MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF ANNE BOLEYN, QUEEN OF HENRY VIII. By MISS BENGER, AUTHOR OF MEMOIRS OF MRS. ELIZABETH HAMILTON, SECOND EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES.. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1821. RCP PREFACE. In the records of biography there is perhaps no character that more forcibly exemplifies the vanity of human ambition than that of Anne Boleyn: elevated to a throne, devoted to a scaffold, she appears to have been invested with royalty only to offer an example of humiliating degradation, such as modern Europe had never witnessed. But, abstracted from those signal vicissitudes of fortune, which, in every age and country, must awaken curiosity and sympathy, there are various circumstances connected with the history of Anne Boleyn, which are calculated to create peculiar interest in the English reader. It would be ungrateful to forget that the mother of Queen Elizabeth was the early and zealous advocate of the Re formation, and that by her efforts to dispel the gloom of ignorance and superstition, she conferred on the English people a benefit, of which, in the present advanced state of knowledge and civilization, it would be difficult to conceive or to appreciate the real value and importance. But the most prominent feature of her destiny is, that the abolition of papal supremacy in this country must be referred to her influence; and that the only woman ever permitted to effect a change in our national and political institutions, has been instrumental in introducing and establishing a better system of things, whose effects have altered the whole fabric of society. On this single circumstance, perhaps, is founded the diversity of opinion which to this day prevails respecting the moral qualities of Anne Boleyn, alternately the subject of unqualified censure and extravagant praise. Catholic bigots and protestant enthusiasts, calumniators and encomiasts, his |