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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ. Queens of England. Vol.1.

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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ.
Queens of England. Vol.1.
page 376



the youthful bachelor noblemen amongst whom she might reasonably have expected to find a suitable husband. In 1522, a little before the declaration of war with France, Anne returned to England. Camden, Burnet, liapin, and some other historical writers affirm, that on the death of Claud she entered the service of the Duchess of Àlençon ; but it is certain if she was an attendant on that princess, it must have been prior to Claud's death, which happened in 1524, for Herbert assures us, and appeals for his assertion to "our records," that she returned to England in 1522, at the same time that our students at Paris were recalled. This statement is confirmed by Fiddes, who says that Francis the First complained to the English ambassador that " the English scholars and the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn should return home." Besides the war with France, there was another cause for her recall. The Boleyns and the Butlers had long disputed for the inheritance of Anne's grandfather, the late Earl of Wiltshire. To put a period to the feud, Lord Surrey suggested to the King that the son of Sir Piers Butler should marry a daughter Df Sir Thomas Boleyn. Henry, after some hesitation, agreed to the proposal, and ordered Wolsey to bring about the marriage ; this order was dated November, 1521, and as Mary Boleyn had been married nine months previously, Anne was recalled from France by an order which reached Paris in the beginning of the subsequent year. When Anne Boleyn returned to England she was about twenty or twentytwo years of age : her father's first care was to procure her an appointment as one of the maids of honour to Katherine of Arragon, Queen of Henry the Eighth. In effecting this object he probably had recourse to the aid of Wolsey, who at this period governed the King by flattering his passions and administering to his pleasures, and controlled the Queen through the medium of her husband's authority. " There was at this time," says the poet and artist Wyatt, "presented to the eye of the court, the rare and admirable bewtie of the frish and young lady Anne Bolein,to be attendriehteupoii the queen. In this noble imp the graces of nature, graced by gracious education, seemed even at the first to have promised blis unto hereafter times; she was taken at that time to have a bewtic not so whitly cleere and fresh above all we may esteem which appeareth much more excellent by her favour passinge sweet and ehearful, and thes both also increased by her noble presence of shape and fusion, representing both mildness and majesty more than can be exprcst. Ther was found indeed upon the side of her naile, upon one of her fingers, some little showe of a naile, which yet was so small by the report of those that have seen her, as the workmaister seemed to have it an occasion of greater grace to her hand, which with the tip of one of her other fingers might be and was usually by her hidden without any least blemish to it. Likewise ther wer said to be upon ccrtin parts of her boddy small moles, incident to the clearest complections, and certainly both thes were none other than might more stain their wirings with note of malice than have catch at such light moles in so bright beams of bewtie than in any part shaddow it as may right well appeare by many arguments, but chiefly by the choice and exquisite judgments of many brave spirits that weer esteemed to honour the honourable parts in her, even honoured of envy itself." " The fascination of Anne," says Misa Benger, " appears not to have resided even in her features, though of these the loveliness is almost universally acknowledged, but in her eloquent eyes, the symmetry of her form, the mingled airiness and dignity of her carriage ; above all, in those indefinable charms of grace and expression which lend interest to every glance, and intelligence to every movement. Trained in the court of 'France, she had learned to improve her person by all those embellishments of dress which, directed by good taste, render art so powerful an auxiliary to nature. Discarding, as far as etiquette permitted, the stiff costumes of English dames, she ventured to introduce such novelties of fashion as best became her own form and


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