It was clear to Henry that the storm-tossed damsel was Anne herself, beset by the troubles she would face in accepting him. He continued saying:
‘The demonstrations of your affections are such, the beautiful words of the letter so cordially couched, as to oblige me ever truly to love, honour and serve you, begging you to continue in the same firm and constant purpose, assuring you that so far from merely returning your devotion I will out-do you in loyalty of heart were that possible, and you, with no bitterness in yours, can further that end; praying also that if at any time I have offended you, you will give me the same absolution as you yourself demand; again assuring you that henceforward my heart shall be dedicated to you alone, with a strong desire that my body could also be thus dedicated, which God can do if he pleases’.
Henry, ecstatic with happiness at Anne’s promise, does not appear to have realised the difficulties that they would face before they could be married and signed his letter ‘H seeks AB no other’ with Anne’s initials enclosed in the drawing of a heart. For the first time in his life, Henry was deeply in love and it is difficult to see how Anne cannot have returned some of this fervour. She would have been excited at the prospect of becoming a queen, a role she could never even have considered possible only a few short months before.
Anne did not set out to attract the king but she may also have been attracted to him in turn and this attraction would have turned to love as his devotion to her became evident. Henry was still one of the most handsome men in Europe and there can be no doubt that Anne was interested in him. Henry’s marriage proposal was beyond Anne’s wildest dreams and she hoped to marry quickly. This was also Henry’s dearest wish and the prospect of marriage increased his lust for Anne. In one letter, when they were again separated, Henry begged Anne to return quickly to court, stating that he was ‘hoping very soon to tell you by word of mouth the further pains I have suffered by your absence’. For a man who would eventually have six wives and several mistresses, Henry never knew passion like that which he felt for Anne Boleyn and, almost from the moment that she first came to his attention, she was his truest love and his obsession.
Anne Boleyn was well aware of Henry’s love for her and worked hard to ensure that she maintained his interest. Although she always stopped short of consummating the relationship she and Henry also developed some degree of physical relationship over time and this may have been on the occasion of their promise to marry. In one letter Henry ended with ‘wishing myself (especially of an evening) in my sweetheart’s arms, whose pretty duckies [breasts] I trust shortly to kiss’. Anne was not entirely chaste in response to the king’s ardent pursuit and it may have been all she could do to fend him off when she was with him. When Anne finally consented to be intimate with Henry she can never have imagined that it would be over five years before her marriage and the full consummation of their relationship would occur.
Anne must have foreseen that there would be difficulties ahead although she cannot have known just how long the journey to marriage would be. On 5 May 1527, Henry gave a banquet in honour of the French ambassadors and publicly led Anne out as his partner for the first time. Twelve days later a secret ecclesiastical court opened in London to try the validity of the king’s marriage and, as Anne and Henry hoped, to clear the way for them to marry. In the spring of 1527 Anne believed that her marriage was imminent, providing that Henry could quickly obtain his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
THE KING’S GREAT MATTER
Anne and Henry believed in 1527 that it would be a relatively simple matter to secure his divorce. Henry’s wife, Catherine of Aragon, had turned forty in 1525 and it was clear to everyone that she would bear Henry no further children. Henry and Catherine had only one surviving child, a daughter, Mary, and Henry believed that the entire world would agree that it was reasonable for him to make a new marriage to a younger and more fertile woman. He also knew that he had very good pretext for a divorce as Catherine was the widow of Henry’s elder brother, Arthur.
Catherine of Aragon had married Arthur, Prince of Wales on 14 November 1501 at St Paul’s Cathedral. The marriage had been a major ceremonial event of the reign of Henry VII, Henry VIII’s father, and following their marriage, Catherine and Arthur travelled to Ludlow to rule his principality. The marriage was destined to be short lived however and Arthur died at Easter 1502, leaving Catherine a young widow and the young Henry VIII as prince of Wales. Neither Henry VII nor Catherine’s parents, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, wanted to lose their alliance and the young Henry was quickly betrothed to his brother’s widow. The Bible was known to be contradictory on the subject of marriage with a deceased brother’s wife and, to ensure that the marriage was not invalid, a dispensation was obtained from Pope Julius II allowing the couple to marry when Henry came to the throne in 1509.
