Six Wives of Henry VIII

by Alison Weir

  Even Sanders, however, conceded that Anne was 'handsome to look at, amusing in her way, and a good dancer', while John Barlow, a divine who was later in Anne's service, thought her 'very eloquent and gracious', but less beautiful than Elizabeth Blount, Henry VIII's former mistress. Anne Boleyn undoubtedly had charm and personality in great measure, as well as that indefinable quality, sex appeal. It was this that made her appealing to so many men. Though not beautiful in the conventional sense, she had the gift of making men think she was.

  Her portraits - and there are several extant - show in nearly every case a dark-haired woman with a thin face, high cheekbones and a pointed chin - facial characteristics all inherited by her daughter, Elizabeth I, who resembled her in everything but colouring. Portraits claiming to be of Anne Boleyn as a young woman at the French court are all spurious. The most famous portrait of her is that in the National Portrait Gallery, a copy of a lost original, painted between 1533 and 1536. The Gallery portrait, as well as other versions (notably at Windsor Castle, Hever Castle, and the Deanery at Ripon), once formed part of a long gallery set of royal portraits, popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean times. This portrait type still has something of the charm and vivacity that made Anne so attractive. She wears a black velvet gown with furred sleeves, a French hood edged with pearls, and a rope of pearls with a 'B' pendant. Anne was fond of initial pendants, and had at least two others - an 'A' and an 'AB', both of which were inherited and worn by her daughter. Some versions of the portrait show Anne wearing a golden filet and carrying a red rose in her hands. The miniaturist John Hoskins made a fine copy of the lost original of the National Portrait Gallery picture in the seventeenth century; now in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch, its quality is striking, reflecting the artist's great skill in this medium.

  Other authentic representations of Anne Boleyn are little known. Her features were faithfully depicted on a medal struck in 1534 bearing the legend 'A.R. The Moost Happi'; Henry may have intended to issue it when Anne presented him with a son, for she was pregnant with her second child that year. Now it is defaced, but, in spite of this, the image is clear, in essence the same as the portraits already discussed, and the face depicted on an enamelled ring now at Chequers, the Prime Minister's country house. This was made in 1575 for Elizabeth I by an artist who had perhaps seen Anne Boleyn, or copied a lost portrait.

  Some portraits said to be of Anne are of doubtful authenticity, such as the Holbein sketch at Weston Park. The sitter wears an English gable hood of the 1530s, and has dark hair, large eyes, a long nose and full, sensual lips; her face is fuller than shown in authentic portraits, and her chin not so pointed. Copies in oils exist; one is at Hever Castle, and one was at Warwick Castle until recently. (At Hever, there is a companion portrait of Mary Boleyn, of doubtful authenticity.) Yet is this Anne? Because the sitter is shown from a different angle, it is hard to tell. Holbein was a far better artist than any of the workshop limners who produced copies of authentic portraits, and his portraits are stunningly realistic when compared with the flat portrait panels produced in the studios of the age. Moreover, the portrait was first identified as Anne Boleyn in 1649, not too late to be accepted as proof of a reliable traditionofauthenticity.

  Anne Boleyn was highly accomplished, intelligent and witty, and in her younger years, according to George Wyatt, 'passing sweet and cheerful'. She loved gambling, played both cards and dice, had a taste for wine, and enjoyed a joke. She was also fond of hunting and the occasional game of bowls. At the glittering French court, she shone at singing, making music, dancing and conversation, and became friendly with the King's sister, the blue-stocking Margaret of Alenqon, a lady of great talent and humour, who encouraged Anne's interest in poetry and literature.

