by Alison Weir
The weather remained fine. In the afternoons, Henry watched Francis’s sons playing tennis, and laid bets on the outcome; one day, he lost £157 (£47,100).24 He made an offering at the shrine of Our Lady of Boulogne25 and entertained the French nobles to a sumptuous feast. There was no jousting and no dancing, since there were no ladies present. Henry lavished gifts on his host, among them fine horses, mastiffs, falcons, and jewels, and gave the Dauphin and his brothers 300,000 gold crowns.26 His gifts were so generous that Francis had to borrow funds in order to present Henry with six horses and he also gave him his own bed, hung with crimson velvet.
On 24 October, Francis invested Norfolk and Suffolk with the Order of St. Michael. The next day, he left for Calais with Henry, who was resplendent in a cloth of gold gown over a slashed doublet ornamented with diamond and ruby clasps. Outside Calais, Francis was greeted by the Duke of Richmond, “a goodly young prince full of favour and beauty”;27 three thousand guns sounded another salute as the royal cavalcade rode into the town and through streets lined with English soldiers and serving men. 28 Francis was lodged in great state, at the expense of the Calais merchants, at their headquarters, the Staple Inn, where 2,400 beds and stabling for two thousand horses had been made ready for his retinue. That evening, the French King sent the Provost of Paris to Anne Boleyn with a costly diamond as a token of his esteem.
On the Sunday evening, there was bull- and bearbaiting in the courtyard of the Staple Inn. A huge variety of meat, game, and fish was served at supper in the banqueting hall, which had been hung with silver and gold tissue adorned with gold wreaths which sparkled with precious stones, reflecting the light from twenty silver chandeliers, each bearing one hundred wax candles. A seven-tier buffet groaned under the weight of the Tudor gold plate. Henry appeared in purple cloth of gold with a collar of fourteen rubies, the smallest the size of a goose’s egg, and two rows of pearls, from which hung the Black Prince’s ruby.29
After supper, Anne Boleyn and seven other ladies, including Lady Mary Howard, Lady Rochford, and Lady Fitzwalter, all masked and clothed in unusual outfits of cloth of gold and crimson tinsel with gold laces, danced before the two Kings. Then they led out the gentlemen, Anne herself partnering Francis. Henry could not resist pulling off her mask to show the French King who he was dancing with,30 but Francis rose to the occasion superbly, and after the dance had ceased, sat chatting with Anne in a window seat for an hour.31 The evening ended with Henry escorting his brother monarch to his apartments.
On 28 October, Henry held a chapter of the Order of the Garter, which Francis attended, wearing his Garter robes. Here, the two Kings made a solemn pledge to go on crusade against the Turks. Later that day, they watched wrestling matches between Henry’s Cornish champions and the French, which the Cornishmen won.32 Francis invited Richmond and Surrey to visit his court to complete their education, and it was agreed that they should accompany him back to France, where they would remain until September 1533.
At the end of the visit, on 29 October, Henry accompanied Francis onto French soil, and there the two monarchs said farewell with “princely countenance and hearty words”;33 a stronger rapport had been established between them, and Henry was confident that Francis would prove a supportive friend.
After the King returned to Calais, violent storms lashed the Channel coast, and he and Anne were obliged to remain where they were for nearly two weeks. When the tempest had abated, fog set in, but the King insisted on sailing back to England at midnight on 12 November. He and Anne then took a leisurely route through Kent, staying at Leeds Castle, and again at Stone on 20 November; they arrived at Eltham Palace on 24 November.34 Soon afterwards, the King made a state entry into London and gave thanks at St. Paul’s for the success of his visit and his safe return.
In December, Henry escorted Anne and Giles de la Pommeraye to the Tower of London. After they had inspected the building works, the King allowed his guests the rare privilege of entering his treasure chamber, where he presented a beautiful gold cup to the ambassador as a token of his gratitude. He also gave Anne a cupboard, and she selected gilt cups, flagons, basins, and candelabra for her New Year’s gifts.35 Christmas was spent at Greenwich, with such a lavish banquet being served on Twelfth Night that temporary kitchens had to be built in the grounds. Soon afterwards, Anne realised she was pregnant.
