By mid-1535, there was near total alienation from France. Francis was now totally opposed to religious reform following the demonstrations in France, and Europe was appalled by the deaths of More and Fisher. Any influence or connections George may have held at the French court, and any good relations he may have had with the French king, were now well and truly in the past. By early July, Francis was even making anti-Boleyn comments. He criticised Anne on how "little virtuously she has always lived", and indicated how "she and her brother and adherents suspect the Duke of Norfolk of wishing to make his son king, and marry him to the king's legitimate daughter."24
In England, there was growing support for the Princess Mary. In the summer of 1535 there was a public demonstration at Greenwich in her favour, which had been aided and abetted by some of the ladies of the royal household who were not on duty.25 According to a letter written by the Bishop of Tarbes to the Bailly of Troyes in October 1535, when Mary left Greenwich, "a great troop of citizens' wives and others, unknown to their husbands, presented themselves before her, weeping and crying that she was princess, notwithstanding all that had been done. Some of them, the chiefest, were placed in the Tower." A note in the margin of this letter says "Millor de Rochesfort et millord de Guillaume", which has been used to back up the idea that George's wife was one of the ringleaders who was sent to the Tower. Jane's alleged banishment from court had taken place the previous autumn, and the demonstration took place during the royal summer progress at which George was present, so her participation may have been out of frustration and anger at her continued estrangement. However, the usually vigilant Chapuys did not pick up this story, and likewise there is no record of Jane Rochford being incarcerated in the Tower prior to the fall of Catherine Howard in 1541. If true, her actions would have caused irreparable damage to the Rochfords' marriage and by taking such action, Lady Rochford would have been putting herself in open opposition and conflict, not only with Anne, but also with her own husband and the King, whose command it was that Mary should not be treated as Princess. In addition to anger, George would also have felt embarrassment and humiliation at his own wife being imprisoned for openly defying him, his family and the King.
Jane's good relationship with Mary following the deaths of George and Anne confirms the loyalty and affection she had for the princess despite the fact that her husband had been one of Mary's bitterest enemies. Jane must have maintained this loyalty and affection for Mary throughout her marriage to George; yet it is very difficult to imagine her taking such drastic action, which would have been completely against her own best interests. Jane was as much of a self-serving survivor as her in-laws, and putting her liberty, marriage and career on the line for her moral beliefs seems an unlikely thing for her to do. Besides, she became Jane Seymour's lady-in-waiting after the Boleyns' deaths. Henry was highly unlikely to have allowed her to resume such a prestigious position if she had previously spent time in the Tower for openly defying him. Weighing up the evidence, her involvement in the demonstration is improbable.
Despite the continued problems at home and abroad, during the summer progress of 1535 Anne and Henry appeared to be particularly "merry" together, and it was during October of that year that Anne became pregnant for the third time. It is notable that Anne managed to fall pregnant while she was relaxed and more confident of the King's love. The pressure on her to have a son was enormous. But the enjoyment of the summer progress, and being away from the suffocating confines of London, meant the dazzling Boleyns failed to notice a young woman named Jane Seymour. Even if they had, they would simply have dismissed her as a plain, quiet creature unworthy of their attention.
19 - Oncoming Storm
In September 1535, Henry VIII's court stayed at Wolf Hall, the home of Sir John Seymour and his family, while on royal progress. Seymour's son Edward was already a member of the Privy Chamber, and was therefore well known to Anne and George Boleyn. The court stayed at Wolf Hall between 4 and 10 September, demonstrating the favour the Seymours enjoyed at this time. Although this visit is often used in novels as the setting of Henry VIII's first meeting with Sir John's daughter, Jane was already known to the King, and he was in any case accompanied by Anne on this visit. Jane had served Catherine of Aragon, and had moved into Anne's employ sometime in 1535. It is not known when Jane caught the King's eye, but initially his interest in her was notional. It was simply a case of courtly love at a time when Anne was pregnant.
The King's particular interest in Jane did not become apparent until January 1536, and she was not mentioned in any of Chapuys' correspondence until 10 February.1 As late as 1 April 1536, Chapuys referred to Jane as a lady "whom he [the King] serves", referring to the courtly love tradition of a knight serving a lady, an innocent flirtation rather than a serious affair.
Jane Seymour was born around 1508, which made her only about seven years younger than Anne. However, there could not have been two women more different in temperament and personality. Where Anne was intelligent, quick-tempered and passionate, Jane appears to have been docile and submissive. Ironically, if Jane had survived long enough, the King may well have become bored with her. Instead, she was fortunate enough to become pregnant before that happened. As a result, she died as the sainted mother of the long-awaited prince.
But at the time of the royal progress, and over Christmas and New Year 1535-6, everything continued to appear favourable for the Boleyns. Despite the disaster in France, they were proud, triumphant and seemingly blessed with the King's favour. Anne was once again pregnant, and the family went into 1536 with renewed optimism. But three incidents at the start of 1536 proved to be disastrous, particularly for Anne and her brother.
