The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (32 page)
Read The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn Online
Authors: Eric Ives
Popular discontent rumbled. The progress towards Nottingham, which had begun in July 1532, was cut short to expedite negotiations with France, but, according to Chapuys, Anne had been hooted and hissed in a number of places.
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Outright opposition persisted as well, and from a very difficult quarter: Henry’s sister Mary and her husband, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. During the Easter break between the two parliamentary sessions in 1532, Mary made opprobrious remarks about her brother’s choice of Anne, and these set off an affray in the Sanctuary at Westminster which, quite in the style of Capulet and Montague, had left one of the Brandons’ principal gentlemen dead and the court in an uproar. The duke had to promise to control his men; the killers were then in June allowed to purchase a pardon, and the duke and duchess apparently made themselves scarce in their house in Oxfordshire. The matter, however, did not end there. A group of Suffolk’s servants swore to take revenge, and Cromwell promptly told the king.
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We may note that it was a week after this that Henry paid an apparently unscheduled visit to his sister and brother-in-law, very probably to insist that they accept Anne. According to Chapuys, Henry had to repeat the lesson a month later, before Charles Brandon would at least do his duty and appear at Boulogne, although he was deliberately absent at Shrovetide 1533, when Anne presided at a great feast in honour of the French ambassadors.
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His wife, Mary - the only person in England in a position to do so - seems adamantly to have refused to accept her brother’s choice. Her absence from Calais was widely interpreted as a direct snub.
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Outright opposition persisted as well, and from a very difficult quarter: Henry’s sister Mary and her husband, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. During the Easter break between the two parliamentary sessions in 1532, Mary made opprobrious remarks about her brother’s choice of Anne, and these set off an affray in the Sanctuary at Westminster which, quite in the style of Capulet and Montague, had left one of the Brandons’ principal gentlemen dead and the court in an uproar. The duke had to promise to control his men; the killers were then in June allowed to purchase a pardon, and the duke and duchess apparently made themselves scarce in their house in Oxfordshire. The matter, however, did not end there. A group of Suffolk’s servants swore to take revenge, and Cromwell promptly told the king.
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We may note that it was a week after this that Henry paid an apparently unscheduled visit to his sister and brother-in-law, very probably to insist that they accept Anne. According to Chapuys, Henry had to repeat the lesson a month later, before Charles Brandon would at least do his duty and appear at Boulogne, although he was deliberately absent at Shrovetide 1533, when Anne presided at a great feast in honour of the French ambassadors.
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His wife, Mary - the only person in England in a position to do so - seems adamantly to have refused to accept her brother’s choice. Her absence from Calais was widely interpreted as a direct snub.
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In the summer of 1532 some o.f Anne’s enemies were also able to threaten her with a ghost from the past, Henry Percy. We have seen how his marriage to Mary Talbot quickly became a disaster, and by 1530 the earl had effectively separated from his wife. When, in the course of yet one more marital altercation, Mary charged her husband with neglecting her, he replied that they were not married, because he had previously been legally contracted to Anne Boleyn. Seeing a way out of her own troubles, the countess reported the matter to her father, a staunch supporter of Queen Katherine. He, however, chose not to send the news to Anne’s more obvious opponents, but to the duke of Norfolk; Howard, in his turn, took a similarly cautious line and showed the letter to Anne. Each peer was clearly afraid of alienating both the favourite and the king if the matter did not stand up to examination. Anne’s characteristic response was to take the letter to Henry himself and insist that it be investigated. So during July 1532 Northumberland was interrogated on oath by the two archbishops and then, in the presence of the duke of Norfolk and the king’s canon lawyers, he swore on the Blessed Sacrament that there had been no pre-contract with Anne.
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Another sign that progress from the defeat of the Church to pregnancy and marriage was less than straightforward is the probability that Henry had at one time considered marrying Anne at Calais, even perhaps in the presence of Francis I. Gossip in England warned that this was the plan; both the imperial and the Venetian ambassadors reported to this effect. Charles V, although horrified, also expected the marriage to go through.