  Not surprisingly, the young men of the court swarmed round her. Francis I was impressed by the way she handled them, and told her father in a letter that she was discreet and modest. He had heard a rumour that she desired to be a nun; 'This I should regret,' he wrote. It is highly unlikely that Anne Boleyn had any inclination whatsoever towards the religious life; perhaps she used it as a weapon with which to ward off unwelcome suitors, or whet the appetites of those men she found attractive. There is some later evidence that she was perhaps not so virtuous during her years in France as has hitherto been supposed. Brantome tells us that 'rarely, or never, did any maid or wife leave that court chaste', and in 1533, Francis I confided to the Duke of Norfolk, Anne's uncle, that she 'had not always lived virtuously'. More tellingly, Henry VIII told the Spanish ambassador in 1536 that Anne had been 'corrupted' in France, and that he had discovered this when sexually experimenting with her. Whatever the extent of Anne's sexual experience in France, however, she was certainly much more discreet than her sister Mary, for no breath of scandal attached itself to her at the time. Nor would this have been in her interests, for she was eager to make a good marriage. One slip, and that ambition would be finished.

  Anne's prospects of marriage came under discussion while she was still in France. In 1515, her great-grandfather, James Butler, Earl of Ormonde, died without any male heir of his body to succeed him. The earldom was claimed both by his cousin, Sir Piers Butler, and by Sir Thomas Boleyn, his grandson. It was a contest that would drag on for fourteen years before a solution was reached, although in 1520 Sir Thomas saw a way of resolving the dispute. He proposed a marriage between his daughter Anne and James Butler, the son of Sir Piers. James was described by Cardinal Wolsey as 'right active, discreet and wise', and Thomas was agreeable to the earldom devolving upon him if he married Anne. Boleyn's brother-in-law, the Earl of Surrey, agreed to lay the proposal before the King, whose consent was necessary in such matters. Anne, of course, was not consulted, and no one thought to question whether she would be happy to exchange the sophistication of the French court for a primitive castle in Ireland.

  Henry VIII told Surrey he would consult Wolsey on the matter, and Surrey immediately wrote to the Cardinal, hoping to enlist his support, for James Butler was at that time a member of Wolsey's household, one of many young artistocrats who were sent to him to complete their education and gain experience of the court.

  Wolsey took his time. It was not until November 1521 that he informed the King that he intended to 'devise with your Grace how the marriage betwixt [James Butler] and Sir Thomas Boleyn's daughter may be brought to pass'. However, although negotiations dragged on, they were mysteriously abandoned in the autumn of 1522. It may be that Sir Thomas Boleyn had had second thoughts, and decided to pursue his own claim to the earldom of Ormonde after all. Whatever the reason, at the end of 1522 Anne Boleyn was no nearer to being betrothed than she had ever been.

  Anne had left France early that year. The recent pact between Henry VIII and Charles V had brought England and France to the brink of war, and English subjects living in France were advised to return home. Anne left Paris around January 1522, when English scholars were curtailing their studies at the Sorbonne. Queen Claude regretted losing a valued attendant, and King Francis, in a letter to Wolsey, expressed himself saddened by the 'strange' departure of the fascinating Boleyn.

  The Anne Boleyn who returned home to Hever was a very different person from the girl who had left it more than eight years before. Everything about her was now very French: her mode of dress, her manners, her speech, her behaviour. Having lived at the most civilised court in the world, she stood out by reason of her wit, her grace and her accomplishments. It was no time at all before Sir Thomas had secured her a place in the household of Katherine of Aragon, which she entered around February.

  At the English court, Anne's social skills brought her instant admiration from all quarters, and she was immediately chosen by the Master of the Revels to take part in one of the pageants planned for Lent. On 4 March Cardinal Wolsey gave a great banquet for the King and Queen at York Place, his London palace near Westminster. After dinner, the hall was cleared and a model of a castle called theChateau Vertwas wheeled in; from it issued five ladies and five g
entlemen, who danced together before the court, the King, as Ardent Desire, being one of the dancers. However, he had eyes for no one but his partner, Mary Boleyn, who was then his mistress. The other ladies were the King's sister, Mary Tudor, his aunt the Countess of Devon, Jane Parker, daughter of Lord Morley, who was betrothed to Anne's brother George, and Anne. All wore gowns of white satin embroidered with gold thread.

