Weir A. Henry VIII: The King and His Court

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Despite this semblance of popularity, Anne and her family were never well liked at court, where they

were secretly considered proud and grasping, and they were hated by the people, many of whom

supported their beloved Queen. When Anne went hunting with the King, villagers would hoot and hiss

at her,

and on one occasion when Henry was riding alone near Woodstock, one of his subjects yelled,

“Back to your wife!”

Anne cannot have been happy with the fact that Henry was still dining regularly with Katherine, and

also, according to Jean du Bellay, sharing her bed.

On the King’s own admission, he was not having

sex with her, so he was probably keeping up appearances in order to impress the legate. The strain of

the nullity suit had taken its toll on Katherine—Campeggio thought she was nearly fifty, when in fact

she was just forty-three, whereas Henry, at thirty-seven, was still in his prime.

In November 1528, the royal couple were together at Bridewell Palace; as they walked along the river

gallery, they could hear a large crowd outside cheering the Queen.

Fearing that his popularity was at

risk, the King summoned the leading citizens of London to the palace and assured them that he had

instigated nullity proceedings only to set his mind at rest, and that, were he to choose again, he would

take Katherine for his wife above all others.

In early December, however, Henry took advantage of Katherine’s temporary absence at Richmond and

installed Anne at Greenwich “in a very fine lodging which he has furnished very near his own. Greater

court is paid to her every day than has been for a long time paid to the Queen.”

Some were

scandalised by this turn of events—the Venetian ambassador spoke in such an insultingly “lewd

fashion” of the King’s morals that he had to be recalled

—but Anne did not care. She was determined

to eclipse not just Katherine but Wolsey, too. It was to Anne, rather than the Cardinal, that courtiers and

supplicants now came seeking patronage.

There was a tense atmosphere at court during the Christmas celebrations. Anne kept open house in her

own apartments, avoiding the official revels in the chamber “because she does not like to meet the

Queen.”

It was Katherine who presided over the main festivities, but she found it hard to look

cheerful “and made no joy of nothing, her mind was so troubled.”

The King ignored her misery; he

entertained the two legates with jousts, banquets, masques, and disguisings, knighted Campeggio’s son,

and on the Feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury on 29 December appeared looking very majestic in cloth

of gold lined with beautiful lynx skins. “All comers of any honest behaviour” were allowed to enter the

great hall and partake of the “great plenty of viands” laid out there.

The Boleyns had recently taken up Holbein, who around 1528 painted portraits of several members of

their faction, among them Rochford’s sister Anne and her husband Sir John Shelton, and Sir John

Godsalve and his son, another John, who were members of Rochford’s circle in Norfolk.

Holbein had also painted the illuminated capitals for a short treatise by Nicolaus Kratzer, entitled

“Canones Horoptri,” which was bound in green velvet and presented to Henry at New Year 1529. The

treatise described the uses of an instrument called a horoptrum which had been invented by Kratzer to

predict such things as the exact times of sunrise and sunset and the passage of the Sun through the

Zodiac.

We know that Holbein had returned to Basel by August 1528, when his two-year leave of

absence from the city expired, but it is possible that he came back briefly to England for the

presentation of the treatise. This cannot be proved, as his movements for the next three years are

unrecorded.

During the early months of 1529, the legates prepared for the hearing of the King’s nullity suit. Henry

proposed Warham as counsel for the Queen, but Katherine had little faith in the Archbishop’s ability or

inclination to uphold her cause. Besides, he was Henry’s subject, and therefore not impartial. She had

more confidence in her other counsel, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, a man of greater principle.

There was a minor scandal at Easter when Anne took it upon herself to bless cramp rings, a ritual that

could be performed only by an anointed king or queen. The fuss soon died down, and the court moved

to Richmond to celebrate St. George’s Day with the usual Garter feast.

Wolsey, who had left no stone unturned to make the King’s case watertight, was confident of a happy

outcome when, on 31 May, the legatine court opened in the great hall of the priory of the Blackfriars in

London. There was enormous public interest in the proceedings, not only because opinions ran high,

but also because a king and queen had never before been summoned before a court in England. For a

brief space it seemed as if the hearing might not take place after all, for when the Queen was

summoned into the court, she did not go to the chair of estate appointed for her, but, ignoring the

legates, made her way to the King’s throne and there, falling to her knees, made a dramatic plea to him

to spare her the extremity of the court. She declared that she had been a true wife to him, and that when

he married her she had been a virgin, “without touch of man. And whether it be true or no, I put it to

your conscience.” If, however, he persisted in his suit, then she would commit her cause to God.

