loving you next the king’s grace above all creatures living.” In a third letter, published by Fiddes, “I am bound in the mean time to owe you my service: and then look what thing in the world I can imagine to do you pleasure in, you shall find me the gladdest woman in the world to do it, and next unto the king’s grace, of one thing I make you full promise to be assured to have it, and that is my hearty love unfeignedly during my life.” It should seem, therefore, unless we suppose her to have been insincere in her expression of gratitude, that her animosity did not proceed from any displeasure at the rupture of the affair with Lord Percy; but from subsequent causes. She was probably worked upon by the cardinal’s enemies in the court.
[103] The name of this person was Giovanni Joacchino Passano, a Genoese; he was afterwards called Seigneur de Vaux. The emperor, it appears, was informed of his being in England, and for what purpose. The cardinal stated that Joacchino came over as a merchant, and that as soon as he discovered himself to be sent by the Lady Regent of France, he had made de Praet (the emperor’s ambassador) privy thereto, and likewise of the answer given to her proposals. The air of mystery which attached to this mission naturally created suspicion, and after a few months, De Praet, in his letters to the emperor, and to Margaret, the governess of the Netherlands, expressed his apprehension that all was not right, and the reasons for his surmises. His letters were intercepted by the cardinal, and read before the council. Charles and Margaret complained of this insult, and the cardinal explained as well as he could. At the same time protesting against the misrepresentation of De Praet, and assuring them that nothing could be further from his wish than that any disunion should arise between the king his master and the emperor; and notwithstanding the suspicious aspect of this transaction, his dispatches both immediately before and after this fracas strongly corroborate his assertions. [See additional note at the end of the Life.] Wolsey suspected that the Pope was inclined toward the cause of Francis, and reminded him, through the Bishop of Bath, of his obligations to Henry and Charles. The Pope had already taken the alarm, and had made terms with the French king, but had industriously concealed it from Wolsey, and at length urged in his excuse that he had no alternative. Joacchino was again in England upon a different mission, and was an eyewitness of the melancholy condition of the cardinal when his fortunes were reversed. He sympathised with him, and interested himself for him with Francis and the Queen Dowager, as appears by his letters published in Legrand, Histoire du Divorce de Henri VIII.
[104] Dr. Fiddes has justly observed, that Cavendish, in his account of these transactions, asserted some things not only without sufficient authority, but contrary to the evidence of documents which he has adduced. By these it appears, that if there was any delay in the supplies promised on the part of England it was purely accidental; and that the remissness of the emperor to furnish his quota was the principal cause of the extremity to which the Duke of Bourbon’s army was reduced. Cavendish is also wrong in his relation of the siege of Pavia and its consequences. The fact is, that the Duke of Bourbon did not command in the town, but marched at the head of the imperial army to relieve it; and the garrison did not sally out until the two armies were engaged. The demonstrations of joy with which the victory at Pavia was received in London is also an argument for the sincerity of Henry and the cardinal at this time. The story of the treaty between Henry and Francis, said to have been found in the tent of the latter after the victory, is also a mere fiction. In the spirit of a true son of the Apostolic Church, Cavendish deprecates every thing which might tend to bring the Pope into jeopardy; and he cannot help bearing hard even upon the cardinal, because he was thought indirectly the cause ‘of all this mischief.’ What is here said receives confirmation from some interesting letters of the cardinal in the Appendix to Galt’s Life of Wolsey, No. IV. V. VI. p. cxxxiv, &c. 4to edition, Lond. 1812.
[105] These intrigues, in which the cardinal bore so large a part, did not redound to the glory of his country. Our merry neighbours even then had begun to make our diplomatic inferiority the subject of their sport and ridicule. William Tindall, in his Practice of popish Prelates, referring to these events, tells us, “The Frenchmen of late dayes made a play or a disguising at Paris, in which the emperour daunsed with the pope and the French king, and weried them, the king of England sitting on a hye bench, and looking on. And when it was asked, why he daunsed not, it was answered, that he sate there, but to pay the minstrels their wages onely: as who should say, wee paid for all mens dauncing.” Tindall’s Works, p. 375. A. D. 1572. W.
[106] A brake here seems to signify a snare or trap. The word has much puzzled the commentators on Shakspeare (See Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 1). One of its antient significations was a sharp bit to break horses with. A farrier’s brake was a machine to confine or trammel the legs of unruly horses. An antient instrument of torture was also called a brake; and a thorny brake meant an intricate thicket of thorns. Shakerly Marmion, in his comedy of ‘Holland’s Leaguer’, evidently uses the word in the same sense with Cavendish:
“———-Her I’ll make
A stale to catch this courtier in a brake.”