Read The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn Online
Authors: Eric Ives
The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (4 page)
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There were also indoor festivities, and at Christmas 1514 Boleyn was joined by his son in a season which included a fancy-dress dance and an indoor mêlée.
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This experience and skill, and his knowledge of other things courtly — horses, hawks, bowls, shovelboard — allowed Boleyn to pass anywhere and gave him the final accolade of the humanist courtier, usefulness to his prince. A man of intelligence, gifts and capacity, with a loyalty only to himself (and so to the king) and a willingness to take on a heavy workload, was a courtier worth having. For example, in the period 1519 — 23 Thomas Boleyn was successively Henry VIII’s ambassador to the court of France, in attendance at both the Field of Cloth of Gold and the subsequent meeting with the emperor Charles V at Gravelines, a participant in the Calais conference of 1521 (which also involved a short mission to the emperor) and finally ambassador to Spain. He clearly had the flair for diplomacy as well as the languages; Henry was to say in 1530 that there was no skilled negotiator to equal him.
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There is a revealing scene of Boleyn at Brussels on his first embassy in 1512, shaking hands with Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, on a bet that progress in their negotiations would be achieved in ten days - her Spanish courser against his hobby.
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One admires, too, his ability to handle Henry, the ease with which he slipped into one diplomatic report in October 1513 the remark that negotiating with Maximilian I was like tilting with a man whose horse was out of control: ‘it will be long or they join well together’ — just the pleasing, intimate metaphor to attract a king never fond of long epistles.
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There is a revealing scene of Boleyn at Brussels on his first embassy in 1512, shaking hands with Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, on a bet that progress in their negotiations would be achieved in ten days - her Spanish courser against his hobby.
33
One admires, too, his ability to handle Henry, the ease with which he slipped into one diplomatic report in October 1513 the remark that negotiating with Maximilian I was like tilting with a man whose horse was out of control: ‘it will be long or they join well together’ — just the pleasing, intimate metaphor to attract a king never fond of long epistles.
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Back in England, Boleyn was active on the king’s council, that group of up to perhaps seventy individuals of varying importance and often fluctuating roles, which was the nearest England then had to what might later be called ‘the government’. He was, indeed, one of its most active members, whether policy and administration or judicial (star chamber) business were on the agenda.
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And there were courtly chores too, such as a six-week assignment in 1517 looking after the king’s sister, Margaret, during her visit from Scotland.
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All this brought rewards — rank (knighthood in 1509), office, wardships, some grants of land — but rewards earned the hard way. Royal favour for the really ambitious did not come cheap.
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And there were courtly chores too, such as a six-week assignment in 1517 looking after the king’s sister, Margaret, during her visit from Scotland.
36
All this brought rewards — rank (knighthood in 1509), office, wardships, some grants of land — but rewards earned the hard way. Royal favour for the really ambitious did not come cheap.
Thomas Boleyn was not the only courtier on whom the young sun of Henry VIII’s bounty shone, although all were eclipsed by Charles Brandon, who succeeded in marrying the king’s younger sister Mary and founding the dukedom of Suffolk. Opportunities at court were indeed particularly good at this time. In the troubles of the mid-fifteenth century, royal service in England had lost some of its kudos, but the establishment of Edward IV in 1471 as the unchallenged king ushered in a period when first the Yorkists and then the Tudors used the royal court to draw together the upper classes in support of the throne.
Political exploitation of the court was, of course, hardly revolutionary, and the model for all this was the court of the duke of Burgundy, the ruler of what is today the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, plus sizeable parts of northern France. There, in a deliberate attempt to unite these anything but coherent territories, the duke’s household consciously cultivated magnificence in order to command prestige internationally as well as locally, and enrolled the arts in the service of the state. Edward IV (whose sister married the duke of Burgundy) set out to rival his brother-in-law, with results which can be seen today in the architecture of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the pages of the earliest books in the English royal library and in the reinvigoration of the Order of the Garter. Edward’s son-in-law, Henry VII, deliberately modelled his court on that of Burgundy, and his grandson did likewise.
