Anne of Cleves

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Anne of Cleves Page 6

by Sarah-Beth Watkins


  Her ambassadors met with the council the next day and declared that the pre-contact between Anne and the Duke of Lorraine had been revoked but they had no proof. They had brought no documentation with them and it could be up to three months before it arrived. Olisleger said they would stay as hostages until that time.

  Cromwell hurried to tell Henry who felt it was not ‘well handled’ and said:

  If it were not that she is come so far into my realm and the great preparations that my states and my people have made for her and for fear of making a ruffle in the world – that is to mean to drive her brother into the hands of the Emperor and the French king’s hands, being now together, I would never have her, but now it is so far gone.19

  The situation was too far gone and this wasn’t just about Henry and whether he thought Anne was attractive or not. He could not afford to upset the German alliance. But perhaps the lady would admit herself that she was betrothed to Lorraine? Henry’s final hope for getting out of the wedding. Dashed when Anne declared ‘that she was free from all contracts’20 and her ambassadors too signed to swear that the pre-contract was null and void.

  Henry is said to have cried when he heard the news ‘Is there none other Remedy, but that I must needs, against my will, put my neck in the yoke?’ There wasn’t and Henry found himself signing Anne’s jointures detailing the properties she would receive as queen and sulkily preparing for his wedding the next day.

  Henry was up and ready early, dressed in a gown of cloth of gold and rich black fur with a coat of crimson satin fastened with large diamonds, but swearing to Cromwell like a petulant child that ‘if it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that I must do this day for none earthly thing’.21 Anne took longer to prepare for the ceremony that would change her life. There was a delay whilst they waited for the Earl of Essex who was to lead her up the aisle with Ambassador Overstein. Cromwell was about to take his place when he arrived and escorted Anne dressed in cloth of gold, embroidered with flowers of pearls, to her wedding. She kept her hair loose and flowing as was custom crowned with a gold coronet fashioned to look like sprigs of rosemary. On seeing Henry she curtseyed to him three times and they proceeded to the Queen’s Closet where Archbishop Cranmer was waiting to perform the ceremony. Henry placed her wedding ring on her finger. It had the inscription ‘God send me well to keep’.

  After they heard mass, light refreshment of hypocras was served and Henry left to change into a gown of tissue lined with embroidered crimson velvet before rejoining Anne for their wedding banquet. Later Anne and her ladies also changed their clothes for gowns only fashionable in Germany. It was said Anne had ‘a gown like a man’s, furred with rich sables’.22 After evensong, there was entertainment and feasting and then it was time for bed.

  We can only feel for Anne. This was her wedding night, an experience perhaps to dread, but her duty to her new husband. Her mother must have told her something about what to expect and she must have been scared and apprehensive. Henry of course had no wish to go through with such a chore and there was a distinct lack of bedding ceremony revels. The marriage remained unconsummated. Raging at Cromwell the next morning when asked if he liked the queen:

  Surely, my lord, I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse! She is nothing fair, and have very evil smells about her. I took her to be no maid by reason of the looseness of her breasts and other tokens, which, when I felt them, strake me so to the heart, that I had neither will nor courage to prove the rest. I can have none appetite for displeasant airs. I have left her as good a maid as I found her.23

  Henry may have purposely restrained from consummation on the first night while he still considered ways to get out of his marriage. It was also the Feast of the Epiphany and it was believed that children conceived on that day could be ‘lepers, epileptics or possessed by the devil’.24 We don’t know if Anne was completely bewildered by her wedding night or relieved. Henry was by now obese and ungainly and his attempts at fumbling her body must have been borne through gritted teeth. Though to anyone who saw the comings and goings of the court all was going well. Henry presented her with morgengabe gifts, a German custom, of lavish dresses, pearl rings and jewel studded belts and plans were under way for jousts and entertainment in Anne’s honour.

