Henry VIII (58 page)

54

“Displeasant Airs”

When the King and five of his Gentlemen presented themselves at Anne of Cleves's lodgings at Rochester on 1 January 1540, they were all dressed alike in marbled coats and hoods. Henry did not identify himself, but embraced Anne, saying he had come with gifts from the King. After he had carried on this charade for a short time, he revealed who he was, much to her discomfiture: she had not the English to greet him properly, but pointed to the window, outside of which a bullbaiting was taking place. Henry took an instant aversion to her and left as soon as courtesy permitted, taking the furs with him. On the way back to Whitehall, he complained to Sir Anthony Browne, “I see nothing in this woman as men report of her, and I marvel that wise men would make such reports as they have done.”
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It is clear from Wotton's reports
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that Holbein had made a good likeness of Anne of Cleves, but he painted her full-face, making the best of her looks. Another portrait of her, attributed to Barthel Bruyn the Elder and now in the possession of St. John's College, Oxford, is a sideways view and shows her long nose to disadvantage; recent X rays of the portrait reveal an even longer nose. The French ambassador, Charles de Marillac, described Anne as “tall and thin, of middling beauty, with determined and resolute countenance”; she was “not so young as was at first thought, nor so handsome as people affirmed,” since her skin was pitted with smallpox scars. Nor did her charm of manner compensate for “her want of beauty.”
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Yet it was not just Anne's looks that revolted the King: he later told Cromwell she was “nothing fair and have very evil smells about her” and that he could “have none appetite for displeasant airs.”
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Back at Whitehall, Cromwell asked him how he liked his future Queen. Henry snapped, “Nothing so well as she is spoken of. If I had known as much before as I know now, she would never have come into this realm.” He was talking about not only Anne herself, but the fact that Francis I had recently sent him a gift of boar pâté for Christmas—an indication that he wished to renew his friendship with England, which would obviate the need for an alliance with Cleves.

On 2 January, a glowering Henry moved with the court to Greenwich, where the wedding was to take place. Anne herself travelled to the newly converted Dartford Palace, where she spent the night before riding in procession to Shooters Hill. Here, she was welcomed by her Chamberlain, the Earl of Rutland, and the officers and great ladies of her household, who kissed her hand then escorted her into one of several rich pavilions that had been set up at the foot of the hill. There she was robed in a round gown of cloth of gold cut in the Dutch fashion without a train, a pearl-embroidered caul and bonnet, and a partlet of rich stones, ready for her official reception by the King at Blackheath, which was to be the last great state occasion of the reign.

On Blackheath, the Mayor and Corporation of London and the German merchants of the Steelyard stood waiting as hundreds of Knights, soldiers, liveried servants, and the newly reformed Gentlemen Pensioners arranged themselves into orderly ranks. At noon, to the sound of trumpets, the King, attended by Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cranmer, rode through Greenwich Park towards the waiting crowds, preceded by his household officers, the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, barons, bishops, earls, foreign ambassadors, Lord Privy Seal Cromwell, Lord Chancellor Audley, the Kings of Arms, and a host of lords and bishops. Henry was “mounted on a goodly courser, trapped in rich cloth of gold, pearled on every side, the buckles and pendants all of fine gold.” He wore “a cloak of purple velvet made like a frock, all over embroidered with flat gold of damask with gold laces and tied with great buttons of diamonds, rubies and orient pearl. His sword and swordgirdle [were] adorned with stones and emeralds, his nightcap garnished with stone, but his bonnet was so rich of jewels that few men could value them.” He also wore, baldrick-fashion, “a collar of such ballasts and pearl that few men ever saw the like,” while “about his person ran 10 footmen, all richly apparelled in goldsmiths' work.”
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Henry was followed by the Lord Chamberlain, the Master of Horse leading the King's horse of estate, the Pages of Honour, and the Yeomen of the Guard. He halted some way short of the pavilions, and waited. Presently Anne emerged on a richly trapped steed and rode towards Henry, who “put off his bonnet and came forward to her, and with most lovely countenance and princely behaviour saluted, welcomed and embraced her, to the great rejoicing of the beholders.” Anne, in turn, “with most amiable aspect and womanly behaviour, received His Grace with many sweet words and great thanks and praisings.”
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The royal couple then rode back to Greenwich, followed by their vast retinues. As they approached the palace, they could see the citizens and guilds of London, rowing up and down the river in gaily bedecked barges from which issued music and singing, “which sight and noise they much praised.”

