l#* 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 •^' 
 
 
 ,♦*■ 
 
 »L.. 
 
 
 ' "A 
 
 # 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^^'%:h 
 
 
 
 
 * : .■■* 
 
 
 :\ -^.^*'u«^.-^^- 
 
 1^' 
 
 ■^i*'^ 
 
 ♦^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 WA'
 
 m^m^ 
 
 %* 
 
 ■/f'.H* 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 
 ■'-*, ■■.. vt- 
 
 ^m* 
 
 
 
 
 ;^T!a*JS>ir3i>l^?#^-'*' 
 
 
 
 ■T^ • "*'.Vat:!l.
 
 ,'^ ■ JTsf^ -Sf. ''^'i*^ '. , 
 
 ^4»^<iM2i;M<IHh>^&1%
 
 )^c^- 
 
 H 
 
 ^^ 
 
 >V^ 
 
 r'-' 
 
 i 
 
 tx*^ 
 
 A J 
 
 .>^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 < ^ 
 
 . V 
 
 
 ./
 
 ANNE B O LE YN: 
 
 A DRAMATIC POEM. 
 
 BY THE REV. H. H. MILMAN, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 
 
 SIDCCCXXVI.
 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The subject of the following Drama had long 
 appeared to me peculiarly adapted to the purposes 
 of Poetry. I had, some time ago, imagined a 
 sketch, in a great degree similar to that which I 
 have now filled up. The course of professional 
 Study, which led me to the early Annals of our 
 Church, recalled it to my remembrance, and, as it 
 were, forced it on my attention. In the outline of 
 the Plot, and the development of the characters, 
 especially that of Anne Boleyn, I have endeavoured 
 to preserve historical truth : where History is 
 silent, I havT given free scope to poetic licence, 
 and introduced a character entirely imaginary. 
 
 853S53
 
 VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Ill eiKleavouriiig to embody that awful spirit of 
 fanaticism — the more awful, because strictly con- 
 scientious — which was arrayed against our early 
 Reformers, I hope to be considered as writing 
 of those times alone. The representation of the 
 manner in which bigotry hardens into intolerance, 
 intolerance into cruelty and an infringement on 
 the great eternal principles of morality, can never 
 be an unprofitable lesson. The Annals of all 
 Nations, in which Reformation was beffun or 
 completed ; those of the League in France, of the 
 Low Countries and Spain, as well as of England, 
 will fully bear me out in the picture which I have 
 drawn : but I have no hesitation in assertins; that 
 even in those times the wise and good among the 
 Roman Catholics reprobated, as strongly as our- 
 selves, the sanguinary and unprincipled means by 
 which the Power of the Papacy was maintained.
 
 INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 I should observe, that I have, I trust with no 
 unpardonable anachronism, anticipated the perfect 
 organization of that Society, from which, as Ro- 
 bertson has with justice stated, " mankind have 
 derived more advantages, and received greater in- 
 juries, than from any other of the religious frater- 
 nities." Though its Founder had already made 
 many proselytes, the Society was not formally 
 incorporated till about five years after the death 
 of Anne Boleyn. 
 
 It may appear almost superfluous to add, that 
 the manner in which the Poem is written, as well 
 as the religious nature of the interest, must for 
 ever preclude it from public representation.
 
 ANNE liOLEYN, 
 
 ,( nUAMATlC POEM. 
 
 1/ .-■
 
 CHARACTEUS. 
 
 King Henry Fill. 
 
 Archbishop Cranmer. 
 
 Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchc.sirr. 
 
 Lord Rochford, Brother of Queen Anne. 
 
 Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 Sir Henry Norreys, \ 
 
 Sir Francis Weston., ^ Attendanls on Queen Anne. 
 
 Sir William Brereton , * 
 
 Sir William Kingston, Lieutenani of the Tower. 
 
 Angelo Carafe a, a follower of Ignatius Loyola. 
 
 Mark Smeatox. 
 
 Queen Anne. 
 
 Countess of Rochford. 
 
 Countess of Wiltshire, Mother of Queen Anne. 
 
 Magdalene Smeaton. 
 
 1'. 2
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 SCENE. 
 
 A small Garden near Wedrnlnster. 
 
 Mark Smeaton, Magdalene Smeaton. 
 
 magdalene. 
 Oh welcome, welcome — though I scarcely hoped 
 That he who long hath dwelt in foreign climes, 
 And now comes wearing the proud garb of Courts, 
 Would waste the precious treasure of a thought 
 On poor forgotten sister Magdalene. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Still the same humble tender Magdalene, 
 Who deems, that none can rate her modest worth 
 More high than her retiring self. Sweet sister, 
 I would not wound thy heaven-devoted ears 
 With the unwonted sounds of worldly flattery ; 
 But in far distant clime?, 'mid strangers' faces,
 
 6 ANME B(J1.KYN. 
 
 That night was sweetest when I dreainM of thee, 
 Our native garden here, our little world 
 Of coinnion joys and sorrows. 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Dearest Mark, 
 The heart deems truth whate''er it wishes true. 
 And wilt thou now and then steal hither to me, 
 When thou Vt not call'd for at the Court ? wilt bring 
 Thy music, such as in the royal Chapel 
 Thou 'rt wont to sing ? Rude though mine ear, it loves 
 Thy music, brother. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Dearest, yes, I '11 bring 
 All these, and hymns forbidden thei-e ; there ""s one 
 Was taught me by a simple fisher boy, 
 That saiFd the azure tide of that bright bay 
 That laves the walls of Naples : as he sung — 
 What time the midnight waves were starred with barks, 
 Each with its single glowworm lam]), that tipt 
 The waters round with rippling lines of light —
 
 ANNE BOLEYN, 7 
 
 You would have thought Heaven^s queen had strew'd 
 
 around 
 Silence, like that among the stars, when pause 
 The Angels in ecstatic adoration. 
 
 MAGDALEXE. 
 
 Speak on, speak on ! — Were it a stranger\s voice 
 That thus discoursed, I could lose days in listening ; 
 But thine 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Oh ! Magdalene, thou know''st not hei'e 
 In our chill, damp, and heavy atmosphere. 
 The power, might, magic, mystery of sweet sounds ! 
 Oh ! on some rock to sit, the twilight winds 
 Breathing all odour by — at intervals 
 To hear the hymnings of some virgin choir, 
 With pauses musical as music''s self, 
 Come swelHng up from deep and unseen distance : 
 Or under some vast dome, like Ileaver/s blue cope, 
 All full and living with the liquid deluge 
 Of harmony, till pillars, walls, and aisles.
 
 8 ANNE BOLKYN. 
 
 The altar paintings and cold images, 
 
 Catch life and motion, and the weight of feeling 
 
 Lies like a load upon the breathless bosom ! 
 
 But speaking thus, hours will seem minutes, sister, 
 
 And 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Thou would'st say farewell. Yet ere we part 
 I long to speak one word — I dare not say 
 Of counsel — but the love, whose only study 
 Is one heart's book, gains deeper knowledge, Mark, 
 Of its dark leaves, than schools can teach, or man 
 Learn from his fellow men. 
 
 AlAllK. 
 
 Sag'e monitress ! 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Oh ! Mark, Mark — in one cradle were we laid, 
 Our souls were born together, bred together ; 
 Li all thy thoughts, emotions, my fond love 
 Anticipated thine own consciousness ; 
 I felt them, ere thyself knew thine own feelings:
 
 ANNE BOl.EVN. 9 
 
 And never yet impetuous wish was born 
 In that warm heart, but till fulfilment crowned it 
 Thou wert its slave — its boimden, fettered slave. 
 Oh ! watch thyself, mistrust, fear 
 
 MARK. 
 
 What ? 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Why all things. — 
 In that loose Court, they say, each hard observance, 
 Fast, penance, all the rites of holy Church, 
 Are scoffed ; the dainty limbs are all too proud 
 T"* endure the chastening sackcloth. Sin is still 
 Contagious : like herself are those that wait 
 On that heretical and wicked Queen. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 The wicked Queen ! — oh ! sister, dearest sister, 
 
 For the first time I \1 see thy pure cheek burn 
 
 With penitent tears ; go kneel, and ask Heaven's pardon — 
 
 Scourge thy misjudging heart — the wicked Queen .' 
 
 Heaven's living miracle of all its graces !
 
 10 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 There ""s not a breathing being in her presence 
 But watches the least motion of a look, 
 Th' unutterd intimation of desire, 
 And lives upon tlie hope of doing service, 
 That done, is like the joy blest Angels feel 
 In ministVing to prayers of holiest Saints. 
 Authority she wears as "'twere her birthright ; 
 And when our rooted knees would grow to earth 
 In adoration, reassuring gaiety 
 Makes the soul smile at its own fears. 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 But, Mark, 
 Believes she as the Church believes ? 
 
 MARK. 
 
 I know not 
 What she believes — I see but what she does. 
 Loose Court, and shameless Queen ! — her audience 
 Is of the wretched, destitute, forlorn : 
 The usher to that Court is Beggary, 
 And Want the chamberlain ; her flatterers, those
 
 ANNE BOI.EYX. 11 
 
 Whose eloquence is full and bursting hearts ; 
 
 Her parasites, wan troops of starving men 
 
 Round the full furnished board — pale dowerless maids — 
 
 Nuns, like thyself, cast forth from theii- chaste cloisters 
 
 To meet the bitter usage of the world ; 
 
 While holiest men are ever in her presence : 
 
 Nor can their lavish charity exhaust 
 
 The treasures of her goodness. 
 
 .MAGDALENK. 
 
 Oh ! Mark, ]\Iark— 
 My only joy on earth — that, if my soul 
 EVr di'eanrd of Heaven, wert evermore a part, 
 Th' intelligible part of its full bliss. 
 Thou art not warpM by pride of new ophiion ? 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Is't new t' adore the mingled consunnnation 
 Of beauty, gentleness, and goodness ? 
 
 MAGDALEXE. 
 
 Cease ! 
 For this, for hearing this, I must do penance —
 
 12 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Fast, weep, and pray ; and, oh ! beware, beware — 
 The holy Father comes, whose keen eye reads 
 The inmost soul ; I \e felt him pluck the thought 
 I dared not speak from its dark sanctuary 
 F the heart, and cast it down before mine eyes 
 Till my soul shuddered at its own corruption. 
 He sees us not — stand back — "'twere ill t' intrude 
 Upon his saintly privacy, whose soul 
 Haply is prostrate at Oiu' Lady's feet, 
 In our behalf, his poor unworthy flock. 
 Half of his life, our lady Abbess says. 
 Is spent in Heaven, while the pale body here 
 Pines in the absence of its nobler guest. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 How, Angelo ! 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Peace, peace ; seal lips and cars. 
 
 [T/tej/ retire.
 
 ANNE IJOI-EYN. IB 
 
 Angelo Cahaffa. 
 
 axgelo caraffa. 
 They crossVl nic, and I needs must follow — to th' Abbey ; 
 T' insult their fathers' graves; to mock the Saints 
 That from the high empurpled windows glare 
 On the proud worshippers, whose secret hearts 
 Disdain their intercession ; scarce a lamp 
 Burnt on the prayerless shrines, and here and there 
 Some wan sad votress, in Our Lady's chapel, 
 Listenino- in vain for the full anthem, told 
 Her beads, and shrunk from her own lonely voice. 
 But when I saw the Arch-heretic enrobed 
 In the cope and pall of mitred Canterbury, 
 Lift the dread Host with misbelieving hands, 
 And heard another's voice profane read out, 
 In their own dissonant and barbarous tongue, 
 The Hving word of God, the choking wrath 
 Convulsed my throat, and hurrying forth I sought
 
 14 ANNK BOI.EYN. 
 
 A secret and unechoing place, t" unload 
 My burthen"'d heart ! 
 
 'Twas the first time — the last 
 That holy Indignation liath oYn-leap\l 
 Wisdom's strong barriers — the ill-govern\l features 
 Play''d traitor to the close-wrapt heart. 
 
 But tliou 
 That art a y)art of God's dread majesty, 
 In whose dusk robe his own disastrous purposes 
 Th'' Almighty veils, twin-born with Destiny, 
 Inexorable Secrecy ! come, cowl 
 This soul in deep impervious blackness ! — Grant 
 I may deny myself the pride and fame 
 Of bringing back this loose apostate land 
 'To the true Faith. Re all mine agency 
 Secret as are the springs of living fire 
 In the world's centre, bury deep my name. 
 That mortal eye ne'er read it, till emblazed 
 Amid the roll of Christ's great Saints and IVIartyrs 
 It shake away the oblivious gloom of ages.
 
 ANNE liOLF.YN, 15 
 
 AsGELOj Mark, Magdalene, 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Yo may approach — the youth, or I mistake, 
 Of whom Saavedra wrote, wliose dulcet voice 
 And skilful handling the sweet lute were famed 
 Through Italy — most fair report, young man. 
 Hath been thy harbinger. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Good reverend father, 
 That men so wise, whose words arc treasured counsels 
 To mightiest Kings, should deign to note a name 
 Like mine, moves wonder. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Youth, thou hast a soul, 
 For which thy spiritual guide must answer. 
 As for a Monarch's ; in her care, the Church 
 That guards the loftiest, ne'er overlooks the meanest. 
 Thou 'rt new about the Court, and our good Queen,
 
 \i) ANNK lioLKYN. 
 
 With ii-racious affability, vvill sit 
 
 Listi-ning to thy sweet languaged lute; thoirrt there 
 
 In liigh esteem. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Her Highness hath been pleased 
 To hear me more than once ^ but word of praise 
 From her had been a treasure, that my memory 
 Had laid in store, for my whole life to brood on. 
 
 ANGELO (aside). 
 
 So warm ! 1 had forgot thy station, youth ; 
 
 But with the great we rank far less by birth 
 Than estimation ; and the power of ministering 
 
 To their delight becomes nobility. 
 
 »■ - 
 
 MARK. 
 
 What ? — says your wisdom so ? 
 
 ANGET,0. 
 
 Good youth, I charge thee, 
 Cherish that modesty that well becomes thee ; 
 But yet if Fame belie thee not, thy powers 
 May bind high-scoped Advancement to thy service —
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 17 
 
 Thou may'st compete ere long with which affects 
 
 Her Majesty most of her servants ? 
 
 MAllK. 
 
 Each 
 Partakes alike of that all-winnino- ease — 
 Not the proud condescension, which disdains ' 
 
 Most manifestly when it stoops the lowest — 
 All are her slaves, seeming almost her equals : 
 She''s loved 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Enough ! — Report speaks bounteously 
 Of Henry Norreys : he and Williani Brei-eton 
 And Francis Weston, are about her still 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Not one, I do believe, would deem his life 
 III bartered for her service 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 And Lord Rochford, 
 Her noble brother — as a Poet, youth, 
 His art is kindred to thini- own, its ri\al
 
 18 ANNE liOLEYN. 
 
 In making the mute air we breathe an element 
 Of purest intellectual joy — the Queen 
 To her close privacy admits. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 I \'e heard 
 She takes delight beyond all words to hear 
 Our harsher English tongue, by his smooth skill, 
 And noble Surrey's, and learnVl Wyatf s, flow 
 Melodious, as the honey-lipped Italian. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 ■^Tis well. Thy orphan 'd youth, I learn, Mark Smeaton, 
 
 Wants that imperious curb Heaven delegates 
 
 To parents"" hands ; mine order, rank, and station 
 
 Give to my counsels th' impress of command : 
 
 I charge thee then, by thine own soul — beware — 
 
 Should golden honours, as belike they may, 
 
 Shower on thee, wear them still with humbleness. 
 
 Serve that bewitching but too easy Queen 
 
 Assiduously, but still honourably. 
 
 Aspire not, by whatever voice thouVt sinnmon''d,
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 19 
 
 To perilous distinction ; youth, again 
 
 I say, take heed — one single day omit not, 
 
 On forfeiture of my paternal care, 
 
 To pour thy full confessing soul before me. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 What can your Wisdom mean ? 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 He means, dear brother, 
 To merit his poor servants' prayers for this — 
 Prayers that shall mount before the earliest lark, 
 Earth's first thanksgiving voice t' indulgent Heaven. 
 Withdraw, withdraw, he heeds no more — away. 
 
 [Ejceunt. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 That warninor was a master-stroke : it brings 
 The impossible within the scope of thought ; 
 We do forbid but what may come to pass ; 
 And he will brood on it, because forbidden. 
 Till his whole soul is madness. All the rest 
 Are full of their proud honour, and disdain 
 To torture with vain villanous misconstruction 
 
 r o
 
 20 annp: bolevn. 
 
 Each innocent phrase to looseness. Cursed woman f 
 
 ■"Gainst whom remorselessness is loftiest duty, 
 
 And mercy sin beyond Heaven^'s gi'ace — think''st thoo 
 
 To be a Queen, and dare to be a woman ! 
 
 Play fool upon thy dizzy precipice. 
 
 Nor smile, nor word, nor look, nor thought but 's noted 
 
 In our dark registers; each playful jest 
 
 Is chronicled, and we are rich in all 
 
 That ""s ocular proof and circumstance of guilt 
 
 To jealousy's distempered ear. 
 
 ' And thou, 
 Proud King .' the Church's head ! — each lustful thought, 
 Each murtherous deed, is a new link of the chain 
 By which our slaves are trammelPd : we'll let slip 
 Thy own fierce passions, ruthless as the dogs 
 Of war, to prey on thy obdurate heart ; 
 And they shall drag thee down, base, suppliant, 
 Beneath our feet — or drive thee maddening on, 
 An hideous monster of all guilt, to fright 
 The world from its apostasy, and brand 
 The Heretic cause with thv eternal shame.
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. ^1 
 
 Whitehall. 
 Queen Anne, AvTENDANTfi, her Almoner. 
 
 ALMONER. 
 
 So please your Majesty, your pensioners 
 
 Flock in such hungry and still gathering troops, 
 
 The table's full. 
 
 aUEEN. 
 
 Then, Sir, spread more, the Queen 
 Commands it. 
 
 ALMONER. 
 
