The Boleyns (18 page)

Good Christian people, I have not come here to preach a sermon; I have come here to die. For according to the law and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I have come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak of that whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the King and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler and more merciful prince there never was … And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and heartily desire you all to pray for me …
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It could hardly have been a more composed or orthodox departure, and even Chapuys was impressed. The formalities were quickly completed, and her body was committed for burial beside that of her brother in the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula.

So the King had his desire, and was free to marry again, which he proceeded to do with what many considered to be indecent haste, taking Jane Seymour as his wife on 30 May, just eleven days after Anne’s death. Pope Paul III was encouraged, now that Anne and Catherine were both dead, to believe that England’s relations with the Holy See might be renegotiated. The Emperor was also optimistic of the same outcome, and before the news of Jane Seymour’s advent reached him was talking of a possible Portuguese bride for Henry.
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However, the man who gained most from the demise of the Boleyn party was undoubtedly their chief rival, Thomas Cromwell, who now had no obvious challenger for the King’s confidence. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, in spite of the prestige of their rank, were no competition in terms of political astuteness, or in their ability to read the King’s moods. Nor was Jane Seymour, who was totally lacking Anne’s political intelligence, and seems to have had no agenda beyond that of general pacification. She was a meek and submissive soul; just what Henry needed after his bruising confrontation with Catherine and the constant edginess of his relationship with Anne.
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Her brother Edward became Earl of Hertford in the wake of her elevation, but the Seymours did not constitute a party in the same sense as the Boleyns, and did not have the same type of agenda. In spite of his acquiescence in all that had happened, the Earl of Wiltshire now found himself excluded from the inner circle of the council, and lost the office of Privy Seal to Cromwell on 29 June. He did not give up, but rather seems to have set out to recover his position. He served the King loyally during the Pilgrimage of Grace in the autumn of 1536, paid his subsidy assessment in full, and was assiduous in attending the ceremonies of the Garter. In January 1538 he was back at court, and according to one report ‘well entertained’. When his wife Elizabeth died later in the same year there was even talk of his marrying Margaret Douglas, the King’s kinswoman by virtue of being the daughter of his sister Margaret by her second marriage.
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However, his health was probably failing by then, and he died at Hever on 29 March 1539, having recovered neither power nor influence.

But was Anne guilty of any or all of the offences which were alleged to destroy her and the power of her family? Professor Ives thinks not, arguing that the evidence against her was flimsy and circumstantial, and would not stand up for a moment in a modern court of law.
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Professor Bernard thinks differently, without denying the validity of the modern comparison. He takes much more seriously the Countess of Worcester’s testimony, and the stories related to it, arguing that Anne’s notorious flirtatiousness did occasionally stray over the boundary into actual sexual misdemeanours.
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The women of her Privy Chamber did indeed know what was going on, and it was from their testimony that the case against her and her accomplices was formulated. The reason why all this did not come out at the time lay in the legal protection which the Queen’s reputation enjoyed under the Treasons Act of 1534. ‘No one,’ as de Carles observed, ‘on pain of martyrdom, dared say anything to the detriment of the Queen.’ Without denying the possibility that these were all opportunistic fantasies, dreamed up when Cromwell was obviously dredging for dirt, Professor Bernard nevertheless argues for their cumulative plausibility, although whether all those subsequently condemned were guilty is another matter.
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With regard to the charges of incest brought against her brother, there is more agreement. Bernard points out that even according to Chapuys, Rochford was accused only ‘by presumption’, and that no actual witnesses were brought to accuse him. It is probably wisest to believe that this was a politically motivated charge, brought for the purpose of removing him from the scene, and that it was plausibly dressed up in the ‘certain other little follies’ in which an affectionate brother and sister had indulged.
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The generally hostile attitude of the trial jury would have been sufficient to secure a conviction, in spite of his ‘prudent and wise’ defence, which many at the time thought had earned him an acquittal. On Anne’s sexual conduct as a whole, the jury may still be regarded as out, although in the absence of any more conclusive evidence it is probably wisest to return a ‘not guilty’ verdict, while admitting that her demeanour at various times during her reign gave perfectly genuine causes for suspicion.

Although they had not been instrumental in bringing it about, the friends of Princess Mary rejoiced greatly at the fall of the Boleyns, and particularly at the execution of Anne. Taken along with the annulment of her marriage that had, in their eyes, restored a level playing field – a view which they shared with the Pope and the Emperor, as we have seen. However, the thing that they had not grasped was the seriousness with which Henry took his role as Supreme Head of the Church. This, he was quite convinced, was how God intended his Church to be run. Also he had committed himself by authorising the Bishops’ Book, and by giving the royal assent to the Act dissolving the smaller monasteries, both intrusions upon ecclesiastical jurisdiction as that was traditionally understood.
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He also knew perfectly well that the Act of Supremacy and the dissolution of his first marriage were two sides of the same coin. Consequently there could be no question of receiving his daughter back into favour unless she recognised that supremacy, and her own illegitimate status. Mary did not recognise this fact either. As far as she was concerned, the breakdown of relations with her father had been entirely the responsibility of ‘that woman’, and given what we know of their mutual recriminations, that is not surprising. So Nicholas Carew, the Poles and the Courtenays were encouraging her in what was soon demonstrated to be an illusion. Chapuys was not so sure. In an interview with Henry before Anne’s execution, but when her fate was already decided, he had been told:

… as to the legitimation of our daughter Mary … if she would s to our Grace, without wrestling against the determination of our laws, we would acknowledge her and use her as our daughter, but we would not be directed or pressed herein …
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And even if she did submit, there was no guarantee of her legitimation. Realising the conditional nature of the King’s reaction, he wisely advised Lady Shelton, who was still in charge of the joint household in spite of her Boleyn kindred, not to receive any of Mary’s former servants who were regularly turning up at Hunsdon expecting to be reinstated.
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The King now had two illegitimate daughters and the household which cared for them had no particular designation.

