Anne Boleyn, a King's Obsession

by Alison Weir

  “Darling,” Henry said, “if we are to get a son, that is not the way to go about it. And the Church frowns on practices like that. But I appreciate your wanting to please me. You do that best when you allow me inside you.”

  “Then I am your Grace’s to command,” she said lightly, knowing she had miscalculated badly. Never again would she take the lead in bed with him.

  Henry kissed her. “Remember that!” he said, his tone warmer.

  —

  It was frustrating being left behind at Calais when Henry sallied forth to Boulogne to spend four days with King François. But Anne made the most of her time, going hawking, gambling at cards and dice, and feasting on delicacies sent by the French King—carp, porpoise, venison pasties, choice pears, and grapes. She also did her best to evade Mary’s blatant curiosity about the exact state of her relations with Henry.

  The King returned in a jubilant mood.

  “François is sympathetic to us,” he told Anne. “I’ve invited him here on Friday.”

  Anne was not especially eager to welcome François, that great lecher, and Mary—who had thought not to see him—flinched at the news, but she agreed to attend Anne with the other ladies, there being safety in numbers. Anne made them all practice for a masque to be performed before François. She expressed delight in the costly diamond he sent her by the Provost of Paris.

  —

  A three-thousand gun salute was fired in the French King’s honor when he arrived. For two days, at Henry’s request, Anne kept out of sight, but on the third evening she graced the high table at a lavish supper and banquet given by Henry in the great hall of the Staple Inn, where François was staying. The hall looked magnificent, hung with gold and silver tissue and gold wreaths glittering with pearls and precious stones, which reflected the light from the twenty silver candelabra, each bearing a hundred wax candles. A dazzling display of gold plate on a seven-tier buffet proclaimed Henry’s riches, as did his suit of purple cloth of gold, his collar of fourteen rubies, and his two great ropes of pearls, from one of which hung the famous Black Prince’s ruby. They feasted on one hundred and seventy dishes, with a lavish variety of meats, game, and fish prepared from both English and French recipes.

  Afterward, Anne led Mary, Jane Rochford, and four other ladies in the masque, attired in a costume of cloth of gold slashed with crimson satin, puffed with cloth of silver and laced with gold cords. All wore masks. After the ladies had danced before the two kings, Anne went up to François, curtseyed, and led him out to the floor, at which Mary and her companions invited King Henry and the other lords to join them.

  “These ten years have not changed you, my lady Marquess,” François said gallantly. “We have missed you at the French court.” He himself had put on weight, and his saturnine features had coarsened. It repelled her to hold his hand, but she kept smiling and set herself to charm him, for he was willing to be a friend to Henry and could prove very helpful. This new alliance would counterbalance any threat from the Emperor.

  Henry was laughing, going about the dancers and pulling off the ladies’ masks. He stopped before Anne and removed hers. “Now you may see how beautiful my lady is!” he said to François.

  Anne accepted the compliment graciously, as Henry led her into the next dance. She noticed that Mary was talking animatedly to her partner, a young man Anne did not know.

  “Who is that?” she asked Henry.

  “Young Stafford, a distant cousin of mine. He’s here in my train.”

  They seemed to be getting on very well together. Anne watched Mary flirting with Stafford, who looked some years younger than her. It was good to see her enjoying herself after being a widow for so long.

  After the French had left, with François promising to do all in his power to bring about a reconciliation between Henry and the Pope, violent storms blew up in the English Channel, which meant that Henry and Anne had to stay on at the Exchequer for another fortnight. It did not matter. Henry welcomed his enforced break from state duties, and gave himself up entirely to Anne. They ate long, leisurely meals, rode out beyond the town walls to see the rolling countryside of the Calais Pale, a little part of England on the edge of France, and made love every night and morning. Anne even donned a pair of breeches and beat Henry at tennis. She felt closer to him than ever before.

