A most unnatural and faithless service! Where you are liberal of your loves and councils, Like water from ye, never found again But when they mean to sink ye. All good people, Pray for me! I must now forsake ye: the last hour Of my long weary life is come upon me. Farewell! And when you would say something that is sad, Speak how I fell.-I've done, and God forgive me!" We have now a scene of gossiping conversation between the Lord Chamberlain,* Lord Sands,† and Sir Thomas Lovell.‡ They talk of the introduction of French manners and dress into England, by those who had been engaged in the late expeditions to France, and a proclama Charles Somerset, the first of that name, Earl of Worcester: natural son of Henry Beaufort, third Duke of Somerset, and ancestor of the Duke of Beaufort. He was Lord Chamberlain for life, and died in 1526. Collins, i. 224. + The person here intended is Sir William Sands, who was not created Lord Sands until 1523, at the soonest. Nic., ii. 571. See p. 106, and Collins, viii. 350. tion is announced by Lovell, of which the object is "The reformation of our travell'd gallants, That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors. Chamb. I'm glad 'tis there: now I would pray our monsieurs To think an English courtier may be wise, And never see the Louvre. Lovell. They must either (For so run the conditions), 'leave those remnants Out of a foreign wisdom; clean renouncing Or pack to their old playfellows: there, I take it, The lag-end of their lewdness, and be laugh'd at.” I can nowhere trace this proclamation, or the cause of it. There were about this time many quarrels between strangers and nations; but I hear of no imitation. And in this reign, as in several preceding, laws were made for regulating the dress of the several ranks of people, and the prohibition is in some instances of foreign arti cles; but for any peculiar law or order against French manners or dresses, I can find no authority, though I suspect that Sir Thomas Lovell's news had a foundation somewhere. Shakspeare places, in the midst of the proceedings against this duke, who was beheaded on the 17th May 1521,† an entertainment‡ given by Wolsey, so grand as to be noticed in history.§ The incidents of this banquet are to be found in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, and in Stow, with this slight variation; that Wolsey did not at once discover the king among the maskers, but picked out Sir Edward Neville by mistake. If this banquet were placed at its proper time by Shakspeare, his introduction of Anne Boleyn would have been an anachronism. In 1521, Anne was a girl of fifteen or sixteen years old, resident at the court of Claude, the queen of Francis I. She did not return till 1522, when she became maid of honour to Queen Catherine. I It is recorded that, at an entertainment given by the king himself in May, 1527, Anne Boleyn was the partner of Henry; but it is highly im * See Strutt's Dresses, i. 229. + Lingard, 55. Acti. Sc. 4. § In Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog., i. 319. Il P. 504. ¶ Lingard, 111. probable that this was, as Shakspeare makes it, the period of her first captivation of the heart of Henry.* The balls which Wolsey gave, were for the express purpose of pleasing the king and his favourite lady. Cavendish, after relating the rupture of Anne's engagement to Lord Percy, by the interference of Wolsey at the king's command, tells us that Mistress Anne Boleyn was revoked unto the court, whereat she flourished after in great estimation and favour, having always a privy grudge against my Lord Cardinal for breaking off the contract made between my Lord Percy and her, supposing it had been his devised will and none other, nor yet knowing the king's secret mind thoroughly, who had great affection unto her, more than she knew. But after she knew the king's pleasure, and the bottom of his secret stomach, then she began to look very haughty and stout, lacking no manner of jewels or rich apparel, that might be gotten for money. It was there * "Fumes chez la reine, on l'on dansa; et M. de Turenne, par le commandement dudid Seigneur Roi, dansa avec Madame la Princesse, et le Roi avec Mistress Bullen qui a été nourrie en France, avec la feue reine." Journal, 5 May. MS. de Brienne, quoted by Lingard, 118. This way of describing Anne is hardly consistent with the supposed notoriety of an attachment previously subsisting. fore judged by and by through the court, of every man, that she being in such favour might work masteries with the king, and obtain any suit of him for her friend."* The great lords of the court, he tells us, who were jealous of Wolsey, consulted often with Anne Boleyn how to lower Wolsey in the king's estimation; but the cardinal, 66 'espying the great zeal that the king had conceived in this gentlewoman, ordered himself to please as well the king as her, dissembling the matter that lay hid in his breast; prepared great banquets and high feasts to entertain the king and her at his own house; and thus the world began to grow to wonderful inventions, not heard of before in this realm. Love betwixt the king and this gorgeous lady grew to such a perfection, that divers imaginations were imagined, whereof I leave here to speak." * The first mention in the play of the project for divorcing Queen Catherine, is in a conversation among persons assembled on the occasion of Buckingham's execution. "2d Gent. Did you not of late days hear A buzzing of a separation Between the king and Catherine ? 1st Gent. Yes, but it held not : For when the king once heard it, out of anger, |