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All this meant an increasing demand for able courtiers and a special premium on those with European sophistication, something which, as we shall see, lies at the heart of Anne Boleyn’s success. The need for a new breed of courtier was also increased by more sober organizational changes in the English court, which created a distinctive pattern of court life for Henry VIII and his wives. For many generations kings (and great lords) had occupied that part of the ‘household above stairs’ known as the chamber, far away from the hustle of the kitchens and the rest of domestic life ‘below stairs’. However, in the fifteenth century, the king began to desire greater privacy and to realize that the more private a monarch, the more impressive are his appearances. The result was that the chamber became divided into three parts: the privy chamber, which was a suite strictly private to the king; the presence chamber, which was open to courtiers except when the king was holding audience there; and the great or watching chamber, which was regularly accessible to all entitled to attend the household above stairs.
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These changes would be of only technical interest were it not for the personnel changes which followed in their wake. First, a new and exclusive group of servants was established to serve in the new privy chamber; second, because Henry VIII wanted ‘pastime with good company’ as well as service, such posts began to be filled by men who were first and foremost his cronies. Some years were to pass before arrangements reached their final form, but by 1518 or 1519 we can see a small establishment of such men occupying posts as either ‘gentlemen’ or ‘grooms of the privy chamber’. In addition the king would, from time to time, invite into the privy chamber anyone who took his fancy and with whom he wished to pass the time. Such men might not have the pay of the official staff or their automatic right of access, but they were part of the privy chamber circle, and everything depended, for them as for the salaried staff, on the impression that they could make on the king. Never had a group of young men been in such a position of potential advantage since the late fourteenth century and the hated minions of Richard II. And never since that day had there been men in such a position of potential power, especially given the highly persuadable man that Henry VIII was. They gave Cardinal Wolsey nightmares - his famous Eltham Ordinance which tried (in vain) to set privy chamber numbers at fifteen was only one of a series of attempts to keep the privy chamber circle at bay — and we shall see how strife within the privy chamber circle helped to destroy Anne Boleyn in May 1536.
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Thomas Boleyn was deeply involved in all this. He was close to the king in the early years of the reign as one of the aristocratic group which sympathized with the ambitions of the young, warlike Henry VIII against the more sober counsels of his father’s churchmen and bureaucrats. All the while, however, the brilliant new administrator, Thomas Wolsey, was advancing in royal favour, and in 1515 and 1516 he came to grips with the courtiers. One of his targets was Thomas Boleyn, whom he was certainly trying to taint with disloyalty early in 1515, although nothing came of the insinuation.
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Indeed, for much of that year Wolsey (now a cardinal) was very much on the defensive as the champion of the clergy, who were being heavily attacked following the notorious death in church custody of a London merchant, Richard Hunne. One indication of the minister’s preoccupation was that about this time Thomas Boleyn secured from the king a promise of the succession to the highly prized post of controller of the royal household whenever the existing occupant, Sir Edward Ponynges, was promoted to the senior post of treasurer.
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Not until the autumn of 1516 did the cardinal finally triumph, or seem to triumph, though at the cost of the support of ‘well nigh all’ the magnates; ‘the cardinal of York’ was, so Sebastian Giustinian said, ‘the beginning, middle and end’.
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Indeed, for much of that year Wolsey (now a cardinal) was very much on the defensive as the champion of the clergy, who were being heavily attacked following the notorious death in church custody of a London merchant, Richard Hunne. One indication of the minister’s preoccupation was that about this time Thomas Boleyn secured from the king a promise of the succession to the highly prized post of controller of the royal household whenever the existing occupant, Sir Edward Ponynges, was promoted to the senior post of treasurer.
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Not until the autumn of 1516 did the cardinal finally triumph, or seem to triumph, though at the cost of the support of ‘well nigh all’ the magnates; ‘the cardinal of York’ was, so Sebastian Giustinian said, ‘the beginning, middle and end’.
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‘Seemed to triumph’ is an important qualification, for the courtiers, defeated this time in the struggle to monopolize the king, still occupied the citadel of royal favour, the privy chamber, and continued to secure favours from the king under Wolsey’s disapproving nose. When the privy chamber staff was finally organized, Boleyn had become neither a gentleman nor a groom (these posts went to somewhat younger men), but he remained in the privy chamber circle and his son George became the king’s page.
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It was probably Wolsey’s suspicion of this closeness to the king, as much as Boleyn’s experience in diplomacy, which brought Sir Thomas the posting to Paris in January 1519, and within weeks he was showing anxiety about the promised controllership.
