The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown (9 page)

Did the setting up of these commissions signal the end for Anne Boleyn? Was this event "virtually a death warrant for Anne"?
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I believe so. I think it is too much of a coincidence; these commissions in 1536 were certainly only used in the case of the coup against the Boleyns. No other case of treason was investigated at this time. However, G W Bernard
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believes that Henry VIII was fully committed to Anne Boleyn right up until her arrest and that the commissions need not have been set up to deal with Anne. He notes that as late as 25th April Henry VIII was sending instructions to Richard Pate, his ambassador in Rome, regarding his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. But was Henry just keeping up appearances or were Cromwell and Audley acting alone at this point? It's impossible to know, but something was amiss.

25th April 1536 – Most Entirely Beloved Wife

On 25th April 1536, a day after the commissions of oyer and terminer had been appointed, King Henry VIII wrote letters to his ambassadors abroad: Richard Pate
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in Rome, and Stephen Gardiner and John Wallop
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in Paris. In these letters, the King referred to Anne Boleyn as "our most dear and most entirely beloved wife the Queen" and wrote of his hope for a son:

"For as much as there is great likelihood and appearance that God will send unto Us heirs male to succeed Us."
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If we did not know with hindsight that trouble was brewing then we would think that all was rosy with the royal couple, that Henry had high hopes for the future and had no intention of setting Anne aside. What we will never know is whether these words were part of an act or whether Henry VIII was unaware of Cromwell's plans at this point. Henry still seemed to have been committed to Anne on 25th April 1536 and was still pushing for the rest of Europe to recognise her as his rightful wife and queen.

26th April 1536 – Anne Boleyn and Matthew Parker

Around the 26th April 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn met with her chaplain of two years, her "countryman", 32 year old Matthew Parker. Parker
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recorded later that Anne had asked him to watch over her daughter, the two year-old Princess Elizabeth, if anything happened to her.
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She was entrusting him with her daughter's spiritual care.

Historian Eric Ives
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writes that this was a request that Parker never forgot and something which stayed with him for ever. Parker obviously came to be important to Elizabeth because she made him her Archbishop of Canterbury in 1559. It was a post which Parker admitted to Lord Burghley, he would not have accepted if he "had not been so much bound to the mother".
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Matthew Parker was born on 6th August 1504 in Norwich and was educated at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, where he became friends with a group of humanists and reformers. He arrived at court in March 1535 and was appointed as one of Queen Anne Boleyn's chaplains. He preached in front of both Princess Elizabeth and the King in 1535 and it was due to Anne's patronage that he was appointed Dean of the collegiate church of Stoke by Clare in Suffolk.

Matthew Parker is known for being Archbishop of Canterbury and also for being one of the men responsible for the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. These were established in 1563 and are seen today as "the historic defining statements of Anglican doctrine in relation to the controversies of the English Reformation".
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He served as Elizabeth I's Archbishop of Canterbury until his death on 17th May 1575.

27th April 1536 – Parliament Summoned

On 27th April 1536, writs were issued summoning Parliament, and a letter was sent to Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, asking him to attend Parliament. Here is the relevant section from the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII:

"Summons to the archbishop of Canterbury to attend the Parliament which is to meet at Westminster, 8 June; and to warn the prior and chapter of his cathedral and the clergy of his province to be present, the former in person and the latter by two proctors. Westm., 27 April 28 Hen. VIII.

ii. Similar writs to the different bishops, abbots, and lords; to the judges, serjeants-at-law, and the King's attorney, to give counsel; to the sheriffs to elect knights of the shires, citizens, and burgesses; also to the chancellor of the county palatine of Lancaster; to the deputy and council of Calais to elect one burgess, and to the mayor and burgesses to elect another."
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Although Anne Boleyn and the five men found guilty of adultery with her were all dead by the 8th June, these writs coming so soon after the setting up of the commissions of oyer and terminer suggests that Parliament was being called in order to deal with issues regarding the Queen, the King's marriage and the succession.

The King Thinks About Divorce

According to Chapuys, John Stokesley, Bishop of London, was approached on the 27th April to see if the King could "abandon" Anne Boleyn. Chapuys does not mention who consulted Stokesley, but he was told of it by Geoffrey Pole:

"The brother of lord Montague told me yesterday at dinner that the day before the bishop of London had been asked if the King could abandon the said concubine, and he would not give any opinion to anyone but the King himself, and before doing so he would like to know the King's own inclination, meaning to intimate that the King might leave the said concubine, but that, knowing his fickleness, he would not put himself in danger. The said Bishop was the principal cause and instrument of the first divorce, of which he heartily repents, and would still more gladly promote this, the said concubine and all her race are such abominable Lutherans. London, 29 April 1536."

Stokesley was not stupid, he was not going to endanger himself by working against the King and Anne.

28th and 29th April 1536

Something was definitely going on during April 1536. Commissions of oyer and terminer had been set up, writs for Parliament had been sent out and secret meetings were taking place.

On 28th April 1536, Thomas Warley wrote to Lord Lisle in Calais, informing him that the King's council had been meeting daily at Greenwich "upon certain letters brought by the French ambassador, who was at Court yesterday and divers other times."
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The imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, also noticed the goings-on, reporting to Charles V on 29th April:

"The day after the courier Gadaluppe left, the King sent for the French ambassador, and there was great consultation in Court. As I am told by one who is in the French ambassador's secrets, the King asked him to go in post to his master on certain affairs, which the ambassador agreed to do, and next day made preparations for leaving, then returned to Court on the day appointed, viz. Tuesday; but the Council, which was assembled in the morning till 9 or 10 at night, could not agree to the dispatch, and the ambassador was put off till Thursday."
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Although both Warley and Chapuys refer to meetings regarding the French ambassador, the frequency of the meetings and the secrecy surrounding the subject matter may suggest that something else was going on too.

