Elizabeth's Women

by Tracy Borman

  Anne had certainly blossomed during her years in France. Her slim, petite stature gave her an appealing fragility, and she had luscious dark brown hair, which she grew very long. Her most striking feature, though, was her eyes, which were exceptionally dark—almost black—and seductive, “inviting conversation.” But for all that, she was not a great beauty. Her skin was olive colored and marked by small moles at a time when flawless, pale complexions were admired. The Venetian ambassador was clearly bemused by Henry VIII’s later fascination with her. “Madam Anne is not one of the handsomest women in the world,” he wrote, “she is of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and in fact has nothing but the English King’s great appetite, and her eyes, which are black and beautiful, and take great effect on those who served the Queen when she was on the throne.”6 Even George Wyatt, who was to write an adulatory account of Anne during Elizabeth’s reign, admitted: “She was taken at that time to have a beauty not so whitely as clear and fresh above all we may esteem.”7 She also had small breasts, a large Adam’s apple “like a man’s,” and, most famously, the appearance of a sixth finger on one of her hands.8 But it was undoubtedly her personal charisma and grace, rather than her physical appearance, that gave her the indefinable sex appeal that was to drive kings and courtiers alike wild with frustrated lust. Wyatt observed that her looks “appeared much more excellent by her favour passing sweet and cheerful; and … also increased by her noble presence of shape and fashion, representing both mildness and majesty more than can be expressed.”9

  Anne Boleyn’s allure, honed to perfection at one of the most sophisticated courts in the world, set her apart when she made her entrée into Henry VIII’s court in 1522. Her father had secured her a position in Catherine of Aragon’s household, and she swiftly established herself as one of the leading ladies of the court. While the women admired and copied her fashions, the men were drawn to her self-confidence and ready wit, but more particularly to her provocative manner, which made her at once playfully flirtatious and mysteriously aloof. George Wyatt later said of her: “For behaviour, manners, attire and tongue she excelled them all.”10 She had first come to notice in a court pageant organized by Cardinal Wolsey for the king on Shrove Tuesday 1522, in which she played the part of Perseverance—particularly fitting given the events that later unfolded.

  Among Anne’s suitors was the poet Thomas Wyatt, whose ardent expressions of love were hardly restrained by the fact that he was already married. Rather more eligible was Henry Percy, later sixth Earl of Northumberland, who grew so besotted with her that he tried to break a prior engagement in order to marry her. It was apparently some time, though, before Anne attracted the attention of the king himself.

  The early relationship between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn showed little sign of the intensity that it would later develop. The very fact that Anne had been at court for some four years before there was any sign of an attachment suggests that it was hardly a case of love at first sight. Rather, the affair appears to have developed gradually out of a charade of courtly love. By late 1526, all the court knew that Lady Anne was the king’s latest inamorata. But this was very different from Henry’s previous infidelities, for Anne proved to be the most unyielding of mistresses. She persistently held out against his increasingly fervent advances, insisting that while she might love the king in spirit, she could not love him in body unless they were married. It was a masterstroke. Perhaps having learned from the example of her sister, who had given way all too easily and had been discarded just as easily, Anne sensed that Henry would lose interest as soon as she had succumbed to his desires, so she kept her eyes focused on the main prize: the crown of England. It was an extraordinary goal even for one born of such an ambitious family, for Henry already had a queen—and a popular one at that. But Anne knew that he was tiring of his wife, Catherine of Aragon, who, at forty, was some five years older than himself and now unlikely to bear him the son he so desperately needed. Anne, meanwhile, was in her midtwenties, with every prospect of fertility.

