Tudor Women Queens & Commoners

by Alison Plowden

  In order to provide grounds for an annulment, Thomas Cromwell tried to establish the existence of a pre-contract between Anne and Henry Percy, but Northumberland denied this so furiously and so categorically that the Secretary was forced to fall back on the King's own misconduct with Anne's elder sister. This was unfortunate because it drew attention to an inconvenient fact, always hitherto carefully ignored. Canon law made no distinction between a legal and an illicit connection, and Henry's intercourse with Mary Boleyn made Anne just as much his sister-in-law as ever Catherine of Aragon had been. On 17 May Thomas Cranmer obediently provided a decree of nullity, and that other inconvenient fact - that Anne had been condemned for adultery having never been a wife -was also brushed aside.

  This would be the first time an English queen consort had suffered death by judicial execution, and there was considerable public interest in the event. There had also been a significant shift of public opinion in Anne's favour. Not that many people felt much sympathy for her personally, but, remarked Chapuys, 'there are some who murmur at the mode of procedure against her and speak variously of the King'. Thomas Cromwell had stage-managed the Queen's downfall with his usual efficiency and had no desire to see the final scene marred by any anti-government demonstrations. He was particularly anxious that no adverse reports should be carried overseas and gave strict orders that all foreigners were to be excluded from the precincts of the Tower. This may have been the reason for a sudden, last-minute postponement of the execution date, which had been set for 18 May. Anne chafed at the delay and complained to William Kingston, Lieutenant of the Tower, 'I thought to be dead by this time and past my pain.' When Kingston tried to reassure her, telling her there should be no pain to speak of, Anne remarked that she had heard the executioner was very good, adding 'and I have a little neck'. She then put both hands round her throat, laughing with what the solemn Lieutenant could only regard as most untimely levity. He had seen many men executed and women, too, but never one like this lady who, to his own knowledge, had 'much joy and pleasure in death'.

  Death came at last at eight o'clock on the morning of 19 May, when 'Anne Boleyn, Queen, was brought to execution on the green within the Tower of London,' looking, according to one eye-witness, 'as gay as if she was not going to die'. The executioner from Calais, who had been brought over for the occasion, drew his great two-handed sword from its hiding-place under a pile of straw, and it was all over. Head and trunk were bundled into a makeshift coffin and buried that afternoon in the chapel of St. Peter-ad-Vincula overlooking the execution ground.

  And so she was gone, that strange, disconcerting creature who had conformed to none of the accepted rules of conduct. She was twenty-nine years old and 'had reigned as Queen three years, lacking fourteen days, from her coronation to her death'. There were no mourners at that hasty, unceremonious funeral. Only Eustace Chapuys, who had feared and hated Anne alive, was generous enough to give credit where it was due, and in a despatch dated on the day of her execution he praised her great courage and readiness to meet death. He also informed the Emperor that he'd heard from a reliable source that, both before and after receiving the sacrament, Anne had sworn, on the peril of her soul's damnation, that she had never been unfaithful to the King.

  The King, who believed - or said he did - all the stories now circulating about the Queen's 'abominable and detestable crimes' and 'incontinent living', had been waiting with unconcealed impatience for the news that he was free again, and barely twenty-four hours later he and Jane Seymour were betrothed. On 30 May they were married in the chapel of York Place, and Jane was installed in the Queen's seat under the canopy of estate royal. Meanwhile, in the palaces of Hampton Court, Richmond and Greenwich, carpenters, painters and plasterers were hard at work obliterating Anne Boleyn's badges and coats of arms and the true lovers' knots with the linked initials ha (which had provoked rude cries of 'Ha! Ha!' from the Cockneys) and replacing them with the insignia of her successor. Jane had taken the motto 'Bound to Obey and Serve', a tactful choice, and Henry would have no cause to complain of this wife's violent temper and bitter, scolding tongue. Indeed, as a personality, Jane seems to have been silent and submissive almost to the point of non-existence. But although the King enjoyed parading his new-found domestic bliss, one piece of unfinished business remained, and during the summer of 1536 he turned to strike at his elder daughter in an all-out bid to obtain her surrender.

