Le Temps Viendra: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (50 page)

Chapter Six:

No known record or painting exists which provides us with a description, or the actual appearance, of George Boleyn, so my description is entirely of my imagination. In Wyatt’s poem, written as a lament to the five men that died for their alleged crimes alongside Anne, he writes the following about George Boleyn:

‘
Some say, ‘Rochford, hadst thou been not so proud, For thy great wit each man would thee bemoan.’ Since as it is so, many cry aloud ‘It is great loss that thou art dead and gone.’

It seems that George was a popular character and well-liked by his contemporaries

The exact date of many of the love letters between Anne and Henry are not known. The letter which I have included is, for the most part, one of the original letters written by Henry to Anne with some minor amendments; notably the addition of the request to come forth from Hever to Beaulieu. We do know that Anne joined Henry at Beaulieu in the summer of 1527, whilst the King was in the midst of his usual progress with Katherine.

Chapter Seven:

London Bridge was the only bridge across the Thames in the City of London during the Tudor period.

Norfolk House was located in Lambeth, close to the Archbishop’s Palace and the Parish.

Church of St Mary is where the Howard family chapel and vault was established by the second Duke of Norfolk.

It was at Norfolk House that the ill-fated Catherine Howard, (later to be Henry VIII’s fifth wife), was brought up by her step grandmother Agnes, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk.

Beaulieu had once been owned by the Boleyn family before it was sold to Henry VIII in 1516.

The Royal Coat of Arms that once existed over the Great Gatehouse can now be seen in the Entrance Hall of what is left of the old Palace. This building is now called ‘New Hall’ and functions as a school.

The letter is an original letter from Henry VIII written to Anne, and is one of the love letters which now reside within the Vatican library.

The scene in which Anne and Henry are reunited at Beaulieu is fictional, although as stated above, Anne did join the King’s summer progress at Beaulieu in the summer of 1527.

Anne was still in Katherine’s service as a maid of honour in 1527. It seems that it was not until 1528 that she no longer waited upon the Queen.

Anne had a notoriously difficult relationship with her uncle Thomas, the third Duke of Norfolk. Although the Duke supported Anne in the early years of her relationship with Henry, (no doubt because it had a positive effect on his own pre-eminence at court), theirs seems to have been a tempestuous relationship. Over time, the Duke became increasingly unsupportive of Anne and the Boleyn family’s reformist leanings. By the 1530s, the two appear to have fallen out. The meeting between Anne, her family and the Duke of Norfolk at Beaulieu is entirely fictitious.

Chapter Eight:

1527 and 1528 were probably the wettest pair of consecutive years since weather chronicles began. 1527 is regarded by some climatologists as being significantly wetter than 1528. In particular, in 1527, rain fell over ‘England’ (no specifics) every day from 12 April to 3 June.

(
http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1500_1599.htm
)

We do know that Anne Gainsford (Nan) was born circa 1495 and was in the service of Anne Boleyn as early as 1528. This surely made her one of the earliest ladies to attend on the future Queen. It was to Nan Gainsford that Anne Boleyn lent her copy of
The Obedience of a Christian Man
in the same year. Nan later recounted her memories of her time in Anne’s service to her grandson, George Wyatt. As with most of Anne’s ladies, we do not know the exact nature of her relationship with Anne Boleyn. However, given the fact that she was one of the first ladies attending upon Anne, and that they shared religious sympathies, I have placed Nan Gainsford as one of Anne Boleyn’s close friends and confidantes.

Mary Fiennes, Lady Norris was born in 1495. As her mother was an elder half-sister of Elizabeth Howard, Anne Boleyn’s mother, she was a cousin of Anne and Mary Boleyn. Mary lived for six years at the French court serving Mary Tudor, then Queen Claude as maid of honour. In this capacity she must have spent a considerable amount of time with both Anne and Mary. On her return to England in 1520, she married Sir Henry Norris, who became close to the centre of the Boleyn faction, and was close friends with both George and Anne. It is easy to see with these connections why Mary Norris was probably within Anne Boleyn’s close circle of friends.

