Anne Boleyn Part Nine: Marriage to King Henry VIII

                                           Written By: Katelyn Abbott

Anne was able to accept receiving diplomats, give patronage, grant petitions, and had enormous influence over her future husband King Henry VIII to plead the cause of foreign diplomats to him. The ambassador from Milan wrote in 1531 that it was essential to have her approval if one wanted to be able to influence the English government. This view was corroborated by an earlier French ambassador in 1529.

Anne and King Henry VIII exchanged gifts with each other for New Year’s Day in 1533. King Henry VIII had forbidden any of the English courtiers to give gifts to Queen Katherine and he gave no gifts to Queen Katherine or her ladies-in-waiting for the holiday celebrations. Anne gave King Henry VIII a set of boar spears as a gift and King Henry VIII gave her a set of hangings as a gift. Queen Katherine sent King Henry VIII a gold cup as a gift for New Year’s Day, but he sent it back to her after an outburst from Anne about it.

At Easter the provincial of the Observant Friars William Peto was invited to preach before King Henry VIII and the English Court, but he caused a sensation when he warned a glowering King Henry VIII that any marriage with Anne Boleyn would be unlawful. If, like Ahab in the Bible, the King committed this dire sin, the dogs would one day lick his blood, as they had Ahab’s. King Henry VIII was furious over this so he ordered one of his own chaplains Richard Curwen to preach a retaliatory sermon the following Sunday, but he was heckled by another Observant Friar Henry Elston. The two men Friar Henry Elston and Friar William Peto were both arrested.

Anne used her influence to bring about the marriage of the Earl of Surrey to Frances de Vere, the daughter of the Earl of Oxford, who was a young lady of impeccable ancestry, but no fortune against the Duchess of Norfolk’s wishes in April 1532.  Princess Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, basically publicly referred to Anne in “opprobrious language” which sparked a fight between the Duke’s retainers and those of Norfolk. One of Suffolk’s men Sir William Pennington came to be killed by two of Norfolk’s followers Richard Southwell and his brother while they were seeking sanctuary in Westminster Abbey at which the enraged Duke of Suffolk broke into the Sanctuary “to remove the assailants by force.” Due to this for weeks afterwards “the whole English Court was in an uproar.” The Suffolks ended up withdrawing to their estates, but their followers were still in a bullish mood and King Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell had to intervene to prevent any further affrays. Soon afterwards King Henry VIII visited Charles Brandon and his sister Princess Mary Tudor, but it took all of his powers of persuasion to make the Duke of Suffolk return to his duties. Richard Southwell was later pardoned after paying a fine of £1,000 (£300,000).

As to the art of music there were visiting stars at the English Court with one of them being a “very handsome and brilliant” young man named Mark Smeaton who was appointed as a Groom of the Privy Chamber in 1532. He had been a gifted player on the lute, portable organ, and the virginals and he came to be an excellent dancer and singer. Anne did patron him and she ended up occasionally providing him with shirts, hose, shoes, and bonnets. For he had been associated with a music book written for Anne. His signature had gone on the Lefevre manuscript which had been identified with the handwriting in this book from which it had been interfered that he wrote it, but this is by no means certain. The music book had been a collection of five French chansons and thirty-nine Latin motets as all were written before this which among these were works by the great French composer Jocquin des Pues with which Anne had probably become familiar with in Burgundy and France. Anne may have most likely brought the music book back home with her from France in 1522.

In June 1532 Henry Percy’s wife Mary Talbot attempted to annul her unhappy marriage to her husband on the grounds of Henry Percy’s alleged pre-contract to Anne. If the Countess of Northumberland were to win her suit she would be free of Henry Percy and Anne would not have been able to marry King Henry VIII. This threat had enough credence that King Henry VIII had the Archbishops of Canterbury and York handled the dispute. They denied Mary Talbot’s claim and ended up telling her to return to her husband Henry Percy.

In the summer of 1532 King Henry VIII presented Anne with the royal manor of Ditton Park and the royal manor house at Hansworth near Hounslow in Middlesex. She left Hampton Court on a summer progress with King Henry VIII to Woodstock and Abingdon, but this was curtailed for fear of demonstrations against Anne. The King and Anne spent the rest of the summer hunting at Hanworth.

