[169] Green's Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, 1846. See also Ellis, Original Letters, 1st series, vol. i. p. 115.
[170] Life of Anne Boleyn, in Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England, London, 1884, ii. pp. 179, 181.
[171] Ellis, Orig. Letters, 2nd series, vol. ii. p. 11. Anne's French spelling is curious and suggests that, like Henry VIII., she learnt French mainly by ear: "Mons. Je antandue par vre lettre que aves envy que tout onnete feme quan je vindre à la courte et ma vertisses que Rene prendra la pein de devisser a vecc moy, de quoy me regoy bien fort de pensser parler a vecc ung personne tante sage et onnete, cela me ferra a voyr plus grante anvy de continuer a parler bene franssais."
[172] A French poem of the time, preserved in MS. and quoted by Rathery, op. cit. p. 21, celebrates Anne's French accomplishments—Traité pour feue dame Anne de Boulant, jadis royne d'Angleterre, l'an 1533:
"La tellement ses graces amenda
Que ne l'eussiez oncques jugée Angloise
En ses fachons, ains naïve Françhoise.
Elle sçavoit bien danser et chanter,
Et ses propos sagement agencer,
Sonner du luth et d'autres instrumens
Pour divertir les tristes pensemens."
[173] Pub., with English translation, in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. iii., 1745, pp. 52-62.
[174] Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII., xv. 179, and xvi. 12.
[175] Ellis, Orig. letters, series 1, vol. ii. p. 122.
[176] Strickland, Lives of the Queens, 1884, ii. p. 299.
[177] This is the testimony of Girolamo Cordano, a physician and astrologer of Milan who was called upon to exercise his art on the young king of England in 1552. Rye, England as seen by Foreigners, pp. lxviii sqq.