Extracts from The Life of Anne Boleyn. [Around 1522?] About this time, it is said that the knight, entertaining talk with her [Queen Anne Boleyn of England (age 21)] as she was earnest at work, in sporting wise caught from her a certain small jewel hanging by a lace out of her pocket, or otherwise loose, which he thrust into his bosom, neither with any earnest request could she obtain it of him again. He kept it, therefore, and wore it after about his neck, under his cassock, promising to himself either to have it with her favour or as an occasion to have talk with her, wherein he had singular delight, and she after seemed not to make much reckoning of it, either the thing not being much worth, or not worth much striving for. The noble prince having a watchful eye upon the knight, noted him more to hover about the lady, and she the more to keep aloof of him; was whetted the more to discover to her his affection, so as rather he liked first to try of what temper the regard of her honour was, which he finding not any way to be tainted with those things his kingly majesty and means could bring to the battery, he in the end fell to win her by treaty of marriage, and in this talk took from her a ring, and that wore upon his little finger; and yet all this with such secrecy was carried, and on her part so wisely, as none or very few esteemed this other than an ordinary course of dalliance. Within few days after, it happened that the king, sporting himself at bowls, had in his company (as it falls out) divers noblemen and other courtiers of account, amongst whom might be the Duke of Suffolk (age 38), Sir F. Brian (age 32), and Sir T. Wiat (age 1), himself being more than ordinarily pleasantly disposed, and in his game taking an occasion to affirm a cast to be his that plainly appeared to be otherwise; those on the other side said, with his grace's leave, they thought not, and yet, still he pointing with his finger whereon he wore her ring, replied often it was his, and specially to the knight he said, Wiat, I tell thee it is mine, smiling upon him withal. Sir Thomas, at the length, casting his eye upon the king's finger, perceived that the king meant the lady whose ring that was, which he well knew, and pausing a little, and finding the king bent to pleasure, after the words repeated again by the king, the knight replied, And if it may like your majesty to give me leave to measure it, I hope it will be mine; and withal took from his neck the lace whereat hung the tablet, and therewith stooped to measure the cast, which the king espying, knew, and had seen her wear, and therewithal spurned away the bowl, and said, It may be so, but then am I deceived; and so broke up the game. This thing thus carried was not perceived for all this of many, but of some few it was. Now the king, resorting to his chamber, showing some discontentment in his countenance, found means to break this matter to the lady, who, with good and evident proof how the knight came by the jewel, satisfied the king so effectually that this more confirmed the king's opinion of her truth than himself at the first could have expected. Shortly, upon the return of the cardinal, the matter of the dutchess cooling every day more and more, his credit also waned till it was utterly eclipsed; and that so busied the great personages that they marked the less the king's bent, the rather for that some way it seemed helpful to their working against the cardinal. The king also took here opportunity to proceed to discover his full and whole meaning unto the lady's father, to whom we may be sure the news was not a little joyful. All this notwithstanding, her virtue was not so dased with the glory of so forcible attractives, but that she stood still upon her guard, and was not, as we would suppose, so easily taken with all these appearances of happiness; whereof two things appeared to be the causes. One the love she bare ever to the queen whom she served, that was also a personage of great virtue: the other her conceit that there was not that freedom of conjunction with one that was her lord and king as with one more agreeable to her estate. These things being well perceived of, the queen shew she knew well to frame and work her advantage of, and therefore the oftener had her 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 stopped, and the young lady's hap was much to stop at a king; which the queen noting, said to her playfellow, My Lady Anne, you have good hap to stop at a king, but you are not like others, you will have all or none. So often earnest matters are delivered under game.

Calendar of State Papers Spain Volume 5 Part 2 1531-1533. 29 Jan 1536. Wien, Rep. P. C., Fasc. 229, No. 6. Eustace Chapuys (age 46) to the Emperor.

Yesterday [the 28th] Sir [Francis] Brian (age 46) returned from France; as I informed Your Majesty at his departure, and as this King himself stated to me, he had gone thither to congratulate king Francis on his recovery, and likewise to ask for the release of certain English ships detained at Bordeaux. It seems to me as if on this last point Sir Francis had not been at all suceessful, for immediately after his arrival the King sent for Master Cromwell and the rest of his Privy Councillors, and he has this very morning summoned to his presence the ambassador of France, and complained to him, as I hear, of the detention of his ships, accusing him of being partly the cause of it for having written home that French merchants in this country were badly treated, and that every day new taxes were imposed upon them, against the letter of the treaties agreed upon between the two kings; which fact the Privy Councillors flatly denied. Whereupon, and in order to justify his assertion, the Frenchman, on his return from Court, summoned the French merchants of this city to put down in writing the grievance they complain of, and to-morrow he is to send to me one of his secretaries to learn what the former French ambassador and myself concluded and settled upwards of three years ago with this King's Privy Council with regard to the grievances complained of by the French merchants, as well as by Your Majesty's subjects.

