Weir A. Henry VIII: The King and His Court

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In 1532, Andrew Wright replaced John Browne as Serjeant Painter to the King. Essentially a decorative

artist, he had commended himself by his work on royal ships, carriages, banners, and pageant scenery.

Another artist who may have worked for Henry at this time was one “Ambrose,” who may be identified

with Ambrosius Benson, a Lombard who had been a member of the Painters’ Guild of Bruges since

1519. Benson is known for his religious pictures and portraits, and almost certainly painted Lord

Berners, the translater of Froissart, but no royal commissions can be traced.

The work of such artists was soon to be utterly eclipsed by that of Hans Holbein, who returned to

England in 1532 and settled in London, where, since his former patron, Sir Thomas More, was no

longer in a position to help him, he made a living painting the portraits of the German merchant

community. Yet Holbein’s links with the court were by no means broken, and within a year his growing

reputation would ensure that he would be again in demand.

In the field of music, as in art, there were rising stars at court. One was a “very handsome”

young man

called Mark Smeaton, who was appointed a Groom of the Privy Chamber in 1532.

He was not only a

gifted player on the lute, virginals, and portable organ, but also an excellent singer and dancer. His

talent had been spotted while he was quite young, and he had joined Wolsey’s choir, transferring to the

Chapel Royal after the Cardinal’s fall. It was talent alone that accounted for his rise, not birth, since he

was merely the son of a carpenter and a seamstress, with whom he now disdained to have much

contact.

He also dressed badly, usually in “yerns” (which have been improbably identified as jeans),

and the King occasionally provided him with shirts, hose, shoes, and bonnets.

People addressed him

as Mark, which indicates his lowly status within the Privy Chamber.

Smeaton, whose name was later to be irrevocably and tragically linked with Anne Boleyn’s, was soon

taken up by Lord Rochford, through whom he became associated with the Boleyn circle at court. His

signature—“A moi, M. Marc S.”—appears at the bottom of Rochford’s manuscript of Jean Lefèvre’s

poems; this manuscript later came into the possession of Wyatt, whose name is written in it, along with

a number of proverbs on the flyleaves.

There is no evidence that Rochford and Smeaton were ever

involved in a homosexual relationship, as has recently been suggested.

Mark Smeaton has also been associated with a music book written for Anne Boleyn.

His signature on

the Lefèvre manuscript has been identified with the handwriting in this book, from which it has been

inferred that he wrote it, but this is by no means certain. The music book is a collection of thirty-nine

Latin motets and five French chansons, all written before 1515; among them are works by the great

French composer Josquin des Prés, with which Anne had probably become familiar in Burgundy and

France. One initial letter depicts what has been described as Anne’s armorial falcon pecking at a

pomegranate, the badge of Katherine of Aragon; this, if correct, would date the book’s completion to

1533 at the earliest, since Anne adopted her falcon badge in that year. However, this bird bears no

resemblance to Anne’s crowned falcon. Thomas Boleyn’s motto, “Now thus,” also appears, as does a

reference to “Mres. [Mistress] A. Bolleyne,” which indicates that the manuscript was begun before

December 1529, in which case it cannot have been Smeaton’s work. Anne may even have brought it

home with her from France in 1522.

In the summer of 1532, the King and Anne Boleyn left Hampton Court on a progress to Woodstock and

Abingdon,

but this was curtailed for fear of demonstrations against Anne.

In August, on his return

south, Henry visited Waltham Abbey,

and was then entertained by Sir Thomas Cheney, now Lord

Warden of the Cinque Ports, at Shurland House on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, which had been

extended and improved in honour of the King’s coming.

The King and Anne spent the rest of the

summer hunting at Hanworth.

Throughout the progress, Giles de la Pommeraye was at the King’s side; he had come to negotiate a

new treaty of friendship between Henry and Francis I and discuss Henry’s forthcoming visit to France,

during which the King hoped to persuade Francis to intercede on his behalf with Pope Clement VII. In

order to win over the French, Henry showed great favour to the ambassador, personally showing him

the improvements he had made at the houses they visited,

singling him out as his sole companion on

hunting expeditions, and inviting him to partner Anne Boleyn in archery contests. When Anne hosted a

feast for the King at Hanworth, de la Pommeraye was guest of honour.

Henry was feeling far from well at this time. He was suffering from chronic toothache and sinus

trouble, as well as gout, which was probably the result of eating too much rich food. Nevertheless, he

did not let his ailments interfere with his enjoyment of the progress nor his plans for the French visit. A

majority of the universities had declared in his favour, and he was confident that pressure could be

brought to bear on Clement to give a decision in his favour. If not, it was open to him to take the

ultimate step and break with Rome.

