My opinion is the dissolution of your houses to fall upon you for your just demerits as a deserved plague from Almighty God, who abhorring your lewdness, derideth your blind ignorance.
But her final menace before she walked out also offered a glimpse of hope:
Until such time as you shall cleanse and purify your corrupt life and doctrine, God will not cease to send his plagues upon you to your utter subversion.
37
The abbots responded to the hint by offering the queen substantial cash sums to support preachers and scholars, and also the right to present to many of the best livings in their gift, and Anne appointed ‘certain trusty men’ to manage matters. Precisely when this visit took place is not clear. Latymer implies that it was an attempt to block the passage of the Dissolution Bill, but since he says that what was agreed was aborted by Anne’s death, the episode most probably postdated the passage of the legislation through parliament in March.
38
Securing the Dissolution Bill did not, however, mean that Cromwell was now safe. The Crown had probably always envisaged saving certain religious houses, so the Act had included a provision for Henry to reprieve any he wished. Given Anne’s opposition, that clause now became a real hostage to fortune. The minister could never count on being in a position always to block the queen’s persuasions, and the horrendous possibility threatened that Anne would urge Henry to make substantial exemptions for educational purposes.
39
What was worse, Cromwell’s relationship with Anne had been fatally damaged. If we are to believe Chapuys, he may actually have tried to moderate the dissolution somewhat, no doubt in an attempt to preserve his links with the queen, but secularization had the king’s active support and Henry gave him short shrift.
40
Now Cromwell could not possibly withdraw. Yet if he persisted, he would be in Wolsey’s predicament — facing a hostile Anne with a unique hold over Henry. He had seen her lead a putsch against the cardinal. Would he be next?
Anne, indeed, may already have begun trying to subvert secularization. If the abbots’ visit did take place after the Bill had passed both houses of parliament, then their real object was to conciliate Anne in the hope of future support for exemptions.
41
If so, Anne was colluding in illegality since for heads of houses to convert assets in the way Latymer describes was directly contrary to the statute. Certainly, as soon as the Act was passed, Anne was asked to secure the continuation of the Yorkshire convent of Nun Monkton.
42
It is also possible that it was Anne who offered Henry 2000 marks to reprieve the convent at Catesby.
43
That these were probably not the only examples is suggested by a subsequent exchange between Henry and Jane Seymour, which was retailed to Jean du Bellay by an English correspondent. When his new queen pleaded for the preservation of religious houses, the king responded brusquely that she should ‘attend to other things, reminding her that the last Queen had died in consequence of meddling too much in state affairs’.
44
Cromwell’s estrangement from Anne Boleyn was exacerbated by problems in foreign policy. An imminent French threat to the imperial position in Italy had created a powerful incentive for Charles V to compose differences with England. With his aunt Katherine no longer in the way, Anne was less of an offence to the Habsburg family, and the emperor intervened early in the year to block publication of the papal sentence depriving Henry of his throne. Charles’s policy was now to tie England to the Empire by establishing the claim of his cousin Mary to be heir presumptive to the English crown. This meant that he had somehow to deal with the obstacle of Elizabeth, who by statute stood in the way. Assuming, as he always had, that Anne was the king’s mistress, Charles decided to behave accordingly and buy her out. Instructions were sent to Chapuys to do a deal with ‘the concubine’ and, if necessary, to use Cromwell as an intermediary to get the best possible terms, with either Mary recognized as the heir or the succession left in suspense.
45
It might even be in Charles’s interest to see Anne and Henry stay together, because that would prevent a subsequent French marriage. Thus at Rome in March 1536 the emperor offered the English ambassador, in return for the legitimation of Mary, imperial support for ‘the continuance of this last matrimony or otherwise’ as Henry wished.
46
In England too, opinion was swinging towards a
rapprochement
with the emperor, and Anne and her supporters made common cause with it.
47
It would do no harm for the queen to adopt a more pro-imperial stance and so neutralize the damaging assumption that she was in Francis I’s pocket, and so too the fear that her presence spelled danger to the vital economic links with the Habsburg Low Countries. Other factions supporting the same line had different motives. Carewe, though also a Francophile, saw a change to an imperial alliance as a first step towards reversing the policies and removing the personalities of recent years. Yet whatever the motives, the approach was generally supported, and after a series of detailed discussions between Cromwell and Chapuys, negotiations reached their climax at a meeting at Greenwich between the ambassador and the king himself on 18 April, the Tuesday after Easter.