In this same letter to Charles V, Chapuys writes:

"The Grand Ecuyer, Mr. Caro [Sir Nicholas Carew], had on St. George's day the Order of the Garter in the place of the deceased M. de Burgain (lord Abergavenny), to the great disappointment of Rochford, who was seeking for it, and all the more because the Concubine has not had sufficient influence to get it for her brother; and it will not be the fault of the said Ecuyer if the Concubine, although his cousin (quelque, qu. quoique? cousine) be not dismounted. He continually counsels Mrs. Semel [Jane Seymour] and other conspirators "pour luy faire une venue," and only four days ago he and some persons of the chamber sent to tell the Princess to be of good cheer, for shortly the opposite party would put water in their wine, for the King was already as sick and tired of the concubine as could be."
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It is hard to know whether Chapuys is simply repeating court gossip or whether he does actually know the facts, but it appears that Jane Seymour was being coached by the conservatives and that they were hopeful of success.

In a letter written on the same day to Granvelle (Nicholas Perronet, Seigneur de Granvelle, the Emperor's adviser), Chapuys reports that "Dr. Sampson, dean of the chapel, has been for the last four days continually with Cromwell."
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Dr Richard Sampson was a royal chaplain and was dean of Lichfield and also the Chapel Royal. He had supported the King in his efforts to get his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled, was a friend of Thomas Cromwell and also an expert on canon law, having graduated BCL at Cambridge. It is likely, therefore, that Cromwell was picking his brains about a possible annulment of the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. He did act as the King's proctor against Anne Boleyn in the annulment proceedings.
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Again, with hindsight, it is easy for us to see these meetings as suspicious and as the beginning of the end for Anne Boleyn, but they may have been about other matters. We may also be reading far too much into the events as well as into the words of Chapuys, a notorious gossip. What we do know is that there were moves against the Queen from 30th April and that just over three weeks later a Queen was dead, along with five members of the Boleyn faction.

29th April 1536 - Sir Henry Norris and Dead Men's Shoes

Also on the 29th April 1536, Anne Boleyn argued with Sir Henry Norris, an argument which led her to instruct him to go to her almoner on Sunday 30th April and take an oath that Anne "was a good woman".
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It was an argument which caused gossip around the court and which may also have led to cross words between Anne and her husband the King.

Sir Henry Norris was Henry VIII's groom of the stool, a member of the Boleyn faction and a man who was courting Anne's cousin and lady-in-waiting, Madge Shelton. Anne asked Norris why he was taking so long to marry Madge and when he gave her a non-committal answer she rebuked him, saying, "You look for dead men's shoes, for if aught came to the King but good, you would look to have me"
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, thus accusing Norris of delaying his marriage to Madge because he fancied her. A horrified Norris replied that "if he [should have any such thought] he would his head were off".

Anne's anger had caused her to speak recklessly. Not only had she said something very inappropriate for a married woman, let alone Queen; she had also broken the rules of courtly love and spoken of the King's death. The courtier was meant to proposition the lady; however, in this argument Anne had been the 'aggressor'. She had turned the courtly love tradition on its head and had also spoken words which could be construed as treason. That is why Norris was so horrified. It is also why Anne suddenly ordered him to go to her almoner and swear an oath about her character. This argument would haunt Anne in the Tower; her words were used against her by the Crown, not only to provide evidence of some kind of relationship between her and Norris, but also as proof that she was plotting the King's death with Norris and others.

Sir Henry Norris

Sir Henry Norris was born sometime in the late 1490s and was the son of Richard Norris and grandson of Sir William Norris of Yattendon and his wife, Jane de Vere, daughter of John de Vere, twelfth Earl of Oxford.
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Norris's family had a long history of serving the monarch – his great-grandfather, Sir John Norris, had been Keeper of the Great Wardrobe to Henry VI and his grandfather, Sir William Norris, had been Knight of the Body to Edward IV. Sir William Norris had been attainted after being involved in the Duke of Buckingham's rebellion against Richard III and had been forced to flee to Brittany, where he joined the forces of Henry Tudor and may even have fought at the Battle of Bosworth. Sir William had a command in June 1487 at Stoke and went on to become the Lieutenant of Windsor Castle.
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Sometime prior to 1526, Sir Henry Norris married Mary Fiennes, daughter of Thomas Fiennes, eighth Baron Dacre. The couple had three children. Mary, their daughter, grew up to marry Sir George Carew, Captain of the Mary Rose which sank in 1545 along with its captain and many of its crew. Henry was born around 1525 and educated in a reformist manner alongside Mary Boleyn's son Henry Carey. Edward did not survive infancy, dying sometime around 1529. Norris was left a widower in circa 1530.

A Royal Career

Sir Henry Norris received his first royal grant as a young man in 1515 and by 1517 we know that he was serving in the King's Privy Chamber. By 1518, he had obviously proved himself enough to be handling money for the King and he was probably made a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber in September 1518.
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Just a few months later, in January 1519, there is record of Norris receiving a annuity of 50 marks. This shows the high regard that the King must have had for him. Norris was definitely on the rise and a royal favourite.

Norris's popularity and his loyalty to the King meant that he survived as Gentleman of the Privy Chamber when Cardinal Wolsey "weeded out" some of Henry's men in May 1519. We know that he attended the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. Like the King, Norris was a sportsman, excelling at jousting, and was an attractive and popular courtier.