Henry VIII

by Alison Weir

  England now stood on the brink of the Reformation, and there is no doubt that Anne was using all her influence to further her own cause and that of reform by encouraging the King in his new policies.

  39

  “Opprobrious Words”

  By early 1531 Cromwell had entered the inner circle of the Privy Council and was heavily influencing royal policy with his ideal of a sovereign state supported by Parliament, the law, and an efficient administration. In February of that year, the indicted clergy submitted to the King, paid an enormous fine, and recognised him as Supreme Head of the Church of England “as far as the law of Christ allows.” The title was suggested by Archbishop Warham, the qualification by Bishop Fisher, who was emerging as one of Henry’s chief opponents. The King had not broken with Rome, but set himself up as the temporal head of the English Church: the Pope’s spiritual authority was as yet unchallenged.

  Two months later, the new Supreme Head began extending and refurbishing York Place as his chief London residence. In order to lay out spacious gardens, he acquired and demolished neighbouring properties. A crenellated gatehouse with chequered brickwork, an oriel window, Tudor badges, and terracotta roundels of Roman emperors was built across the highway (the present Whitehall) that bisected the palace site. This would later be known as the Holbein Gate, although there is no evidence that Holbein ever worked on it, although he would be responsible for the ceiling of Henry’s new long gallery. The privy gallery that had been brought from Esher ran across the gateway and linked Wolsey’s old house with the privy chamber in the new buildings. To the north lay the privy garden, to the south an orchard. The King, who retained the Cardinal’s great hall and chapel, erected new lodgings for himself, all on one level; these were completed by October 1532. Mediaeval Kennington Palace, south of the Thames, was demolished and its stonework used for York Place.

  Later on, Henry had the Thames embanked along the river side of the palace and built new privy stairs for his exclusive use, and another gatehouse, the classically styled King’s Gate, to the south of the highway. He also converted Wolsey’s old lodgings into a Queen’s Side for Anne Boleyn.

  When completed, Whitehall would be the largest palace in Europe. It consisted of a rambling series of magnificent state apartments, courtier lodgings, and service quarters, all ranged around a series of courtyards. The exterior walls were painted with chequers and black and white grotesque work. Henry’s own lodgings, on the east side of the palace, overlooking the Thames, were sumptuous: his privy chamber contained an alabaster fountain, and all the principal rooms had high bay windows, ceilings “marvellously wrought in stone with gold” by Clement Armstrong,1 “and wainscots of carved wood representing a thousand beautiful figures.” 2 The windows blazed with heraldic glass by Galyon Hone, and the walls were hung with royal portraits.

  Inside, there were “many and singular commodious things, most apt and convenient to appertain only to so noble a Prince for his singular comfort, pastime and solace,”3 For his bedchamber, a “great bed of walnut tree,”4 gilded by Andrew Wright, one of the King’s decorative artists, was constructed over ten months at a cost of £83.3s.10d (£24,957.50). Lucas Horenbout is known to have carried out commissions for the King at York Place in 1531–1532, as did another eminent painter and engraver, John Bettes the Elder, who helped paint a mural of Henry’s coronation.5

  Much of this was done “to please the Lady,”6 but Anne Boleyn no longer pleased many of her former supporters. In June 1532, she quarrelled violently with Sir Henry Guildford, who had dared to praise the Queen in her hearing, and “threatened him most furiously” that, when she became Queen, she would have him punished and dismissed from his office of Comptroller. In scathing tones he told her that she need not wait so long, and immediately resigned. The King urged him to reconsider, advising him he “should not mind women’s talk,” but although Chapuys says Guildford refused, he must at some stage have relented because he certainly remained in office until his death.7

  During June and July, Henry and Anne spent their time hunting, accompanied only by Sir Nicholas Carew and two other attendants.8 Up until this time, the King and Queen had made a point of visiting each other every few days for the sake of appearances; Henry always treated Katherine “with respect, and occasionally dines with her.”9 But now he decided that they must separate for good. On Friday, 14 July, he rode out from Windsor with Anne and Carew and went to Woodstock, leaving Katherine behind without saying farewell. He simply left orders that she was to remove with her household to the More and not write to him or see her daughter Mary.