As the King stared straight ahead, Katherine rose, curtseyed, and, leaning on the arm of her Receiver

General, Griffin Richards, who had served her since her marriage to Prince Arthur, she left the court,

ignoring urgent calls for her return. Outside, the people cheered and clapped her. The legates, however,

declared her contumacious and proceeded without her.

There followed days and days of interminable depositions and heated discussions. Much of the

evidence focused on whether Prince Arthur had consummated his marriage, and several noblemen

came forward to boast that they had been capable of the sex act at his age. Much of the evidence was

heavily weighted in Henry’s favour, but Bishop Fisher, a lone voice, spoke up for Katherine, telling the

court, “This marriage of the King and Queen can be dissolved by no power, human or divine.”

Henry

dismissed this as the view of “but one man.”

Campeggio listened to it all, but gave nothing away. Finally, on 23 July, he unexpectedly adjourned the

case to Rome, in compliance with the Pope’s secret instructions. There was a shocked silence; then, as

the King walked out, his face like thunder, the Duke of Suffolk crashed his fist onto a table and

shouted, “By the mass, it was never merry in England while we had cardinals among us!” Wolsey, who

was no less appalled than anyone else and doubtless believed that he now faced ruin, replied bitterly,

“Of all men in this realm, ye have least cause to be offended with cardinals. For if I, a simple cardinal,

had not been, ye should have at this present no head upon your shoulders.”

“Above Everyone, Mademoiselle Anne”

At the end of July 1 529, Henry went with Anne Boleyn to Greenwich, then took her on progress,

visiting Waltham Abbey, Barnet, Tittenhanger, Windsor, Reading, Woodstock, Langley, Buckingham,

and Grafton, where Anne “kept state more like a queen than a simple maid.”

Here, in September, the

two legates came, so that Campeggio could take his official leave of the King before returning to

Rome.

There is no doubt that Wolsey was in disgrace, and that Anne, Norfolk, and the rest of their faction

were resolved to be rid of him for good. There are conflicting accounts of what happened at Grafton.

Cavendish, writing many years later, claims that when the cardinals arrived, Campeggio was led away

to a comfortable lodging, but that no provision had been made for Wolsey, and he was forced to sit on

his mule in the courtyard until Henry Norris came and offered the use of his own room, so that the

Cardinal could change out of his riding clothes before seeing the King. Another of Wolsey’s servants,

Thomas Alward, whose account was written five days after the event, does not mention this but states

that, because Grafton was a very small house, both cardinals were lodged at nearby Easton Neston.

Both are agreed that when Wolsey, full of trepidation, came into the crowded presence chamber and

knelt before his master, Henry’s old affection for him surfaced and, smiling, he raised him and led him

to a window embrasure, where they talked for some time, much to the amazement of the onlookers.

Anne was furious. After Wolsey had gone off to eat, having arranged to meet with the King the

following morning, she sat at dinner with Henry and upbraided him for entertaining a man who had

done him and his realm so much ill. Alward claims that Henry and Wolsey did sit in Council the

following morning, and that the King went hunting after dinner, but Cavendish says Anne insisted that

Henry leave early with her to see a new hunting park nearby, and that Wolsey and Campeggio arrived

just as the King was ready to leave, when he told them he had no time to talk and bade them farewell.

Anne, who had ordered a picnic, saw to it that he was away all day. When he returned, Wolsey had

gone, bound for the More.

Whatever happened, Henry never saw Wolsey again. Influenced by the Boleyn faction, who were even

accusing their enemy of witchcraft, he agreed that the Cardinal be indicted under the Statute of

Praemunire, which prohibited papal interference in English affairs without royal consent, for receiving

bulls from Rome, which Wolsey could not deny. On 17 October, he was stripped of his post as Lord

Chancellor, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk triumphantly went to collect the Great Seal from him

at Esher. Yet the King was merciful: when, in November, Parliament arraigned Wolsey on forty-four

charges, Henry refused to proceed against him, but allowed him to retain several of his ecclesiastical

properties and retire to his diocese of York.