Then, opportunely, on 22 August, Archbishop Warham died, aged eighty-two. As his long life drew to a

close, his conscience had finally moved him to condemn the King’s nullity suit and state his intention

of opposing any legislation that might be injurious to the Church. Henry had angrily threatened him

with the Statute of Praemunire, but the Archbishop was too ill to leave his bed and past worldly

considerations. Now he was dead, and the King could choose in his place someone who would prove

more amenable. Henry opted for Thomas Cranmer, who was duly elected Archbishop of Canterbury,

unopposed by an unsuspecting Pope.

The King was optimistic that Anne would soon be Queen, and on Sunday, 1 September 1532, in order

to increase her status, and give her equal rank with some of the noble ladies whom she would meet in

France, he took the unusual step of creating her a peeress—Lady Marquess of Pembroke—in her own

right, in a glittering ceremony at Windsor. Before mass, Anne, wearing a gown of crimson velvet

“completely covered with the most costly jewels,”

with her hair loose about her shoulders, was

escorted by the Countesses of Rutland and Sussex into the presence chamber. The Duchess of Norfolk

appears to have refused to attend,

so her daughter, Lady Mary Howard, followed behind, carrying a

crimson velvet mantle and gold coronet. Anne knelt before the King, who was attended by the Dukes of

Norfolk and Suffolk and Giles de la Pommeraye, and he invested her with the mantle and coronet as

the patent of creation, which also granted her £1,000 a year “for the maintaining of her dignity,” was

read aloud by Bishop Gardiner. Then the new Lady Marquess rose, curtseyed, and thanked the King

before retiring, to the sound of trumpets, to her chamber.

After mass in St. George’s Chapel, the King and Giles de la Pommeraye both swore to abide by the

terms of the new Treaty of Windsor, after which the ambassador was again the guest of honour at a

state banquet held in celebration of the new alliance and Anne’s ennoblement.

“The Triumph at Calais and Boulogne”

It appeared significant to some that the patent of creation, when referring to the new Lady Marquess’s

heirs male, omitted the usual words “lawfully begotten.” Was Anne’s ennoblement a reward for her

surrender and a way of ensuring that any child, legitimate or otherwise, born of her body, was

sufficiently provided for? It would seem so. For it is almost certain that, once Warham was dead, Anne,

confidently anticipating that she would soon be married, became the King’s mistress in the fullest

sense.

Henry was determined that she should be at his side throughout the visit to France, a queen in all but

name. He demanded that Katherine surrender the official jewels of the Queens of England, so that Anne

could wear them. Katherine indignantly declared she would not give up what was rightfully hers to

adorn “a person who is a reproach to Christendom and is bringing scandal and disgrace upon the King

through his taking her to such a meeting as this in France.” But the King insisted and she had no choice

but to obey.

Most of the jewels, which included four bracelets with eighteen table rubies, twenty other

rubies, and two diamonds, were then reset for Anne.

Anne was determined to have all the trappings of queenship. Without telling the King, she ordered her

Chamberlain to seize the Queen’s barge, a fine vessel with twenty-four oars, and have its coat of arms

burned off and replaced with her own; the barge was also painted in Anne’s colours, blue and purple.

Chapuys made a formal protest to the King, who angrily censured the Chamberlain.

Anne then ruffled feathers by ordering some gowns in the French fashion; Polydore Vergil condemned

the modes she had copied from the “wanton creatures” at the French court as being “singularly unfit for

the chaste.” The French, however, were to be impressed by Anne’s wardrobe, which included a gown of

cloth of gold spangled with diamonds, and several items with which the King had provided her: a green

damask gown, a gown made entirely of gold-embroidered velvet, which cost £74 (£22,200), silks, furs,

and the more intimate gift of a “nightgown” made of fourteen yards of black satin lined with taffeta,

banded with velvet, and with upper sleeves stiffened with buckram.

For all Anne’s grand preparations for the coming visit, no royal lady of the French court could be found

to receive her. Henry had no wish to meet Francis’s second queen,

Eleanor of Austria, who was the

Emperor’s sister, and Francis’s own sister Marguerite refused to receive “the King’s whore.”

