by Alison Weir
Escorted by two German lords and preceded by the English nobles, she came to the gallery, where she made three low curtseys to the King. Then Henry led her into the Queen’s closet, where they were married by Archbishop Cranmer. Around the new Queen’s wedding ring was engraved the legend “God send me well to keep.” Once the nuptials were completed, Henry and Anne proceeded hand in hand into the King’s closet, where they heard mass. Afterwards, spices and hippocras were served, then Henry went off to his privy chamber to change while Anne was escorted by Norfolk and Suffolk to hers. She was still in her wedding gown, at 9.00, when Henry rejoined her in a robe of rich tissue lined with crimson velvet. Then, “with her serjeant-of-arms and all her officers before her, like a queen, the King and she went openly in procession” into the King’s closet, where they made their offerings. Afterwards, they dined together. In the afternoon, Anne changed into “a gown like a man’s, furred with rich sables” with long fitted sleeves, and a headdress encrusted with stones and pearls. Thus attired, she accompanied the King to Vespers and supped with him. Afterwards there were “banquets, masques and divers disports till the time came that it pleased the King and her to take their rest.”11
There was no public bedding ceremony. The bed in which the royal couple almost certainly slept, which bears the initials H and A and the date 1539, had an antique headboard adorned with erotic polychrome carvings, one priapic cherub and one pregnant one, intended to inspire lust and promote fertility.12 But the King, who felt he had been ill advised by Cromwell and cheated by Southampton, who had praised Anne’s looks, was in no mood to consummate the marriage. In fact, during the days that followed, he appeared to take an almost peverse pleasure in proclaiming his impotence. He told Cromwell that, although he had done “as much to move the consent of his heart and mind as ever man did,” he had not “carnally known” the Queen because he did not like her body and could not therefore become aroused. In fact, “he mistrusted her to be no maid, by reason of the looseness of her breasts and other tokens, which, when he felt them, struck him so to the heart that he had neither will nor courage to prove the rest [and] left her as good a maid as he found her”; nor could he tolerate her rank body odour.13
He poured out his woes first to Anthony Denny, then to Dr. Chamber, claiming that Anne’s body was so “disordered and indisposed” that he “could not overcome the loathesomeness” of it, “nor in her company be provoked or stirred to that Act.” Dr. Chamber soothingly advised him “not to force himself ” in case he caused an “inconvenient debility” of the sexual organs. The King then sought out Dr. Butts, confiding to him that, although he had not been able to do “what a man should do to his wife,” he had had two wet dreams in his sleep on his wedding night and thought himself “able to do the Act with other than with her.” Butts was told to make this known at court, to counteract growing rumours that the King really was impotent. In fact, as Chamber and Butts suspected, there was probably nothing wrong with him:14 the logical conclusion is that he had purposefully avoided consummating the marriage so that it could be annulled when the time was ripe.
Henry and Anne shared a bed every night for four months, but never achieved “true carnal copulation”; in fact, after the first four nights, Henry gave up all pretence of trying,15 and made it known he had never even taken off his nightshirt. Anne herself was so innocent that she did not realise there was anything wrong. Having revealed to her ladies that all the King did was courteously wish her goodnight and good morning, she reacted with alarm when told that there must be more than that if she was to bear a Duke of York, and said she was happy she knew no more.
Anne did her best to please Henry. Although her brother was inclined to Lutheranism, she dutifully observed all the rites of the Church of England 16 and gave the King a German Book of Hours dedicated in his honour.17 She learned English rapidly and well. She began wearing gowns in the English fashion, mostly of black satin or damask so that she could show off her jewels to greater effect. Some of those jewels were designed by Holbein, and featured the entwined initials H and A. 18 The King, however, did not lavish jewels on her as he had done his previous wives; Anne herself purchased one of her richest pieces, a diamond brooch with miniature scenes from the life of Samson.
