by Archer, Liam
The Coronation
May 29th 1533, Anne Boleyn was preparing for her coronation at Greenwich Palace. Five months’ pregnant, a healthy bump was clearly visible on her. Dressed in cloth of gold, her hair fell below her waist, and the royal jewels gleamed brightly over her elegant frame under the enchanting sky.
Gliding down the River Thames, Anne’s barge led the way as an array of other barges drifted close by – her symbolic emblem of a white falcon rising from a bed of Tudor rose’s clear to be seen from each side of the River Thames – as well as hundreds of smaller, lavishly adorned boats, while musicians crowded the decks to provide a fruitful abundance of joyful music. Each barge was uniquely decorated with wreaths of flowers, colourful ribbons, and had been polished to shine for the occasion.
At five o’clock the cannons boomed, the guns pealed, and the trumpets roared as Anne Boleyn approached the Tower of London. As soon as her barge had docked, Anne was warmly greeted and with many emphatic nods and bows by the Tower’s various staff, before being led directly to the King by the Tower’s constable, William Kingston, and the Mayor of London.
Henry showed fervid affection for Anne when she appeared: her dazzling form producing awe and wonder inside him.
Smiling, Henry got to his feet, approached her enthusiastically, and wrapped his large arms around her in a pincer-like grip. Attempting to be gentle through his excitement, as he kept in mind the delicate child inside her, he loosened his grasp; Anne’s face glowing scarlet by the time he did. What wasn’t there to be happy about? Everything was running smoothly: just like clockwork.
That evening a mighty dinner party was held, which included eighteen specially selected guests, all of whom were about to be anointed Knights, foods that appealed to every taste, and plenty of music.
The following Saturday, on the streets of London, Anne Boleyn was accompanied by a convoy of nobles of the realm, made up of Gentries, Knights, Members of Parliament and dignitaries, on horseback from the Tower of London to Westminster Palace. Everywhere she looked there were large banners inscribed with Henry’s and Anne’s initials ‘HA’, newly settled coats of paint in lively vibrant colours, flowers of immense variety, and silver and gold ornaments adorned every square foot of the pageant.
Four Knights of the Five Ports held a canopy of estate above her head; the Archbishop of Canterbury later commented on it saying, ‘She sitting in her hair, upon a horse litter.’ Cloth of silver lined the beautiful, well-bred horses.
After Anne, came four magnificent chariots. The first was empty, and the three others had distinguished women in them, called divers; they were followed by a large assembly of yet more women. The whole convoy extended nearly half a mile in length, and wine was made available at various conduits spanning the pageant.
Men, women and children looked on and waved as Anne Boleyn passed; but although every effort had been made to make the day a pleasant one, there was no hiding the deathly silence that followed her as she inched her way along the cobblestone streets of London, masked only by the trotting hooves of the horses and the turning of carriage wheels ... England was falling out with Rome, and if the strings continued to loosen, all that could come of it was decades of uncertainty and rivalry throughout the land.
The procession ended at Westminster Hall, where a banquet had been prepared for her.
After the feast, Anne exited at the back of the palace which lead out on to the River Thames, entered her barge and was promptly rowed to York Place, which brought an end to the day’s events.
Next day Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England.
Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer
This is a revised version of Thomas Cranmer’s first-hand account of the momentous day, which he wrote in a letter to Mr. Hawkins, English Ambassador at the court of the Emperor, Charles the Fifth:
On Sunday June 1st, Anne left Whitehall, the destination being Westminster Abbey. At Westminster Church the Bishops of Lincoln, London, Bath, York, Winchester, St. Asaph, and I, had all assembled and were preparing for the coronation, along with the Abbot of Westminster and about ten other Abbot’s. The Bishop’s and Abbot’s followed me out of the Abbey, and then we proceeded towards Westminster Hall, carrying the crosses and crosiers. In a procession we entered Westminster Hall, and received the Queen and all the ladies that accompanied her. The Queen was wearing a robe of purple velvet, and the ladies around her were in scarlet robes and gowns. The Bishops of London and Winchester were standing at either side of her; she in her hair; my lord of Suffolk holding the crown in front of her, and two other lords also stood near to him holding a scepter and a white rod. They proceeded up into the High Altar, and the ceremonies took place. I set the crown upon her head, and then we sung Te Duem. After that, a solemn mass took place while her Grace sat crowned upon a scaffold, which was made between the High Altar and the choir in Westminster Church. With the Mass and ceremonies done and finished, all of the assembly of noblemen brought her into Westminster Hall again, where a great solemn feast awaited her; the good dinner was much too long for me to put into words.
Elizabeth Arrives
Anne was approaching eight months’ pregnant and was spending most of her time within the grounds at Greenwich Palace. Henry, meanwhile, was passing the time hunting in Windsor, making short trips there to enjoy his much loved sport – or so Anne thought; apparently, there was another ‘sport’ the King was quite fond of.
With Anne being physically less attractive and a stomach larger than a melon, while Henry was away he had an affair with a woman who was all too ready to befriend ‘His Majesty’.
By the time this news reached Anne, she was starting to go into labour and could worry little about her husband’s unfaithfulness with the anxiety of childbirth hanging over her.
When Henry finally returned from Windsor, Anne gave vent to what she had heard. He casually responded by telling her not to make a fuss; that it was all nonsense and lies.
On September 7th 1533, Anne Boleyn gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. At that moment, the excitement and expectation for a boy had been all but destroyed, and everybody in the Boleyn family knew how devastated the King would be if Anne could not provide him with a male heir. Nasty looks met her everywhere she went. If Anne failed to give birth to the child the King wished for, it would not only affect his behavior toward her, but would be a detriment to them all. And for this, Anne was already feeling the ill will from those closest to her.
At first, Henry reacted calmly; deep down a fire began to kindle within him. ‘She will have brothers,’ he said avidly.
There were strong signs for hope: the baby was healthy, and the time Anne had spent in labour had had few moments of worry. Their new daughter, who they named Elizabeth, was seen at her christening wearing a purple robe of velvet; her train so long four Lords were needed to carry it.
Henry’s older daughter, Mary, now became of some concern. Steps were taken to insure Elizabeth’s status for the future, but rivalry between them was going to be unavoidable. The King had made his new daughter the heir to the throne, despite the fact she wasn’t the boy he so he so desperately wanted. Something about Elizabeth made Henry look twice at her.
Five years later, Henry would be borne a son by Jane Seymore, who he promptly made his heir to the throne. When the young Lady Elizabeth was told of the change she said, ‘How haps it, Governor, yesterday my Lady Princess, and today but my Lady Elizabeth?’
Elizabeth I
March 1534, Anne Boleyn fell pregnant again. Sometime between then and January the following year, she had the fatal miscarriage. The King’s confidence in his wife’s ability to deliver him healthy children, with the first being so healthy and full of life, had given him the misled idea that it would be safe to try for another child, so soon after Anne’s first successful pregnancy. And shortly after her first miscarriage, she fell pregnant and miscarried again in June.
With two failed pregnancies under her belt, patience was starting to wear thin
; the King’s temper worse than Anne had ever seen it (which was quite an achievement for Henry): his eyes bulging frighteningly out of their sockets as things once again seemed not to be going the way he had planned.
Anne’s family was all too aware their marriage had been deteriorating, ever since Elizabeth had arrived.
Henry, however, had not yet given up hope. He was sure Anne would eventually give birth to another healthy baby, and could only hope that when she did, it would be the boy he was after. The thought that this might not happen, Henry buried deep for another day, determined to give Anne a bit more time to prove she was indeed worthy of his hand.
