Anne Boleyn

“ Question your sister Mary, somewhile consort to Louis the Twelfth and now Duchess of Suffolk—question her as to the character and conduct of Anne Boleyn when she was her attendant at the court of France—ask whether she had never to reprove her for levity—question the Lord Percy as to her love for him—question Sir Thomas Wyat, and a host of others.”
“All these charges are false and calumnious!” cried Anne Boleyn.
“Let the king inquire and judge for himself,” rejoined Catherine; “and if he weds you, let him look well to you, or you will make him a scoff to all honourable men. ”

“ But Anne Boleyn was not noble and was not wise,—too probably she felt nothing but the delicious, all-absorbing, all-intoxicating present, and if that plain, suffering face presented itself to her memory at all, we may fear that it was rather as a foil to her own surpassing loveliness. Two years later, she was able to exult over Catherine's death; she is not likely to have thought of her with gentler feelings in the first glow and flush of triumph. ”

“ We have been necessarily led to observe the weak and defective side of Anne Boleyn's character, in tracing her progress. Her ambition, her levity, her little regard for the feelings and patience of her Royal mistress, her regardlessness of her good fame by living so openly with the king before their marriage, and her great culpability in marrying him whilst the real queen was not only still living, but undivorced, exhibit her but as a worldly woman of a conduct most censurable. ”

“ A sentence, however, was soon after obtained from Archbishop Cranmer pronouncing the marriage with Katharine null, and another sentence declaring Anne Boleyn the king's lawful wife, immediately after which Anne was crowned on Whitsunday at Westminster Hall with great magnificence.
She had now attained the summit of her ambition; but never was woman in exalted station less to be envied, even in the moment of her triumph. Her coronation excited no enthusiasm out of doors, and real love was absent within. The passion which had thus far blinded the king was already on the wane. ”

“ Odious enough was the case when Anne Boleyn supplanted the right royal Catherine of Arragon; but a sickening sensation of horror must pervade every right-feeling mind when the proceedings of the discreet Jane Seymour are considered. She received the addresses of her mistress's husband, knowing him to be such; she passively beheld the mental anguish of Anne Boleyn, when that unhappy queen was in a state which peculiarly demanded feminine sympathy; she knew the discovery of Henry's inconstancy had nearly destroyed her, whilst the shock actually destroyed her infant. ”

“ The offspring of Anne Boleyn, over whose head the Shadow of the Axe is already hovering, has been christened amid the acclamations of the mob; the King paces forth to hold the child up to the gaze of a shouting populace, accompanied by the Court and the Clergy—trumpets blare, drums roll, the organ thunders, cannons boom, hymns are sung, the joy bells are pealing. A lonely figure in black enters weeping. ”

“ Subsequently, on the 23rd of May, their marriage was declared valid and that with Catherine null, and in June Anne was crowned with great state in Westminster Abbey. Anne Boleyn had now reached the zenith of her hopes. A weak, giddy woman of no stability of character, her success turned her head and caused her to behave with insolence and impropriety, in strong contrast with Catherine’s quiet dignity under her misfortunes. ”

“ She might have known that, even when he was in love with her, he had been a mean and selfish coward, running away, like a frightened cur, from her society and her house, when a dangerous sickness broke out in it, and when she might easily have taken it and died, as several of the household did. But, Anne Boleyn arrived at all this knowledge too late, and bought it at a dear price. Her bad marriage with a worse man came to its natural end. ”

“ He had divorced Catharine of Aragon on account of conscientious scruples; therefore, some other means must be devised for Anne Boleyn.
“The shortest way to be rid of her was the scaffold. Why should not Anne travel that road, since so many had gone it before her? for a new force had entered into the king’s life: the tiger had licked blood! His instinct was aroused, and he recoiled no more from those crimson rills which flowed in the veins of his subjects.
“He had given Lady Anne Boleyn the crimson mantle of royalty, why then should she not give him her crimson blood? ”