The effects of Wolsey’s fall were manifold. It unleashed a wave of anticlerical feeling, which was fed

by Norfolk and Suffolk. It gave the King a useful scapegoat for things that had gone wrong in the past:

he could say that Wolsey deceived him, and that many things had been done without his knowledge.

The Privy Council and the nobility grew more powerful now that they had no rival.

In October, the King had returned to Greenwich, having seized four of Wolsey’s most desirable houses

—York Place, the More, Tittenhanger, and Esher—along with their priceless contents, and taken full

possession of Hampton Court. Building works still in progress were allowed to continue, and Wolsey’s

coats of arms were torn down and replaced with the King’s.

On 2 November, Henry and Anne, accompanied by her mother, went by barge to view York Place.

This

was, strictly speaking, still the property of the archdiocese of York, but early in 1530 the King’s

lawyers would manage to overcome this technicality.

Wolsey had drawn up an inventory before

leaving the house, and the King and Anne inspected the piles of gold plate that had been left on trestles

in the presence chamber and the sumptuous hangings that had been laid out in the long gallery.

Anne

particularly liked York Place because it had no apartments for the Queen, and would be a house she

could share exclusively with Henry. When Anne visited, she would lodge in a chamber beneath

Wolsey’s old library, and there was accommodation for her family also.

At Hampton Court Henry was building a new private lodging for himself, the Bayne Tower, which was

connected to the privy chamber by a new gallery.

While work was in progress, he himself lodged in

Wolsey’s stacked royal apartments. The Bayne Tower, which still survives,

is a three-storey donjon,

the last of its type to be built in England. On the ground floor were the Privy Chamber office and a

strong room; the first floor housed the King’s private bedchamber, bathroom (hence the name Bayne)

with hot and cold taps, and study, and the top floor his library, housed in two rooms, and jewel house.

Henry used the Bayne Tower until 1533, when he abandoned it for more modern apartments.

His next tasks were to improve the drainage system

and add a second great kitchen with three huge

open fireplaces and two stone hatches,

as well as several subsidiary kitchens and offices. Later, he

extended the cellars. The service complex would then occupy more than fifty rooms.

Over the next year or so, the King, encouraged by Anne Boleyn, undertook other works at Hampton

Court. He replaced Wolsey’s wooden bridge with a stone one, guarded by statues of the King’s Beasts,

and set up the royal arms on the gatehouse and the inner gateway.

He built a new council chamber and

constructed an imposing watergate down by the river, with an adjacent covered and crenellated water

gallery with oriel windows. Later, he would transform the chapel, build innovative royal apartments,

and erect a vast great hall.

Altogether, in the period 1529–1546, he spent £62,000 (£18,600,000) on

converting Hampton Court into a magnificent show palace.

Esher Palace had been built of red brick by William Wayneflete, Bishop of Winchester in the fifteenth

century, and remained officially episcopal property until Henry VIII purchased it in 1537.

Wolsey had

added a fine projecting gallery similar to that at Bridewell, which Henry had ripped out and moved to

York Place while Wolsey was still residing at Esher, “only to torment him.”

The More, another fifteenth-century house, which stood to the southeast of Rickmansworth, had been

so lavishly rebuilt by Wolsey that Jean du Bellay claimed it was finer than Hampton Court.

Henry

initially did little to it, and by 1531 its once beautiful gardens were “utterly destroyed”

and the house

was deteriorating. Only in 1535 did the King make improvements, partitioning the great hall with a

floor and creating new chambers above and below. Later, he entertained there several times.

Henry also took over Wolsey’s unfinished tomb at Windsor, having decided that it would make an ideal

sepulchre for himself. But the work proceeded in fits and starts, and the tomb, with its golden effigy on

a black marble sarcophagus embellished at each corner with nine-foot-high bronze pillars adorned with

angels bearing candlesticks, would still not be completed at the time of Henry’s death.

Cardinal College, however, did not survive Wolsey’s fall. Many of the lands that supported it were

“begged away to hungry courtiers,”

and when the Master and Fellows begged the King to save the

rest, he gave a vague promise to found his own “honourable college, but not of such magnificence as

my Lord Cardinal intended to have.”

It would be seventeen years before he kept his word.

For the next two years, Henry ruled England alone, determined that in future he would manage his own

affairs.

For the first time in years, he bore the sole responsibility for his kingdom, and he found it a

heavy one. Initially, he told the Queen that Wolsey had left affairs in such a chaotic state that he would

have to work day and night to set everything in order.

