by Alison Weir
Katherine was not officially informed of the Archbishop's two judgements until 3 July. On that day, another deputation of lords of the Council, headed by Lord Mountjoy, arrived at Ampthill and presented her with a parchment advising her that the King was lawfully divorced and married to the Lady Anne, who was now queen. 'As the King cannot have two wives, he cannot permit the Dowager to persist in calling herself queen,' she was informed. It would be better for her if she accepted this new marriage and recognised Anne as Queen of England - better for everyone, in fact. But Katherine took a pen and, to the horror of Mountjoy, scored through the words 'Princess Dowager' with such vehemence that the nib tore the parchment, which still survives today bearing the marks of its mutilation. 'I am not Princess Dowager but the Queen and the King's true wife!' she cried angrily. 'And since I have been crowned and anointed queen, so I will call myself during my lifetime.' When Mountjoy ventured to remind her that the rightful queen was now Queen Anne, Katherine retorted with scorn that 'all the world knoweth by what authority it was done,' and declared she would abide by no judgement save that of the Pope.
The lords, who had heard her out with growing irritation, then delivered an ultimatum from the King. If she persisted in her obstinacy, he might withdraw his fatherly love from their daughter. Katherine blanched at this, but remained resolute and said she would not yield for her daughter's sake or anyone else's, notwithstanding the King's displeasure. Warned that she was putting herself in danger of the King's anger and its consequences, she replied: 'Not for a thousand deaths will I consent to damn my soul or that of my husband the King.'
Henry was furious at the failure of Mountjoy's mission, and took his revenge by ordering, at the end of July, that Katherine be moved to the Bishop of Lincoln's thirteenth-century palace at Buckden in Huntingdonshire. Part of this building still survives today. When Katherine stayed there, the newer Great Tower assigned to her was already fifty years old, and rendered chilly and uncomfortable by the damp that rose from the Fens upon which it was situated. Katherine and her much reduced household were lodged in a corner turret of the three-storyed red-brick building, which was, by intention, more comfortless than the rest. Buckden was also very remote, and a long way from London and the court. It was surrounded by a secure moat, and located in a wild and desolate area, overlooking the Great Fen. Few people lived in the district, a fact that had not escaped
Henry's attention. But if he had hoped to bring Katherine to submission by exiling her to such a place, he was destined to be disappointed. As the former queen's cortege wound its way to Buckden on 30 July, the country people ran after it in hordes, wishing Katherine comfort and prosperity, and professing themselves ready to serve her and, if need be, die for her.
At Buckden visitors were forbidden, by the King's express command, and there was very little money. What Katherine could spare she gave in alms to local poor folk. Nor was food plentiful, and she fasted often, usually for religious reasons. Beneath her clothes, she wore the hair shirt of the third order of St Francis, to remind her of the frailty of the flesh. Her leisure hours were spent on embroideries with her women, fashioning altar-cloths for the churches in the district, but the greater part of her days was devoted to prayer, and it was prayer that sustained her. At Buckden, a room with a window adjoined the chapel, and Katherine would kneel here, day and night, praying at the window. When she had gone, her ladies would find the sill wet with her tears, for she shed many for the loss of both husband and child. Yet her forbearance was remarkable. When one of her women began to curse Anne Boleyn, Anne's greatest rival bade her hold her peace and 'pray for her', for the time would come when 'you shall pity and lament her case'.
Chapuys relates how in August, Anne demanded that Katherine surrender the rich triumphal cloth and christening gown she had brought from Spain. These were in fact Katherine's personal property, and she refused to let Anne have them: 'God forbid I should ever give help in a case so horrible as this!' she exclaimed. Nor did the King press the point. The christening robe remained at Buckden.
In August, the Pope drew up a sentence of excommunication against Henry VIII. Katherine, appalled, wrote to Clement, begging him not to put it into effect, and Clement, for once, heeded her plea. But by September, she was feeling desperate about her predicament. The Pope must be made to give judgement, and soon.
