MYSTERIOUS QUEEN

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3614, 18 November 1924, Page 7

MYSTERIOUS QUEEN

FATE OP ANNE BOLEYN. Tlic tragedy of Anne Boleyn figures among the most sordid of the tragedies of the English Court. The true character of the unhappy Queen is st ill not clear ami definite. iShe may be regarded as an unprincipled girl outmatching by her own ambition the ambitions of her house, playing upon the sensuality of Henry V.L11., attaining her ambition by destroying the very noble lady, Queen Katharine, and flinging away Hoyalty and life for gratification of the vices of a minor Messalina, or may be interpreted as genuinely in love with Henry, cruelly treated, set aside ultimately through the King’s weariness, desire of another mate, and longing for a son, and resentful of her husband's treatment of her, and, knowing her beauty and her sway over the hearts of men, seeking solace to her heart and mind with such a lover as Sir Henry Norreys, her husband’s friend. The student looking for cold and pitiless analysis of the case of Anne Boleyn may find it in MacLaurin’s essay in ‘ Tost Mortem.’ The essay spares him nothing of the vileness of the intrigue which brought Anne into, power, and of the intrigue which destroyed her. Or if the student seek conventional presentation of her story, he may find it in the old romance, Harrison Ainsworth’s ‘ Windsor Castle,’ the fiction ■woven about the legend of Herne the Hunter, and the rise and fall of the young queen. And now Philip W. Sergeant has writen on the life of Anne Boleyn a book iu •which he undertakes her defence in a measure by disentangling her story from that of her sister, Mary, who had many lovers in France and England. The beauty of the girl Anne is in question. Nicholas Sanders, who never saw her, set out in a pamphlet years after her death adverse comments of the time upon her appearance. She was declared rather tall of stature, with black hair and an oval face of sallowish complexion, with a projecting tooth under the upper lip, on her right hand six fingers, and under her chin a large wen, to cover which she ■wore a high dress. Nevertheless, Sanders added inconsistently that she was handsome to look at, with a pretty mouth; she was amusing in her way; played well on the lute, and was a good dancer. And in direct contradiction to the story of the -wen and the high dress is the portrait in the National Gallery with the square cut gown. The wen was apparently no more than a mole; the sixth finger was probably some slight deformity of the nail of one finger. Notes, professedly from the memories of Anne’s contemporary and admirer, iSir Thomas Wyatt, credited her with a clear and fresh complexion and a. noble presence. An Italian witness told, that she was not one of the handsomest women in the world, but was of middling stature, with a dark complexion, a large month, and eyes black and beautiful. Her portrait shows the aquiline nose and tire pointed chin inherited by Elizabeth. Ainsworth’s conventional portrait credits her with surpassing beauty: “Anne Boleyn’s features were exquisitely formed, and, though not regular, far more charming than if they had been so. Her nose was slightly aquiline, but not enough so to detract from its beauty, and had a little retrousse point that completed its attraction. The rest of her features were delicately chiselled ; the chin being beautifully rounded, the brows smooth and white as snow, while the rose could not vie with the bloom of her cheek. Her neck —alas! that the fell hand of the executioner should ever touch it —was long and slender; her eyes large and blue and of irresistible witchery—sometimes scorching the beholder like a sunbeam, anon melting him with soul-subduing softness.” MacLaurin finds that the girl was of medium stature, not handsome, with a long neck, wide month, bosom not much raised, eyes black and beautiful, and a knowledge of how to use them. Her hair was long and dark; she departed from custom by wearing it flowing in the house, and “everybody was on the look-out for more serious false steps. The truth seems to be that she was a bold and ambitions girl who laid herself out to capture Henry, and succeeded.” The Boleyns were of merchant stock, though intermarried with noble families. They seem to have been a cunning, greedy race, and were gifted in the arts of intrigue—such arts as found full expression in Queen Elizabeth, knd the scheme of destiny were to be exalted and employed supremely by her for the cause of Engi land. Anne’s father, Thomas Boleyn. was “squire of the body” to young Henry at his accession. He rose by sheer ability and cunning; he was prepared to employ any means that offered for his advancement. He grasped greedily at opportunities and rewards when his daughter Mary returned from France, won the favor of the King, and became bis mistress. The girl Anne, with all the cunning of her race and the accomplishments of a maid of honor at the Court of Marguerite of NaVarre, followed her sister back to the English Court, and immediately she caught the eye and fired the Jjfcart of Henry with a passion that was probably the supreme passion of his evil life. She ousted Mary speedily from his favor, and she spent years in dislodging Queen Katharine from the throne. Doubtless the sensualist Henry cared little for his queen at any time. She was older than himself, of delicate health, and fated not to be the mother of his son. Doubtless he found in the b M, witty Anne a spirit that seemed akin to his—in tbo blindness of his passion. Beyond question, this girl, who, if the later charges against her are to lie credited, played the wanton, showed in Her first relationships with Henry a cunning and a caution measured by which the later follies seem improbable. For this time preceding her rise to greatness her tactics •were calculated wholly to enmesh the King. She would be no light o’ love of his; if be would win her be must make V, her Queen of England. For years, it seems, she resisted him; he was her'slave, and her will accorded with bis inclination. She saw the. Queen set aside for her; she saw the fall of Wolsey and the great schism of the church. Surely the girl who wrought Her purpose against all t He forces hostile to her had such a skill in intrigue and diplomacy as Elizabeth after her; and such a mind was hers as, equally with her beauty, fascinated Henry. She bad her way; she was Queen of England. She was so much elated by her exaltation that she grew vainglorious, vulgarly insolent. She was bated by great and powerful families; she attached to herself no friend to aid her when she lost her one Hold on power —sway of her husband’* heart and mind. With due allowance for I be abilities of the woman, how explain the nature of the downfall? MacLaurin sholvs the swift decay of Henry’s physical powers, blood pressure, intractable ulcer, effects of over-indulgence, evil temper, neglect of all the manly sports in which, as a magnificent young king, he bad delighted. lie surveys the evidence that this accomplished woman, jvho iiad resisted Henry for years, turned

wanton, and solicited courtiers (Sir Henry Norreys among them, and Smeaton, the j musician) to be her lovers. The scandal, i reaching Henry’s ears, brought swift de- ' struction for herself and her reputed ; lovers; a horrible charge was laid against f her over and above all the charges of un- ' faithfulness. The plot for her destruction, if plot it was, was carried out with such cunning and completeness as to make the evidence of her guilt seem absolute. MacLaurin 's interpretation of the woman’s stale of health seems convincing, for how else explain the mad folly of the queen who as a mere girl had played with such skill, cunning, patience, and restraint? How, apart from guilt, explain the reticence of Elizabeth through all her life in reference to her unhappy mother? Anne Boleyn’s reputed lovers died before her eyes, and the wretched woman was beheaded on May 19, 1536. “ The headsman was a noted expert, brought over specially from St. Omer,” MacLaurin tells, “ and Anne, kneeling in prayer, and her back being turned towards him, ho stole silently forward, seized the sword from its hiding-place, and severed her slender neck at a blow.”