Henry VIII: The King and His Court

by Alison Weir

  Katherine accompanied Henry on his progress, but he did not visit her in the evenings. They put on a united front when they visited Mary at Hunsdon, and when it was time to move on to Beaulieu, although Henry was “ready to depart by a good space, he tarried for the Queen, and so they rode forth together.”4 At Beaulieu, however, Henry was reunited with Anne Boleyn, who stayed a month, hunting with him and taking supper in his privy chamber.

  Anne was still playing hard to get. When the King became too passionate, she would tactically withdraw home to Hever—presumably Katherine, who now knew what was going on, was only too happy to let her—and then Henry would have to beg her to come back. It is likely that Anne had realised that, if she played her cards right, she could win not just her King but also the consort’s crown. Although monarchs did not normally marry commoners, there was a precedent: in 1464, Edward IV had married Elizabeth Wydeville, a knight’s widow, for love.

  Others were wise to the game Anne was playing. In August 1527, Mendoza reported: “The King is so swayed by his passions. It is generally believed that, if he can obtain a divorce, he will end by marrying a daughter of Master Boleyn.”5

  Seventeen of Henry’s letters to Anne, dating from 1527–1529, survive in the Vatican archives; her replies are unfortunately lost. The King’s letters betray his deep passion and longing to possess his elusive lady, and convey a barely restrained eroticism: “Henceforth my heart shall be dedicate to you alone, greatly desirous that so my body could be as well,” one read, and it ended, “Written by the hand of the servant who in heart, body and will is, Your loyal and most ensured servant, H. autre ♥ ne cherche R.” “Give yourself up, body and soul, to me,” he pleaded, adding that he wished himself “at this time private with you.” “I wish you in my arms,” he declared in another letter, and then, very daring, told her he was sending her “some flesh, representing my name, which is hart’s flesh for Henry, prognosticating that hereafter you must enjoy some of mine, which I would were now. . . . I would we were together an evening.” One letter was written with “the hand of him that longeth to be yours,” while another ended with him “wishing myself, specially an evening, in my sweetheart’s arms, whose pretty dukkys [breasts] I trust shortly to kiss.” Growing ever more ardent, he avowed in a later letter: “I trust within a while after to enjoy that which I have so longed for, to both our comforts. . . . I would you were in my arms, or I in yours, for I think it long since I kissed you.” In one letter he refers to his having had rooms prepared for Anne at court, “which I trust ere long to cause you occupy; and then I trust to occupy yours.” It must have required all Anne’s strength and presence of mind to resist such passionate addresses.

  Yet resist them she did. That the affair was not consummated is attested to by the fact that in 1530, the Spanish ambassador reported that there was “no positive proof of adultery; . . . on the contrary, several letters proving the opposite.”6 In 1531, Henry himself swore to Katherine that he had not committed adultery with Anne.7 A rumour reached Rome in 1531 that Anne had miscarried of a child, but there is no other evidence for this.8

  Late in 1526, Henry had realised that he was not Anne’s only suitor. The poet Thomas Wyatt was enamoured of her and one day stole her locket. Despite her protests, he would not return it, but wore it as a trophy. A day or so later, the King took one of her rings as a keepsake. Soon afterwards, Henry was playing bowls with Suffolk, Bryan, and Wyatt when a dispute arose between Henry and Wyyatt as to who had won. Pointing with the hand on which Anne’s ring was prominently displayed, Henry cried, “I tell thee, it is mine.” Craftily, Wyatt asked permission to measure the distance and, taking off Anne’s locket, used the chain to do so, saying, “I hope it will be mine.” The King was furious, and stalked off, muttering, “It may be so, but then I am deceived.” When he questioned Anne on the subject, she denied that Wyatt meant anything to her.9

  Anne Boleyn’s relationship with Thomas Wyatt has long been the subject of controversy. George Wyatt claimed that the poet had expressed his feelings for Anne “somewhere in his verses,” and historians have searched ever since for that allusion, drawing all kinds of conclusions. But in fact only four poems could be said to be evidence for the affair, if affair it was, since all the interest seems to have been on Wyatt’s side; Anne appears to have spurned his advances. The first is a riddle entitled

  “Of His Love, Called Anna”:

  What word is it that changeth not,

  Tho’ it be turned and made in twain?

