If my Lord [of Rochford] speak of our desires, we shall revoke their subscriptions [of the Doctors] and bring them to our hands, and set those simple Doctors again at their liberty, without brute or suspicion of any partiality on the French king's party; and, if the king and his counsel deny our requests, my Lord your son will spent him somewhat straightly.
In other words, George was to use every method at his disposal to get Francis to provide direct support. And to the surprise of all, that was exactly what Francis did. George succeeded in obtaining from him a letter instructing President Lizet to dissuade the theologians from disobeying him, and threatening them with punishment if they did so. Francis's letter is written in the strongest possible terms, saying he is much dissatisfied with those who gave an opinion on the King of England's divorce, and insisting that the fault must be corrected. He advises Lizet that if there is an insistence on consulting the Pope, this must be prevented, as it "would be against the rights and privileges of the Kingdom."8 Francis also promised George that if Beda continued to oppose Henry VIII's annulment, he would be banished from France.9 Remarkably, George, an inexperienced diplomat, had been successful in persuading the King of France to put his full weight behind Henry's cause, irrespective of the fact that Catherine of Aragon's nephew was holding Francis's sons hostage. But there was a catch: presentation of the letter was to be deferred until Francis's sons had been returned.
Francis I had married Louis XII's daughter, Claude of France, in 1514. Salic law prevented Claude from acceding to the throne of France on the death of her father in January 1515, but her husband and cousin Francis, Duke of Angoulême, inherited the throne, becoming Francis I of France. Francis was considered to be the first Renaissance king of France. He was a poet, though not of great talent, and he sought to bring culture to a war-obsessed France. Although he was ten years older than George Boleyn, they shared the same love of hunting, sport and amusements of all kinds. Francis was witty, amiable and intelligent. These attributes together with his love of poetry and culture gave him much in common with the young English lord, while George's mission gave him easy access to Francis, who probably enjoyed the witty and charming Englishman's company. In addition to his more admirable attributes, Francis was also frivolous, selfish, unstable and inconsistent. These weaknesses of character made him an easy target for coercion.
Francis was initially favourable to the Protestant movement that swept through Europe following Martin Luther's denunciation of the corruption and self-indulgence of the Roman Catholic Church. This was partly due to the influence of his evangelical sister, Marguerite of Angoulême, whom Anne Boleyn had encountered during her time in France as a child and young adult. His favourable attitude to Reform made him a useful ally, and assisted George Boleyn in his negotiations. Francis's attitude changed in October 1534, however, following the Affair of the Placards, in which notices were put up on the streets of Paris and other major French cities denouncing papal mass. A notice had even been put on the King's bedroom door, and the violence of the Reformists pushed Francis into denouncing the Reformed faith. From then on, he viewed the movement with suspicion and as a plot against him, and thereafter persecuted followers, in direct opposition to the Boleyns and their religious convictions. His religious and political inconsistencies made him a fickle friend, and Henry VIII never completely trusted him.
Some of George Boleyn's success when dealing directly with Francis was down to the character and personality of the young man himself. As we have already seen, George Boleyn was a charmer, as well as having the presence of mind to play on Francis's weaknesses. In addition to this, the French court was well known for its entertainment and jollity, an environment well suited to the young Boleyn who loved the trappings of court society. It is far easier to negotiate successfully with somebody with whom you have a good relationship, and George used his charm and wit as much as his advocacy skills to win over the French King. As confirmation of George's intimacy with, and enjoyment of, the French court, he took his time in leaving Francis at Dijon, and did not arrive back in Paris until 5 February. On 27 January 1530, at Dijon, there is record of a payment of 2445 livres and 13 sous to goldsmith Pierre Mangot from Francis I's treasurer for a gold chain for George Boleyn. This lavish offering either served as a gift to a royal favourite or a sweetener to keep him happy.10
In January 1530, George's father Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, received instructions from the King to travel on embassy. His mission was to approach Emperor Charles V, who was about to meet Pope Clement VII for his imperial coronation. This mission was an attempt to win Charles over in the "Great Matter" of the King's quest for an annulment. It amounted to a comprehensive re-launch of his pursuit of an annulment and a last-ditch attempt to gain Charles's support. Wiltshire probably received Stokesley's letter of 16 January while en route to Italy. Wiltshire travelled to Italy with Thomas Cranmer, whose original plan it had been to try and obtain academic opinion abroad, and who had therefore instigated George's mission to France. Wiltshire and his party stopped in Paris where they visited the Sorbonne, which had the most prestigious faculty of theology in the world. George's journey to Francis to obtain a letter of support took place virtually simultaneously with his father's journey to Paris. George returned to Paris on 5 February and met up with his father the following day.
