court, and before she had been the object of any open attention from
Henry.

"MR. MELTON.--This shall be to advertise you that Mistress Anne is changed
from that she was at when we three were last together. Wherefore I pray you
that ye be no devil's sakke, but according to the truth ever justify, as ye
shall make answer before God; and do not suffer her in my absence to be
married to any other man. I must go to my master, wheresoever he be, for
the Lord Privy Seal desireth much to speak with me, whom if I should speak
with in my master's absence, it would cause me to lose my head; and yet I
know myself as true a man to my prince as liveth, whom (as my friend
informeth me) I have offended grievously in my words. No more to you, but
to have me commended unto Mistress Anne, and bid her remember her promise,
which none can loose, but God only, to whom I shall daily during my life
commend her."[185]

The letter must furnish its own interpretation; for it receives little from
any other quarter. Being in the possession of Cromwell, however, it had
perhaps been forwarded to him at the time of Queen Anne's trial, and may
have thus occasioned the investigation which led to the annulling of her
marriage.

From the account which was written of her by the grandson of Sir Thomas
Wyatt the poet, we still gather the impression (in spite of the admiring
sympathy with which Wyatt writes) of a person with whom young men took
liberties,[186] however she might seem to forbid them. In her diet she was
an epicure, fond of dainty and delicate eating, and not always contented if
she did not obtain what she desired. When the king's attentions towards her
became first marked, Thomas Heneage, afterwards lord chamberlain, wrote to
Wolsey, that he had one night been "commanded down with a dish for Mistress
Anne for supper"; adding that she caused him "to sup with her, and she
wished she had some of Wolsey's good meat, as carps, shrimps, and
others."[187] And this was not said in jest, since Heneage related it as a
hint to Wolsey, that he might know what to do, if he wished to please her.
In the same letter he suggested to the cardinal that she was a little
displeased at not having received a token or present from him; she was
afraid she was forgotten, he said, and "the lady, her mother, desired him
to send unto his Grace, and desire his Grace to bestow a morsel of tunny
upon her." Wolsey made her presents also at times of a more valuable
character