Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII's Obsession (24 page)

The royal court in the sixteenth century was always itinerant and Anne was well used to a life of constant travel from her years at Henry’s court. The mobility of the court served a dual purpose, allowing Henry’s subjects to see their monarch personally and in order to allow recently vacated palaces to be thoroughly cleaned. The summer progress of 1535 took Anne and Henry out in a westerly direction from London. In October they visited Salisbury and Portchester and by November they had reached Windsor. Earlier, in September, they also paid a visit to Wolf Hall in Wiltshire, the family home of Jane Seymour, one of Anne’s maids. Anne may, perhaps, have noticed an attraction between Henry and Jane but she would have tried to put it out of her mind. In any event, Anne would have hoped that she would not have to worry about the security of her position as queen for much longer and by the time the court returned to London in late 1535 she was pregnant for the third time.

For Anne, even better news arrived at court just after Christmas when word was delivered that Catherine of Aragon was ill and not expected to live. From Anne’s point of view, Catherine’s very existence had blighted nearly ten years of her life and she was joyous when she heard the news. Henry was also glad to hear of his ex-wife’s illness and happily gave Chapuys permission to visit Catherine, reasoning that she could no longer cause him any difficulties. Chapuys set out at once, riding with haste to Kimbolton where Catherine was staying.

Chapuys found Catherine in bed where she had spent several days. She was glad to see the ambassador and according to his report:

‘After I had kissed hands she took occasion to thank me for the numerous services I had done her hitherto and the trouble I had taken to come and see her, a thing that she had very ardently desired, thinking that my coming would be salutary for her, and at all events, if it pleased God to take her, it could be a consolation to her to die under my guidance and not unprepared, like a beast. I gave her every hope, both of her health and otherwise, informing her of the offers the king had made to me of what houses she would, and to cause her to be paid the remainder of certain arrears, adding, for her further consolation, that the king was very sorry for her illness, and on this I begged her to take heart and get well, if for no other consideration, because the union and peace of Christendom depended upon her life’.

Chapuys stayed with Catherine for four days and she gradually began to improve with his company, managing to sleep more easily and to take a little food. Catherine told Chapuys to return to court so that Henry could not say that he had abused his licence to visit her. He therefore returned to court, hopeful of the ex-queen’s survival. On his arrival back at court on 7 January, Cromwell sent for him to inform him that Catherine had died.

Although Chapuys was not present at Catherine’s death, he soon received an account of it and was pleased to see that she had died in as saintly a manner as he believed she had lived. For two days after Chapuys left, Catherine had seemed better but by the early hours of 7 January it was clear to everyone that she was dying. As she felt death approaching, Catherine begged those standing by to pray for her soul and for God to pardon the king. She also called for paper and composed her last letter to Henry, showing that, in spite of everything, she still retained her affection for him:

‘My most dear lord, king and husband,

The hour of my death now drawing on, the tender love I owe you forceth me, my case being such, to commend myself to you, and to put you in remembrance with a few words of the health and safeguard of your soul which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and pampering of your body, for the which you have cast me into many calamities and yourself into many troubles. For my part, I pardon you everything, and I wish to devoutly pray God that He will pardon you also. For the rest, I commend unto you our daughter Mary, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I have heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants I solicit the wages due them, and a year more, lest they be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things’.

Catherine’s letter is testament to the enduring love she felt for Henry, in spite of the years of cruelty she had endured. She died shortly after it was written.

Catherine’s letter was dispatched to Henry’s court with news of her death. According to the report of the Catholic propagandist, Sander, Henry could not stop himself from weeping when he read the letter. This is very far from the truth and, in reality, both Henry and Anne greeted the news as though a great weight had been lifted from their shoulders. For Henry, Catherine’s continued existence had meant the prospect of war with her powerful nephew and, for Anne, there was always the fear that Henry would be forced to return to his first wife. On 7 January 1536, Anne finally felt secure. Catherine of Aragon was dead and the son that Anne dearly hoped she was carrying would be born into a world where only Anne could claim to be Henry’s wife. Both Henry and Anne were overjoyed with the news and they celebrated Catherine’s death by wearing yellow. According to Chapuys, when he heard the news, Henry:

