VI., although, alas! like the Princess Charlotte in later days, perishing in parturition, and being, like her, the "consort of a year," although not the "parent of the dead "-the coarse Anne of Cleves, the voluptuous and unhappy Catherine Howard-and the learned, sensible, and religious Catherine Parr, who was fortunate enough to outlive her capricious and sensual lord, and whose "Prayers and Meditations, wherein the mind is stirred patiently to suffer all afflictions here, and to set at nought the vaine prosperitie of this worlde, and, also, to long for the everlasting felicitie," still survive to praise her in the gates. It was Anne Boleyn, the second in this strange procession, whose name has been associated with that of Wyatt, and the vortex of whose fate had very nearly engulphed our accomplished and brilliant bard. It will be remembered that she accompanied Mary, sister of Henry, on her marriage with Louis XII., to France, as maid of honour, and that, afterwards, she entered the service, first of Queen Claude, wife of Francis I., and then of his sister, the Duchess of Alençon. Her youth, beauty,* wit, and the fascination of her manners, rendered her a great favourite in the French. Court, where it is supposed Wyatt first met and became enamoured of her. On her return to England, she was appointed lady of honour to Queen Catherine, and attracted the notice of the king, who straightway moved heaven and earth, first, in an attempt to seduce her, which was unsuccessful, and then to obtain her as his wife. They were privately married, on November 14, 1532, but soon, her pregnancy revealing the secret, Cranmer declared the first marriage void, and celebrated a second, after which Anne was crowned Queen at Westminster, amidst circumstances of unequalled splendour. Her triumph proved as brief as her rise had been sudden. Henry speedily tired of her, transferring his affections to Jane Seymour, her maid of honour, and pretending to entertain suspicions of the Queen's virtue. In 1535, two years after she had given birth to Elizabeth, she was That, however, was far from perfect. She had six fingers on her right hand, and her complexion was too yellow. Her eyes, however, were fine, and her carriage majestic. imprisoned, accused, brought to trial before a jury of peers, and, on the testimony of one Smeatoun, a musician, who confessed himself her paramour, was condemned to death by twenty-six judges. The sentence was executed on the 19th of May. She died with great firmness and dignity, sending a message to request forgiveness from the Princess Mary, the daughter of Catherine, for the injuries she had done to her and her mother, and another to the king, thanking him, that he had "uniformly continued his endeavours for her advancement—from a private gentlewoman having made her first a marchioness, then a queen-and as he could raise her no higher in this world, now sending her to be a saint in heaven." There is something in the mock humility and subacid bitterness of this message, as well as in her accomplishments, her early connexion with the Court of France, her grace and gaiety, her undoubted imprudence, surmised infidelity, and melancholy doom, to confirm the statement of the resemblance we have already mentioned between Anne Boleynthe mother of Queen Elizabeth-and Mary of Scots, her great rival and victim. Much obscurity rests on the nature of the connexion between Anne Boleyn and Wyatt. That they were acquainted is certain; that they were mutually attracted is probable; that, in the language of a modern historian, speaking of Barbaroux and Madame Roland, "they did look into each others eyes, and felt that to each other they were all too lovely," is a pleasant enough fancy. Here and there, besides, occur allusions in Wyatt's poetry, which serve to corroborate the suspicion. His mistress' name is "Anna." He speaks of his wealth, and even life, having been in great danger in May, the month when Anne Boleyn was tried and executed. He says again— "And now I follow the coals that be quent, lines which are supposed to refer to Anne Boleyn's excursion to France, as Marchioness of Pembroke, in 1532, a little before her marriage, and to imply that Wyatt reluctantly attended thither, his quenched or quenching flame. Yet his name does not occur in the list of the persons noticed in the account of the expenses of that voyage. He says, too, in reference to a lady— "Graven with diamonds in letters plain, There is written her fair neck round about, words which can hardly be explained, except on the supposition, that the object of his passion had come into the power of a royal lover. Anne was attended by the poet's sister Margaret, on the scaffold, and, with a smile of farewell tenderness, gave to her a little prayer-book, set in gold, enamelled black, which she long preserved as a precious relic. A tradition, too, of the attachment is said to exist in the Wyatt family. And there is reason to believe, from a half burnt passage of a letter in the Cotton collection, that Anne Boleyn, during her confinement in the Tower, read