Henry

was horrified when it was suggested that Francis’s mistress, the Duchess of Vendôme, should do the

honours. It was decided, therefore, that Anne should remain in Calais while Henry travelled alone to

meet Francis. On 7 October they left Greenwich; among Henry’s retinue of 2,139 persons

were

Richmond, Norfolk, a reluctant Suffolk (whose wife had refused to accompany him),

Cromwell,

Wyatt, and the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber.

Anne was attended by thirty ladies, summoned by the

King to accompany his “dearest and most beloved cousin.”

While the main personnel of the court

went on ahead to Calais, the royal party spent one night at Stone, the home of one of Anne’s closest

friends, Bridget, Lady Wingfield,

another at Shurland as the guest of Sir Thomas Cheney, and a third

at Canterbury in the house of Sir Christopher Hales. Then they rode to Dover.

At 5 A.M. on 11 October 1532, the King and his sweetheart set sail in the Swallow. The wind was fair,

and they were in Calais by 10 A.M. After being received by the Mayor and Lord Berners, the King’s

Deputy, and riding in torchlit procession to the Church of St. Nicholas to hear mass, they were lodged

at the Exchequer,

a great mansion that had been enlarged against their coming. Henry’s bed had been

sent ahead from England and set up in his lodgings, which were hung with green velvet. Anne was

assigned a suite of seven rooms, and a connecting door linked her bedchamber to the King’s;

a French

source states that they were living openly together.

Anne was certainly accompanying Henry to mass

and everywhere else, just as if she were queen already, and there was speculation that Henry would

secretly marry her while they were in Calais.

Anne had hinted as much to her sister back in August,

when she wrote bidding Mary prepare to attend her to Calais, where “that which I have so long wished

for will be accomplished.”

In Calais, Henry and Anne spent ten days at leisure, hawking, inspecting the town’s defences, gambling

with Norfolk, and other courtiers,

and feasting on gifts of food sent by Anne de Montmorency,

Constable of France: carp and porpoise, venison pasties, choice pears, and grapes.

By mutual agreement, the coming visit was to bear no resemblance to the Field of Cloth of Gold:

Henry insisted there must be “no precious apparel of gold, nor embroidery, nor any other sort of

nonsense.”

Each King was to be attended by his household only and six hundred men-at-arms. It had

also been decided that Henry and Francis would each bear the cost of entertaining the other. In the

event, most of these strictures were ignored, and both sovereigns spent lavishly on their attire and the

entertainments: Henry is estimated to have outlaid more than £6,000 (£1,800,000).

On 16 October, Norfolk and Montmorency met to finalise the details, and on 19 October King Francis

arrived at Boulogne, where he set up court in the Abbey of Notre Dame. Two days later the two Kings

were embracing at St. Inglevert, then known as Sandingfield, near the border of the Calais Pale. Henry,

who wore russet velvet with borders of goldsmiths’ work and pearls, had with him an escort of 140

velvet-clad lords and gentlemen, 40 guards, and 600 horse. For a mile, Henry and Francis rode hand in

hand; then they stopped to drink a toast to one another near the French border. Hawking along the way,

they proceeded towards Boulogne, outside of which they were met by the Dauphin Francis and his two

brothers, wearing black velvet edged with silver, who were accompanied by four cardinals and a

thousand horse. Henry kissed Francis’s sons on the mouth and embraced them fondly,

then kissed

each of the French lords present. A thousand cannon sounded a deafening salute—which could be heard

twenty miles away—as the royal procession entered Boulogne.

Here, Henry lodged with Francis in the Abbey of Notre Dame, in a suite of four chambers hung with

cloth of silver and tapestries depicting scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Every day, he and Francis

attended mass in the abbey church, kneeling in separate oratories, and ate in great splendour in the

refectory, which had been adorned with tapestries portraying the story of Scipio Africanus. A vast

buffet had been set up there, displaying plate glittering with precious gems.

During the four-day visit, an observer noted that the French “far surpassed the English in apparel.”

Francis himself once appeared in a doublet “overset with stones and rich diamonds, valued at

£100,000” (£30 million),

and Henry wore an outfit that Francis gave him, a crimson satin doublet

encrusted with pearls beneath a long gown of white velvet embroidered in gold.

On the first day, Henry and Francis talked of going on a joint crusade against the Turks, and then went

on to discuss the Great Matter. Francis promised to use his influence with the Pope to achieve a

favourable outcome, and undertook to dispatch two cardinals to Rome to inform Clement of the

alliance and assure him that he need not fear the Emperor.

The weather remained fine. In the afternoons, Henry watched Francis’s sons playing tennis, and laid

bets on the outcome; one day, he lost £157 (£47,100).