Henry and Anne alighted in the outer court of Greenwich Palace, where “the King lovingly embraced and kissed her, bidding her welcome to her own, and led her by the arm through the hall, and so brought her up to her privy chamber, where he left her for that time.” Meanwhile, “a great peal of guns” was shot out of Greenwich Castle.
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That evening, there was a sumptuous banquet in Anne's honour.

Henry had behaved impeccably, although he was still doing his best to wriggle out of the alliance with Cleves. But it was too late to do that without giving great offence and provoking a hostile reaction, so he unwillingly faced the fact that the marriage must go ahead. On the morning of 6 January, before he emerged from his privy lodgings for the ceremony, he told Cromwell, “If it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that I must do this day for none earthly thing.”
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At 8 A.M., wearing “a gown of cloth of gold raised with great flowers of silver, furred with black” beneath a cloak of crimson satin embroidered with large diamonds, with a rich collar about his neck,
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he summoned his nobles and proceeded to the gallery that led to the royal closets. There he waited, having dispatched some lords to fetch the Princess, whose bridal attire was “a gown of rich cloth of gold set full of large flowers of great Orient pearl, made after the Dutch fashion,” with a jewelled collar and belt. Her long fair hair was loose beneath a gem-studded “coronal of gold” with trefoils fashioned to represent sprigs of rosemary.
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Escorted by two German lords and preceded by the English nobles, she came to the gallery, where she made three low curtseys to the King. Then Henry led her into the Queen's closet, where they were married by Archbishop Cranmer. Around the new Queen's wedding ring was engraved the legend “God send me well to keep.” Once the nuptials were completed, Henry and Anne proceeded hand in hand into the King's closet, where they heard mass. Afterwards, spices and hippocras were served, then Henry went off to his privy chamber to change while Anne was escorted by Norfolk and Suffolk to hers. She was still in her wedding gown, at 9.00, when Henry rejoined her in a robe of rich tissue lined with crimson velvet. Then, “with her serjeant-of-arms and all her officers before her, like a queen, the King and she went openly in procession” into the King's closet, where they made their offerings. Afterwards, they dined together. In the afternoon, Anne changed into “a gown like a man's, furred with rich sables” with long fitted sleeves, and a headdress encrusted with stones and pearls. Thus attired, she accompanied the King to Vespers and supped with him. Afterwards there were “banquets, masques and divers disports till the time came that it pleased the King and her to take their rest.”
¹¹

There was no public bedding ceremony. The bed in which the royal couple almost certainly slept, which bears the initials
H
and
A
and the date 1539, had an antique headboard adorned with erotic polychrome carvings, one priapic cherub and one pregnant one, intended to inspire lust and promote fertility.
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But the King, who felt he had been ill advised by Cromwell and cheated by Southampton, who had praised Anne's looks, was in no mood to consummate the marriage. In fact, during the days that followed, he appeared to take an almost peverse pleasure in proclaiming his impotence. He told Cromwell that, although he had done “as much to move the consent of his heart and mind as ever man did,” he had not “carnally known” the Queen because he did not like her body and could not therefore become aroused. In fact, “he mistrusted her to be no maid, by reason of the looseness of her breasts and other tokens, which, when he felt them, struck him so to the heart that he had neither will nor courage to prove the rest [and] left her as good a maid as he found her”; nor could he tolerate her rank body odour.
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He poured out his woes first to Anthony Denny, then to Dr. Chamber, claiming that Anne's body was so “disordered and indisposed” that he “could not overcome the loathesomeness” of it, “nor in her company be provoked or stirred to that Act.” Dr. Chamber soothingly advised him “not to force himself ” in case he caused an “inconvenient debility” of the sexual organs. The King then sought out Dr. Butts, confiding to him that, although he had not been able to do “what a man should do to his wife,” he had had two wet dreams in his sleep on his wedding night and thought himself “able to do the Act with other than with her.” Butts was told to make this known at court, to counteract growing rumours that the King really was impotent. In fact, as Chamber and Butts suspected, there was probably nothing wrong with him:
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the logical conclusion is that he had purposefully avoided consummating the marriage so that it could be annulled when the time was ripe.