  It is mine Anna, God it wot,

  And eke the causer of my pain,

  Who love rewarded with disdain.

  The second poem is the famous “Noli me tangere” (Do not touch me), which is based on a work by Petrarch:

  Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt;

  As well as I may spend his time in vain!

  And graven with diamonds in letters plain

  There is written her fair neck round about,

  “Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,

  And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”

  The third poem was written after Wyatt had found a new mistress, who may have Elizabeth Darrell, with whom he was involved as late as 1537:

  Then do I love again;

  If thou ask whom, sure since I did refrain

  Her, that did set our country in a roar.

  After Anne Boleyn’s execution, when it was dangerous to refer to any previous entanglement with her, Wyatt amended this last line to “Brunette, that set my wealth in such a roar.” The fourth poem was written when Wyatt accompanied Henry and Anne on a state visit to Calais in 1532:

  Sometime I fled the fire that me brent [burned]

  By sea, by land, by water and by wind,

  And now I follow the coals that be quenched

  From Dover to Calais, against my mind.

  Lo, how desire is both sprung and spent!

  The tale of Henry’s altercation with Wyatt comes from the poet’s grandson, George Wyatt, and was probably handed down in the family; there is no reason to disbelieve its substance, although the details may have been embroidered. This and the above poems are sufficient testimony to Wyatt’s pursuit of Anne.

  Some have claimed that other evidence for it lies in the so-called Devonshire Manuscript, a book of nearly two hundred poems composed by, and circulated within, the Boleyn circle at court.10 In one margin are written the words, “I am yours, An.” The handwriting is not, however, that of Anne herself, and the manuscript must date from the 1530s since the original owner, whose initials are on the binding, was probably Norfolk’s daughter, Lady Mary Howard, who was only seven in 1526. Other contributors appear to have been Anne’s cousin Madge Shelton and the Lady Margaret Douglas, both of whom came to court in the 1530s, but not Anne herself. One hundred twenty-five of the poems have been attributed, some erroneously, to Wyatt, who was writing throughout that decade.

  In May 1530, the imperial ambassador, Eustache Chapuys, informed the Emperor that the Duke of Suffolk had been banished from court for warning an unreceptive King that Anne was unfit to be queen because she had had “criminal” relations with an unnamed courtier, “whom she loves very much and whom the King had formerly chased from court for jealousy.” When Anne heard what Suffolk had said, she was fearful of the scandal being revived, and begged the King to send the unnamed gentleman away from court once more. Henry complied, but immediately regretted this decision and persuaded Anne to agree to the man’s return.11

  At that time, Suffolk, who was falling out of favour, had good reasons of his own for discrediting Anne, and Chapuys himself was not above reporting mere rumours as fact, so perhaps this tale should not be taken too seriously. Furthermore, the reports may not even refer to Wyatt, although other writers believed they did.

  Three later Catholic sources—the Spanish Chronicle (written before 1552),12 Nicholas Harpsfield (c. 1557), and Nicholas Sander (1585)—all eager to defame Anne Boleyn’s memory, would repeat the tale that An
ne and Wyatt had been lovers. The author of the Spanish Chronicle gives lurid details of the affair, which is said to have begun one night at Hever. According to this source, when later Wyatt confessed all to the King, Henry refused to believe him. Harpsfield also says it was Wyatt who warned Henry that Anne was “not meet to be coupled with Your Grace,” admitting that he knew this “as one that have had my carnal pleasure.” According to this account, Henry praised him for his honesty and told him not to repeat what he had said. Harpsfield claimed he had got his facts from a merchant, Antonio Bonvisi, who had been close to Wolsey, More, and Thomas Cromwell, and had been acquainted with Wyatt. Sander states that Wyatt told the Council about his affair with Anne before he went to the King, and claims that Henry accused the poet of calumny. When Wyatt sent Suffolk to the King with a message to say he could prove what he said, Henry declined to probe further, saying that Wyatt was a bold villain who could not be trusted. It is of course possible that Anne had had an affair with Wyatt before she became involved with the King, and that in 1526 he had tried to revive it despite her indifference and her desire to dissociate herself from a questionable past.

