The senior men of the household, according to later stories, were forced to keep a wary eye out for their mistress, who would intervene in person if things went awry. William Latymer, one of her chaplains, recalled that, as soon as she had set up her household, she called her ‘council and other officers’ to a formal meeting, where she lectured them on their duties. Her first requirements, he remembered, were honour, equity and justice, and value for money: ‘such mediocrity [balance] that neither sparely pinching, nor prodigally consuming, may restrain you from the golden mean of frugal expending.’ Since we would have expected Latymer to see true religion as the first priority, we may take his story as genuine. Virtue, however, was not to be neglected, especially among the lower members of the court, who were to attend chapel daily, behave with propriety, and keep away from ‘infamous places’ and ‘evil, lewd and ungodly disposed brothels’. Persistent offenders were to be sacked and barred from the court for life, ‘to their utter shame’.
52
Nor was Anne’s direction merely verbal. We know of an actual case where she intervened to get the bill of her supplier of cheese and butter paid.
53
Remarkably, we have for the whole period of Anne Boleyn’s marriage a continuous record of the relationship with this court of one couple - Arthur, Viscount Lisle, and his wife, Honor - and of their attempt to build up and exploit a relationship with the queen in every possible way. To the good fortune of the historian, Lord Lisle’s posting to Calais as lord deputy necessarily meant not only that many things which in England might have been left to word of mouth had to be put down on paper, but that there was a positive demand for a steady flow of news and gossip to keep starved exiles in the swim. By then Lady Lisle had been close to Anne for some time, and it was in her entourage that she got her first sight of Calais in October 1532.
54
Her last engagement before returning there in June 1533 was undoubtedly to take part in the queen’s coronation procession.
55
Once in Calais, Honor Lisle became meticulous in ensuring that she was recommended whenever possible to the queen and to the ladies of the court - out of sight was certainly not going to be out of mind if she could help it. A series of luxuries and elegant presents crossed the channel at suitable intervals, such as a dozen and a half dotterels (a special treat, and taken live to Dover so as to arrive fresh) accompanied with a linnet in a cage.
56
Lady Lisle’s favourite dog had to go the same way to obtain one favour, with some of the kudos going to Francis Bryan, the intermediary.
57
Anne became very fond of the animal, as Margery Horsman explained to Lady Lisle almost a year later: ‘The queen’s grace setteth much store by a pretty dog, and her grace delighted so much in little Purkoy that after he was dead of a fall there durst nobody tell her grace of it, till it pleased the king’s highness to tell her grace of it.’
58
Evidently the suggestion was that Purquoy should be replaced - with a dog, not a bitch, Mrs Horsman insisted - but subsequent advice was that the queen did not want another.
59
The proposal some months later of a monkey was firmly turned down. Anne could not abide the sight of them.
60
The Lisle correspondence preserves an informative vignette of the business of new year’s gifts, seen from the point of view of the Lisle agent, John Hussey:
On New Year’s even, by the advice of Mr. Taylor the queen’s receiver, I delivered your gift unto her grace by the hands of Mr Receiver. And I then being in [the] place where her grace’s New Year gifts were appointing, her grace came in, and asked me how your ladyship did, and how you liked Calais. To which I answered that your ladyship did like it well, and that you humbly recommended you unto her grace, praying God to send her grace many good New Years.
61
From all points of view this was a perfect occasion - a gift and its accompanying sentiments graciously received, and the attention of the recipient to the giver caught, if only for a moment. And Anne confirmed the renewed bond by a gift to Honor Lisle of a pair of gold beads, with tassels, weighing three ounces, and that value even greater since they were ‘of her grace’s own wearing’.
62
It was soon after this that Lady Lisle decided that she must secure from the queen a livery kirtle to demonstrate that, though on detached duty with her husband, she was properly part of Anne’s household.
63
A present of cloth, specially chosen and then submitted for approval beforehand to Taylor, the receiver-general, reminded Anne of Lady Lisle, and the promise was graciously given. It was, however, a year before the kirtle was actually supplied, partly because the queen had to select a suitable one, but more because Taylor saw delay as a means to further with the Lisles the interests of his relative, George Gainsford. Although Lady Lisle was always careful to keep in with the queen’s attendants with periodic messages and tokens, in this case Taylor forbade any inducement to the wardrobe staff to expedite the gift, so that Hussey found himself ‘driven off’ five times in six days. Even when Hussey, it seems, slipped the staff a bolt of cambric behind the receiver’s back, everything had to wait for Taylor’s elegant note of apology - he had, he said, been away - and even then it would be two months before the livery was actually handed over on 18 March to another of the Lisle servants, Thomas Warley:
This day in the morning I had a token of Mistress Margery that the kirtle should be delivered to me in the queen’s grace wardrobe, where upon sight of the said token I received the said kirtle, which is of cloth of gold paned ... After I had received the kirtle I returned to the queen’s chamber to give thanks to Mistress Margery, and to know if she would anything to your ladyship, which as [she] then was returned into the privy chamber, so that since, I could not speak to her. But, God willing, I intend to be at the court tomorrow... And if it may please your ladyship to send a letter to Mistress Margery and another to Mr. George Taylor, giving them thanks for their pains, as your ladyship knows better what is to be done than my simpleness can advise you ... Also that it may please your ladyship to remember them of the queen’s wardrobe, as shall be your pleasure.
64
‘Royal patronage’ was definitely not a simple business of asking and receiving. It is sad that after such endeavours to secure so magnificent a garment, Lady Lisle could only have worn it for a matter of weeks; after May Day 1536, there was no value in the livery of a disgraced queen.