When Wiltshire eventually departed from Paris he took Stokesley with him. Wiltshire later had his own meeting with Francis on 19 February at Moulins,11 in which he sought to persuade Francis to send the letter that George had encouraged the French King to write. He was unsuccessful. On 27 February, the Bishop of Tarbes, Francis's ambassador in Rome, wrote to Jean de Breton de Villandry, regarding "the matter of Mons. de Boulan" and of the Emperor's greatest fear being that Francis would favour the English King. Francis held back at this point.12 The letter was eventually presented in June 1530 (dated 17 June even though it was written some five months previously) and although it took five months between negotiations and action, George Boleyn's stubborn persistence paid off. Francis's letter was later used to great effect in reversing the decision of the universities. As for Wiltshire, he eventually departed from France, arriving in Bologna on 14 March, accompanied by Stokesley and Cranmer.
It was Thomas Cranmer, a man close to the Boleyns, who together with Cromwell assumed control of the matter of Henry's divorce following the fall of Cardinal Wolsey. Cranmer was a Reformer, having met the Lutheran scholar Andreas Osiander while in Europe. He became acquainted with the English ambassadors, Edward Fox and Stephen Gardiner, earlier in 1529, when he had first suggested to them that Henry VIII's problem was theological, and proposed that Europe's faculties of theology should be consulted. Henry had met Cranmer in October 1529, and that meeting resulted in George Boleyn and John Stokesley being sent to France later that month. Following the demise of Wolsey, it was Cranmer's radical idea to deny papal supremacy and to promote Henry as head of the Church of England. He wrote an account of his ideas while housed with the Boleyns at Durham Place, and placed these before Henry prior to travelling to Italy with Wiltshire. He enjoyed a close relationship with all three of the evangelical Boleyns, which was probably another reason why George Boleyn was specifically chosen as ambassador in October 1529 to put into practice Cranmer's idea of consulting the European theologians.
Cranmer appeared to have a genuine love for Anne Boleyn, which was extended to her brother. In October 1533, he wrote to George asking him to request that his uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, appoint a particular person as secretary to the Duke of Richmond, Henry VIII's illegitimate son. Cranmer asked this favour in return for appointing the gentleman's brother to his own service at the previous request of George. His letter makes clear that the approach to Norfolk would be more effective coming from George than from Cranmer directly, saying, "and that the rather at this my request ye do therein the more effectively, as your discreet wisdom in that behalf doth think best for his furtherance". Cranmer addresses his letter to "my very singula
r good Lord, my Lord of Rochford".13 The familiarity between Cranmer and the Boleyns is obvious from the tone of the letter, as is the affection. Cranmer was a great asset to the Boleyn allies, and it was through their influence that he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1532 after the previous Archbishop William Warham died.
Cranmer's ideas were not entirely new to Henry. In mid-1529, Anne had shown him a pamphlet by William Tyndale entitled The Obedience of the Christian Man and How Christian Rulers Ought to Govern. The pamphlet stated, "The king is in the room of God and his law is God's law", and went on, "One king, one law is God's ordinance in every realm".14 In other words, the King's law is God's law, and if the church ruled the Princes of Europe then this was an invasion of the divine order. This would of course have appealed to the vain and egotistical Henry, as it was essentially preaching the divine right of Kings. The Obedience gave a realistic alternative to Rome's judicial and administrative control. Link this with The Supplication of Beggars, which George Boleyn had requested his sister show to Henry, and the makings of the Reformation are clear: the combination of divine right with Lutheran principles, restoring the proper God-given status and power of the King, who would then reform the church and bring it back to the true Biblical purity. Implementation could prove somewhat more difficult. That, of course, is where Cromwell proved so effective, steering the Reformation from the end of 1529 until the Act of Supremacy in 1534.
As could have been predicted, Wiltshire and Cranmer were unsuccessful in winning Charles V over to Henry's cause. During his meeting with Charles, Wiltshire raised Cranmer's argument of the authority of scripture versus the authority of the Pope, but irrespective of Wiltshire's arguments Charles would not be moved, and decided that the affair should be determined by the ordinary course of action in Rome. Wiltshire had to go home embarrassed and empty-handed. Worse still, he was served with a citation for Henry to appear in Rome to have his cause tried there, as had been ordered by the Pope the previous July. The only concession Wiltshire could obtain was that the Pope would agree to a six-week delay.
Once his father and Stokesley had left him in Paris, George longed to return to England. He and his train had spent Christmas and New Year with the French court in Paris, which was well-known for its entertainment and frivolity, but there was a world of difference between being in Paris with the joys of the French court and to being alone in Paris with a group of middle-aged theologians. He was lonely and bored. He was also making no progress with the theologians because, as we have seen, presentation of Francis's letter to the Dean and Doctors of theology had been deferred until the release of Francis's sons. George's frustration was obvious. Towards the end of February he wrote a bitter letter to Dr William Bennett (who he addresses as "Mr Doctor"), an ambassador on embassy with George's father. First, he asks for news from Italy, "but I would hear the truth of everything as it is, without any manor covering"; then he goes on to complain that despite having obtained Francis's letter, he still could get no definitive answer from the French at that time: "I would I could send you some news from hence that should give you pleasure. I can know none anyway that I can work; they of this country say nothing, whether it be because they cannot, or else they will not, I cannot tell." George was also deeply disappointed that nobody at home was taking the trouble to write to him, and complained:
I can send you no news from home; there is no good fellow will take the pain to write, they be so merry as a good fellow said to me the other day. Our country folks have so many pastimes they have no leisure to write. I trust in short space to be at home to pass time as other of my friends do; whether I shall forget to write or no, I cannot tell. I pray you commend me to all folks there, to my Lord elect (Stokesley) specially to the bishop of Worcester (I was his guide from Notley to Oxford); to all other as you will and think best.