  Mary herself was still clinging, as her mother had done before her, to the belief that her sufferings had been due entirely to the malign influence of Anne Boleyn, and she clearly hoped that the way would now be open for an honourable reconciliation with her father. She had yet to face the chilling truth that the change in him was permanent and that the gay, easy-going, affectionate parent she remembered from happy childhood days no longer existed.

  Guided by Thomas Cromwell, who had cast himself in the role of peacemaker, Mary wrote to her father at the beginning of June, begging 'in as humble and lowly a manner as a child can' for his daily blessing, which was her chief desire in this world, and acknowledging all her past offences. 'Next unto God,' she went on, 'I do and will submit me in all things to your goodness and pleasure .. . beseeching your Highness to consider that I am but a woman, and your child, who hath committed her soul only to God and her body to be ordered in this world as it shall stand in your pleasure.'

  Ten days later Mary received a letter from Cromwell enclosing the draft of a formal apology which he advised her to copy and send to the King. She returned two copies of this document in which she was prostrate before the King's most noble feet, his most obedient, repentant and humble child who was ready henceforward, next to Almighty God, to put her 'state, continuance and living' in his gracious mercy. In a covering letter to the Secretary, Mary told him that, God and her conscience not offended, she had followed his advice and would continue to do so in all things concerning her duty to the King. She was grateful for his help but begged him not to press her any further, for she had now done the uttermost her conscience would suffer her.

  When Cromwell had read his copy of the apology, he withheld the sealed letter for the King. There had been nothing about 'next to Almighty God' in his original, and it was a reservation which rendered Mary's submission worthless from Henry's point of view. Cromwell had staked a good deal on getting that submission, and now he wrote again, more sharply, sending yet another draft in which there was to be no 'exception'. Mary knew by this time that she was in no position to quibble over a form of words and would be lucky to escape with a general act of contrition, however abject. She returned the draft 'without adding or diminishing' -just the one copy this time because she could not endure to write another.

  Still it was not enough, and a commission, headed by the Duke of Norfolk, came down to the nursery palace at Hunsdon in Hertfordshire bringing with them a deposition drawn up for her signature - a deposition in which she would explicitly recognize her father as Supreme Head of the Church in England and the nullity of her mother's marriage. When Mary refused to sign, the behaviour of the commissioners finally killed any lingering hope of making peace with honour. They told her that she had so long been so obstinate towards the King's majesty that she seemed 'a monster in nature'. She was such an unnatural daughter, said one, that he doubted if she was even the King's bastard. Another added pleasantly that were she his daughter, he would beat her to death and knock her head against a wall until it was as soft as a boiled apple. They told her she had shown herself a traitor to the King and his laws and would be punished as such. Finally they said she could have four days to think it over and left orders that she was not to be left alone for a moment, night or day.

  Nevertheless, Mary did manage to make last desperate appeals to both Chapuys and Cromwell. But Chapuys, her friend and ally, could not help her in this extremity and advised her to yield if she felt her life was really in danger. Trying to make things easier for her, he said that God looked more at the intentions than the deeds of men,
and she might be better able to serve Him in the future if she gave way now. As for Cromwell, he was badly frightened. When the commission had reported their failure with Mary, Henry had flown into a calculated rage, directed not only at his daughter but at anyone else who could be suspected of sympathizing with her or encouraging her resistance. The Privy Council was in continuous session, and the King had prevailed on the judges to agree that if Mary continued to defy him, she could be proceeded against in law. According to Chapuys, Henry had been heard to swear that not only Mary should suffer for her obstinacy, but Cromwell and many others.