Yet it soon became clear just how many of the

burdens of state the Cardinal had shouldered, and the King soon lost patience with his councillors,

shouting that Wolsey had been “a better man than any of them for managing matters” and stamping out

of the council chamber in disgust at their incompetence.

However, ruling autonomously gave Henry a new confidence and authority, and his political and

personal priorities led him to forge increasingly aggressive policies. Driven by the unshakeable

conviction that he was right to demand the annulment of his marriage—“not because so many say it,

but because he, being learned, knoweth the matter to be right”

—he relied more and more on his own

judgement and political instincts. He also paid greater attention to paperwork: Erasmus noted in 1529

that the King personally corrected and amended his letters, often drafting up to four versions before he

was satisfied.

Wolsey’s fall resulted in the promotion of several courtiers. Norfolk and Suffolk were made joint

Presidents of the Council. Norfolk had envisaged that his career would flourish once the Cardinal was

out of the way, but was to find himself outmanoevred by cleverer men. Moreover, his policies were

invariably directed by his own insecurities, for it was his constant fear that the King might restore

Wolsey to his former place.

Henry appointed as his secretary a canon and civil lawyer from Cambridge, Dr. Stephen Gardiner, an

able but rather arrogant and difficult man

of about thirty-two, who had been one of Wolsey’s

secretaries. Gardiner was in many ways a conservative, but his overriding belief in absolute

monarchical authority, and his hostility towards the Queen for defying it, made him an ideal royal

servant. He was of swarthy complexion, and had a hooked nose, deep-set eyes, a permanent frown,

huge hands, and a “vengeable wit.”

He was ambitious, sure of himself, irascible, astute, and worldly.

Henry came to rely on him, sending him on important diplomatic missions and telling everyone that,

when Gardiner was away, he felt as if he had lost his right hand; yet he was also aware that the

Secretary could be two-faced.

Gardiner was successful in his career because he understood “his

master’s nature” and knew how to manipulate him.

The final, and most important, new appointment was that of Sir Thomas More as Lord Chancellor of

England, on 26 October 1529; Sir William Fitzwilliam was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

in his place. Suffolk had been the King’s first choice for the post of Lord Chancellor, but a jealous

Norfolk opposed it on the grounds that Suffolk was powerful enough. But More did not want to be

Chancellor: he was reluctant to become embroiled in the Great Matter because he knew that his views

did not coincide with the King’s. Henry overruled his doubts, assuring him that that he need play no

part in the nullity proceedings; More might “look first unto God and, after God, to him.” Eustache

Chapuys, the new imperial ambassador who had come to replace Mendoza, declared, “There never was

nor will be a chancellor as honest and so thoroughly accomplished as he.”

More cared nothing for the pomp and show of his office, and hated wearing his gold chain of office.

When his friend Norfolk, visiting him at Chelsea, found him in a plain gown, singing with the local

church choir, he tutted, “God body, God body, my Lord Chancellor! A parish clerk! A parish clerk! You

dishonour the King and his office!”

More was unmoved. There were more important matters to

occupy his mind, such as the Lutheran heresy that was spreading in England, which More particularly

deplored. During his time as Chancellor, he would deal severely with reformers and those who spread

sedition, and he regarded the burning of six heretics as “lawful, necessary and well done.”

William

Tyndale, the exiled reformist translater of the Bible, against whom More had written a vicious diatribe,

called him “the most cruel enemy of truth.”

Such was the new order, yet “above everyone,” noted du Bellay, was “Mademoiselle Anne,” whose

word was law to the King.

It seemed that the nullity suit might drag on indefinitely, yet a solution appeared to be at hand. On 29

August 1529, Stephen Gardiner and Edward Foxe, the King’s Almoner, brought an obscure cleric,

Thomas Cranmer, whom they had known at Cambridge, to see Henry at Greenwich. They had met him

while staying at a house near Waltham Abbey, on their way back from Rome, and been impressed with

his views on the Great Matter. Cranmer declared that it was a theological issue that could not be dealt

with under canon law, and suggested that the King canvas the universities of Europe, where were to be

found the greatest experts on theology.

Henry was very impressed with the short, slight, and scholarly cleric. “That man hath the sow by the

right ear!” he declared, and ordered Lord Rochford to take Cranmer into his household and appoint him

his chaplain; Cranmer, in turn, was to write a treatise on his views, and in January 1530, armed with

this, the King sent his envoys to every university, asking for their views.