  Their idyll came to an end one midnight in the middle of November, when Henry decided that they should seize the opportunity afforded by a favorable wind to sail home to England. The voyage was appalling, twenty-nine hours of hell in roiling seas, and Anne, usually a good sailor, was more than grateful to see the cliffs of Dover ahead at last.

  They took their time enjoying a sedate progress eastward through Kent. They lodged at Leeds, a fine castle that seemed to rise out of a lake, and then rode on to Stone Castle, where they stayed as guests of an old friend of Anne from Hever days, Bridget, Lady Wingfield. After a good dinner, Henry and Anne joined their hostess, Sir Francis Bryan, and Francis Weston in their favorite card game, Pope Julian, and a groaning Henry lost heavily to Anne.

  Afterward, they all sat by the fire and talked, as spiced wine was served. Weston spoke of the happiness he had found in his recent marriage to Anne Pickering, and how much he was looking forward to seeing her.

  “You mean Weston the wanton has finally settled down?” Bryan joked.

  “I long to get home to Sutton Place,” Weston sighed.

  “I hear the house is beautiful,” Anne said.

  “It’s magnificent,” Henry told her. “It was my gift to Francis’s father for his good service to me. He must be very proud of you, Francis.”

  “He is, sir, apart from when he’s telling me off for beating your Grace at cards.”

  “He has a point there,” Henry grinned. “Come on, then, since Mark is abed, give us a song on your lute, Francis.”

  Weston picked up the instrument. “Here’s one for your Grace and the Lady Anne.” And he sang in his rich baritone voice:

  Whoso that will for grace sue

  His intent must needs be true,

  And love her in heart and deed,

  Else it were pity that he should speed.

  But love is a thing given by God,

  In that therefore can be none odd;

  But perfect indeed and between two,

  Wherefore then should we it eschew?

  Henry’s arm stole around Anne and he looked down at her with one eyebrow raised.

  “It’s your own song,” she said. “No one surpasses you when it comes to the perfect marriage of music and lyrics.”

  “Never mind that,” he muttered in her ear. “Just come to bed, as soon as he’s finished.”

  —

  They were at Whitehall Palace, preparing for Christmas, when Anne found a thin volume lying on the table in her privy chamber. It was a book of prophecies containing crude drawings, and it had been left open at a lurid one depicting a woman with her head cut off. As she looked closer, she realized it was meant to be her. The caption warned that this would be her fate if she married the King. Nan Saville, coming up behind her and seeing it, was horrified.

  “If I thought it true, I would not have him, were he an emperor,” she declared.

  Anne slammed the book shut. “Tut, Nan, it’s just a bauble, and I am resolved to have him, so that my children may be royal, whatever becomes of me.”

  For all her bravado, the drawing had upset her, and she consigned the book to the fire. Who had left it for her to find? Access to her privy chamber was restricted to approved servants and those who were close to or approved of by her. She wondered if Jane Rochford had done it. She mentioned the book to Jane, but got no reaction.

  As the days passed, she forgot about the incident. Christmas was coming, and this year, God be praised, she would not be spending it in exile at Hever, but presiding over it at court, by Henry’s side.

  1533

  Anne felt excitement mounting as she came from her close stool and washed her hands. She was a
week overdue, her breasts were tender, and today she had felt nauseous on rising. She was with child, she was sure of it.

  She hastened to find Henry, but he was in Council. She waited in the gallery, fidgeting, for him to emerge. When he did, she hurried up to him as the lords following in his wake stared curiously.

  “I must speak to your Grace,” she murmured, barely able to contain herself. What would he say when she told him that the heir to England slept under her girdle?

  “Of course, sweetheart,” he agreed. “Gentlemen, we shall meet again at the same time tomorrow.”

  And by then everything would have changed!

  He led her into the nearby chapel and looked at her questioningly.

  “I’m with child!” she burst out.