and admired Wyatt's songs and poems. Still, of criminal intimacy there is not the slightest evidence; and, whatever Platonic affection there might be between the parties, it seems to have faded away, before, in an evil hour, the "Anna" of Wyatt's muse became the shortlived Queen of England. The suspicion our poet underwent, and which, by his own account, had nearly proved fatal to his prospects, soon subsided, and on Easter day, 16th April 1536 or 1537, we find him created a knight, although, not long after, on account of some quarrel with the Duke of Suffolk, he was committed to the Tower. There he continued for only a short time, and was then appointed to a post in the army of the Duke of Norfolk, who was employed in subduing a rebellion in Lincolnshire. Before Wyatt, however, reached the scene of action, the rebels were routed. In token of the king's confidence, he was the next year made Sheriff of Kent, and shortly after was despatched to the Continent, to make up the dispute between Henry and the Emperor, who was naturally indignant at the treatment of Catherine of Arragon, and interested in promoting the claims of her daughter Mary. In going, whether from carelessness or from haste, Wyatt left his affairs in a state of confusion, and, as Thomas Cromwell tells him, "rawness," exceedingly characteristic of a poet. By April 1537, he had reached Spain, and continued there for more than two years, conducting the necessary negotiations with much skill and judgment, although considerably embarrassed, partly through the complexity of the affairs, and partly through the duplicity of the Emperor and his Counsellors. In the end of 1539, he returned to England, where he met a gratifying reception from Henry, and then hastened to the country to spend some quiet months in his own home. At the end of this year the Emperor proceeded through France to the Low Countries, and Wyatt was despatched to Paris as English ambassador, with a view to watch his motions. Having first had an interview with the French king at Blois, he joined the emperor at Chateaureault, and thence attended him to Paris, to Brussels, and to Ghent. His letters home are clear and sagacious, but testify to his intense disgust at his avocations, and his eagerness to return to his own country. At length, about the middle of May 1540, his wish was gratified, and he was again welcomed by the king with the most flattering tokens of approbation. During one of his visits to the Continent, at the dissolution of the monasteries, he had requested, and through Cromwell's influence obtained, the friary of Arlesford in Kent, which adjoined his family estate at Allington. Wyatt had undoubtedly performed good service on the Continent, particularly by detecting and baffling the schemes of Cardinal Pole, who had been sent from Rome to Spain for the purpose of uniting the emperor and Francis in a league against England; but who, through Wyatt's interference, was so coldly received at Madrid, that he retired in chagrin to Avignon. Yet our poet had scarcely reached home, till he found his conduct cruelly misrepresented by his enemies. Bonner, afterwards infamous for his treatment of the Protestants, and surnamed the "Bloody Bonner," had been united with Wyatt in the continental embassy, and had formed a bitter enmity against him; encouraged by the fall of Lord Thomas Cromwell, who had been Wyatt's patron, he accused him of holding a treasonable correspondence with Cardinal Pole, and of having treated the king with disrespect while ambassador in 1538 and 1539. Through his insinuations, Henry's wrath was roused against the poet, and he threw him into the Tower. There he was treated with great severity. This we infer from his lines in prison to Bryan: "Sighs are my food, my drink they are my tears, Clinking of fetters such music would crave; Innocency is all the hope I have. Rain, wind, and weather I judge by my ears, Malice assaults that righteousness should have, After he had been for some time in the Tower, the Privy Council desired him to state what the causes of his offence at the emperor's court were; and he replied, in a letter subjoined to this memoir. Shortly after, he was tried, and delivered the memorable defence, which we have also subjoined. It still richly deserves perusal, is manly in spirit, ingenious in its course of argument, and sparkles with wit and sarcasm. Not contented with defending himself, he retorts on his opponents, and makes Bonner especially look very contemptible. He was triumphantly acquitted, and Henry, the same year, bestowed on him certain lands in Lambeth, and the year after appointed him high steward of the Manor of Maidstone, and gave him estates in Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, in exchange for others of less value in Kent. To this crisis in Wyatt's life, Surrey alludes in one of his poems of the "Death of Sir Thomas Wyatt :" "Divers thy death, so diversely bemoan Some that watched with the murderer's knife, Whose practice brake by happy end of life, * "Presence of thy livelihed:" presence of thee living. с |