trustworthy judgment of Anne Boleyn before her marriage. Her education had been in the worst school in Europe. On her return from the French Court to England, we have seen her entangled in an unintelligible connection with Lord Percy; and if the account sent to the Emperor was true, she was Lord Percy's actual wife; and her conduct was so criminal as to make any after-charges against her credible.[1]
If the Protestants, again, found in her a friend and supporter, she was capable, as Wolsey experienced, of inveterate hatred; and although among the Reformers she had a reputation for generosity which is widely confirmed,[2] yet it was exercised always in the direction in which her interests pointed; and kindness of feeling is not incompatible, happily, with seriously melancholy faults.
The strongest general evidence in her favour is that of Cranmer, who must have known her intimately, and who, at the crisis of her life, declared that he 'never had better opinion in woman than he had in her.'[3] Yet there had been circumstances in her conduct, as by her own after-confessions was amply evident, which justified Sir Thomas More in foretelling a stormy end to her splendour;[4] and her relations with the King, whether the fault rested with him, or rested with her, grew rapidly cool when she was his wife. In 1534, perhaps
- ↑ See vol. i. p. 183.
- ↑ Foxe speaks very strongly on this point. In Ellis's Letters we find many detailed instances, and indeed in all contemporary authorities.
- ↑ Cranmer's Letter to the King: Burnet, vol. i. p. 323.
- ↑ More's Life of More, and see p. 268, note.
