Six Wives of Henry VIII

by Alison Weir

  10

  Happiest of Women

  The eve of Easter Sunday fell on the 12th of April in 1533. On that Saturday morning, Anne, dressed in robes of estate and laden with diamonds and other precious stones, proceeded as Queen of England to her closet to hear mass; sixty maids of honour followed her. At last she had achieved her chief ambition, and she had adopted for her motto the legend 'Happiest of Women'. Her success now seemed assured, and she was confident that the child she carried would be the son for which the King had always craved.

  The court looked on with ill-concealed dismay. According to Chapuys, even some of Anne's own supporters felt that the King should have waited for his marriage to Katherine to be formally dissolved before taking another wife. The King, sensing that his nobility were less than enthusiastic about their new queen, commanded them to pay court to her, announcing that he would have her crowned on Whitsunday, 1 June. Within days, the Lord Mayor of London would have been ordered to prepare a lavish civic welcome, with pageants, for the occasion. Henry had taken an irrevocable step; he might have gained his heart's desire, but he now had to face the consequences to himself and his kingdom and the censure of most of Europe.

  On the evening of 12 April, the King authorised Cranmer to pass judgment on his union with Katherine, believing, rather naively, that his marriage to Anne would put an end to any opposition from the former Queen. He also set about appointing the officers of the new Queen's household: Lord Burgh was to be chamberlain, Edward Baynton vice-chamberlain, Anne's uncle Sir James Boleyn of Blickling would be chancellor, and John Uvedale secretary. Another Boleyn relative, William Cosyn, was master of her horse. Her ladies included Anne Saville, Anne Gainsford (now Lady Zouche), Lady Berkeley, Jane Seymour (who had served Katherine of Aragon), Anne's cousin Madge Shelton, and Norfolk's mistress Elizabeth Holland. As soon as all these had sworn their oaths of allegiance, Queen Anne summoned them to attend the first meeting of her council, and exhorted them to be virtuous and discreet. Male servants were forbidden to frequent brothels, on pain of instant dismissal.

  On 15 April, Chapuys saw the King and tackled him on the subject of his marriage to Anne. 'I cannot believe that a prince of your Majesty's great wisdom and virtue will consent to the putting away of the Queen,' he said. 'Since your Majesty has no regard for men, you should have some respect for God.' 'God and my conscience are on good terms!' retorted Henry. Chapuys tried further remonstration, but to no avail. 'You sting me!' cried the King, at which the ambassador apologised, knowing he would never be able to help Katherine if he fell foul of Henry. But he had already overstepped the mark, for in May he was summoned before the Privy Council and warned not to meddle further in the Queen's affairs, an order Chapuys chose to ignore.

  News of the King's new marriage spread quickly; it was anything but well received. Courtiers and subjects alike resented Anne. Her elevation to queenship spelled disaster for Anglo-Flemish trade, and might well plunge the country into a war with the Emperor. Moreover, by her behaviour she had alienated many people who might have supported her.

  In April, there was a spate of public protests against the marriage: a priest, Ralph Wendon, was hauled before the justices for saying that Anne was 'the scandal of Christendom, a whore and a harlot'; another priest in Salisbury, commending the King's new wife to his flock, suffered greatly at the hands of his female parishioners. When, at the end of the month, the order went out that Queen Anne was to be prayed for in churches, one London congregation walked out in disgust: the Lord Mayor later suffered a reprimand when the King learned of it. The Dean of Bristol lost his office for forbidding his priests to pray for Henry and Anne. Some people even suffered imprisonment for slandering the new Queen, such as Margaret Chancellor, who had not only cried out 'God save Queen Katherine!' but had also called Anne 'a goggle-eyed whore'.

  The King was determined that those who spoke out against him would be silenced, and the government made strenuous efforts to eradicate seditious talk. In May, it issued the first of a series of propaganda tracts designed 'to inform his Grace's loving subjects of the truth'. His Grace's loving subjects were not impressed.

  Abroad, news of Anne's elevation met with little enthusiasm. Cromwell's agents in Antwerp informed him that a cloth picture of the new Queen had been pinned obscenely to a portrait of Henry VIII; and in Louvain, students were scratching scurrilous slogans about Henry and Anne on the walls and doors.