  At the More, Katherine continued to enjoy the state of a queen, with a household that numbered two hundred, but few courtiers came to pay their respects. An Italian visitor, Mario Savorgnano, who went there that summer to see her dine, reported that she had “always a smile on her face” and that thirty maids of honour were standing around her table.10 One of those maids was Wyatt’s mistress, Elizabeth Darrell, who would remain with Katherine until her death. Another was Jane Seymour,11 whose brother Edward was an Esquire of the Body to the King.

  The Princess Mary was then residing at Richmond. At fifteen, she was “not very tall” but had “a pretty face” and was “well-proprtioned with a very beautiful complexion.”12 Her adolescence had been marred by the rift between her parents, which caused her untold misery and was to have an indelible effect upon her health. Although she loved her father, it was her mother whom she staunchly supported, and it was for this reason that Henry refused to allow the two to meet, in case they might plot against him.

  Henry was forty that June. Later that year, an Italian visitor, Lodovico Falier, would say of him: “In this eighth Henry, God has combined such corporeal and intellectual beauty as not merely to surprise but to astound all men. His face is angelic rather than handsome, his head imperial and bold, and he wears a beard, contrary to English fashion.”13 His hair was now worn cropped close to his head. Savorgnano described Henry as being “tall of stature, very well formed, and of very handsome presence. . . . Nature, in creating such a prince, has done her utmost to present a perfect model of manly beauty, in favour both with God and man. . . . I never saw a prince better disposed than this one. He is also learned and accomplished, and most generous and kind.”14 “You never saw a taller or more noble looking personage,” wrote the reformer Simon Grynaeus, who visited England that year.15 In 1532, Falier wrote a confidential dispatch, stating that the King had “a very well-proprtioned body of tall stature and an air of royal majesty such as has not been witnessed in any other sovereign for many years.”16

  During the summer of 1531, the King travelled to Sandwich to inspect the defences there, and later took Anne Boleyn to visit Lord Sandys at The Vyne. In the autumn, he was hunting again; then in November he and the Queen hosted separate banquets for the Lord Mayor and citizens of London in adjoining rooms at Ely Place in Holborn. Henry and Katherine managed to avoid meeting each other on this, the last state occasion in which the Queen would take part.

  Katherine’s departure from court undermined the power of her faction. Leave of absence was never refused to those who took her part, and in the Privy Chamber Exeter, whom Katherine had described to Chapuys as a good friend of hers, and his friend Carew found their influence undermined by Cromwell’s allies. The Duchess of Norfolk, who supported the Queen on principle since the Duke was an ally of Anne Boleyn, openly impugned Anne’s ancestry, quarrelled bitterly with her over Anne’s interference in the marriages of the Duchess’s children, and smuggled letters to the Queen in oranges; Anne found out what was happening and warned her aunt, in very “high words,” to desist, but the Duchess defiantly continued to act as a go-between for Katherine and Chapuys. Inevitably, the King discovered what was happening, and banished her from court.17

  As the influence of the Boleyns and Cromwell increased, so that of Norfolk and Suffolk declined. Realising that they had brought down the Cardinal only to have someone else take his place, rather than t
hemselves, both dukes were implacably hostile to Cromwell, whom they regarded as an upstart, although they were wise enough to establish good working relationships with him. Cromwell, however, was no fool: he knew that Norfolk in particular could “speak fair to his enemy as to his friend,”18 and young Surrey, his son, was not above openly referring to Cromwell as “that foul churl.”19 Gardiner, who was appointed Bishop of Winchester in December 1531, was Norfolk’s ally, but Anne was becoming suspicious of them both. Norfolk crossed swords with his niece on several occasions; Gardiner, however, was too wily to give her any cause for complaint. Norfolk and Suffolk were themselves at odds, both in the Council chamber and in their local jurisdictions in East Anglia, and the men of their affinity were now forming themselves into antagonistic rival bands.