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Observers of the conference itself believed the story right to the last. One even suggested that Sunday, 27 October, was the appointed day and that the officiating priest would be Jean du Bellay, bishop of Paris, formerly the ambassador to England and a favourite with Anne.
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When no marriage took place, this was put down to fear of the emperor or, more likely, advice from Francis.
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Geoffrey Pole confessed in 1538 that he had gone to Calais in disguise and then had been sent by his brother, Lord Montague, to tell Katherine that, although Henry had pressed his case to the limit, Francis would not approve of the marriage.
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In fact, Anne had announced in late September that ‘now, if the king wished to marry she would not consent,’ as her desire was to be married at Westminster, but that remark nevertheless confirms that marrying at Calais had been under consideration.
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Indeed, if we are to trust reports, during August she was dropping palpable hints in her correspondence that she would marry there.
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Other indications, however, suggest that consideration was given to the alternative of marrying before going to France. When Henry’s Vatican agent, Gregory Casale, arrived at Calais, Anne rounded on him, accusing him of managing the divorce incompetently, and, we are told, was all the more angry because she had hoped to be married in mid-September.
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Evidently the marriage plans of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn were anything but settled.
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Observers of the conference itself believed the story right to the last. One even suggested that Sunday, 27 October, was the appointed day and that the officiating priest would be Jean du Bellay, bishop of Paris, formerly the ambassador to England and a favourite with Anne.
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When no marriage took place, this was put down to fear of the emperor or, more likely, advice from Francis.
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Geoffrey Pole confessed in 1538 that he had gone to Calais in disguise and then had been sent by his brother, Lord Montague, to tell Katherine that, although Henry had pressed his case to the limit, Francis would not approve of the marriage.
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In fact, Anne had announced in late September that ‘now, if the king wished to marry she would not consent,’ as her desire was to be married at Westminster, but that remark nevertheless confirms that marrying at Calais had been under consideration.
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Indeed, if we are to trust reports, during August she was dropping palpable hints in her correspondence that she would marry there.
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Other indications, however, suggest that consideration was given to the alternative of marrying before going to France. When Henry’s Vatican agent, Gregory Casale, arrived at Calais, Anne rounded on him, accusing him of managing the divorce incompetently, and, we are told, was all the more angry because she had hoped to be married in mid-September.
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Evidently the marriage plans of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn were anything but settled.
Perhaps the most significant evidence of continuing uncertainty is the strange wording of Anne’s patent as lady marquis of Pembroke. This allowed the extraordinary possibility that the title would descend to her son even if he was born outside lawful marriage.
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This was achieved by the simple omission of two words - ‘lawfully begotten’ - and it is doubtful whether anyone noticed as the Latin patent was proclaimed at Anne’s investiture.
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Perhaps the very unusual creation of a woman as a peer in her own right had posed problems in drafting, but omitting such a standard form by accident seems highly unlikely. If, then, the wording was deliberate, what was its significance? Friedmann argued (and others have read the grant in the same way) that with Warham’s death removing the last major obstacle to their marriage, Anne began to live with Henry, but that the grant of the title and the wealth to support it was an insurance against any last-minute disaster for herself and any children she might have by the king.
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That argument, however, requires Anne, who had stood out for marriage for six years, to change her mind and gamble on a divorce still in the uncertain future; she could have got equivalent terms for at least several months, if not years. Equally, it is strange that Henry, desperate for a legitimate heir, should at this late stage have chosen to contemplate the possibility of a bastard child. Perhaps we should turn Friedmann’s argument on its head and see the patent insuring Henry against the continuing anxiety that despite all his efforts, when at last he and Anne married, it might not be possible to vindicate the legality of the relationship. The patent thus becomes not an announcement by Anne to the world that she was going to sleep with Henry, nor an admission that she had lowered her price. It is evidence that Henry is still not certain that he is going to succeed.