The King brought the Act of Succession before parliament, which made Elizabeth’s title harder to dispute, and in the event that Anne did give birth again, her child would be acknowledged as legitimate without question. This was soon followed by an attempt to pass the Act of Supremacy – a far more controversial proposal – which prevented the sending of revenues to Rome, would make Henry the Supreme Head of the Church of England, and would all but sever the Church of England from the Church of Rome.
The storm had been in their midst for more than a century, but in 1534 it began to rumble …
The King’s Will
When Pope Clement died in September that year, Henry tried to negotiate with his successor, Paul the Third. He told him he would reverse his decision, and England would continue to be intrinsically tied with Rome, if he would accept his marriage to Anne Boleyn.
But Pope Paul, like Clement and Julius before him, did not heed to Henry’s request; and to top off his unreasoning attitude, he made John Fisher, a long time supporter of Henry’s first wife, a cardinal.
Thomas More was a respected lawyer and avid supporter of Catherine of Aragon. He was known as a social philosopher, a writer, and an opponent of the Protestant Reformation. He, like many others, simply would not accept Henry as ‘Supreme Head of the Church of England’. And Henry would soon find out just how far he would be willing to go to stop him.
During a sermon, the King declared under the ‘Cannons of the Apostles’ he had High Power under God and ought to be the Supreme Head over all spiritual prelates. As the King prayed he exclaimed, ‘Ye shall pray for the Universal Church of all Christendom, and especially for the prosperous estate of our sovereign and Emperor King Henry the Eight, being the only Supreme Head of this realm of England.’
More and Fisher felt so strongly against the Act of Supremacy, they were willing to risk their own lives contesting it. And they were by no means alone. Numerous monasteries, priories, churches, and scholars all had something to say about the Act, and a feeling of indignation had roused in them all.
This unwillingness, up and down the land, to conform to the King’s will, infuriated him; and soon he would resort to the one core element of his reign; the men who empowered him: the Royalists – his Army.
Key establishments throughout England, Wales, and Ireland were about to be destroyed and lost forever. Some of the greatest priories, churches and cathedrals were reduced to nothing more than ash and rubble. It was to be one of the most infamous demonstrations of power a king has forced upon his own kingdom, and the scars from the destruction that followed are still visible today.
Henry VIII: ‘There is no head so fine but I will make it fly.’
First on the list were the Carthusians, an influential Roman Catholic monastic order. The priests and priors were rounded up from their communities and taken to the Tower of London, where they were swiftly imprisoned, tried and sentenced. They were then sent to the village of Tyburn, where the sentences were duly carried out.
One by one they were hanged. As death neared, the rope from which they hung was cut. Finally, the victim was dragged to the spot where he or she was disemboweled, before their organs were set ablaze in front of their fading eyes …
*
John Fisher and Thomas More would not accept the Act of Supremacy in its entirety, even after all of the bloodshed. Shortly after the executions at Tyburn, Fisher was beheaded at the Tower of London. His head was placed on a spike and advertised from Tower Bridge, for all London to goggle at.
The head loomed there for months with not the slightest signs of rot. Birds didn’t feed on it, and not a single maggot fell from it. One dull, grey day a local tradesman, who was crossing the bridge, stopped and stared at Fisher’s seemingly unchanging head. He had long heard people talk suspiciously of Fisher’s head on his way to work, or at work, as if it was some kind of supernatural omen. And tired of the incessant chatter the head was causing, he climbed up the bridge, yanked it off its spike and threw it in the River Thames, where it sank to its murky depths. And when considering Londoners in the sixteenth century were more than used to seeing decapitated heads on their daily commute or birds flying to and fro with eyeballs or other fleshy thing in their beaks – Fisher’s head caused quite a stir at the time.
Thomas More was given an extra month to accept the Act of Supremacy. This was mainly due to the King’s likeness of More, who Henry knew well, and had even considered him to be a friend at one time; they used to play tennis together.
In July that year, More was executed at the Tower. Before the axe fell he said, ‘I die the King’s good servant, but God’s first.’
