by Alison Weir
In February 1526, Henry VIII appeared in the tiltyard wearing the jousting dress embroidered with the words 'Declare I dare not'. This was the first indication that he had begun paying court to Anne Boleyn in secret, and doubtless his courtiers assumed that once more their sovereign had taken a new mistress. They would have been wrong: Henry had asked Anne to become his mistress, but - to his astonishment - she had refused. She would not be his mistress in the courtly sense nor in the physical sense. She had seen what had happened to her sister, who had been cast off without so much as a pension, and she told the King (according to George Wyatt):
I think your Majesty speaks these words in mirth to prove me, but without any intent of degrading your princely self. To ease you of the labour of asking me any such question hereafter, I beseech your Highness most earnestly to desist, and to take this my answer in good part. I would rather lose my life than my honesty, which will be the greatest and best part of the dowry I shall have to bring my husband.
Henry, who was used to women surrendering the instant he beckoned, was intrigued. It was new for him to be placed in the position of having to beg for sexual favours; far from being angry or irritated, he was captivated, and Anne at once became infinitely more desirable. 'Well, Madam,' he told her, 'I shall live in hope.' But then it was Anne's turn to express astonishment: 'I understand not, most mighty King, how you should retain such hope! Your wife I cannot be, both in respect of mine own unworthiness, and also because you have a queen already. Your mistress I will not be.' Besides, she added, referring to the Queen, 'how could I injure a princess of such great virtue?'
Whether these were Anne's actual words is really immaterial; she must have said something of the sort, for she made it very clear to Henry VIII that she would only surrender her virginity after marriage. The only way that Henry would ever enjoy her would be by making her his wife, and that, as she pointed out, was impossible. It may be that he had told her already of his doubts about the validity of his marriage; if not, he would soon do so. Nor was it long for the seed once sown to take root in Henry's mind. Wyatt says the King told Wolsey he had spoken with a young lady with the soul of an angel and a spirit worthy of a crown who would not sleep with him. Wolsey, who failed to see the significance of what the King was really saying, observed in his worldly-wise way that if Henry considered Anne worthy of such an honour, then she should do as he wished. 'She is not of ordinary clay,' sighed the royal lover, 'and I fear she will never condescend in that way.' 'Great princes,' Wolsey insisted, 'if they choose to play the lover, have means of softening hearts of steel.'
Henry chose to play the lover. He sent Anne expensive gifts as tokens of his affection; these she accepted, which led him to hope that she might come to relent, given time. Yet already Anne was playing for the highest prize of all. As soon as she learned from the King of his doubts about his marriage, she saw her advantage. If he obtained an annulment, which might not be very difficult in the circumstances, then he would be free to marry again and father the heirs he so desperately needed. A Percy had considered her worthy, and a strain of Plantagenet blood ran in her veins. Why should she not become Queen of England?
Anne was setting out on a dangerous path, which she would have to tread with the utmost care. Whatever happened, she must not surrender to the King: his interest cooled too quickly. For the moment, she contented herself with dropping subtle hints, intimating that in the right circumstances she was ready to give heart, body and soul to him, and Henry, like any man kept at bay, grew daily more intent upon having her. Her studied aloofness only added to his torment lest she was harbouring some secret passion for Wyatt.
Anne was on friendly terms with the poet, who, blithely unaware of his sovereign's interest, was still paying court to her. One day, he playfully snatched a small jewel hanging by a lace out of her pocket, and thrust it into his doublet. Anne begged for its return, but Wyatt kept it, and wore it round his neck under his shirt. Presently, Anne forgot all about it, the jewel being of little value. However, not long afterwards, Wyatt was the King's opponent at a game of bowls; Henry thought the winning cast was his, and pointing to it with a finger on which a ring Wyatt recognised as Anne's was displayed, said, 'Wyatt, I tell thee, it is mine!' Thomas, not to be outdone, rashly produced Anne's trinket from about his neck, and taking the chain, said, 'If Your Majesty will give me leave to measure it, I hope it will be mine!' The winning cast was indeed his own, but he had not been referring to that, and the King, to whom his meaning had been clear, lost his temper. 'It may be so, but then I am deceived!' he snapped, and broke up the game.