Firstly, on 7 January 1536 Catherine of Aragon died. Upon hearing the news, Henry is supposed to have cried, "God be praised that we are free of suspicion of war!", because he now had no quarrel with Emperor Charles V, Catherine's nephew. Then he dressed in yellow and paraded the two-year old Princess Elizabeth to mass "with trumpets and other great triumphs".2
The Boleyn family were also delighted at the news, and Chapuys surmised that Thomas and George's only wish was that Mary would "keep company with her mother".3 This may or may not have been true. The Boleyn position would certainly have been far stronger with Mary dead, but she was still the King's daughter. Irrespective of Thomas and George's private thoughts, it would be unlikely that either of them would have been foolish enough to have expressed those thoughts out loud in the public arena or in front of those people likely to report it to Chapuys. What Catherine's death really meant was that there was no longer any obstacle to reconciliation with the Emperor, save for Anne herself. Clearly the Boleyns had not envisaged this at the start of 1536, as they seemingly maintained the King's favour. Of course foreign policy had never previously affected the Boleyns' position, and it would not have done so in 1536 if Anne had retained the King's love. But then the second event, namely the flowering of Henry's interest in Jane Seymour, coincided with the third and final event which altered everything.
The joy at Catherine's death was short-lived. On 24 January Henry suffered a bad fall from his horse, a fall which could have killed him. Five days later, on the very day of Catherine's funeral, Anne suffered her second miscarriage, losing Henry's longed-for son.4 Anne is supposed to have blamed the miscarriage on her anxiety over Henry's fall, and also her emotional stress at his affection for Jane Seymour. Anne's response to Henry's relationship with Jane was in stark contrast to that of her predecessor, Queen Catherine. Where Catherine turned a blind eye, Anne ranted and raved. Henry had been enchanted by her passion and intelligence while they were courting, but now that she was his wife she was expected to behave differently. A feisty mistress was one thing, but a feisty wife was something else and would not be tolerated.
Nicholas Sander, a Catholic recusant writing during the reign of Anne's daughter, Elizabeth I, described how Anne miscarried "a shapeless mass of flesh". However, Sander was only 6 years old at the time of the miscar
riage and was writing nearly 50 years after the event; there was no mention of a deformed foetus in 1536. Chapuys, chronicler Edward Hall and Charles Wriothesley (Windsor Herald and brother of Thomas Wriothesley, who was close to Cromwell at this time) simply mention a miscarriage, with Wriothesley and Chapuys adding that it was a boy.5 Not only was there no mention of a deformed foetus at the time, it was also not raised in the aftermath of the miscarriage, or indeed at the subsequent trials of the four commoners and the Boleyns. This puts paid to the fanciful theory that Anne's five alleged lovers were invented in order to shift the blame for the miscarriage from Henry VIII, since a deformed baby was a sign of sexual misbehaviour in the parents. The suggestion that George Boleyn was arrested so that an incest charge could be used to accuse him of being the father of the abomination is nonsense. Why go to the trouble of bringing him to trial and then make no mention of the alleged deformed foetus? The miscarriage was the final nail in Anne's coffin, though, not because the foetus was supposed to be particularly repulsive, but because Henry now believed he would have no sons with her and that his second marriage was as cursed as his first. Also, Catherine of Aragon's death meant that the King could put Anne aside without being forced to return to his first wife.
As with any woman, Anne would have been highly emotional after her miscarriage, particularly bearing in mind Henry's callous derision, and lack of support and understanding. Probably for the first time, there was a genuine fear that Henry would abandon her as he had Catherine. George Boleyn's trial alleged that he was always with his sister. Brotherly concern for bereavement was twisted into something sinister. No doubt George did spend a lot of time with Anne, particularly after her miscarriage, in order to comfort her and give her the emotional support that her husband was incapable of providing. Gradually over the last year of their lives, Anne relied more and more on her brother for support and reassurance. Although she could rely on her father's loyalty, this was because by promoting his daughter's course he was also promoting his own. While George of course benefited from Anne remaining in power, the siblings provided each other with the demonstrative affection their father did not. George genuinely cared for his sister, and she reacted by seeking out his company more and more frequently as her hold over the King became more and more tenuous.
Irrespective of her innocence of the crimes with which she was later charged, Anne had already suffered one miscarriage in the summer of 1534. Henry now believed that his wife, who was by now about 35, was no more able to give him a son than Catherine had been. He had annulled his marriage to Catherine, broken with the Church of Rome, lost the esteem of a large number of his subjects, isolated England as far as foreign policy was concerned, and lost the respect of half of Europe for Anne's sake, yet she had not borne him the promised son. The Boleyns had let him down.
Opponents of the Boleyns, led by Nicholas Carew, seized on the opportunity of the King's waning love for Anne, and his growing affection towards Jane Seymour, to restore Mary to her rightful place. The deaths of More, Fisher and the Carthusians had hardened opinions against the Boleyns, and support for Mary was growing. Carew was backed by powerful members of the Privy Chamber, including Edward Seymour, Jane's brother. These people plotted to bring Anne down by pushing Jane Seymour forward as a possible replacement. They may also have whispered malicious gossip about Anne to a King who was suddenly receptive to it. Just how aware Anne and George were of the machinations against her is uncertain. George, as a member of the Privy Chamber and Privy Council, must have been fully aware of the opposition from certain fellow members, but he could not have envisioned the possibility that either he or Anne were in physical danger.