Untimely Mishap
In the summer of 1535, the King and Queen travelled to the edge of Wales seeking to brighten their spirits. Summer was a time when sickness and disease in London was rife. The Black Death still existed in England, though much less severe than it had been a few centuries before, and it was wise to get away from the capital if you could.
That autumn, whilst in the serene surroundings of the Welsh country, Anne fell pregnant for the final time.
When, to everyone’s sheer disbelief, Catherine of Aragon died, before a single word was said by either Anne or Henry, the sense of a burden having been lifted from Henry’s shoulders overcame him: she was one less thing to worry about; her ties with Henry were now completely undone.
One of the royal servants described, in a measured tone, how the embalmer, who had worked on Catherine’s corpse, had noticed a black lump in her throat; and when he had inspected her heart, he found it was also black. Had she poisoned herself, in despair of losing all that she had held dear? Or did Henry order to have her secretly killed, for having given him a hard time when he wanted a divorce?
On January 27th 1534 – the day Catherine’s funeral was scheduled for – the King decided to spend the day, not in mourning her death, but rather he did the very opposite and made the day something to celebrate.
Held at Greenwich Palace, Henry rode triumphantly towards the jousting tournament, eager to begin. Loud cheers unsettled the quiet landscape all round as the King appeared on the ridge above the gathered spectators and combatants. Dense, snowy-white clouds filled the sky, with small gaps of blue tunneling through them now and again, like great eyes.
Anne, who was three months’ pregnant, had retired in the palace, and was keeping well away from the rowdy atmosphere of the Joust.
Henry suited up in his riding armour and mounted his competition horse, with the help of his staff, who strained under the growingly obese man (his armour almost doubling his already enormous weight).
A gunshot sounded and they were off, each gaining speed as they thundered headlong towards the other – the King shifting himself in his saddle all the while, trying to find a strong hold of his lance through the ensuing turbulence.
His opponent, however, rode gallantly at him, locking his lance in place with seemingly mechanical ease.
Henry tried to mirror his opponent, but to no avail. And after a desperate lunge of his prong, a mighty thwack unhorsed the King with such unforgiving force, he was immediately rendered unconscious, and lumbered towards the ground, unearthing heaps of dirt as he violently came to a stop.
He lay motionless on the torn earth, segments of his broken armour scattered all around him.
Hundreds of feet pounded the
earth as everyone in the crowd ran to the scene, and there they met a worrying site: Henry lay still as death. Carefully, those around him began to remove bits of dented and dirt-laden armour from his stout frame, while a physician scanned him with scrutinizing intensity. Time and again, the odd man or woman came up and checked to see if he was breathing; but it was almost impossible to tell.
One hour passed, and still the King lay motionless under the solemn sky. Everybody knew it: the King was dead, and Anne’s uncle sought to give her the tragic news …
* * *
On having been told of Henry’s accident, the shock affected her to such a degree, she had the dreaded miscarriage that day. Anne’s spirits were in anguish. As she lay on her bed, distraught and in pain, peering through a panned window as night descended upon the mournful grounds, trees groaned in the wind and rain, their contorted, spear-like branches glistening threateningly in the dark and snapping at the odd gale. Anne could only hope this horrific day was over …
Then, all of a sudden, she saw a menacing shadow moving and growing larger in the flicker of torchlight outside her room. A feeling of foreboding twisted inside her; the somberness of the day had become worryingly charged.
Everyone within the palace seemed stifled in their tracks: Henry had gained consciousness and his strength, and was being hastily led through the halls to the Queen.
Anne hurried to her bed and cowered there. Henry’s heavy footsteps hammered the floor as he approached her room, shaking glass on tables and dislodging pictures in their frames. She was dreading Henry’s reaction to the miscarriage, more than being relieved he was alive and well – and it being on top of his near-fatal accident seemed to make it all the worse.