Henry was not only jealous, he was hurt, because the ring he wore had been given to him by Anne, under some pressure, as a token of her affection. It was not, as has sometimes been supposed, a betrothal ring, because Anne had not received one in return. Nevertheless, it was not long before Henry did make up his mind to 'win her by treaty of marriage'; in his mind, he was a free man, having convinced himself that his marriage was uncanonical, and that for the Pope to declare it so would be a mere formality. He now wanted Anne more than anything else in the world, except, perhaps, a son, and he could see no reason why he should not enjoy lawfully what she would not permit him illicitly. His proposal to her was made in the latter part of 1526 or early in 1527, yet there was a delay of some months before he sought Wolsey's advice about obtaining an annulment. This delay was caused by Anne's reluctance to commit herself, a ploy calculated to banish any regrets the King might have had after asking her to become his wife. She had cleverly manoeuvred him into proposing marriage; now she would make him play a guessing game, while she affected to consider whether she would accept him.
Anne had assured the King that Wyatt meant nothing to her, and that the poet had taken her trinket without her permission. She had also made it clear to Wyatt that his courtship of her must end. Henry was taking no chances, however, and sent Wyatt off on a diplomatic mission to Italy, from which he would not return until May 1527, when it was becoming obvious to everyone just how serious the affair between the King and Anne Boleyn was. Wyatt accepted defeat with good grace, and drowned his sorrows in some very apt verse:
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt; As well as I may spend his time in vain. And graven with diamonds, in letters plain, There is written her fair neck round about:Noli me tangere,for Caesar's I am, And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.
Wyatt soon recovered from his loss and shortly afterwards found a new love, Elizabeth Darrell, who remained his mistress until his death in 1542. Soon, he was celebrating her in a new poem:
Then do I love again;
If thou ask whom, sure since I did refrain
Her, that did set our country in a roar;
The unfeigned cheer of Phyllis hath the place
That Brunette had.
Later, Thomas amended the third line of this verse to 'Brunette, that set my wealth in such a roar,' deeming it wiser to delete all references to his affair with Anne Boleyn, which is perhaps why very few of his poems about it survive today.
Having eliminated his rival, the King may now have hoped that his way was clear to ecstasy with his sweetheart. Anne found his ardour hard to deal with, and retaliated by withdrawing from the court to Hever Castle. This only inflamed the King more, and he began sending her passionate love-letters, of which this is one of the first:
My mistress and my friend,
I and my heart commit ourselves into your hands, beseeching you to hold us recommended to your good favour, and that your affection to us may not be by absence diminished. For great pity it were to increase our pain, seeing that absence makes enough of it, and indeed more than I could ever have thought; remembering us of a point in astronomy, that the longer the days are, the farther off is the sun, and yet, notwithstanding, the hotter; so it is with our love, for we by absence are far sundered, yet it nevertheless keeps its fervency, at the least on my part, holding in hope the like on yours. Ensuring you that for myself the annoy of absence dot
h already too much vex me; it is almost intolerable to me, were it not for the firm hope that I have of your ever during affection towards me. And sometimes, to put you in mind of this, and seeing that in person I cannot be in your presence, I send you my picture set in a bracelet. Wishing myself in their place, when it should please you. This by the hand of your loyal servant and friend,
H.R.
Anne was better able to cope with separation than Henry, for she was not so deeply involved emotionally. Seven years in France had taught her skill in the game of courtship, and she sent the King the gift of a jewel fashioned as a solitary damsel in a boat tossed by a tempest. The allusion was clear. At the same time, she wrote her lover a warm letter, hinting at her inner turmoil, but implying that she might, with some reassurance from him, see her way to accepting him as her future husband. Sadly, this letter, and all the others written to the King by Anne, have not survived. His to her, however, she kept, but they were stolen by a papal servant in 1529, and today rest in the Vatican archives.
