Tudor Queens of England

by David Loades

  y denial.30 The Secretary’s intelligence was good, because the same day his agents picked up one Mark Smeaton, a Privy Chamber musician who seems to have been mooning after the Queen for some time. With the aid of a little privately administered torture, Smeaton was persuaded to admit to an adulterous affair with Anne, which almost certainly existed only in his own imagination. Emboldened by this success, on 2 May, Cromwell ordered the arrest

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  of Norris, and for good measure, Anne’s brother George. George had naturally been on intimate terms with his sister, and there were many occasions that could be misrepresented by a suffi ciently perverted mind. Incest, moreover, was particularly calculated to horrify a king whose sexual morality was nothing if not conventional. On the same day Anne was also arrested and taken to the Tower. So far, so good but, as one of Cromwell’s agents put it ‘no man will confess anything against her, but all-only Mark of any actual thing’.

  31 This, he judged ‘should much touch the king’s honour if it should no further appear’. In other words, it would do Henry’s reputation no good at all to charge his wife upon such fl imsy grounds.

  32 Ironically, it was Anne herself who partly solved this dilemma. The shock of imprisonment seems to have unhinged her, and she began to chatter. She did not confess to any actual misdeeds because there were (almost certainly) none to confess, but she did recount a whole string of indiscreet conversations, going back some time, and admitted that she had mocked Henry’s occasional fi ts of impotence. All this was promptly relayed to Cromwell, with the result that Sir Francis Weston, Sir Thomas Wyatt and William Brereton, a Groom of the Privy Chamber, were also arrested. With the aid of some forensic imagination and a few perjured witnesses, a detailed and circumstantial list of the Queen’s alleged adulteries was built up over the next few days, and on 10 May Weston, Norris, Brereton and Smeaton were all tried at Westminster and convicted by a handpicked jury of Boleyn enemies. The Queen and her brother were tried by their peers two days later but the conviction of their ‘accomplices’ made the verdict a foregone conclusion. Anne was charged not merely with adultery and incest but with poisoning Catherine, attempting to poison Mary and conspiring to bring about the death of the King. Completely amazed by this catalogue of iniquities, she could only respond, ‘If any man accuse me, I can but say “nay” and they can bring no witnesses’, which was true but quite unavailing.33 With the King’s eye upon them, the peers knew their duty and found both the defendants guilty. Six days later, on 18 May, they both went to the block on Tower Hill. The exact chronology and circumstances of Anne’s fall have been much debated. Was she secretly opposing Cromwell’s plan for the dissolution of the monasteries? That might have given him an additional reason for wanting to get rid of her. When did he turn against her? His own claim that he only abandoned the Queen when he saw that the King had decided against her was disingenuous. He was moving against her at least by 24 April. 34 The King’s critical role is even more mysterious. He was apparently fully supportive as late as Easter, which was on 16 April, yet by 2 May he had completely changed his mind. The conclusion that he was ‘bounced’ into a fundamentally irrational decision seems unavoidable. The agent must have been Cromwell, who seems to have seized 128

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  upon the opportunity created by Henry’s genuine perplexity. Anne was awkward, independent and sometimes abrasive; he admired her, loved her and sometimes feared her. Yet she had now miscarried twice and he still had no legitimate son. Was there something sinister in the fascination that had held him in thrall for nearly ten years? Then the magic word, ‘witchcraft’, was mentioned. Henry had a strong superstitious streak in his make up, mixed up with his rather eclectic intellectualism and erratic emotions. If Anne was a witch, suddenly everything fell into place; her obvious sexuality, her power over him, her failure to bear a son. It was all part of a diabolical conspiracy! Cromwell had no desire to see witchcraft feature among the legal charges. It was too subjective and emotive, and besides it was not within the jurisdiction of the Lord Steward. Fortunately for him, he did not need it. Once the King’s mind was made up, there was no shortage of more orthodox charges, no matter how implausible. Both the London commission and the Lord Steward’s Court could be persuaded to do the King’s bidding –

  provided it was clearly known. For whatever reason – and there must remain some doubt about that – in the space of about a week between 24 April and 1

  May 1536, Henry became convinced that his bedfellow was a whore and a witch. Of course that meant that she had never been properly his wife. Attainder had already stripped her of her title of Pembroke and on 17 May Cranmer was forced to preside over a special session of his consistory which dissolved her marriage on the grounds of consanguinity – an impediment that had been perfectly well known three years earlier when he had pronounced the marriage valid. Only the King’s manic insistence can account for such an unworthy

  volte face on the part of a man otherwise known for his integrity. So Anne went to her execution, abandoned and despised, for no good reason other than that the King would have it so. Her family-based political faction was destroyed overnight and her young daughter left in a limbo of bastardy. As a result of his own quixotic actions, Henry now had three illegitimate children but no heir, either male or female. However, on 19 May, the day after Anne suffered, he was betrothed to Jane Seymour. There was at the time, and has been since, a school of thought that attributes Henry’s vindictive determination to erase Anne to an intense infatuation with this new love. However, that would seem to be an exaggeration. Anne had to die because she was too dangerous to leave alive and that was Cromwell’s judgement rather than Henry’s. The secretary seized the opportunity created by the King’s suggestibility to pile Pelion on Ossa, because he feared her revenge if she were left alive. In a way her death was a tribute to her power. By the beginning of May, Jane was clearly at the top of Henry’s agenda, but how long she had been there is another matter. She had been a member of the Queen’s privy chamber for some time, and Henry must have known her well