Joan (sometimes known as Jane) Champernowe was believed to have been born about 1505. She married Anthony Denny and was part of the burgeoning evangelical faction at court. It seems that Kat Champernowe was either her sister or cousin. Given the latter’s unswerving loyalty towards the future Elizabeth I, and the family’s reformist inclinations, I have assumed that Joan would have been easily accepted into Anne Boleyn’s circle of friends and that she was probably a strong supporter of Anne.

The meeting between Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon is entirely fictitious. However the description of Katherine’s appearance is based upon a contemporary portrait.

Anne was indeed accomplished at all the past times expected of a noble woman. It is thought that she did set music to poetry that she had written, but that none of this survives.

It seems that Anne and Henry did sometimes ride pillion, as was once commented on by a shocked Ambassador Chapuys.

The King did have his clothes scented with the perfume that is described in the text.

Chapter Nine:

We know that for a period of time an alliance formed between the Boleyn faction and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk. The common aim had been to bring Wolsey down, and in this cause, Anne seems to have played an active role as a key protagonist. This scene in which Anne is approached by the two Dukes in the presence of her father is entirely fictional.

The court left Beaulieu in mid August, 1527, travelling to Richmond Palace. Whilst Havering is on route between Beaulieu in Essex and Richmond in Surrey, the use of this, one of Henry’s lesser houses, is entirely fictitious in relation to this event.

The description of the Thames, London Bridge and the London skyline is taken from contemporary accounts, sketches and later reconstructions.

Richmond Palace was a particular favourite of Henry VII; whilst still one of Henry VIII’s ‘great houses,’ it began to fall out of favour after the early years of Henry’s reign, and was later given to Anne of Cleves as part of her divorce settlement in 1540.

Chapter Ten:

In July, 1527 Wolsey headed a lavish embassy to France where he met with Francis I at Amiens. The Treaty of Amiens was subsequently signed, which ushered in a decade of Anglo-French entent. At the same time, Wolsey was given the unofficial task of canvassing the opinion of the French King regarding Henry’s intended annulment proceedings.

The description of Cardinal Wolsey is taken from one of his most famous portraits. The initial meeting between Wolsey and Anne is entirely fictional. However, we know that when Wolsey returned to court on 30 September and requested a private audience with the King (as would be usual), Anne, who was also present, responded as detailed in the novel.

Henry VIII annotated many of the documents and manuscripts he read by making notes in the margin, or drawing a small hand showing an extended index finger to point to the relevant paragraph within the text.

Whilst the summer of 1527 was undoubtedly a testing one for Cardinal Wolsey, he was not out of royal favour. It seems that for some time to come, Anne and Henry continued to rely on the Cardinal’s diplomatic and international connections to steer the King towards his annulment.

Chapter Eleven:

The winter of 1527/1528 was as described in the novel; it was exceptionally cold and the sea did in fact freeze in places. Because of the very wet summer, the wheat crop failed leading to rising prices of food and riots in the City of London.

The King’s investiture into the ‘
Ordre de St Michel
’ took place on 1 November, 1527, and sealed the new peace treaty between England and France, which had been signed at Amiens.

A celebratory Mass was held in the Church of the Observant Friars at Greenwich on the morning of the King’s investiture. I am assuming that Anne was there as lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine.

The description of the eleven-year-old Princess Mary is taken from a contemporary portrait that was painted around this time.

The ‘Aragonese’ faction was the name given to those individuals who rallied round Katherine, supporting her rights and status as England’s true Queen and Henry’s lawful wife.

George Zouche was betrothed to and later married, Nan Gainsford. It appears that he, like Nan, was in the service of Anne Boleyn by 1528, probably as some kind of equerry.

The scene in which Anne Boleyn tells Nan of the King’s intention to make her Queen is entirely fictional.

The scene between Anne and George in this chapter is entirely fictional.

The sight of Greenwich Palace was then, as now, overlooked by a hill upon which was built a medieval tower known as ‘Duke Humphrey’s Tower.’ Eponymously named, it had served to keep a watch over the main London to Dover road which ran close by, just south of the Palace. The road has long since disappeared and the tower was eventually torn down to be replaced by Greenwich Observatory, which still stands today.