Henry had been happy to marry Catherine in 1509 but, when he finally made the decision to marry Anne, he decided to use the possible doubts over his marriage to secure his divorce. In the Bible, Leviticus expressly states that a brother shall not marry his dead brother’s wife and, if he does, the couple shall remain childless. Henry and Catherine’s eldest son had died within a few weeks of his birth and, following this birth, Catherine experienced a sequence of miscarriages and stillbirths. The only exception was the birth in 1516 of Princess Mary but, as a girl, Mary was not enough for Henry. When he came to examine his marriage to Catherine he considered his lack of sons to be tantamount to childlessness. So he was confident that his marriage would quickly be shown to be against God’s law and thus invalid. The Bible was in fact less clear cut than Henry was prepared to consider and the Book of Deuteronomy contains an express command for a man to marry his brother’s wife should his brother die childless. Both Anne and Henry would have hoped that Leviticus would be considered the more applicable in Henry’s case.
On 18 May 1527, soon after Anne had agreed to marry the king, Cardinal Wolsey summoned a church council at Westminster to consider the validity of Henry’s marriage. Both Henry and Anne hoped that Wolsey would quickly pronounce the sentence of divorce and that they would be married within a matter of months. It was intended that the trial should be kept a secret in an attempt to prevent Catherine from appealing to her powerful nephew, the Emperor Charles V, before sentence could be given. Anne, kept in the background and unable to attend, waited anxiously as the hearing progressed. If Henry thought that he could keep the court secret however, he was very much mistaken and both Catherine and the Imperial ambassador knew of the proceedings within hours. Catherine asked the emperor to alert the pope so that he could stop Wolsey from pronouncing sentence and, on 31 May, Wolsey was forced to adjourn the court when it became clear just how widely known proceedings had become. This was the first setback for Anne and Henry and, although Anne would not have realised it, it was only the beginning of a very long wait to become queen.
Anne had been raised to see the king as an all-powerful figure and she expected that Henry could quickly secure his divorce, regardless of any opposition from Catherine’s family. When the court was adjourned on 31 May and it became clear that Henry would have to seek his divorce from the Pope, both he and Anne may well still not have anticipated great difficulties in bringing about their marriage. All this changed however when news reached England that the emperor had sacked Rome on 16 June 1527 and was holding the Pope as a virtual prisoner. Both Anne and Henry knew that, with the Pope in the hands of Catherine’s nephew, the divorce was likely to become a much more lengthy process.
Anne was still a member of Catherine’s household when news of the divorce leaked out and she must have found it difficult to remain silent as rumours flew around the court. Henry himself always claimed that his conscience was first pricked regarding his marriage due to a comment made by the Bishop of Tarbes, who was the French ambassador to England when a marriage was being arranged between Princess Mary and the Duke of Orleans. The Bishop suddenly broke off negotiations ‘because (as he said) he was not fully persuaded of the legitimacion of the Ladie Marie beinge the king’s daughter begotten of his brother’s wife’. Henry always claimed that it was this that first alerted him to the invalidity of his marriage and that his desire for a divorce was based solely on his troubled conscience.
While this was the official reason, it was not widely believed either in England or in Europe. For Henry and Anne, however, it was a convenient claim to divert attention from their own relationship and Anne must also have been glad to hear rumours circulating at court which claimed that it was Wolsey who had set the king on the path to divorce. This was a widely held view and Catherine of Aragon herself believed that it was Wolsey who first suggested divorce to the king. It was also convenient for Anne, whose position was still not widely known, to allow the king’s chief minister, and her greatest enemy, to bear the blame for the king’s actions.