To the influence that Anne exercised personally must be added her importance as a rich woman. This gave her not only economic power but social authority. One glimpse of this is revealed in a mix-up of instructions about settling a local dispute in Worcestershire; her attorney-general was issuing contrary orders to those her council had already issued, so that her officers on the spot were being ‘dishonested’.
65
Her estate began with the grant in the summer of 1532 of the manors of Hanworth and Cold Kennington, and this was followed up in October by additional lands to support her new status as lady marquis of Pembroke.
66
On 1 January 1533 came the gift of almost a hundredweight of silver plate, mostly gilt.
67
Three months later, further grants transferred lands and revenues that had, till then, been held by Katherine of Aragon as part of her jointure, and in the following year parliament confirmed these to Anne as her dower and jointure.
68
Taken together, the grants accumulated in 1532 and 1533 made Anne wealthier than Katherine had been or any of Henry’s future wives would be.
69
A good deal of her income came in fee farms charged on particular properties, but a proportion arose from estates which Anne was given to administer and exploit.
70
The statute which vested this extra property in the new queen also cancelled all existing offices and leases except where these were straight economic contracts, in which case titleholders were given until the autumn to establish that they were exempt from this resumption. The measure (which had the immediate effect of negating all the favours granted by Katherine) raised a number of eyebrows, but we would be wrong to see it primarily as a political move.
71
Even someone as obviously committed to Katherine as Sir Edward Neville of the privy chamber was confirmed by Anne in the tenancy he had had from her predecessor.
72
The resumption seems, in fact, to have had a primarily economic intention - squeezing more money from the tenants - and a number of papers have survived from what was obviously a serious attempt at tighter management. There was a detailed settlement of accounts to March 1533 with Katherine’s receiver, and a careful note of outstanding liabilities. A complete list of annuitants was prepared as well.
73
That Anne herself was directly involved in what was going on is clear from a memorandum evidently drawn up for a discussion with her.
74
It brought the queen up to date with the activities of her council, which directed and supervised the commissioners actually involved in the resettlement of the tenancies, and it listed major policy issues which required her decision. Thus she was asked what she wanted done with former tenants of Katherine who were offering good terms for the renewal of title, what the policy should be towards applicants for replacement leases who missed the Michaelmas deadline, and what the position was of those who had offered an increased rent instead of a lump sum cash down. All this makes it very much more likely that Anne herself had been similarly involved in the ripple of activity which had followed the grant to her of the lands to support her new dignity as marquis of Pembroke in September 1532.
75
A commission of her men had taken immediate possession of the properties and set to work on a detailed survey of the estates, which was completed by the following March.
Unfortunately, the only complete summary of Anne’s finances to survive is for the year 1534-5, without the detailed accounts from which it was compiled.
76
Nevertheless it does provide a general outline of her expenditure. It shows that Taylor, her receiver-general, had to account in that year for
£
6381 8
s
. 9¾
d
. Of this,
£
4423 3s. 1¾
d
. came from her English estates, and
£
633 13
s
. 10
d
. from Wales, a total of
£
5056 16
s
. 11¾
d
. from lands overall. Taylor received the remainder,
£
1324 11
s.,
from the queen’s ‘coffers’, clearly to fund expenditure at seasons when the flow of rents proved inadequate for day-to-day expenses. This shows that already, after only two and a half years of marriage, Anne’s reserves were at least equivalent to 25 per cent of her annual income. In fact they were evidently more, for at the end of the 1534-5 account Taylor returned
£2508
13
s
. 1½
d
. to the coffers, a net surplus of
£
1184, or over 20 per cent, on this one year. As this implies, Anne was as yet not saddled with many bad debts or arrears; Taylor had to carry forward a net liability for a mere
£
32.
On the expenditure side, both the ‘Wardrobe of the Robes’ and the ‘Wardrobe of the Beds’ cost surprisingly little. The Robes, which is where Honor Lisle’s livery kirtle would eventually have been charged, expended only some
£
69, the Beds even less,
£
44. These amounts might suggest that 1534-5 was a freak year, but it is much more probable that these two departments paid bills only after considerable delay. At the time of Anne’s death, eight months into the next financial year, the Robes owed over
£
500 and the Beds
£
166. The Stables, by contrast, owed only
£
157 whereas its 1534-5 costs had been nearly
£
600. Clearly it was only one quarter in arrears — fodder merchants had to be paid.
77
Almost
£
1000 went on Wages and Annuities, with nearly £200 on Gifts and Rewards - a further useful reminder of the patronage at the queen’s disposal, which, as we have noted, meant for her, as well as for lesser lords, income as well as the exercise of favour. Even Thomas Cromwell had had to pay
£
99 15s. for his post as high steward.
78
Also in the category of patronage and good lordship must be put the ‘rewards for New Year’s gifts’ which amounted to more than
£
250 in all, although once again there was some quid pro quo in the form of gifts received. It may be, however, that although the custom was that the king gave and very often received plate at the new year, plate was less the rule in the queen’s household. The Manners family, for instance, continued to give Anne elaborately embroidered clothing — frontlets and sleeves — as they had before her marriage, and the gifts of the queen’s ladies to Henry were certainly of the same personal sort.
79
In 1534 Anne’s mother gave him a velvet case embroidered with the royal arms, containing six collars, three worked with gold and three with silver; her sister-in-law, Lady Rochford, presented a shirt with a collar of silver work.
80
Anne’s first gifts to her ladies as queen were palfreys and saddles. In that case too, Anne’s choice seem to have been agreed in advance with Henry himself.
81