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His fears were well grounded, for in the second week in May, Wolsey wrote to say that although Ponynges would move up to the post of treasurer of the household after the 29th, Boleyn would not get the succession this time; instead, he would succeed Ponynges in due course. Boleyn’s reply was an abject plea for Wolsey’s support; if the minister would favour him, neither he nor the king would regret It.
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A week later, the French king, Francis I, broke even more alarming news to him — Henry had expelled eight or nine of the privy chamber circle.
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Pastime in the privy chamber between the king and his younger minions had been pretty free, and Wolsey had seen his chance. Henry was told that his ‘minions were so familiar and homely with him, and played such light touches with him that they forgot themselves’. He reacted on cue to this slur on his dignity, and dispersed the young men to posts remote from court.
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It was probably Wolsey’s suspicion of this closeness to the king, as much as Boleyn’s experience in diplomacy, which brought Sir Thomas the posting to Paris in January 1519, and within weeks he was showing anxiety about the promised controllership.
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His fears were well grounded, for in the second week in May, Wolsey wrote to say that although Ponynges would move up to the post of treasurer of the household after the 29th, Boleyn would not get the succession this time; instead, he would succeed Ponynges in due course. Boleyn’s reply was an abject plea for Wolsey’s support; if the minister would favour him, neither he nor the king would regret It.
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A week later, the French king, Francis I, broke even more alarming news to him — Henry had expelled eight or nine of the privy chamber circle.
46
Pastime in the privy chamber between the king and his younger minions had been pretty free, and Wolsey had seen his chance. Henry was told that his ‘minions were so familiar and homely with him, and played such light touches with him that they forgot themselves’. He reacted on cue to this slur on his dignity, and dispersed the young men to posts remote from court.
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Wolsey left Boleyn to sweat for four months before sending a message by word of mouth setting out his intentions about the controllership, confirming that Sir Thomas would not get it, but would become treasurer in due course. Boleyn took the hint and wrote to say that he accepted the cardinal’s decision and wholly resigned his claim to the controllership to the discretion of the king and Wolsey.
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With his abject submission thus on file and a clear recognition that while the king might promise it was Wolsey who performed — and could refuse to perform — Boleyn got the controllership after all.
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He held it for only a short time, for Ponynges died in the autumn of 1521, whereupon he succeeded as treasurer.
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The lesson in the political facts of life remained with Thomas Boleyn for the rest of the decade; only when his daughter was there to shield him would he be prepared to challenge Wolsey again.
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With his abject submission thus on file and a clear recognition that while the king might promise it was Wolsey who performed — and could refuse to perform — Boleyn got the controllership after all.
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He held it for only a short time, for Ponynges died in the autumn of 1521, whereupon he succeeded as treasurer.
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The lesson in the political facts of life remained with Thomas Boleyn for the rest of the decade; only when his daughter was there to shield him would he be prepared to challenge Wolsey again.
Such was the heated, some might say foetid atmosphere of the court world into which Anne Boleyn was born, and such was her father. Her mother also was at court, in Katherine of Aragon’s entourage, though we know less of her activities.
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Also at court before 1520 was Anne’s sister Mary, who in February of that year married William Carey of the privy chamber, with the king himself as the principal guest.
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Her brother George had, as we have seen, played in a mummery at Christmas 1514 — 15 and gone on to become the royal page, but there were still some years to go before he would matter much at court.
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Also at court before 1520 was Anne’s sister Mary, who in February of that year married William Carey of the privy chamber, with the king himself as the principal guest.
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Her brother George had, as we have seen, played in a mummery at Christmas 1514 — 15 and gone on to become the royal page, but there were still some years to go before he would matter much at court.
Anne, Mary and George were the only children of Thomas Boleyn to survive to maturity, and there has been a long-running historical dispute about the date of Anne’s birth and the relative ages of her brother and sister. Evidence from the later sixteenth century and the earlier seventeenth gave modern scholars the choice of a birth date for Anne of either
circa
1501 or
circa
1507.
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An early letter which Anne wrote to her father would have settled the matter, but it could not be dated.
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In 1981, however, the art historian Hugh Paget successfully demonstrated that the letter was written in 1513 when Anne Boleyn left England to become a maid of honour in the court at Brussels, a position which was open to a 12- or 13-year-old.