Henry and Anne shared a bed every night for four months, but never achieved “true carnal copulation”; in fact, after the first four nights, Henry gave up all pretence of trying,
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and made it known he had never even taken off his nightshirt. Anne herself was so innocent that she did not realise there was anything wrong. Having revealed to her ladies that all the King did was courteously wish her goodnight and good morning, she reacted with alarm when told that there must be more than that if she was to bear a Duke of York, and said she was happy she knew no more.

Anne did her best to please Henry. Although her brother was inclined to Lutheranism, she dutifully observed all the rites of the Church of England
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and gave the King a German Book of Hours dedicated in his honour.
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She learned English rapidly and well. She began wearing gowns in the English fashion, mostly of black satin or damask so that she could show off her jewels to greater effect. Some of those jewels were designed by Holbein, and featured the entwined initials H and A.
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The King, however, did not lavish jewels on her as he had done his previous wives; Anne herself purchased one of her richest pieces, a diamond brooch with miniature scenes from the life of Samson.

Anne was given Baynard's Castle only for her jointure, Havering having been reserved for the use of Prince Edward. She used both the ducal coronet and the swan of Cleves as her badge. Her very presence in a court that had not had a queen for over two years enabled her to attract “a great court of noblemen and gentlemen,”
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all avid for her patronage. Eleanor Paston, Countess of Rutland; Jane, Lady Rochford; and Winifred, Lady Edgecombe were high in her favour, as were the only two of her German maids who had been allowed to stay in England, Katherine and Gertrude. However, when the King's dislike for Anne became known, many people deserted her chambers.

Although she never learned to sing or play, Anne soon came to share the King's love of music, and employed her own musicians to entertain her. Among them were several members of the Jewish Bassano family, who Cromwell's agents had discovered in Venice, where they were hiding from the Inquisition. Offered asylum in England, they arrived at court in the spring of 1540. The Bassanos were skilled recorder players, and they and their descendants would faithfully serve the Crown until the reign of Charles I.

Anne's other pleasures were chiefly domestic. She took a delight in the palace gardens, and rewarded the gardeners generously for their services. She spent hours at her needlework, working in a form of cross-stitch called
opus pulvinarium
on cushion covers and mats, and was responsible for introducing some German Renaissance designs into England. She enjoyed gambling with cards or dice with her ladies in her privy chamber, or watching the feats performed by a visiting acrobat. She is known to have owned a parrot, and is said to have introduced the liver-and-white toy spaniel into England.

On 11 January, Henry and Anne presided over a tournament in honour of their nuptials, the Queen appearing for the first time in English dress, with a French hood.

The King had already abandoned plans for her coronation, but he did arrange for her to make a state entry into Westminster on 4 February, sailing with her in the royal barge from Greenwich, attended by the nobility and guildsmen in a flotilla of smaller barges. The new Queen received a thunderous salute from the Tower guns as she passed, and the banks of the Thames were crowded with cheering citizens. At Westminster stairs, the King helped Anne out of the barge, and they walked in procession to Whitehall Palace.
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Nearby, the state apartments of St. James's Palace were now finished, and the chapel royal nearing completion. Its magnificent ceiling, painted by Holbein, and probably inspired by the décor of the ambulatory vault of St. Costanza in Rome and the entrance hall to the Palazzo de Té in Mantua, commemorates the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves, whose initials, badges, and mottoes, with the date 1540, were incorporated into the design. Tapestries hung beneath the clerestory windows, and the high altar was lavishly adorned. The new chapel would from now on be the official home of the Chapel Royal.
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