 But the cost, your Grace ! 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Weigh that 
 When thou dost serve ourself, not our poor neighbours. 
 Why sate I down but yesterday, 'mid jxnnps 
 And luxuries that might have fed a village.''
 
 22 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Go coin those wines, barter for homelier cates 
 Those candied superfluities. 
 
 ALMONER. 
 
 It stands not 
 With the King's honour thus to mulct and limit 
 Your Highness state. 
 
 aUEEN. 
 
 Still less, Sir, to contract 
 And weigh with base frugality the alms 
 His Grace bestows through me, his humble agent. 
 The bounty of the King, Heaven's delegate, 
 Should be as Heaven's : the Sun, that through the grate 
 Of some barr'd dungeon lights the pallid cheek 
 Of the poor prisoner, is a gracious gift ; 
 But that which argues the great God of Nature 
 Is the rich prodigality of light. 
 That kindles the wide universal sky 
 And gladdens worlds. But to descend to truths 
 Of homelier prudence. 'Tis not well to feast 
 A lazy herd of sleek unlabouring drones.
 
 ANNE IJOLEYX. 23 
 
 Most true, Sir ; but his Majesty luith pleased 
 
 To take some certain Convents and rich Abbeys 
 
 Into his royal hands ; they that were bred 
 
 To sun themselves in careless indolence 
 
 Are cast abroad to buffet the liard world 
 
 For bare subsistence ; even the once mitred Loids 
 
 Of manors, benefices, lands, and palaces, 
 
 111 husbanding their limited maintenance, 
 
 Are brought to beggary and painful want : 
 
 Therefore our bounty must outrun awhile 
 
 Our better wisdom. 
 
 ALMONER. 
 
 I obey your Iligimess. 
 
 UUEEN. 
 
 And have our best thanks for your prudent caiitiinj 
 As for your prompt compliance. — 
 
 Gracious Heaven ! 
 I thought a throne would give the power of blessing 
 Illimitable — to speak, were to make glad 
 All hearts. Alas ! the higher we aspire,
 
 24 ANNE BOLEYN 
 
 The wider spreads bencatli us the dark scene 
 
 Of human wretchedness, whicli even to lighten 
 
 Wants not Heaven's goodness only, but Heaven"'s wisdom, 
 
 While easy mischief waits on meanest minds. 
 
 The idiot with a wanton brand may fire 
 
 Th"" imperial city, a base beggar''s brood 
 
 Infect a paradise with pestilence, 
 
 While deep-laid schemes of princeliest goodness end 
 
 In wider evil, and thrice heavier ruin. 
 
 Ye smile to hear these solemn arguments 
 
 Upon these laughter-loving lips. 
 
 LADY ROCHFORD. 
 
 Your Highness 
 Is ever thus, or gladdening with your mirth 
 Or teaching with your wisdom, 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Lady Rochford, 
 Might I not add that thou art ever flattering ? 
 A brother'*s wife should too sincerely love 
 'I'o pamper a vain heart with praise.
 
 ANNE BOLKVN. 25 
 
 LADY KOCHFOllD {(ISlcle). 
 
 Still shamed 
 And still rebuked — curse on her proud humility ! 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Enough of this — in truth the board that led 
 
 To this grave reasoning forces oft a smile 
 
 Even on Compassion's tearful face : the strange, 
 
 The motley groups ! the doubts, the awe, the fears, 
 
 The pride of beggary ! There are, who patch. 
 
 As though in honour of the royal feast. 
 
 With scarlet and rich hues their loose hung tatters ; 
 
 And some will creep, as they were led to justic(^ 
 
 Along the hall, and the next instant pledge, 
 
 Like jovial courtiers, the Queen's health. But those 
 
 Of the old religion move me most. They steal 
 
 Ileluctant with suspicious steps, each instant 
 
 Crossing themselves, to exorcise, no doubt. 
 
 The fiends beneath the board : each time they touch 
 
 Or dish or flagon, they renew the cliarm, 
 
 As though the viandb flavoured of rank heresy,
 
 26 ANNK BOLKYN. 
 
 And 'twere a deadly sin to taste the dole 
 Of wicked Gospeller. Last noon came in 
 Two maids, whose tatter'd veils but ill conceaFd 
 Their wan and famine sunken cheeks, not worn 
 With holy fast, but bitter withering want ; 
 Desperate they ate, as conscious of their sin : 
 Anon a pattering sound of beads I heard, 
 A voice half breathless muttering broken Aves ; 
 Lo, the good lady Abbess, come to save 
 Her soul-endangerM charge ; but, sad to tell. 
 The tempting fumes o'erpowcr'd her holy rigour, 
 And the grave mother to the flesh-pots fell. 
 
 ATTENDANT. 
 
 Madam, the Countess Wiltshire. 
 
 Lady Wiltshire. 
 
 LADY WILTSHIRE. 
 
 r 
 
 Dearest Anne ! 
 My child ! — ^Your Highness"' pardon, my old lips
 
 ANNE UOLKY'N. 27 
 
 Will never learn th' unwonted reverence ; 
 Still clings the old familiar fondness round me. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Dear mother, have I ceased to be your child 
 Being a Queen ? for your attendance, Ladies, 
 We thank you, and ere long may task your service ; 
 But now — in truth I play the Queen but ill 
 Beside the cradle of my child — and thus 
 
 Within my mother*'s arms 
 
 \^Thc Ladies retire. 
 
 LADY WILTSHIRE. 
 
 Oh ! who had thouoht 
 Our little playful Anne, all mirth and frolic, 
 The veriest madcap that ere made a mother 
 Tremble, rejoice, and smile, and weep at once. 
 Should sit on England's throne. Nav, if thou bribe not 
 My garrulous age, I may betray strange tales 
 Not all beseeming the high sceptred state 
 Of the Quecn''s majesty.
 
 28 ANNK i5oi.i:v\. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I much mistrust you — 
 
 In trutli I do 
 
 LADY WILTSHIRE. 
 
 Well, Heaven be praised for all, 
 Chiefly that I and thy good Father, Anne, 
 Have lived with our own eyes to witness it. 
 And now come when it will, thou 'It have me buried 
 In royal state ; my funeral pomp shall have 
 Sceptres and royal scutcheons in its train : 
 1 '11 not endure that my base epitapli 
 Write me plain wife of good Sir Thomas Boleyn ; 
 I '11 be emblazed in characters of gold, 
 The mother of Queen Anne. 
 
 . . QUEEN. 
 
 ; , Ay, in good time, 
 
 Some twenty years or more we'll think of this : 
 IJut, by my faith, best mother, there 's no joy 
 Of all that wait like chain'd and harness'd slaves 
 Around the thrones of kings — the pomp, the splendour,
 
 AN'NK BOLKYX. 29 
 
 The hearty voice of popular acclaim, 
 
 The grave esteem of godly men, the power 
 
 Boundless of succouring the distressed, the grace 
 
 And favour of a royal Husband, worthiest. 
 
 Were he a peasant, of our fondest dotage ; 
 
 The consciousness of being an humble means 
 
 To build anew Chrisfs desolated Church — 
 
 There'snought more fulljsincere, and rapturous — nought — 
 
 Than thus repaying all the pains, the prayers 
 
 Of her that bore me, nursed me, trained me up 
 
 To this hioh doom, makin<T me like herself. 
 
 Mother, all other joys make my cheek smile; 
 
 But thy affectionate and blameless pride 
 
 Makes gladness speak her truer language — tears • 
 
 And here comes one will not rebuke our weeping. 
 
 My noble llochford.
 
 30 ANNK 130LKYN. 
 
 Lord Rociiford. 
 
 rochford. 
 
 Does your Highness pardon 
 This bold intrusion ? 
 
 UUEEX. 
 
 I will pardon all 
 But this cold courteous ceremony : 
 I would not, Brother, for my throne, forego 
 My station in thy heart. Wert thou a stranger, 
 Thy lettered fame had given thee entrance here. 
 'Tis such as thou adorn a court, less honoured 
 Than honouring ; for you Poets hold a court 
 Which whoso visits not hath lost all title 
 To that nobihty endures for ages, 
 Where Kings are proud to enter. There 's no clime 
 Nor age, not even the Heaven of Heavens, but sends. 
 Summoned by your plumed herald Fantasie, 
 Its embassage of noblest images
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 31 
 
 To do you service ; and ye entertain them 
 Right royally, do make them move to music 
 That they forget the sounds of their own spheres. 
 
 ROCHFORD. 
 
 Your Higliness ! 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Nay, your Sister ! 
 
 KOCHFOKD. 
 
 Sweet rebuke : 
 Dear Sister, I 've been toihng in your service, 
 Or ratlier turning toil to sweet delight; 
 I 've been enriching my rude verse with thoughts 
 I stole from thee in that religious converse 
 We held some days ago, when we discussed 
 The idolatrous practices of Rome, adoring 
 With disproportionate and erring reverence 
 The Holy Virgin. I 've a hynm, methinks 
 Will not offend. — WilPt please your Highness hear it ? 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Most willingly, it suits the hour — for eve,
 
 32 ANNE BOLFA'N. 
 
 Tliat steals so s(>ftly on the quiet world, 
 Seems made for solemn music, even as nature 
 Breath'd silence over all in earth and Heaven, 
 Vocal alone with grateful man's thankstrivino-. 
 
 ROCHFOllD. 
 
 Here— call Mark Smeaton, bid him brino- his lute. 
 
 t5 
 
 The abaife, Smeaton. 
 
 ROCHFORD. 
 
 Now, boy, that tune I told thee of within ; 
 And look thou touch it masterly : her Grace 
 Hath that nice ear that vibrates to the touch 
 Of harmony, so tremblingly alive 
 The slightest discord jars on it like anguish. 
 Not with that shaking hand — 
 
 Look, the Queen smiles. 
 Kight, boy, thou own'st that inspiration.
 
 ANNE BOLF.YX. ti3 
 
 The Protestanf s Hymn to the Virgin. 
 
 1; 
 
 Oh ! Virgin Mother ! not with choral hymn 
 Around the lamp-deck*'d altar high and dim, 
 Where silver bells are faintly ringing, 
 And odorous censers lightly swinging ; 
 Till blazing forth above, beneath, around, 
 Rolls the full organ's never-ceasing sound : 
 Not with the costly gift of gold and gem, 
 Where thy enshrined image stands, 
 Loveliest, though fram^l by daring human hands, 
 And halo'd with thy sun-like diadem : 
 Not with the deep devotion of the heart. 
 Close folded arms across the heaving breast, 
 And words that find no breath, and sighs supprest — 
 Mary, we seek not thee 
 With suppliant agony 
 Of burning tears, that all unbidden start; 
 To mortal name our jealous souls deny 
 The incommunicable meed of Deity. 
 
 D
 
 34 ANNK BOLEYX. 
 
 2. 
 And thou, whereVr thy everlasting seat — 
 If ever human prayer, with noise unmeet^ 
 Up to thy radiant throne on high. 
 Ascend through the rehictant sky ; 
 Or earthly music its fond notes intrude 
 Upon the silence of beatitude : 
 Lowliest as loveliest amono; mortal maids ! 
 With all the grief that may abate 
 The changeless bliss of thy empyreal state, 
 Ever thy sad dejected look upbraids 
 The misdirected homage, vain and blind ; 
 Aside thou tumest thy offended ears 
 Where one Hosanna fills th"" acclaiming spheres; 
 Oh ! conscious child of Eve, 
 Mary, thy soul doth grieve 
 At godliead''s sacred rite to thee assign''d ; 
 Mourning the rash unholy injury done 
 To the redeeming nanie of thy Almighty Son !
 
 ANNK BOLEYN. B5 
 
 3. 
 Yet ne'er Incarnate Godhead mioht reside, 
 Save where his conscious presence glorified ; 
 
 Thee, therefore, loveher far we deem 
 
 Than eye may see or soul may dream. 
 Unchanged — unwasted by the pains of eartli, 
 Thou didst bring forth tlie fair immortal birth : 
 And Hope and Faith, and deep maternal Joy, 
 
 And Love, and not unholy Pride, 
 
 With soft unevanescent glory dyed 
 Thy cheeks, while gazing on the peerless boy ; 
 And surer than prophetic consciousness. 
 That he was born all human-kind to bless ! 
 The musical and peopled air was dim, 
 Mary, where'er thy haunt. 
 With angels visitant, 
 Nor always did the viewless Seraphim 
 Stand with their plumed glories unconfest, 
 To see the Eternal Child while cradled on thy breast. 
 
 1) 2
 
 Q{) ANNK liULEYN. 
 
 4. 
 
 And what, though in tlie winter, bleak and wild, 
 Thou didst bring forth the unregarded child, 
 
 The suninion'd star made haste to shine 
 
 Upon that new-^born face divine, 
 And the low dwelling of the stabled beast 
 Slione with the homage of the gorgeous East. 
 Though driven far off to Nilus' reedy shore, 
 
 As thou didst slake thy burning feet. 
 
 Where o*'er the desert fount the arching palm-trees 
 meet: 
 Still its soft pillow'd charge thy bosom bore ; 
 And thou didst watch in rapture his sweet sleep ; 
 Or gaze, while sportive he thy locks carest. 
 Or drank tlie living fountain of thy breast. 
 Yet, Mary, o'er thy soul 
 A silent sadness stole. 
 Nor could thy swelling eyes refuse to weep, 
 For Radiel, desolate, in agony, 
 And Betiilehenrs mothers childless all but thee.
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 37 
 
 5. 
 
 Nor faiTcl thy watcliful spirit to behold 
 The secret inborn Deitv unfold : 
 
 Nor e'er without a painless awe, 
 
 The wonderous youth the mother saw ; 
 For in the Baptist's playful love appeared 
 The homage of a heart that almost fear'd : 
 And though in meek subjection still he dwelt 
 
 Beneath thy husband's lowly home; 
 
 Oft from his lips would words mysterious come ; 
 The soul untaught the present Saviour felt. 
 As more than prophet raptures o'er him broke. 
 And fuller still the inspiration pour'd, 
 Half-bow'd to earth unconscious knees adored : 
 Mary, before thy sight. 
 The wonder-working might. 
 Prerogative of highest Godhead woke ; 
 TJnfoarful yet ! — when instant at his sign. 
 The water vessels bkisird with generous wine.
 
 38 ANNK BOLEYN. 
 
 6. 
 
 Blest o'er all women ! did thy heart repress. 
 Humble as chaste, each thought of loftiness, 
 When wonder after wonder burst 
 Around the child thy bosom nurst ; — 
 The dumb began to sing, the lame to leap ; 
 His unwet footsteps trod the unyielding deep ; 
 Still at his word disease and anguish ceased. 
 And healthful blood began to flow. 
 Ruddy, beneath the leper's skin of snow ; 
 And shuddering fiends the tortured soul released ; 
 And from the grave arose the summoned dead ? 
 Yet, ah ! did ne'er thy mother's heart repine. 
 When he set forth upon his dread design ? 
 Mary, did ne'er thy love 
 His piteous fate reprove. 
 When on the rock reposed his houseless head ? 
 Seem'd it not strange to thy officious zeal — 
 All pains, all sorrows, save his own, to heal ?
 
 AiNNK 15(>I,EYN. 39 
 
 7. 
 Yet, oil ! liow awful, Desolate ! to thee, 
 Thus to have shrined the living Deity ! 
 
 When underneath the loaded Rood, 
 
 Forlorn the childless mother stood : 
 Then when that voice, whose first articulate breath 
 Thriird her enraptured ear, had now in death 
 Bequeathed her to his care whom best he loved ; 
 
 When the cold death-dew bathed his brow, 
 
 And faint the drooping head began to bow, 
 Wert thou not, saddest, too severely proved ? 
 As in thy sight each rigid limb grew cold. 
 And the lip whitened with the burning thirst. 
 And the last cry of overwrought anguish burst, 
 Where then the Shiloh's crown, 
 Mary, the Christ's renown. 
 By Prophets and Angelic harps foretold ? 
 Was strength to thy undoubting spirit given ? 
 • Or did not human love oVrpower thy trust in Heaven ?
 
 40 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 8. 
 
 But when Death's conqueror from the tomb returnM, 
 Was thine the heart that at his voice ne'er bum'd ? 
 Followed him not thy constant sight, 
 Slow melting in Heaven's purest white, 
 To take his ancient endless seat on high. 
 On the right hand of Pai-ent Deity ? 
 And when thine earthly pilgrimage was ended, 
 We deem not, but that circled round. 
 With ringing harps of Heaven's most glorious sound, 
 Thy spirit, redeemed through thy Son's blood, ascended : 
 There evermore in lowliest loftiness, 
 Meek thou admirest, how that living God, 
 That fills the Heavens and Earth, in thee abode. 
 Mary, we yield to thee 
 All but idolatry ; 
 We gaze, admire, and wonder — love and bless : 
 Pure, blameless, holy, every praise be thine. 
 All honour save thy Son's, all glory but divine.
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 41 
 
 SCENE. 
 
 The Palace of' the Bishop of IVinchester. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 More blood ! more blood ! — three noble brethren more. 
 From the Carthusian's decimated house ^'', 
 Doom'd to the block — ay, pour it forth like water ! 
 Make your Thames red, till your proud galleys plough 
 Their way, and leave a sanguine wake behind them : 
 Set wide the gates of Hell, and summon thence 
 Murder, enthroned on your high judgment seat; 
 Arm her dark sister, lawless Massacre, 
 With the dread axe of public Execution ; 
 Can Hell, or Earth's confederate Kings prevail 
 'Gainst the true Church ? — But, oh ! ye martyr'd souls '. 
 Spirits, with whose saintly blood their robes are wet — 
 Oh ! all-accomplished INlorc, and sainted Fisher, •; 
 
 Rejoice ye not that with your death ye rouse 
 The fire-wing'd ministers of Heaven's just wrath,
 
 42 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Tliat welcoming your souls to th' abode of bliss, 
 
 Stand with spread wings, and ready girt for vengeance ! 
 