It is also reported that the said Brian has brought news that Your Majesty has offered the hand of the duchess [Margaret] as well as the dukedom of Milan to king Francis for his son the duke of Angoulesme (Charles), and that this was the cause of Brian's sudden return to this country with a message to this effect; but adding that should this King wish to defeat the said plan he has only to consent to what the French ash of him.

I am told that Brian is shortly to return to France with the answer, they say before Monday or Tuesday of next week. But I doubt it, for the latter day has been fixed by the Privy Council as that on which the French ambassador is to appear at Court, followed by a deputation of the merchants of his nation, in justification of the assertions he has made respecting their grievances, &c.

This King's lieutenant-governor in Ireland [William Skeffington] has lately died. It is said that affairs in that country are still far from being settled, and that some relatives of the young Childare, and several of his friends, resent much the wrong that was done to him in violation of the security promised to him.— London, 20 Jan. 1536.

Signed: "Eustace Chapuys."

Addressed: "To the Emperor."

French. Original, almost entirely in cipher. pp. 6.

Extracts from The Life of Anne Boleyn. For that princely lady, she living in court where were so many brave gallants at that time unmarried, she was not like to cast her eye upon one that had been then married ten years. And her parents, then in good and honourable place, resident in court, and themselves of no mean condition, they would keep, no doubt, a watchful eye over her to see she should not roam to the hinderance of her own preferment, a course so foul with one where was no colour of marriage. The King's eye also was a guard upon her, as also those that pleased the king in recounting the adventures of love happening in court made it hard, specially for the shortness of time after her placing there, and the king's own love. Also she that held out against such a king where was hope of marriage, what was like she should do to the knight, where his own lady and her friends were still to attend upon their doings, whose testimonies of the honourable carriage of that lady are therefore here most strong for her? And for the knight, if he had enjoyed her, was he so far desperately wicked and a monster in love, that he would openly, purposely, and to his own disgrace, vaunt the spoil of a maid of so good friends and likelihoods of advancements, without all regard of God or man? especially when she had stood so well upon the assurance of her own innocence for the matter of the jewel without turning him to any displeasure thereby. Those that knew him best, knew him far from that dishonest disposition chiefly in this kind, and for so gross a villany. And if he had been of that mind, yet was he known not of so little wit or understanding, upon a point that was not very likely to be known, to discover his own and her evil; where was a great deal more likelihood that, the king believing her rather than him, he was to incur a more certain and greater mischief, that might in all presumption, fall by the heavy displeasure of them both upon himself ever after. And if we could imagine him both so wretchedly dishonest, and so very a sot (neither of which could be found of him), his father then counsellor to the king, for his wisdom, years, and experience, more grave, would not have suffered him yet to quit himself so fondly and to be so mad; especially as when the king had showed not to believe it, then to run more obstinately to offer when the king had made her privy hereunto, to bring her that the king should see her also so mad as to yield to him after she had given consent of marriage to the king. Who would not believe them also mad, that would believe so mad a carriage of such a business amongst grave and wise men, howsoever the railing Romanist be so mad to write it so as he would seem mad with reason? For the king also, besides that he had more occasion and means than any other to note and observe her doings, yet much more (as the nature of generous spirits carries them) he was watchful upon the knight, as in other things so chiefly in this, not to be outrun at this garland of love; so as by himself and by the eyes of others, there was not any trip but would have been spied, no likelihood but would have carried suspicion with it; how much more would the knight's confession have sunk into his head? Would he, being so wise a prince, have forgotten that the soberness of his choice would serve much for satisfying the world, touching his divorce? Had he not time, had he not leisure to learn, to inquire and sift out all things? His care used in gathering opinions of universities, and in informing princes of the whole matter, with all circumstances in the managing this cause, by the space of some years, show he was not so passionate a lover, but also withal a wise and considerate prince. But it is said the king believed it not! Yet what? when the knight (as this tale saith) offered to make the king see it, and that avowed to the council! Could such a prince as he swallow this? Doubtless none that hath his wits will think so, none that knew the complexion of the king could induce himself to suppose a thing so incredible. The case of Sir Francis Brian's⁶ opening of his love had another effect, and shows plainly that the king was of another metal, since he cast off that Lady loved right dearly (as hath been said) without farther matter. And doubtless in this case, he be lieving the matter would have thrown off this lady also, the marriage not yet consummate, and he having in his own realm and abroad beauties enough to content him, and means enough also to push on some other. But it is devised the king believed it not. Not believing it, think we the knight could have escaped punishment of a slanderer, though he might by confessing, avoid the punishment of a malefactor (as they say) after? This no outrageous madman would believe. If the king would or could have passed it over, the lady in honour could not, nor might. But suppose also that supposal beyond all suppose. Though they punished it not, would they, think ye, have put him in credit and advancement after? Would they have had him chief ewerer even the very day of her coronation? Would they have employed him ambassador in that matter of the marriage? Yea, I say more! would the king also have rewarded him with a good portion of lands soon upon this? But all these were so as we have alleged them. The Chronicles have his service on that day of coronation. His embassages were twice about this matter known right well: I have seen the patents of the grant myself⁷. And these things, the last especially, I the rather allege, for that the knight useth them himself as testimonies of the king's good opinion of him, in his defence before mentioned, which also by the king and his council in those times was liked and allowed of as his just purgation, by which they acquitted him. Finally, that his defence then may and is to be esteemed his defence now also in this case not to be contemned, and may thus be considered. This reporteth that he was twice winnowed. The matters were the same both times, the accusations so frivolous, the inducements and proofs so idle, that they prove nothing more than that there lacked no wills in his adversary to do him hurt, than that they had any least colour of matter to work it. Nothing so impertinent, nothing so unlikely that they allege not. Yea and his most trusty and best services they had the chief matters of their accusation, nothing was so fond that they ripped not up to his discredit, at the least if it might have been. Yet in all this was no word or signification of any such matter. Though it had not been brought as the ground of his accusation, would it not have been drawn forth to aggravate or induce the matter? Undoubtedly it would, either in the queen's life in his first trouble, and it would have done well to revenge if he had done her this wrong, or after to her overthrow, or else in his second trouble against him. But no one word is or was in it touching any such matters.