  At first she rebuffed the king’s advances altogether, refusing to accept either his spiritual or physical love. Henry complained that he had “been more than a year wounded by the dart of love, and not yet sure whether I shall fail or find a place in your affection,” and begged Anne to “give yourself, body and heart, to me.”11 He even promised that if she assented, he would make her his “sole mistress,” a privilege he had afforded to no other woman. But Anne was determined to hold out for more, and told him: “I would rather lose my life than my honesty … Your mistress I will not be.” She proceeded to play the king with all the skill and guile that she had learned at the French court, giving him just enough encouragement to keep him interested but rebuffing him if he tried to overstep the mark. Thus, one moment Henry was writing with gleeful anticipation of the prospect of kissing Anne’s “pretty duggs [breasts],” and the next he was lamenting how far he was from the “sun,” adding mischievously, “yet the heat is all the greater.”12

  The longer their liaison went on, the greater Anne’s influence at court became. She was constantly in the king’s presence, eating, praying, hunting, and dancing with him. The only thing she did not do was sleep with him. As her status grew, so did her pride and haughtiness. She became insolent toward her mistress, Catherine of Aragon, and was once heard to loudly proclaim that she wished all Spaniards at the bottom of the sea. A foreign visitor to the court noted with some astonishment: “there is now living with him [the king] a young woman of noble birth, though many say of bad character, whose will is law to him.”13 But Henry cared little for the resentment toward Anne that was building at court, and as his love for her drove him increasingly to distraction, he began to think the unthinkable: if marriage was the only way he could claim her, then he would seek an annulment from the Queen. This was precisely what Anne had been angling for, and she encouraged the king in his new resolve. It would take him almost six years to achieve it, and nobody could have predicted the turmoil that would ensue. Inspired by his pursuit of marriage to Anne, Henry would overturn the entire religious establishment in England, wresting the country from papal authority and appointing himself head of the Church. The religious, political, and social ramifications would be enormous, reverberating for decades and laying the foundations for discord in all of his children’s reigns.

  Anne actively supported the king in his religious reforms, realizing that they held the key to her future. She introduced Henry to William Tyndale’s writings and kept a copy of his English translation of the New Testament in her suite for anyone who wished to read it. She also befriended a number of leading reformers at court, and it was through her influence that they were later appointed to powerful bishoprics. It was said that men such as Hugh Latymer, Nicholas Shaxton, Thomas Goodrich, and even Thomas Cranmer, who was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533, owed their positions to her. A posthumous account of Anne, written by the reformist cleric William Latymer, described her as “well read in the scriptures” and “a patron of Protestants.”14

  In espousing the reformist religion, Anne made some dangerous enemies at court. The Catholics were in no doubt that the king’s alarmingly radical religious reforms were down to her. Eustace Chapuys reported to his master, Charles V, that “the concubine” had told the king “he is more bound to her than man can be to woman, for she extricated him from a state of sin … and that without her he would not have reformed the Church to his own great profit and that of all the people.”15 Anne also alienated large swathes of the population who were already sympathetic to Queen Catherine.

  Catherine’s daughter, Mary, was herself the subject of pity. She had returned to court in 1527, aged eleven, after a two-year sojourn in Wales, as was traditional for the heir to the throne. Until then, she had been the king’s cherished only child, “much beloved by her father,” according to the Venetian ambassador.16 She had been feted at court and proudly shown off to foreign ambassadors, w
ho all praised her appearance and intelligence. Her long red hair was “as beautiful as ever seen on human head,” and another observer complimented her delicate, “well proportioned” figure, as well as her “pretty face … with a very beautiful complexion.” Gasparo Spinelli, a Venetian dignitary, told of how the young princess had danced with the French ambassador, “who considered her very handsome, and admirable by reason of her great and uncommon mental endowments.”17

  From the tender age of two, Mary had been a highly prized pawn in the international marriage market, betrothed first to the Dauphin of France, and three years later to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Young as she was when all of these negotiations were being conducted, she had learned to cherish high expectations of her future life. Her education had reinforced this view. During her early years, she had learned the typical courtly accomplishments of playing the lute and virginals, singing, dancing, and riding. She had later been tutored by the celebrated humanist Juan Luis Vives.

  Upon her return to court in 1527, Mary learned that her father had become enamored of Anne Boleyn, but it did not cause her any immediate concern—there had been mistresses before, and no doubt there would be more to follow. Mary’s ally Chapuys warned that Anne “is the person who governs everything, and whom the King is unable to control.”18 Still Mary clung doggedly to the belief that her mother’s position was unassailable.