Anne's letter and love-token provoked a passionate reaction from Henry, who wrote:
For so beautiful a gift, I thank you right cordially, chiefly for the good intent and too-humble submission vouchsafed by your kindness. To merit it would not a little perplex me, if I were not aided therein by your great benevolence and goodwill. The proofs of your affection are such that they constrain me ever truly to love, honour and serve you, praying that you will continue in this same firm and constant purpose, ensuring you, for my part, that I will the rather go beyond than make reciprocal, if loyalty of heart, the desire to do you pleasure, even with my whole heart root, may serve to advance it. Henceforth, my heart shall be dedicate to you alone, greatly desirous that my body could be as well, as God can bring it to pass if it pleaseth Him, Whom I entreat once each day for the accomplishment thereof, trusting that at length my prayer will be heard, wishing the time brief, and thinking it but long until we shall see each other again.
Written with the hand of the secretary who in heart, body and will is your loyal and most ensured servant.
H. autre^B'ne cherche R.
'Henry the King seeks no other than Anne Boleyn.' And around Anne's initials the King drew a heart, as lovers have done from time immemorial. Anne may have been flattered, yet her resolve remained firm, and she stayed tantalisingly out of reach. When Henry, driven to desperation, made a brief visit to see her at Hever, she told him she was returning to court. Then, when he had gone, she changed her mind, and sent a message to say she could not come after all, even in her mother's company, which Henry had suggested as a means of preserving her good name. Frantic in case her feelings had cooled, he complained bitterly in his next letter that she had not written often enough and that she was being unduly hard on him:
To my mistress,
Because the time seems to me very long since I have heard of your good health and of you, the great affection that I bear you has prevailed with me to send to you, to be the better ascertained of your health and pleasure, because since I parted with you I have been advised that the opinion in which I left you has now altogether changed, and that you will not come to court, neither with my lady your mother, nor yet any other way. I cannot enough marvel, seeing I am well assured I have never since that time committed fault; methinks it is but small recompense for the great love I bear you to keep me thus distanced from the person of that she which of all the world I most do esteem. And if you love me with such settled affection as I trust, I assure me that this sundering of our two persons should be to you some small vexation. Bethink you well, my mistress, that your absence doth not a little grieve me, trusting that by your will it should not be so; but if I knew in truth that of your will you desired it, I could do none other than lament me of my ill-fortune, abating by little and little my so great folly.
Unknown to Anne, the King had already made the decision to test the validity of his marriage in the ecclesiastical courts; this was a matter too sensitive to be written of in his letter, so he entrusted the bearer with a message for Anne, 'praying you to give credence to that which he will tell you from me'. The news had the desired effect, and elicited a prompt reply, in which Anne, as his humble subject, professed her love and devotion to a gracious sovereign. This was not quite what Henry had hoped for, but it was enough to provoke him into a fervent declaration of his intentions towards her in his next letter, written in the spring of 1527. He was in great distress, he said, because he did not know how to interpret her last letter, and he prayed her, with all my heart, you will expressly certify me of your whole mind concerning the love between us two. . . . If it shall please you to do me the office of a true loyal mistress and friend, and to give yourself up, heart, body and soul to me, who will be and have been your very loyal servant, I promise you that not only shall the name be given you, but that also I will take you for my only mistress, rejecting from thought and affection all others save yourself, to serve you only.
He ended by beseeching her for an answer, if not in writing, then in person.
It is clear from this letter that the King was using the word 'mistress' in its honourable, courtly context, yet equally clear that he meant Anne to interpret it in its fullest sense. But there is more to the letter than that. She was to be placed above all others, including, presumably, the Queen herself. Henry was not yet free to marry her, and saw no reason why they could not be lovers while he was waiting for his freedom: he wanted Anne to commit herself publicly to the relationship. For her, this was a prospect fraught with danger and insecurity, and therefore not to be considered. If she became the King's mistress now, she might never become Queen of England.