 But ye, the pulpit Captains of the Schism, 
 \^'orse than the worst — soul murderers, HelPs Apostles — 
 Ye would pour oil into the Church's wounds 
 That your own parricide hands have rent, and think 
 They will not plead against you. — Oh ! ye blind 
 To earthly wisdom as Heaven's light, that dare not 
 Greatly to sin, or, politicly severe. 
 Crush where ye conquer — ye will stand aloof 
 From the black scaffold, preach, protest, forswear 
 All deeds of blood ; yet your infected cause 
 Shall smell of it to latest generations ! 
 Oh fools ! to plunge in internecine strife, 
 Yet pause, and fear to slay : — deserving none, 
 And by Heaven's throne receiving none, to dream 
 Of showing mercy ; either way ye perish, 
 Or shed the martyrs' blood, whose dying voices 
 Arm Earth, Hell, Heaven, 'gainst your ungodly cause ; 
 Abstain, the unchecked recoil of our fierce vengeance 
 Shall sweep you to the apjiointcd pit of Hell !
 
 ANXE BOLEVN. 43 
 
 Angelo, Gardiner. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 My Lord of Windiestcr, thou hast received 
 Our full credentials from St. Peter"'s chair? 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Brother in Christ, thou know''st this land rejects 
 Rouie''s Bishop and his tyrannous usurpation. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 That Stephen Gardiner owns no power in Rome 
 
 I knoAv, nor yet in England. What cares he 
 
 For King or Pontiff, so he may maintain 
 
 The proud supremacy of Stephen Gardiner. 
 
 A second, but a greater Wolsey, thou, 
 
 With thine unbounded soul, wouWst ride o'er all — 
 
 Church, State, the world 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Italian, thou 'rt too bold-
 
 44 ANNE LOLEYN. 
 
 AKGELO. 
 
 Too true, good Islander ! but think not, Gardiner, 
 
 I or lament or deprecate thy greatness. 
 
 What qualities that make man fit to rule 
 
 Meet not in Winchester"'s capacious soul ? 
 
 The statesman's large and comprehensive mind ; 
 
 The politician's keen prophetic eye ; 
 
 The scholar's mastery o'er the realm of knowledge ; 
 
 Smooth manners, that with courtly art persuade ; 
 
 The eloquent pen, pregnant with thought profound ; 
 
 Quickness to penetrate each dark design ; 
 
 Sagacity to wind the unwilling soul 
 
 To his own purpose : wisest in the counsel ; 
 
 Deep read in books — in man's dark heart still deeper ; 
 
 Most knowing in all Europe's courts. Blest England, 
 
 If she but prize his worth ; himself most blest, 
 
 If but to his own interests blind, he err not 
 
 On his ascendant path ^ 
 
 GAEDINEll. 
 
 Your meaning, brother ?
 
 ANNK noLEVX. 45 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 A Cliurcliman, and abase the Churcli's rule ! 
 To wrest the thunder from liis awful grasp, 
 Whose delegates are we, as he is Heaven"'s, 
 And place it in the temporal tyrant's hands, 
 That hath no scope nor end but his own pride 
 And carnal lust of sway ! Rome covets power, 
 But for her sons, with wholesome tyranny, 
 To their own weal, to govern kings and nations. 
 Oh ! traitor to thy people, King, and God, 
 As to thyself! to cast away the sceptre 
 That sways man's soul to his immortal vantage ! 
 Son of the Holy Church, I exorcise 
 The fiend of disobedience from thine heart ; 
 By all thou lov'st — pomp, majesty, dominion, 
 By all thou hat'st — th' apostate cause and crew, 
 Th' all powerful Cranmer ! — ay, I see thy cheek 
 Blanch, thy low quivering lip— by all thou fear'st. 
 By all thou hop'st, thou 'rt ours, thou 'rt Rome'*s, thou 'rt 
 Heaven''s !
 
 40 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Good Fatlicr, walls have cars — the treacherous air, 
 With terrible delation, wanders round 
 The thrones of Kings. 
 
 angelo. 
 Thou think'st not, I or Rome 
 Would urge a rashness, which might wreck our cause : 
 Would have thee cast this wise dissembling off. 
 By which thou hast won the easy confidence 
 Of foolish heretics : be supple still. 
 And seeming true, thou Vt worthier of our trust. 
 We know thy heart our own, and lend awhile 
 Thy tongue, thy pen, to the proud King, t' abase him 
 To a more abject slave of thee and Rome. 
 Now hear me, Prelate, glut thine ear with tidings. 
 For there are dark and deep delved plots, that scape 
 Even Gardiner"'s lynx-eyed sight — thy soul shall laugh 
 The Queen — the Boleyn — the false harlot heretic — 
 She's in our toils — lost, doom'd
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 47 
 
 (;ai{I)ixer. 
 
 I know the King- 
 Is fallen away to a new lust, and hates 
 Where once he doted. — But her death ! — 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 What ! versed 
 In courts like Gardiner, and not know how close 
 Death waits upon the blasting hate of Kings ? 
 I tell thee, she shall die — die on a seafPold ! 
 Die branded like a base adulteress ! — 
 Die like a heretic — the Church "'s foe ! — 
 Die unabsolved, unhouserd — die for ever ! 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Ay, but her blameless life ; the love she wins 
 By subtle sorcery from every rank. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Blameless ! — an heretic avow\l, proclainrd. 
 
 The nursing mother of Apostasy ! 
 
 Heap crime on crime, load all her soul with blackness, 
 
 Make her name hideous to the end of time;
 
 48 ANNE liOr.EYX. 
 
 Yet is slie not, to a true son of the Church, 
 More odious, more abominable — all sins 
 Are in that one ! Adultery, murder, nought 
 Is wanting but desire or meet occasion, 
 And the loose heart gives way. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 But this Jane Seymour 
 Is of no better brood. 
 
 ANGELO, 
 
 What reck we who 
 Or what she is, she shall give place t' another, 
 Another still, till the fierce flame burns out, 
 And shame, remorse, and horror, all the furies 
 That howl and madden round the guilty bed. 
 Seize on the abject Monarch ! He shall lick 
 The dust beneath our feet, and pay what price 
 The Church ordain, for tardy reconcilement. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Brother, draw near ! thy speech hath bodied forth 
 What hath come floating o'er my secret thought.
 
 ANNE HOLKYN. 49 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 And own''st tliou not Heaven's manifest inspiration ? 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 So thou wilt bring to pass what Gardiner left 
 In unaccoinplish''d vision ! Man of men, 
 What fame shall wait, what canonizing glory 
 On sainted Angelo. 
 
 ANGEI.n. 
 
 While Stephen Gardiner 
 Must sink into the baser rank. Oh ! fear not, 
 Nor jealously mistrust me, lest I cross 
 Thy upward path : I have forsworn the woild, 
 Not with the formal oaths that burst like flax, 
 But those that chain the soul with tri|)]e iron. 
 Earth hath no guerdon I "may covet, none 
 I may enjoy. — Thou, Stephen Gardiner, 
 Shalt rule siil)niissive Prelates, Peers and Kings, 
 Loftiest in station, as in mind the mightiest ; 
 And a perpetual noon of golden power 
 Shall blaze around thy lordly mitred state. 
 
 E
 
 50 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 I 'm girt for other journeys : at that hour, 
 
 When all hut crown"'d tlie righteous work, this Isle 
 
 Half bow'd again to the Holy See, I go 
 
 Far in some savage land unknown, remote 
 
 From civilized or reasonable life, 
 
 From letters, arts — where wild men howl around 
 
 Tlieir blood stain'd altars — to uplift th"* unknown, 
 
 Unawful Crucifix : I go to pine 
 
 With famine ; waste with slow disease ; the loathing 
 
 And scorn of men. And when thy race is run, 
 
 Thou, Winchester, in marble cemetery. 
 
 Where thy cathedral roof, like some rich grove. 
 
 Spreads o''er, and all the walls with 'scutcheons blaze, 
 
 Shalt lie. While anthemed choirs and pealing organs, 
 
 And incense clouds, and a bright heaven of lamps. 
 
 Shall solemnize thy gorgeous obsequies ; 
 
 O'er my unsepulchred and houseless bones. 
 
 Cast on the barren beach of the salt sea. 
 
 Or arid desert, where the vulture flaps 
 
 Her dreary wings, shall never wandering Priest
 
 ANNE BOLEYX. 51 
 
 Or bid his beads or say one passing pray^*. 
 Thy memory shall live in this land's records 
 While the sea girds the isle ; but mine shall perisli 
 As utterly as some base beggar's child 
 That unbaptiz'd drops like abortive fruit 
 Into unhallow'd grave. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Impossible ! 
 Rome cannot waste on such wild service minds 
 Like thine, nor they endure the base obedience. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Man of this world, thou know'st not those who tread 
 
 The steps of great Ignatius, those that bear 
 
 The name of Jesus and his Cross. I \e sunk 
 
 For ever title, rank, wealth — even my being ; 
 
 And, self annihilated, boast myself 
 
 A limb, a nameless limb, of that vast body 
 
 That shall besj)read the world, imcheckVl, untrac'd — 
 
 Like God's own presence, every where, yet no where — 
 
 Th' invisible control, by which liome rules 
 
 e2
 
 52 ANi\E BOLKYN. 
 
 Tlu- universal mind of man. On me 
 
 My Father's palace gates no more shall open, 
 
 I own no more my proud ancestral name, 
 
 I have no property even in these weeds. 
 
 These coarse and simple weeds I wear ; nor will, 
 
 Nor passion, nor affection, nor the love 
 
 Of kindred touch this earth-estranged heart ; 
 
 My personal being is absorbed and dead. 
 
 Thou think' st it much with cilice, scourge, and fast 
 
 To macerate thy ail-too pamperM body, 
 
 That thy sere heart is seaFd to woman's love, 
 
 That child shall never climb thy knees, nor call thee 
 
 His father : — on the altar of my God 
 
 I "ve laid a nobler sacrifice, a soul 
 
 Conscious it might have compassM empire. — Tiiis 
 
 I \e done ; and in no brief and frantic fit 
 
 Of youthful hist ungratified — in the hour 
 
 Of disappointed pride. A noble born 
 
 Of Rome's patrician blood, rich, lettered, versed 
 
 In the affairs of men ; no monkish dreamer
 
 ANNE BOLKYN. 56 
 
 Hearing Heaven ''s siimiiKins in ecstatic vision. 
 God spoke within this heart but with the voice 
 Of stern deliberate duty, and I rose 
 Resolved to sail the flood, to tread the fire — 
 That"'s nought — to quench all natural compunction, 
 To know nor right nor wrong, nor crime nor virtue, 
 But as subservient to Rome's cause and Heaven''s. 
 I Ve schooFd my haughty soul to subtlest craft, 
 I 've strung my tender heart to bloodiest havoc. 
 And stand prepared to wear the martyr's flames 
 Like nuptial robes ; — far worse, to drag to the stake 
 My friend, the brother of my soul — if thus 
 I sear the hydra heads of heresy. 
 
 GAKOIN'KR. 
 
 Think not thine order, brother, nor thy tenets, 
 
 Sublime as that unquestioning devotion 
 
 With which God's Seraphim perform his mandates. 
 
 Unknown, unnoticed, imobserved. I lay 
 
 The volume of this heart, that man ne'er read, 
 
 Before thee. Here is hate of hercsv.
 
 54 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Deep, desperate as thine own. In the dead night, 
 And in the secret prayers of my dark chamber, 
 Like thee I cry, Holy and True, how long — 
 Oh ! when will they blaze up and gladden heaven, 
 The glorious purifying fires, and purge 
 The land of its pollutions; when the Chvirch 
 Its pure and virgin whiteness rearray, 
 And its true Sons shake off dissembling darkness ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Oh ! Gardiner, beware ! No lust of vengeance. 
 No carnal hate, nor hope of worldly triumph, 
 Must leaven our heroic zeal : God's will 
 Its sole commission, its sole end God's glory. 
 We must gird up our souls to this high service. 
 Alike subdue and bend our pride and passions 
 To our great scope ; with nought too stern or dread 
 But that we'll on relentless, nought too base 
 But we will stoop — much is already done — 
 
 GARDIXER. 
 
 Enough, I af k no more, would know no more.
 
 ANNE BOi.KYN. 55 
 
 i 
 
 1 'II Stand aloof, and wait in holy hope 
 Th' appointed hour. 
 
 AKGELO. 
 
 In safety reap the harv-est 
 Sown in the sweat of other's brows. 'Tis well, 
 Thus shall it be, thus best the cause will jirosper ; 
 And, prosper but the cause, my work is done. 
 
 Whitehall 
 
 auKEN {dismissing her ladies). 
 Away — we are not used to order twice ; 
 Away — depart. — 
 
 .* I am alone — alone — 
 
 Nor that cold hateful pomp of fawiiing faces 
 Pursues me, nor the true officious love 
 Of those whose hearts I would not wring, by seeming
 
 5G ANNE BOLKYN. 
 
 The wretcli I am : so pour thee forth, mine heart, 
 
 Pour thy ful] tide of bitterness ; for Queens 
 
 Must weep in secret when they weep. I saw it — 
 
 'Twas no foul vision — with unblinded eyes 
 
 I saw it : his fond hands, as once in mine, 
 
 Were wreathVl in hers ; he gazed upon her face 
 
 Even with those sorcerous eyes, no woman looks at — 
 
 I know it, ah ! too well — nor madly dote. 
 
 That eloquence, the self-same burning words 
 
 That seize the awe-struck soul, when weakest, thrill'd 
 
 Her vainly-deaf averted ears. — Oh, Heaven ! 
 
 I thank thee that I cursed her not, nor him. 
 
 Jane Seymour, like a sister did I deem thee ; 
 
 But what of that ? Thou Vt heaven-ordain'd to visit 
 
 Her sins upon the head of her that dared 
 
 To love, to wed another''s lord. May'st thou 
 
 Ne'er know the racking anguish of this hour, 
 
 The desolation of this heart ! But thou, 
 
 Oh ! thou, my crime, my madness ! thou on whom 
 
 The loftiest woman had been proud to dote,
 
 ANNK BOLEYN. 57 
 
 Had he been master of a straw roof d cottage ! 
 Was 't just to awe, to dazzle the young mind, 
 That deem'd its transport loyal admiration, 
 Submissive duty all, till it awoke 
 And found it thrilling, deepest woman's love ? 
 Too late, too early disabused — would Heaven 
 That I were still abused ! Long, long I 've felt 
 Love's bonds fall one by one from thy palFd heart. 
 Oh ! the fond falsehoods of my credulous soul ! 
 War, policy, religion, all the cares 
 Of kingdoms, Europe's fate within thy hands, 
 I pleaded to myself to justify 
 Thy cold estrangement. 
 
 Well, 'tis o'er, and I 
 IVIust sit alone on my cold eminence. 
 All women's envy, mine own scorn and pity. 
 And all the sweetness of these virgin lips, 
 And all the pureness of this virgin bosom. 
 And all the fondness of this virgin heart, 
 Forgotten, turu'd to scorn — perchance to loathing. 
 Heaven ! was no way but this, and none but He
 
 ,58 ANNE BOLKYN. 
 
 To scourge this guilty heart ? Thy will be done. 
 
 I 've still a noble Father, and a Brother, 
 
 And, Powers of grace ! my Mother — kill her not. 
 
 Break not her heart, — for sure 'twill break to hear it. 
 
 My child, my child, thou only wilt not feel it : 
 
 Thy parent o'er thy face may weep, nor thou 
 
 Be sadder for her misery ; thou wilt love me 
 
 Though thy false father scorn and loathe. My Mother — 
 
 Oh ! ne'er before would I have fled thy presence : 
 
 Betray me not, my tear swoln eyes. 
 
 Queen, Lady Wiltshire. 
 
 lady wiltshire- 
 
 Dear Anne, 
 I come to task thy goodness : thou must use 
 That witching influence none e'er resists ; 
 That, with a sweet and pardonable treason 
 Makes the King's Grace thy slave, nor leaves him pow'r 
 To think or speak but at thy pleasure
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 59 
 
 QUEEN {aside). 
 
 Heaven ! 
 Each word wrings blood from my torn heart. 
 
 LADY WILTSHIRE. 
 
 In truth, 
 There never lived who could refuse thee ought ; 
 For thou wert never known to ask amiss. 
 But, thou Vt all tears. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Nought — nought — thy story, Mother. 
 
 LADY WILTSHIRE. 
 
 Ay, nothing sure will chase away thy weakness. 
 
 Be 't of the body or the mind, so soon 
 
 As that sweet consciousness that thou art using 
 
 The power Heaven gave thee in Heaven's cause. His 
 
 Grace 
 The Primate waits without t' implore your Highness, 
 That the old high-born Prior of the Carthusians, 
 And two right noble brethren of that house. 
 That, obstinate and self will'd, still subscribe not
 
 60 ANNE BOLKYN. 
 
 The King's supreme dominion, may find mercy, 
 Nor perish on the ignominious scaffold. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 My Lord of Canterbury at our door ! 
 The presence of that righteous man, dear Mother, 
 Breathes sanctity as though from Heaven ; our hearts 
 Overflow at once with prayer and lioHest thoughts. 
 Admit his Grace. 
 
 The above. Cranmer. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Your blessing, holy Father. 
 
 CRANMER. 
 
 Heaven save your Highness ! But, remember, Lady, 
 Prayers of anointed Priests or mitred Prelates 
 Are poor and valueless to such as come 
 From those that wear Christ's truest livery. 
 The wretched and the broken hearted.
 
 anxk iu)Lkyx. 61 
 
 QUEEN (aside). 
 
 Heaven, 
 I own thy voice — then mine are surely heard. 
 
 CRAXMER. 
 
 I '11 teach voT^n* Grace to do Heaven violence. 
 
 By shrining your blest name in vows of men, 
 
 From death released, from cruel public death. 
 
 The Countess Wiltshire hath made known our suit ; 
 
 And though my soul abhor the wilful hardness 
 
 Of these proud men, yet they were nursed in error — 
 
 In error, but for all-enlightening grace. 
 
 That still had darkened our own souls. Were Heaven 
 
 Extreme t' avenge its outraged majesty, 
 
 Would the red roaring tlumder ever cease ? 
 
 And shall the axe earth''s injured Monarchs wield 
 
 Be never satiate with the offending blood ? 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Had 1 the power ! 
 
