Tag: the tudors

bvrry-allens:

Whether it were at York House, or at Greenwich, that Henry and Anne Boleyn first met, it appears to have been under Wolsey’s suspices that she arrested his attention. In the Queen’s presence-chamber she might have been occasionally eclipsed by fairer faces, to which superficial observers would award the prize of beauty. That Anne was a brunette is well known, by description and representation from the artist and the poet and it is notorious, that on one of her fingers was a supplemental
nail a defect which, if we may credit her encomiasts, she had
the address to conceal, or the skill to improve into a perfection.
The fascination of Anne appears not to have resided even in her
features, though of these the loveliness is almost universally
acknowledged ; but in her eloquent eyes, the symmetry of her
form, the mingled airiness and dignity of her carriage ; above
all, in those indefinable charms of grace and expression which
lend interest to every glance, and intelligence to each movement.
Such, at least, is the impression that Wiatt gives in the following lines, avowedly written to convey an idea of her charming
countenance :

A face that should content me wond’rous -well

Should not be fair,- but lovely to behold ;
With gladsome cheer all grief for to expel,

With sober looks ; so would I that it should
Speak without words, such words as none can tell.

Her tresse also should be of crisped gold,
With wit, and then might chance I might be tied,

And knit again the knot that should not slide.

Trained in the court of France, Anne had learned to improve her person by all those embellishments of dress, which, under the direction of good taste, render art so powerful an auxiliary to nature. Discarding, as far as etiquette permitted, the stiff costumes of English dames, she ventured to introduce such novelties of fashion as best became her own form; and the admiration she excited soon induced other ladies to imitate her example. But it was not only at the toilette that her taste was confessedly pre-eminent : unrivalled in every captivating talent, she danced like a nymph, and not only touched the lute and virginal with a masterly hand, but accompanied them with her voice in a strain of delicious melody. To these brilliant accomplishments she added an exquisite winningness and propriety of manners, not less rare, and even more seducing than beauty ; insomuch, as Lord Herbert says, that “when she composed her hands to play and her voice to sing, it was joined with that sweetness of countenance that three harmonies concurred : likewise when she danced, her rare proportions carried themselves into all the graces that belong either to rest or motion ; briefly, it seems, the most attractive perfections were eminent in her.“ – 

Elizabeth Benger – Memoirs of the life of Anne Boleyn, queen of Henry VIII