  But Henry was on his way to consult with his doctors. Dr John Chamber advised him ‘not to enforce himself, for eschewing such inconveniences as by debility ensuing in that case were to be feared’25 so he refrained from any attempt at sexual relations on the second night. He tried on the third and fourth night but could not go through with it. There had been rumours about the king’s impotency when he was married to Anne Boleyn and he was eager to make the doctors understand that the problem was not with him. It was all Anne’s fault ‘her body in such sort disordered and indisposed to excite and provoke any lust’.26 He had had two wet dreams so he knew he was functioning normally. He would continue to sleep with Anne without any sexual contact for months.

  Her ladies would later testify that they asked Anne whether she was pregnant or not. When Anne insisted she wasn’t, they teased her for being a maid. To which she is supposed to have replied ‘How can I be a maid, and sleep every night with the king? When he comes to bed he kisses me and taketh me by the hand and biddeth me “Goodnight sweetheart” and in the morning kisses me and biddeth me “Farewell darling”. Is this not enough?’ to which Lady Rutland responded ‘Madam, there must be more, or it will be long ere we have a Duke of York, which all this realm most desireth’. Anne was ‘contented’ she knew ‘no more’.27 Given this testimony was given during later proceedings, it is hard to believe that Anne was so naïve. She also spoke very little English at the time so it would be hard for her to have had such a conversation.

  Regardless of whether this conversation truly occurred, Anne by now couldn’t fail to notice something was amiss and she frequently tried to speak with Cromwell. When the minister told the king, Henry thought it a good idea that Cromwell should give her some advice but he baulked at so delicate a conversation. Instead he tried to pass it on to the Earl of Rutland, her lord chamberlain and the Queen’s Council. He asked Rutland to ‘find some means that the Queen might be induced to order (her) Grace pleasantly in her behaviour towards (the king), thinking thereby for to have had some faults amended’ and the Council to ‘counsel their mistress to use all pleasantness to (the king)’.28 But whether any of these men broached the subject with the new queen is doubtful.

  On 11 January a joust was held in Anne’s honour. Henry no longer competed after his accident in 1536 but he still enjoyed the spectacle. This time Anne dressed in an English gown with a French hood that had people commenting how much better it suited her than her heavy German gowns. Henry might not even have noticed. Anne was making an effort to fit in but the king was past caring whether she did or not.

  According to Leti, an Italian historian, the Princess Elizabeth wrote to Anne, her new step-mother at this time:

  Madame,—I am struggling between two contending wishes—one is my impatient desire to see your Majesty, the other that of rendering the obedience, I owe to the commands of the King my father, which prevent me from leaving my house till he has given me full permission to do so. But I hope that I shall be able shortly to gratify both these desires. In the meantime, I entreat your Majesty to permit me to show, by this billet, the zeal with which I devote my respect to you as my queen, and my entire obedience to you as to my mother. I am too young and feeble to have power to do more than to felicitate you with all my heart in this commencement of your marriage. I hope that your Majesty will have as much good will for me as I have zeal for your service.29

  Anne showed the letter to the king and asked that Elizabeth be allowed to come to court but Henry would have none of it. He told Cromwell to write back to her ‘that she had a mother so different from this woman that she ought not to wish to see her’.30 Unfortunately this letter no longer exists so cannot be corroborated but there do
es seem to have been some altercation between Anne and the king over the Princess Mary. Both of the king’s daughters had not been invited to the wedding or following celebrations and it is safe to say they wished to meet their new stepmother. Henry complained to Cromwell that he ‘hadde sume communicacyon with her of my ladye Marye how that she began to wax stoborne and wylfull’.31 Not only did he find Anne unattractive but she had had the temerity to argue with him.

  But Henry kept up the pretence that all was well writing to Anne’s brother William promising that he would ‘act sincerely in matters concerning their friendship and the marriage’.32 Wotton was sent to Cleves with the king’s dispatches and to assure the duke and his mother that everything was just fine. He arrived before the Cleves ambassadors returned home and with them news of Henry’s wish to see Anne’s pre-contact documentation. Henry had richly rewarded them with gifts of money and plate and Anne had said her goodbyes. Some of her ladies were also due to return. Lady Keteler was sent back with a message from Anne to her mother and brother to thank them ‘most heartily for having preferred her to such a marriage that she could wish no better’.33 Mother Lowe stayed with her to supervise her remaining German maids and her new English ones with Count von Waldeck also staying to help her acclimatise to her new country.