 CRANMER. 
 
 The power ! thou'st ever been
 
 G2 ANNK BOLKVN. 
 
 The rainbow o'er the awful throne. The King, 
 That lives but in thy presence, ne'er disdain'd 
 Thy righteous supplication. Oh ! great Queen, 
 Our cause, the Gospel cause, the cause of Christ, 
 Is spotted ©""er with shame. Rude sacrilege 
 Usurps the name of godly Reformation, 
 And revels in the spoil of shrine and altar. 
 Men have cast down the incensed heathenish image 
 To worship with more foul idolatry 
 The gold of which 'twas wrought ; and all the blood 
 The too relentless Law for Treason sheds, 
 Attaints our blameless faith of direst cruelty. 
 
 QUEEN (aside). 
 More woe, more woe — to know these holy hopes. 
 This noble trust, misplaced and frustrate all ! 
 Your Grace overvalues our poor influence. 
 Such as it is. 
 
 LADY WILTSHIRE. 
 
 r- The King !
 
 ANNK HOLKYN. 63 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I'll know the worst. 
 Dear Mother, leave us. Come contempt or shame, 
 She must not witness it : but he the rather 
 Will seek to compensate the heart''s deep wrongs 
 By outward graciousness. Wretch, wretch myself, 
 I may relieve the wretchedness of others : — 
 Be 't as it may, the world shall never know 
 Through me the secret of his sin, his falsehood. 
 But deem him by my love the gentlest husband 
 As the most noble Monarch upon Earth. 
 
 King Henry. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Jlofuse our mandate — shut their Abbey gates 
 Affainst our Poursuivants — refuse our oaths — 
 Now, by St. Paul, not one of them siiull wear 
 His shaven crown on his audacious shoulders !
 
 64 ANNE BOIT.YN. 
 
 CRANMER. 
 
 Your Majesty will hear your faithful servant. 
 
 KING. 
 
 I '11 none of it — their heads or their allegiance. 
 God's death ! have all our Parliament and Peers, 
 Our RevVend Bishops, given their hands and seals, 
 And shall we thus be mocked and set at nought 
 By beggarly and barefoot monks ? Archbishop, 
 Out of our love to thine own reverend person. 
 We do refuse thy most unwise petition. 
 Good foolish man, not one of them but lu-ged 
 By that old Priest of the Seven Hills would burn us, 
 Body and soul. We'll have no Kings but one, 
 None but ourself. — Tut, not a word. How now ? 
 What, Nan ? what blank ? what all a mort ? Thy jests, 
 And thy quaint sayings, and thy smiles 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 My I.iege, 
 I have been sued to be a suppliant 
 For those that, falPn beneath thine high displeasure
 
 ANNE BOLEVN. (Jo 
 
 KING. 
 ^Sdeath ! ye Ve our answer — as I pass'd but now 
 Jane Seymour was set on t"" entreat our mercy ; 
 We yielded not, nor thought of being wearied 
 At every step witli the old tedious tale — ■ 
 Art answered ? 
 
 QUEEN, 
 
 What I am, I owe your Grace, 
 And in most deep humility confess it ; 
 But being as I am, your Grace"'s wife, 
 I knew not that my maid's rejected prayer 
 Precluded further speech 
 
 KJNG. 
 
 Why, how now, wayward ! 
 Your maid ! good truth, Sir Thomas Boleyirs daughter ""s 
 Right nobly served. I 'd have you know, proud woman, 
 What the King gives, the King may take away — 
 Who raised up one from dust, may raise another. 
 Look to thyself, I say — thou niay'st have cause; 
 Look, and be wise — be humble. For your Grace 
 
 F
 
 G() ANNE IJOLKYN. 
 
 We Ve business in our Council — not a word — 
 Our Queen's our subject still. 
 
 QUEEN (alone). 
 
 And this is he, 
 The flower of the world's chivalry, most courtly 
 Where met the splendor of all courts ! When Europe 
 Sent its three SovVeigns to that Golden field, 
 Which won all eyes with liberal noble bearing ? 
 Which charmed all ears with high and gracious speech ? 
 Which made all hearts his slaves by inbred worth 
 But English Henry ? by his pattern all 
 Moved, spoke, rode, tilted, shaped their dress, their 
 
 language. 
 And he that most resembled England's King- 
 Was kingliest in the esteem of all. This he 
 That lay whole hours before my worshipped feet, 
 Making the air melodious with his words ? 
 So fearful to offend, having offended 
 So fearful of his pardon, not myself 
 More jealous of my maiden modesty ;
 
 ANNE BOLKVN. 67 
 
 The bridegroom of my youth, my infant's Father ! 
 
 All ! me, my rash and inconsiderate speech, 
 
 My pride, hath wrought from his too hasty nature 
 
 This shame upon mine head: hell turn, he'll come 
 
 My prodigal back to mine heart — if not, 
 
 I 'm born liis subject, sworn before high Heaven 
 
 His faithful wife ; then let him cast me from him, 
 
 Spurn, trample me to dust — the foe, the stranger 
 
 That owns no law of kindred, blood, or duty. 
 
 Is taught, where every word is Heaven's own oracle, 
 
 To love where most he 's hated. I will live 
 
 On the delicious memory of the past. 
 
 And bless him so for my few years of bliss. 
 
 My Ups shall find no time for harsh reproach ; 
 
 I '11 be as one of those sweet flowers, that crush'd 
 
 By the contemptuous foot, winds closer round it, 
 
 And breathes in every step its richest odours. 
 
 F 2
 
 G8 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 An Apartment in Westminster^ 
 Angelo, Lady Rochford. 
 
 ' ANGELO. 
 
 In that proud Prelate's heart a noble chord ^^'^ 
 I toucliM, now harp we on a baser string. 
 The Lady Rochford ! thou art here to tell me 
 That thou fuIfilFst the terms on which the Church, 
 In its high plenitude of power, absolves 
 The guilty soul. 
 
 LADY KOCHFORD. 
 
 I come, Sir, to advise 
 With your wise sanctity. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 We 've judged already, 
 And look but for obedience — hast thou scattered 
 Those hints and seeds of hate in the King's path, 
 That he behold this Queen in her true colours?
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 69 
 
 LADY ROCHFOKl). 
 
 I have ; with zeal so fatal, with success 
 So manifest, mine inmost soul recoils 
 At the base service. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Hast obtained that paper 
 In Lady Wingfield's hand ? 
 
 LADY ROCHFORD. 
 
 'Tis here. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Good ! good ! — 
 
 LADY ROCHFORD. 
 
 Inexorable ! — must I show no mercy ? 
 Must crime be still atoned by crime ? Oh ! think, 
 She is my husband's sister —his, the bridegroom 
 Of my fond youth 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 To whom thou art so true 
 And faithful !
 
 70 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 LADY ROCHFORD. 
 
 Ha ! what need of words to thee, 
 That read''st the inmost depths of this dark heart 
 More clearly than myself — I hate that husband, 
 For that I \e injured him so deeply ; hate 
 Her virtue that reproaches mine own shame : 
 But yet to slander her pure fame 
 
 ANGKLO. 
 
 You said 
 Erewhile you doubted her yourself, 
 
 LADY ROCHFORD. 
 
 The sinful 
 Have a base interest to drag down the holy 
 To their own level. Set me some strange penance, 
 Shall grind the flesh, and wring the heart's-blood forth ; 
 Oh ! any thing but this base wicked service ! 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Thou wilt do all but what the Church commands. 
 What is it for a life like thine — a life 
 That doth confess, bewail, forswear its sins,
 
 ANNE BUl.EYN. 71 
 
 But with new zest finduloe — tliat coin'ijt so oft 
 With tlie foul tale, that I do fear to breathe 
 The tainted air of my confessional ? 
 For such a life is not that place ordainVl 
 Where air is fire, life pain, and lanf^uage howling ? 
 
 LADY ROCHFORD. 
 
 Oh ! horror ! 
 
 ANGELO, , 
 
 Look that thou perform our bidding 
 To the strict letter, the extremest point, 
 Wary and secret, as becomes a servant 
 Would merit grace and favour. 
 
 LADY ROCHFORD. 
 
 I ""m no servant — 
 A slave — a lashM, a crouching, abject slave, 
 In the iron bondage of my sins ! 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 I^ngrateful ! 
 When I might hurl thee, bhick with niale<liction. 
 Where all thy direst visions of remorse,
 
 72 ANNE BOLEYN, 
 
 The racking moments of remember''d crime, 
 The fangs of Conscience tearing at thy heart, 
 Thy tossing, feverish, spectre-staring midnights. 
 
 Would seem remission, peace, delight to years 
 Interminable 
 
 LADY ROCHKORD. 
 
 Oh ! my soul ! my soul ! 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 And I have taught thee how to merit favour 
 From those to whom the eternal keys are given — 
 Tinged your black desperation with the hue 
 
 Of hope Away ! back to thy duty — watch ! 
 
 And those who weigh in the everlasting scales 
 Service against rebellion, and obedience 
 Against transgression, may at length strike down 
 The balance, and pronounce thee what thou dar'st not- 
 Thou dost not — hope may be thy lot. — Away !
 
 ANNK BOLEYN. 73 
 
 The Garden, as before. 
 
 Mark Smeaton, Magdalene Smeaton. 
 
 magdalene. 
 My brother ! 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Oh ! her voice — it will not cease — 
 It sounds within my ears, within ray heart. 
 And thou, my harp once loved, but now a treasure 
 Which kingdoms will not buy ; of her sweet tones 
 Thou 'It keep the perfume, as the Arabian air 
 The smell of spices. 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Mark, thou 'rt strangely moved ; 
 Speak to me — keep from her no jealous secret. 
 From her who loves thee with so whole a heart : 
 Nor thy unkindncss, wcre't in tliy soft nature — 
 Nor sorrows, they would but endear thee more — •
 
 74 ANNE BDLKYN. 
 
 Nor even thy sins, if that way I could fear thee — 
 Could e'er estrange 
 
 MARK. 
 
 The Queen ! the Queen ! my sister : 
 She sent for me — she made me sit before her. 
 As my hand trembled on my lute, she smiled 
 With gracious playfulness — oh ! what a store 
 Of precious memories I Ve treasured up — 
 Look, motion, word, like relics, have I shrined them 
 In the heart*'s sanctuary, where all my thoughts 
 Shall come in daily pilgrimage devout 
 Till I am dust and clay. I miserable. 
 With such a refuge ! sinful, with the jjower 
 Of her controlling holiness about me ! 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Oh ! brother, brother, my misgiving heart 
 Recoils, it knows not why, from words that sound 
 Like dangerous profanation : I have forsworn 
 All love but that which cloistei'd nuns may feel 
 Before the bleeding crucifix ; but yet »
 
 AN-NE BOLEYN. 75 
 
 I feel that there is sin in thy wild language, 
 Sin, not less deep in thought because in deed 
 Impossible. — Lo ! Father Angelo. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 This awful man again ! — must we ne'er meet 
 But his appalling look, inscrutable 
 Yet scrutinizing all, must cite to judgment 
 Each passing thought, each word, each wish 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Mark, Mark, 
 Do any but the guilty dread the presence 
 Of holiest men ? He comes to visit here 
 The mother of my youth, whose outcast age 
 Hath none but me, of all our scatter''d convent, 
 To smooth her dying pillow, watch her wants ; 
 And none but Father Angelo t' attend her, 
 So constantly as though no soul but hers 
 Needed his zealous function.
 
 16 ANNE 150LEYN. 
 
 Angelo. The above. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 So, fair youth, 
 Our prophecies fall true — thou 'rt f the sunshine. 
 Last eve, I ask not, if the dangerous song 
 Beseemed a son of Holy Church — that sin 
 Be theirs not thine, 
 
 MARK. 
 
 How knew he this ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Had those 
 
 That take in charge th"* eternal souls of men 
 
 No ways of knowledge to the vulgar eye 
 
 Inscrutable, our task were ill fulfilPd. 
 
 So tell me, youth, and look that thou speak truth, 
 
 Truth to the word, the letter, even the tone — 
 
 Fell no peculiar private passages, 
 
 Nor word, nor sign, nay, nor familiar motion,
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 77 
 
 Emphatic tone, nor more expressive pause, 
 Between thyself and the Queen's Grace ? 
 
 MAllK. 
 
 Good Sir, 
 Think on my baseness and her state ■ 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 So young 
 And so dishonest ! Boy, look to 't ! Thy soul, 
 Thy soul that lives in bliss or dies for ever, 
 Is on the hazard (but I speak in love. 
 And not in anger) spake she not more gently ? 
 Glanced not her eye more kindly than 'twas wont ? 
 Drank not her ears thy songs with longer rapture ? 
 Awes not her presence less, and charms the more ? — 
 Boy, boy, take heed — be warned, be wise. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Sir, Sir, 
 Is't possible, in human nature! where, 
 In History or Legend, wild and marvellous, 
 Is't written, that a Queen — a Queen like her —
 
 78 ANNK UULEYN. 
 
 The Queen of Queens in beauty and in goodness, 
 Stoop'd to consider one like me ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 This life 
 Hath strange vicissitudes. This Queen, this partner 
 Of England"'s throne, I can remember well 
 The Duchess of Alen^on once esteemed 
 Of note scarce higher in her royal court 
 Than thou in England's — so, once more, beware. 
 There is no price man''s enemy will not pay 
 For one immortal soul. Now, the good Abbess — 
 Daughter, advance — how fares it with your charge ? 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Sir, longing for your presence, as the blind 
 
 For light : your holy words breathe deeper calmness 
 
 0*'er all her frame, than medicine's opiate drugs ; 
 
 Her only fear of death is lest she want 
 
 Your parting benediction. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 In— I '11 follow.
 
 ANNK BOLKYN. 79 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Will he not warn me not to wing the air, 
 
 Lest I should fly too near the parching Sun, 
 
 And shrivel into dust ? — To doubt his wisdom 
 
 Were to impeach man's general estimate ; 
 
 T' arraign his charity would give tlie lie 
 
 To a whole life of painful sanctity, 
 
 And slur tlV anointed Priesthood with contempt. 
 
 Yet her — of her to speak, to think, t' imagine 
 
 Less than the purest, chastest, holiest, best — 
 
 An Angel by Heaven's providence unplumedy 
 
 Lest, weary of this tainting world, she fly 
 
 Untimely to her native skies ; and I, 
 
 A poor, unknown, a homeless, friendless boy 
 
 The more I think the wilder grow my thoughts, 
 And every thouglit is stamp'd with her bright image ; 
 She is my world of fantasy, each soimd 
 Is as her voice, each gleam of light her look. 
 And midniirht hath no vision but of her.
 
 80 ANNE B0LP:YN. 
 
 Whitehall. 
 
 Queen and Ladies, 
 
 Sir Henry Norreys, Sir Francis Weston, Sir 
 
 William Brereton, Mark Smeaton. 
 
 iNORREYS. 
 
 Your Majesty will grace the tilt to-day ? 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 The King so wills it : mine obedience rather 
 Than mine own humour sways my choice. 
 
 NORREYS. 
 
 I had dared 
 To hope that he, your Grace has deign'd to name 
 Your Knight, being Champion of the ring, your Highness 
 Had given him victory by your presence. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Norreys, 
 Trust me, I wish thee all that proud success 
 Thy valour and thy truth deserve.
 
 ANNK BOLKVN, 81 
 
 NOUKEYS. 
 
 That wish 
 Is triumph — and my vaunting adversaries 
 Are strewn already at my feet. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Sir Henry, 
 This language breathes of the blithe air of France ; 
 It brings back recollections of my youth, 
 When all my life was like a jocund dream, 
 Or air of gayest music : — but, time presses — 
 So, Gentlemen, in the old Knightly phrase, 
 Go bear you bravely for your Mistress"* sake. 
 
 WESTON. 
 
 Our IMistress thus commancHng, what true Knight 
 Can fail or falter. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Courteous words. Sir Francis ; 
 But T mistake me or that name calls uj) 
 Another — and, in truth, a fairer lady. 
 
 G
 
 82 ANNK BOI,KYN. 
 
 WESTON. 
 
 Not — as I live. 
 
 tlUEEN. 
 
 Take heed ! false oath, false Knight : 
 Enough of this — ' \ ■ 
 
 NORREYS. 
 
 We kiss your Highness'' hands, 
 And with this talisman of strength set forth. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Heaven prosper you ! 
 
 [mark smeaton kneels also. 
 How now .'' thou 'rt over-bold : 
 Thou dost forget thy rank and station, youth ; 
 Thou 'rt not, I deem, of gentle blood. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 No, no, 
 A look suffices me., 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Truth, noble Sirs,
 
 ANXF. 150T,KVX. 83 
 
 Your gallantry 's infectious ; this poor youth 
 Must need admire and imitate your courtesies : 
 Take heed that thou offend no more — be modest, 
 As thou wert wont. And now to horse, Sir Knights — 
 Go forward, and Heaven speed the brave and noble ! 
 
 So now to Greenwich, to look gay and light 
 As this May mornino- with a heart as heavy 
 As dull Novem])er ; to be thought the happiest, 
 Be the most wretched of all womankind. 
 
 \Rxe'\mt. 

 
 84 ANNE BOLF.YN. 
 
 Near Whitehall. 
 Gardiner and Angelo. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 My Lord of Winchester — thou 'st seen the King ? 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 I 've seen a raging madman loose ; he came 
 From Greenwich at full speed ; their horses seemM 
 Like those who ride for life from a lost battle: — 
 What hath befallen ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 The game is won ere played ! 
 It fires beyond our hopes, the sulphurous train 
 Flames up, they're hurFd aloft, but not to Heaven. 
 Wake, Hell ! and lift thy gates ; and ye, that tenant 
 The deepest, darkest, most infuriate pit, 
 Tir abyss of all abysses, blackest blackness, 
 Where that most damning sin, the damning others, 
 With direst, most remorseless expiation,
 
 ANNE EOLEYN. 85 
 
 Howls out its drear eternity, arouse 
 
 The myriad voices of your wailing ; loud 
 
 As when the fleshly Luther, or the chief 
 
 Of his cursed crew have one by one gone down 
 
 To tread your furnace chambers ! — Rise ! prepare 
 
 The throne of fire, the crown of eating flames ! 
 