  The atmosphere at Greenwich that Christmas was subdued: “there was no mirth because the Queen and the ladies were absent.”20 Anne was now installed in the Queen’s lodgings, “acompanied by almost as many ladies as if she were queen,”21 but she did not preside with the King over the festivities, which were devised to impress the new French ambassador, Giles de la Pommeraye.22 The Queen kept Christmas at the More, and made good cheer for the sake of her ladies, while Mary was at Beaulieu. Her cousin Margaret Douglas had recently joined her household and was sharing her education; the two girls, who were almost of an age, became very close friends.

  At New Year, Anne presented Henry with some darts (probably boar spears) wrought “in the Biscayan fashion, richly ornamented,” while he gave her a set of rich hangings of cloth of gold and silver and crimson satin, lavishly embroidered, and a bed hung with cloth of gold and silver. Although he had sent a gift to Mary, Henry did not purchase one for Katherine, yet she sent him an exquisite standing cup. Angry with embarrassment, he refused to receive it, then changed his mind in case her messenger should return later in the day to present it in front of the whole court. Recalling the messenger, he took the cup and had it discreetly placed among his other gifts on a sideboard in the presence chamber. In the evening he returned it, sending orders that neither Katherine nor Mary were to send him gifts in future.23

  By 1532, Henry was heartily sick of the Pope’s procrastination, which in his opinion was bringing the Church into disrepute, and he was beginning to contemplate a complete break with Rome. Antipapal feeling was widespread in England, especially in the southeast, and there was bitter resentment against the tithes that had to be paid to an already wealthy Church and the corruption of many of its clergy. If Henry broke with Rome, the revenues of the English Church would be his, and his power and jurisdiction immeasurably increased. But it was a huge step to take after a thousand years of unity, and the King wavered, hoping that even after all this time, the Pope would pronounce in his favour.

  Others, however, had seen which way the wind was blowing. Reginald Pole went into self-imposed exile in Italy rather than stay in England to face a conflict of loyalties, and other members of the Queen’s faction realised that they would soon be embroiled in a clash of ideologies.

  The man who would mastermind the English Reformation, Thomas Cromwell, was appointed Master of the Jewel House in April 1532 and soon afterwards emerged as the King’s chief minister. He would never be another such as Wolsey, for he was essentially a bureaucrat, not a prince of the Church, and there was no danger of his forming a rival court to challenge the ascendancy of the King’s because his tastes were modest and middle-class, compared with those of the Cardinal. He lived in a well-appointed house in London, dressed well but soberly, owned a fine collection of jewellery, enjoyed hunting, bowls, and gambling, and gave generously of his wealth for the relief of the London poor. Cromwell did not have Wolsey’s monopoly on power; he had to share it with Anne Boleyn and her faction, with whom he was allied against the court conservatives. However, he had “risen above everyone except the Lady, and the world says he has more credit with his master than ever the Cardinal had. Now there is not a person who does anything except Cromwell.” 24 The King, however, did not leave all decision making to Cromwell: the policies were essentially Henry’s, but the means of carrying them out efficiently were devised by his brilliant minister. During the next two years, Cromwell would amass a number of prestigious and lucrative offices, the most important being that of Chancellor of the Exchequer, to which he was appointed in 1533.

  Under Cromwell’s auspices, Parliament would introduce a series of measures designed to limit papal power in England and bring the Great Matter to a satisfactory conclusion. The first of these, the Annates Act, passed in April 1532, effectively deprived the Pope of the first fruits of all English benefices.

  At Easter, the provincial of the Observant Friars, William Peto, was invited to preach before the King and court, but caused a sensation when he warned a glowering Henry that any marriage with Anne Boleyn would be unlawful. If, like Ahab in the Bible, the King committed this dire sin, the dogs would one day lick his blood, as they had Ahab’s. A furious Henry ordered one of his chaplains, Richard Curwen, to preach a retaliatory sermon the following Sunday, but he was heckled by another Observant Friar, Henry Elston. Both Peto and Elston were arrested.