There is no justice for me or my daughter [she wrote to Chapuys]. It is withheld from us for political considerations. I did not ask His Holiness to declare war - a war I would rather die than provoke - but I have been appealing to the vicar of God for six years and I cannot have it! Write to the Emperor, bid him insist that judgement be pronounced!
She had also heard malicious gossip, designed to scare her, that the next Parliament would decide if she and her daughter were to 'suffer martyrdom'. Bravely, she declared she did not fear it, but what was ominous to Chapuys was that Katherine's keepers had been instructed to break her resistance with such threats.
The Queen's pregnancy progressed well. It was made public in May, when her increasing girth obliged her to add a panel to her skirts. Being Anne, she complained bitterly about the loss of her figure, but her father told her bluntly to thank God she found herself in such a condition. In July, she went with Henry to Hampton Court to rest, and was reported to be in good health and spirits. Normally at that time of year Henry would be preparing to go on progress, but in 1533 he stayed near London, hunting, so as to be on hand. He also ordered prayers for her safe delivery to be said in churches. Astrologers and seers were consulted by the future parents about the baby's sex. Only one dared predict it would not be a boy: William Glover, famous throughout the kingdom for foretelling the future, told Anne he had had a vision of her bearing 'a woman child and a prince of the land'. This was not well received.
In August, the first cracks in the relationship between Henry and Anne began to appear. With his wife fully occupied with preparations for the coming child, and perhaps no longer inclined to want his sexual attentions, the King, who had now settled down in his marriage to a point where he could be complacent about it, had been unfaithful. The identity of this fleeting inamorata is not known, although Chapuys thought her 'very beautiful', and reported that many nobles had promoted the affair, doubtless to spite Anne. Whoever she was, the liaison was quickly over. However, Anne found out. Unlike Katherine, she was not reticent about such matters, and made a fuss. Henry was irritated to find her upbraiding him for a passing infidelity; now that they were married, he expected her to be as meek, docile and submissive as Katherine had been, and he did not take kindly to her censure. Worse still, he was hurt, for he had just presented her with a great French bed, part of the ransom for the Duke de Longueville in 1515, and he made it clear that it was as well it had already been delivered, for she would not have had it now, having used displeasing words and shown herself so full of jealousy. This only made Anne angrier, but Henry cut her short. Chapuys says he told her she must shut her eyes, 'and endure as more worthy persons. She ought to know that it was in his power to humble her again in a moment, more than he had exalted her before.' After this, he avoided her for three days, and then there was much 'coldness and grumbling' between them. Chapuys dismissed this as a 'love quarrel, of which no great notice should be taken', but there was more to it than that. The wheel had come full circle: not a year before, Anne had been the mistress and Henry the servant. Eight months of marriage had changed all that. Henry was now dominant, and he expected Anne, as his wife, to play a subservient role, though, after seven years of having the upper hand, this did not come easily to her. It would be foolishtoread into Henry's remarks much more than the bluster of a man caught straying, but all the same they are an indication that he was mentally comparing Anne with Katherine and finding her wanting. Anne had now been queen for five months, long enough for him to realise that she lacked the dignity and circumspection required for success in that capacity, and long enough for her arrogance to begin to irritate him. This is not to say t
hat her spell was wearing thin, merely that marriage had altered the balance of their relationship. Henry was still in love with her, but that did not now preclude sex with other women when he felt the need. In the middle of August, the King and Queen went to Windsor, then to Greenwich, where Anne took to her chamber to await the birth. 'I never saw the King merrier than he is now,' commented a courtier, Sir John Russell, as Henry occupied himself during the last tense weeks of waiting with his favourite sport, hunting. At last, on the morning of 7 September 1533, in a bedchamber hung with tapestries depicting St Ursula and her 11,000 virgins, Anne went into labour, just as the Duke of Suffolk, whose wife Mary Tudor had died in June, was being married in another part of the palace to thirteen-year-old Katherine Willoughby, daughter of Maria de Salinas, Katherine's close friend. On the face of it, the bride was a strange choice, but the 48-year-old Duke had wanted her when she had been betrothed to his son, and had broken the betrothal to marry her himself. He must have set out with every intention of avoiding his formidable mother-in-law whenever possible, for he had already suffered a conflict of loyalties during his first marriage. As it turned out, though, he forged a satisfactory friendship with Lady Willoughby. His young wife grew up to be an ardent reformist and one ofthe early luminaries of the Protestant faith.