‘exclaimed “God be praised that we are free from all suspicion of war”; and that the time had come that he would manage the French better than he had done hitherto, because they would do now whatever he wanted from a fear lest he should ally himself again with your Majesty [Charles V], seeing that the cause which disturbed your friendship was gone. On the following day, Sunday, the king was clad all over in yellow, from top to toe, except the white feather he had in his bonnet, and the Little Bastard [Elizabeth] was conducted to mass with trumpets and other great triumphs. After dinner the king entered the room in which the ladies danced, and there did several things like one transported with joy. At last, he sent for his Little Bastard, and carrying her in his arms he showed her first to one and then to another. He has done the like on other days since, and has run some courses at Greenwich’.

Anne and all her supporters were equally overjoyed and Thomas Boleyn exclaimed that it was a pity that Mary did not keep company with her mother. Anne also caused outrage by claiming that she was sorry about Catherine’s death ‘not indeed because she is dead, but because her death has been so honourable’. Anne had always been outspoken and she never cared who heard her speak. To observers her words were shocking and it was unsurprising that rumours quickly circulated concerning Anne’s role in Catherine’s death.

As soon as he heard the news of Catherine’s illness Chapuys was suspicious that poison could have been involved. While he was still at Kimbolton he questioned Catherine’s physician and was concerned to hear that Catherine had become worse after she drank some Welsh beer. As was usual, soon after her death, Catherine’s body was opened up and examined in a bid to determine what had killed her. Catherine’s organs were all found to be healthy with the exception of her heart ‘which was quite black and hideous, and even after he had washed it three times it did not change colour. He divided it through the middle and found the interior the same colour, which also would not change on being washed, and also some black round thing which clung closely to the outside of the heart’. For Chapuys and many other people in England, this was clear evidence that Catherine had been murdered and for them, there was only one suspect: Anne. Although there is no doubt that Anne hated Catherine, it is very unlikely that she murdered her. By 1536, Catherine was fifty, elderly for the time, and she had spent several years in difficulties. If Anne had wanted to murder Catherine, she would have done it long before 1536. Certainly, Anne saw Catherine’s death as beneficial, but she did not murder her. She only had to wait for nature to take its course.

With Catherine dead, Anne decided that she would make one final attempt at befriending Mary. Within days of Catherine’s death, Anne had written to her stepdaughter, saying that ‘if she would lay aside her obstinacy and obey her father, she would be the best friend to her in the world and be like another mother, and would obtain for her anything she could ask, and that if she wished to come to court she would be exempted from holding the tail of her gown’. Anne must have felt that this was a very generous offer. With Catherine gone, Mary no longer had the divided loyalties that she had felt towards her parents and Anne, secure in the knowledge of her pregnancy felt that, perhaps, Mary would finally come to understand that it was Anne who had won, not Catherine. Mary however refused pointblank to have any dealings with Anne, sending Anne into a rage. This was the last attempt that Anne would make to befriend her stepdaughter and she wrote a letter to her aunt, Lady Shelton, who was Mary’s governess, venting her true feelings towards Catherine’s daughter:

‘Mrs Shelton, my pleasure is that you do not further move the Lady Mary to be towards the King’s Grace otherwise than it pleases herself. What I have done has been more for charity than for anything the king or I care what road she takes, or whether she will change her purpose, for if I have a son, as I hope shortly, I know what will happen to her; and therefore, considering the word of God, to do good to one’s enemy, I wished to warn her beforehand, because I have daily experience that the king’s wisdom is such as not to esteem her repentance of her rudeness and unnatural obstinacy when she has no choice. By the law of God and of the king, she ought clearly to acknowledge her error and evil conscience if her blind affection had not so blinded her eyes that she will see nothing but what pleases herself. Mrs Shelton, I beg you not to think to do me any pleasure by turning her from any of her wilful courses, because she could not do me [good] or evil; and do your duty according to the king’s command, as I am assured you do’.

