ROMANCE AND HISTORY

Evening Star, Issue 21714, 8 May 1934, Page 8

ROMANCE AND HISTORY

ROYAL TRYBTING PLAGE WHERE HENRY VIII. MET ANN BOLEYN, King Henry Vlif. is in the news. A few —a very few —discriminating people are making trips to a great old house at West Wickham, Kent, where one of the King’s heart affairs changed the course of history (says a writer in the ‘Daily Express’). f made tbe pilgrimage myself. In a modern car I drove through the wrought-iron gates and up the wide drive to Wickham Court, where King Henry rode secretly on horseback to visit pretty Anne Boleyn 400 years ago. Wiokham Court, mentioned in the Doomsday Book, once the proprety of Odo, half-brother to William the Conqueror, lay dreaming among its ancient elms, its dark, wine-red bricks glowing as though nine centuries of sunshine had soaked so deeply into their texture that they must remain for ever warm. The arched, iron-studded door stood ajar, its weighty key that is more than 2ft long hanging behind it. I passed through—aud stepped into another century. Almost 1 thought to hear the rustle of hooped brocade, to catch the faint rattle of a scabbard against the panelling. Here, on each side of the wide stone fireplace, 1 found the arms and initials of Henry VIII, and Anne Boleyn carved. They were carved or painted everywhere about this house, on the twisted chimneys, in the carved doors, and on the tiny stained glass “ tryst ” window at the north entrance, where a little painted clock marks to this day the hour at which King Henry would come to meet his lady. Some of the initials are joined by twined lovers’ knots; others are the width of a hearth or a doorway apart. But there they are, wherever one turns, as though the lovers had sought to perpetuate the memory of a romance that time must some day crumble. It was here, to Wickham Court, to the care of her uncle, Sir John Heydon, that Anne was sent into hiding when Court scandal linked her name too closely with that of her King, at the time when he was petitioning the Pope for a divorce from Katharine of Aragon. .. . The Pope is considering the divorce, the utmost discretion is necessary, but Henry still spurs down from Windsor, to walk with Anne on the close, vivid turf of the yew-lined avenue —a spot that is still known as Anne Boleyn’s Walk. Because of Henry's association with Anne the Pope refused to grant him a divorce, an action that brought about the breaking of the Papal yoke and the establishment of the Church of EngSo that the romance that flowered at Wickham Court was the direct cause of a tremendous change in the history of England and her religion. A fitting spot to which to make a pilgrimage! Wickham Court, which passed from the Heydon family to the Lenards, has recently been converted to a hotel. There are white bathrooms in the four fortified turrets, and. golfers talk cheerfullv of “ stymies ’’ and “ birdies in the" corridors where pretty Anne and her maids ran and whispered. But the initials of Henry and Anne are so deeply carved, so indelibly stained, that they must remain to interest students of romance and history until the last 3ft thick wall has fallen apart and the memory of all England s kings and queens is but a page or two of printed words, in a dusty tome.