  It would appear that Wyatt’s position at court became untenable as the King’s passion for Anne intensified. In January 1527, learning that Sir John Russell was about to depart on an embassy to Rome, Wyatt sought him out. “If you please, I will ask leave, get money and go with you,” he said. Russell agreed.13 After their return in May 1527, Wyatt maintained a low profile and stayed away from Anne.

  During Wolsey’s absence in France, Anne Boleyn’s influence was steadily increasing. The Cardinal did not know it yet, but his monopoly on power was gradually being weakened. Once Anne’s affair with the King became public knowledge, courtiers came to view her as an important alternative source of patronage,14 and she began immediately to use her new power to advance her family and friends. As her confidence increased, she grew “very haughty and stout [proud], having all manner of jewels or rich apparel that might be gotten with money.”15 With the Queen, however, her behaviour was circumspect, and her mistress treated her with distant courtesy. Yet Katherine was not able to resist the occasional jibe. Once, when the King was playing cards with them both, and Anne turned up several kings in a row, Katherine turned to her and said, “My lady Anne, you have good hap to stop at a king, but you are not like others, you will have all or none!”16

  Wolsey was soon to discover with a nasty jolt how things stood. When he returned from France on 17 September, he rode at once to Richmond, bearing rich gifts for the King from Francis I. As was his usual custom, he sent a message to Henry requesting a private audience to discuss his mission, asking where his master would receive him. But Anne was with the King, and before Henry could answer, she addressed the messenger in ringing tones, “Where else is the Cardinal to come? Tell him that he may come here, where the King is.”17 The gauntlet was thrown: from now on, there would be a bitter power struggle between the King’s minister and his sweetheart.

  After the treaty with France had been formally confirmed in September 1527, Henry VIII and Francis I exchanged orders of chivalry. Henry sent Francis the Order of the Garter, and Francis bestowed on Henry the French equivalent, the Order of St. Michael, which had been founded by Louis XI in 1469 in imitation of the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece. Each sovereign sent the other a beautifully illuminated copy of the statutes of each respective Order.18 Henry accepted the Order of St. Michael with pride, and formally promised to wear, on appropriate occasions, its collar of gold scallop shells with a pendant of the Archangel Michael, its long, ermine-lined mantle of white cloth of silver edged with gold scallop shells, and its cape and hood of crimson velvet embroidered in gold.19

  Henry’s ambassador to France, the “comely”20 Sir Anthony Browne, half-brother to Sir William Fitzwilliam and a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, had been present at the chapter of the Order of St. Michael that was traditionally (but not regularly) held on the feast of Michaelmas, 29 September, but he was disparaging about the ceremonies he had witnessed, and told Henry, “They would fain follow the fashion of your Order, but they fail in everything. I think in all the world there is no such Order as yours.”21

  On 10 November, the same day that Francis I had received the Garter from Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, Henry VIII was formally invested with the Order of St. Michael. Once again, the banqueting house at Greenwich was decked out in rich tapestries, and the disguising house was adorned with a white marble fountain and two trees fashioned from silk: a Tudor hawthorn and a Valois mulberry. After the investiture, in which the King was robed in his insignia by Anne de Montmorency, Great Master of France, there was a tournament (which ended early because the autumn light was poor), a banquet, and a masque. So brilliant was the occasion that the next day it seemed to have been “a fantastical dream.”22

  The winter of 1527–1528 was exceptionally bitter—even the sea froze in places. The King kept Christmas at Greenwich, but Anne Boleyn remained at Hever. In January 1528, probably through her influence, Sir Nicholas Carew, who was her cousin, was restored to his old place in the Privy Chamber, much to Wolsey’s chagrin. But Carew was no longer the wild rake he had once been, and was now a sober politician and supporter of the French alliance.