What of the chaste and virtuous Jane Seymour in all this? She did not have Anne Boleyn's ambition or intellect; Jane merely did as she was told, which was the very characteristic that endeared her to the increasingly egotistical King. She was perfectly willing to be used to destroy the Boleyns and was coached by her ambitious brothers and other members of the anti-Boleyn faction to win the King's love. But when the Boleyn family's opponents began working towards bringing them down, they were looking at the validity of a divorce or annulment, not a charge of treason. Not even the most ardent anti-Boleyn opponent considered execution as a realistic proposal. After all, who would think that a husband who had been so passionately in love with his wife would consider killing her? The end result astounded everyone.
By April 1536, if not before, the King's great affection for Anne had eventually run its course, and at some point he must have approached Thomas Cromwell with regard to the possibility of an annulment. Wolsey had been put in the same position of seeking an annulment for his royal master nearly ten years earlier, and he had died a failure with a treason charge hanging over his head. Cromwell did not wish to end up in the same position as his previous employer, and he proved to be a far more deadly enemy than the long-dead Wolsey. If Anne caused as many problems as Catherine had, then perhaps an annulment was not the answer. Providing Henry would agree to allow him to proceed, there were other ways of getting rid of her. For Henry to have actually agreed to Cromwell's plot against her, his love for Anne Boleyn must indeed have turned into a great hatred.
The response of Anne and George to the threat was, as it had always been, to fight. George deliberately maintained a high profile at court. He retained the King's favour almost to the last. As we have already seen, when the King chose a peer to cast the proxy vote of Lord LaWarr at the session of Parliament beginning on 4 February 1536, it was George.6 Even in early March, royal favours continued to be bestowed on him. His father's lease of the Crown honour of Rayleigh in Essex was extended on 3 March for a term of 30 years, and George was brought in as joint tenant with a 20 per cent rebate on the £100 rent.7 Despite the making of this grant to the Boleyns, an inventory was prepared of all grants made by the King to the father and son from 1523 to 3 March 1536.8 This has led to speculation that charges of treason were being mooted as early as the beginning of March, and that Thomas Boleyn had initially been considered as a possible victim.
Meanwhile, Anne's increasing vulnerability was exacerbated by foreign policy. Cromwell favoured an imperial alliance, and now that Catherine was dead the only obstacle was Anne. The renewed possibility of reconciliation with England and the Empire could also be used to dampen the King of France's increasing arrogance towards England. On 8 January, Cromwell wrote to the English ambassadors in France stating that Catherine's death had removed "the only matter of the unkindness" between Henry and the Emperor, and instructing them to keep themselves "more aloof and be the more fraught and cold in relenting to any of their [France's] overtures and requests."9 This coincided with relations between France and the Empire becoming colder and colder; the death of poor Catherine meant that both foreign powers were at last soliciting England's friendship. In April 1536, Charles V offered imperial support to Henry in an attempt to ally with England. This was proposed with a view to combating the French threat to the imperial position in Italy. Following this olive branch, Anne and her supporters suddenly took a more pro-imperial stance. Anne and George were buoyed up by optimism that, following the disappointment of the French negotiations the previous year, reconciliation with the Empire had become a possibility. Unfortunately for them, the Emperor's terms were that he would only support Henry's marriage to Anne in return for Mary being recognised as heir to the throne.
The pressure on the Boleyns was becoming intense, as it became apparent that any potential alliance with the Empire was conditional on Elizabeth's succession being put into jeopardy. Their greatest hope was that the French had not been entirely alienated. The meeting between the French and English kings, which had been postponed on so many occasions, had been rescheduled to May 1536, and unsurprisingly it was George who was instrumental in making the arrangements. Henry was at last in a position of being able to play France off against Charles V, and in the middle of April it was still intended that the meeting take place. On 17 April, George wrote to
Lord Lisle in Calais regarding the proposed meeting, asking for his assistance in the arrangements. This letter is set out in full below, because although it is very brief, it is the last letter written by George Boleyn preserved in the state papers:
My Lord Deputy, as heartily as I can I commend me unto you, certifying you that the King's Grace is minded to be at Dover within this fortnight: praying you to be so good unto me as to help my servant, the bringer hereof, to all such things as he shall need for my provision, as I shall be ready at all times to do you like pleasure. And thus praying you to think no unkindness in my short writing in great haste, I make an end.
From Greenwich, the xvijth day of April.
Yours assuridly to my power
George Rocheford10
Although he apologises for the brevity of the correspondence, this is in fact typical of the majority of George Boleyn's letters, save for those written jointly with another person. Few of them are particularly long. Most are written in a rushed, breathless style. With all the worries and concerns at the time, in this particular letter the reader can actually sense the harassment and anxiety of the author. A month later, George was dead.
George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier & Diplomat Page 19
