A Dangerous Love Affair

When Anne Boleyn was first recalled home from France it was because her Father was in talks to marry her to her Irish cousin, James Butler, in order to secure the Earldom Ormond which their cousin, Piers Butler, had hijacked for himself upon the death of Anne’s grandfather. At this time her sister, Mary, was both married to William Carey and had, under the direction and guidance of their Father and Uncle, become the mistress to King Henry VIII. With the Butler-Boleyn marriage talks still in progress Anne settled into court life as Maid-of-Honor to the Spanish born Queen, Katherine of Aragon, and made her offical debut into society in a masque called Chateau Vert playing the womanly virtue of Preserverence. The Masque was apart of celebrations for the marriage talks between the King and the Emperor of Spain for the six-year-old Princess Mary Tudor.

The marriage between Anne and James never came to pass and Anne found herself head-over-heels in love with another striking, and very welathy nobleman: Lord Henry Percy, who was the son and heir to the Duke of Norththumberland. Henry himself, although 6-years-engaged to Lady Mary Talbot, was smitten with Anne. The two played a game of courtly love that ended in a secret bethroal service and Anne being sent to her family home in Kent to think about what she had done. Henry Percy was made to marry Mary Talbot, who later gave evidance to a pre-contract between the two to wiggle out of her loveless, unhappy marriage and to possibly bring down Anne’s marriage with the King. when Anne returned from Hever after the Percy affair she once again set herself up to be the rising star of Henry’s court. She dressed in the latest French fashion, could sing beautifully and dance with much elegance. She held herself as if she were princess-born, excuting tremendous amounts of sex-appeal driving half the young male coutiers mad with lust. When she spoke it shone with confidence, intelligence, charm and sedution all in a pretty, French accent that the Boleyn girl had picked up from her days in the French court. She enchanted half the court and eventually drew the King of England to her and played him like she would a lute.

When Henry Tudor first made his pursuit of the noble-born girl she made it clear she’d not consent to be his mistress, not wanting to share her sister’s fate. She returned his gifts, and refused his advances, causing the King to become quite angry. After he got over the inital shock of being turned down, for the first time in his life, he came back in his pursuit at full speed, proclaiming he’d not lie with Anne until they were legal married. He than set off on a seven-year-mission that changed England forever and shook it to its very core. It took the couple seven years to get what they wanted, or so they thought they wanted. Shortly before they departed for Calais in the winter of 1532 the King bestowed Marquess of Pembroke on his future wife, befitting her with an aproiate title, before they left to meet the French King, Francis I and his sister. Even though Francis couldn’t directly defy the Pope he did give the couple his blessing and held a private meeting with Anne. It is rumored that they married directly upon returning to Dover. They married again, in another ceremony shouded in secrecy in London, and it became apparent that Anne was already carrying the King’s child.

June 1st, 1533 Anne recieved her reward for her wait and was crowned Queen consort of England, with King Edwards crown. She was showing her pregnancy as she sat in the traditional cloth of gold and white, her long & dark hair flowing to her waist. The seven year wait for marriage turned into a fiasco due to Anne’s unwillingness to conform to the submissive role expected of her, and her jealous nature surfaced whenever Henry would look at another girl. The birth of Elizabeth was a disappointment to both, even though Henry claimed he loved the girl anyways. Anne than suffered in the same way Katherine had, she miscarried and Henry started courting one of her own Maid of Honors, Jane Seymour. It is never been established what Anne felt for Henry, or if the King held more than simple lust for the beautiful Boleyn girl. If she didn’t love Henry for himself it is very likely she loved the persona he’d built up of the adored King and white knight. Henry admired his second wife’s intelligence, strong will and strength because they would’ve been what drew him to her. However, while those things were looked for in a mistress they didn’t fit into the mold for a wife.

Weather or not they loved each other, which I will forever believed that they did. Their relationship, though passion driven and ending in death produced one of the greatest monarchs to ever rule England: Elizabeth I

By AG Foucault-Wickman.

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Henry Falls In Love with Anne Boleyn

Posted By Claire
As I stated in my article “The Early Life of Anne Boleyn Part Six – The Château Vert Pageant“, contrary to the scene in “The Tudors”, Anne and Henry’s eyes did not meet across a crowded room at the 1522 Shrovetide Pageant because Henry was, at this point, embarking on an affair with Anne’s sister, Mary Boleyn. It is possible that he did not even notice the other Boleyn girl, Anne, who was playing Perseverance, because he only had eyes for his new mistress, Mary. Anne obviously would have noticed her King, but she had just returned to England to marry James Butler and catching the eye of the King would have been the last thing on her mind.

So when did Henry fall for Anne?



Christmas 1524-5
David Starkey1 dates the start of Henry’s feelings for Anne to Christmas and New Year 1524/1525, shortly after he had stopped sleeping with his wife, Catherine of Aragon.

It was at that time that the Court staged the “Castle of Loyalty” or the Château Blanc pageant in the tiltyard at Greenwich Palace. Starkey writes of how, on the 21st December 1524, St Thomas’s Day, a herald proclaimed in the Queen’s Great Chamber “that the King had given the keeping of the castle… to four ‘Maidens’ of the Court” and that these four maiden had “deputed the protection of the castle to fifteen defenders”.