While this letter was addressed to Lady Shelton, it was meant for Mary and contained a warning to the princess. While Anne had no son, Mary was a threat to Elizabeth and Anne could not tolerate her. But, if Anne bore Henry a son, Mary’s existence would be a threat to the king’s longed for heir and Mary could then expect to feel her father’s full wrath for her refusal to conform to his will.

In spite of his harsh treatment of Catherine in the last years of her life, as far as Henry was concerned, Catherine was still a princess of Spain and the widow of his elder brother. He decided to give her a grand funeral to mark her status as Princess Dowager of Wales. This would be very far from what Catherine herself had wanted but, for Anne, it was once again a mark of Henry’s continuing commitment to their marriage. Catherine was to be buried as ‘the right excellent and noble Princesse the Lady Catherin, Doughter to the right highe and mighty Prince Ferdinand, late king of Castle, and late wife to the noble and excellent prince Arthur, brother to our sovereign lorde Kinge Henry the viiith’. Anne would have been pleased that Catherine had finally been completely denied the title of queen but she would have had little chance to savour the details of the ceremony. On the very day of Catherine’s funeral, Anne went into premature labour after only around three and a half months of pregnancy, miscarrying a male foetus.

For Anne, the loss of her son was a disaster and she wept bitterly as she lay in her chamber. Henry was also grief-stricken and this quickly turned to anger against the woman that he had once loved above all else. As soon as he heard the news, Henry stormed into Anne’s chamber to confront her angrily and ‘bewailing and complaining unto her the loss of his boy’. Anne, for once, was entirely lost for words and made no response to the king. Henry then struck terror into her heart, saying that he could see that ‘he would have no more boys by her’ before muttering that he would speak to her again when she had recovered. Anne must have felt as though her world had collapsed as her husband stormed out the room. As she lay in her sickbed, Anne heard the rumours flying around court and she was horrified to hear that Henry was claiming that ‘he had made this marriage, seduced by witchcraft, and for this reason he considered it null; and that this was evident because God did not permit them to have any male issue and that he believed that he might take another wife, which he gave to understand that he had some wish to do’.

While she recovered, Anne continually wept for fear that the king would discard her as he had discarded Catherine. While she remained in her chamber she prepared her arguments to explain why the miscarriage was not her fault and, as soon as she was well enough, she went straight to the king. According to a number of sources, Anne attributed the loss of her son to two principal causes. On 24 January, only a few days before the disaster, Henry had fallen heavily from his horse and was knocked unconscious. At the time, there was some fear of his life and the Duke of Norfolk was sent to inform Anne of the calamity. The possibility that Henry might die would have terrified her. Even if, as is likely, any love she had felt for him was rapidly evaporating, she still knew that he was her protector and the only bar between her and the hostile crowds. If Henry had died, Anne, who was named regent and governor of her children in the event of Henry’s early death, would have had to attempt to secure the crown for Elizabeth or her unborn son. Anne knew as well as anyone the powerful support Mary could muster and she knew that Henry’s death would lead to civil war and, very possibly, a foreign invasion.

It is very easy to imagine Anne’s terror when word was brought to her of the king’s fall and, according to Chapuys, Anne saw this as one of the principal causes of her miscarriage and ‘she wished to lay the blame on the duke of Norfolk, whom she hates, saying he frightened her by bringing the news of the fall the king had six days before. But it is well known that this is not the cause, for it was told her in a way that she should not be alarmed or attach much importance to it’. Henry dismissed this argument and it is clear that Anne was clutching at straws. Her second argument does appear to have struck home with Henry. According to George Wyatt, as usual, Henry saw Anne’s pregnancy as an opportunity for him to conduct an extra-marital affair. Anne would have known by then that she was expected to make no comment on this and, while she was still hoping for the birth of a son she obeyed, presumably hoping to be able to remonstrate with Henry later when a prince made her position secure. In the days before her miscarriage Anne, who had tried her best to turn a blind eye, entered a room to find Henry caressing Jane Seymour as she sat on his knee. This was too much for Anne and, as she remonstrated with Henry following her miscarriage she claimed ‘that the love she bore him was far greater than that of the late queen, so that her heart broke when she saw he loved others’ and she lost her child.