  In April 1522, Sir Thomas was appointed Treasurer of the royal household. Rather than deploring his daughter Mary's immorality, he was in fact capitalising on it, and hoping for greater rewards to come. Nor did he have to wait long, for in 1525 he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Rochford. But by that time, Henry's interest in Mary Boleyn had waned: if Wolsey's secretary and biographer, George Cavendish, is to be believed, he was casting amorous eyes in her sister Anne's direction, and had in fact been doing so since 1523. However, he had refrained from actively pursuing her, and had not disclosed his secret inclinations to anyone, least of all to the lady herself. Cavendish's information was probably correct; he was an eyewitness of the events of the period who was often taken into Wolsey's confidence, and Wolsey, of course, knew nearly all his master's secrets and made it his business to learn about the private intrigues of the court.

  In 1523, Anne Boleyn's life revolved around her duties within the Queen's household. Katherine liked to surround herself with attractive young women, often to her own detriment, and was a benevolent mistress to those who served her, never failing in courtesy towards them, and taking an almost maternal interest in their lives. Young men were made welcome in the Queen's apartments, and there were plenty of opportunities for flirtation. Anne had attracted a number of suitors, and one young man who was smitten with her charms was Henry Percy, the 21-year-old heir to the earldom of Northumberland. Percy had served on the Council of the North in 1522 before joining the household of Cardinal Wolsey, hoping like many other young men of similar rank to find preferment. Percy was the Cardinal's servitor at table; whenever Wolsey went to court, Percy would go with him, but as soon as he had been excused from his duties, he would resort to the Queen's apartments, there to chat and flirt with the maids of honour. Thus he had met Anne Boleyn, and before very long he had eyes for no one else.

  Anne Boleyn was not for nothing her father's daughter; she saw in Henry Percy not only an ardent suitor to whom she was attracted, but also the heir to one of the greatest and most ancient earldoms in England. The prospect of becoming Countess of Northumberland and chatelaine of Alnwick Castle, was a glorious one, and falling in love with Henry Percy was consequently very easy. He was quick to declare his feelings for her, and that summer he proposed marriage and secretly contracted himself to marry Anne before witnesses. But although their betrothal was to be kept a secret for the time being, the lovers could not conceal their feelings, and there was talk. It reached the ears of Cardinal Wolsey and alarmed him, for he was aware that Percy had been betrothed since 1516 to Lady Mary Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Percy had been very rash to involve himself with Anne Boleyn, a precontract being then as legally binding as a marriage. Anyway, in Wolsey's opinion, Anne Boleyn was no fit bride for a Percy, and it was unlikely that the Earl of Northumberland would ever have agreed to such a match.

  Wolsey wasted no time in laying the matter before the King, without whose permission no aristocratic marriage could be contracted and who was angry at not being consulted. According to Cavendish, who relates the whole episode as one with inside knowledge of it, the thought of Anne Boleyn betrothed to another man disturbed him, so much so that he reluctantly confessed to the Cardinal the 'secret affection' he had been nurturing for her, and ordered Wolsey to break the engagement. This Wolsey agreed was the best course, and when he arrived back at York Place, he summoned Percy and proceeded to lecture him sternly over his folly in involving himself with 'that foolish girl yonder in the court, Anne Boleyn'. In front of Cavendish and other onlookers, the Cardinal accused the young man of having offended his father and his sovereign; Anne was 'one such as neither of them will be agreeable with the matter', and anyway, 'His Highness intended to have preferred Anne Boleyn unto another person, although she knoweth it not'. Henry, of course, had done no such thing: he was reserving Anne for himself.

  Percy was dismayed at his master's words, but he outfaced the Cardinal and argued that he was 'old enough to choose a wife as my fancy served me best', emphasising Anne's 'right noble parentage, whose descent is equivalent with mine'. But Wolsey was not to be swayed, and called Percy a 'wilful boy'. Percy retorted that he had 'gone so far, before so many worthy witnesses', that he knew no way of extricating himself from his engagement without offending his conscience. Too late, he realised his error, for the Cardinal, well- versed in canon law, swooped. 'Think ye that the King and I know not what we have to do in as weighty a matter as this?' he interrupted smoothly. Percy was beaten, and he knew it. His father was sent for, and he was commanded in the King's name not to resort to Anne's company again. When the Earl of Northumberland arrived, he soundly berated his son, threatening to disinherit him if he did not do his duty. Then he had a long talk with the King and Wolsey, which resulted in a decision that Percy should marry Lady Mary Talbot as soon as it could be arranged. After that, Wolsey put in hand the legal process whereby Percy's contract with Anne Boleyn was 'clearly undone'.