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This was achieved by the simple omission of two words - ‘lawfully begotten’ - and it is doubtful whether anyone noticed as the Latin patent was proclaimed at Anne’s investiture.
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Perhaps the very unusual creation of a woman as a peer in her own right had posed problems in drafting, but omitting such a standard form by accident seems highly unlikely. If, then, the wording was deliberate, what was its significance? Friedmann argued (and others have read the grant in the same way) that with Warham’s death removing the last major obstacle to their marriage, Anne began to live with Henry, but that the grant of the title and the wealth to support it was an insurance against any last-minute disaster for herself and any children she might have by the king.
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That argument, however, requires Anne, who had stood out for marriage for six years, to change her mind and gamble on a divorce still in the uncertain future; she could have got equivalent terms for at least several months, if not years. Equally, it is strange that Henry, desperate for a legitimate heir, should at this late stage have chosen to contemplate the possibility of a bastard child. Perhaps we should turn Friedmann’s argument on its head and see the patent insuring Henry against the continuing anxiety that despite all his efforts, when at last he and Anne married, it might not be possible to vindicate the legality of the relationship. The patent thus becomes not an announcement by Anne to the world that she was going to sleep with Henry, nor an admission that she had lowered her price. It is evidence that Henry is still not certain that he is going to succeed.
We may point, finally, to the clear indications that, whatever Cromwell’s legislative drafts were telling him, Henry had still not been completely liberated from psychological dependence on the papacy. The failure to go ahead with annulment proceedings, despite a demoralized convocation, and the wait instead for Cranmer to arrive in the new year, are only explicable by a conviction that papal endorsement was vital for a valid appointment to Canterbury and that nothing must be done to prejudice this.
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In the same way, Henry’s interpretation of what was agreed at Calais shows that he still hankered after papal approval. Negotiations with Rome continued - partly, no doubt, to stave off Clement VII’s judgement in favour of Katherine, and to ensure that Cranmer could be appointed in the traditional way.
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However, signs of a compromise did begin to appear. It is hard to say who took the initiative or how serious it all was, but a softer tone from Henry after the Calais meeting, plus a tactful suppression by his Vatican agents of earlier more aggressive instructions, had coincided with increased willingness at Rome to find a way out of the impasse. Even when he had married Anne, Henry boasted that Clement was beginning to yield, and only a day or two later, news was received from Francis I that his cardinals had reached the pope and were making good progress.
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The papal nuncio was soon heavily involved in secret negotiations with the king and his council, much to the concern of Chapuys, who feared the pope would desert Katherine.
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Of course these talks, like the strict secrecy surrounding the marriage, may have been primarily intended to pull the wool over Clement’s eyes, but they were, at least in part, an attempt to create the impression for home consumption that at last the pope had given Henry what he wanted. On 8 February the papal nuncio was invited to attend the king to the House of Lords, where he was placed at the right of the throne. Since the French ambassador was put at the left, the tableau was clearly intended to suggest that Henry enjoyed full support from both Francis I and Clement VII.
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In the same way, Henry’s interpretation of what was agreed at Calais shows that he still hankered after papal approval. Negotiations with Rome continued - partly, no doubt, to stave off Clement VII’s judgement in favour of Katherine, and to ensure that Cranmer could be appointed in the traditional way.
38
However, signs of a compromise did begin to appear. It is hard to say who took the initiative or how serious it all was, but a softer tone from Henry after the Calais meeting, plus a tactful suppression by his Vatican agents of earlier more aggressive instructions, had coincided with increased willingness at Rome to find a way out of the impasse. Even when he had married Anne, Henry boasted that Clement was beginning to yield, and only a day or two later, news was received from Francis I that his cardinals had reached the pope and were making good progress.
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The papal nuncio was soon heavily involved in secret negotiations with the king and his council, much to the concern of Chapuys, who feared the pope would desert Katherine.