  The weather was much improved when, in March, Anne and her mother stayed as the King’s guests at Windsor. Henry was attended only by his riding household, and every afternoon he and Anne went hunting or hawking in Windsor Forest, returning after dark, or walked together in the Great Park. In the evenings, they amused themselves with cards, dice, and dancing, played music, and recited poetry. One day the King ordered a picnic, which was held at Windsor Manor. Tables and stools were borrowed from the townsfolk of Windsor, and food and kitchen equipment were brought down from the castle. Henry and Anne and their friends feasted on plovers, partridges, larks, and rabbits, as well as confections with lashings of cream, which was supplied by the parkkeeper’s wife.23 On another occasion, Anne asked Thomas Heneage, one of Wolsey’s servants who was about to be appointed a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, to ask the Cardinal if he would be so kind as to send her some carps and shrimps for her table.

  Anne loved hunting with Henry, because this was one of the few occasions when she could have him almost to herself, with only a few trusted companions in attendance. He was delighted to be able to share his favourite pastime with her, and bought her four French saddles of black velvet with silk and gold fringing, complete with footstools, matching harnesses, and reins, as well as bows, arrows, and gloves.24 Sometimes she would ride behind him on his own mount, using a black velvet pillion saddle—“a most unusual procedure,” commented a scandalised imperial ambassador. 25 Anne herself ordered her palfreys specially from Ireland.26 When they were apart, Henry would write to tell her of his successes in the chase, and send her gifts of venison. Not all of their hunting expeditions were felicitous: once, Anne’s greyhound savaged and killed a cow, and the King had to pay 10s (£150) in compensation to its irate owner. Anne was also fond of archery, and once tried her hand at bowls, although she was beaten by Richard Hill, the Sergeant of the Cellar who was one of the King’s gambling partners. Henry paid him £12 (£3,600) on Anne’s behalf.27

  Anne was “well skilled at all games fashionable at court.” 28 She was an inveterate gambler, but often rash, so the King gave her only £5 (£1,500) at a time, often in small change, from his Privy Purse, “for playing money.”29 Nevertheless, his accounts show that he often lost large sums to her. One of their favourite games was “Pope July,” which appears to have been a satirical interpretation of Henry’s nullity suit.30

  While she was at Windsor, Anne managed to offend Sir John Russell, an influential member of the Privy Chamber who had become involved in a bitter dispute with her cousin and client, Sir Thomas Cheney, another of the King’s Gentlemen, over the marriage of Russell’s two step-daughters, who were Wolsey’s wards. Cheney and another courtier, Sir John Wallop, wanted to marry them,
but Wolsey and Russell had refused their permission. On an earlier occasion, Anne had successfully intervened when Cheney had been in disgrace with Wolsey. However, this time Henry took Russell’s part, and forbade Cheney to enter the Privy Chamber until he had made his peace with Russell. But the row continued, and several months later, when Wolsey banished Cheney from court, Anne summoned him back, “in spite of the Cardinal, not without using rude words to Wolsey.” At that point, Wolsey capitulated, and Cheney married his heiress.31 The affair highlighted Anne’s increasing ascendancy in the power struggle between her and Wolsey, and turned Russell into the first of the many powerful enemies she would make during the course of her career.

  35

  “A Thousand Cases of Sweat”

  Until 1528, Henry VIII enjoyed good health, but from then on he was troubled by a series of minor ailments. He began to suffer feverish headaches and “rheums,” which could have been due to catarrh, migraine, rising blood pressure, or even the head injuries he had received. In 1528, he had a bladder infection, and around the same time a sore appeared on his leg; this may have been a varicose ulcer, an abscess or a septic condition of the bone, such as osteomyelitis, caused by injury. His surgeon, Thomas Vicary, temporarily cured it, but it would later recur.