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His conclusion has been challenged but is established beyond question because Anne’s letter is self-evidently in the formed hand of at least a teenager (plate 14).
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The correct date for Anne’s birth is therefore
circa
1501. This means that she was significantly older than is usually imagined. The domestic triangle which developed in 1527 was between a 36-year-old king, a wife over 40 and a mature woman of 26, not a girl of 19 or 20. Similarly, in the spring of 1536 Anne was not rejected by Henry when she was, as Catholic tradition has it, less than 29, but as a possibly ageing 35, while her supplanter, Jane Seymour, was, at 27, marginally older than Anne had been when challenging Katherine for the first time.
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The gossip that credited Henry with a taste for younger women was evidently ill informed.
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circa
1501 or
circa
1507.
53
An early letter which Anne wrote to her father would have settled the matter, but it could not be dated.
54
In 1981, however, the art historian Hugh Paget successfully demonstrated that the letter was written in 1513 when Anne Boleyn left England to become a maid of honour in the court at Brussels, a position which was open to a 12- or 13-year-old.
55
His conclusion has been challenged but is established beyond question because Anne’s letter is self-evidently in the formed hand of at least a teenager (plate 14).
56
The correct date for Anne’s birth is therefore
circa
1501. This means that she was significantly older than is usually imagined. The domestic triangle which developed in 1527 was between a 36-year-old king, a wife over 40 and a mature woman of 26, not a girl of 19 or 20. Similarly, in the spring of 1536 Anne was not rejected by Henry when she was, as Catholic tradition has it, less than 29, but as a possibly ageing 35, while her supplanter, Jane Seymour, was, at 27, marginally older than Anne had been when challenging Katherine for the first time.
57
The gossip that credited Henry with a taste for younger women was evidently ill informed.
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Dating the birth of Anne Boleyn to 1500-1 resolved one long-running dispute, but it did not tell us about her relationship with her siblings. Here the evidence is slight, and as far as George is concerned, contradictory. His appearance in court as a juvenile and the fact that he secured his first royal grant only in 1524 would suggest that he was the youngest of the three.
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However, a poem by Cavendish (who had certainly known him) has George saying that he had obtained a place in the privy chamber ‘or years thrice nine my life had past away’, and Boleyn was retired from his place there by the Eltham Ordinance of January 1526.
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Indeed, that is only an end date, and if Cavendish is referring to George’s arrival as the king’s page, it could have been several years earlier. Yet even for George Boleyn to have been in his twenty-seventh year by 1526, he would have to have been born by 1499 and thus would be older than Anne.
59
However, a poem by Cavendish (who had certainly known him) has George saying that he had obtained a place in the privy chamber ‘or years thrice nine my life had past away’, and Boleyn was retired from his place there by the Eltham Ordinance of January 1526.
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Indeed, that is only an end date, and if Cavendish is referring to George’s arrival as the king’s page, it could have been several years earlier. Yet even for George Boleyn to have been in his twenty-seventh year by 1526, he would have to have been born by 1499 and thus would be older than Anne.
How reliable Cavendish is on this is, however, another question. He was writing thirty years after the event, and since the dictates of the verse made the next lowest number ‘years thrice eight’, he may have been trying to say no more than ‘about twenty-five’, thus indicating a birth-date of about 1500.
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On the other hand, after losing his post in 1525, George was restored to a full adult place in the privy chamber by the end of 1529, and it could be this that Cavendish had in mind.
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In that case, ‘or thrice nine’ would, taken strictly, indicate a date of 1503 — 4, while ‘about twenty-five’ would give 1504 — 5. What perhaps should clinch the acceptance of this last is a remark by Jean du Bellay in 1529, suggesting that he thought George too young to be sent as ambassador to France.
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On the other hand, after losing his post in 1525, George was restored to a full adult place in the privy chamber by the end of 1529, and it could be this that Cavendish had in mind.
62
In that case, ‘or thrice nine’ would, taken strictly, indicate a date of 1503 — 4, while ‘about twenty-five’ would give 1504 — 5. What perhaps should clinch the acceptance of this last is a remark by Jean du Bellay in 1529, suggesting that he thought George too young to be sent as ambassador to France.
63
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