jestic oak, that the whole party might partake of some refreshment before they renewed the chace. Never was a command more cheerfully obeyed, for a hunter's appetite is proverbial; and the morning's exercise had afforded good excuse for their hunger. The attendants quickly unpacked and displayed the provisions; the hounds lay panting in the shade; the horses were browsing the grass or the boughs of the tree, while the monarch and his attendant train, dispersed in various groups upon the ground, were busily discussing the different viands, or quaffing the strong ale which had been broached for their recreation.

As soon as Henry had satisfied his appetite, he devoted his attention to his favourite greyhound, who had lamed himself by running a thorn into his foot. The King, who piqued himself upon his surgical and medical skill, would not suffer any of his attendants to approach the animal, but taking it in his lap, carefully extracted the thorn with his own hands, applied a bandage to the wound, and secured it with a piece of thread; after which the royal dog-doctor and his four-legged patient exchanged kisses and caresses with every demonstration of mutual attachment.

"A lion in war and a lamb in peace," said Sir John, speaking apart to Dudley, and yet loud enough to be overheard; "who, that had seen our valorous King striking down the French at Tournay and Boulogne, would deem him so full of pity and compassion as thus to care, with his own royal fingers, for the healing of a greyhound?”

At this moment, the report of a distant cannon was heard, when the King, suddenly casting off the dog, starting upon his feet, and clapping his hands together, exclaimed-" Ha! ha! it is done! the business is done! Uncouple the hounds, let us now follow the sport."

VOL. II.-19

This cannon was the preconcerted signal which was to mark the moment when Anna Boleyn's head was struck off! The King pursued his diversion in the forest some time longer; and, returning to London, was married on that very evening, or, according to some authorities, on the following morning, to the Lady Jane Seymour.*

This hunting anecdote is given in Rapin's History by Tindal: vol. vi. p. 577, ed. 1757.

219

CHAPTER XII.

Love and religion shall unite
Their flames to kindle reason's light,
Much injur❜d Cecil!

Then rise, and all thy claims affirm,
Till slander's self shall blush to term
Thy mind imbecile.

SOME time before the occurrence of the tragical event, recorded in the conclusion of the last chapter, Beatrice, pursuing her long journey with a persevering fearlessness, had arrived at the Tor House, when she found that Sir Lionel had a day or two before set off for London to claim the castle, manor, and estate of Farleigh, near Bath. Lord Hungerford, the possessor of these large domains, had just fallen a victim to the unsparing axe of the law, leaving no issue; and Sir Lionel, whose rapacity was insatiable, because his profusion was boundless, immediately hurried up to the metropolis, to claim the property nominally on behalf of his ward, as the next heir, but, in fact, that he might obtain it for himself. As this object was not so quickly accomplished as he had anticipated, and his journey was connected with some other of the plots and plans in which he was incessantly occupied, he was detained a considerable time in the precincts of the Court.

It is needless to state the cordiality, with which Lady Fitzmaurice received her step-daughter, for there was never any pause or ebb in the flow of her affections; but instead of that cold and imperious, not to say arrogant, demeanour, with which Beatrice had been sometimes accustomed to repel her

kindness, she threw herself into her arms, while in a mixed feeling of compunction at her former ingratitude, and delight at having found a safe home and a sincere friend, she pressed her mother fondly to her heart, and burst into tears. It has been already slightly intimated that her residence at the Court had effected a considerable change in her views, hopes, and habits. We may now state that, when she returned to the Tor House, she was no longer the same haughty and aspiring girl as when she had quitted it. Beatrice was an altered woman! Her early levity, pride, and other errors, had emanated from a defective education,-from the false principles instilled into her by her father, and from a want of reflection rather than any deficiency of sense or feeling. Rank and power, splendour and distinction, had been incessantly held out to her as the only worthy objects of ambition; the only infallible sources of happiness. Filled with these expectations, she had visited the Court with a buoyant and a bounding heart; but, young and giddy as she was, her mind was too strong, too penetrating, to allow her to be long deceived. She was surrounded by all that had been described to her as forming the certain constituents of happiness; yet, after the first impressions of novelty had worn off, she felt not this promised felicity in her own bosom, nor could she discover that others were more fortunate than herself. The Queen, who had been promoted from a comparatively humble station to the very summit of grandeur, was, perhaps, the most unhappy person in the Court. When Beatrice had been called into her private chamber to play over to her some of the French ditties in which she delighted, she had often seen her melt into tears, and recal with regret the days of her youth, when she lived obscure and contented: a touching and instructive lesson, which effectually dispelled fron

the mind of her auditress all the false and glittering visions by which she had been deluded.

Blinded as Beatrice had been as to the proper objects of pursuit, her views of abstract morality and justice had never been corrupted. She possessed an innate and supreme contempt for baseness, cruelty, and oppression; at the Court of Henry the Eighth there was little else to be witnessed;-with two or three exceptions, she beheld nothing but fraud, duplicity, and abject prostration in the grandees; nothing but selfishness, sensuality, and cruel despotism, in the King; and the previous disappointment of her hopes was quickly succeeded by disgust. She felt all the real littleness of the great; the utter worthlessness of every thing, upon which she had hitherto valued either herself or others; and humiliated as well as mortified, she imbibed such a contempt for the whole scene in which she was moving, that she would have fled from the Court with more alacrity than ever she had sought it, had she not been restrained by her grateful and affectionate attachment to the Queen.

This friendship was now to be strengthened and exalted by the sanctions of religion. As Anna Boleyn felt herself to be the immediate cause of the Reformation in England, she delighted to set herself up as its champion and asserter. She was a

general patroness of learned men, and a steady protector of those who favoured liberal notions in religion. She had a little court of her own, consisting almost entirely of eminent Protestants, among whom were Latimer and Shaxton, her chaplains, who assisted in the distribution of her unbounded charities. In private, among her ladies, she employed herself in embroidery, in making clothes for the poor, and in reading Tindal's Translation of the Testament, the execution of which she had promoted as far as she could. Beatrice had been educated in the Catholic faith; but the perusal of this