Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII's Obsession (12 page)
By the time of the Blackfriars trial, Anne kept state like a queen at court and she had constant access to the king. With the failure of the court, Anne felt that she had no more use for the Cardinal and she blamed him for the court’s failure due to his lack of commitment towards her marriage. She finally felt in a strong enough position to openly show her feelings towards him. Soon after the failure of the court at Blackfriars, Anne wrote to Wolsey setting out her full hatred towards him:
‘My Lord,
Though you are a man of great understanding, you cannot avoid being censured by everybody for having drawn on yourself the hatred of a king who had raised you to the highest degree to which the greatest ambition of a man seeking his fortune can aspire. I cannot comprehend, and the king still less, how your reverent lordship, after having allured us by so many fine promises about divorce, can have repented of your purpose, and how you could have done what you have, in order to hinder the consummation of it. What, then, is your mode of proceeding? You quarrelled with the queen to favour me at the time when I was less advanced in the king’s good graces, and after having therein given me the strongest marks of your affection, your lordship abandons my interests to embrace those of the queen. I acknowledge that I have put much confidence in your professions and promises, in which I find myself deceived. But, in future, I shall rely on nothing but the protection of Heaven and the love of my dear king, which alone will be able to set right again those plans which you have broken and spoiled, and to place me in that happy station which God wills, the king so much wishes, and which will be entirely to the advantage of the kingdom. The wrong you have done me has caused me much sorrow but I feel infinitely more in seeing myself betrayed by a man who pretended to enter into my interests only to discover the secrets of my heart. I acknowledge that, believing you sincere, I have been too precipitate in my confidence; it is this which has induced, and still induces me, to keep more moderation in avenging myself, not being able to forget that I have been
Your servant’.
For Anne, Wolsey was entirely to blame for the court’s failure and she worked hard to ensure that this was also the king’s belief.
By 1529, Anne was secure enough in Henry’s affections to work openly against the Cardinal and shortly after the failure of the Blackfriars trial she berated the king at dinner for his kindness towards Wolsey. According to a member of Wolsey’s household, William Cavendish, Anne turned on the king saying ‘is it not a marvellous thing to consider what debt and danger the Cardinal hath brought you in with all your subjects?’. Henry, confused by this, asked ‘How so, sweetheart?’. Anne had carefully planned her attack on Wolsey, continuing that ‘there is not a man within all your realm, worth five pounds, but the Cardinal indebted you unto him by his means’. This was a reference to a forced loan that Henry had received from his subjects and Henry, understanding Anne’s meaning, attempted to defend his chief minister, saying ‘as for that, there is in him no blame. For I know that matter better than you or any other’. Anne was not to be beaten however and she replied that Wolsey had done enough to warrant his execution. Henry then responded sadly that he perceived that Anne was ‘not the cardinal’s friend’. Anne agreed saying ‘I have no cause to be. Nor hath any other man that loves your Grace. No more has your Grace, if ye consider well his doings’.
Anne succeeded in planting a seed of doubt in Henry’s mind and both she and her followers worked hard to ensure that Wolsey was not granted access to the king. The morning after Anne’s discussion at dinner with the king, Wolsey arrived at court for a meeting with Henry but he found the king ready to ride and unable to see him. When Wolsey asked the cause of this, he was told that Anne had arranged to keep the king busy all day and had provided a picnic to ensure that they would not return before the Cardinal had gone. This may have been the first moment that Wolsey perceived just how powerful an enemy he had in Anne, exactly as Anne herself would have wished. Wolsey and Campeggio both left court that day, with Campeggio returning to Rome. Wolsey would never see Henry VIII again.