“ ISTRESS Anne Boleyn was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn. She returned from France in 1527, under circumstances which were favourable not only to the acquisition of all elegant accomplishments, but to the strengthening of her understanding, and the improvement of her mind. As early as 1515, she had been sent over to that kingdom to be attendant on the Princess Mary, the wife of Louis XII. On the death of this monarch, and the return of his widow to England, Anne entered the household of Queen Claude, in whose palace she remained till she was seventeen. ”

“ Be steadfast, Henry.
KING HENRY.
Fear not: love is poor
That seals not compacts with the stamp of faith.
QUEEN ANNE.
My stay is trespass. We will meet anon.
Love needs no counsel in his little realm.
“Anne Boleyn” is not only a fine dramatic poem, considered in respect to character and situations, but it is as interesting as a novel, and continually excites those emotions which exact attention, even in the least cultivated reader. Taken in connection with the author’s previous work, it evinces not only genius, but a genius which grows. ”

“ Anne Boleyn, the pretty little girl who had gone abroad to France with his sister, was by this time grown up to be very beautiful, and was one of the ladies in attendance on Queen Catherine. Now, Queen Catherine was no longer young or handsome, and it is likely that she was not particularly good-tempered; having been always rather melancholy, and having been made more so by the deaths of four of her children when they were very young. So, the King fell in love with the fair Anne Boleyn, and said to himself, "How can I be best rid of my own troublesome wife whom I am tired of, and marry Anne?" ”

“ While fires blazed in Smithfield and news of defeat came from over sea, while the hot voices of Protestant zealots hounded men on to assassination and revolt, the bulk of Englishmen looked quietly from the dying Queen to the girl who in a little while must wear her crown. What nerved men to endure the shame and bloodshed about them was the certainty of the speedy succession of the daughter of Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth was now in her twenty-fifth year. ”

“ By the prudent and the moderate she was almost equally disliked; the nation generally, and even Reformers like Cromwell and Cranmer, were Imperialist; Anne Boleyn was passionately French. Personally she had made herself disliked by her haughty and arrogant manners. She had been received as Queen, after her marriage was announced, with coldness, if not with hostility. Had she been gracious and modest she might have partially overcome the prejudice against her. But she had been carried away by the vanity of her elevation; she had insulted the great English nobles ”

“ There is nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. Bessie Blount is as much a fact as Anne Boleyn, and Anne Boleyn as Katharine of Aragon. If they are to his taste they are honoured and worshipped with him; if he is tired of them the country is tired of them too; they are abominable; they confess themselves guilty of impossible sins ”

“ A goodly sight it was to see this gallant company riding beneath the trees; and pleasant was it, also, to listen to the blithe sound of their voices, amid which Anne Boleyn's musical laugh could be plainly distinguished. Henry was attended by his customary band of archers and yeomen of the guard, and by the Duke of Shoreditch and his followers. On reaching the haye, the king dismounted, and assisting the Lady Anne from her steed, ascended the stand with her. ”

“ Presently, leaning on the arm of an Armenian slave, she pointed in the direction where the Silver Queen was standing in the midst of a glittering throng.
"Who is that young lady?" asked Anne Boleyn.
Her companion followed her eyes, looked at the Silver Queen, and said in a tone of admiration,—
"What a lovely girl she is! quite one of the belles on this most auspicious evening."
"She is a beautiful girl. But I am not interested in her looks," said Katherine Hunt; "I want to know her name." ”

“ They have satisfied themselves that the charges against Anne Boleyn were invented because the King wished to marry Jane Seymour. I pretend to no intuition myself. I do not profess to be wise beyond what I find written. In this instance I hazard a conjecture—a conjecture merely—which occurred to me long ago as an explanation of some of the disasters of Henry's marriages, and which the words, alleged to have been used by Anne to Lady Rochford, tend, pro tanto, to confirm. ”