  His face was transfigured; it burst into a radiant smile. “Thanks be to God!” he breathed, bowing to the crucifix on the altar. He turned to her. “You know what this means, Anne? It is a vindication of all I have done. Heaven has smiled on us both. Our marriage will be truly blessed. Oh, my darling, I am so proud of you!” And he took her in his arms, very tenderly, and kissed her gently. “You must take care,” he urged. “You carry a precious burden. Thank you, Anne, thank you! You cannot know how much this news means to me.” He laid his hand on her belly. “A son—an heir to England, and her savior, no less. Now we will be free from the threat of civil war.”

  “I am the happiest of women!” Anne exulted. “I shall choose ‘The Most Happy’ for my motto as queen, to remind me of this precious moment.”

  “We must be married without delay,” Henry said. “I’ll go and talk to Cranmer now.”

  He returned to her chamber rejoicing. “Cranmer says there is no impediment, and that my union with Katherine is unquestionably null and void. He says he will confirm everything formally in his court. Darling, there is no need to wait, and no time to be lost. People must believe that our child was conceived in lawful wedlock. We must be married now.”

  —

  It was still dark when Anne rose on the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, the twenty-fifth day of January. Anne Savage was dressed already, and waiting to attire her for her wedding. Around them the palace slumbered on.

  She had chosen to wear white satin, with her hair loose, in token of the symbolic virginity of a queen. The gown was beautiful, with its low square neckline, hanging sleeves, pointed stomacher, and heavy skirts. It was a gown made for display, but this wedding had to take place in secret, so she suffered her ladies to conceal it under a voluminous black velvet mantle lined with fur.

  With Anne Savage bearing her train, she hastened silently up a deserted spiral staircase to a little oratory in a high tower. There, awaiting them in the sanctuary, stood Henry’s chaplain, Dr. Lee, in full vestments. Then Henry arrived, tall, eager, and imposing in cloth of gold, accompanied by his gentlemen, all sworn to secrecy: Norris, who met Anne’s eyes with a slight but poignant frown; Thomas Heneage of the King’s Privy Chamber, and William Brereton. Anne Savage divested her mistress of her mantle. Anne curtseyed gracefully to Henry, who took her hand and kissed it. “You look beautiful,” he said, his eyes drinking her in.

  They knelt together before the altar, and Dr. Lee began intoning the words of the Holy Sacrament of marriage. The King’s eyes never left Anne’s as they spoke their vows.

  “I, Henry, take thee, Anne…”

  “I, Anne, take thee, Henry…”

  “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder!” Dr. Lee commanded, and pronounced them man and wife.

  Anne could barely contain herself. She wanted to shout out to the world that she was Henry’s wife and Queen, but she controlled the impulse. It could not be long before their marriage was proclaimed, for in a few weeks her pregnancy would start to show. She contented herself by telling her friends that she was now as sure that she should be married to the King as she was of her own death.

  Now that Anne was his wife, Henry was utterly resolved to brook no opposition. In anticipation of that, he banished Katherine to Ampthill Castle, forty-six miles from London, determined to break her resistance.

  Gladly Anne battled the nausea that had plagued her from the first. The only thing that helped was eating apples, for which she had developed a sudden craving. One day, coming out of her chamber with a host of courtiers, she saw Tom Wyatt approaching along the gallery. He stopped and bowed stiffly, avoiding her gaze. She would teach him to be distant, he that had once been so hot in pursuit!

  “Tom, do you have any apples?” she asked mischievously. “I have a wild desire to eat apples, such as I never had in my life before! The King tells me it is a sign that I am with child, but it is nothing of the sort.” At the look on Tom’s face, she burst out laughing.

  He turned on his heel and walked away. She looked for him all day, intending to apologize, but he did not return.

  —

  “I think I might go on pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham after Easter,” she told Henry.

  “And I think you should rest and not go gallivanting around the country,” he told her. “Go and give Our Lady thanks after you’ve been delivered. She will understand.”

  “But I’m feeling very well, apart from this nausea in the mornings,” she protested.

  “No, darling,” Henry commanded. “You will not take any risks with our son.”

