Dear Heart, How Like You This (48 page)
Wyatt was imprisoned in 1536, during the same month that saw the arrest of Anne and her alleged lovers. Some historians even claim that his arrest took place the day after the arrest of Anne. The Lisle Papers, a series of documents written by people who lived during this period, make a strong insinuation that his arrest was the result of his involvement with the Queen. Furthermore, a letter written by John Husee to the Viscount Lisle seems to imply that Husee had high expectations that Thomas’ execution would shortly follow the others.(iii) Thomas himself said five years later, when he was again arrested, this earlier imprisonment had been due to the interference of the Duke of Suffolk, the brother-in-law of Henry the Eighth and described as the King’s “alter ego.”(iv)
As a writer, it is interesting to speculate on the reasons behind these arrests; obviously there was little love lost between the Duke and Wyatt.
Finally and not surprisingly, I believe with all my heart in Anne Boleyn’s innocence. Henry the Eighth has a lot to answer for. My works in progress continue to hold him to account.
Notes
(i) Muir (editor); Collected poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt; p. ix
(ii) Patricia Thomson,
Wyatt, the critical heritage
; p. 47
(iii) Muriel St. Clare Byrne (editor); selected and arranged by Bridget Byrne; Lisle
letters
; London; 1983; p. 165
(iv) J.J. Scarisbrick;
Henry VIII
; p. 52.
by Wendy J. Dunn
At time of canvasinge this matter so,
In the courte (newe entred) theare dyd frequent
A fresche young damoysell, that cowld trippe and go,
To synge and to daunce passinge excellent,
No tatches shee lacked of loves allurement;
She cowlde speake Frenche ornately and playne,
Famed in the cowrte (by name) Anne Bullayne
—William Forrest
At the birth of Anne Boleyn, if a seer had predicted her important role on the stage of English History, I feel certain her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, would have scoffed. Indeed, of all possible futures for this girl-child, it would not seem conceivable that Anne’s destiny lay as a crowned Queen of England, consort of Henry VIII. At best, her father probably thought of a future where one of his daughters, surviving the perils of infancy and childhood of this period, achieved a marriage strengthening Boleyn’s own status at court.
Later Earl of Ormonde and Wiltshire, Thomas Boleyn—or Bullen as the family was known then—was but a knight at the time of Anne’s birth. A son of a man whose own father, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, stood even lower on the rungs of English society—a self made man who became a Mayor of London and gained an heiress, the daughter of Lord Hoo and Hastings, as his wife (Warnicke 1989, p. 8).
Thomas Boleyn, the ambitious father of Anne Boleyn, continued building upon what his grandfather first built and rarely—that is, until his daughter Anne had the misfortune to miscarry the King’s son in 1536—missed a step to raise his family higher in the Tudor hierarchy. Indeed, Thomas Boleyn had done well enough for himself when he married Lady Elizabeth Howard, a daughter of Thomas, Duke of Howard, head of a prolific family, with bloodlines stretching back to Edward I, through his second marriage to Margaret of France.
At Anne’s birth, Sir Thomas Boleyn—with his daughter’s future as mother to one of England’s best-loved monarchs hidden from him—had no reason to leave documentation about the date of her birth. This being the case, Anne’s birth year, as indeed the place of her birth, is shrouded in the deepest mist of history, and has long been fodder for lively debate amongst Tudor historians. My reason for entering this fray is a belief that the arguments for Anne’s birth in 1507 are much stronger than the other suggested years of 1502, 1501, or, indeed, as early as 1499.
For many historians, the crux of the matter appears to revolve around Anne Boleyn’s sojourn over on the Continent. Thomas Boleyn, using the contacts he made abroad during his time as a successful diplomat, sent Anne first as a
fille d’honneur
at the court of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy. After a brief stay in Burgundy, Anne’s father arranged for her to go onto France, perchance to join her sister Mary as attendant to Mary Tudor, the youngest surviving sister of Henry VIII, on her marriage to Louis XII of France.* Because the first sojourn occurred in 1514, historians have argued that Anne Boleyn must have had reached either the age twelve or thirteen, usually the youngest ages considered for a
fille d’honneur
.
I believe Retha Warwicke, in her
Rise and fall of Anne Boleyn
, argues a very good case that Anne Boleyn was no more than seven on her arrival at Margaret’s court. Not only does she cite the example of Anne Brandon, six years old in the same time period as Anne Boleyn, placed also in Margaret’s care but in addition she cites a letter from the Regent to Thomas Boleyn. This letter comments how Anne was “so well spoken and so pleasant for her young years” (Warnicke 1989, p. 12).
These words imply that Anne was younger than twelve or thirteen, because it is extremely unlikely that the Regent would have commented on her “young years” if Anne had neared or reached her teenage years. In this period, though admittedly not a common occurrence, girls of twelve were unlikely to be regarded in their “young years,” as they could be legally wed, as well as have their marriages consummated. There is even a letter that Anne herself wrote to her father, in obviously immature handwriting, during her stay with the Regent, in which Anne blames her mistakes and poor penmanship on the fact that this letter was the first she had written by herself (Warnicke 1989, p. 15). Surely by twelve or thirteen this would not likely be the case.