He made an offering at the shrine of Our Lady

of Boulogne

and entertained the French nobles to a sumptuous feast. There was no jousting and no

dancing, since there were no ladies present. Henry lavished gifts on his host, among them fine horses,

mastiffs, falcons, and jewels, and gave the Dauphin and his brothers 300,000 gold crowns.

His gifts

were so generous that Francis had to borrow funds in order to present Henry with six horses and he also

gave him his own bed, hung with crimson velvet.

On 24 October, Francis invested Norfolk and Suffolk with the Order of St. Michael. The next day, he

left for Calais with Henry, who was resplendent in a cloth of gold gown over a slashed doublet

ornamented with diamond and ruby clasps. Outside Calais, Francis was greeted by the Duke of

Richmond, “a goodly young prince full of favour and beauty”;

three thousand guns sounded another

salute as the royal cavalcade rode into the town and through streets lined with English soldiers and

serving men.

Francis was lodged in great state, at the expense of the Calais merchants, at their

headquarters, the Staple Inn, where 2,400 beds and stabling for two thousand horses had been made

ready for his retinue. That evening, the French King sent the Provost of Paris to Anne Boleyn with a

costly diamond as a token of his esteem.

On the Sunday evening, there was bull- and bearbaiting in the courtyard of the Staple Inn. A huge

variety of meat, game, and fish was served at supper in the banqueting hall, which had been hung with

silver and gold tissue adorned with gold wreaths which sparkled with precious stones, reflecting the

light from twenty silver chandeliers, each bearing one hundred wax candles. A seven-tier buffet

groaned under the weight of the Tudor gold plate. Henry appeared in purple cloth of gold with a collar

of fourteen rubies, the smallest the size of a goose’s egg, and two rows of pearls, from which hung the

Black Prince’s ruby.

After supper, Anne Boleyn and seven other ladies, including Lady Mary Howard, Lady Rochford, and

Lady Fitzwalter, all masked and clothed in unusual outfits of cloth of gold and crimson tinsel with gold

laces, danced before the two Kings. Then they led out the gentlemen, Anne herself partnering Francis.

Henry could not resist pulling off her mask to show the French King who he was dancing with,

but

Francis rose to the occasion superbly, and after the dance had ceased, sat chatting with Anne in a

window seat for an hour.

The evening ended with Henry escorting his brother monarch to his

apartments.

On 28 October, Henry held a chapter of the Order of the Garter, which Francis attended, wearing his

Garter robes. Here, the two Kings made a solemn pledge to go on crusade against the Turks. Later that

day, they watched wrestling matches between Henry’s Cornish champions and the French, which the

Cornishmen won.

Francis invited Richmond and Surrey to visit his court to complete their education,

and it was agreed that they should accompany him back to France, where they would remain until

September 1533.

At the end of the visit, on 29 October, Henry accompanied Francis onto French soil, and there the two

monarchs said farewell with “princely countenance and hearty words”;

a stronger rapport had been

established between them, and Henry was confident that Francis would prove a supportive friend.

After the King returned to Calais, violent storms lashed the Channel coast, and he and Anne were

obliged to remain where they were for nearly two weeks. When the tempest had abated, fog set in, but

the King insisted on sailing back to England at midnight on 12 November. He and Anne then took a

leisurely route through Kent, staying at Leeds Castle, and again at Stone on 20 November; they arrived

at Eltham Palace on 24 November.

Soon afterwards, the King made a state entry into London and

gave thanks at St. Paul’s for the success of his visit and his safe return.

In December, Henry escorted Anne and Giles de la Pommeraye to the Tower of London. After they had

inspected the building works, the King 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 also

gave Anne a cupboard, and she selected gilt cups, flagons, basins, and candelabra for her New Year’s

gifts.

Christmas was spent at Greenwich, with such a lavish banquet being served on Twelfth Night

that temporary kitchens had to be built in the grounds. Soon afterwards, Anne realised she was

pregnant.

“Anna Regina Angliae”

Henry had to move quickly if his expected son was to be born in wedlock. With the weight of scholarly

opinion in his favour, he now considered himself a free man. Leaving Archbishop Cranmer to sort out

the formalities later, he secretly married Anne Boleyn. Edward Hall gives the date as 14 November

1532,

which was that accepted by later writers, but Cranmer, in a letter, refers to the ceremony as

having been performed on or about the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, 25 January 1533.

The

wedding is said to have taken place before daybreak in “the high chamber” over the Holbein Gate at

York Place.