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  by sight. However in September 1535, when the royal couple visited Wulf Hall, the Seymour residence in Wiltshire, during their summer progress, Jane was probably not even there. The reason for a visit to Sir John Seymour had more to do with the rising career of his elder son, Sir Edward, than with any charms of Jane. Moreover only hindsight links her with Anne’s tantrums in January 1536. It may be that the King was becoming seriously interested by then but it cannot be proved. In fact the chronology of their relationship is hazy. At some point, probably in March or early April, the King seems to have propositioned her, to be told fi rmly that ‘she had no greater treasure in all the world than her honour, which she would rather die a thousand times than tarnish’. He is also alleged to have sent her a letter and a generous present, both of which were returned with dutiful humility. All this sounds a bit like hindsight and a family plot intended to unseat Queen Anne, but the source of most of it is Chapuys, who was a keen meteorologist when it came to storm signals. It is quite probable that Henry’s decision to marry her was as sudden as his decision to abandon Anne, and was conditioned more by her immediate availability and by her father’s proven breeding record than by any deeper or longer term considerations. In moving as he did on 19 May, Henry outpaced all the observers. As soon as Anne’s fall was known, Pope Paul III, convinced that she had been the sole cause of the King’s straying, began to anticipate negotiations to end the schism. The Emperor was similarly speculating about the possibility of a Habsburg marriage to bring Henry back into the mainstream of European diplomacy. Both knew about Jane, but both chose to regard her as a casual ‘amour’ rather than an intended bride. They were wrong because Henry’s needs, both sexual and dynastic, were now urgent and he had no intention of plodding through the endless rounds of negotiati
on necessary to secure a European bride. Nor had he any intention of re-negotiating his ecclesiastical policy. In that respect the Seymours were neutral, perhaps more conservative than otherwise. Cromwell seems to have favoured Jane as a means of healing the deep divisions in the court that had characterised the Boleyn ascendancy – but he had no hand in prompting his master’s decision, and seems to have adopted this attitude only after the

  fait accompli. Henry and Jane were married with what can only be described as indecent haste at Whitehall on 30 May. Jane was 27: a somewhat plain and dumpy virgin if her portraits are anything to go by, although her unmarried status probably had more to do with her hard-up father’s inability to provide a suitable dowry than with any lack of attractiveness. Of course, with this dramatic turn in her fortunes no dowry was required. She was not at all the kind of girl who would have appealed to the young Henry, but he was now 44 and his priorities had changed. What he needed now, 130

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  apart from a son, was a spot of peace and quiet. Anne had been a challenge in every sense of the word. She had been sexy, edgy and opinionated; a stormy and emotional companion but a shrewd and well-informed adviser. She had had her own supporters, her own networks, even her own policies. Jane was none of these things. What she did have was a good natured and imperturbable common sense. As Henry told Chapuys soon after his marriage, ‘her nature was gentle and inclined to peace’ – in short, Jane was everything that A

  nne had not been.35 When she urged Henry to take his elder daughter into his grace – which must have been within a few weeks of their wedding and before Mary’s surrender – the King told her effectively to mind her own business. Anne would have sulked furiously at such a rebuff but Jane took it all in her stride. She probably did not have any share in Mary’s submission, which came towards the end of July, but was on hand to make sure that Henry took it in good part and that the younger woman’s household was fully and sensitively restored. She was more like an elder sister than a stepmother to Henry’s daughter, who was now 21 and the two became fi rm friends. Jane clearly did not have any religious opinions, which grated on Mary’s sensitive conscience. Conservatives like the Marquis of Exeter regarded her as a friend but it is an open question whether she had any opinions of her own at all.