Anne was given Baynard’s Castle only for her jointure, Havering having been reserved for the use of Prince Edward. She used both the ducal coronet and the swan of Cleves as her badge. Her very presence in a court that had not had a queen for over two years enabled her to attract “a great court of noblemen and gentlemen,”19 all avid for her patronage. Eleanor Paston, Countess of Rutland; Jane, Lady Rochford; and Winifred, Lady Edgecombe were high in her favour, as were the only two of her German maids who had been allowed to stay in England, Katherine and Gertrude. However, when the King’s dislike for Anne became known, many people deserted her chambers.
Although she never learned to sing or play, Anne soon came to share the King’s love of music, and employed her own musicians to entertain her. Among them were several members of the Jewish Bassano family, who Cromwell’s agents had discovered in Venice, where they were hiding from the Inquisition. Offered asylum in England, they arrived at court in the spring of 1540. The Bassanos were skilled recorder players, and they and their descendants would faithfully serve the Crown until the reign of Charles I.
Anne’s other pleasures were chiefly domestic. She took a delight in the palace gardens, and rewarded the gardeners generously for their services. She spent hours at her needlework, working in a form of cross-stitch called opus pulvinarium on cushion covers and mats, and was responsible for introducing some German Renaissance designs into England. She enjoyed gambling with cards or dice with her ladies in her privy chamber, or watching the feats performed by a visiting acrobat. She is known to have owned a parrot, and is said to have introduced the liver-and-white toy spaniel into England.
On 11 January, Henry and Anne presided over a tournament in honour of their nuptials, the Queen appearing for the first time in English dress, with a French hood.
The King had already abandoned plans for her coronation, but he did arrange for her to make a state entry into Westminster on 4 February, sailing with her in the royal barge from Greenwich, attended by the nobility and guildsmen in a flotilla of smaller barges. The new Queen received a thunderous salute from the Tower guns as she passed, and the banks of the Thames were crowded with cheering citizens. At Westminster stairs, the King helped Anne out of the barge, and they walked in procession to Whitehall Palace.20
Nearby, the state apartments of St. James’s Palace were now finished, and the chapel royal nearing completion. Its magnificent ceiling, painted by Holbein, and probably inspired by the décor of the ambulatory vault of St. Costanza in Rome and the entrance hall to the Palazzo de Té in Mantua, commemorates the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves, whose initials, badges, and mottoes, with the date 1540, were incorporated into the design. Tapestries hung beneath the clerestory windows, and the high altar was lavishly adorned. The new chapel would from now on be the official home of the Chapel Royal.21
In February, Lady Lisle sent a large bribe to Mother Lowe in the hope of getting her daughter Katherine accepted into the Queen’s household, only to be told that the King had decreed that no new maids be appointed unless one of the existing ones left to get married. Undeterred, Lady Lisle insisted that an unwilling Anne Basset approach Henry himself, armed with a gift of his favourite quince marmalade. Anne reported to her mother that “His Grace does like it wondrous well, and gave Your Ladyship hearty thanks for it,” but added that she had dared not ask for a place for her sister “for fear lest how His Grace would have taken it.” Later, when she did find courage to broach the subject, Henry told her that Sir Francis Bryan and others had asked him the same favour for their friends, and that he would “not grant me nor them yet.”22 The following month, Lord Lisle was found to have grossly mismanaged the King’s affairs in Calais, and was sent to the Tower, where he died two years l
ater. Henry had a soft spot for Anne Basset, and allowed her to remain at court, but there was no hope of her sister joining her.
