[687] Nisi clave errante. (State Papers, i. p. 272.) Unless by an erring key.
[688] For all this while she knew nothing of the king's intended purpose, said one of his adversaries. Cavendish's Wolsey, p. 129.
[689] Ad illius imitationem reliquæ regiæ ancillæ colli et pectoris superiora, quæ antea nuda gestabant, operire cœperunt. Sanders, p. 16. In imitation of her, the other ladies of the court began to cover their neck and bosom which formerly they had worn exposed.
[690] See Sanders, Ibid. It is useless to refute Sanders' stories. We refer our readers to Burnet's Hist. of the Reformation, to Lord Herbert's life of Henry VIII, to Wyatt, and others. We need only read Sanders to estimate at their true value the foul calumnies, as these writers term them, of the man whom they style the Roman legendary.
[691] Sloane MSS. No. 2495; Turner's Hist. Eng. ii. p. 196.
[692] Tanto vehementius preces regias illa repulit. (Sanders, p. 17.) So much the more vehemently she repelled the king's entreaties.
[693] Pamphleteer, No. 42, p. 347. It is difficult to fix the order and chronology of Henry's letters to Anne Boleyn. This is the second in the Vatican Collection, but it appears to us to be of older date. It is considered as written in May 1528; we are inclined to place it in the autumn of 1527. The originals of these letters, chiefly in old French, are still preserved in the Vatican, having been stolen from the royal cabinet and conveyed thither.
[694] Concubina enim tua fieri pudica mulier nolebat, uxor volebat. Illa cujus amore rex deperibat, pertinacissime negabat sui corporis potestatem. (Polus ad Regem, p. 176.) For a modest woman, though willing to be thy wife refused to become thy concubine. Though a king was consumed by love for her, she obstinately refused to yield to him the power over her person. Cardinal Pole is a far more trust-worthy authority than Sanders.
[695] The love she bare even to the queen whom the served, that was also a personage of great virtue. Wyatt, Mem. of A. B. p. 428.
[696] Ibid.