The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (34 page)

The weather on Saturday, 31 May 1533, was perfect for the procession to Westminster. By about midday the mayor had made one last check on the arrangements, riding back to the Tower from the spot allocated to the aldermen near the Cross in Cheapside, past the craft guilds and the merchants lined up behind railings on one side of the street, and on the other, the general populace, held back by a line of constables. In addition to the special pageants, the houses of Cheapside had been hung with cloth of gold, velvet and tissue, while Cornhill and Gracechurch Street were decorated in scarlet and crimson, with arras, tapestry and carpets on display.
12
There had been some difficulty in getting the procession organized, and instead of starting from the Tower at two o’clock it did not leave until five, but now, as it began to make its way through the crowds, the message of the river procession was again reflected bright and clear.
Anne herself chose to dress in the French fashion, and the procession was headed by twelve servants of the new French ambassador, Jean de Dinteville, Francis I’s
maître d’hotel.
They wore blue velvet with yellow and blue sleeves, and had white plumes in their hats, while their horses had trappers of blue sarcenet, powdered with white crosses. In December, Francis would reimburse the ambassador for his outlay with a gift of 500 gold
écus
(
£
100).
13
Then came the gentlemen of the royal households, marching two by two, each man by tradition the eyes and ears of the king he served. They were followed by the nine judges, riding in their scarlet gowns and hoods and wearing their collars of SS; each one had been summoned individually, so that the law would be seen to warrant the coronation. They had been unable to get into the Tower in time to form up, and had had to slip into place as the procession passed Tower Hill. Next came the new Knights of the Bath, followed by the full weight of government and social status - the royal council, the ecclesiastical magnates and the peers of the realm. Individuals could then be seen, making their gesture of support: the chancellor; both the archbishops; the ambassador of France emphasizing again his monarch’s personal backing; the ambassador of Venice, implying European recognition; the lord mayor; the deputy earl marshal and beside him the constable of England, Charles Brandon, the king’s brother-in-law, keeping his thoughts to himself but showing all outward acquiescence. As the 200 or 300 filed slowly past the waiting crowds, this massive demonstration of solidarity with the king and his new marriage could not have failed to make its point.
14
At last, behind the courtiers and magnates, came the queen in her litter. She was dressed in filmy white, with a coronet of gold. The litter was of white satin, with ‘white cloth of gold’ inside and out, and its two palfreys were clothed to the ground in white damask. In ravishing contrast was the queen’s dark hair, flowing loose, down to her waist. Over her was a canopy of cloth of gold held up by the barons of the Cinque Ports. Then came her own palfrey, also trapped in white. Twelve ladies in crimson velvet rode behind, then two carriages decked in red cloth of gold. Next, seven more riders, two more carriages - one white, one red - and thirty gentlewomen on horseback, this time in black velvet. These were followed by the king’s guard in two files, one on each side of the street, ‘in their rich coats ... of goldsmiths’ work’, and last all the servants in the livery of their masters or mistresses. It was, said the published report, a ‘most noble company’. Anne might not be universally popular, but she was magnificent.
Knowledgeable observers would, admittedly, have noticed significant absences. Neither the king’s sister Mary nor her daughter Frances was there, nor was the premier English duchess, the duchess of Norfolk. The first carriage had, therefore, to be occupied by the dowager duchess, Anne’s step-grandmother, along with (and reports vary) either Anne’s mother or the dowager marchioness of Dorset. But Henry’s sister was near to death and her daughter hardly out of childhood, and the absence of the duchess of Norfolk could easily be discounted, given her notorious quarrel with her husband. The earl of Shrewsbury, another doubter, was also missing, but he had taken care to claim his traditional coronation role and to send his son to represent him. The wisdom of showing at least acquiescence was illustrated by the fate of Thomas More, who did deliberately refuse to attend. Sent
£
20 to buy a suitable gown for the occasion by Tunstall, Gardiner and John Clerk, bishop of Bath and Wells, in the hope that he might be able to recover at least some royal favour, More took the money but declined to join his former conservative allies in a procession which, he was quite explicit, must undermine their integrity. As far as we know he never saw Tunstall again, and within a year of this declaration of intransigence More was in the Tower.