  In his reply to her final appeal, the Secretary made it very clear that Mary could expect no further help from him. 'To be plain with you, madam,' he wrote, 'as God is my witness, I think you the most obstinate and obdurate woman that ever was.' Unless she speedily abandoned her 'evil counsels' which had brought her to the point of utter undoing, he wanted nothing more to do with her. 'For', he went on, T will never think you other than the most ingrate, unnatural and most obstinate person living, both to God and your most dear and benign father.' He did, however, give her one last chance, enclosing 'a certain book of articles' which she was to sign and return to him with a declaration that she thought in heart as she subscribed with hand.

  When Cromwell's letter reached her, Mary knew that she was beaten. For three years she had fought bravely to defend her principles and her good name - now, utterly alone, exhausted and afraid, she gave in. At eleven o'clock one Thursday night towards the end of June, she set her name to Cromwell's book of articles, recognizing her father as the 'supreme head in earth under Christ of the Church of England' and rejecting the Bishop of Rome's 'pretended authority, power and jurisdiction within this realm'. She also acknowledged that her parents' marriage had been 'by God's law and man's law, incestuous and unlawful'.

  Her reward, a few weeks later, was a visit from the King and Queen. Her stepmother gave her a diamond ring, and her father put a cheque for a thousand crowns into her hand. Chapuys reported that it was impossible to describe the King's kind behaviour towards his daughter. 'There was nothing but conversing with the Princess in private; and with such love and affection and such brilliant promises for the future, that no father could have behaved better.'

  Henry was obviously immensely relieved that his terror tactics had paid off, for it had become increasingly important to secure Mary's submission in view of the growing signs of unrest among those who disliked his revolutionary policies. Already that summer the smaller monasteries were being suppressed and their revenues appropriated by the Crown, which, as at least one observer noted, was the cause of 'great lamentation by the poor people'. Mary had always been a popular figure, and she represented the old, familiar ways. She had many friends and sympathizers, too, among the older, more conservative nobility and gentry and, as long as she continued to resist, might very well have been used as a figurehead by those who sought a way of forcing the King back into the paths of righteousness.

  On the more domestic level, it looked bad for the King's own daughter to be defying him. In a society based on the family unit ruled by the benevolent despotism of husband and father, filial obedience was an essential ingredient of peace and stability. It was, therefore, a virtue highly prized by parents, who were generally considered within their rights to enforce it, where necessary, however brutally. The King, as father of the national family, could least afford the continuing spectacle of dissension within his household.

  Mary, brought up to revere both her parents, had undoubtedly been made to feel acutely guilty and unhappy over her difference with her father, but now she bore an even heavier burden of guilt. She begged Chapuys to ask the Pope to give her a secret absolution for what she had done, but nothing could alter the fact that she had knowingly betrayed the two things which meant most in the world to her - her religious faith and her mother's memory. The consciousness of that betrayal, made by a frightened girl of twenty, was to haunt her for the rest of her life.

  Meanwhile, the King's younger daughter was being disinherited in her turn. Parliament met that June and passed a second Act of Succession, ratifying the annulment of the Boleyn marriage and settling the crown, this time, on Jane Seymour's children. At not quite three years old, this sudden diminution of her social status did not greatly concern Elizabeth, but it prompted a worried letter from Lady Bryan, the Lady Mistress of the nursery, to Thomas Cromwell. 'Now as my Lady Elizabeth is put from that degree she was in,' wrote Margaret Bryan distractedly, 'and what degree she is at now I know not but by hearsay, I know not how to order her or myself, or her women or grooms.' The child was growing fast and her wardrobe urgently needed replenishing, but where was Lady Bryan to turn for instructions and supplies? There was trouble, too, within the household. Sir John Shelton, the steward or governor, wanted Elizabeth 'to dine and sup every day at the board of estate', probably to bolster his own importance, but the Lady Mistress considered this most unsuitable. 'It is not meet for a child of her age to keep such rule yet. If she do, I dare not take it upon me to keep her Grace in health; for there she shall see divers meats, and fruits, and wine, which it would be hard for me to restrain her Grace from.' Elizabeth was already in some danger of becoming spoiled, for 'my lady hath great pain with her great teeth, and they come very slowly forth, which causeth me to suffer her Grace to have her will more than I would'. However, Lady Bryan means to put this right as soon as she can. 'I trust to God, and her teeth were well graft, to have her Grace after another fashion than she is yet, so as I trust the King's Grace shall have great comfort in her Grace. For she is as toward a child and as gentle of conditions as ever I knew any in my life, Jesu preserve her Grace.'