The officiating priest was either Dr. Rowland Lee, the King’s chaplain,

or George Brown,

Prior of the Austin Friars in London,

a vocal supporter of the nullity suit. The King apparently

pretended that the Pope had sanctioned the union.

There were few witnesses:

Sir Henry Norris;

Thomas Heneage; Anne Savage, a client of William Brereton;

and a Groom of the Privy Chamber,

perhaps Brereton himself.

Their marriage might have been secret, but both Henry and Anne took great delight in dropping hints

about it. In late January, people applying for places in Anne’s household were assured that they would

not have long to wait until she was Queen.

In February, “amidst great company,” Anne told “one she

loved well, and who was formerly sent away from the court by the King out of jealousy, that she had

had a furious hankering to eat apples, and the King had told her that it was a sign she was pregnant.”

The man she spoke to may have been Wyatt, who was appointed to the Privy Council around this time.

Then, on 24 February, Anne hosted a banquet for the French ambassador in her apartments at York

Place. Henry was embarrassingly attentive to her and her ladies; largely ignored Suffolk, Lord

Chancellor Audley, and the other guests; and got so drunk that he became either incoherent or

indiscreet. Waving a hand at the rich hangings and plate, he asked the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk,

“Has not Madame la Marquise a grand dot [dowry] and a rich marriage, as all that we see belongs to

her?”

The court was a-buzz with speculation, but hardly anyone guessed the truth.

That month, Queen Katherine, who had been staying at Easthampstead, was ordered to move to

Ampthill Castle with a reduced household. Her staunch friend, Maria de Salinas, Lady Willoughby, had

already been dismissed, in August 1532, and it was probably at this time that some of the Queen’s thirty

maids of honour, among them Jane Seymour, were sent home.

On 30 March 1533, Thomas Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. There was great

mutual liking, trust, and respect between the King and his new Primate, even though they did not

always agree on theological matters; Henry realised how much Cranmer was sacrificing to serve him,

for the Archbishop would greatly have preferred a life of study to one at the centre of public affairs. He

had no love for pomp and ceremony, but was a simple, charitable man with a high regard for the truth,

a zealous reformist who was unswervingly loyal to the King yet vulnerable to the vicious machinations

of his enemies on the other side of the religious divide. In the years to come, Henry would on several

occasions intervene to protect Cranmer from those who would have destroyed him.

At his consecration, Cranmer took the traditional vow of allegiance to the Pope, but added that he

would not be bound by any authority that was contrary to the law of God or of England. Cranmer was

aware of the King’s secret marriage to Anne Boleyn, and was ready to take radical steps to put it on a

legal footing, whatever the Pope might say. To this end, in April, Parliament passed the first—and

arguably the most important—of several pieces of revolutionary legislation that would bring about the

Reformation of the Church in England, the Act of Restraint of Appeals. This Act stressed the sovereign

authority of the English state: its preamble majestically proclaimed, “This realm of England is an

empire, governed by one supreme head and King having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial

crown,” who owed submission to no one but God. This was the first direct challenge to the Pope’s

jurisdiction over the English Church. In future, final appeals in spiritual matters would be heard, not in

Rome, but in England, where the King was from now on to enjoy “plenary, whole and entire power,

pre-eminence authority, prerogative and jurisdiction.” The Act not only created an autonomous Church

of England with the monarch as its governor, but effectively prohibited the hearing of the King’s nullity

suit by the Pope, and barred Katherine from appealing to the Vatican against any decision that an

ecclesiastical court in England might take.

No English sovereign had ever before been granted such power, nor would be again. The King had

been exalted above other mortals, not only as a temporal ruler whose authority was now defined for the

first time by the language of empire, but as the spiritual leader of his people, strong in virtue and

righteousness. It was a vindication of everything that Henry had striven for during these last years, and

he basked in the knowledge and conviction that not only Parliament but also God Himself were on his

side.

Few spoke out against the new order. Fisher secretly wrote to the Emperor, begging him in vain to use

force to bring Henry to his senses. More, far from enjoying a quiet retirement, was actively

encouraging those who supported the Queen. Katherine’s former confessor, Friar John Forest, was

imprisoned for speaking out in her favour. Sir John Gage, Henry’s rather unworldly Vice Chamberlain,

dared to voice his misgivings to the King, only to be banished from court.

But these were lone voices

among a silent majority.