15
It is, however, hard to assess wider reaction to the coronation procession. Hostile accounts delighted in disparaging everything. The report that reached Brussels, the one containing the story that Anne concealed a goitre behind her high collar, says quite uncompromisingly that the crowds did not cheer or even take their hats off when Anne passed.
16
When challenged on this, the mayor said that he could not command the hearts of the people, and it was left to Anne’s fool to retort that they were keeping their caps on to cover their scurvy heads. The ‘HA’ monogram of the king and his new queen was maliciously read as ‘Ha, Ha!’ and the French presence was greeted with the cry, ‘Whoreson knave, French dog.’ A similar story is told in the
Cronica del Rey Enrico,
which has Anne replying to a question from Henry about the decorations in London, ‘Sir, I liked the city well enough, but I saw a great many caps on heads, and heard but few tongues.’
17
On the other hand, we must remember that the Cronica is a compote of truth, half-truth, rumour and nonsense, while the overstatement in the Brussels account invites suspicion. It is extremely unlikely that so disciplined an assembly as the livery companies, and their journeymen and apprentices, denied the minimum courtesies. The most objective eyewitness, the Venetian ambassador, stresses ‘the very great pomp’ and the enormous crowds, and remarked on ‘the utmost order and tranquillity’ of the occasion.
18
‘Dumb insolence’ is, however, hard to estimate, and as he made no comment on any positive show of enthusiasm, perhaps the safest conclusion is that the Londoners crowding the streets that day were more curious than either welcoming or hostile. And in any case, in contemporary thinking what mattered more than crowd reaction was what we might call the psychological impact of the procession and the careful observance of all the right ritual. As Edward Baynton, Anne’s worldly-wise chamberlain, wrote to George Boleyn on 9 June, the coronation had been performed ‘honourably’ and ‘as ever was, if all old and ancient men say true’.
19
This was undoubtedly true of the actual coronation at Westminster Abbey on Whit Sunday, despite the fact that Anne was almost six months pregnant. The advantages of a crown for his new wife must have been considerable for Henry to accept the risk of such an ordeal. The great procession began to assemble in Westminster Hall from seven in the morning, but it was just before nine that Anne herself entered. They then set out along a railed route carpeted with cloth of blue ray all along the 700 yards between the dais of the hall and the high altar of the abbey.
20
For this occasion, the court and the peers in their parliament robes were joined by the lord mayor, aldermen and judges, each in scarlet; the monks of Westminster and the staff of the Chapel Royal, all in their best copes; four bishops, two archbishops and twelve mitred abbots in full pontificals; and the abbot of Westminster with his complete regalia. Anne was resplendent in coronation robes of purple velvet, furred with ermine, with the gold coronet on her head which she had worn the day before, though it is not clear that she followed tradition by walking barefoot. Over her was carried the gold canopy of the Cinque Ports, and she was preceded by the sceptre of gold and the rod of ivory topped with the dove, and by the lord great chamberlain, the earl of Oxford, bearing the crown of St Edward, which had previously been used to crown only a reigning monarch. Anne was supported, again as tradition dictated, by the bishops of London and Winchester; the dowager duchess of Norfolk carried the train - a very long one - and she was followed by a host of ladies and gentlewomen dressed in scarlet, with appropriate distinctions of rank.