42
“Anna Regina Angliae”
Henry had to move quickly if his expected son was to be born in wedlock. With the weight of scholarly opinion in his favour, he now considered himself a free man. Leaving Archbishop Cranmer to sort out the formalities later, he secretly married Anne Boleyn. Edward Hall gives the date as 14 November 1532,1 which was that accepted by later writers, but Cranmer, in a letter, refers to the ceremony as having been performed on or about the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, 25 January 1533.2 The wedding is said to have taken place before daybreak in “the high chamber” over the Holbein Gate at York Place.3 The officiating priest was either Dr. Rowland Lee, the King’s chaplain,4 or George Brown, 5 Prior of the Austin Friars in London,6 a vocal supporter of the nullity suit. The King apparently pretended that the Pope had sanctioned the union.7 There were few witnesses:8 Sir Henry Norris; Thomas Heneage; Anne Savage, a client of William Brereton;9 and a Groom of the Privy Chamber, perhaps Brereton himself.10
Their marriage might have been secret, but both Henry and Anne took great delight in dropping hints about it. In late January, people applying for places in Anne’s household were assured that they would not have long to wait until she was Queen.11 In February, “amidst great company,” Anne told “one she loved well, and who was formerly sent away from the court by the King out of jealousy, that she had had a furious hankering to eat apples, and the King had told her that it was a sign she was pregnant.”12 The man she spoke to may have been Wyatt, who was appointed to the Privy Council around this time. Then, on 24 February, Anne hosted a banquet for the French ambassador in her apartments at York Place. Henry was embarrassingly attentive to her and her ladies; largely ignored Suffolk, Lord Chancellor Audley, and the other guests; and got so drunk that he became either incoherent or indiscreet. Waving a hand at the rich hangings and plate, he asked the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, “Has not Madame la Marquise a grand dot [dowry] and a rich marriage, as all that we see belongs to her?”13 The court was a-buzz with speculation, but hardly anyone guessed the truth.
That month, Queen Katherine, who had been staying at Easthampstead, was ordered to move to Ampthill Castle with a reduced household. Her staunch friend, Maria de Salinas, Lady Willoughby, had already been dismissed, in August 1532, and it was probably at this time that some of the Queen’s thirty maids of honour, among them Jane Seymour, were sent home.
On 30 March 1533, Thomas Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. There was great mutual liking, trust, and respect between the King and his new Primate, even though they did not always agree on theological matters; Henry realised how much Cranmer was sacrificing to serve him, for the Archbishop would greatly have preferred a life of study to one at the centre of public affairs. He had no love for pomp and ceremony, but was a simple, charitable man with a high regard for the truth, a zealous reformist who was unswervingly loyal to the King yet vulnerable to the vicious machinations of his enemies on the other side of the religious divide. In the years to come, Henry would on several occasions intervene to protect Cranmer from those who would have destroyed him.
At his consecration, Cranmer took the traditional vow of allegiance to the Pope, but added that he would not be bound by any authority that was contrary to the law of God or of England. Cranmer was aware of the King’s secret marriage to Anne Boleyn, and was ready to take radical steps to put it on a legal footing, whatever the Pope might say. To this end, in April, Parliament passed the first—and arguably the most important—of several pieces of revolutionary legislation that would bring about the Reformation of the Church in England, the Act of Restraint of Appeals. This Act stressed the sove
reign authority of the English state: its preamble majestically proclaimed, “This realm of England is an empire, governed by one supreme head and King having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown,” who owed submission to no one but God. This was the first direct challenge to the Pope’s jurisdiction over the English Church. In future, final appeals in spiritual matters would be heard, not in Rome, but in England, where the King was from now on to enjoy “plenary, whole and entire power, pre-eminence authority, prerogative and jurisdiction.” The Act not only created an autonomous Church of England with the monarch as its governor, but effectively prohibited the hearing of the King’s nullity suit by the Pope, and barred Katherine from appealing to the Vatican against any decision that an ecclesiastical court in England might take.