Wolsey was certainly right to be concerned about Henry’s opinion of him and, when Cardinal Campeggio reached Calais, he was stopped on Henry’s orders while his bags were searched on the suspicion that he was carrying money to facilitate Wolsey’s flight to Rome. Campeggio was found to be carrying nothing but the news of the search must have filled Wolsey with dread. He certainly had reason to be fearful and, on 9 October 1529, he was charged with taking orders from a foreign power (i.e. the Pope) and forced to surrender the great seal and his position as chancellor. Wolsey was ordered to retire to Esher but he was not arrested. He quickly surrendered all his possessions to the king and threw himself on Henry’s mercy. Wolsey knew that the best way to assuage Henry’s anger was by appealing to the king’s greed and before he left his own house he ‘called all the officers of his household before him, to take account of all such stuff as they had in their charge. And in his gallery there were set divers tables, whereupon were laid a great number of rich stuffs’. In Wolsey’s chambers adjoining the gallery further tables were set up to display his fine plate and other goods. A few days later Henry and Anne travelled secretly to York Place to view their new possessions and Anne must have felt triumphant to know that all that the Cardinal had once owned now belonged to both her and the king. Wolsey was forced to stay in a borrowed house at Esher making use of borrowed dishes, plate and cloth.
Although he had fallen from power, Wolsey still had hopes of a return to favour, as he explained to William Cavendish one evening:
‘By my submission, the king, I doubt not, had a great remorse of conscience, wherein he would rather pity me than malign me. And also there was a continual serpentine enemy about the king who would, I am well assured, if I had been found stiff necked, have called continually upon the king in his ear (I mean the night-crow) with such a vehemency that I should with the help of her assistance have obtained sooner the king’s indignation than his lawful favour’.
Wolsey fully recognised the role that Anne had played in his fall and his nickname of her as the ‘night-crow’ was intended to be very far from flattering. His hopes of a return to favour seemed very real to Anne in late 1529 and early 1530 and there were signs that Henry had not entirely forgotten his fallen favourite. At Christmas 1529, for example, Wolsey fell sick and Henry sent his own physician to attend him. Henry also insisted that Anne send a token of comfort to the Cardinal, something that must have struck terror into Anne’s heart, although she complied by sending a gold tablet. For Candlemas that year, Henry sent Wolsey four cart loads of gifts, another sign of a possible return to favour.
Henry had not entirely abandoned Wolsey but he still refused to see him, leaving Anne in a position to continue to undermine the Cardinal’s influence. Both Anne and her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, worked continually on Henry to persuade him to send the Cardinal away and, finally, at Easter 1530 Wolsey was ordered to travel north to his diocese of York. Although Wolsey made his journey something of a triumphal progress, he would have been aware, as was Anne, that his removal to the north would take him fully out of the king’s thoughts and favour.
Wolsey was staying at Cawood in the north of England in November 1530 when the Earl of Northumberland and a Master Walsh arrived one evening to arrest him. Anne’s hand can be seen in the choice of Northumberland as the agent of Wolsey’s arrest and both she and Wolsey would have been aware that the Earl was her former suitor, Henry Percy. Anne must have felt that it was fitting that Percy should exercise the final revenge on Wolsey for the breaking of their engagement. If this was the case she had misjudged Percy and he did not relish his role. Wolsey was at first unaware of the reason for Percy’s arrival and he took Percy to his bedchamber:
‘The earl, trembling, said with a very faint and soft voice unto my lord, laying his hand upon his arm, “My lord”, quoth he, “I arrest you of high treason”. With which words my lord was marvellously astonished, the two of them standing still a long space without any further words. But at last, quoth my lord, “what moveth you, or by what authority do you this?”’
Percy said that he had a commission but that he was not permitted to allow Wolsey to see it. Wolsey then refused to allow Percy to arrest him, submitting only to Master Walsh. Anne must have been angered to hear of Wolsey’s conduct at his arrest in refusing to submit to Percy. There was much speculation about this as to ‘whether hee did out of stubbornesse to the Erle, who had been heretofore educated in his house, or out of despight to Mistris Anne Bolen, who (he might conceive) had put this affront upon him, in finding means to employ her Antient Suitor to take Revenge in both their names’. She would have known, as Wolsey did, that his defiance was only an empty gesture.