King Henry VIII’s new mania for building had been able to be extended to the Tower of London which he had wanted to be refurnished in time for Anne’s coronation which was an event that he confidently expected would take place in the near future in the summer of 1532. At a cost of £3,500 (£1,050,000), Thomas Cromwell arranged for the old royal apartments to be gutted and their ceilings and their walls decorated in the antique style. He had built a new Queen’s lodging in the Inner Ward, north of the Lanthorn Tower, with a bedchamber with a privy, a dining chamber, a gallery that led to the King’s apartments, a presence chamber, and a splendid bridge across the moat leading to a private garden for Anne.

Anne had seen the Elizabeth Barton in August 1532 when her mother Lady Elizabeth Boleyn had suggested that she neutralize the Nun of Kent by making her one of her waiting women, but Elizabeth Barton made no secret of her distaste for Anne’s offer to her and she turned down the position.

                                    A picture of Anne as the Marquess of Pembroke

At September 1, 1532 King Henry VIII had granted Anne the right to become the Marquess of Pembroke at Windsor Castle which was an appropriate peerage for a future Queen of England though it was a title that was usually given to a man. Anne had been in a beautiful crimson gown and her hang hung lose during the ceremony. She came to be a powerful and rich woman in her own right: the three Dukes and two Marquesses who existed in 1532 were the King’s brother-in-law Charles Brandon, the King’s illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy, and other descendants of royalty; she ranked above all other peeresses. Anne would have an income of over a 1, 000 pounds a year and she would have lands of her own in Pembroke. King Henry VIII performed the investiture of the ceremony on Anne himself. Witnessed by the Archbishop of York, her family, and the French ambassador, Anne knelt with unusual humility before her sovereign as he placed a coronet on her silky dark-haired head and an ermine robe over her delicate shoulders.
 

Anne’s family the Boleyns came to also profit from Anne’s relationship to King Henry VIII. Her father Sir Thomas Boleyn, already Viscount Rochford, was created the Earl of Wiltshire by King Henry VIII. He came to an arrangement with Anne’s Irish cousin to create her father the Earl of Ormond as well and he decided to appoint Sir Thomas Boleyn as the Lord Privy Seal along with appointing Anne’s uncle the third Duke of Norfolk as the Lord Treasurer and George Boleyn made a baron in his own right along with Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Master of the Bethlehem (Bedlam) Hospital for the insane, and Master of the Buckhounds in 1533. Anne ended taking precedence over the Duchesses of Norfolk and Suffolk at the magnificent banquet for the celebration of her father Sir Thomas Boleyn’s elevation as the Earl of Wiltshire where Anne was seated in the place of honor beside King Henry VIII which was usually occupied by the Queen. Thanks to Anne’s intervention on her widowed sister Mary’s behalf, Mary received an annual pension of one hundred pounds and Mary’s son, Henry Carey, who was Anne’s ward, was educated at a prestigious Cistercian monastery with Anne taking a serious interest in his clothing and his education.

                                      

 

                                  A picture of a jewelry box Anne might have used

King Henry VIII did have much of the royal jewelry reset to fit Anne and set aside the best precious stones for her. He ended up stripping Queen Katherine of the Queen’s jewels which were the Queen of England’s property by rights. She was obviously not pleased to do this and responded to King Henry VIII’s demands that she hand the Queen’s jewels over to Anne that it would a sin for her jewels to adorn ‘a woman who is the scandal of Christendom and a disgrace to you.’ Queen Katherine surrendered the jewels though as she was ordered to do so and then King Henry VIII gave them to Anne for her own personal use.
 

Anne was determined to have all of the trappings of queenship so she ordered her Chamberlain to seize the Queen’s barge, a fine vessel with twenty-four oars, and to have its coat of arms burned off, replaced with her own, and see to it that the barge was also painted in her colors blue and purple. Anne ended up ordering some gowns in the French fashion. For the French were to be impressed by Anne’s wardrobe which included a gown of cloth of gold spangled with diamonds and several items which King Henry VIII had provided for her being furs, a gown made entirely of gold-embroidered velvet which cost £74 (£22,200), a green damask gown, silks, and the more intimate gift of a “nightgown” made of fourteen yards of black satin landed with taffeta that was banded with velvet and had upper sleeves stiffened with buckram.