  That April, in defiance of the Duchess of Norfolk’s wishes, Anne Boleyn used her influence to bring about the marriage of the Earl of Surrey to Frances de Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford, a young lady of impeccable ancestry but no fortune. Anne’s choice of a bride for his son nevertheless came as a relief to Norfolk because she had recently toyed with the idea of marrying Surrey to the Princess Mary, with whose cause Norfolk had no desire to be identified.

  The King’s sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, had no qualms about declaring where her loyalties lay. That April, she publicly referred to Anne Boleyn in “opprobrious language,”25 which sparked a fight between the Duke’s retainers and those of Norfolk. One of Suffolk’s men, Sir William Pennington, was killed by two of Norfolk’s followers, Richard Southwell and his brother, while seeking sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, at which the enraged Suffolk broke into the Sanctuary “to remove the assailants by force.” For weeks afterwards, “the whole court was in an uproar.” The Suffolks withdrew to their estates, but their followers were still in a bullish mood, and the King and Cromwell had to intervene to prevent any further affrays.26 Soon afterwards, Henry visited his sister and Brandon, but it took all his powers of persuasion to make the Duke return to his duties. Southwell was later pardoned after paying a fine of £1,000 (£300,000).

  Anne had also incurred the enmity of her former supporter, Sir Nicholas Carew, by her treatment of his friends Suffolk and Guildford, and he would from now on work stealthily against her. Guildford died in May 1532; after his death, the King appropriated some of his plate to give to Anne Boleyn.27 The passing of Guildford, which was quickly followed by the deaths of John Rightwise, who had worked with him devising court entertainments, and the King’s Serjeant Painter, John Browne, who had been responsible for much of the scenery and props, saw the end of the golden era of the Revels Office.

  Guildford was succeeded as Comptroller of the Household by Sir William Paulet,28 a friend and neighbour of Lord Sandys of The Vyne; Paulet lived at Basing House, which he rebuilt around this time. A cautious, astute man who changed his views as expediency dictated and thereby remained in favour and amassed a fortune, he was already a member of the Privy Council and Master of the King’s Wards.

  Revolutionary changes were afoot. When Parliament threatened the autonomy of the ecclesiastical courts, the convocations of Canterbury and York hastily surrendered them into the hands of the King, and formally conceded that they held their authority at his pleasure. Gardiner was one of the few who dared to protest against this, but in doing so provoked the King’s anger and was forced to retire to his See.

  Sir Thomas More was another who could not countenance this erosion of the privileges of the Church, and on 16 May, the day after the submission of the clergy, he resigned as Lord Chancellor. Despite his earlier promise, the King made no secret of the f
act that he wanted More’s approval of his nullity suit and his legislation, for the endorsement of one of the finest and most respected minds in Europe would add immeasurable weight to his cause, but More could not in conscience give it. His position had become untenable, and he surrendered the Great Seal with relief, hoping that he might now be left in peace with his family and his books. Four days later, Sir Thomas Audley, one of Cromwell’s lawyer friends and a loyal but pliable royal servant who had been Speaker of the Commons since 1529, was appointed Keeper of the Great Seal in More’s place. He would be made Lord Chancellor the following January.

  40

  “The Lady Marquess”

  In the summer of 1532, the King presented to Anne Boleyn the royal manor house at Hanworth, near Hounslow in Middlesex. The house had been rebuilt by his father on the site of an older one; Henry now extended the property and had it remodelled in the Renaissance style, with terracotta roundels of goddesses by Giovanni di Maiano,1 and completely refurnished. The house stood to the south of the present parish church, and was connected by bridges over the moat to the beautiful gardens laid out by Henry VII with ponds, strawberry beds, an orchard, and an aviary. Beyond was a park where the King “took great delight” hunting “buck and hare.” 2 Anne was also given the royal manor of Ditton Park at this time.

  Another major building project on which the King embarked in 1532 was the embellishment of the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. He paid for a superb rood screen, organ loft, and stalls, which were wonderfully carved by Italian craftsmen with Henry and Anne’s initials and devices. The King later provided the magnificent stained-glass windows, which were the work of his own glaziers, Galyon Hone and Bernard Flower. These works are some of the most outstanding examples of English Renaissance art to survive from the period.