  Thomas Cromwell added the voluble Lady Bryan's problems to his innumerable other preoccupations, and once the confusion created by the recent upheavals in the royal circle had settled down, both Mary and Elizabeth were suitably provided for. The sisters continued for the most part to share an establishment, and although they now stood on equal terms socially, Mary, as the elder, had regained a natural precedence. Many of her old friends and servants were being allowed to rejoin her, and in August Chapuys was able to report that her position was improving every day. 'Never did she enjoy so much liberty as she does now,' he wrote, 'nor was she ever served with such solemnity and honour as she is at present.' Mary was at Court that autumn, where she came first after the Queen, presenting the napkin at the meal-time ceremony after the King and Queen had washed, and taking her place at table opposite them and only a little lower down the board. Jane Seymour had once served Queen Catherine as maid of honour, and now it was noticed that she went out of her way to show consideration to Catherine's daughter, often taking her by the hand so that they could pass through a doorway side by side.

  Henry still seemed satisfied by his third marriage - at least there are no stories of his unfaithfulness to this wife - but the year ended with no sign of Jane's becoming pregnant. It wasn't until March 1537 that a hopeful announcement could at last be made. On Trinity Sunday, 'like one given of God', the child quickened in its mother's womb, and Te Deums were sung in many churches, while loyal subjects everywhere prayed for a prince. Henry fussed anxiously round his wife, sending here and there for fat quails, for which she apparently had a pregnant woman's craving, and generally behaving like a model husband. He had intended to go north that summer, but in view of the Queen's condition, he cancelled all his arrangements. Jane had everything she could reasonably want, but Henry was taking no chances: 'considering that, being but a woman, upon some sudden and displeasant rumours and bruits that might by foolish or light persons be blown abroad in our absence, being specially so far from her, she might take to her stomach such impressions as might engender no little danger or displeasure to the infant'. So, to avoid such perils, the King let it be known that he would travel no further than sixty miles from the palace until the Queen had been delivered.

  Hampton Court, the handsome riverside mansion built by Cardinal Wolsey
in the days of his glory, had been chosen for the lying-in, and there, on 16 September, the Queen 'took her chamber' with all due ceremony; but she did not enjoy the 'good hour' so earnestly prayed for on these occasions. She went into labour during the afternoon of 9 October, and her ordeal lasted three days and two nights. At two o'clock in the morning of 12 October the child was born. It was a boy, normal and healthy. The whole country went hysterical with joy, while, at Hampton Court, preparations began at once for a christening which would be worthy of Henry Tudor's son. But in all the flurry of correspondence, the triumphant announcements carried by royal messenger to every corner of the kingdom and the letters of congratulation and thankfulness pouring into the palace, there was scarcely a mention of the woman who had at last given England a prince. This complete lack of sentimentality or even sympathy was typical of the general attitude towards childbirth. It was also the obverse side of all the splendour and ceremonial, the elaborate deference paid to the Queen. Jane, like any farmer's wife, had done her business, the business she'd been created for. She'd done it successfully and been lucky enough to survive, and really there was no more to be said.

  The christening of Prince Edward took place on the fifteenth and the Queen, wrapped in velvet and fur, was carried from her bed to lie propped up with pillows on an elaborate state pallet, or sofa, to receive the guests. The ceremony lasted nearly six hours, but protocol did not release Jane until the procession had returned from the chapel and the precious baby, borne in the arms of the Marchioness of Exeter, had been presented for his parents' blessing. Three days later, the Queen collapsed in a high fever, and early on the morning of the nineteenth she received the last sacrament. She rallied briefly and seemed to be holding her own, but by 24 October she was dead.