Any romantic feelings that Henry may have cherished for Anne were extinguished that spring when he began pursuing Katherine Howard. By Easter, his passion for her was notorious, and the Catholic party at court, led by Norfolk and Gardiner, hastened to capitalise on their good fortune. Norfolk, who apparently knew nothing of her past, extolled his niece’s “pure and honest condition,” while Gardiner “very often provided feastings and entertainments” for the King and Katherine at Winchester Palace in Southwark.23 Henry showered his new love with jewels and other gifts, and was rejuvenated by her youth, her prettiness, and her vivacity. He was “so marvellously set upon [her] as it was never known that he had the like to any woman.”24
Charles de Marillac described Katherine’s countenance as “delightful,” 25 but there is no certain portrait of her. Two almost identical miniatures by Holbein, thought to be of Katherine, survive today.26 They show a plump girl with auburn hair and the Howard nose, which bears out Marillac’s assertion that she was “a young lady of moderate beauty but superlative grace, of small stature, of modest countenance and gentle, earnest face.” 27 The miniature was first identified as Katherine in 1736, probably correctly, given the rich clothing of the sitter and the fact that she is wearing the same pendant that appears in Holbein’s portrait of Jane Seymour; the wide jewelled border edging the low neckline of her gown may be the “square containing 23 diamonds and 60 rubies with an edge of pearl” that Henry VIII gave Katherine in 1540.28 A drawing at Windsor of a sitter with similar features may also represent Katherine Howard, but was not called her until 1867. It has recently been suggested that Katherine was the model for the figure of the Queen of Sheba in a stained glass window in King’s College Chapel at Cambridge, which was crafted, probably by Galyon Hone, while she was queen; King Solomon bears a resemblance to Henry VIII. A Holbein portrait at Toledo, Ohio, now thought to be of Elizabeth Seymour, was erroneously identified as Katherine Howard in 1898.
In character, Katherine was frivolous, flighty, pleasure-loving, and sensual. Chapuys thought her “imperious and wilful,” 29 which was perhaps the result of the King overindulging her. Although her religious views were certainly orthodox, she was not noted for her piety.
Henry was now resolved to rid himself of Anne of Cleves, and by April was “declaring before God he thought she was not his lawful wife.”30 Apprised of the King’s wishes, Parliament petitioned him to look into the circumstances of his marriage since they doubted its validity.
On 17 April, Cromwell was raised to the peerage as Earl of Essex and appointed Lord Great Chamberlain of England, but while he was in London dealing with Parliament, Norfolk and Gardiner had the King’s ear at Greenwich, and were busily poisoning Henry’s mind against him; Norfolk in particular resented the fact that Cromwell had been given an earldom that had been held until recently by the Bourchiers, who were descended from Edward III.
That month, the King held the annual chapter of the Order of the Garter at Windsor. Several of its members had been executed for treason, mainly in the wake of the Exeter conspiracy, and it was suggested that their dishonoured names be deleted from the register. Henry, however, did not wish to deface the records, and ordered that the names should remain but that next to each were to be written the words, “Vah, proditor!” (Oh, traitor!).31
On May Day, the King and Queen watched the customary jousts from the new gatehouse at Whitehall. Among the challengers was Henry’s new favourite, Thomas Culpeper, who had the misfortune to be unhorsed. Lady Lisle, who, like many women, was susceptible to the charms of this “beautiful youth,” 32 had sent him her colours to wear, with a message that “they are the first that ever I sent to any man.”33
Culpeper was ambitious, wealthy, and of good birth. He had been brought up in the privy chamber, starting as a page and rising to the position of Gentleman, and now “ordinarily shared [the King’s] bed.” 34 By 1537, his influence with his master was considerable enough for Lady Lisle to send him a fine hawk in return for his patronage.35 Yet there was a ruthless, violent side to Culpeper. In 1539, he had brutally raped the wife of a park-keeper while “three or four of his most profligate attendants” held her down at his bidding; he then murdered one of the villagers who tried to arrest him. The King, not wishing to forego the young hothead’s company, pardoned him.36 Culpeper was also greedy: he and his brother, another Thomas who served in Cromwell’s household, were forever seeking to acquire grants of monastic land, court offices, and pensions. 37
The tournament lasted five days, and when it ended, Henry and Anne attended a banquet at Durham House, to which the public were admitted so that they could watch the victors of the jousts receiving cash prizes and grants of houses from the King. This was Anne of Cleves’s last public appearance as Queen.