Felicitations arrived from everyone, except the one person who mattered. Henry sent no word to Hunsdon, and as the suspense became unbearable, it occurred to Mary that she was expected to make the first move. On the 26th she wrote to Cromwell, asking for his intercession with her father, now that the great obstacle to their reconciliation was no more. The Secretary appears to have replied promptly – his letter does not survive – giving her to understand that obedience was looked for as the first condition for reinstatement.
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‘Obedience’ however, is flexible term, and on the 30th she wrote again, offering to be ‘as obedient to the King’s Grace as you can reasonably require of me’. Apparently satisfied that she had met his conditions, the next day she wrote to her father, in terms of disarming innocence, acknowledging her offences and begging for his blessing. Unfortunately she also made it clear that her submissiveness reserved her conscience. She would obey him in all things:

Next to God … humbly beseeching your highness to consider that I am but a woman and your child, who hath committed her soul only to God, and her body to be ordered in this world as it shall stand with your pleasure …
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Since both the points upon which he required her submission, the ecclesiastical supremacy and her mother’s marriage, were covered by this reservation, from his point of view she had conceded nothing and he did not deign to reply. Instead he approved the drawing up of a set of articles to be presented to her which would leave no room for equivocation or evasion. Chapuys and Cromwell were both on tenterhooks, although for very different reasons. It was no part of the Secretary’s plans for a reconciliation with the Emperor to see his cousin imprisoned, or worse still executed for high treason.
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Meanwhile, buoyed up by a false optimism which may have derived from her friends at court, that the King would change (or had changed) his mind, on 7 June she wrote again to Cromwell. This time she expressed her joy that her father ‘had withdrawn his displeasure’, and asked for some token from the King, so that she might visit the court and pay her respects. On the 10th she wrote to Henry, asking for his blessing, and this time copied it to Cromwell with a covering note asking not to be pressed further than her conscience would bear. This last was precisely what neither Henry nor Cromwell wanted to hear, and few days later, probably on the 15th, a commission headed by the Duke of Norfolk visited her at Hunsdon requiring an answer to two straight questions: would she repudiate the authority of the Bishop of Rome, and would she accept the nullity of her mother’s marriage?
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In a stormy and emotional confrontation, she rejected both demands, and the crisis which both Cromwell and Chapuys had dreaded had now arrived. Technically Mary was guilty of treason, and the judges recommended that she be proceeded against. The council went into emergency session, with her friends the Marquis of Exeter and Sir William Fitzwilliam excluded. Sir Anthony Browne and Sir Francis Bryan were arrested for idle chatter concerning the Lady Mary’s status, and the whole court seems to have been in a state of high tension.
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By this time Chapuys was arguing in favour of submission, on the ground that in the face of such cruel pressure no oath could be binding in conscience. Nevertheless it seems to have been Cromwell who broke the deadlock, by sending her a letter of unequivocal submission which she was merely required to sign. According to the ambassador, she signed it without even reading it, but it appears from her reaction that she knew very well what she was about, and her effusive letter to Cromwell a few days later indicates an immense gratitude for his intervention.
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Perhaps some such casuistry as Chapuys had suggested was involved, and Mary was much later to indicate that she felt an overwhelming guilt at her surrender, but at the time the prevailing reaction was one of relief. The whole court relaxed, and on 6 July the King and Queen visited Hunsdon, staying for two days. In Rome it was believed that she would now be recognised as heir, and that Henry would return to the Catholic Church. Such self-deception was unwarranted, because Mary had after all submitted to her father, not the other way round. Her chamber was in due course restored, and when the Pilgrims of Grace took her name in vain in the autumn of 1536, she gave them not the slightest encouragement.
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From then until the end of her father’s reign, Mary gave no sign that her change of heart was not genuine. She even wrote to the Emperor, asking him not to try and use her as lever against her father, and Chapuys was reduced to making rather far fetched excuses. He even at one point suggested that she should secretly apply to the Pope for a dispensation for her action, an idea which she at once repudiated. If Anne’s execution marks the point at which Cromwell triumphed over the Boleyns, then Mary’s submission marks the point at which he triumphed over those conservative forces which had supported him in his first coup. He was reviled by the Pilgrims as the King’s bear leader, but what the events of the spring and summer of 1536 really prove is his skill in manipulating Henry’s moods. It was always the King who made the crucial decisions, but Thomas Cromwell who presented the options, restricted choices, and showed the way in which desired objectives could be achieved.