 She comes — the Queen, the fatal Queen, whose beauty 
 
 Hath been to England worse, more full of peril, 
 
 Than Helen''s was to Troy, hath seaPd for death, 
 
 For death eternal, irremediable, 
 
 Whole generations of her godless sons. 
 
 And made her stately church a heap of ruin ! 
 
 GAllDINEU. 
 
 I am no heretic : why keep me thus 
 Upon the rack ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 When sli oil test accidents 
 Lead to efi'ects that cliange tlic tlooni of nations, 
 Dost thou not read the visible hand of Heaven P
 
 86 ANNE BOLKYN. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Who questions it ? 
 
 ANGELO, 
 
 Why then behold — adore it ! 
 My Lord, we Ve wise and politic, but yet 
 A foolish kerchief falling to the ground 
 Shall more advance our high and righteous cause 
 Than months of subtlest craft. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Explain. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 I stood 
 Within the tilt-yard, not to take delight 
 Carnal, inipriestly, in the worldly pageant : 
 Though, Heaven forgive ine ! when the trumpets blevVy 
 And the lists fell, and Knights as brave, and full 
 Of valour as their steeds of fire, wheeFd forth. 
 And moved in troops or single, orderly 
 As youtlis and maidens in a village dance. 
 Or shot, like swooj)ing hawks, in straight career;
 
 ANiNK IJOLEYN. 87 
 
 TJie old Caraffk rose within my breast — 
 
 Struggled my soul with haughty recollections 
 
 Of when I rode through the outjwur'd streets of Rome, 
 
 Enamouring all the youth of Italy 
 
 With envy of my noble horsemanship. 
 
 But I rebuked myself, and thought how Heaven 
 
 Had taught me loftier mastery, to rein 
 
 And curb with salutary governance 
 
 Th"* umnanaged souls of men. But to our purpose ; 
 
 Even at the instant, when all spears were levelFd, 
 
 And rapid as the arblast bolt, the Knights 
 
 SpurrM one by one to the ring, when breathless leant 
 
 The Ladies from their galleries — from the Queen's 
 
 A handkerchief w'as seen to fall ; but while 
 
 Floating it dalHed on the air, a Knight, 
 
 Sir Henry Norreys, as I learnt, stoop'd down, 
 
 Caught, w reath'd it in his plume, regain\l his spear, 
 
 And smote right home the quivering ring : th' acclaim 
 
 Burst forth like roaring waters, but the King
 
 88 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Sprang up, and calFd to horse, while tumult wild 
 Broke up the marr'd and frighted ceremony. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Something of this I augur'd : as the King 
 
 Swept furious by, he beckoned me ; yet seem'd 
 
 Too busied with his wrathful thoughts to heed 
 
 Whom thus he summoned ; and I heard him mutter 
 
 " The saucy groom !" and terms, which to repeat 
 
 Were not o'erfitting priestly lips, but coupled 
 
 With the Queen's name most strangely. Seeing this, 
 
 I thought it in mine office to administer 
 
 Grave ghostly admonition, mingled well 
 
 With certain homily and pulpit phrases 
 
 Of man"'s ingratitude, and gracious Kings 
 
 Whose bovmties are abused ; the general looseness 
 
 Of the age. The more I spake, the more he madden \1, 
 
 As though my words were oil on fire. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 'Twas well, 
 But must be better ; I have further tidings.
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 89 
 
 I pass'^d the Tower, and saw Sir William Kingston, 
 Summon''d, 'twas said, with special haste, come forth 
 Among his archers. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Ha ! there 's more in this. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Prelate, there shall be — where 's the King ? 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 I left him 
 Near the apartment of Jane Seymour. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Good ! 
 The field of battle where we have them all 
 At vantage. — Lead me to him. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Thee ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 What ! jealous still ? Then go thyself — be speedy. 
 Thou lovest the King, my Lord of Winchester : 
 Suits it thy reverence, then, and holy station,
 
 90 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Nearest his bosom, in his closest counsels, 
 That he retain a wanton in his bosom, 
 When there is one hath damning evidence 
 At peril of his life ? 
 
 GAHDINER. 
 
 Where? who? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 The Man 
 
 Am I. Thou see'st, my Lord, thine all the glory, 
 
 The gratitude for this great service — mine 
 
 The peril. Strike, strike now, strike home, my Lord. 
 
 GAKDINER. 
 
 I see it : as we pass, thou shalt unfold 
 
 All that remains behind ; and, trust me, Brother, 
 
 Thou shalt have thy reward. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 I shall — in Heaven.
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 91 
 
 Whitehall. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 What can it mean ? Each face as I pass'd by 
 
 Was gathering blackness ; and a silent pity 
 
 Sate upon brows that turn'd aside to avoid nie. 
 
 The menials are infected : not a groom, 
 
 As I descended from my litter, lent 
 
 His Juiud to aid me ; and my anti-rooms 
 
 Are mute and empty, even as though the plague 
 
 Had tainted all the air. Well, what of this ? — 
 
 Oh, God of Grace ! thou Vt bounteous still ! Fall off 
 
 The cumbrous tra[)pings and appendages 
 
 Of mine uneasy state, thou leav'st me yet 
 
 One far too old and one too young to change : 
 
 My cliild, my Mothci', and my Innocence, 
 
 Shall make me up a blest society, 
 
 An Empre>s girt about with handmaid-queens
 
 92 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Might envy. — At her charge I left my Mother, 
 
 Her charge, whose joy renews her youth, and makes lier 
 
 Like some fond nurse o'er her first born 
 
 Lady Wiltshire. 
 
 lady wiltshire. 
 
 Come, come, 
 She sleeps — thyself, dear Anne, not half so lovely : 
 Come sit by her, and gaze on her, for hours. 
 For days : a violet on a bed of snow, 
 A pearl in ivory set, the brightest star 
 Where all are bright in the soft milky way — 
 There ""s no similitude she doth not shame. 
 Her forehead archM by Heaven to fit a crown ! 
 I 've almost wishM thou ne"'er shouldst bear a boy, 
 Dear Anne, to bar her from the throne she 's born to. 
 
 aUEEN. 
 
 Mother, I follow thee.
 
 ANNK. ROLF.YN. 95 
 
 The ahorc. Kingston and Guard. 
 
 (iUEEN. 
 
 Ha ' in my chamber 
 Arm\l men ! Sir William Kinii'ston, thon'il o'er bold 
 To press unbidden on our privacy. 
 
 KIXGSTOM. 
 
 By the King's special mandate, I attach 
 Your Highness. 
 
 (iUEEN. 
 
 Stay, Sir, as you hope for mercy. 
 My mother ! she is old and fond — her heart 
 Will break. Dear Mother — back — go liack — the King, 
 Willing to do your daughter honour, sends 
 Good Kingston and his guard. God pardon me ! 
 The first untruth that e'ei- defiled my lips. 
 Now, Sir, your message : the King's Grace, I heard. 
 In his displeasure for some weighty cause, 
 Connnands liis (^)ui'en to ])rison ; I obey, Sir.
 
 94 ANNK KOLEYN. 
 
 KINGSTON, 
 
 Your Majesty must hold yourself in readiness 
 T' imbark on the instant for the Tower. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 The Tower ! 
 Oh, mother ! mother ! that the time should come 
 When I should wish thee in thy quiet grave. 
 My child — tliat I should wish tliee yet unborn ; — 
 Shall I find justice, Sir ? '•" 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 The meanest subject 
 In all the realm would not impeach the equity 
 Of the King's Grace with such a dangerous doubt. 
 
 [Queen hursts into laughter. 
 Your Highness ! 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Start ye thus to see me laugh ? 
 There \s laughter that is griefs most bitter language, 
 Laughter that hath no mirth — and such is mine. 
 T>ieutenant of the Tower, I tell thee this :
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 1)5 
 
 I Ve done, Sir, in my days, some good, through Christ ; 
 
 If they misjudge my cause, yea, but a jot, 
 
 The fiery indignation from above 
 
 Shall blast the bosom of this land, the skies 
 
 Shall be as brass, nor rain nor drop of dew 
 
 Shall moisten the adust and gaping earth. 
 
 ICIXGSTOX. 
 
 \ 
 I would beseech your Highness to compose 
 
 Your too distemper Vl mind. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Where are the Bishops,, 
 The holy Bishops ? They will plead my cause. 
 And make my enemies kneel at my footstool. 
 I needs must laugh. Sir, but I'll weep anon, 
 Weep floods, weep life blood, weep till every heart 
 Shall ache and })urst to see me. Now I '11 kneel — 
 Behold me kneel ! — and imprecate Heaven's vengeance 
 If I 'm not guiltless. Come — away — away — 
 Is your barge ready .'' Sooner to my judgment, 
 Sooner to my deliverance. — So, back 
 To those I dare not name, I dare not think of.
 
 9(y ANNK BOLFA'N. 
 
 T/ie Garden a,s be/ore. 
 Angelo, Mark Smeaton. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Good youth, I know not if it grieve me more, 
 Thy fair preferment thus is nipp"'d i"" tlie bud, 
 Or give me joy that thou hast 'scaped the snares 
 That might have Hmed thy soul. 
 
 MARK, 
 
 Is it then true, Sir ? 
 Is't possible? Thou art all truth, thou wilt not 
 Torture my heart with such a hideous falsehood. 
 There was a rude tall fellow with a halberd, 
 Who spake of it, and with his villainous jests 
 And fiendish laughter tainted the Queen's name, 
 Her snowy, spotless, air-embalming name ! 
 I told him to his teeth he lied ; and if
 
 ANNE BOT.F.VN. 97 
 
 His scoffing fellows had not troop'd around him, 
 I 'd struck him to the earth. 
 
 ANGEI.O. 
 
 Rash lioy, beware ! 
 This sounds like treason. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 If the King himself 
 Set such example to high heaven, cast off 
 Its richest bounties with sucli insolent scorn, 
 What wonder if ingratitude become 
 The fashion of his court, and the most favour''d 
 Change to the blackest traitors ? 
 
 axgp:lo. 
 
 Mark, 'tis true 
 The Queen is ()rder\l prisoner to the Tower — 
 Most true; yet know\st thou not the worst: the King 
 Has changed to sucli a deadly hate against her. 
 That she nnist die 
 
 MAKK. 
 
 Die ! die ! — No, Sir, no soul
 
 98 annp: boleyn. 
 
 Will load itself with such a deep damnation : 
 Earth would break out in execration. Heaven 
 With unexampled thunders interdict 
 The horrible sentence ! 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Youth, Fit trust thee farther. 
 Come hither, close — thy love to thy lost mistress 
 Warrants my somewhat dangerous confidence: 
 She stands between the King and a new lust — 
 He must be widow'd, e'er his guilty heart 
 Glut its foul appetite. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Oh ! reverend Father, 
 Does not thy flesh grow cold, thy holy heart 
 Sicken still more and more at this bad world ? 
 For me, for me, she will so hallow death — 
 She will so darken and make void this earth 
 At her departure — I and all true servants 
 V^'ill seek out our untimely graves, to attend.
 
 ANNE BOT-EYN. 99 
 
 Adore her, in a better world ; at least, 
 
 Not live in this, wlien sunless of her presence. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Now, as a heretic I love her not, 
 But yet my charity would not she were cast, 
 Where she must perish body and soul in hell ; 
 I 'd have her live — live on, in shame and sorrow ; 
 For sorrow is the mother of true penitence. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Is there no way to save her ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 None. 
 
 MAKK. 
 
 Then, farewell 
 All hope, all joy in tliis wor^s wilderness, 
 A barren waste of sand, the fountain dried 
 That was its life and gladness. — 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 None, but that 
 At which our nature shudders, that would danm 
 
 H 2
 
 100 ANNK BOLEYN. 
 
 The name to blackest branded infamy, 
 Would peril the eternal soul, woidd give 
 The fiends such awful vantage, by a crime, 
 A wilful crime, so like th' accursed Judas, 
 That good men would not stay to seek the cause,- 
 IJut heap the head with merciless execration. 
 Where shall we find, in these degenerate days, 
 Devotion more than Koman ? — Who will risk 
 His fame, his soul, to save a woman's life, 
 And give a heretic time to pluck the brand 
 Of her lost soul out of hell fire ? 
 
 MAEK. 
 
 Good Father, 
 Wrap not thy speech in darkness. 
 
 ANGEI,0. 
 
 If the King, 
 On some just plea (and these new Gospellers 
 Do admit none but foul adidtery) 
 Were but divorced — how long, how honourably 
 LivM the Imperial Catherine ! — which were best-
 
 ANNK liOLKVN. 101 
 
 Her spotless name be tainted, or her body 
 Writhe on a scaffold, and her soul in flames ? 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Horrible ! horrible ! — to live with name 
 Spotted with shame, or die for aye ! 
 
 ANGKLO. 
 
 E'en SO — 
 To bear a branded life, nor maid, nor widow. 
 Nor wife ; for who would wed a tainted outcast ? 
 She were beneath the lowest groom. 
 
 MAllK. 
 
 True, true. 
 On, I beseech you. Sir. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Do we not force 
 The deadliest poison down the best-lov\l lips, 
 If, by its wholesome intervention, life 
 Be prisonM in the mortal frame ? We hate 
 At first the stern physician, but erewhile 
 The wiser heart overflows with grateful love.
 
 102 ANNK BOLKYN. 
 
 MAllK. 
 
 Good reverend Sir, tell me at once — directly, 
 With no prudential riddling in thy phrase, 
 AVhat must he do would save the Queen ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Avouch, 
 And with a solemn oath, in the face of Heaven, 
 That they have done together that foul sin 
 That taints the lips to speak, the heart to think on. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Oh ! but 'tmust be a nobler perjury. 
 Who would believe th' impossible falsity 
 Averr''d by baser lips ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Those that would fain 
 Beheve, are ne'*er ©""er-nice or scrupulous. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Too much at once, with falsehood to blaspheme 
 Such goodness, on this side of Heaven unknown, 
 And be a base and perjured wretch !
 
 ANNE J50LKV.N. 10 J 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 The C'luircli, 
 On meet occasion — and what cause more noble 
 Than possible redemption of a soid 
 Liice hers, sold captive to the heretic crew ? — 
 Hath power to absolve the guilt of falsest oaths. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Dost say so ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Oh ! that soft luxurious neck 
 Bare on the cold dark block to lie, the axe 
 Come gleaming down with horrid expedition 
 
 MARK. 
 
 inido^t 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Thou ! soft and timorous Ijoy ! 
 
 MARK. 
 
 ni d()\ 
 
 If fiends stand plucking ."^t my soul, and Ilell 
 Yawn at my feel ! Thou, Father, thou wilt case
 
 104- ANNE UOLEYN. 
 
 My soul in adamantine resolution. 
 
 I '11 save her, if I die, on earth — for ever ! 
 
 Do with me as thou wilt — I ""ll speak, I '11 swear, 
 
 I '11 pull down good men's imprecations. Heaven's^ 
 
 No, Heaven will pardon if I save the heavenly ! 
 
 Upon my head rain curses, contumelies. 
 
 She will erewhile be taught to bless me ; ways 
 
 Will sure be found to teach her why I 've dared 
 
 Thus 'gainst my nature, bold and false — she '11 know it, 
 
 She '11 know it all — my pains, my hopes, my truth ! — <■
 
 ANNE UOLEYN. 105 
 
 Anne Boleyn landing at the Tower. 
 Sir William Kingston, Guards. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Here — here, then, all is o'er ! — Oh ! awful walls. 
 Oh ! sullen towers, relentless gates, that open 
 Like those of Hell, but to receive the doom'd. 
 The desperate — Oh ! ye black and massy barriers. 
 But broken by yon barrM and narrow loopholes, 
 How do ye coop from this, God's sunshine world 
 Of freedom and delight, your world of woe. 
 Your midnight world, where all that live, live on 
 In hourly agony of death ! Vast dungeon. 
 Populous as vast, of your devoted tenants ! 
 Long ere our bark had touch 'd the fatal strand, 
 I felt your ominous shadows darken o'er me, 
 And close me round ; your thick and clannny air,
 
 106" ANNF. ROLKYN. 
 
 As thouo'h 'twere loaded with dire imprecations, 
 Wailings of dying and of tortured men, 
 Tainted afar the wholesome atmosphere, 
 KINGSTON (to the Guard). 
 Advance your halberds. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Oh ! Sir, pause —one look. 
 One last long look, to satiate all my senses. 
 Oh ! thou blue cloudless canopy, just tinged 
 With the faint amber of the setting sun, 
 Where one by one steal forth the modest stars 
 To diadem the sky : — thou noble river, 
 Whose quiet ebb, not like my fortune, sinks 
 With gentle downfall, and around the keels 
 Of those thy myriad barks mak'st passing music : — 
 Oh ! thou great silent city, with thy spires 
 And palaces, where I was once the greatest. 
 The happiest- — T, whose presence made a tumult 
 In all your wondering streets and jocund marts : — 
 But most of all, thou cool and twilight air,
 
 ANNE BOI.EYN. 107 
 
 That art a rapture to tlie breath ! The slave, 
 
 The beggar, the most base down-trodden outcast, 
 
 The plague-struck livid wretch, there 's none so vile, 
 
 So abject, in your streets, that swarm with life — 
 
 They may inhale the liquid joy Heaven breathes — 
 
 They may behold the rosy evening sky — 
 
 They may go rest their free limbs where they will : 
 
 But I — but I, to whom this summer world 
 
 Was all bright sunshine; I, whose time was noted 
 
 But by succession of delights Oh ! Kingston, 
 
 Thou dost remember, thou wert then Lieutenant, 
 'Tis now — how many years ? — my memory \\ aiiders — . 
 Since I s^t forth from yon dark low-brow'd porch, 
 A bride — a monarcirs bride — King Henry's bride ! 
 Oh ! the glad pomp, that burned upon the waters — 
 Oh ! the rich streams of music that kept time 
 With oars as musical — the people''s shouts. 
 That caird Heavcn\s blessings on my head, in sounds 
 
 That might have drown'd the thunders 1 've more 
 
 need 
 Of blessing now, and not a voice would say it.
 
