e not a very substantial ground
upon which to build. Of Anne herself little is known except that,
about 1519, she was sent as maid of honour to the French Queen,
Claude; five years before, her sister Mary had accompanied Mary Tudor
in a similar capacity on her marriage with Louis XII.[536] In 1522,
when war with France was on the eve of breaking out, Anne was recalled
to the English Court,[537] where she took part in revels and
love-intrigues. Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, although a married man,
sued for her favours;[538] Henry, Lord Percy made her more honest
proposals, but was compelled to desist by the King himself, who (p. 189)
had arranged for her marriage with Piers Butler, son of the Earl
of Ormond, as a means to end the feud between the Butler and the
Boleyn families.

[Footnote 533: See Friedmann's _Anne Boleyn_, 2
vols., 1884, and articles on the Boleyn family in
_D.N.B._, vol. v.]

[Footnote 534: See George Fisher, _Key to the
History of England_, Table xvii.; _Gentleman's
Magazine_, May, 1829.]

[Footnote 535: Henry would then be fifteen, yet a
fable was invented and often repeated that Henry
VIII. was Anne Boleyn's father. Nicholas Sanders,
whose _De Origine ac Progressu Schismatis
Anglicani_ became the basis of Roman Catholic
histories of the English Reformation, gave currency
to the story; and some modern writers prefer
Sanders' veracity to Foxe's.]

[Footnote 536: The error that it was Anne who
accompanied Mary Tudor in 1514 was exposed by
Brewer more than forty years ago, but it still
lingers and was repeated with innumerable others in
the Catalogue of the New Gallery Portrait
Exhibition of 1902.]

[Footnote 537: _L. and P._, iii., 1994.]

[Footnote 538: In Harpsfield's _Pretended Divorce_
there is a very improbable story that Wyatt told
Henry VIII. his relations with Anne were far from
innocent and warned the King against marrying a
woman of Anne's character.]

None of these projects advanced any farther, p