  Although her relationship with the king left much to be desired, Anne was embracing her role as queen and adapting to living in England. She was learning the language, listening to music, especially that played by the Bassano family, walking in the gardens, practising her cross-stitch or cushion stitch ‘opus pulvinarium’ (introducing German designs into England) and enjoying the company of her ladies with whom she played cards or dice.

  No date had been set for her coronation although Marillac, the French ambassador, had heard it would be in May. Henry was stalling but he did arrange for Anne’s state entry into Westminster on 4 February. Taking separate barges and accompanied by their households, guards and the Mayor and Aldermen of London in other vessels they left Greenwich for Westminster along the Thames.

  First, his Graces (household) going in barges afore his Majesty, then his Grace going in his barge and his gard following in another barge; then the Quene in her barg and her ladies following in another barge, and then her household servants, then the Mayor and the Aldermen of London in a barge and tenne of the cheiffe craftes of the cities following the mayor in their barges, which were all rychlie hanged with schuchions and targattes and banners of the cognisans of everie occupation, the Mercers barge hanged rychlie with cloath of gold’ and from Greenwych to the Towre all the shipps which laie in the Thames shott gonnes as the kinge and queene passed by them. And when they came against the Tower their was shott within the Tower above a thousand chambers of ordinance which made a noyse like thunder; and that donne they passed through London Bridge to Westminster, the mayor and all the craftes following till they see their Grace on land, which was first coming of the Queenes Grace to Westminster synce her Graces coming into Englande.34

  Henry helped Anne disembark and led her to Whitehall Palace. In his heart he knew that Anne would never be crowned queen.

  Thomas Cromwell

  Chapter Five

  Cromwell’s Defeat

  1540

  In March Anne received a visit from Karl Harst, the new ambassador from Cleves. He arrived without any of the pre-contract documentation as requested by the king, spoke only Latin and not English, only had one servant and was poorly dressed. Her brother William had seemingly not well provisioned the envoy perhaps feeling that now Anne was married, the situation was unimportant. He had much more to worry about with Charles V pressing his right to Guelders. Now Henry had married into Cleves he would be expected to aid Anne’s brother if hostilities broke out and that was something the king had no intention of doing. Wotton was instructed to keep the king informed of a changing situation and advise William to avert war.

  Anne had accompanied Henry to Hampton Court for Easter and returned to Westminster for the opening of the third session of the seventh parliament on 12 April which included amongst items to by discussed – the dissolution of their marriage. Cromwell, who was charged with finding a way out of the nuptials that he had brokered, was made Earl of Essex and Lord Great Chamberlain on 18 April. Henry might have thought that raising him higher would give him incentive to sort out his ‘secret matter’ or perhaps he relished the greater fall Cromwell would make if he disappointed him. Certainly others were aware of Cromwell’s precarious position. Marillac reported he was ‘tottering’ and that if he remained ‘in his former credit and authority it will only be because he is very assiduous in affairs, although rough in his management of them, and that he does nothing without first consulting the king’.1

  After Cromwell’s elevation the king joined Anne in the Queen’s apartments for dinner. Anne might not have known that things had progressed so far but she knew something was afoot. Lady Lisle was stilling trying to gain a place for her daughter Katherine in Anne’s household. Her daughter Anne Basset told her that the king wanted only those ‘that should be fair’.3 Katherine was obviously not pretty enough to catch the king’s eye as her sister had once done. Her husband had approached Olisleger who had informed him ‘I am sorry to tell you that, having spoken, with the Queen’s good will, to the King and my lord Privy Seal to have your wife’s daughter Katherine in the Queen’s privy chamber, I have been answered that the ladies of the privy chamber were appointed before the coming of Madame; and though I have begged that an exception might be made in her favor, it has been of no avail’.2 When she tried again she was told that no more maids would be employed. Henry had no reason to expand the queen’s household and was instead hoping to disband it as soon as possible. One of the queen’s maids had already caught his eye and Anne had noticed. The teenage Katherine Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s niece and Anne Boleyn’s cousin, had joined Anne’s household in January and by April the king was granting her land and arranging for her to receive a gift of quilted sarcanet. Henry was nothing if not generous to his mistress and rumours soon abounded about the king’s affection for this slight, immature young girl.