Thomas Cranmer was to become one of Henry’s staunchest supporters and a great partisan of the

Boleyns. A keen advocate of reform, who was already secretly flirting with Lutheranism, he had won a

fellowship at Jesus College, but been expelled for getting married. After his first wife, a barmaid called

“Black Joan,” died in childbirth, he was reelected to his fellowship, took holy orders, then went to

Germany, where he became involved in reformist circles and married the niece of the Lutheran

theologian Andreas Osiander; she bore Cranmer three children. During Henry’s lifetime, he had to keep

their union secret, because in England the clergy were supposed to be celibate, and he was obliged to

smuggle his wife into the country in a packing case.

By November 1529, Anne was constantly at Henry’s side, acting as if she were already queen. She

occupied the consort’s chair at feasts and wore rich gowns of purple—a colour reserved for royalty—

which the King had given her. His Privy Purse accounts show that he spent the equivalent of £165,000

on gifts for Anne during a period of three years.

Among his offerings were lengths of velvet, satin, and

cloth of gold for gowns; furs; fine linen for chemises; and precious stones to adorn her clothes. There

were also numerous items of jewellery such as necklaces, brooches, bracelets, gold trinkets to sew on

her gowns, borders of jewels and pearls to edge those gowns, heart-shaped head ornaments, nineteen

diamonds to wear in her hair, one ring set with emeralds and another with a table diamond, nineteen

smaller diamonds forming lovers’ knots, and twenty-one rubies set in gold roses, and even “a crown of

gold.” All were made by the King’s jeweller, Cornelius Heyss.

Anne also owned initial pendants and

rings and a bracelet set with a miniature of the King, which he had given to her early on in their

courtship.

Her jewel box, a small bound chest, is now at Leeds Castle.

Katherine, meanwhile, was keeping mostly to her own apartments, doing her best to maintain friendly

relations with Henry whenever she saw him. But when Henry dined with her on 30 November, her

guard fell and she reproached him bitterly for having neglected her of late. Henry bore this patiently,

but when he returned to Anne later that evening, she told him he should not argue with Katherine

because she “was sure to have the upper hand,” and then began making peevish complaints about the

delays in the nullity suit. She even hinted she might leave him, declaring she was wasting her youth “to

no purpose.”

Soon afterwards, Anne caught a Groom of the Privy Chamber taking linen to the Queen; when tackled,

he said that Katherine was going to make Henry some shirts, as she always had. Anne thereupon

created a scene: an expert needlewoman herself, she was furious that Henry had not chosen to give the

linen to her. But Henry was a creature of habit and insisted that it had been sent on his orders, and that

he would not countermand those orders.

Both these quarrels ended in a passionate reconciliation.

Katherine had a staunch new champion in Eustache Chapuys, a fellow humanist and friend of Erasmus;

his zeal for her cause would often lead him to exceed his ambassadorial brief. Aged forty, he was a

highly efficient canon lawyer and former ecclesiastical judge from Savoy, able, astute, and never afraid

to speak his mind. Yet although he spoke excellent French, Spanish, and Latin, his command of English

was less good, so he employed the Queen’s former Usher, Juan de Montoya, who was fluent in the

language, as his secretary.

Chapuys’s dispatches, which are one of the chief sources for the period, were certainly prejudiced in

Katherine’s favour—he never referred to Anne Boleyn as anything other than “the Lady” or “the

Concubine,” even when she was Queen. He also repeated gossip or rumour as fact. Historians have

therefore been cautious about accepting his reports at face value. It has even been asserted that

Chapuys rarely attended functions at court. Yet he dined often with the King’s ministers, and had

numerous influential contacts and an efficient spy network in the royal household. Very rapidly, he

became a focus for those aristocrats who supported the Queen, and, on the Emperor’s instructions, used

all his resources to form them into an effective faction. However, the information they gave him led

him to believe that support for Katherine was more widespread than it actually was, and that most

English people were prepared to rise in her favour. The King was frequently irritated by Chapuys, but

genuinely liked him, sometimes confided in him, and often deliberately fed him information.

The

Boleyns loathed him, and while some councillors believed him to be a liar and flatterer who had no

regard for honesty or truth, he would probably have said the same about them.