  Anne agreed to become Henry’s wife later that year, but she continued to refuse his advances throughout the long years during which he and his ministers tried to secure the annulment of his first marriage through protracted negotiations with the Pope. Henry’s sexual frustration mingled with Anne’s increasing bouts of temper to often explosive effect. Keenly aware that time was passing her by and that she could have been married with children by now, Anne threatened to leave the king. Her behavior became increasingly erratic, and she lashed out at the slightest provocation, such as when she discovered that Catherine of Aragon was still mending her husband’s shirts. Even though she had triumphed over the beleaguered queen, she had no sympathy for her and told one of Catherine’s ladies that “she did not care anything for the Queen, and would rather see her hanged than acknowledge her as mistress.”19

  By 1529, with the prospect of success still frustratingly out of reach, Anne fixed her wrath upon the king’s chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, whom Henry had appointed to secure the annulment, but whom she suspected of deliberately impeding matters. She threw her weight behind the faction at court (led by her father and uncle, the Duke of Norfolk) that was plotting to get rid of Henry’s chief minister. In the event, she helped secure his downfall, but not the divorce.

  In 1531 Catherine of Aragon was banished from the court, and Anne was established as queen in all but name. Princess Mary was now forced to choose between her duty to Henry as her father and her king, and the love and loyalty that she felt for her mother. For her, it was an easy choice. She instantly sided with the beleaguered queen and avoided any accusations of disobedience to the king by placing all of the blame on that “concubine,” Anne Boleyn. But while she professed her continuing devotion to her father, this once cherished daughter was gradually slipping from his favor. Anne exacerbated the situation by doing everything she could to keep them apart, determined to focus her royal lover’s mind on his annulment from Catherine and marriage to her—and with it, the promise of his longed-tor son. She treated Mary with barely concealed disdain, emphasizing the power that she now had over her. “The said Anne has boasted that she will have the said Princess for her lady’s maid … or to marry her to some varlet,” reported Chapuys, “but that is only to make her eat humble pie.”20

  Although Mary steadfastly defended her mother and suffered no weakening of resolve, the psychological toll of watching her parents’ marriage unravel and the ever more cruel indignities inflicted upon her mother had a devastating effect upon the young girl’s health. She suffered increasing bouts of nausea and on one occasion was unable to keep any food down for three weeks, causing panic among her attendants. In the spring of 1531, when she was recovering from one of her frequent stomach upsets, she wrote to her father, saying that nothing would speed her recovery more than to visit him at Greenwich. Her request was peremptorily refused, as Chapuys believed, “to gratify the lady [Anne], who hates her as much as the Queen, or more so, chiefly because she sees the King has some affection for her.”21 It seemed that Henry, too, had become cruelly indifferent to his daughter’s suffering. Knowing how much comfort she derived from spending time with her mother, later that year he banished her from Catherine’s presence. He even forbade her from writing to her mother.22 Thenceforth, the two women were forced to be strangers.

  Mary wondered how she had suddenly come to this after being cherished and lauded throughout her childhood. Coinciding with her most formative teenage years, this first great crisis of her life had a profound effect. The formerly confident, lively young girl was now beset with melancholy and depression, worn down by fear about what the future would hold. But the crisis also strengthened certain aspects of her character and beliefs. As a show of support for her sainted mother, she identified herself strongly with the Spanish cause, throwing in her lot with Chapuys and his Imperial master, Charles V. She also fervently embraced her mother’s Roman Catholic faith. Both of these moves set her in direct conflict with Anne Boleyn.

  Meanwhile, the subject of Mary’s hatred had made a decision that would turn the course of history. Late in 1532, Anne Boleyn resorted to what was for her the most desperate of all measures: to relinquish her former strategy and sleep with the king. In so doing, she was gambling on the by no means certain prospect that if she became pregnant, he would overcome all of the remaining obstacles and marry her. After all, even though he had pursued her for years, the fact that she had remained just beyond his grasp was a large part of her allure. If she gave that up, then she might well lose his interest for good.