Anne found herself in a difficult position as word of the king’s actions leaked out in the spring and summer of 1527. At this early stage, she feigned ignorance of the divorce and she must have been glad to be out of the queen’s company as much as possible. Anne knew that, for all her apparent submissiveness and obedience, Catherine was a formidable opponent, and she cannot have failed to be aware of the popularity that Henry’s wife enjoyed in England. Catherine of Aragon was viewed by many as almost a living saint. For example, the
Life of Jane Dormer,
which was written at the behest of a lady to Catherine’s daughter, Mary, states that Catherine would pray on her knees without cushions and ‘she was affable in conversation, courteous to all, and of an excellent and pious disposition’. The writer concluded that Catherine was a ‘mirror of goodness’. While this is a highly partisan account, this is how Catherine was widely perceived. Anne must have felt increasingly uncomfortable as Catherine and her supporters began to watch her warily.
Anne and Catherine quickly became rivals. Catherine was less vocal in her enmity towards Anne, but she was able to find subtle ways to anger her opponent, just as Anne attacked her. According to George Wyatt, for example, Catherine would often insist on Anne joining her as she played cards so that Anne would be forced to display her small extra finger to the king. This must have greatly irked Anne and the card games would have been uncomfortable for both women. During one game Catherine finally confirmed that she knew full well what Anne’s ambitions were:
‘And in this entertainment of time they had a certain game that I cannot name then frequented, wherein dealing, the king and queen meeting they stopped, and the young lady’s hap was much to stop at a king; which the queen noting, said to her playfellow, My lady Anne, you have good hap to stop at a king, but you are not like the others, you will have all or none’.
Anne was not close to Catherine and she is unlikely to have felt any remorse for her actions, instead allowing her ambition to drive her onwards. She must have found the proximity to her rival oppressive and she often spent time at Hever in the early years of the divorce proceedings.
When news of the imprisonment of the pope reached England, Henry immediately dispatched Wolsey to France to arrange an alliance. The Cardinal was still unaware that the king planned to marry Anne and it would have pleased Anne to know that her enemy could be of benefit to her unwittingly. Wolsey had always prided himself on delivering exactly what the king wanted and he would have felt certain that he could obtain the divorce, in spite of the difficulties caused by the Pope’s imprisonment. While he was in France in July 1527 he tried to persuade the other cardinals to meet him at Avignon and to invest him with the necessary powers to exercise the Pope’s authority. The Italian cardinals refused to leave Italy and Wolsey was forced to consider new steps to take.
By late June both Henry and Anne were fully committed to the divorce and on 22 June Henry finally informed Catherine officially of his ‘concerns’ over their marriage. Catherine already knew of the proceedings but it must have been difficult hearing the words directly from Henry and she promptly burst into tears. If Henry thought that Catherine would be compliant however, he was mistaken. As soon as she had been officially informed, Catherine wrote to her nephew for aid. Although Charles V barely knew his aunt, Catherine’s treatment was a direct attack on his family’s honour and he was not prepared to allow Henry to divorce her, whatever scruples of conscience he claimed to have. While in England Catherine was effectively powerless, in Rome she had the upper hand and it was necessary for Henry to send an ambassador to Rome ‘lest the Queen should prevent us, by the Emperor’s means, in our great matter’.
Henry and Anne did not at first realise the strength of Charles V’s support for his aunt and they would have discussed their hopes that the emperor’s support could be bought. Henry sent the Bishop of Worcester and his chaplain, Dr Lee, to Charles to attempt to persuade him to support the king. Charles clearly set out his position to the ambassadors, stating:
‘That hee was sorry to understand of the intended divorce, adjuring the king (for the rest) by the Sacrament of Marriage, not to dissolve it or, if he would needs proceed therein, that the hearing and determining of the business, yet, might be refer’d to Rome, or a Generall Councill, and not be decided in England. Adding further, that he would defend the Queen’s just cause’.
The emperor’s position infuriated Henry and Anne although his response cannot have been entirely unexpected. At the same time that Henry’s ambassadors travelled to the emperor, further ambassadors travelled to Rome.