It is was to Chapuys that Sir Nicholas Carew revealed his growing sympathy for the Queen and the

Princess Mary. A friend of Exeter, Carew had begun to feel alienated by Anne Boleyn’s abuse of her

position and overbearing manner. Chapuys, realising that Carew was a powerful force in the Privy

Chamber, was hopeful that he might be able to influence events, but for the present Carew preferred to

keep his loyalties a secret.

Anne’s high-handedness was beginning to offend some of those who had hitherto supported her.

Moreover, many people were concerned about her religious sympathies. She and her family were

known to favour the reform of the Church and an evangelical approach to religion, which was

dangerously close to what Luther preached, although some of their ideas were heavily influenced by

the teachings of Erasmus. At a time when it was unthinkable that an individual should dare to interpret

the Scriptures for himself, the Boleyns were therefore accused by Chapuys and others of being “more

Lutheran than Luther himself ” and of supporting “heretical doctrines and practices.” The ambassador

denounced Anne herself, with good reason, as “the principal cause of the spread of Lutheranism in this

country.”

Anne certainly gave credence to this view, which became widely accepted in the reign of her

Protestant daughter Elizabeth I, by her support of various reformers who were openly challenging the

traditional teachings of the Church; on several occasions she used her influence to save heretics from

persecution.

She even read with impunity books that had been banned in England, which she may have found in the

royal library, where Henry kept them for reference. If not, they were easily come by, for Chapuys states

that “certain Lutheran books in English, of an evil sort,” were always circulating at court, despite

efforts to suppress them.

One book Anne probably obtained from abroad was William Tyndale’s The

Obedience of a Christian Man (1528), which criticised the papacy and emphasised the authority of

monarchs. She had first lent it to her maid, Anne Gainsford, whose betrothed, George Zouche, playfully

snatched it from her. But he was caught with it, and Wolsey, who was then still in power, resolved to

report the matter to the King. Anne got to Henry first and, on her knees, urged him to read the book. To

his surprise, he found himself agreeing with Tyndale’s views, and he announced, “This is a book for me

and all kings to read!” However, it remained on the banned list because the King did not think it

suitable for commoners.

Another anticlerical book that Anne recommended to him was A Supplication for the Beggars (1529),

by Simon Fish, a lawyer who had fled into exile after falling foul of Wolsey. Henry, who was now,

perhaps understandably, becoming more receptive to criticism of the Church, again liked what he read,

and thus Anne secured his protection for the author.

Anne was nevertheless orthodox in the observance of her faith, and no one ever accused her of heresy.

She liked the images and ritual of the Catholic Church. Before her death she had the Sacrament placed

in her closet “that she might pray for mercy” with it in her sight,

and expressed the conviction that she

was destined for Heaven “because she had done many good deeds.”

Many of the devotional books she

owned were written on traditional themes, such as the Book of Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with

a calendar of saints’ days; Anne had written in it a message to Henry VIII, “By daily proof you shall me

find, to be to you both loving and kind,” but her signature has been cut off.

Some of her books were

beautifully illuminated and bound, among them a fine French Psalter dating from 1529–1532,

and a

second Book of Hours, printed in Paris around 1528, said to have been given by Anne on the scaffold

to Wyatt’s sister, Margaret, Lady Lee, and now at Hever Castle. It is inscribed in her own hand,

“Remember me when you do pray, that hope doth lead from day to day.”

However, she differed from many of her orthodox contemporaries in her belief that the Bible should be

read in the vernacular. She herself owned French versions of the Scriptures: during Lent, 1529, Loys de

Brun, the author of a treatise on letter writing which was dedicated to Anne, saw her reading the

Epistles of St. Paul in French and other translations of the Bible,

and there is evidence that she ordered

such books from France.

The King was not opposed in principle to the Bible being translated into

English, but disapproved of the existing reformist versions, which in his view only encouraged heresy.

Anne’s identification of herself with the cause of reform led to a further realignment of factions at

court, with the result that those who supported the Queen also favoured the preservation of traditional

forms of religion in England. The supporters of Anne were invariably committed to reform. In this

climate, on 2 November 1529, the King summoned what was to become known as the Reformation

Parliament.