“ She obeyed; but replied that wherever she went, she was Queen of England still, and would remain so, to the last. The King then married Anne Boleyn privately; and the new Archbishop of Canterbury, within a half a year, declared his marriage with Queen Catherine void, and crowned Anne Boleyn Queen.
She might have known that no good could ever come from such wrong, and that the corpulent brute who had been faithless and so cruel to his first wife, could be more faithless and more cruel to his second. ”

“ The King's friends sought to discount the effect of her uncompliant attitude by ascribing it to the obstinacy inherent in the children of Spanish mothers. In Anne Boleyn's eyes the princess was her worst enemy, and after the birth of her daughter Elizabeth (7 Sept. 1533) Anne exerted all her influence over the king to secure Mary's humiliation. Parliament at once passed an act regulating the succession to the crown, by which, in view of the alleged nullity of Catherine's marriage, Man' was adjudged illegitimate, and Anne's children were declared to be alone capable of succeeding to the throne. ”

“ The willfulness of Henry, the triviality of Anne Boleyn, played over the surface of a nature hard as steel, a temper purely intellectual, the very type of reason untouched by imagination or passion. Luxurious and pleasure-loving as she seemed, Elizabeth lived simply and frugally, and she worked hard. Her vanity and caprice had no weight whatever with her in state affairs. The coquette of the presence-chamber became the coolest and hardest of politicians at the council-board. Fresh from the flattery of her courtiers, she would tolerate no flattery in the closet ”

“ This he had, as he maintained, a right to do, for he considered his first marriage as void, absolutely and of itself, without any decree. When, at length, the decree was finally passed, he brought Anne Boleyn forward as his queen, and introduced her as such to England and to the world by a genuine marriage and a most magnificent coronation. The people of England pitied poor Catharine, but they joined very cordially, notwithstanding, in welcoming the youthful and beautiful lady who was to take her place. All London gave itself up to festivities and rejoicings on the occasion of these nuptials. ”

“ These hints are but slight, since I shall not even mention the scandals of Sanders, any more than I shall mention the panegyrics of Foxe; stories which, as far as I can learn, have no support in evidence, and rest on no stronger foundation than the credulity of passion.
Anne Boleyn was the second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a gentleman of noble family, though moderate fortune; [105] who, by a marriage with the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, was brought into connection with the highest blood in the realm. ”

“ The Case of Anne Boleyn THERE is something Greek, something akin to Œdipus and Thyestes, in the tragedy of Anne Boleyn. It is difficult to believe, as we read it, that we are viewing the actions of real people subject to passions violent indeed yet common to those of mankind, and not the creatures of a nightmare. Yet I believe that the conduct of the three protagonists, Henry, Catherine, and Anne, can all be explained if we appreciate the facts and interpret them with the aid of a little medical knowledge and insight. ”

“ The name of Anne Boleyn appears early in connection with the King's restiveness; and even if the King was largely influenced by personal feeling, when we remember the tenor of his early life we need not think that he would have been unequal to the restraint which ordinary persons in similar circumstances are able to impose on their caprices. The legates spoke no more than the truth when they wrote to the Pope, saying that 'it was mere madness to suppose that the King would act as he was doing merely out of dislike of the Queen, or out of inclination for another person ”

“ There must have been but few persons present however who did not feel that the sunshine of such a day might not last for ever, and that over so dubious a marriage no Englishman could exult with more than half a heart. It is foolish to blame lightly actions which arise in the midst of circumstances which are and can be but imperfectly known; and there may have been political reasons which made so much pomp desirable. Anne Boleyn had been the subject of public conversation for seven years, and Henry, no doubt, desired to present his jewel to them in the rarest and choicest setting. ”

“ The conduct of Anne Boleyn in this matter has been earnestly discussed and variously represented by different parties. By the Papist world she has been loaded with unmitigated censure, as a selfish, designing, and unprincipled woman, ready to raise herself by the sacrifice of her own sovereign mistress, a woman of great excellence, and of the most meek forbearance towards herself. By the Protestants, who regard Anne as the great champion of the introduction of the Reformation, she has been treated as everything perfect and estimable. The reality, as usual, lies between. ”