 108 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 Your Grace, no doubt, will long survive this trial. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Sir, Sir, it is too late to flatter me : 
 Time was I trusted each fond possibility. 
 For hope sate queen of all my golden fortunes ; 
 But now 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 Day wears, and our imperious mandate 
 Brooks no delay — advance. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Back, back, I say ! — 
 I will not enter ! Whither will ye plunge me ? 
 Into what chamber, but the sickly air 
 Smells all of blood — the black and cobwebM walls 
 Are all o''ertraced by dying hands, who Ve noted 
 In the damp dews indelible their tale 
 Of torture — not a bed nor straw-laid pallet 
 But bears th' impression of a wretch calPd forth 
 To execution. Will ye place me there, 

 
 ANNE ROLEVN. 109 
 
 Where those p(X)r bcabcs, their crook-back\l uncle mur- 
 
 derM, 
 Still haunt ? — Inhuman hospitality ! 
 Look there ! look there ! fear mantles o'er my soul 
 As with a prophet's robe, the ghostly walls 
 Are sentineled with mute and headless spectres, 
 Whose lank and grief-attenuated fingers 
 Point to their gorv and dissevered necks, 
 The least a lordly noble, some like princes : 
 Through the dim loopholes gleam the haggard faces 
 Of those, whose dark unutterable fate 
 Lies buried in your dungeons' depths ; some wan 
 With famine, some with writhing features fix'd 
 In the agony of torture. — Back ! I say : 
 They beckon me across the fatal threshold, 
 Which none may pass and live. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 The deaths of traitors, 
 If such have died w ithiii these gloomy towers, 
 Should not a})pal your Grace with such vain terrors ;
 
 110 AXNE BOLEYN. 
 
 The chamber is prepared where slept your Highness 
 When last within the Tower. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Oh ! 'tis too good 
 For such a wretcli — a death-doomM wretch as me. 
 My Lord, my Henry — he that calPd me forth 
 Even from that chamber, with a voice more gentle 
 Than flutes o'er calmest waters — will not wrong 
 Th' eternal Justice— the great law of Kings ! 
 Let him arraign me — bribe as witnesses 
 The angels that behold our inmost thoughts, 
 He'll find no crime but loving him too fondly ; 
 And let him visit that with his worst vengeance. 
 Come, Sir, your wearied patience well may fail : 
 On to that chamber, where I slept so sweetly. 
 When guiltier far tlian now. On — on, good Kingston.
 
 ANNK lioLKVX. Ill 
 
 IVhitehall. 
 KiSG Heshv and Altendants, 
 
 KING. 
 
 'Stleatli ! yeVe all traitors: the King''s bed defiled, 
 
 And by his grooms, and ye must pause and parley 
 
 For proof and witness ! Find me demonstration, 
 
 Or I '11 be law, witness, and judge. A King 
 
 Not to cast off a wanton from his bed, 
 
 But nmst be trannnerd, thwarted, checkVl, controFd 
 
 By quirks of law, old formal statutes, rolls 
 
 Of parchment scribbled o'er with musty phrases ! 
 
 I'll let you know our wiirs this kingdom's law. 
 
 Where 's Norreys ? 
 
 ATTENDANT. 
 
 He awaits your Highness' pleasure.
 
 112 ANNE B(JLEYN. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Come hither, Norreys : we have loved, have trusted you- 
 Could ye find out no nobler way than this 
 Of being a traitor ? could your darhig lust 
 Stoop to no humbler paramour than our Queen ? 
 
 NORREYS. 
 
 Your pardon, Sire, but save your Highness' presence^ 
 Show me the man dare taint my name with treason, 
 I 'd dash my gauntlet in his face, and choke 
 Th' audacious lie within his venomous throat. 
 And more, excepting still my Liege's person, 
 Whoe'er hath slander'd the Queen's honovn-, be it 
 With me, or Knight far worthier of her favour, 
 I do defy that man to mortal battle. 
 Body to body, as a Kniglit — I '11 prove him 
 The most convicted, recreant, foulest slanderer, 
 Whose breath e'er soil'd a Lady's spotless name ! 
 
 KING, 
 
 Thou hast done us service, Norreys ; for that reason, 
 Though we impeach our honour by our mercy,
 
 ANNE noLKYN. 113 
 
 Confess, if treacherous opportunity 
 
 Or her too easy virtue did allure thee, 
 
 (For in the heat and wild distemperature 
 
 Of passion, noblest souls forget themselves). 
 
 Be bold, be dauntless, but be true : we pledge 
 
 The honour of a King, to give thee back 
 
 Thy forfeit life ; for look ye, she shall die — 
 
 She and her minions ! — Stand thou forth our witness, 
 
 Perchance, beside thy life, our grace may find 
 
 Some meet return. 
 
 KORREYS. 
 
 I do beseech your Highness, 
 What act of mine in all my life avouches 
 The slanderous hope, to buy or life, or what 
 I value more, my SovVeign's gracious favour, 
 I ""d perjure mine own soul, accuse the blameless ? 
 My Liege, you are abused — foully abused ! 
 Some devil hath beset your easy ear. 
 If you strike off this unoffending head. 
 Your Majesty will lose a faithful servant — 
 
 I
 
 114 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Tliat''s soon replaced; but for the Queen, I say, 
 And will maintain it with my life, the best, 
 The chastest Queen, the closest nun in Europe, 
 Is Messalina to a Vestal 
 
 KING. 
 
 Off! 
 Away with him to the Tower. — What ! have wc stoop'd 
 Thus to be gracious, to be scorn\l and rated, 
 And by our slaves? 
 
 The above. Winchester. 
 
 KING. 
 
 AVhy how now, Winchester ? 
 Another Churchman come t' impeach his King, 
 And with mock charitable incredulity 
 Arraign his justice ? I 'd but now a missive 
 From Cranmer ; — he, forsooth, good blameless man. 
 Knowing no sin himself, believes there ""s none 
 In others. — 'Sdeath ! I "11 hear no more excuses ;
 
 ANNE Ii()I,KYN. 115 
 
 The fact''s as clear, or shall be, as yon Sun. 
 Thou think'st her guiltless ? 
 
 GARDIXER. 
 
 Till this hour, my Liege, 
 I could have pledged my life, sworn strongest oaths 
 That such a monstrous sin — a sin that darkens 
 The annals of mankind, makes us suspect 
 Some moral plague broke out in human nature — - 
 Had been impossible. Oh ! best and greatest, 
 That best and greatest to ungrateful men 
 Should be a licence thus to wrong the bounties 
 By which tliey lived ! — And that the Queen — raided up 
 From a Knight^s daughter to the throne of England — 
 A partner of King Henry's bed — the strange, 
 Th' umiatural act doth give itself the lie ! 
 It doth out aro'ue closest demonstration. 
 And make us rather deem our senses traitors 
 Than trust the assurance of most damning proofs. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Ha ! proofs ! 
 
 1 2
 
 IIG ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Would there were none, my Liege, who bears 
 Tidings of shame to an abused husband, 
 That husband too a King, a glorious King — 
 Sire, my ungracious presence still will seem 
 A base remembrancer of these foul deeds. 
 Odious as they 
 
 KING. 
 
 Your proofs, good Prelate, proofs. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Is the confession of the guilty, forced 
 By no stern tension of the searching rack. 
 Nor laceration of the bleeding flesh. 
 But free, unbribed, unsought 
 
 KING. 
 
 Ha ! which ? 
 
 GARDINER, 
 
 My Liege, 
 'Tis that outdoes all record of old crime. 
 Makes true all tales of fabulous wantonness;
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 117 
 
 It is the boy — the beardless boy ! — Oh ! lust, 
 Blind as unbridled, frantic as impure, 
 That no discrimination knows, nor choice 
 Of base from noble, foul from fair — to fall 
 From the allow'd embrace of such a King 
 
 KING. 
 
 Now, by St. Paul ! thou wear''st our patience. — Speak, 
 How got ye this ? look ye confirm it. 
 
 GARDINER. 
 
 Sire, 
 May 't please your Highness, that a holy Friar, 
 Albeit I know your Grace for weightiest reasons 
 Mistrusts their order, hath perpetual access 
 Unto the prisoner Smeaton. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Ha ! a priest 
 I' the plot — why then 'tis ripe and |)regnant. Gardiner, 
 We are bound to thee. My Lord of Winchester, 
 Look thou make good this charge against our Queen, 
 Or, by St. Paul ! thou shalt have cause to rue it.
 
 118 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 So, back to Greenwich ; we '11 go hunt the deer ! 
 Blow horns — yell dogs — we '11 have a gorgeous day ! 
 The Sun is in the Heavens, and our high heart 
 Is mounting with him. Off— to horse — to horse. 
 
 The Toxoer. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 " Blessed are those that weep." — Oh ! truth of truths, 
 Not understood till felt — thou grace of Heaven, 
 Spirit of Christ, thou didst not all forsake me, 
 When my whole hfe was like a banquet — served 
 By Pride and Luxury — dangerous cup-bearers. 
 Prayers, all unwonted on the dainty couch, 
 Where Queens are lapt in purple, faiPd not me ; 
 Mine heart, a place forbid to pain or sorrow,
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 119 
 
 Thou didst incline to other's grief : I read 
 
 In the deep lines of woe-worn cheeks, the bliss 
 
 Of resignation to the Eternal will ; 
 
 And felt, admired, adored the Christian beauty 
 
 Of graces that I had no scope to practise. 
 
 But now, oh Christ ! that thou vouchsafest me 
 
 The mercy of affliction — oh ! the warmth 
 
 Of prayer that burns upon my lips, the deep, 
 
 The full religion that overflows my heart. 
 
 My cited thoughts stand ready at my call. 
 
 And undistracted memory ranges o'er 
 
 My map of life — where it is wilderness 
 
 Or weed-o'ergrown, pours streams of penitence ; 
 
 But where the sunshine of Heaven's grace, though crossed 
 
 By hasty clouds of earthly passion, gleams 
 
 Upon the golden harvest of good deeds. 
 
 It glorifies that Sun in humblest thankfulness. 
 
 Thee, therefore, amiable prison, thee — 
 
 Oh ! Solitude — dreadful in ajiprchensiou ; 
 
 When present, to the friendless, the best friend !
 
 120 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Henceforth will 1 esteem, as much beyond 
 The pride and press of courts, as I feel nearer 
 To Heaven within you. 
 
 Queen, Cranmer. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Good my Lord Archbishop, 
 I will not wrong thee by the idle question 
 Why here ? 'Tis sorrow'*s dwelling, and thou art here 
 But in obedience to thy heart and function. 
 
 CRANMER. 
 
 I come not, Lady, to erect anew 
 
 The much misused Confessional, where Sins 
 
 Best hid in shameful silence, or wrung forth 
 
 In voiceless anguish, to Heaven's midnight ear. 
 
 Are acted o'er again in foul recital : — 
 
 Jiut oil, if thou art fallen, the saintliest pupil 
 
 In our young school of Christian graces, thou 
 
 That to the living fountain of the Gospel
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 121 
 
 Cam'st duly, to draw fortli tlie eternal waters, 
 What infamy will blacken o''er our cause. 
 A horror of deep darkness hath oppress'd 
 The Church, that waits in awful hope th' event. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Cranmer, behold this book, my sole companion, 
 
 Yet whose sweet converse makes my prison day 
 
 So short, I ""m fain € encroach upon the night. 
 
 Sir, were I guilty (and in truth I know 
 
 My crime but vaguely), there ""s a passage here 
 
 Of one detected in such nameless sin, 
 
 That had been blotted with my scalding tears : 
 
 'Tis stainless, and in truth unread ; nor ask I 
 
 If my accusers are less deep in Sin. 
 
 If I am guilty, let who will cast first 
 
 The avenging stone, and heap the death upon me. 
 
 CRANMER. 
 
 Heaven's Grace be praised ! but oh ! the obdurate King. 
 
 auEEN. 
 There 's death in thy sad looks: speak, I '11 endure it.
 
 1S2 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 He that has placed this cross upon my shoulders 
 
 Will give me strength to bear it. I defy not, 
 
 With boastfulness unfeminine, the shame, 
 
 The agony ; nor yet ungrateful speak 
 
 As weary of a world only too full 
 
 Of joyance. Thou, my child, would'st well rebuke 
 
 Thy mother's selfish soul if she could leave thee 
 
 Without a rending of her heart-strings : thou 
 
 Not less, my mother ! most of all, my husband ! 
 
 If unreluctant I could load thy soul 
 
 With the foul crime of my judicial murder ; 
 
 Even our afflicted Church may ill sustain 
 
 The loss of my unworthy aid. 
 
 CRANMER. 
 
 Oh ! rate not 
 Thus low your faithful service : farewell now 
 Vain hope, that the whole land should hear the Word 
 Of God go forth on all the winds ; no more 
 Fatigue the deaf cold Saint with fruitless pray'r. 
 Or kiss with pilgrim lips the unheeding shrine :
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 123 
 
 That not a village, not a silent hamlet 
 
 In mountain solitude, or glen, of traveller 
 
 Untrod, should want its sabbath bell to knoll 
 
 To purest worship : that a holy priesthood, 
 
 Chaste, simple, to themselves alone severe. 
 
 Poor below luxury, rich beyond contempt, 
 
 Environ\l with their heaven-led families, 
 
 Should with their lives most saintly eloquence 
 
 Preach Christ — Christ only : — while all reverend Learning 
 
 In arch'd cathedral cloister, or the grove 
 
 That bosoms deep the calm and thoughtful college. 
 
 Should heavenward meditate, and bring to earth 
 
 The knowledge learnt amid the ffolden stars. 
 
 But now shall irrelio-ious Avarice 
 
 Pluck from his lips the Scholar's dole — the Temples 
 
 Lie desecrate in ruin — or the night 
 
 Of ancient ignorance and error sink 
 
 On the dark land for ever and for ever. 
 
 QUEEX. 
 
 Alas ! Sir, why enamour me \vit!i life, 
 ^Making mc- deem myself of value here,
 
 1^4 ANNE bolp:yn. 
 
 Here in this world, which I must leave ? — So young 
 
 To be cut off, and so untimely ! cast 
 
 A blooming branch to the cold grave ! Yet Heaven, 
 
 Whose cause it is, will raise defenders up. 
 
 My child ! my daughter ! oh prophetic soul ! 
 
 I dare not trust, yet will not disbelieve 
 
 Thy glorious omens. Good my Lord Archbishop, 
 
 Thou "*lt not endure these knees should grow to earth. 
 
 To less than Heaven ; but I adjure thee, watch 
 
 Her ripening spirit, sow the seed, ne''er lost 
 
 Thouffh cast on the waste waters. 
 
 CRANMEE. 
 
 Heaven but grant 
 
 The life and power ! 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 T' another subject now, 
 
 My sins, my sins ! 
 
 CRANMER. 
 
 Of them to Christ alone ;- 
 That heart bleeds frecliest that inly bleeds.
 
 ANNK JJOJ.KYN. 125 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Bear with me yet, my Lord, for I must tax 
 Your kindness further. There is one, but one 
 In all this world, my memory names, hath cause 
 To think of me as of her enemy, 
 The Lady Mary ; for a dying woman 
 Entreat her pardon. I \'e a letter here. 
 Written to the King with such poor eloquence 
 As I am mistress of: beseech thee hear it; 
 Then, if thou wilt, be thou the bearer of it. 
 
 The Letter. ^'^ 
 " Sire, your displeasure and imprisonment 
 Are all so strange to me, that what to write 
 I know not, what t'' excuse : you sent erew^hile 
 Mine enemy to urge me to confess, 
 And so secure your favour ; — willingly. 
 If to confess a truth might purchase me 
 My ne'er-despised safety — but imagine not 
 Your wife will own a sin ne'er soiled her thoughts.
 
 12G ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Never had Prince a wife so loyal — duteous, 
 
 So to affection true, as your Anne Boleyn. 
 
 That name and place had been my hfe's content, 
 
 God and your Grace so willing it ; yet ne'er 
 
 Forgot I, that the fancy which had raised me, 
 
 Might wander to another fairer object. 
 
 You chose me, nor deserving, nor desiring, 
 
 Your Queen and Partner : — having so honour^ me. 
 
 Good, your Grace, let no light unworthy motive, 
 
 Nor my malicious enemies' false council. 
 
 Withdraw your favour from me, least the stain, 
 
 Th' indehble stain of a disloyal heart. 
 
 Attaint your duteous wife and royal daughter. 
 
 Try me, good King, but with a lawful trial. 
 
 Not with my foes my judges — try me openly ; 
 
 So shall my innocence shine forth as day. 
 
 Your nice and jealous honour be absolved, 
 
 TK opprobrious voice of the world's slander silenced : 
 
 Or by the imcloubtcd ])lainncss of my guilt,
 
 AXNK BOLFA'N. 127 
 
 Your Grace escape all censure of rash harshness, 
 
 And God and man approve th' extremest rigour 
 
 Of vengeance on a lawless wife : — then freely 
 
 Your Grace may follow diat your heart's affection, 
 
 Fix'd where I know, but where I may not name. 
 
 But if my death, worse than my death, my shame, 
 
 In your high councils is already doom'd, 
 
 I make my prayer to God to pardon you, 
 
 To blot this most unprincely usage of me 
 
 From your account, when thou and I shall meet 
 
 Before his judgment throne, where I shall stand. 
 
 Judge howsoever the world, in saintly whiteness. 
 
 I \'e but one more rccjuest ; on me alone. 
 
 If it must fall, fall all thy wrath — Oh! touch not 
 
 The innocent lives of those poor gentlemen 
 
 In prison for my sake. If e'er thy wife 
 
 Found favour in thy sight — if e'er thine ear 
 
 Found music in Anne Boleyn's name — deny not 
 
 This last, this dying prayer. No more I trouble thee.
 
 128 ANNK BOLEYN. 
 
 The Holy Trinity keep your good Grace 
 
 In health, life, happiness, and holiness. 
 