Suffolk's marriage, however, was completely eclipsed by the events taking place in the Queen's apartments. All went well, the mother-to-be being sustained by the assurances of the physicians and astrologers that her child would be male. A vain fancy, as it turned out, for the infant born to her shortly after three o'clock that afternoon was a girl.
According to Chapuys, both Henry and Anne were disappointed at the child's sex, and Henry was angry that he had been so misled by those paid to make predictions about it. Yet his new daughter was strong and healthy, with Tudor red hair and her mother's features, and her arrival surely presaged a long line of sons. When Henry came to see his wife and child for the first time after the birth, he had had time to reflect on this, and was philosophical when Anne expressed regret at not having given him a boy. 'You and I are both young,' he told her, 'and by God's grace, boys will follow.' It was not perhaps the most tactful remark to make to a woman who had just experienced childbirth for the first time, particularly when he went on to assure her he would rather beg from door to door than forsake her. Their child, he announced, would be called Elizabeth, which by happy coincidence was the name of both his mother and Anne's.
Reaction to the birth was predictable. Chapuys spoke for the Emperor and the rest of Europe when he concluded that God, by sending a daughter, had entirely abandoned the King. The Princess Mary, who had been forced against her will to attend Anne's confinement, was secretly triumphant, knowing that as far as Catholic Europe was concerned Elizabeth would never be regarded as anything other than a bastard begotten and borne in sin by an infamous courtesan. In England too, there was unfavourable comment. The Bishop of Bath's secretary, John Erley, made insulting remarks about the King's apparent inability to sire male heirs. 'I would have gotten a boy,' he boasted, 'or else I would have so meddled with the Queen till my eyes did start out of my head!'
Letters announcing the birth of a prince had already been prepared; now, with an SS added, they were dispatched abroad. The King ordered aTe Deumto be sung in churches, and went ahead with the splendid christening he had already planned for the hoped-for son. On the Wednesday after her birth, the Princess Elizabeth was wrapped in a purple mantle with a long train furred with ermine, and, escorted by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, was carried in the arms of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk under a canopy of estate to her baptism in the chapel of the Observant Friars. Neither Henry nor Anne attended, and the central figures at the christening were the baby's godparents, Archbishop Cranmer, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, the Dowager Marchioness of Dorset, and the Marquess of Exeter - who, as a supporter of the former Queen, told Chapuys he really wanted to have nothing to do with the ceremony, but did not wish to displease the King.
Inside the chapel, a vast throng had gathered. The font was of solid silver, three steps high, and covered with a fine cloth. Around it stood many gentlemen with aprons on and towels over their shoulders, who received the baby when she was lifted, naked and dripping wet, out of the font by the Archbishop. A brazier burned in a nearby cubicle where she was dressed after the ceremony. Then Garter King of Arms cried: 'God, of His infinite goodness, send prosperous life and long to the high and mighty Princess of England, Elizabeth!' The trumpets blew a fanfare, and the child was brought to the altar, where the Archbishop confirmed her. Then refreshments were served to the guests, and the godparents presented the Princess with gifts, standing cups of gold and gilt bowls with covers.
Now, with the trumpets sounding before them, the procession reformed and made its way back through corridors lit by 500 torches to the Queen's apartments, where Anne, robed and lying on her great French bed with the King at her side, received her daughter joyfully, and offered the guests more refreshments.
Elizabeth had been baptised with all possible ceremony, yet there were no attendant celebrations. The tournament planned by the King was cancelled, as were the fireworks, and no bonfires were lit in the City of London. Two friars were arrested for saying they had heard that the Princess had been christened in hot water, 'but it was not hot enough'. Chapuys thought 'the little bastard's' christening had been 'cold and disagreeable', but he was viewing it through prejudiced eyes. The fact remained, however, that although Elizabeth was Henry's recognised heir, she had not been welcomed like one.