Cromwell, the man who had helped to make her Queen, who believed he was at the pinnacle of his career, was arrested without warning on 10 June. As he entered the council chamber at Westminster, the Captain of the Guard apprehended him, and Norfolk and Southampton triumphantly stripped him of his Garter insignia and seal. Shouting that he was no traitor, Cromwell was then hustled off to the Tower. On 29 June, Parliament passed an Act of Attainder condemning him to death as a traitor and heretic: he was said to have denied the Real Presence in the mass, a charge that was calculated to alienate the King. He was also accused of presuming too far above his “very base and low degree.” Sir Richard Rich was one of those who testified against him, and Norfolk was undoubtedly instrumental in his fall.
The King was so appalled by the evidence laid before him that he did not think to question it, and paid no heed to Cranmer, who bravely ventured to ask, “Who shall Your Grace trust hereafter if you may not trust him?”38 Yet Henry did not put Cromwell to death immediately because, even now, he could prove useful by providing information that would help secure an annulment of the Cleves marriage. Cromwell readily complied, but it did not save him. Henry ignored his last letter, which ended with the desperate plea, “Most gracious Prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy!”
Cromwell was beheaded on 28 July 1540 on Tower Hill, protesting that he died a faithful Catholic. The people of England, who did not understand his worth, rejoiced in his death, and the King’s popularity soared. Henry also acquired a convenient scapegoat for the failure of his marriage to Anne of Cleves.
The Catholic faction at court were jubilant. “Now is the false churl dead, so ambitious of others’ blood,” sneered Surrey. “Now he is stricken with his own staff.” He was referring to the process of attainder, whereby so many of Cromwell’s victims had come to grief. Southampton, who had once been Cromwell’s friend but had distanced himself from him after the Cleves marriage, now replaced him as Lord Privy Seal, with Lord Russell becoming Lord High Admiral in his place. Cromwell’s fall also represented a victory for religious orthodoxy, and drove many radical reformers underground. Even Holbein, whose career had been advanced by Cromwell, fell out of favour and received no royal commissions for two years.
Yet the conservatives’ victory was incomplete: many of those who had been Cromwell’s men remained in post, and Cranmer, who held similar religious views to the late Lord Privy Seal, retained the King’s confidence and could not be unseated. Although the influence of Norfolk and Gardiner increased after Cromwell’s fall, neither was ever to achieve the political dominance he had enjoyed. Never again would the King rely on any one minister, as he had on Wolsey and Cromwell. From now on, he would rule alone, maintaining a balance of power between the rival factions at court.
On 24 June, Henry sent Anne of Cleves to Richmond Palace, ostensibly “for her health, open air and pleasure.”39 The next day, a deputation of councillors came to inform her that her marriage had been found to be invalid. She made no protest, and in return was rewarded with a generous financial settlement of £500 (£150,000) a year, Richmond Palace, Hever Castle, and Buckingha
m’s former manor of Bletchingly, and the right to call herself the King’s sister, with precedence over all the ladies in England after the Queen and the King’s daughters. She was also allowed to keep all her jewels, plate, clothes, and hangings, and allocated a suitable household composed mainly of her German servants. Her marriage was annulled by convocation on 9 July, on the grounds of the King’s lack of consent to it and Anne’s alleged precontract with the son of the Duke of Lorraine.
Anne told her brother, “God willing, I purpose to lead my life in this realm.” Freed from the ties that had bound him to her, Henry discovered that he quite liked her, and invited her to court on several occasions. He also visited her at Richmond. Anne made the most of her independence, looking more “joyous” than ever and putting on a new gown every day, “each more wonderful than the last.”40 In the years to come, she would establish a considerable reputation as a good hostess, and entertained many courtiers at Richmond. Rarely had a royal divorce had such a happy outcome.
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“I Have Been Young, and Now Am Old”