  But the gamble seemed to have paid off. Henry was, at least initially, even more besotted with Anne now that she had become his mistress in body as well as in name. The Imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, was aghast when he discovered that “the King cannot leave her for an hour.” By December, she was pregnant. Her royal lover now had to act fast if the baby was to be born legitimate. He therefore set aside the ongoing wranglings with the Church and married Anne in secret on January 25, 1533, in his private chapel at Whitehall. His marriage to Catherine was annulled shortly afterward.

  Anne was formally recognized as queen on April 12, 1533, and her coronation followed six weeks later. This was a lavish affair, full of iconography and symbolism designed to emphasize the legitimacy of her position and her suitability as queen. The theme was the Assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary. Throughout the procession, the city of London was displayed as a kind of “celestial Jerusalem,” with Anne as the Virgin, dressed in white and with her long dark hair worn loose around her shoulders.

  Along the route, a tableau was built with a castle in the foreground against the backdrop of a hill. As Anne’s procession passed by, a stump on the hill poured out a mass of red and white roses (symbolizing the Tudor dynasty), and then a painted cloud opened up to release a white falcon, which swooped down onto the flowers. As a final touch, an angel descended from the same cloud and placed an imperial crown upon the head of a white falcon. Anne had adopted this bird as her emblem in 1532, in preparation for her marriage to Henry, when she had been granted a crest of her own: a white falcon alighting upon roses. The message was clear: With the accession of Anne, already pregnant, new life would burst forth from the Tudor stock.

  The coronation ceremonies lasted for four days and were clearly intended to enhance Anne’s status: For all that she had recently been created Marquess of Pembroke, she was still just the daughter of an English aristocrat—only the second such queen since 1066. The coronation was also a test of loyalty for the court and the people. Although the only notable not to attend was Sir Thomas More, the lord
chancellor (who thereby helped seal his own fate—he was executed for high treason two years later), most of the others were there under duress and bitterly resented the woman whom they viewed as a usurper. The citizens of London who turned out to watch the procession evidently felt the same. Chapuys described the coronation as “a cold, meagre and uncomfortable thing, to the great dissatisfaction, not only of the common people, but also of the rest.”23 Dissatisfaction soon turned to open mockery. Everywhere along the processional route were Henry’s and Anne’s initials intertwined. But this cipher was turned to parody, and as the new queen passed, cries of “ha-ha” could be heard among the disdainful crowds.

  Another reason for their scorn was that this new queen was very obviously pregnant, and further advanced than one might expect for a lady who had been married for barely four months: a bastard child growing within a usurper’s belly. Yet this child was Anne’s chief hope of securing her position as queen and of retaining the king’s notoriously fickle affections. The pregnancy was announced in May, by which time it was already widely known. The addition of an extra panel to Anne’s skirts to accommodate her increasing girth removed any lingering doubt. The following month, Archbishop Cranmer told an acquaintance that the Queen “is now somewhat big with child.”24

  Although she triumphed in the expectation of giving Henry a son and heir, Anne was distracted by more immediate concerns and complained about the loss of her famously slender figure. This may have been due to more than her accustomed vanity, for she no doubt feared that as her attractiveness waned, the king would seek diversion elsewhere. Her fears were well grounded. In August 1533, as Anne entered the eighth month of her pregnancy, rumors of a secret liaison between the king and a “very beautiful” woman began to spread throughout the court. By the time they reached Anne’s ears, the tale had been embellished: Henry had slept with at least one other woman, probably more. Lying in her chamber, her body heavy and ungainly, Anne must have been tortured by the thought that her husband had strayed so soon after the marriage. Chapuys noted with barely concealed satisfaction that the new queen was “very jealous of the King, and not without legitimate cause.”25 Furious at such humiliation, Anne confronted Henry with what she had heard. Rather than comforting his heavily pregnant wife, he spat back that she must “shut her eyes and endure,” as her betters had done. Just a few short months before, Anne had been the sole focus of the king’s attention, the woman whom he had worshipped for years and moved heaven and earth to attain. Now it seemed that she was just like any other woman to him. As Chapuys observed: “She ought to know that it was in his power to humble her again in a moment, more than he had exalted her before.”26 For Henry, it seemed that the thrill had been entirely in the chase.