During this period Anne did indeed play an important role in England’s international position by solidifying an alliance with France. She established an excellent rapport with the French ambassador Gilles de la Pommeraie. King Henry VIII and Anne ended up attending a meeting with King Francis I of France at Calais in the winter of 1532 in which King Henry VIII had hoped to enlist his support for his next intended marriage to Anne. However neither King Francis I’s new wife Queen Eleanor, the rest of the ladies at the French Court, or his sister Marguerite de Navarre wished to meet with her while she was there as Queen Eleanor was a supporter of Katherine of Aragon and Marguerite de Navarre felt too ill to attend. Sadly this was a disappointment and a great insult to Anne since she greatly admired her childhood idol Marguerite de Navarre though it was most likely true that she was unable to attend due to her ill health. Therefore it was decided that Anne would stay in Calais, technically on English soil, and that only King Francis I would meet with her.

                    A picture of Anne performing in a masque for King Francis I of France

Evidently there was a magnificent banquet and Anne was featured in a masque with her ladies-in-waiting including her aunts Lady Derby and Lady Fitzwalter, her sister-in-law Lady Rochford, and her cousin Lady Mary Howard all clothed and masked in unusual outfits of crimson and gold tinsel with gold laces. It must have felt good for Anne to be back in the atmosphere she had been raised in. King Francis I had accepted Anne for who he was, been friends with her, and cared about her during her time in the French Court and he had recognized her to be a beautiful, intelligent, and charming young woman that was proud that his court had turned out. He said many elegant compliments to Anne. King Francis I had the Provost of Paris present Anne with a diamond as a token of his esteem of her on October 24, 1532. The conference at Calais was something of a political triumph for King Henry VIII and Anne, but even though the French government gave implicit support for King Henry VIII’s remarriage to Anne and King Francis I held private conference with Anne, the French King maintained alliances with the Pope which he could not defy explicitly

In December 1532 King Henry VIII had actually escorted Anne and Giles de la Pommeraye to the Tower of London. After they had inspected the building works, King Henry VIII allowed his guests the rare privilege of entering his treasure chamber where he presented a beautiful gold cup to the ambassador as a token of his gratitude. He came to give Anne a cupboard and she did select basins, candelabra, cups, and flagons for her New Year’s gifts. Christmas was ended up spent by them at Greenwich with such a lavish banquet being served on Twelfth Night that temporary kitchens had to be built in the grounds. For Christmas Lord Morley had given Anne his translation of “The Epistles and Gospels for the LII Sundays in the Year.” Anne had gone on to have other conventional books in her possession which were several devotional books and other works in the French language among them the Ecclesiaste and a letter-writing treatise by Louis de Brun, the first book ever dedicated to her as ‘Madame Anne de Rochefort.’

Assumedly the sexual relationship between King Henry VIII and Anne was to begin as a very satisfactory one for King Henry VIII was an attractive man as according to the dispatches of the Venetian ambassadors we find that at this time period in history that ‘in this eighth Henry, God has combined such corporeal and intellectual beauty as to astound all men! His face is angelic rather than handsome, his head imperial and bald, and he wears a beard, contrary to English custom. ‘Anne was a beautiful woman with brilliance and feminine charms in her. She certainly was not immune to King Henry VIII’s charm and he did find in her a bedmate at once loving and passionate. He enjoyed her French lovemaking ways as Anne had learned in the French Court though Anne was still a virgin and King Henry VIII had taken her maidenhead away from her.