  His insistence brought home to her, for the first time, the fact that, as his wife, she was now bound to obey him in all things. When she had been his mistress, she had had the mastery of him, and he could only have commanded her as her King, which he had rarely done, having always played the role of devoted servant. But now that they were married, he seemed to think he could be master of her as he had been master of Katherine. Well, he must think again! This pilgrimage was a small issue; she would let it go. But she was not about to let any man, be he king or husband, order her about.

  Together they hosted a great banquet in Anne’s presence chamber at Whitehall, and anyone might have guessed it was a wedding feast, for Henry was behaving like a bridegroom, fawning upon Anne, unable to refrain from caressing her. By the end of the evening he was so drunk that most of what he said was incomprehensible, but Anne’s aunt, the Duchess of Norfolk, gave him a sharp look when he began waving his hands at the sumptuous furnishings and asking her, “Has not the Lady Marquess got a grand dowry and a rich marriage, and all that we see? And the rest of the plate belongs to the lady also.”

  So much for discretion! Anne nudged him sharply to make him shut up.

  —

  Henry sent George to France discreetly to inform King François that he had married Anne. Soon after George had sailed, the unsuspecting Pope’s bull confirming Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury arrived in England, speedily followed by the good doctor’s consecration in Canterbury Cathedral. Henry and Anne had privately feared that Clement would reject Cranmer, but whatever he might have heard about him, he too seemed keen to avoid an irrevocable breach between Henry and Rome.

  George returned to court early in April, whereupon Henry summoned his Council and informed them that he had married Anne two months before, and that she was carrying the heir to England.

  “You should have seen their faces!” he recounted, joining her for dinner afterward. “Stunned silence—then a belated rush to congratulate me. They have advised me to inform Katherine at once. I’m sending Norfolk and Suffolk to Ampthill the day after tomorrow.”

  “I don’t envy them,” Anne said. “You know how she will take it.”

  “I don’t care how she takes it! I’ll not have her making any more trouble. She must accept that I am married, and that henceforth she is to abstain from the title of queen and be called the Princess Dowager of Wales, as Arthur’s widow.”

  Neither of them was surprised when the two dukes returned and reported that Katherine had defied them. As long as she lived, she had declared, she would call herself queen.

  “By God, I’ll silence her!” Henry raged.


  “What can she do?” Anne asked. “She is isolated from her friends, a lone woman protesting in vain. No one hears her.”

  “The whole of Europe hears her!” Henry stormed. “That weasel of an ambassador has his agents in her household, be sure of it. And although the Emperor is busy fighting the Turks, we cannot be certain of what he will do when he hears of our marriage. It could mean war. Darling, I’m not jesting.”

  Anne paused as the implications of their marriage began to sink in.

  “It could happen,” Henry said, “especially if Katherine appeals to Charles. And the worst of it is, she’d have a lot of my ignorant subjects on her side.”

  “If she is the true wife she claims to be, then her first duty is to you, and she would surely never do anything to your hurt,” Anne reassured him.

  “Yes, but what if she considers that her first duty is to persuade me that my conscience is in error?”

  “Henry, she’s been doing that for years. And the Emperor has his hands full.”

  “I know, but he could still make trouble. Why doesn’t Katherine just accept things? I’m never going back to her. Let’s hope that Cranmer’s judgment makes that plain.”

  The very next day, Henry instructed Cranmer to proceed to the examination, final determination, and judgment of his Great Matter.

  —

  Henry had decided that on the eve of Easter Sunday, Anne would appear as queen in public. On that Saturday morning, wearing robes of crimson velvet and decked with diamonds and other precious stones, she walked through Greenwich Palace in royal state to hear Mass in her closet, with sixty maids of honor following her, escorted by servants in liveries bearing her new motto, “The Most Happy.” In all the royal palaces, stonemasons, carpenters, glaziers, and seamstresses were even now at work replacing Katherine’s initials with hers, and the pomegranate of Spain with the crowned falcon, the badge she had chosen for herself. As she made her way slowly to Mass, past the astonished courtiers crowding into the halls and galleries, she made a point of cradling her hands over the slight swell of her stomach, hinting at the prince that lay within her.