No English sovereign had ever before been granted such power, nor would be again. The King had been exalted above other mortals, not only as a temporal ruler whose authority was now defined for the first time by the language of empire, but as the spiritual leader of his people, strong in virtue and righteousness. It was a vindication of everything that Henry had striven for during these last years, and he basked in the knowledge and conviction that not only Parliament but also God Himself were on his side.
Few spoke out against the new order. Fisher secretly wrote to the Emperor, begging him in vain to use force to bring Henry to his senses. More, far from enjoying a quiet retirement, was actively encouraging those who supported the Queen. Katherine’s former confessor, Friar John Forest, was imprisoned for speaking out in her favour. Sir John Gage, Henry’s rather unworldly Vice Chamberlain, dared to voice his misgivings to the King, only to be banished from court.14 But these were lone voices among a silent majority.
On Easter Eve, 12 April 1533, Anne Boleyn appeared in public as Queen for the first time. Wearing cloth of frieze and diamonds, and preceded by trumpeters, she went to mass in the chapel royal attended by sixty ladies; Lady Mary Howard carried her train. The King observed his astonished nobles closely to ensure that they were paying his wife the respect due to her rank, and after mass “begged the lords to go and visit and make their court to the new Queen.” Even Anne’s supporters were taken aback by her sudden elevation, and did not know whether to laugh or cry.15 On Easter Sunday, in churches all over the land, she was publicly prayed for as Queen by bewildered subjects who were under the impression that the King was still married to his first wife.
Anne was assigned a household of two hundred persons, all appointed or approved by the King, who was present when they took their oaths of allegiance. Thomas de Burgh, Lord Borough, was appointed Chamberlain, but was replaced later that year by George Brooke, ninth Lord Cobham; Sir James Boleyn, Wiltshire’s brother, was Chancellor; Sir William Coffin (or Cosyn), a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, was Master of Horse; John Uvedale, late of Richmond’s Council of the North, was the Queen’s Secretary, while George Taylor, who had served her father, was her Receiver General; Richard Bartlett, late of Wolsey’s household, was her physician, and Nicholas Shaxton her Almoner. Among her chaplains were William Latimer, John Skip, and William Betts, who would be replaced on his death in 1535 by Matthew Parker; all were evangelicals, and the Queen expected them to instruct her household “to embrace the wholesome doctrine and infallible knowledge of Christ’s Gospel.” 16
Anne’s ladies-in-waiting included Lady Margaret Douglas; Lady Mary Howard, Mary Boleyn, Lady Rochford, the young Countess of Surrey, Lady Berkely, Elizabeth, wife of Sir James Boleyn—whom Anne “never loved”17—and Elizabeth, Countess of Worcester. A Mistress Marshall was Mother of the Maids, and among her charges were the Queen’s cousin, Margaret Shelton;18 Norfolk’s mistress Elizabeth Holland; Anne Saville; Anne Gainsford, now Lady Zouche; Grace Parker; and Jane Seymour, whose post had been secured for her through the good offices of Sir Francis Bryan, and who was among those ladies who received a New Year’s gift from the King the following January. The Queen employed both male and female fools. 19 There was such a frantic demand for places in her household that many were disappointed. Lady Lisle tried for years to have her daughter Katherine Basset accepted, begging anyone with any influence at court to help and sending the Queen a succession of gifts, but to no avail.20
Anne’s servants all wore her livery of blue and purple, and their doublets were embroidered with her new motto, “La plus heureuse” (The most happy).21 She outlaid £1,000 (£300,000) a year on their wages and tips,22 and there were rich pickings to be had from clientage and patronage: the evidence shows that the members of Anne’s household were particularly assertive in seeking favours and advancement for themselves and their clients.
According to William Latimer, who wrote his laudatory chronicle in Elizabeth’s reign, the new Queen was determined to set a high moral standard for her household, probably with a view to outrivalling her predecessor and giving the lie to those who believed she was of bad character. One of her first acts was to summon her council of officers and instruct them in their duties. They were to be honourable, discreet, just, and thrifty in their conduct, and a godly “spectacle” to others, attending mass daily and displaying a “virtuous demeanour.” On pain of instant dismissal and perpetual banishment from court, “to their utter shame,” they must not quarrel, swear, or frequent “evil, lewd and ungodly disposed brothels.”23 It would appear that these austere rules were generally observed: years later, Anne’s silkwoman, Jane Wilkinson, told John Foxe she had never seen “better order amongst the ladies and gentlewomen of the court than in Anne Boleyn’s day.”