                               A picture of Anne getting married to King Henry VIII

 

Soon after their return to Dover King Henry VIII and Anne were able to get married in a secret ceremony. She became pregnant soon after their wedding and to legalize the first wedding which was considered to be unlawful at the time; there was a second wedding service, also private in accordance with The Royal Book, which took place in London on January 25, 1533. Clearly it is not known who exactly the presiding priest or the witnesses were though some sources state the presiding priest was either Dr. Rowland Lee, the King’s chaplain, or George Brown, Prior of the Austin Friars in London, and that among the witnesses were Anne Savage, Charles Brandon the Duke of Suffolk, George Boleyn, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Thomas Boleyn, Thomas Heneage, and William Brereton. Anne likely might have been dressed in a wedding dress that was white in color. King Henry VIII and Anne’s new marriage and Anne’s pregnancy did get kept a good secret for at least three months, but the happy newly married couple ended up being unable to contain themselves for long and dropped hints to the people in the English Court about Anne‘s pregnancy. Anne ended up saying while she was dining in her apartments that she was ‘as sure as her own death that she should be very soon married to the King’ on February 7, 1533. Anne evidently said to the Duke of Norfolk that if she was not pregnant by Easter she would undertake a pilgrimage to pray to the Virgin Mary as a hint of her pregnancy to him according to Imperial Ambassador Eustace Chapuys on February 15^th, 1533. February 24th, 1533 was the day that King Henry VIII and Anne held a great banquet at Whitehall Palace where  King Henry VIII doted on Anne and ended up ignoring many of his important guests with the Duchess of Norfolk hearing him drunkenly refer to Anne’s ‘great dowry and rich marriage.’  For there is a legend that states that Anne had remarked to King Henry VIII that she had a fierce craving for apples and that King Henry VIII stated that it was a sign that she might be pregnant making both of them laugh at their little joke. The witnesses of this exchange got naturally shocked and the word had spread fast that Anne was pregnant with King Henry VIII’s child. Anne likely so loved apples from anything to drinking sweet apple cider to eating apple tarts along with cherries and strawberries.



Inevitably events now began to move at a quick pace. In March Anne started to lovingly prepare a nursery for the future heir at Eltham Palace. April 7, 1533 had been the day that Henry VIII had summoned his Privy Council and told them that he had married Anne two months ago and she was carrying the heir to England in her womb. Anne made her first public appearance as the Queen of England on Easter Saturday April 12th, 1533 at Mass dressed in an elaborately pleated gown of gold silk made specifically for the occasion and seeded with diamonds and pearls where she made her first public statement as the Queen of England: “"Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculórum. Amen” in Latin which means “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” She had to add a panel to her skirts from the increasing girth of her pregnancy being announced in May of 1533 and bitterly complained about the loss of her figure because of it, but her father Sir Thomas Boleyn told her bluntly to thank God that she had found herself to be in such a condition as being with child. On May 23, 1533 Archbishop Cranmer (who had been hastened, with the Pope’s assent, into the position of Archbishop of Canterbury recently vacated by the convenient death of the former Archbishop Warham of Canterbury) sat in judgment at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to rule on the validity of King Henry VIII’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon. He thereupon declared the marriage of King Henry VIII and Queen Katherine was null and void and then five days later on May 28, 1533 Archbishop Cranmer declared that the marriage of King Henry VIII and Anne to be good and valid. Katherine of Aragon refused to cooperate with the proceedings by accepting the title the ‘Dowager Princess of Wales’ (a title appropriate for Prince Arthur’s "widow”) as the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk had ordered her to do so and started to spread lies with her loyal follower Imperial Ambassador Eustace Chapuys about her safety along with her daughter Mary’s safety being in jeopardy and her terrible living conditions through letters to the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope.

Apparently in April there had been a large number of public protests against King Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne. A priest, Ralph Wendon, had been hauled before the justices for saying that Anne was ‘the scandal of Christendom, a whore, and a harlot.” Another priest in Salisbury came to suffer greatly at the hands of his female parishioners for commending the King’s new wife to his flock. During the end of the month when the order went out that Queen Anne was to be prayed for in the churches one London congregation walked out in disgust and the Lord Mayor ended up later suffering a reprimand when King Henry VIII had learned of it. For the Dean of Bristol had lost his office for forbidding his priests to pray for King Henry VIII and Anne. Some people had gone on to suffering imprisonment for slandering the new Queen such as Margaret Chancellor, who had not only cried out, “God save Queen Katherine,” but also declared that Anne was “a goggle-eyed whore.” However King Henry VIII was determined that those who spoke out against him would be silenced and the government made strenuous efforts to eradicate seditious talk. In May it issued the first of a series of propaganda tracts designed “to inform his Grace’s loving subjects of the truth.”