On Easter Eve, 12 April 1533, Anne Boleyn appeared in public as Queen for the first time. Wearing

cloth of frieze and diamonds, and preceded by trumpeters, she went to mass in the chapel royal

attended by sixty ladies; Lady Mary Howard carried her train. The King observed his astonished nobles

closely to ensure that they were paying his wife the respect due to her rank, and after mass “begged the

lords to go and visit and make their court to the new Queen.” Even Anne’s supporters were taken aback

by her sudden elevation, and did not know whether to laugh or cry.

On Easter Sunday, in churches all

over the land, she was publicly prayed for as Queen by bewildered subjects who were under the

impression that the King was still married to his first wife.

Anne was assigned a household of two hundred persons, all appointed or approved by the King, who

was present when they took their oaths of allegiance. Thomas de Burgh, Lord Borough, was appointed

Chamberlain, but was replaced later that year by George Brooke, ninth Lord Cobham; Sir James

Boleyn, Wiltshire’s brother, was Chancellor; Sir William Coffin (or Cosyn), a Gentleman of the Privy

Chamber, was Master of Horse; John Uvedale, late of Richmond’s Council of the North, was the

Queen’s Secretary, while George Taylor, who had served her father, was her Receiver General; Richard

Bartlett, late of Wolsey’s household, was her physician, and Nicholas Shaxton her Almoner. Among her

chaplains were William Latimer, John Skip, and William Betts, who would be replaced on his death in

1535 by Matthew Parker; all were evangelicals, and the Queen expected them to instruct her household

“to embrace the wholesome doctrine and infallible knowledge of Christ’s Gospel.”

Anne’s ladies-in-waiting included Lady Margaret Douglas; Lady Mary Howard, Mary Boleyn, Lady

Rochford, the young Countess of Surrey, Lady Berkely, Elizabeth, wife of Sir James Boleyn—whom

Anne “never loved”

—and Elizabeth, Countess of Worcester. A Mistress Marshall was Mother of the

Maids, and among her charges were the Queen’s cousin, Margaret Shelton;

Norfolk’s mistress

Elizabeth Holland; Anne Saville; Anne Gainsford, now Lady Zouche; Grace Parker; and Jane Seymour,

whose post had been secured for her through the good offices of Sir Francis Bryan, and who was

among those ladies who received a New Year’s gift from the King the following January. The Queen

employed both male and female fools.

There was such a frantic demand for places in her household

that many were disappointed. Lady Lisle tried for years to have her daughter Katherine Basset

accepted, begging anyone with any influence at court to help and sending the Queen a succession of

gifts, but to no avail.

Anne’s servants all wore her livery of blue and purple, and their doublets were embroidered with her

new motto, “La plus heureuse” (The most happy).

She outlaid £1,000 (£300,000) a year on their

wages and tips,

and there were rich pickings to be had from clientage and patronage: the evidence

shows that the members of Anne’s household were particularly assertive in seeking favours and

advancement for themselves and their clients.

According to William Latimer, who wrote his laudatory chronicle in Elizabeth’s reign, the new Queen

was determined to set a high moral standard for her household, probably with a view to outrivalling her

predecessor and giving the lie to those who believed she was of bad character. One of her first acts was

to summon her council of officers and instruct them in their duties. They were to be honourable,

discreet, just, and thrifty in their conduct, and a godly “spectacle” to others, attending mass daily and

displaying a “virtuous demeanour.” On pain of instant dismissal and perpetual banishment from court,

“to their utter shame,” they must not quarrel, swear, or frequent “evil, lewd and ungodly disposed

brothels.”

It would appear that these austere rules were generally observed: years later, Anne’s

silkwoman, Jane Wilkinson, told John Foxe she had never seen “better order amongst the ladies and

gentlewomen of the court than in Anne Boleyn’s day.”

The Queen’s ladies were required to be above reproach. Anne gave each of them a little book of prayers

and psalms that could be hung from a girdle. In order to prevent them from getting into mischief

through idleness, she made her women devote hours of their time to sewing garments for the poor, for

distribution by the Queen on progress.

Anne did her share. She made some of her own clothes—an

embroidered headpiece and coif said to have been worked by her are at Hever Castle— as well as

hangings and household embroideries. George Wyatt relates that Hampton Court was made sumptuous

by “rich and exquisite works wrought by her own hand and needle, and also by her ladies”; in 1598, a

German traveller, Paul Hentzner, saw there an exquisite tester that Anne had made for Henry VIII’s

bed. Even in the late seventeenth century, Anne’s needlework was still on show, with that of Mary II,

although none of her pieces at Hampton Court survive today.