We also have evidence pointing to what happened to Anne after her arrival in France. That Anne made acquaintance of Renée of France (Warnicke 1989, p. 21), the French Queen’s young sister, born 1510 (Britannica Online 2009), who was still in the Royal nursery, shows us that Anne was not made part of the licentious court of
François
of France. Rather, because of her extreme youth, Anne spent her first years in France in the nursery of the royal children, at the court of Claude, the Queen and consort of
François
. Where
François’
court had a reputation for “free-living,” if not depravity, his wife’s court was deemed almost as good as a good convent. A court very suitable for a young, gently-bred girl, especially if she is to be returned to her family not as “spoiled goods,” but with all her prospects of achieving a good marriage still in place; that is, her “good name” and virginity still intact.
Another confusion concerning Anne Boleyn is whether she was in fact the elder sister, rather than her evidently more flighty sister, Mary Boleyn. Before Anne’s involvement with the King, Mary briefly became mistress to King Henry VIII—some people from the period believed her son, Henry Carey, to be also the son of the King—perhaps after her marriage to William Carey. The confusion continues even over the timing of Mary’s relationship with the King. Warnicke believes it occurred after her marriage with William Carey (Warnicke 1989, p. 34) while Antonia Fraser states it happened before (Fraser 1992, p. 101). Retha Warnicke also believes Mary to be the younger sister and only twelve at her marriage to William Carey, which I believe unlikely.
Sir Thomas Boleyn’s decision to send Anne rather than Mary to the Duchess of Burgundy seems to offer evidence that Anne was the elder. But not necessarily so. It is possible that Sir Thomas Boleyn realised that his younger daughter, besides her obvious intelligence, had inherited his gift as a linguist—something that would one day be passed down to his grand-daughter, Elizabeth the First. His decision to send Anne rather than Mary to Burgundy could have been simply the result of a parent weighing up opportunities for their children, and deciding which child would benefit most from them. It is also possible that Mary may have already displayed characteristics of concern to her father. As an adult, Mary had a reputation for being rather free with her “favors” (Fraser 1992, p. 101), the King of France also remarked about her,
per una grandissima ribala et infame sopre tutte.
During the reign of Elizabeth, members of Anne’s own family believed the Queen’s mother to be the younger sister, as shown when Mary Boleyn’s grandson attempted to claim the Earldom of Ormonde through this fact of his grandmother’s seniority. As Fraser comments, this seniority was not contested “although in the reign of Anne Boleyn’s daughter there were plenty who would have done so, if it had been untrue” (Fraser 1992, p. 119) There is another bit of evidence to sway my belief about how young Anne actually was during her time on the Continent. Anne spoke English with a French accent until the day her husband and Thomas Cromwell found a legal way to murder her. An accent natural to our speaking voice is something usually acquired at a young age. That Anne had a French accent on her return to England suggests strongly that she first came to the Continent as a child. Also, the very fact that Anne seemed so “French,” another thing not making her popular, either with the English court or with the common people, implies that she had been away from her family and England during the important character developing years of her childhood. Supporting this view are the words of George Cavendish, loyal gentleman usher of Cardinal Wolsey. Cavendish wrote in his
Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey
, “This gentlewoman, Mistress Anne Boleyn, being very young was sent into the realm of France” (Sylvester, R. S., D. P. Harding, et al. 1962, p. 31).
Surely Cavendish’s choice of the words “very young” tells us more than anything else that Anne was a child in France, and goes against the argument that, in 1527, Anne Boleyn first caught the King’s eye when she was at least twenty-six. Even in today’s world, women of twenty-six are not regarded as young girls. Yet we have contemporary description from William Forrest—a supporter of Catherine of Aragon who was in England during her “divorce” from the King—of Anne as a “fresh young damsel” (Warnicke p. 56). We also have Anne Boleyn’s own words to consider. Firstly there is Anne’s letter written to the King after he arranges for her to be a maid of honour to Catherine of Aragon, just after the fire of the King’s passion really started blazing bright. Anne writes at the start of this letter,
“It belongs only to the august mind of a great king to whom nature has given a heart full of generosity towards the sex; to repay by favours so extraordinary artless and short conversation with a girl” (Hanson, M. 2009).
Anne’s words are also documented just before the final downfall of Cardinal Wolsey. One night, Henry VIII decided to sup with Catherine of Aragon, the woman he was working hard to divorce. Not surprisingly, even though somewhat surprising to the King, he found Catherine of Aragon not prepared to be her usual companionable self, rather her antagonistic mood soon resulted in an argument. Henry then went to Anne Boleyn, in hope of receiving some sympathy from his mistress, only to find Anne angry in turn. After saying that she feared he would one day return to Catherine, she went on to say:
“I have been waiting long and might in the meanwhile have contracted some advantageous marriage, out of which I might have had issue, which is the greatest consolation in this world, but alas! Farewell to my time and youth spent to no purpose at all” (Fraser 1992, p. 169).
If she had been twenty-six at the start of her relationship with the King, Anne could not lay claim to being either a “girl” or having “spent” her youth during the long years prior to her marriage to the King. It is also extremely unlikely that she could have lied about her age. Anne had too many enemies who would have delighted in telling the truth to the King.
Anne’s relationship with the twenty-year-old Henry Percy, later Earl of Northumberland, needs to be considered here too. This relationship, documented by George Cavendish as well as later brought up during the trial for Anne’s life, possessed all the hallmarks of “first love,” both of them entering into this relationship as if naive of how their lives were controlled by their place in Tudor society. Moreover, there are potent hints suggesting that Anne and Percy may have pre-contracted themselves to one another, which would have put into question the legality of any future marriage entered into by Anne and Percy (Fraser 1992, p.126).