Anne quickly conceived a deep and protective love for her child, and to begin with hated to let her out of her sight. When she returned to take her place at court, there, by her throne under the canopy of estate, lay her baby on a velvet cushion. She had wanted to breastfeed Elizabeth herself, but Henry was shocked at the notion: queens never suckled their own offspring. A wet-nurse was engaged, and Anne was forced to endure the first break in the bond between herself and her child. In December, when she was three months old, Henry assigned to Elizabeth her own household, and established it at Hatfield Palace, which was convenient for London yet well away from its unhealthy, plague-infested air. Lady Margaret Bryan, who had formerly cared for the Princess Mary, was appointed Lady Governess to Elizabeth, and had the command of a veritable army of nursemaids, laundresses, officials and servants. Chapuys noticed that
the child was taken to Hatfield from Greenwich by a roundabout route, via Enfield, 'for the sake of pompous solemnity', and the better to impress upon the people the fact that she was the King's heiress.
The Princess Mary's trials began in earnest after Elizabeth was born. She was deprived of the title of princess, and her household was disbanded. Then, in December, she was sent to Hatfield - not without protest - to act as a maid of honour to her half-sister, whose title she refused to recognise. Her beloved Lady Salisbury was dismissed, and in her place were appointed Lady Anne Shelton and Lady Alice Clere, two female relatives of Anne Boleyn, who had been set to spy on her and generally make her life a misery. Anne, commented Chapuys, had alienated the King from his former humanity and was doing her utmost to break Mary's resolve.
She began her persecution by demanding Mary's jewels, on the grounds that the King's bastard daughter could not be permitted to wear what was meant for his heiress. Nor did Anne approve of the King visiting Mary, and would throw a tantrum whenever he suggested doing so. Once she even sent Cromwell after him to Hatfield, to dissuade him from seeing Mary, but when Henry was leaving, he chanced to look up and saw his daughter on a balcony, kneeling in supplication to him. Deeply moved, he bowed and touched his hat, at which all the members of his retinue followed suit; then he rode away, not daring to defy his wife by actually speaking to Mary. When Anne heard about the incident, she was not pleased.
By this time, Mary was perilously near to breaking-point, and her health had suffered, though four months of misery in Elizabeth's household had only strengthene
d her determination to defend her rights and those of her mother. This took courage, however, in such a hostile environment. She missed her mother intolerably, and thought of little but escaping from England, though Katherine forbade it, bidding her obey her father in all things save those that touched her conscience.
Henry strayed again sexually while Anne was lying-in after the birth of Elizabeth. At the same time, rumours were circulating in the court that he was beginning to tire of her. In November 1533, the French ambassador noticed that 'the King's regard for the Queen is less'. Disappointment in not having a son may have accounted for this; for all his brave words at Elizabeth's birth, Henry must have felt that Anne had failed him. In less than a year of marriage the magic had worn off to some degree and the King had leisure to wonder why he had risked so much for her, though he would not have admitted as much. He still maintained he had been right to put away Katherine and marry her, but he could see for himself how unpopular Anne was. 'There is little love for the one who is queen now, or any of her race,' reported the French ambassador in November, and in January 1534 there were more outbreaks of treasonous talk, with Henry accusedofbeing a heretic living in adultery and Anne of being a mischievous whore who would one day be burned at the stake. Even the Duke of Northumberland, Anne's former admirer, was overheard by Chapuys saying to a friend that the Queen was a bad woman, which effectively demolishes the myth that he loved her to the end of his days. And when Lord Dacre was tried for treason, having long supported Katherine of Aragon and been one of Anne's most bitter enemies, twenty-four peers and twelve judges, having heard him speak for seven hours in his defence, unanimously acquitted him. The Queen's anger knew no bounds when she heard of this, yet both she and Henry were aware that Dacre's acquittal was symbolic of the general mood.