Note 6. Sir Francis Brian was one of the most accomplished courtiers of his times: a man of great probity and a poet. Wyatt addresses his third satire to him, and pays a high compliment in it to his virtue and integrity. He was, like Wyatt, firmly attached to the Protestant cause: on this account he seems to have drawn on himself the hatred of the Roman Catholic party. Sanders, in his malevolent account of the Reformation in England, relates the following absurd and wicked story of him.

When the household of King Henry consisted of the most depraved men, such as gamblers, adulterers, pimps, flatterers, perjurers, blasphemers, rapacious men, and even heretics, among these the grandson, Francis Brian, a Knight of the Garter, from the family and lineage of the Boleyns, was notably prominent. At one time the king asked him what kind of sin it seemed to recognize a mother first, then a son. To this Brian replied, "Altogether, O King, such as to eat a hen first, then its chicken." When the king had received this word with great laughter, he is said to have said to Brian, "Indeed! You rightly are my Vicar of Hell." For Brian was already previously known for his impiety as the "Vicar of Hell." Later he was also called the "Royal Vicar of Hell." Therefore, the king, after he had kept both the mother and then Mary Boleyn as his mistress, finally also began to set his heart on another daughter, Anne Boleyn.

Cum autem Henrici Regis domus ex perditissimo hominum constaret, cujusmodi erant alea tores, adulteri, lenones, assentatores, perjuri, blasphemi, rapaces, atque adeò hæretici, inter hos insignis quidem nepos extitit, Fran ciscus Brianus, Eques Auratus, ex gente et stirpe Bolenorum. Ab illo rex quodam tempore quæsivit, quale peccatum videretur ma trem primum, deinde filium cognoscere. - Cui Brianus," Omnino," inquit, "tale O rex quale gallinam primùm, deinde pullum ejus gallinaceum comedere." Quod verbum cum rex magno risu acce pisset, ad Brianum dixisse fertur. Næ! tu merito meus est Inferni Vicarius. Brianus enim jam prius ob impietatem notissimam vocabatur, Inferni Vacarius. Post autem et Regius Inferni Vicarius. Rex igitur cum et matrem prius, et postea filiam Mariam Bolenam pro concubina tenuisset, demum at alteram quoque filiam, Annam Bolenam, animum adjicere cœpit. De Schismate Anglicano. p. 24.