Greenwich Palace (originally known as the Palace of Placentia) was perhaps one of the greatest, and indeed most favoured of Henry’s palaces during the middle years of his reign, certainly before the building and refurbishment of Whitehall and Hampton Court. Anne probably spent the majority of her time at court at the Palace, and it was here that she gave birth to Elizabeth in 1533, and from where she was taken to the Tower only three years later, in 1536.

A celebratory tournament was organised for the afternoon following the King’s investiture but was cut short due to bad weather as described in this chapter. In the evening a great masque was organised by Cardinal Wolsey. The exact nature of the masque held that evening is unknown. I have used an account of the masque which took place earlier in Henry’s reign, called ‘Riche Mount’ as inspiration for this particular scene.

Duc Anne de Montmorency; Grand Master of France was guest of honour at the masque, representing King Francis. At this time, Queen Katherine still presided over the court as Henry’s consort.

As with all buildings described in the novel, the positioning and structure of the Banqueting Hall is taken from contemporary pictures and later archaeological evidence; whilst the description of its interior is inspired by contemporary and expert accounts of how such rooms would be used and furnished.

The scene in which Henry dances with Anne, and which she later retires to the King’s Chambers is entirely fictional. However, it does seem that from some point in 1528, Anne was no longer in attendance upon Katherine and that Henry had granted her a small personal household, as befitting her rising status at court.

Chapter Twelve:

Sometime between early November, 1527 and Christmas of that same year, Anne retired to Hever. Many historians postulate that she was playing hard to get and that a tactical withdrawal from court was to keep Henry at arm’s length. Whilst I believe that this is a reasonable hypothesis, I also believe that by keeping a low profile, the couple was hoping to keep the argument behind Henry seeking an annulment from his wife untainted by excessive salacious gossip about his lust for Mistress Anne.

Roman de la Rose
is a medieval French poem styled as an allegorical dream vision. In courtly literature, such works were both to entertain as well as to teach the Art of Love.

We know very little about Anne’s early life, education and the influences which shaped her later thinking, particularly before she left England heading for the Low Countries in 1512.

William Tyndale is known as ‘the Father of the English Bible.’ He printed an entire first edition of the New Testament in Worms, whilst in exile on the continent. This edition was subsequently smuggled into England, but declared a heretical text from early 1526 and was subsequently banned.

We do not know for sure about the relationship between Mary Boleyn and her parents, nor indeed between Anne and her sister. I am of the view that Anne and George were closer and more favoured by their parents. However, our judgement may be coloured by our knowledge that eventually Mary Boleyn was cast out of the family (although as you will see in Book Two, I believe that this was for very understandable reasons). I do not believe that there is any evidence that prior to this cataclysmic event, Mary and Anne were anything but affectionate towards one another; with Mary attending upon Anne during many pivotal events in her life. When Mary Boleyn was ultimately cast out from the family, it seems to have been done ruthlessly, and Mary’s subsequent pleas for assistance were rejected. My postulation that Elizabeth Boleyn was less close to Mary on account of her infamous reputation is purely conjectural.

There is considerable speculation that Mary’s two children were fathered by Henry VIII—two of the King’s illegitimate bastards. The King never admitted paternity over either of Mary’s children.

On display in Hever Castle is Anne’s Book of Hours. On the page with the picture of the Last Judgement she has written, ‘
Le temps viendra Je Anne Boleyn
,’ along with a picture of an astrolabe as described in the text.
Le temps viendra
means, ‘the time will come.’ To me, this is a remarkably poignant piece of prose which gives us an insight into Anne’s emotional state, and was perhaps written during a moment of reflection as to where her future would take her.

Chapter Thirteen:

Margaret, or Margery, Wyatt was Thomas Wyatt’s elder sister. I have chosen Margery as a close friend of Anne’s based on the story that it was to Margery Wyatt that Anne had passed her prayer book upon the scaffold. It is undoubtedly true that the two women knew each other well, as the Wyatt and Boleyn family were neighbours as described in the book.