  Forbidden to see Anne, Percy was frantic with worry about her, having no means of knowing what she had heard. In desperation, he sent her a message via his friend, James Melton, begging that she would never allow herself to be married to another man: 'Bid her remember her promise, which none can loose but God only.' But Percy's hopes were futile. In September 1523, he married Lady Mary Talbot, and went home to Northumberland. His marriage would prove a very unhappy one, blighted not only by incompatibility but by his own advancing ill health.

  Anne's first reaction, upon hearing that her betrothal to Percy had been broken, was not sorrow but anger. The Cardinal had ruined her life, the upstart butcher's son had dared to dismiss her as a 'hasty folly', and had had the effrontery to refer to her as 'a foolish girl'. Worst of all, he had proclaimed her unfit to mate with a Percy. Of the King's involvement in the affair, she suspected nothing; it was Wolsey with whom she was 'greatly offended'. If ever it lay in her power, she openly declared, 'she would work the Cardinal as much displeasure as he had done her.' However, it seemed she would have little opportunity to do so, for an order arrived almost immediately for her to return to her father's castle at Hever for a time. This made her so angry, says Cavendish, that 'she smoked'!

  Anne was left to simmer and sorrow at Hever for a year or more. As for the King's interest in her, this would seem to have been a case of out of sight out of mind; he was still preoccupied with her sister anyway, although his interest in Mary dwindled as the months went by. Anne's life during her exile is not documented. She may have attended the wedding of her brother George to Jane Parker in 1524; as a wedding present, the King granted George the manor of Grimston in Norfolk, which proves that any displeasure he may have felt towards the Boleyns on accountofthe Percy affair was transitory.

  Anne returned to court some time in 1524 or 1525, and resumed her duties in the Queen's household. In the months of her absence she had learned the hard way to be wary of men, although she still attracted them and once more established herself as one of the brightest young women at court.

  In 1525, the King's interest in Anne reawakened. He was intrigued by her grace and her sharp wit, while her sophistication and sexual allure were in delightful contrast to Queen Katherine's piety and grave dignity. Anne was twenty-four, Katherine approaching forty: in every way Anne was in direct contrast to his ageing wife. He himself was still magnificent, larger than life, in his middle thirties, and ripe for an affair. When he looked at Anne, he found himself drawn to her as he had been to no woman before her; and in view of the ease with which he had made his past conquests, he did not doubt that he would succeed in seducing her.

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nbsp; He was destined to be quickly disillusioned, for no sooner was the object of his desire firmly established back at court than she seemed to be encouraging the advances of the poet Thomas Wyatt, a married man whose wife's adulteries were notorious. In reality, Anne's participation in this affair was at best half-hearted, for she knew there was no brilliant future in it. She did not see any more in Wyatt's attentions than the polite conventions of the courtly affair, nor did she have any intention of granting sexual favours to the poet, for all his fervent protestations of love. For her it was an enjoyable flirtation, but the King, of course, did not know this and, suspecting the worst, grew tense with jealousy.

  Wyatt's grandson, George Wyatt, later recounted how the poet had been taken with Anne's beauty and her witty and graceful speech, and tells us that Wyatt was supposed to have expressed his feelings for her in some of his verses. In fact, his poems tell us very little about the affair, as few of them can be proved to relate to it, while one or two of those once accepted as referring to Anne Boleyn are now thought not to have been composed by Wyatt at all. One verse, which is in the form of a riddle about a disdainful lover, has as its answer the name 'Anna'; but which Anna cannot be proved. What is clear, though, is that Wyatt was far more interested in Anne Boleyn than she was in him, and before his courtship went too far she 'rejected all his speech of love' as kindly as she could, m encouraging friendship rather than amorous advances. Wyatt went I on hoping and dreaming, writing of 'the lively sparks that issue from those eyes, sunbeams to daze men's sight', and seeking her company. What he failed to realise was that it had dawned at last upon Anne Boleyn that other, more august eyes were upon her.