Nevertheless, she could not go on absenting herself from Henry for ever, and it was at this stage that she consented to return to court. It was the right psychological moment, for Henry was ready to do whatever she asked, and was adamant that their futures lay together. Almost immediately, Anne found herself in a position of unparallelled influence: even Queen Katherine had never held such sway over the King. But Anne had an old score to settle, and she was now in a position to exact vengeance. Since 1523 she had blamed Cardinal Wolsey for publicly humiliating her, and her burning desire since then had been to teach him that one did not mishandle members of the Boleyn family with impunity. She had never guessed that it had been the King, and not Wolsey, who was the prime mover in the affair, and Henry had not seen fit to enlighten her.
When Anne returned to court, the King made no secret of his love for her, nor that she was from henceforth to play a prominent role in affairs. He began showering her with fine jewellery and clothes, and saw that she was lodged in splendid apartments. The courtiers made much of her, using her as an intermediary between themselves and the King, and she was soon revelling in her growing influence and power. According to George Wyatt, she began to look 'very haughty and proud'.
The Queen had both heard by report and seen with her own eyes what was going on between her husband and her maid of honour, yet she showed neither of them any grudge or displeasure, but accepted the affair with good grace and commendable patience, openly declaring herself to be a 'Patient Grizelda', and telling her ladies, according to George Cavendish, that she held Anne Boleyn 'in more estimation for the King's sake than she had before'. Had she known just what her husband's intentions were towards Anne, she might not have accepted the situation with such equanimity, but as far as she was concerned, Anne was merely the latest in a line of royal mistresses and would be discarded in due course.
Others at court were more perceptive, and correctly assessed the intensity of the King's passion for Anne Boleyn. One was Anne's maternal uncle, Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, son of the victor of Flodden, who had died in 1524. In 1527, Norfolk was a hardened soldier and statesman of fifty-four, who would retain his position as premier duke of the realm and one of the most prominent members of the Privy Council until his disgrace in 1546. After the death of his first wife, Anne Plantagenet, Henry VIII's aunt, How
ard had married Elizabeth Stafford, daughter of the Duke of Buckingham who had been executed for treason in 1521, and by her had three children, the eldest being Henry, Earl of Surrey, who would become one of the greatest poets of the Tudor age. The Duke and Duchess were not happily married; he had taken for his mistress the lowborn Elizabeth Holland, whom his wife described as 'a churl's daughter, who was but a washer in my nursery eight years'. Norfolk's involvement with his laundress lasted more than twenty years and in 1539 the Duchess was still complaining about him keeping 'that harlot' and other whores also, vindictive women who had bound and restrained the Duchess while one sat on her breast 'till I spat blood'. By that time, the ducal couple had long since gone their separate ways, and the Duchess reckoned that 'if I come home, I shall be poisoned'.
Thomas Howard might have been brutal and callous in his domestic life, but his male contemporaries considered him to be a man of the utmost wisdom, solid worth and loyalty. His portrait by Holbein shows a granite-faced martinet, and it is difficult to imagine him being the prudent, liberal, astute and affable man he was reputed to be. Nevertheless he had the common touch, and associated with everybody regardless of rank. What made Norfolk valuable to Henry VIII was his astute judgement and his ruthless expediency. He had great experience in the administration of the kingdom, and could discuss affairs of state in depth. Like all his clan, he was ambitious.
Norfolk, like most of the older nobility, hated Wolsey. Because he and several other lords believed the Cardinal was preventing them from enjoying the power that should rightly be theirs, they meant to use Anne Boleyn as 'a sufficient and apt instrument' to bring what Cavendish calls 'their malicious purpose' to fruition. To this end, they very often consulted with her as to what was to be done, and she, 'having a very good wit, and also an inward desire to be revenged upon the Cardinal, was as agreeable to their requests as they were themselves'. Thus Anne began her long campaign to discredit Wolsey in the King's eyes, and then bring about his ruin, not only for the sake of her pride but also in the interests of her family.