Following his arrest, Wolsey was taken towards London with his legs tied to his horse. He was a broken man and full of remorse, stating that ‘had I serv’d God as diligently as I had done the King, hee would not have given me over, in my gray haires; but this is my just reward’. Wolsey did not make it as far as London, where he faced trial and execution. He died at Leicester on 29 November 1530. It was suggested that he took poison to avoid a more shameful death although he may also simply have died an old and broken man, aware that his fall from grace was to be made permanent.
Anne Boleyn cannot but have rejoiced at news of Cardinal Wolsey’s death. He had never been a friend to her and, at times, he had actively worked against her. She pursued her grudge against him for over eight years and she must have felt both relief and jubilation once the threat of his return to power had passed. The power that Anne wielded in bringing about the fall of Wolsey also demonstrated to her just how great her hold over the king was. By the end of 1530, Anne Boleyn was queen in all but name although she can never have imagined just how much longer she would have to wait before she could finally truly claim the role as her own.
THE CONCUBINE
By the time of Wolsey’s death, Anne had become the most powerful person at court after the king. In a way, she was his first minister and she quickly set about adopting the trappings and manners of queenship just as Wolsey, in his turn, had made himself a prince of the Church. One thing continued to elude her in the years between 1530 and 1532 and that was the title of queen itself. For both Anne and Henry, the years 1530 to 1532 were a time of stagnation and disappointed hopes but slowly they were able to move towards their ultimate goal.
In the early years of the King’s Great Matter, Anne had often absented herself from court, keeping in the background as much as possible so that blame for Henry’s treatment of his wife and daughter did not fall on her. As the years wore on, the couple grew increasingly frustrated with Henry’s continued marriage to Catherine and it was soon apparent to everyone that Henry was alienating himself from the queen and that Anne was quickly taking her place. Anne was no longer expected to serve the queen even nominally, and by late 1528 she had been given her own lodging at court in rooms that were amongst the finest at court. Anne was thrilled by this proof of Henry’s commitment to her and she always loved playing the role of queen. According to the French ambassador, even as early as December 1528 ‘greater court is now paid to her every day than has been to the Queen for a long time. I see they mean to accustom the people by degrees to endure her, so that when the great blow comes it may not be thought strange’. Anne revelled in her role as an almost-queen and, as the years went on, she came to develop an imperious nature to fit her new found status.
Anne had always had a fiery and impetuous temper and this was certainly part of the attraction to Henry. With the years of frustration, Anne often let her temper get the better of her and she alienated many of the great men at court, including members of her own family. While Anne’s behaviour was imperious and often unreasonable, she was in a very difficult position and her patience must often have been sorely tried. She also saw herself as the rightful queen and expected to be obeyed as such, regardless of what anyone else thought. Flushed with success from the fall of Wolsey, Anne was not prepared to tolerate any discourtesies or slights towards her.
Anne’s disagreements with members of the court were notorious and she fell out with her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, in early 1530. Norfolk was angry with the lack of respect his niece showed to him, but held his tongue for the time being, seeing the benefits in keeping Anne friendly. However, by mid 1531 there were rumours that he had left the court due to a dispute with his niece. Anne, secure in the king’s love, was not afraid to offend anybody and she reasoned that there was little harm they could do her in her exalted position. Anne also made an enemy of her aunt, the Duchess of Norfolk. The Duchess had probably always disliked her niece and was a staunch supporter of Queen Catherine, telling the queen when Anne attempted to recruit her to her cause that ‘if all the world were to try it she would remain faithful to her [Catherine]. She also desired the queen to be of good courage, for her opponents were at their wits’ end, being further off from their object than the day they began’. Anne was in no mood to tolerate family disloyalty and, at Anne’s request, the Duchess was sent home from court ‘because she spoke too freely, and declared herself more than they liked for the queen’. Anne also quarrelled with her father in the summer of 1532 when he asked her to intercede for the life of a young priest condemned for clipping coins. Anne, in typically outspoken manner, ‘told her father that he did wrong to speak for a priest as there were too many of them already’.