Special stands had been erected in the abbey, and in particular one from which the king could watch proceedings incognito from behind a latticework screen. In the choir stood St Edward’s Chair, draped in cloth of gold, on a tapestry-covered dais two steps high, which was itself set on a raised platform carpeted in red. Here Anne rested for a moment before resuming her endurance test. As tradition dictated, the coronation was set in the context of a solemn high mass, sung, apparently, by the abbot of Westminster. It was, however, Cranmer who prayed over Anne as she prostrated herself before the altar. Then he anointed her, before she returned to St Edward’s Chair, where he crowned her and delivered the sceptre and the rod of ivory. After the
Te Deum
, St Edward’s crown was exchanged for a lighter one and the service continued for Anne to take the sacrament and to make the customary offering at the shrine of the saint. Then a break for some brief refreshment, and the procession back, past the clock tower in New Palace Yard and its five cisterns running with wine, and into Westminster Hall beneath the splendidly redecorated north front. If More had seen taking part in the procession on the Saturday as an assault on his integrity, how much more was the actual coronation. The elite of the land had taken Anne as queen in the sight of God, and under the most solemn and hallowed sanctions of Holy Church. Shakespeare would declare a generation later:
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king.
 
This mystique of monarchy now belonged to Anne Boleyn. Only death could take it away.
Even with the procession over, Anne had several hours more to face, and on her return she withdrew to her room while the guests were settled in the hall for the coronation banquet.
21
The judges had been turned out days before, their courts dismantled, the windows reglazed, the seating and statuary gilded, and the hall hung with arras for the occasion. Two tables had been set lengthwise on the south of the central blue carpet and two on the north, and the diners sat in order of precedence (see plate 21). At the upper and more honourable end, on the southern table nearest the wall, sat the barons of the Cinque Ports and the masters in chancery; the parallel table had the peers on one side and the bishops on the other, and below them the judges and the royal council. On the opposite side of the great blue carpet, but on the north side of the table only, sat the duchesses and great ladies and the gentlewomen. This allowed them each to be served formally and directly from the centre aisle - as befitted a day of triumph for women. The remaining table, against the north wall, held the mayor and aldermen of London and the senior freemen.
Then, when all was set, Anne herself entered. She sat at the long marble table across the hall, on the king’s great marble chair mounted on the dais twelve steps up, under a cloth of estate. Only the archbishop of Canterbury shared the table with her, and he was a good way to her right. Nothing and nobody must be allowed to blur the focus of the occasion. Beside the queen stood the dowager countess of Oxford and the countess of Worcester, who held a cloth up to conceal her from time to time, whenever Anne wished ‘to spit or do otherwise’, and two gentlewomen sat at her feet, under the table, to do her bidding. To ease her during the lengthy proceedings, a comfortable inner chair had been purpose-made to fit inside the marble one. Henry, meanwhile, occupied a box specially built for him overlooking the high table, from which he would watch events in privacy, along with the ambassadors of France and Venice.
Given the enormous numbers of important folk on duty that day, it seems hardly credible that 800 people remained to sit down. One list of attendants names almost 100 gentlemen and higher ranks, as well as scores of lesser mortals. Only the eight nobles appointed to serve the queen were allowed on the holy ground surrounding her, but there were about 120 more support staff for the top table alone. Overall responsibility lay with the duke of Suffolk as high steward, a function that he discharged in a doublet and jacket dripping with pearls, and from the saddle of a horse magnificently trapped in crimson velvet. Also on horseback, and all in crimson, was Lord William Howard, who was in charge of serving the banquet; his horse’s purple velvet trapper was embroidered with the Howard white lion and slashed to show the white satin lining. He was deputizing for his brother, the earl marshal, who had been sent with George Boleyn on an embassy to France. Suffolk and Howard now escorted in the first course, twenty-eight dishes for the queen and the archbishop, which were carried by the new Knights of the Bath. Twenty-four dishes followed for the second course and thirty for the third - each heralded with as much noise as the king’s trumpets and minstrels could make - and even though the lower tables had fewer dishes, according to a carefully graded scale, the lord mayor and his companions were very satisfied with their two courses of thirty-two. The king had exacted tribute from far and wide, and the lavishness and magnificence of the food (provided from specially enlarged kitchens) was set off by a profusion of ‘subtleties’, those curious devices so beloved of the Burgundian tradition of royal feasting.
22
The wax ships were singled out for particular praise. It was ‘the most honorable feast that hath been seen’. And even when the banquet was over, there were still the closing ceremonies to get through before the queen was able to retire. It was nearly six o’clock. She had been ‘on parade’, almost continuously, for nine hours.

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