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Of course these talks, like the strict secrecy surrounding the marriage, may have been primarily intended to pull the wool over Clement’s eyes, but they were, at least in part, an attempt to create the impression for home consumption that at last the pope had given Henry what he wanted. On 8 February the papal nuncio was invited to attend the king to the House of Lords, where he was placed at the right of the throne. Since the French ambassador was put at the left, the tableau was clearly intended to suggest that Henry enjoyed full support from both Francis I and Clement VII.
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All this makes a good deal more plausible the recusant tradition that Henry deliberately misled the priest who conducted his marriage to Anne in January by claiming that he had papal approval. Sander reports the story, apparently from Harpsfield, and it occurs in an anonymous attack on Henry that is independent of but related to the Harpsfield text.
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According to this tradition, the wedding took place in the upper chamber over the Holbein Gate of Whitehall, before dawn and with very few witnesses. When the celebrant asked if the king had the pope’s permission, he was given a somewhat ambiguous assurance that this had been received. Not happy with this, he asked again and suggested that the document should be read out; the king, with a smile, effectively challenged the priest to call him a liar and declared that the licence was among his private papers, but ‘if I should, now that it waxeth towards day, fetch it, and be seen so early abroad, there would rise a rumour and talk thereof other than were convenient. Go forth in God’s name and do that which appertaineth to you.’
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According to this tradition, the wedding took place in the upper chamber over the Holbein Gate of Whitehall, before dawn and with very few witnesses. When the celebrant asked if the king had the pope’s permission, he was given a somewhat ambiguous assurance that this had been received. Not happy with this, he asked again and suggested that the document should be read out; the king, with a smile, effectively challenged the priest to call him a liar and declared that the licence was among his private papers, but ‘if I should, now that it waxeth towards day, fetch it, and be seen so early abroad, there would rise a rumour and talk thereof other than were convenient. Go forth in God’s name and do that which appertaineth to you.’
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Some details in the story are independently vouched for - for instance, the tiny number of witnesses and the extreme secrecy.
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Others are very plausible, such as the attendance of Henry Norris and Thomas Heneage of the privy chamber, the two men one would expect to be in the king’s confidence. Anne’s attendant was supposedly Lady Berkeley, and this again is credible. Anne Savage, as she then was, had been a gentlewoman at court for some years and was a dependant of William Brereton, groom of the privy chamber; one account states that a groom was also present, and if so this was most probably William.
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Admittedly, not every detail in the story is reliable. The celebrant was remembered in recusant circles as Rowland Lee, later bishop of Lichfield, but evidence from Chapuys - though admittedly from 1535 - identifies the priest as George Brown, the prior of the Augustinian Friars of London and later archbishop of Dublin.
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But that aside, the story does carry a ring of truth. The words credited to Henry are typical of his penchant for qualified honesty: ‘“I trust you have the pope’s licence...” “What else”, quoth the king.’ Or again, ‘Think you me a man of so small and slender foresight and consideration of my affairs that unless all things were safe and sure I would enterprise this matter? I have truly a licence ... which if it were seen, should discharge us all.’ Elizabethan recusants were intent on suggesting that Henry uttered a blatant lie, but of course he did have a papal licence to marry Anne. True, this was conditional upon a declaration that his marriage with Katherine was void, but it did not specify who would make that declaration of nullity.
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Assume that Henry was certain that either the pope would, after all, oblige, or if not Cranmer would, and the assertion becomes at least a half-truth. Little can be certain about that pre-dawn gathering over the Whitehall gate; but the probability is that even then Henry felt he had to imply papal consent to his marriage.
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Others are very plausible, such as the attendance of Henry Norris and Thomas Heneage of the privy chamber, the two men one would expect to be in the king’s confidence. Anne’s attendant was supposedly Lady Berkeley, and this again is credible. Anne Savage, as she then was, had been a gentlewoman at court for some years and was a dependant of William Brereton, groom of the privy chamber; one account states that a groom was also present, and if so this was most probably William.
45
Admittedly, not every detail in the story is reliable. The celebrant was remembered in recusant circles as Rowland Lee, later bishop of Lichfield, but evidence from Chapuys - though admittedly from 1535 - identifies the priest as George Brown, the prior of the Augustinian Friars of London and later archbishop of Dublin.