He signed it, "Your friend."15
Despite being homesick, George was able to joke that once returned and enjoying the English pastimes with his friends, he might have time to write to his fellow ambassadors, but then again he may not.
One of Anne Boleyn's earliest biographers, Paul Friedmann, who always chose to believe the worst of Anne and her brother, suggests that George was recalled to England due to him being totally unfit for the role of ambassador.16 There is no evidence to support this assertion, however. As can be seen from George's expenses of 40 shillings a day (totalling £240), it was only ever intended that he be in France for four months. The facts do not support Friedmann's suggestion that George's attitude alienated Francis, and that his arrogant and foolish boasting detracted from his missions abroad. George was sent on six foreign embassies, and of those the majority were particularly tricky. Would Henry realistically have continued to send his brother-in-law on sensitive embassies to the King of France, whose support Henry was desperate to elicit, if Francis had taken an aversion to the young man? Although George obviously had no desire to extend his stay in France, this is not evidence of his incompetence, merely a sign of a homesick young man wanting to be with his friends.
Curiously, George's letter to Bennett is full of indecipherable code, which had obviously been devised by the ambassadors as a precautionary measure prior to leaving England. Other letters of the age contain some similar cipher, but this letter includes an unusually large amount. George's letters are normally short and to the point, but it would appear that he took boyish glee in the cloak-and-dagger machinations of foreign policy. He returned to England in late February 1530, having spent his intended four months in France, two weeks before his replacement arrived. John Wellisbourne replaced him initially on 14 March, followed later by the original ambassador, Francis Bryan, an experienced courtier and diplomat. Despite George's success with Francis I, his age alone obviously meant he did not have the gravitas of seasoned diplomats such as Bryan. He was not sent on embassy again for another three years. By then, he would be a seasoned 28 year-old courtier with the necessary skills of a politician and diplomat, and not one who necessarily needed to rely on charm, personality and persistence, or the reputation of his father and sister.
During the period between early 1530 and early 1533, and despite his diplomatic role coming to a temporary halt, George, now Lord Rochford, continued in Henry's service as a trusted courtier. He maintained a high profile in the Privy Chamber, was a constant companion to the King (as we have seen), and took an active role throughout the duration of the Reformation Parliament. During the same period, the matter of the King's annulment rumbled on. The annulment itself has been discussed in great depth in other books regarding Henry VIII and his complicated love life. Although a précis of the annulment negotiations is unavoidable, bearing in mind George's involvement in most aspects of it, discussion here is confined to the areas in which it specifically refers to or involves George Boleyn.
During 1530, pressure continued to be put on the Pope to alter his attitude, but Henry, a man used to getting his own way, was coming to the end of his tether. In October, a proposal was put to Parliament that the Archbishop of Canterbury be empowered by statute to hear the case for the annulment, irrespective of papal prohibition. In December Henry wrote directly to the Pope demanding that he allow his cause to be decided in England, having refused the citation to appear in Rome for a hearing. The Pope's lack of sympathy was pushing Henry towards an eventual break with Rome, as devised by Cranmer at the end of 1529. Matters came to a head in February 1531 when, as we have seen, Convocation accepted Henry as head of the church in England. Yet despite this Henry continued to spend time and effort on blocking a hearing in Rome. He was still not prepared to push forward with his "God-given" rights, and this caused further delay. This was partly due to the Archbishop of Canterbury's refusal to defy papal authority, and partly due to the King of France's attempts to bring England and Rome together, which raised English hopes of a breakthrough.
Whatever the reasons for Henry's delay, Chapuys wrote of increasingly anti-papal tirades from Anne and her father.17 He makes no men
tion of such outpourings from George Boleyn, who, despite his commitment to the cause, appears to have taken a less aggressive, or at least a less vocal, approach than either his father or his sister. There is no mention at all in any extant record of George Boleyn showing his temper or exhibiting a violent side to his nature. He was forceful, dogmatic, and perhaps argumentative, and certainly fought his corner, but seemingly never with open aggression. Although Thomas Wyatt refers to his pride, George is never accused of having a temper to match that of his fierier sister. Two volatile individuals rarely maintain a close and enduring friendship like that between Anne and George, even if they are related. Anne and Henry were both passionate people, and as we know that relationship eventually ended in disaster. Anne regularly clashed with her own father, whose temperament resembled his daughter's. If George had been as tempestuous as Anne they are unlikely to have been as close as they were, even though their interests meshed.
George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier & Diplomat Page 12