The Queen’s ladies were required to be above reproach. Anne gave each of them a little book of prayers and psalms that could be hung from a girdle. In order to prevent them from getting into mischief through idleness, she made her women devote hours of their time to sewing garments for the poor, for distribution by the Queen on progress.24 Anne did her share. She made some of her own clothes—an embroidered headpiece and coif said to have been worked by her are at Hever Castle— as well as hangings and household embroideries. George Wyatt relates that Hampton Court was made sumptuous by “rich and exquisite works wrought by her own hand and needle, and also by her ladies”; in 1598, a German traveller, Paul Hentzner, saw there an exquisite tester that Anne had made for Henry VIII’s bed. Even in the late seventeenth century, Anne’s needlework was still on show, with that of Mary II, although none of her pieces at Hampton Court survive today.
Anne was generous in her charities. George Wyatt estimated that her annual charitable donations amounted to £1,500 (£450,000). She also set intellectual standards for the court by sponsoring scholars and reformers, who were brought to her attention by her chaplains and also by Dr. William Butts,25 now “a considerable man of affairs” at court26 and even more radical than Anne in his religious views. Butts was responsible for the preferment of several young men from his old college at Cambridge, Gonville Hall, where Shaxton and Skip had also studied. It was Butts who secured chaplaincies to the Queen for William Latimer, as well as William Betts, who had once been arrested for circulating forbidden books at Oxford. Anne also gave financial support to the universities and funded the studies of poor scholars, among whom was Wolsey’s bastard son, Thomas Winter.27
Anne’s heraldic emblem as Queen of England was a white falcon with a crown and sceptre standing with wings elevated on a tree stump covered with Tudor roses.28 This badge, and her initials and coat of arms, replaced Katherine’s in all the royal palaces.29 The King gave Anne Baynard’s Castle and Havering, which had once been assigned to Katherine of Aragon, as part of her jointure. Baynard’s Castle remained a store for her large and valuable collection of Wardrobe stuff, much of which she had inherited from Katherine.30
The Boleyn faction was at the zenith of its power. In order to justify his marriage, Henry would use religion, art, and every aspect of court culture to exalt Anne’s image and emphasise the legitimacy of her title. Next to the King, she was the greatest fount of patronage in the kingdom, and she would zealously utilise h
er influence to promote the King’s religious policies and the cause of reform. Of the ten bishops who were appointed during the period 1532–1536, seven were her clients. In defiance of the law, she kept an English Bible in her apartments for all to read, and openly debated its contents with the King at dinner.31 In public, she was rarely seen without a book of devotions in her hands.
Several pious works that Anne owned as Queen survive, some of them beautifully illuminated manuscripts with decorative borders in the French Renaissance style. The Bible that she kept on display may have been her presentation copy of Tyndale’s New Testament of 1534, which is bound in black leather and bears the name ANNA REGINA ANGLIAE in faded red lettering on the gold page edges.32 Anne also owned a French translation of the Bible by the humanist Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, which was printed at Antwerp the same year and dedicated to Henry VIII and herself: their initials and crowned Tudor roses appear on the binding. 33 Her manuscript of Clement Marot’s sermons on the Good Shepherd came from one of the foremost workshops in France, and has her arms and falcon badge emblazoned on the frontispiece;34 it may have been a gift from Francis I. At Christmas 1532, Lord Morley had given Anne his translation of “The Epistles and Gospels for the LII Sundays in the Year.” 35 Another important illuminated manuscript owned by her was “The Ecclesiaste,” which has the King’s arms impaling hers on the front cover, and a binding of black velvet with brass corners.36
Anne and Cromwell were natural allies, through both self-interest and their religious and political views, although they acted independently of each other. Cromwell helped Anne to assist several reformers who had fallen foul of the law and sought her protection; he also helped to administer her household, and he used his influence to secure preferment in it for his clients.37