Henry’s son Richmond was now ten. The boy had his father’s passion for field sports, and had been

delighted to receive some fine bloodhounds from his cousin James V of Scotland; smaller bloodhounds

that could fit onto a man’s saddle were specially bred for him at Sheriff Hutton. Richmond enjoyed

hunting with the many northern nobles who sought his company, and the fellowship of his uncles,

George and William Blount, who lodged permanently in his household. But the King was concerned to

hear that his son was no longer applying himself diligently to his studies;

he therefore recalled

Richmond, and made Cuthbert Tunstall, soon to replace Wolsey as Bishop of Durham, President of the

Council of the North.

The young Duke was from now on based chiefly at Windsor, and John Palsgrave replaced Richard

Croke as his tutor. Palsgrave, a Cambridge scholar in holy orders who had written the first French

grammar book for English students, had once been French master and secretary to Henry’s sister Mary.

A respected humanist scholar and disciple of Erasmus, he was friendly with More, and had a reputation

for achieving success with reluctant pupils. The King himself interviewed him at Hampton Court,

saying, “Palsgrave, I deliver unto you my worldly jewel: bring him up in virtue and learning.”

Several surviving letters from Palsgrave to the King, Sir Thomas More, and Elizabeth Blount give

details of how the tutor overcame Richmond’s problems. He found that the boy could not pronounce

Latin like a King’s son because he had lost his front teeth and lisped; in addition, his diction was awful.

Palsgrave’s remedy was to reawaken the boy’s interest by studying a funny play by Plautus. When

Fitzroy wearied of study, Palsgrave called a halt. He did his “uttermost best to cause him to love

learning and be merry at it”—so much so that “his officers wot not whether I learn with him or play

with him.” Soon Palsgrave was able to report to Elizabeth Blount that Richmond was again showing an

aptitude for learning and was “much inclined to all manner of virtuous and honourable inclinations as

any babes living.”

He developed a fine Italianate hand and manifested the family talent for music, as

well as becoming a superb horseman, like his father.

After a while, Richmond went to live with his former tutor, Richard Croke, at King’s College,

Cambridge, where he studied a wider curriculum under humanist disciplines in the company of other

well-born youths, who in their leisure time hunted with him and taught him the kind of songs that

would have made his royal father blush.

The Boleyns now reigned supreme. On 8 December 1529, Anne’s father was created Earl of Wiltshire

and Ormonde; the former earldom had once been held by the Staffords, while the latter was granted to

Boleyn after a long dispute with his Butler cousins, whose family had long held the title. His daughter

was from henceforth titled the Lady Anne Rochford, and took as her personal badge the black lion

rampant, a device used by previous earls of Ormonde.

On the same day, two allies of the Boleyns were also promoted to the peerage: George Hastings was

created Earl of Huntingdon, and Robert Ratcliffe Earl of Sussex. At Anne Boleyn’s request, George

Boleyn, now Lord Rochford and an established diplomat, was around the same time restored to the

Privy Chamber as one of only two noblemen, Exeter being the other. This brought him into daily

contact with the King, who often lost to him at gambling, and once generously paid the arrears of rent

due on Rochford’s house at Greenwich.

On 9 December, the King gave a lavish banquet to celebrate Wiltshire’s ennoblement. Katherine did not

attend, and Anne sat in the Queen’s chair, next to Henry, and was given precedence over another

Queen, Henry’s sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, and the Duchess and Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, all

of whom took offence at the slight. Chapuys thought it seemed like a wedding feast: “After dinner,

there was dancing and carousing, so that it seemed that nothing were wanting but the priest to give

away the nuptial ring and pronounce the blessing.”

The Queen again presided with the King over the splendid Christmas festivities at Greenwich, while

Anne was conspicuous by her absence. She was perhaps unaware, therefore, that he had sent Wolsey an

intaglio portrait of himself as a sign of goodwill.

After the celebrations, Henry sent Katherine to

Richmond and took Anne to York Place, for which he had drawn up designs for improvements that

were “expressly to please the Lady, who prefers that place to any other.”

It was here, on 12 January

1530, that Henry and Anne hosted a magnificent ball in honour of the departing Jean du Bellay.

Twelve days later, Wiltshire was appointed Lord Privy Seal and promoted to the Privy Council, of

which he became one of the most active members. The Boleyns and their allies now dominated the

King, the government, and the court. Even Erasmus sought their favour: it was at this time that he

dedicated his commentary on the Twenty-third Psalm to Wiltshire and sent his portrait to Henry Norris.

Yet within a short time, the power of the Boleyns would be eclipsed by a rival who was eventually to

destroy them.