46
But that aside, the story does carry a ring of truth. The words credited to Henry are typical of his penchant for qualified honesty: ‘“I trust you have the pope’s licence...” “What else”, quoth the king.’ Or again, ‘Think you me a man of so small and slender foresight and consideration of my affairs that unless all things were safe and sure I would enterprise this matter? I have truly a licence ... which if it were seen, should discharge us all.’ Elizabethan recusants were intent on suggesting that Henry uttered a blatant lie, but of course he did have a papal licence to marry Anne. True, this was conditional upon a declaration that his marriage with Katherine was void, but it did not specify who would make that declaration of nullity.
47
Assume that Henry was certain that either the pope would, after all, oblige, or if not Cranmer would, and the assertion becomes at least a half-truth. Little can be certain about that pre-dawn gathering over the Whitehall gate; but the probability is that even then Henry felt he had to imply papal consent to his marriage.
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If we put together all this evidence of uncertainty despite the dramatic collapse of convocation in May 1532, that victory begins to look somewhat less decisive. The move towards Anne’s marriage and the breach with Rome was achieved only by continuing struggle. Here we have to make a fundamental choice in interpretation. Which of the couple was making the running, Henry or Anne? The crux is the November 1532 decision to sleep together. Did Henry decide that he was now certain of victory? Did Anne agree to intercourse now that the prize was in sight? Each view has had its advocates, but neither is entirely satisfactory. Is it likely, given the obstacles still in the way of any marriage, that Henry would abandon five years of heroic chastity and chance a son by Anne being born illegitimate? Suppose the pope refused to accept Cranmer? And why should Anne agree, even if Henry did now want to take the risk? What had changed the situation? The provision for illegitimate offspring in the recent Pembroke grant was hardly encouraging. Could the real answer be that the decision to cohabit was a calculated initiative by Anne? Since the submission and the death of Warham, the radical solution to the ‘great matter’ had been there for the taking. All that stood in the way was Henry’s indecision. Throughout their relationship it had been Anne who had stiffened the king’s resolve. Did she, even at the last, have to precipitate the decisive crisis, sure that if she became pregnant Henry would have to act?
The circumstances of Elizabeth’s birth on 7 September 1533 could certainly suggest this. Protocol and custom dictated that a queen would go into purdah a month or six weeks before the expected date of her confinement. It was called ‘taking her chamber’. Anne, however, entered the maternity rooms specially prepared for her only ten days before Elizabeth arrived.
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Possibly Anne and the midwives miscalculated, but the other explanation is that Elizabeth was somewhat premature. If so, this would indicate that it was probably only in mid-January that Anne could have begun to suspect that she had conceived. And if that was so, then the sudden flurry of that month falls into place: the rapid appointment of Cranmer, the promotion of Audley, the burst of parliamentary drafting and, most of all, the hurried ceremony on the 25th. If there was a possibility that Anne was pregnant, Henry had to secure the sanction of the Church, pope or no pope. In other words, the hugger-mugger of that pre-dawn ceremony in the Whitehall gatehouse and the king’s attempts to keep it quiet are a measure of the psychological block which Anne had forced Henry to overcome.
49
Possibly Anne and the midwives miscalculated, but the other explanation is that Elizabeth was somewhat premature. If so, this would indicate that it was probably only in mid-January that Anne could have begun to suspect that she had conceived. And if that was so, then the sudden flurry of that month falls into place: the rapid appointment of Cranmer, the promotion of Audley, the burst of parliamentary drafting and, most of all, the hurried ceremony on the 25th. If there was a possibility that Anne was pregnant, Henry had to secure the sanction of the Church, pope or no pope. In other words, the hugger-mugger of that pre-dawn ceremony in the Whitehall gatehouse and the king’s attempts to keep it quiet are a measure of the psychological block which Anne had forced Henry to overcome.
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