Anne was generous in her charities. George Wyatt estimated that her annual charitable donations

amounted to £1,500 (£450,000). She also set intellectual standards for the court by sponsoring scholars

and reformers, who were brought to her attention by her chaplains and also by Dr. William Butts,

now

“a considerable man of affairs” at court

and even more radical than Anne in his religious views. Butts

was responsible for the preferment of several young men from his old college at Cambridge, Gonville

Hall, where Shaxton and Skip had also studied. It was Butts who secured chaplaincies to the Queen for

William Latimer, as well as William Betts, who had once been arrested for circulating forbidden books

at Oxford. Anne also gave financial support to the universities and funded the studies of poor scholars,

among whom was Wolsey’s bastard son, Thomas Winter.

Anne’s heraldic emblem as Queen of England was a white falcon with a crown and sceptre standing

with wings elevated on a tree stump covered with Tudor roses.

This badge, and her initials and coat of

arms, replaced Katherine’s in all the royal palaces.

The King gave Anne Baynard’s Castle and

Havering, which had once been assigned to Katherine of Aragon, as part of her jointure. Baynard’s

Castle remained a store for her large and valuable collection of Wardrobe stuff, much of which she had

inherited from Katherine.

The Boleyn faction was at the zenith of its power. In order to justify his marriage, Henry would use

religion, art, and every aspect of court culture to exalt Anne’s image and emphasise the legitimacy of

her title. Next to the King, she was the greatest fount of patronage in the kingdom, and she would

zealously utilise her influence to promote the King’s religious policies and the cause of reform. Of the

ten bishops who were appointed during the period 1532–1536, seven were her clients. In defiance of

the law, she kept an English Bible in her apartments for all to read, and openly debated its contents with

the King at dinner.

In public, she was rarely seen without a book of devotions in her hands.

Several pious works that Anne owned as Queen survive, some of them beautifully illuminated

manuscripts with decorative borders in the French Renaissance style. The Bible that she kept on display

may have been her presentation copy of Tyndale’s New Testament of 1534, which is bound in black

leather and bears the name ANNA REGINA ANGLIAE in faded red lettering on the gold page edges.

Anne also owned a French translation of the Bible by the humanist Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, which

was printed at Antwerp the same year and dedicated to Henry VIII and herself: their initials and

crowned Tudor roses appear on the binding.

Her manuscript of Clement Marot’s sermons on the

Good Shepherd came from one of the foremost workshops in France, and has her arms and falcon

badge emblazoned on the frontispiece;

it may have been a gift from Francis I. At Christmas 1532,

Lord Morley had given Anne his translation of “The Epistles and Gospels for the LII Sundays in the

Year.”

Another important illuminated manuscript owned by her was “The Ecclesiaste,” which has the

King’s arms impaling hers on the front cover, and a binding of black velvet with brass corners.

Anne and Cromwell were natural allies, through both self-interest and their religious and political

views, although they acted independently of each other. Cromwell helped Anne to assist several

reformers who had fallen foul of the law and sought her protection; he also helped to administer her

household, and he used his influence to secure preferment in it for his clients.

Anne’s family certainly benefited from her elevation. Her father was now one of the most important

men in the kingdom, while, in 1533, her brother Rochford was made a baron in his own right, Master

of the Buckhounds, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Master of the Bethlehem (Bedlam) Hospital

for the insane. During the next three years he would be entrusted with several important diplomatic

embassies to France.

In 1533, “the King kept St George’s Day at Greenwich, with great solemnity, and the court was greatly

replenished with lords, knights, ladies and gentlewomen, to a great number, with all enjoyment and

pleasure.”

Most were doubtless agog to see their new Queen. In May, the King attended the wedding

of his niece, Lady Frances Brandon, to young Henry Grey, third Marquess of Dorset. It was a

spectacular event, held at Suffolk Place, and cost the bride’s father £1,666 (£499,800). As the Duke and

Duchess of Suffolk were hosting the event, the Queen, mindful of the Duchess’s hostility, did not

attend. This was Mary Tudor’s last public appearance. She was ailing, and would soon return to

Westhorpe for good.

That month, Archbishop Cranmer convened an ecclesiastical court at Dunstable Priory, where, on 23

May, he pronounced the King’s union with Katherine null and void; five days later he declared that

Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn was valid and lawful. “The King, in his blindness, fears no one but

God,” Chapuys observed.