  On 15 April, Katherine's chamberlain, Lord Mountjoy, received a message from the King, bidding him warn the Princess Dowager that she would soon be retired to a smaller house, there to live on a reduced allowance which Chapuys feared would not be enough to cover the expenses of her household for three months. Chapuys was, in fact, very anxious about Katherine's future, having perceived that her very existence posed a threat to Anne Boleyn's security. The ambassador realised that the King's subjects were too frightened to intervene on Katherine's behalf, while he knew that Anne could be vindictive and that her influence over the King was enormous. If Chapuys was not mistaken, malignant forces were already at work against Katherine, and on 16 April he warned Charles V that the King was 'in great hope of the Queen's death. Since he was not ashamed to do such monstrous things, he might, one of these days, undertake some further outrage against her.' It was a well-founded conclusion, given Anne's rumoured involvement in the poison plot against Fisher. Katherine and Mary now posed the most serious threat to her future, and that of her unborn child. What might she not do to them? Katherine herself was aware of the danger threatening her and Mary, and from now on would keep a careful vigil, wary of anything that might be an attempt on her life.

  Henry soon learned from Chapuys that the Emperor would neither recognise Anne Boleyn as Queen of England, nor accept any judgement of Cranmer's on his marriage to Katherine. The King remained unmoved, and told the ambassador he would 'pass such laws in my kingdom as I like'. Cranmer, meanwhile, had summoned various divines and canon lawyers to a specially convened ecclesiastical court in the twelfth-century priory at Dunstable, not far from Ampthill. At the end of April, Katherine was cited to appear before this court in May, but ignored the summons because she did not recognise Cranmer's competence to judge her case. Although the recently passed Act of Restraint of Appeals prevented any person from appealing to Rome for any cause whatsoever, Katherine maintained that she was Henry's wife, not his subject, and not bound by his laws. Cranmer declared her contumacious, and proceeded without her.

  Six miles from where Katherine now lived the clergymen gathered on 10 May to decide her fate. Several days of debate followed, then at last - on 23 May, the Archbishop finally reached his decision, and with the assent of the learned divines in the court, pronounced Henry VIII's union with Katherine of Aragon to be 'null and absolutely void' and 'contrary to divine law'. The Pope, said Cranmer, had no authority to dispense in such a case.

  Cranmer then dealt with the King's marriage to Anne Boleyn, and on 28 May 1533, from a high gallery at Lambeth Palace, he announced that he had found it to be good and valid. The Dunstable court was then closed. After six long years, Henry finally had what he wanted: Anne was now legally his, and their child would be indisputably legitimate.

  Cranmer's pronouncement had come not a moment too soon, for on that very day, Queen Anne was escorted by barge by the Lord Mayor of London and his brethren from Greenwich to the Tower, where she would spend the night before her civic reception and coronation. Norfolk, as Earl Marshal, had been put in charge of the arrangements, but so fraught was the relationship between himself and his niece that by the time Anne left Greenwich they were barely on speaking terms. On that day, the much tried Duke confided to Chapuys that he had always opposed the King's marriage to Anne which was a lie - and had tried to persuade the King therefrom - an even bigger lie. He even went so far as to praise Katherine of Aragon for her 'great modesty, prudence and forbearance, the King having been at all times inclined to amours'. Anne, of course, was neither modest, prudent, nor forbearing,
but she had arranged brilliant marriages for two of Norfolk's children - his heir, Surrey, married the daughter of the Earl of Oxford, and his daughter, Mary, married the King's natural son, Henry FitzRoy - and she had persuaded the King to waive a dowry in the case of his son's bride. This went a long way towards endearing her to Norfolk's estranged Duchess, who stopped plotting the restoration of Queen Katherine and returned to court.

  In spite of the antipathy of the Earl Marshal towards the Queen, the coronation festivities went as planned. When Anne came to the Tower, the river was full of gaily decorated barges, many of them filled with musicians. Crowds lined the riverbanks to see the water pageants and the Queen's own barge, hung with cloth of gold and heraldic banners, making its stately way along the Thames. At the Tower, Anne was greeted by the King who displayed a 'loving countenance' and kissed her heartily before leading her into the newly refurbished royal apartments where they would spend the next two nights. On the Friday evening, Henry dubbed eighteen gentlemen Knights of the Bath, an ancient ritual normally performed only at the coronations of reigning monarchs.