  In the latter part of 1536, Henry had need of as much domestic peace as he could get. On 18 July his son Henry had died at the age of about 18. He may, or may not, have ever entertained ideas of legitimating him, but he was fond of the boy and felt his loss keenly. Fitzroy’s widow, Mary Howard, we are told ‘handled herself very discreetly’ but she was only 17 and they had never lived together. The young Duke’s main legacy, apart from his father’s grief, was a large tidying-up operation of people, lands and jobs because he had no direct successor in any of his functions. More importantly, the north of England was swept by rebellion. This had a number of specifi c causes, which have been exhaustively discussed, but the timing seems to have been mainly occasioned by the discovery that Anne’s death had made not the slightest difference to the main thrust of the King’s policies. She had been cast as the evil infl uence from which all his errors and abuses had stemmed and when she fell her enemies waited expectantly for everything to change. Mary had been the fi rst to be disillusioned in this respect and she had submitted and come to terms with Thomas Cromwell. The conservative leaders (or some of them), however, now felt that Cromwell had betrayed them and he became the arch-enemy whom the King must be pressed to repudiate. The rebellions, known collectively as the Pilgrimage of Grace, were powerful, but messy and ill directed. Above all the great conservative magnates, the earls of Derby, Shrewsbury and Northumberland, who had been expected to back the

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  movement, held aloof. The Emperor, who might have felt compelled to support them a year earlier, was now not interested at all. The Pilgrimage collapsed under its own weight with only a few discreet pushes from the King and the Duke of Norfolk. Mary, who might have been its fi gurehead, instead confi rmed her newly established favour by repudiating it absolutely and making it clear to Charles that she was no longer prepared to be used against her father.

  36 Jane, whose peacemaking role had certainly played a part in keeping Mary ‘on side’, had by Christmas become a symbol of the new stability. Henry spoke of her as his fi rst ‘true wife’, which was legally the case since Parliament had confi rmed Anne’s displacement back in July.

  The new queen had the immense advantage of carrying almost no political baggage. Unlike Catherine, or even Anne, she had no pretensions to noble birth and no established political persona. The King had made her to suit himself. She even dressed to please him and he made her magnifi cent. She was given the usual consort’s jointure and her attendants were chosen with great care. Jane was not fl irtatious but in the light of the recent past it was essential that no breath of scandal should touch her entourage. Jousts and entertainments were provided in her honour and several royal palaces were lavishly refurbished. Altogether there was a sense of new beginnings and Christmas was kept at Greenwich with exceptional splendour in the midst of ferociously cold weather that prevented any movement upon the river. Jane, however, was not crowned. A great ceremony was being discussed, but just before Christmas the Queen’s father, Sir John Seymour, died, and that required a fi xed period of mourning. Then in February she was found to be pregnant. That had not inhibited Anne’s coronation four years earlier, but there was no comparable point to be made this time and talk of a coronation was quietly dropped. The Queen’s health appeared to be good, but nothing must threaten her at this most delicate time. By June, all seemed still to be well but Henry was taking no risks and cancelled his summer progress in order to remain within reach. Quite apart from the fact of conception, the King seems to have been exceptionally solicitous of Jane’s welfare and it may be that he was genuinely more fond of her than of either of her predecessors. Perhaps her straightforward dependence touched him. Here was a woman with no independent resources. He was even concerned to reassure anyone who would listen that it was not she who had asked him to cancel the progress, because ‘she can in all things well content, satisfy and quiet herself with that thing which we shall think expedient.’

  37 Throughout the summer the astrologers were predicting the birth of a prince. They knew that that was what the King wanted to hear, and they had a 50 per cent chance of being right – perhaps rather higher, given the number of times they had 132

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  been wrong in the past. Henry was suffi ciently convinced to have a stall prepared in the Garter Chapel at Windsor for the new Prince of Wales, but again perhaps he was whistling in the dark. Like many women at the time, Jane seems to have been quite uncertain when her time was due. She withdrew into the customary seclusion at Hampton Court in late September, which suggests that she expected to give birth in late October. In fact she went into labour within a fortnight, on 9 October. After an easy pregnancy the birth was bitter and protracted, lasting two days and three nights and leaving Jane exhausted. However, the agony appeared to be worthwhile for the child was a boy, alive and perfect. Henry is said to have wept with emotion, as well he might considering what suffering he had created in the quest for this child. Rejoicings thundered round the country in a way that had not been heard since the ill-omened birth of Prince Henry 27 years before. The new Prince was named Edward, and on 15 October was christened with great splendour in the chapel of the palace where he had been born. The godfathers were the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duke of Norfolk; the godmother the Lady Mary. No more complete a symbol of reconciliation could be wished for. On 18 October the infant was created Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester and on the same day his maternal uncle, Edward Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp, was promoted to the Earldom of Hertford.

  Unfortunately, the Queen did not make a good recovery. On the day of the christening sh
e had been well enough to sit in the ante-chapel and receive the congratulations of the guests, but three days later puerperal fever developed; by 23 October she had become delirious and late on the night of the 24 October she died. Henry’s dynastic ambitions had claimed one more life, although it would be hard to blame him in this case. Jane had been such a gentle soul, and her passing was bitterly mourned: ‘… and of none in the Realm was it more heavelier taken than of the King’s Majesty himself, whose death caused the king immediately to remove into Westminster, where he mourned and kept himself close and secret a great while …’