“Here Anna Comes, Bright Image of Chastity”

The King was determined that Anne’s coronation should outrival any of those of her predecessors in

splendour. On the day after Cranmer pronounced judgement, she donned cloth of gold and proceeded in

the former Queen’s barge from Greenwich to the Tower of London, attended by Wiltshire, Suffolk, and

a host of nobles and bishops, and escorted by the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and Aldermen with music,

fireworks, pageantry, and a “marvellous” salute of cannonfire. At the Tower, Henry greeted her most

affectionately, openly cupping her pregnant belly with his hands. The next day he dubbed eighteen

Knights of the Bath, among them the Earls of Dorset and Derby, and Francis Weston; most had Boleyn

connections.

Two days later, on Saturday 31 May, Anne, wearing white cloth of gold and ermine with her hair loose

beneath a coif with a jewelled circlet, made a ceremonial entry into London, travelling in procession

from Cheapside to Temple Bar in a litter draped with white cloth of gold, drawn by two palfreys

caparisoned in the same. Above the litter was a canopy borne by four knights. The half-mile-long

procession was led by the French ambassador and his suite; they were followed by ladies, gentlemen,

knights, judges, bishops, crimson-clad nobles, squires, heralds, ambassadors, and the Queen’s servants

dressed in scarlet. Then, wearing bejewelled robes of crimson velvet,

came Suffolk, who had been

appointed High Constable of England just for this occasion and had left his desperately sick wife to

attend, and Lord William Howard, acting as Earl Marshal in place of his half-brother Norfolk, who was

in France with Rochford on official business. Thanks to his niece’s influence, Norfolk had recently

been able to wrest the office of Earl Marshal from Suffolk, who had held it since the death of the

second Duke of Norfolk in 1524; Cromwell had mollified Suffolk by telling him that the King thought

his enforced surrender of the office imputed “much honour” in him and was grateful to him for

nourishing “kindness and love between my Lord of Norfolk and you.”

Norfolk was represented at the

coronation by his son Surrey, who had returned briefly from Paris for the occasion.

The streets of London were freshly gravelled and gaily decorated with tapestries and rich hangings, and

Anne’s falcon badge was everywhere to be seen. In Gracechurch Street, the German merchants of the

Steelyard had erected a triumphal arch designed by Holbein, upon which was a tableau of Apollo on

Mount Parnassus, surrounded by the four Muses, all “playing on several sweet instruments.”

Beneath

was a white marble “fountain of Helicon,” from which flowed Rhenish wine for all comers.

At various

places en route, the Queen paused to listen to Latin orations and angelic-sounding choirs, or to watch

pageants mounted in her honour. The pageants had been commissioned and paid for by the City

companies and devised by Nicholas Udall, an erudite but vicious paedophile who became Provost of

Eton in 1534; he was assisted by John Leland, the King’s librarian, and Richard Cox, a Cambridge

humanist. These pageants lauded the new Queen’s chastity and expressed the hope that she would bear

sons to continue the Tudor dynasty.

Late in the afternoon, Anne arrived at Westminster Hall. There, standing beneath a cloth of estate, she

took spices and hippocras before changing out of her robes and leaving secretly by barge for York

Place, where the King awaited her. Tradition decreed that he play no part in her triumph—it was to be

hers alone. Yet Anne was dissatisfied with her reception, which, according to Chapuys, had been more

appropriate to “a funeral rather than a pageant.”

Few citizens in the huge crowds had doffed their caps

or cried “God save the Queen!” and Anne’s fool had yelled at them, “I think you all have scurvy heads,

and dare not uncover!” At the sight of the royal couple’s entwined initials, several wags had dared to

laugh, “HA! HA!” Some even said that the crown did not become Anne.

Nevertheless, the King

commissioned his printer, Wynkyn de Worde, to publish a pamphlet commemorating Anne’s triumph.

On Sunday 1 June 1533, Anne was attired for her coronation in a kirtle of crimson velvet, over which

was a traditional sideless surcoat of purple velvet furred with ermine; on her head she wore a caul of

pearls beneath a rich coronet. Walking beneath a cloth of gold canopy, with the Dowager Duchess of

Norfolk carrying her train, she went in procession from Westminster Hall to the nearby Abbey, attended

by thirteen mitred abbots, the monks of Westminster, the entire Chapel Royal, the bishops and clergy,

and the lords in their robes of estate. Sir Thomas More, the Duchess of Norfolk, and the Exeters were

conspicuous by their absence, much to the King’s chagrin.

Seated in St. Edward’s Chair, which was draped in cloth of gold, Anne was crowned by Archbishop