Page:The Queens of England.djvu/323

ANNE BOLEYN. 283 the contending parties. Strange are the freaks of fortune, which shape the destinies of men— ^nay more, sometimes make them- selves the instruments to work out her will ! When Henry re- called Anne Boleyn to wed another, he little thought he was bringing back a future wife for himself. It appears that the order for her recall was given late in the year 1521, which would fix the date of her return, as we have already observed, to 1522. She soon afterward was appointed one of the maids of honor to Queen Katharine, little dreaming that she was to supplant her royal mistress. To the sober court of this virtuous lady Anne Boleyn transported not only the fashion in dress, but all the wiles and graces which she had acquired in the gay circles of the bewitching Marguerite. Her presence excited great ad- miration ; her musical skill, sweet voice, and piquant manners still more, while her sprightliness and uncontrolled (if not un- controllable) vivacity drew around her many admirers, among whom to one only did she accord encouragement ; this one was Henry, Lord Percy, the eldest son of the Earl of Northumber- land, and, like herself, contracted by his father to form a mar- riage based not on affection, but interest. This double engage- ment w.as forgotten on both sides in the delirium of a first love ; or, if remembered, this hindrance only served to increase, as obstacles generally do, the passion of the youthful pair. Henry had no sooner discovered the mutual love of the young pair than he commanded Cardinal Wolsey to take immediate steps to break the engagement between them, artfully giving, as an excuse for his angry interference, the arrangements pre- viously made for the marriage of both parties with persons selected by their respective families. Whether the cardinal, who was as expert in discovering the secret feelings and thoughts of others as in concealing his own, divined those of his self-willed sovereign or not, we have no evidence to prove ; but, entrusted with the command to separate the lovers, he vigor- ously carried it into immediate execution, to the grief and dis- may of Anne Boleyn and Percy. The rudeness and tyranny of Wolsey's treatment of Percy during their interview on this oc- casion, offers a striking proof of his natural insolence and brutality, which not even his elevation and long contact with a court could subdue. The young man was reproached and in- sulted with all the contumely with which a parvenu loves to visit those of high birth whenever chance gives him the power, and, unfortunately for Anne, although of an honorable mind