Although the names of the maidens are not recorded, Starkey believes that one may have been Anne because Thomas Wyatt was listed as a defender, Henry Percy as an attacker and a disguised Henry VIII took part. Starkey writes of how the King “proceeded to thrash his opponents” and “launched such a furious assault” on Anthony Browne, a man who had been resident at the French Court during Anne’s time there, that he “almost cut his poudron [a piece of defensive armour for the neck]“. Was Henry trying to impress one of the maidens? Was he showing that he was more worthy than Percy and Wyatt? We just don’t know.

Whatever the truth about the Château Blanc pageant, Starkey believes that Anne Boleyn first caught the King’s eye during the winter of 1524/1525 because this fits in with George Cavendish’s account of his master, Cardinal Wolsey’s fall and how it was the King’s love for Anne which was the beginning of the end for Wolsey. Although, as Starkey points out, Cavendish is not good at giving dates in his account of what happened, it appears that the King took Wolsey into his confidence in early 1525 and asked the Cardinal to break up the relationship between Anne and Percy. The proposed marriage between Anne and James Butler was used as an excuse, but the truth may have been that Henry VIII wanted Anne for himself. This is what George Cavendish believed because when he writes of “the secret love” which grew between Percy and Anne, he writes that “The which thing [their love] came to the King’s knowledge, who was then much offended. Wherefore he could hide no longer his secret affection, but revealed his secret intendment unto my Lord Cardinal in that behalf; and consulted with him to infringe the precontract between them”2. The King was forced to declare his interest in Anne to prevent her marriage to Percy.

As a result of Wolsey’s intervention in the relationship between Henry Percy and Anne Boleyn, Percy was married off to Mary Talbot, the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and Anne was sent to Hever Castle, the Boleyn family home where, according to Alison Weir, she “was left to simmer and sorrow… for a year or more”3 before she returned to court to continue her duties as one of Catherine of Aragon’s ladies.

Both Alison Weir and David Starkey write of how the King’s interest in Anne was re-awakened when she returned to court in 1525. Seeing as Mary Boleyn’s son, Henry Carey was born in March 1526, we can assume that Henry VIII was looking for a mistress to replace the pregnant Mary in Autumn 1525. Anne Boleyn was witty, intelligent, sexy, sophisticated and available, and Henry VIII could not help but be drawn to her.

1526
Anne Boleyn’s main biographer, Eric Ives, dates the start of Henry and Anne’s courtship to Shrovetide 1526 and Alison Weir writes of how Henry VIII wrote out to the Shrove Tuesday joust with the motto “Declare je nos” (Declare I dare not) embroidered on his costume below a picture of a man’s heart engulfed in flames. Henry was declaring that he was in love and it is thought that the object of his affections was Anne Boleyn. Weir also writes of how, in Spring 1526, Henry ordered four gold brooches from his goldsmith: one representing Venus and Cupid, the second of a lady holding a heart in her hand, the third depicting a man lying in a lady’s lap and the fourth of a lady holding a crown. Weir states that “the symbolism was unmistakable”4.

1527
In her book, “The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn”, Retha Warnicke writes of how Anne Boleyn turns up in the records in 1527, during the visit of the French ambassadors to Greenwich. According to Warnicke, a French manuscript records how the ambassadors were impressed by her knowledge of France and their language and how, on the 5th May during a visit to see Princess Mary in the Queen’s Chamber, Henry chose to dance with Anne Boleyn while his daughter danced with Viscount Turènne.5

Eric Ives writes of how, in August 1527, Henry VIII applied to the Pope for a dispensation to marry again and although there is no mention of Anne Boleyn the draft dispensation covered a woman who was related to the King in the “first degree of affinity… from… forbidden wedlock”6, i.e. a woman who was the sister of a previous mistress, someone just like Anne.

So, although we don’t know exactly when Henry VIII fell in love with Anne, his feelings were strong enough in August 1527 for him to ask the Pope for a dispensation to marry her. By that time, he was not only besotted with her, he wanted her as his wife and Queen.

In his book, “The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn”, Eric Ives has made a chronology of Anne and Henry’s courtship based on mentions of Anne in the primary sources, events, Henry’s behaviour and the disintegrating marriage of Henry and Catherine of Aragon:-

•1524 – Henry stops sleeping with Catherine
•1525, Summer – Henry attempts to build up Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond and his illegitimate son, as an alternative heir
•1526, Shrovetide – Henry begins to court Anne
•1526, Autumn – Henry writes his first love letter to Anne
•1526, sometime after October – Henry warns Thomas Wyatt off Anne
•1526, December – Catherine is isolated a court
•1527, January – Wyatt sent on an embassy to Rome
•1527, April – Henry consults about annulling his marriage to Catherine
•1527, Easter – Henry urges Anne to become his “maîtresse-en-titre”, his official mistress
•1527, May – Secret preliminary hearing of the annulment
•1527, June – Henry informs Catherine of his plans to annul their marriage
•1527, Summer – Henry and Anne agree that they will marry
•1527, August – The decision is made to ask the Pope for a dispensation so that Henry can marry Anne7
Of course, as Ives points out, this chronology is “speculative” because we do not have all of the information, but “it does fit the context as we understand it, and it is psychologically credible”8. We also know that Henry showered Anne with jewel after jewel after jewel in the summer of 1527 and “such a torrent can mean only one thing: Henry and Anne had an understanding – they were betrothed.”9

In my next post on Anne and Henry’s relationship I will be looking at Henry VIII’s love letters to Anne Boleyn.



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