“Squire Harry Will Be God, and Do as He Pleases!”

It was around 1530 that a former servant of Wolsey’s, Thomas Cromwell, entered the King’s service.

One of the most able ministers any king ever had, Cromwell was the son of a Putney blacksmith and

had been born around 1485; his sister Katherine was the wife of a local innkeeper, Morgan Williams,

and they would be among the ancestors of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. In youth, Thomas

Cromwell had travelled in Italy, where he learned much about banking, became acquainted with the

works of Machiavelli, whom he much admired, and found employment as a mercenary; he later told

Cranmer “what a ruffian he had been in his young days.”

When he returned home in 1512, he settled

down and set himself up as a lawyer, merchant, moneylender, and fuller.

In 1514, Cromwell had entered Wolsey’s service as Collector of the Revenues of the archdiocese of

York, and proved himself to be efficient and astute. From 1523, he was M.P. for Taunton. Around this

time, he was working with Wolsey to suppress several minor religious houses in order to raise funds for

Cardinal College.

Cromwell’s genius for administration and finance was what endeared him to the King, who was

impressed by the way in which he had stayed loyal to his former master and tied up his affairs.

Moreover, Cromwell was pragmatic, knowledgeable, hardheaded, and often ruthless; like Wolsey, he

was a hardworking businessman with a talent for management. The King quickly perceived that he

could fill the gap left by the Cardinal, and, after a series of interviews, appointed him to the Privy

Council.

Thereafter he “grew continually in the King’s favour,”

and also became a focus for those who

had supported Wolsey, such as Russell, Heneage, and Page. Cromwell was not a member of the Privy

Chamber, but thanks to the allegiance of such men, he was in a better position than Wolsey to lead a

Privy Chamber faction.

Cromwell’s portraits show a thickset, portly man with heavy jowls, a small, severe mouth, and porcine

eyes. They do not reveal his hearty manner, nor his skill at dealing with people. Chapuys recorded that

in conversation his innate reserve would give way to jovial banter and animated expressions: “he is a

person of good cheer, gracious in words and generous in actions.”

Although he was not university educated, Cromwell spoke Latin, French, Italian, and some Greek, and

was cultivated enough to hold his own with the likes of Kratzer, Dr. Butts, and, later, Holbein, who

were all regular guests at his table. After the death of his wife, Elizabeth Wykes, in 1527, he never

remarried, but may have taken mistresses. When he was due to stay with Norfolk at York in 1537, the

Duke wrote, with wry humour, “And if ye lust not to dally with my wife,” he could supply for his

guest’s comfort “a young woman with pretty proper tetins [breasts].”

Yet the jovial, urbane exterior

masked a calculating mind that could remain coldly detached from human considerations when making

political decisions. Many of those who trusted Cromwell would live to regret it.

The Boleyns wasted no time in taking up Cromwell. He held similar religious views to theirs, and his

considerable abilities and growing power could be harnessed to their advantage. As for the King, he

was confident that his new adviser would be able to expedite his Great Matter.

There is no doubt that the tortuous delays in resolving his nullity suit, combined with sexual frustration,

his ever-present fears about the succession, and the heady experience of autonomous government, were

all responsible for changes in Henry’s character that were becoming apparent at this time. He was

growing ever more suspicious of people’s motives, and was so troubled about the Great Matter “that he

does not trust any one alive.”

Erasmus and others were forcibly struck by his increasing resemblance

to his father, Henry VII, in this and other respects.

Henry’s virtuous conviction that he alone was right was making him supremely egotistical and

sanctimonious: Luther had aptly commented, “Squire Harry will be God, and do as he pleases!”

Where

he had once been politically cautious, he was now prepared to be headstrong and ruthless in order to

have his way. Chapuys astutely observed, “When this King decides on anything, he goes the whole

length.”

Henry was also turning into a master of the art of self-deception: his concept of himself as a

paragon of knightly chivalry and virtue never faded, and his perception of people and events was

sometimes advantageously distorted.

The young, idealistic humanist with liberal ideas about kingship was giving way to a selfish, dogmatic

tyrant. Henry might still be affable and accessible, displaying calculated bonhomie when it suited him

—he would often greet Chapuys with an affectionate hug

—and his sense of humour was still lively, if

a trifle touchy, yet he was more often the masterful embodiment of kingly authority, whose majestic,