 Written from my doleful prison in the Tower, 
 Your loyal and most faithful wife, Anne Boleyn/ 
 
 CRANMER. 
 
 God, that can make the marble heart like wax, 
 Make this his instrument of grace ! 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Amen.
 
 ANNK BOLEVN. 129 
 
 A Prison in the Toioer. 
 
 Jngelo, 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Down, impotent remorse ! temptation, down ! 
 
 My soul abjures thee ! and thou, carnal pride, 
 
 That wilt not use the means this world calls base 
 
 For that great end, t" advance the faith of Christ ! 
 
 What if the span of some few mortal lives 
 
 Be somewhat shrunk, some eyes untimely closed 
 
 On this world's Sun, will not ten thousand souls 
 
 Live through eternity's unfathonrd years. 
 
 And a whole nation walk in moral light ? 
 
 'Tis but the wise relcntlessness of Heaven. 
 
 Doth the dread earthquake feel remorse, that makes 
 
 A populous city one vast tomb, where Guilt 
 
 And Innocence lie side by side ? Does Pity 
 
 Vixle the blue check of pestilence, that blasts 
 
 K
 
 130 ANN'K noi.y.vy. 
 
 Whole nations ? Doth the sweeping deluge pause. 
 And hold suspended its vast weight of waters, 
 To give the righteous time to fly the ruin ? 
 The best, the wisest, holiest Saints and Pontiffs 
 Have sent fierce war with undiscerning vengeance 
 To waste the heretic's land ; for though just Heaven 
 Turn from the field of carnage — from the city 
 Made desolate, far rather it beholds them, 
 Than the fierce tossings of the infernal pit. 
 And Hell made rich with everlasting souls. — 
 Here are but two ; one guiltless, and one guilty. 
 On — and be fearless — on, my soul ! 
 
 He sleeps ; 
 Poor wretch, thou 'It sleep ere long more deep — he dreams. 
 
 MARK, (i7i his sleejjj. 
 Her voice — her voice — ye heard her lute-like voice. 
 Who loosed these bonds, who led me forth from death. 
 
 'Twas I, your servant, I 
 
 Where am I ? — who 
 And what art thou t — The Father Angelo i
 
 ANNE BOI-KYN. 131 
 
 Oh ! sleep, sweet sleep, art thou a prophetess, 
 
 Or but a gracious and most kind deceiver ? 
 
 Oh ! palace builder — oh ! thou Queen of bridals, 
 
 That in the silent prison mak''st the bells 
 
 Sound for the jocund marriage — oh ! magician, 
 
 With realm of witchcraft wide as thought — time, place, 
 
 And circumstance, combine, and shift, and change, 
 
 Like spirits on thy sorcerous wand that wait. 
 
 And all things are that are not — night is day, 
 
 Grief joy, death life, th' impossible becomes 
 
 Breathing reality ; thou dost take up 
 
 Th' unpillow'd beggar, and dost proudly seat him 
 
 Upon a throne — dost bring the Queen of queens 
 
 Down to the level of a boy like me. 
 
 AKGELO. 
 
 Mark Smeaton, I am here to know thy purpose, 
 Thy calm deliberate purpose : yet "tis time 
 To disavow thy dangerous evidence — 
 Yet, but not long: I saw the Judges pass 
 Across the court, and one that bare an axe
 
 132 ANNE BOLKYN- 
 
 Went first, as to denote they sate in judgment 
 Upon a cajntal crime. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Then she must die — 
 If by mine oath she is found guilty, who 
 Shall intcrre])t that bloody instrument ? — 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 There has been stir and parleying to and fro 
 
 Concerning a pre-contract, said to exist 
 
 Between the Queen, when young, and the Lord Piercy ; 
 
 And wherefore this, but the relenting King 
 
 Would be content to break the chain asunder 
 
 That galls him. ' ' - 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Yet to swear — liefore hio;h Heaven — 
 All seeing Heaven ! — Heaven, that in thunder spake 
 The stern command, " Thou shalt not bear false witness !" 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 'Tis well : — what is't to thee if the fierce Kins: 
 Add to his ruthless soul the crime of murder;
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. ISii 
 
 And one unhouserd heretic more bear down. 
 
 Her soul all leprous with its gangrene taint, 
 
 To burn for endless ages ? I had brought 
 
 The deposition, that but wants thy signet 
 
 And oath before some witnesses that wait 
 
 r the court without — but to the Hames with it, 
 
 And to the block with her — not worth the jeoparding 
 
 The immortal spirit 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Not worth ! — if "'twere but death, 
 To go to sleej) in the cold grave, and know 
 That she walk'd harndess in the livino; world. 
 Oh ! Sir, but Hell has some thrice darkest chanibor, 
 Some outcast dwelling, where the perjured heai- 
 The hissing and the execration of the damnVl. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Crime is not crime but in its motive: — thou 
 Art false but to be true — false to her fame, 
 True to her better interests. — But I came not 
 To argue. Yet when thou go'st hence, take heed
 
 134 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 Thou pass not ©""er the hill where Traitors die ; 
 Lest trammerd in the press, thou 'rt forced to see, 
 From first to last, the hideous deed — the stroke, 
 The agony, the despair, the writhing hands, 
 The severed neck, the cry to Heaven, that Heaven 
 Shall turn away from, and 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Give me the paper ; 
 Let me not read it, lest its hideous falsehood 
 Shake my faint resolution. There — 'tis done ! 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 What, ho ! within, — ye see this youth deliver 
 This instrument as his oAvn deed. 
 
 WITNESSES. 
 
 We do. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Now in and sleep again. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Sleep ! — never more ; 
 The perjured do not sleep ; the slanderers, those
 
 ANNK liOLEYX. 135 
 
 That bear false witness — ^yet Heaven knows, and Heaven 
 Will pardon — and she too, like Heaven, will know, 
 Like Heaven will pardon ! Sir, I cannot think 
 Thou hast deceived me ; if thou hast, the tortures 
 Of all eternity will be too short 
 T"* avenge this wicked subornation ! 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Peace ? 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Oh ! pardon, Sir, my thoughts do swim so strangely ; 
 
 Things all so monstrous and incredible 
 
 Have come to pass, there 's nought that seems too strange, 
 
 And nothing is but what could never be. 
 
 That thou, a man of such strict saintliness, 
 
 Should''st be so false, finds credit with me only 
 
 Because it is impossible, and far 
 
 Beyond the reach and scope of our belief.
 
 V3C) ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 A Hall in the Toiver. 
 
 Duke of Norfolk, Duke of Suffolk, Marquis Exeter, 
 and others as Judges. The Queen, and Officers. 
 
 NORFOLK. 
 
 Read our commission. 
 
 OFFICER. 
 
 Thomas Duke of Norfolk, 
 The Duke of Suffolk, Marquis Exeter, 
 Earl Arundel, and certain other peers 
 Here present ; ye are met in the Tower of London, 
 By special mandate from the King, t"* arraign 
 Of certain dangerous and capital treasons 
 Against the peace and person of the King 
 Anne, Queen of England. 
 
 CRIER. 
 
 Come into the Court 
 Anne, Queen of England.
 
 ANNK BOLEYN. 137 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Here. 
 
 OFFICER. 
 
 Anne, Qucon of England, 
 (Be seated, it beseems your Grace's station,) 
 Look on this Court, these peers of England, met, 
 By the King's high commission, to pass sentence 
 Between thyself and the King's Grace — hast ought 
 T' object ere thou 'rt arraign'd ? 
 
 QUEEN, 
 
 I 'd thought, my Lords, 
 It had stood more with the King's justice, more 
 With the usage of the land, a poor weak woman 
 Had not been forced t' abide your awful ordeal 
 Alone and unadvised ; that Counsel, learned 
 In forms of law, and versed by subtle practice 
 In forcing from the bribed or partial witnesses 
 Th' unwilhng truth, had been assigned me. — Well, 
 Be 't as it is — I have an advocate 
 Gold cannot fee, nor circumstance appal ;
 
 138 ANNK H()LK"S iN. 
 
 An advocate, whose voiceless eloquence, 
 If it should fail before your earthly court, 
 Shall in a higher gain me that acquittal 
 Mine enemies'' malice may deny me here — 
 Mine Innocence. Proceed. 
 
 OFFICER. 
 
 Anne, Queen of England, 
 Thou stand'st arraignM, that treasonously and foully. 
 To the dishonour of his Highness'' person 
 And slander of his issue, thou hast conspired 
 With certain Traitors, now convict and sentenced — 
 George, Viscount Rochford, Henry Norreys, Knight, 
 Sir Wilham Brereton, Francis Weston, Knights, 
 And one Mark Smeaton, 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Pause, Sir; heard I rightly 
 My Brother''s name. Lord Rochford"'s ? I beseech you, 
 My Lords, what part bears he in this Indictment ? 
 
 OFFICER. 
 
 The same with all the rc^t.
 
 ANNE rolp:yn. 139 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Great God of Thunder 
 Refrain ihy bolt ! — my Lords, there are among ye 
 Have noble Sisters, if ye deem this possible, 
 I do consent ye deem it true. Go on, Sir. 
 
 OFFICER. 
 
 And one Mark Smeaton. 
 
 aUEEN. 
 
 Would they make me smile 
 With iteration of that name — a meet 
 And likely lover for King Henry's Queen ! 
 
 NORFOLK. 
 
 Read, now, the Depositions. Each and all, 
 My Lords, ye have perused that dangerous paper 
 Written by the Lady Wingfield, now deceased — 
 Heard sundry evidence of words unseemly 
 And most unroyal spoken by her Grace. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 The Depositions ! good, my T^ord — I \1 thought 
 T' have seen my accusers face to face : is this 
 The far renownVl and ancient English Justice .''
 
 140 ANNE liOLKVN. 
 
 OFFICER. 
 
 The Deposition of Lord Viseount lioclifoid : — 
 That for th*" impossible and hideous charge, 
 His soul abhors it with such sickly loathing, 
 Words cannot utter it : to stab the babe 
 I"* the mother's arms, to beat the brains from out 
 A father's hoary head, had been to nature 
 Less odious, less accurst. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 There spake my brother. 
 
 OFFICER. 
 
 The Deposition of Sir Henry Norreys : — 
 That the Queen's Grace is as the new-born babe 
 For him— -for others, he will prove her so 
 In mortal combat 'gainst all England. 
 
 Sir Francis Weston — doth deny all guilt. 
 With an asseveration, if in thought 
 Or word he hath demean'd her Grace's honoui". 
 He imprecates Heaven's instant thunder-bolt.
 
 ANNK BOLEYX. 141 
 
 Sir William Breroton — if all women liei-e 
 In England were as blameless as her Grace, 
 The Angels would mistake this lantl for Heaven. 
 
 Mark Smeaton doth confess 
 
 Q[JEEN. 
 
 Confess ! 
 
 OFFICER. 
 
 . That twice 
 In guilty commerce with the Queen 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 My Lords, 
 Who is it hath subornM this wretched bov ? 
 I do arraign that man, in the dread court 
 Whose sentence is eternity ! Mv soid 
 Shall rise in judgment, when the Heavens are fire 
 Around Christ^ burning throne, against that man ; 
 And say on earth he murder\l my poor body, 
 And that false swearing boy's h)st soul in Hell.
 
 142 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 OFFICER. 
 
 This full confession — signM, and in the sight 
 
 Of witnesses delivered, in due form 
 
 Of law, in every part clear and authentic. 
 
 NORFOLK. 
 
 Anne, Queen of England, ere this high commission 
 Pass to their final sentence, hast thou aught 
 To urge upon their Lordships in defence 
 Or palliation of these fearful charges ? 
 
 QUEEN» 
 
 My Lords ! th"" unwonted rigour of the King 
 And mine imprisonment have something shaken 
 My constant state of mind : I do beseech you, 
 If I speak not so reverently or wisely 
 Of the King"'s justice as I ought, bear with me. 
 I will not say, that some of you, my Lords, 
 For my rehgion and less weighty motives. 
 Are my sworn enemies — "'twere to disparage 
 The unattainted whiteness of my cause.
 
 AXXK Hor.KV.v. 143 
 
 That had defied the malice of the basest, 
 
 Nor deigns mistrust the high-souFd enmity 
 
 Of Enghsh Nobles. When that I have forced you 
 
 To be the vouchers for my honesty, 
 
 My fame's pure gold shall only blaze the brighter, 
 
 Tried in the furnace of your deadly hate ! 
 
 My Lords, the King, whose bounties, numberless 
 
 And priceless, neither time nor harsher usage 
 
 Shall ever raze from my heart's faithful tablets — 
 
 The King, I say, took me an humble maid. 
 
 With not a jewel but my maiden fame : 
 
 That I 'm his wife, seeing the infinite distance 
 
 Between my Father's daughter and a throne. 
 
 Argues no base or lowly estimate. 
 
 Think ye a crown so galling to the brows, 
 
 And a Queen's name so valueless, that false 
 
 And recreant to the virtue which advanced me, 
 
 I should fall off thus basely? — I am a mother, 
 
 My Lords, and hoped that my right royal issue 
 
 Should rule this realm : had I been worse than worst,
 
 144 AiSNE HOLKYN. 
 
 Looser than loosest — think ye I 'd have periFd 
 
 The pride of giving birth to a hne of Kings, 
 
 And robb'd my children of their sceptred heritage ? 
 
 Your proofs, my Lords ! — some idle words, that spoken 
 
 By less than me, had been forgotten air : 
 
 The force of words dwells not on their mere letters, 
 
 But in the air, time, place, and circumstance 
 
 In which they 're utterd — the poor laughing child 
 
 Will call himself a King, will ye indite him 
 
 Of treason ? If less solemnly I Ve spoken 
 
 Or gravely than beseem'd my queenly state, 
 
 'Twas partly that his Grace would take delight 
 
 In hearing my light laughing words glance oft', 
 
 As is the wont in gay and courtly France : — 
 
 I'artly, that raised from such a lowly state 
 
 Haply to fall again, I watch\l my spirit. 
 
 Lest with an upstart pride I might offend 
 
 The noble Knights whose service honoured me. 
 
 If thus I've err'd, through humbleness familiar, 
 
 Heaven will forgive the faidt, though man be merciless !
 
 ANN!-; noLKYN. 145 
 
 To the rest, my Lords ! knowing nought living dared 
 
 Attaint my fame, my enemies have ransacked 
 
 The Gi-ave ; the Lady Wingfield hatli been summoned 
 
 To speak against me from her tomb — and what ? — 
 
 Vague rumours ! that I will not say base Envy 
 
 (I '11 have more charity to the dead than they 
 
 To me), but pardonable error, zeal 
 
 For the King's honour, may have swollen to charges, 
 
 That if ye trust, not the shrined Vestal 's pure. 
 
 My Lords, my Lords, ye better know than I 
 
 What subtle arts, what gilded promises 
 
 Have been employed to make the noble Knights 
 
 My fellow criminals, my Accusers ! w^hich 
 
 Might not have purchased life by this base service, 
 
 And crept into a late and natural grave ? 
 
 But let me ask, my Lords, which, base enough, 
 
 And so disloyal, as t' abuse thus grossly 
 
 The bounties of so good a King, had risen 
 
 To this wild prodigalitv of honour, 
 
 For a loose woman to lay down his head 
 
 L
 
 146 ANNK BOI.EYN. 
 
 And taint his name, his blood, with infamy ? 
 For this besotted boy ! — my Lords, I know not 
 If to rebut this charge with serious speech ; 
 Such as it is, my Lords, this modest beauty 
 Made me a Queen, and other Kings disdain"'d not 
 To lay their flattering incense at its shrine. 
 My Lords, there ""s none amongst your noblest sons. 
 Rich in ancestral titles, none so moulded 
 By nature's cunning symmetry, so high 
 In station, but my favour had endangered 
 His truth t' his King : — and I, I that disdainM 
 Less than a crown, with wayward wantonness 
 Demean me to a half formed, base born slave ! — 
 I do demand — if that ye will not damn 
 Your names to everlasting infamy — 
 Here, in this court, this instant, ye bring forth 
 This boy : if with one word I force you not 
 To do me justice on this monstrous slander — 
 Do with me as ye will. I Ve done, and now 
 Renew an old petition : — if the King,
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 147 
 
 Abused and cheated of his wonted mercies, 
 
 Hath sworn my death ; — so order it, I pray you, 
 
 That on my head alone fall all his wrath : 
 
 Let these untainted gentlemen go free, 
 
 And mine all honoured Brother. Spare the King 
 
 The anguish of unnecessary crime, 
 
 And with less blood defile your own fair names. 
 
 NORFOLK. 
 
 Anne, Queen of England, first this Court commands 
 You lay aside the state and ornaments 
 Of England's Queen. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 As cheerfully, my Lords, 
 As a young bride her crown of virgin flowers. 
 
 NORFOLK. 
 
 Prisoner, give ear ! I, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, 
 In name of all th' assembled Peers, declare 
 The verdict of this court : — all circumstance. 
 All proof, all depositions duly weighed, 
 We do pronounce thee guilty of High Treason. — - 
 
 l2
 
 148 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 And, further, at the pleasure of the King, 
 
 Adjudge thy body to be burnt with fire, 
 
 Or thine head sever 'd from thy guilty shoulders. 
 
 aUEEN. 
 
 Lord God of Hosts ! — the way ! the truth ! the life ! 
 
 Thou know'st me guiltless ; yet, oh ! visit not 
 
 On these misjudging men their wrongful sentence — 
 
 Shew them that mercy they deny to me. 
 
 My Lords, my Lords, your sentence I impeach not ; 
 
 Ye have, no doubt, most wise and cogent reasons, 
 
 Best heard perhaps in th' open court, to shame 
 
 The wretched evidence adduced. My Lords, 
 
 I ask no pardon of my God — for this 
 
 Of which ye \'e found me guilty — to the King 
 
 In person and in heart I Ve been most true. 
 
 Haply I Ve been unwise, irreverent, 
 
 And with unseemly jealousies arraign"'d 
 
 His unexampled goodness. This I say not 
 
 To lengthen out my too protracted life. 
 
 For God hath given, will give me strength to die.
 