  On Saturday, 31 May, wearing a surcoat of white cloth of tissue and a matching mantle furred with ermine, with her hair loose beneath a coif and circlet set with precious stones, Anne rode in a litter of white cloth of gold drawn by two palfreys caparisoned in white damask through the City of London to Westminster. Before and behind her streamed a great procession of courtiers and ladies, said to have extended for half a mile, and over her head the Barons of the Cinque Ports held aloft a canopy of cloth of gold with gilded staves and silver bells.

  Anne's civic reception and the route she followed were much the same as at Katherine of Aragon's welcome to London thirty-two years earlier, and the pageants - staged at great cost to the citizens - were on similar themes. As was customary, free wine ran in the conduits for the crowds lining the streets, children made speeches, and choirs raised their voices in honour of the new Queen. The verses recited in one pageant were composed by Nicholas Udall, Provost of Eton College from 1534 to 1541, and ended in the chorus:

  'Honour and grace be to our Queen Anne!' She was wished 'hearty gladness, continual success and long fruition'. 'Queen Anne, prosper, go forward and reign!' she was told and in St Paul's Churchyard the choristers sang an anthem, 'Come, my love, thou shalt be crowned!' The City of London had spared no expense in honouring a queen who was not popular, even commissioning Hans Holbein to design triumphal arches for the processional route, and regilding the Eleanor Cross in Cheapside for the occasion. But although the crowds had turned out in their hundreds, perhaps thousands, their reception of their new queen was cold. They came to stare, not to cheer, and as Anne passed by, smiling and greeting the people on either side, she counted less than ten people who called out 'God save your Grace!' as they had once called to Queen Katherine. Anne's fool, who rode in the procession, was angered by the sparsity of uncovered heads in the crowds, and yelled, 'Ye all have scurvy heads and dare not uncover!' Worst of all, when the people saw the intertwined initials of the King and Queen amongst the decoration, they roared with laughter, crying out 'HA! HA!' When Anne finally arrived at Westminster Hall, to be greeted by Henry, she was upset at the hostility shown her by the crowds. 'How liked you the look of the City, sweetheart?' enquired the King. 'Sir, the City itself was well enow,' Anne answered, 'but I saw so many caps on heads and heard but few tongues.' Chapuys too had sensed the hostility, although he had not been part of the procession. 'All people here cry murder on the Pope for his procrastination in this affair,' he told the Emperor.

  Sunday, 1 June 1533 was Anne's coronation day. Dressed in a gown of crimson velvet edged with ermine beneath a purple velvet mantle, and with her hair loose beneath a caul of pearls and a rich coronet, Anne walked in procession from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey beneath a glittering canopy of cloth of gold. Following her went a great train of lords and ladies, the yeomen of the King's Guard, the monks of Westminster, bishops and abbots richly coped and mitred, and, finally, the children of the Chapel Royal with the two archbishops. The red carpet along which they proceeded extended right up to the high altar of the abbey, where Anne sat enthroned upon a raised platform. Cranmer performed the ceremony of anointing, then he placed the crown of St Edward upon her head, a sceptre of gold in her right hand, and a rod of ivory in her left, thus effectively crowning her as queen regnant, as no other queen consort has been before or since.

  A fanfare of trumpets announced the Queen's return to the Palace of Westminster. 'Now the noble Anna bears the sacred diadem!' enthused the future Bishop of Ely, Richard Cox, an eyewitness, but his enthusiasm was shared by few of his fellow Englishmen. Chapuys thought the coronation was 'a cold, meagre and uncomfortable thing', and the London crowds evidently agreed with him, for again they watched in silence, few bothering to cheer or uncover.

  Anne's coronation banquet in Westminster Hall was a lavish affair that lasted several hours. She was seated alone at the centre of the top table, with two countesses behind her, ready with napkin and fingerbowl. She ate three dishes (out of twenty-eight served) at the first course, and twenty-three at the second. As the Knights of the Bath served the food, trumpeters played. When the feast ended, Anne was served wine, comfits and sweets, and gave the Lord MayorofLondon her gold cup, thanking him and the citizens of London for their efforts on her behalf. The King also gave them his hearty thanks on the day following. Court festivities continued for some days after the coronation with tournaments, hunting expeditions, banquets and dancing, the courtiers falling over themselves to do honour to their new mistress. Yet, as the French ambassador observed, this was not because they approved of her, but because they wished to gain favour with the King.