  On 1 May five days of jousting at Westminster, the last of Henry’s reign, were accompanied by nightly banquets at Durham house. It was a fantastic spectacle – the knights ‘rytchlie apparayled and their horses trapped, all in white velvett, with certaine knightes and gentlemen riding afore them apparayled all in white velvett and white sarcenett, and all their servantes in white sarcenet dobletts and hosin, after the Burgonion fashion’4 but it would also be the last time that Henry and Anne appeared together as king and queen. Anne however was oblivious to Henry’s machinations to end their marriage and sent Karl Harst to enquire when her coronation would be.

  Cromwell knew Henry would never be happy until Anne was gone. Talking to Wriothesley he complained ‘The King liketh not the Queen, nor ever has from the beginning; I think assuredly she is as good a maid for him as she was when she came to England’.5 Wriothesely urged him to ‘devise relief for the king’.6 He knew that if the king was not appeased soon, Cromwell would be in trouble.

  As the king’s minister left parliament on 10 June his hat blew off in the wind. It was usual for those present to doff their caps in respect but no one moved to remove their hats. At the dinner that followed no one spoke to Cromwell and when he joined Henry’s counsellors for a meeting he found them all seated. Going to take his place Norfolk broke the silence ‘Cromwell, do not sit there; that is no place for thee. Traitors do not sit amongst gentlemen’.7 He was arrested by the captain of the guard and stripped of his garter seal and insignia before being taken to the Tower of London.

  On 12 June Cromwell wrote a long letter to Henry from the tower. It covered all he had been accused of including revealing the king’s matter with the queen:

  Most gracious King and most merciful sovereign, your most humble, most obedient and most bounden subject and most lamentable servant and prisoner. Prostrate at the feet of
your most excellent Majesty, I have heard your pleasure by the mouth of your Controller, which was that I should write to your most excellent Highness such things as I thought meet to be written concerning my most miserable state and condition…

  Amongst other things, most gracious sovereign, Master Controller showed me that you complained that within these 14 days I revealed a matter of great secrecy contrary to your expectation. Sire, I do well remember the matter, but I never revealed it to any creature except after your Grace had opened the matter first to me in your chamber decrying your lamentable fate. You declared the thing which your Highness misliked in the Queen, at which time I told your Grace that she often desired to speak with me but I durst not. You said why should I not, alleging that I might do much good in going to her and to be plain with her in declaring my mind. Lacking opportunity, I spoke with her lord Chamberlain, for which I ask your Grace’s mercy, desiring him – not naming your Grace to him – to find some means that the Queen might be induced to behave pleasantly towards you. I thought thereby to have some faults amended to your Majesty’s comfort. I repeated the suggestion, when the said lord Chamberlain and others of the Queen’s council came to me in my chamber at Westminster for licence for the departure of the strange maidens. I then required them to counsel their mistress to use all pleasantness to your Highness. This was before your Grace committed the secret matter to me, and only so that she might have been induced to such pleasant and honorable fashions as might have been to your Grace’s comfort which above all things, as God knoweth, I did most court and desire. After that time, I never disclosed to any but my lord Admiral, which I did by your Grace’s commandment on Sunday last; whom I found equally willing to seek a remedy for your comfort and consolation. I saw by him that he did as much lament your Highness’ fate as ever did man, and was wonderfully grieved to see your Highness so troubled, wishing greatly your comfort and saying he would spend the best blood in his belly for that object. And if I would not do the same and willingly die for your comfort, I would I were in Hell and I receive a thousand deaths. Sire, this is all that I have done in this matter and if I have offended your Majesty therein, prostrate at your feet I most lowly ask mercy and pardon of your Highness.8

 

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