 ANNE BOLKYN. 149 
 
 I ■'m not so proudly honest, but the grief 
 
 Of my suspected chastity is gall 
 
 And wormwood to me ; were 't not my sole treasure, 
 
 It less had pain'd me thus to see it black enM. 
 
 My Lords, I take my leave: — upon your heads. 
 
 Upon your families, on all this kingdom. 
 
 On him who is its head and chiefest grace, 
 
 The palm of Europe''s sovereignty, may Heaven 
 
 Rain blessings to the end of time — that most. 
 
 And most abundant, his redeeming grace !
 
 150 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 J Prison. 
 Magdalene, Mark Smeaton. 
 
 magdalene. 
 Oh ! Mark, Mark, Mark, to find thee here, and thus ! 
 Brother, that I should come to shame through thee ! 
 Through thee, my heart\s one pride ! I prayM my way 
 Through mocking men to find thee. Some did spurn me, 
 Did almost void their rheum on me ; and some 
 Pitied me with more barbarous charity 
 That I 'm thy Sister ; thou whom I had chosen 
 Before the proudest Knight of all the Court. 
 And thou must die — all croak'd that in mine ear, 
 The Ravens ! All in drear accord. — 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Die ! die ! 
 Oh ! yes — the solenm forms must be gone through. 
 And the stern sentence read and registered.
 
 ANNK BOLEYN. 151 
 
 And tlien ! — oh tlien ! what pride of rank, what distance 
 
 Shall keep two branded criminals asunder ? 
 
 Oh ! pardon me, that thus my selfish soul 
 
 Rejoice in thy debasement : thou wilt know 
 
 What I have risk'd, have suffered, all for thee. 
 
 Oh ! what 's the world — its infamy — its pride — 
 
 To those that love ? they 're their own world. 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Oh ! Mark, 
 Dear Mark, this dreadful prison, and the awe 
 Of death — the guilt — oh ! would I dared deny it ; 
 The guilt hath made thee frantic : not a word 
 Hath meaning to mine ears — thou look''st on me. 
 Not as a man condemned to die, Avith eyes 
 All gleaming with a horrid joy. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Thou, too. 
 Thou only, Magdalene, shalt find free entrance 
 To the retired garden of our joy.
 
 152 AiNNK IU)1,KVN. 
 
 The nhovc. Angelo. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Oh ! Father Angelo ! is she set free ? 
 
 Where is she gone ? may I yet follow her, 
 
 And tell her with what violence to my soul 
 
 1 Ve forced and bow'd myself to crime to save her ? 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 She will be free anon ; thou first. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Dost say so ? 
 Now will I wait, and linger all unseen ; 
 And when the massy doors roll back, and slow 
 The huge portcullis groans along its grooves. 
 And down the drawbridge falls — I shall behold her, 
 Along the frowning files of gloomy archers. 
 Come gliding like a swan on turbid waters. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Deceive thyself no more — I spake of freedom.
 
 ANNE BCJLEYN. 153 
 
 For death it is that frees th' eiicumber''d spirit 
 From the dark prison of this world ; nor she 
 Nor thou sliall ever pass these iron gates, 
 But to th' appointed stroke of death. 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Look, look ! 
 He cannot speak ! he chokes, he shivers ! — look, 
 He 's dying. Oh ! already you have kilFd him. 
 My Brother, wake ! 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Oh ! youth, whom Heaven hath chosen 
 For its blind instrument to work the ruin 
 Of its most deadly enemy, I 'm come 
 To fit thee for thy sacrifice — arise 
 A Martyr to the glorious cause. I open 
 The gates of Heaven before thy mounting soul. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Devil ! no man of God ! unmeasured liar ! 
 
 My soul is sick at thee. Thou hold the keys 
 
 Of Heaven, thou bloody wretch forsworn ? thou worse,
 
 154 ANNE BOLEYN 
 
 If worse can be than mine own perjured self, 
 I spurn thee, curse thee, execrate thy faith 
 And thee ! 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Die, then ! die lost, accurst for ever ! 
 Go with thy leprous soul unwash'd to Hell, 
 To see what hideous torments wait on perjury. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Avaunt ! 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Weak boy and thankless, whom I 've wrought 
 To be a sharer in this great design ; 
 Were thine head crown'd, thy body rough with scars 
 Won in the service of the Church, the joy 
 And pride of nations waiting on thy footsteps, 
 I 'd trample on thy corpse with merciless heel, 
 If o'er it lay my way to lift the throne 
 Of Peter o'er the carnal Lords of earth. 
 
 ma(;dalene. 
 Oh ! save him — save him ! I have heard thee speak
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 155 
 
 In language that might melt the stoniest hearts ; 
 
 I \e heard thee pray with such soul-kindling warmth 
 
 Beside the bed of our departed Mother, 
 
 That iron bonds had burst like flax before thee. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 It stands not in my power ; but, oh ! rash youth, 
 Go not a rebel to the Church, to meet 
 The Church's Lord : — kneel, I entreat thee, kneel ; 
 Let me not say I 've slain thy soul ; confess, 
 Repent, and be absolved. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 A vaunt ! away ! — 
 Wash thine own soul from thine own sins : kneel thou, 
 Howl for thy crimes, thy treasons, and thy nuu-ders ! 
 And, if Christ give me power to pardon thee, 
 'Twill more avail thee in thy hour of need 
 Than all thy formal conjuring absolutions. 
 With her — with her — the gracious, good, and chaste, 
 I '11 take my everlasting portion ; trust 
 Even where she trusts ; go where she goes Oh ! no.
 
 156 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 My perjuries ! my murders ! when my soul 
 
 Would rise to track the starlight path of hers, 
 
 They '11 hiss me, howl me down, down, down to blackness, 
 
 To horror, now the element of my soul. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 The bell ! It sounds for thee, it summons thee ! 
 I hear the ti-ampling feet down the long galleries ; 
 The grating bolts fall back : kneel, kneel — the Church 
 Will pardon thy wild words — be reconciled. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Off ! — I will have no share or portion with you. 
 Think you your crimes and murders, ye, no Priests 
 Of the great God of Truth and Holiness, 
 Will not out-preach you from the face of earth : 
 This air at length shall purify itself 
 From your curst doctrines. 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Saints and Holy Angels, 
 Hear not his blasphemies ! but thee, my daughter. 
 Will I bestow among some holy Sisters.
 
 ANNE BOr.FA'N. 157 
 
 MAGDALEXE. 
 
 With tliee, my Brother's Murderer ? thee, whose guile 
 
 Has tainted his immortal soul with sin ? 
 
 Sir, I 'm a weak and foolish maid ; I know not 
 
 The nice distinction of your rival creeds ; 
 
 But this I know — 'tis not the faith of Christ, 
 
 Of Christ the merciful, the sinless Christ, 
 
 To guile an innocent youth to such a sin, 
 
 And make a murderer of a heart had paused 
 
 To take the meanest insect's life. Oh ! Brother, 
 
 Dear Brother, I will die with thee ; they '11 leave 
 
 A corner in thy narrow bed where I 
 
 May creep and hide my weary head, 
 
 ANGELO. 
 
 Be wise. 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 No — if I may not die, I '11 starve — I '11 beg — 
 I '11 serve the basest and most loathsome office. 
 Ere owe my pittance to my Brother's nundcrer.
 
 158 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 ANGKLO. 
 
 They Ve here — they are at the door. 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Ah!— 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Peace, my Sister ! 
 Look you, I 'm calm. I 've hope — but not of hfe. 
 1 11 tell thee— hark ! I will go forth— 1 11 stand 
 Before the public eye — and then and there 
 I will undo the deadly crime I Ve done ; 
 Unswear what I have sworn, with such strange oaths 
 That they perforce shall cancel their rash doom, 
 And she shall live, and not quite curse my memory. 
 Though their drums roll, and trumpets blare, I '11 shriek 
 The audible truth — and then 1 11 lay me down 
 And take my quiet death — my quivering tongue 
 Still murmuring of her slanderM innocence. 
 And God shall give me grace not to denounce thee ; 
 Thou shalt live on, and eat thy heart to see 
 Thy frustrate malice. Live, and still behold
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 159 
 
 Man after man, and kingclom after kingdom, 
 
 Fall from tlie faith that perjures — murders! Hark! 
 
 They Ve here — oh, Magdalene ! — Farewell. 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Not yet, 
 I '11 not part yet ; there 's none to pray for thee 
 Rut I ; there 's none to wind thy corpse — to weep, 
 To die upon it. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 Call on Christ, my Sister, 
 On Christ alone ; cry loudly, fervently. 
 They Ve here — come, come. 
 
 MAGDALENE. 
 
 Go on, I '11 follow thee, 
 Even to the brink, into the grave : go on ; 
 Till I am pluck'd perforce from thee, I '11 follow. 
 
 ANGELO (alone). 
 Oh ! thou that thrice denied'st the Lord of Life, 
 Yet wert the Rock on which th' Eternal Church 
 Was built, thou know'st, oh ! Peter, that in zeal
 
 100 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 For thy soul-saving throne, against my nature, 
 I 've cast away this life. Oh ! if thy servant 
 Have ought deserved by this self sacrifice, 
 Thou with thy powerful intercession stand 
 Between his soul and endless burnino-s. Grant 
 The Masses I will pay, while life is mine, 
 May slake full soon the Purgatorial fires. 
 And gales of Paradise come breathing o"'er 
 His rescued spirit. 
 
 So on to death, poor youth, 
 Not unabandon'd, not unwept by him 
 Whose aid thou scorn est now; but thou shalt own 
 There, where all motives and all hearts are known.
 
 ANNE BOLKYN. 161 
 
 A Chamber in the Tower. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Oh ! Heaven ! will they keep up this heavy din 
 For ever, mocking me with hope, that now 
 For me they 're knolling — roll on roll and clash 
 On clash ! — Oil ! music most unmusical ! 
 That never soundest but when graves are open, 
 And widows'" hearts are breaking, and pale orphans 
 Wringing their hands above a silent bier. — 
 Four knells have rung, foiu* now are dust — thou only 
 Remain'st, my Brother ! thou art kneeling now, 
 
 Bare thy majestic neck A pause — more long 
 
 Than wonted ; hath the mercy of the King — 
 The justice ratiier ? — shalt thou rush again 
 To our poor M()ther''s arms, and tell her yet 
 
 She 's not all childless ? Still no sound ! — alas ! 
 
 It may be that the rapture of deep pity, 
 
 M
 
 162 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 And admiration of his noble bearing, 
 Suspends all hands at their blood-reeking work, 
 And casts a spell of silence o'er all sounds. — 
 Ha I thou low-rolling doubling drum — I hear thee ! 
 Stern beJl, that summon'st to no earthly temple ! 
 Thou 'rt now a worshipper in Heaven, my brother, 
 And thy poetic spirit ranges free 
 Worlds after worlds, confest th' immortal kindred 
 Of the blest angels — for thy heaven-caught fire, 
 Still like that fire sprang upward, and made pure 
 Th' infected air of this world as it pass'd. 
 My child — my mother — they Ve forbidden me 
 To see once more on earth your dear Wd faces ; 
 There's mercy in their harshness — here's no place 
 To entertain the future Queen of England, 
 And God hath given me courage to keep down 
 The mother in my heart ; thou too, my parent, 
 What hadst thou done but torn my heart asunder. 
 And all distracted my calm thoughts of Heaven,
 
 ANNE BOI.EYN. 163 
 
 Enter Sir William Kingston. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Now all is o'er with those brave gentlemen — 
 They died, I know, Sir, as they lived, right nobly, 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 They gave their souls to their Redeemer, Lady, 
 With protestations of your Highness"' innocence, 
 'Twas their sole care and thought in death ; they dared 
 Heaven's utmost vengeance if they falsely swore. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 And that false youth, clearVl he our honour ? 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 Loud 
 He shrieked and struggled, not with fear of death, 
 But with the burthen of some painful secret 
 He would unfold — the rapid executioner 
 
 Cut short his wailing. 
 
 QUr.KN. 
 
 Most unrighteous speed ! 
 
 M '2
 
 164 ANNE BOI.KYN. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 Your Majesty "*s preparVl ? 
 
 aUEEN. 
 
 Oh ! pomp of phrase. 
 To tell a sinner to prepare for judgment ; 
 And yet, I tliink, Christ Jesus, through thy blood, 
 I ""m but about to change an earthly crown 
 For one that's amaranth. 
 
 There is no end 
 Of the unexhausted bounties of the King : 
 He made me first the Marchioness of Pembroke, 
 Duchess of Dorset, then his sceptred Queen ; 
 And now a new advancement he prepares me, 
 One of Heaven's angels. — 
 
 Is it true. Sir William, 
 You 've brought from Calais a most dextrous craftsman 
 In th'art of death "^ — here's much ado, good truth. 
 To smite asunder such a neck as this, 
 My own slight hands grasp easily. 
 
 Ye weep
 
 ANNE ]Jf>I,KYN. 165 
 
 To see me smile — I smile to see you weep. 
 I have no tears : I have been reading o''er 
 His agony that siiffer"'d on the cross 
 For such poor sinners as myself, and there 
 Mine eyes spent all their moisture. 
 
 KINGSTON. 
 
 We rejoice 
 To see your Highness meet ^-our doom thus calmly- 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 I am to die — what's that? — why, thou and 1 
 
 And all of us die eveiy night ; and duly 
 
 Morn to our spirits'" resurrection comes 
 
 With rosy light, fresh flowers, and birds"" sweet anthems y 
 
 But when our grave ""s oiu' bed, that instant comes 
 
 A morning, not of this workfs treacherous light. 
 
 But fresh with palms, and musical with angels. 
 
 Oh ! but a cruel, shameful, public death — 
 
 There ""s no disease will let the spirit loose 
 
 With less keen anguish than the sudden axe; 
 
 And for the shame — the sense of that 's within !
 
 166 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 I Ve thoughts brook no communion or witli that 
 
 Or fear. My death the Lord may make a way 
 
 T' advance his gracious purpose to this land : 
 
 There'll be, will see a delicate timid woman 
 
 Lay down her cheerful head upon the block 
 
 As on a silken pillow ; when they know 
 
 'Twas Christ that even at that dread hoiu- rebuk'd 
 
 Weak Nature''s fears, returning liome, they '11 kneel 
 
 And seek that power that turns our death to triumph. 
 
 Sir, are you ready ? — they '11 allow me time 
 
 To pray even there. — Go forward, Sir, we'll follow.
 
 ANNE BOLEYN. 167 
 
 The Scaffold. 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 My fellow subjects, I am here to die ! 
 The law hath judged me — to the law, I bow. 
 He that doth know all hearts, before whose throne, 
 Ere ye have reached your homes, I shall stand trembhng — 
 God knows — I 've lived as pure and chaste as snow 
 New fallen from Heaven ; yet do not ye, my friends, 
 Presumptuous judge anew my dangerous cause, 
 Lest ye blaspheme against the wonted goodness 
 Of the King's Grace — most merciful and gentle 
 I Ve ever known him, and if e"'er betray'd 
 From his kind nature, by most cogent reasons. 
 • Adore the hidden secrets of his justice 
 
 As you would Heaven's. Beseech you, my good friends, 
 If in my plenitude of power I \'e done 
 Not all the good I might, ye pardon me : —
 
 168 ANNE BOLEYN. 
 
 If there be here to whom I 've spoken harshly 
 Or proudly, humbly I entreat forgiveness. 
 — No, Sir, I '11 wear no bandage ©""er mine eyes. 
 For they can look on death, and will not shrink. 
 Beseech you. Sirs, with modesty unrobe me, 
 And let my women have the decent charge 
 Of my poor body. 
 
 Now, God bless the King, 
 And make his Gospel shine throughout the land !
 
 NOTES. 
 
 N
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note 1, jKige 41, line 5. 
 From the CartJmsians dccinuited house. 
 The execution of the Prior and several of the Brethren of 
 the Carthusian Monastery for denying tlie King's Supremacy, 
 was amongst the most barbarous transactions of this period, 
 the chief guilt of which must be attributed to the unrelenting 
 disposition of the King. 
 
 Note 2, page 68, line 4. 
 In that proud Prelate's heart a noble chord. 
 All writers agree in the unprincipled and unnatural cha- 
 racter of the Countess of Rochford, who suffered at a subse- 
 quent period for being accessary to the criminal conduct of 
 Queen Catharine Howard. 
 
 Note li, page 94, line 9. 
 Shall I Jind justice, Sir ? 
 The singular conduct and language of Anne when she was 
 arrested is strictly historical. See Burnet's History of the 
 Reformation. 
 
 Note 4, })age 125, line 11. 
 The Letter. 
 This is little more than a vcrsitication of the celebrated 
 letter ; the autlunticity of which IMr. Elli?< appears to have 
 established.
 
 POEMS BY THE REV. H. H. MIEMAN. 
 
 HUB 1.1 SUED BY 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 
 
 I. The BELVIDERE APOLLO: Fazio, a Tragedy: 
 and other Poems. 8vo. 85. 6d. 
 
 II. SAINIOR, Lord of the Bright City. 8vo. 12s. 
 
 III. The FALL of JERUSALEM : a Dramatic Poem. 8vo, 
 
 8s, 6d. 
 
 IV. The MARTYR of ANTIOCH : a Dramatic Poem. 8vo. 
 
 Hs. 6d. 
 
 V. BELSHAZZAR : a Dramatic Poem. 8vo. 8,9. 6d. 
 VI. ANNE BOLEYN : a Dramatic Poem. 8vo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 I'RI.VTEn KY THOBIAS OAVISOX, WHIT EFRIAWS,
 
 T^""?^ T ■TP'? * f^W
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 i 
 
 
 Form L9-100m-9,'52(A3105)444

 
 
 ■ X 
 
 
 'l#'^*' 
 
 
 m*-- 
 
 s» 
 
 v< 
 
 
 
 ^1 
 
 
 
 ^s/. 
 
 •>a 
 
 
 v^;'S 
 
 mi0' 
 
 , :>.;_r -^^.i,^^,^ 
 
 iAs^psi:^-^-^'^^ 
 
 %:^^mw£¥-- w^ --^0:' 
 
 J. 
 
 4 
 
 m \