This disgusting calumny is repeated by the followers of Sanders, and among others by Davanzati, in his Schisma d'Inghilterra p. 22, Ed. 1727. And yet that history is presented by the Curators of the Studio at Padua, to the youth educated there as una stimabi lissima Storia; descritta con quei vivi e forti colori che soli vagliano a far comprendere l'atrocita del successo dello Schisma d'Inghil terra. "How (says Dr. Nott, from whom this note is taken) can the bonds of charity be ever brought to unite the members of the Roman Catholic communion with those of the reformed church, so long as their youth shall be thus early taught to consider our Re formation as the portentous offspring of whatever was most odious in human profligacy, and most fearful in blasphemy and irreligion?" Memoirs of Sir Thomas Wyatt, p. 84.

Note 7. 32 Henry VIII. A. D. 1540

Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism Chapter V. Sir Thomas Boleyn — Sir Francis Bryan — Education Of Anne Boleyn.

Anne Boleyn was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn's [his aunt] wife; I say of his wife, because she could not have been the daughter of Sir Thomas,¹ for she was born during his absence of two years in France on the king's affairs.² Henry VIII. sent him apparently on an honourable mission in order to conceal his own criminal conduct; but when Thomas Boleyn, on his return at the end of two years, saw that a child had been born in his house, he resolved, eager to punish the sin, to prosecute his wife before the delegates of the archbishop of Canterbury, and obtain a separation from her. His wife informs the king, who sends the marquis of Dorset³ with an order to Thomas Boleyn to refrain from prosecuting his wife, to forgive her, and be reconciled to her.

Note 1. Sir Thomas Boleyn or Bullen was made viscount Rochford, June 18, 1525 ; earl of Wiltshire in England, and earl of Ormond in Ireland, Dec. 8, 1529. He died in 1538, having seen the dishonoured rise and the disgraceful ruin of his family.

Note 2. "In Francia legatum agente." Acting as ambassador, but not ne cessarily an ambassador ; and the document, printed for the first time by Mr. Pocock, Records of the Refor mation, ii. p. 573, agreeing substan tially with this history, has the words : "A ce fois aux garres en France pourle roy." Here in the mar gin of the original is a note in these words : "Hæc narrantur a Gulielmo Rastallo, judice, invita Thomse Mori." William Rastall was a nephew of Sir Thomas More, and in the reign of Mary one of the puisne judges of the King's Bench.

Note 3. Thomas Grey, son of the first marquis of Dorset, and the father of Henry Grey, who was made duke of Suffolk. This duke of Suffolk married Frances, daughter of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and of Mary, sister of Henry VIII. Thomas Grey died in 1530, and all the honours of his family were forfeited by his eldest son, the duke of Suffolk.

Tudor Tracts Chapter 4. Certain Noble men and othersm being special Officers in this Expedition.

The Duke of Somerset, my Lord Protector's Grace, General of the Army: and Captain of the Battle [the main body], having in it 4,000 footmen.

The Earl of Warwick, Lord Lieutenant of the Army; and having the Foreward, of 3,000 footmen.

The Lord Dacres, the Rereward, of 3,000 footmen.

The Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Lieutenant of Boulogne, High Marshal of the Army, and Captain General of all the Horsemen there.

Sir Ralph Sadler Knight, Treasurer of the Army.

Sir Francis Bryan Knight, Captain of the Light Horsemen, being in number, 2,000.

Sir Ralph Vane Knight, Lieutenant of all the Men of arms and Demi-lances, being in number, 4,000.

Sir Thomas Darcy Knight, Captain of all the King's Majesty's Pensioners and Men of arms.

Sir Richard Lee Knight, Devisor [i.e., Engineer] of the fortifications to be made.

Sir Peter Mewtys Knight, Captain of all the Hackbutters a foot, being in number, 600.

Sir Peter Gamboa Knight, a Spaniard, Captain of 200 Hackbutters on horseback.

Sir Francis Fleming Knight, Master of the Ordnance.

Sir James Wilford Knight, Provost Marshal.

Sir George Blague and Sir Thomas Holcroft, Commissioners of the Musters.

Edward Sheley, my Lord Grey; Lieutenant of the Men of arms of Boulogne.

John Bren, Captain of the Pioneers, being 1,400.