and in 1522 began her
life in the English Court and with her family in their various residences.
Her six years in the gay Court of Francis I. during her most
impressionable age, had made her in manner more French than English. She
can never have been beautiful. Her face was long and thin, her chin
pointed, and her mouth hypocritically prim; but her eyes were dark and
very fine, her brows arched and high, and her complexion dazzling. Above
all, she was supremely vain and fond of admiration. Similar qualities to
these might have been, and doubtless were, possessed by a dozen other
high-born ladies at Henry's Court; but circumstances, partly political
and partly personal, gave to them in Anne's case a national importance
that produced enduring consequences upon the world. We have already
glanced at the mixture of tedious masquerading, hunting, and amorous
intrigue which formed the principal occupations of the ladies and
gentlemen who surrounded Henry and Katharine in their daily life; and from
her arrival in England, Anne appears to have entered to the full into the
enjoyment of such pastimes. There was some negotiation for her marriage,
even before she arrived in England, with Sir Piers Butler, an Irish cousin
of hers, but it fell through on the question of settlements, and in 1526,
when she was already about twenty-three, she took matters in her own
hands, and captivated an extremely eligible suitor, in the person of a
silly, flighty young noble, Henry Percy, eldest son and heir to the Earl
of Northumberland.

Percy was one of the Court butterflies who attached themselves to Wolsey's
household, and when angrily taken to task by the Cardinal for flirting
with Anne, notwithstanding his previous formal betrothal to another lady,
the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, the young man said that, as he
loved Anne best, he would rather marry her. The Cardinal did not mince
words with his follower, but Percy stood stoutly to his choice, and the
Earl of Northumberland was hastily summoned to London to exercise his
authority over his recalcitrant son. Cavendish[46] gives an amusing
account of the interview between them, at which he was present. The Earl
seems to have screwed up his courage by a generous draught of wine when he
left Wolsey's presence to await his son in the hall of York House. When
the youth did come in, the scolding he got was vituperative in its
violence, with the result that Percy was reluctantly forced to abando