  Henry had done for Anne all he had promised to do: he had married her and had her crowned with as much pomp as if she were a reigning monarch. It was now up to her to seal her part of the bargain by presenting him with the son which Henry, at forty-two, now needed more desperately than ever, not only to ensure the succession, but also to justify the risks he had taken to marry Anne and break with Rome. The birth of a male heir would bring many waverers and dissidents over to his side, and, he was well aware, it would silence once and for all that infuriating woman at Ampthill.

  On the day of Anne Boleyn's coronation, the Nun of Kent was publicly prophesying doom for the King and his new wife, something she had been doing effectively for the last two years. This time the authorities acted, and in July she was brought before Cranmer to be examined. He let her go with a warning not to incite the people with her so-called prophecies, but in August, the Privy Council received a report that she had ignored this, and she was brought before Cranmer again. This time, she admitted she had never had a vision in her life. In September, she and her associates were arrested, having confessed that their visitations and revelations were fraudulent, and in September, the Nun was sent to the Tower. Chapuys applauded Katherine's repeated refusals to see Elizabeth Barton: there could be no suspicion of collusion, although the Council was doing its best to unearth evidence of it, and so incriminate her in the Nun's treasonable activities. But there was nothing to find, and even Cromwell told Chapuys he admired Katherine's prudence: 'God must have given her her wit and senses,' he said. Yet Elizabeth Barton had now said enough to convince the Council that she and her associates were guilty of high treason, and they were made to do public penance at Paul's Cross before being sent back to the Tower.

  Others had also expressed their disapproval of Anne Boleyn's coronation. The Marquess of Exeter, the King's cousin, and his wife stayed away, pleading sickness. Henry was not fooled: both were known to be supporters of the Princess Dowager and associates of the Nun of Kent. When the Nun was arrested, Lady Exeter wrote a grovelling letter to the King protesting that she had never meant to offend him, and the Exeters escaped Henry's wrath for the time being. Bishop Fisher had also believed in the Nun of Kent; he was now under house arrest, having been placed there on Palm Sunday, 'the real cause o
f his detention being his manly defence of the Queen's cause', according to Chapuys. In fact, Henry had wanted Fisher silenced when Cranmer came to pronounce judgement.

  In Spain, the Emperor was outraged at the way in which his aunt had been treated, though Chapuys was forced to admit to the Council that his master had no intention of declaring war on Katherine's behalf. At this, Cromwell openly expressed his relief. It was as well the Princess Dowager was a woman, he reflected: 'Nature wronged her in not making her a man. But for her sex, she would have surpassed all the heroes of history.'

  The Pope, meanwhile, having heard the shocking news from England, was realising at last that he ought to act swiftly, and on 11 July, he declared the marriage between Henry and Anne null and void, and threatened Henry with excommunication if he did not get rid of Anne by September. He also annulled all the proceedings of the Dunstable court, and in August issued a brief of censure when he realised that Henry meant to ignore his decrees. Henry continued to take no notice. 'God, who knows my righteous heart, always prospers my affairs,' he told Chapuys loftily.

  In May, the Princess Mary was officially informed by a deputation of the Privy Council of Cranmer's judgements. She bravely told them that she would accept no one for queen except her mother, whereupon the councillors forbade her to communicate in any way with Katherine, and would not allow even a note of farewell. For Mary, the long, sad years of trial had begun. Her defiance, inspired by Katherine's courage, had the effect of fanning Anne Boleyn's smouldering resentment into bitter hatred, and also caused an open rift between Mary and her father. Anne tried at first to bribe Mary into submission by sending cordial letters and inviting her to court, asking her to honour her as queen, and promising it would be a means of reconciliation with her father. Mary replied curtly that she knew of no queen of England save her mother, but if 'Madam Boleyn' would intercede for her with the King, she would be much obliged. Anne was furious, but she sent Mary another invitation. Again, Mary rebuffed her, so she moved to the next stage in her campaign, threats. These had no effect either, and from then on it was open war, with Anne publicly vowing to bring down the pride born of Mary's 'unbridled Spanish blood'.