48
On arrival at court that day, Chapuys was effusively welcomed by George Boleyn, and Cromwell brought a message from Henry, inviting him to visit Anne and kiss her hand. The ambassador excused himself — that was going too far, too fast — but Rochford conducted him to mass and to a far more public encounter with the queen. Anne accompanied Henry from the royal pew down to the chapel to make her offering, and knowing that Chapuys was placed behind the door through which she entered, she stopped, turned and bowed to this representative of the Empire, and necessarily he responded likewise. After mass, Chapuys was careful not to go with the king and the other ambassadors to dine with Anne, but again it was her brother who entertained him in the presence chamber, while Anne, having enquired for Chapuys, gave deliberate vent to a series of remarks that were highly critical of France. These were duly carried back to the envoy. After dinner, Henry took Chapuys for a lengthy personal conversation in the privacy of a window embrasure in his own room, observed from a distance only by Cromwell and Audley.
At this stage, however, the ambassador sensed that something was wrong. His negotiations with Cromwell had been on an imperial proposal which envisaged the possibility of a restoration of some relations between England and Rome, the inclusion of Mary in the line of succession, and military support for Charles V in the expected war with France over Milan. The king, however, now showed himself distinctly cool to the package. Why this was is nowhere recorded, but the invitation earlier in the day to kiss Anne’s hand suggests that Henry was expecting unconditional recognition of his marriage, and certainly nothing about recognition for Mary. Although Cromwell had been willing to discuss that with Chapuys and for months had been treating the princess with increasing respect and courtesy, Henry’s refusal to countenance the slightest recognition of his first marriage was absolute. Chapuys’ suspicion that the ministers were out of step with Henry became stronger when he withdrew and watched the king in deep debate with Cromwell and Audley. By now Edward Seymour was in the room, and as the ambassador made polite conversation with him, he saw Henry and Cromwell beginning to dispute angrily, to the point where Cromwell had to excuse himself, claiming he needed a drink, and sat on a chest out of the king’s sight in order to recover his temper. Henry then moved out into the room to see what had become of Cromwell and to tell Chapuys that he had to have everything in writing. When, in accordance with his instructions, the envoy demurred at this, the king turned on him and started to mimic an adult calling to a child, declaring that he was not an infant to be alternately whipped then petted; it was for the emperor first to apologize to him for his past ill-treatment. Henry then began to rake up grievances against Charles which were ten years old and more, until he talked himself to a standstill. In the end, all the king would agree to was to look at the texts of existing treaties between England and the Empire, and Chapuys left the court to compare wounds with Cromwell who, like Audley, had listened to the king’s tirade in silence.
Cromwell professed himself completely baffled by the king’s behaviour, but one thing stands out clearly.
49
Despite the agreement between all factions to back an imperial alliance, Henry remained prepared to haggle. Cromwell told Chapuys that at a council meeting the day after this exhibition of royal obstinacy, every councillor went on his knees to persuade him to continue negotiations.
50
Yet neither minister nor ambassador should really have been surprised. Already at Christmas the king had expressed to Chapuys his reservations about a
rapprochement
with Charles.
51
Astute as he was in foreign affairs, Henry was clearly interested in a deal with the Empire and knew very well that he would not, in the end, get even a diplomatic apology for past wrongs. But by being difficult he hoped to use the fear of a renewed Anglo-French axis to compel Charles to accept an alliance without domestic conditions, and so tacitly accept that Henry had the right to settle his own affairs himself — religious, matrimonial and parental. And to achieve this Anne had to remain his wife, and his daughter Mary a bastard. Hence the king’s offer, late in 1535, of an imperial marriage for Elizabeth, and when feelers put out by Cromwell brought no response, Henry broached the matter to the ambassador himself.
52
Likewise, Chapuys’ visit to court on 18 April was clearly stage-managed to compel the ambassador to recognize Anne, and his bow to her did cause great annoyance and apprehension among Mary’s supporters.
53
The treatment of Francis I was all of a piece with this. He was urged into war with Charles, but at the same time maximum concessions were demanded for guarantees of English support. This, in turn, allowed Henry to up the price to Charles for England remaining neutral.
54
Francis I, however, was hard to handle. The English learned that he had in his possession a copy of the papal decree depriving Henry of the throne, something which Charles was obstructing, but which it might suit the French to publish in order to secure the support of the pope for their interests in Italy.
55
By the last week of April the council was sitting every day to decide what to do — whether to call the French bluff and hold out for complete victory over Charles, or whether to clinch the imperial alliance on somewhat looser terms.
56
Far from the issue of April 1536 being ‘When will Anne go and how?’, Henry was exploiting his second marriage to force Europe to accept that he had been right all along. As late as 30 April he was briefing his ambassadors in France in order to increase the pressure on the emperor .
57
According to Chapuys, Cromwell was hard hit by the king’s obstinacy and took to his bed, and there is no denying the spot the minister was in.
58
As early as June 1535 he had suggested to the ambassador that if Anne knew how close their relations were, she would have his head.
59
At the end of that year Henry had cautioned Chapuys that Cromwell was exceeding his authority, a point which Cromwell himself admitted later (although subsequently he retracted and did try to claim that his overtures had the king’s approval). On the other hand, the minister was clear that England had to switch to an imperial alliance. He had invested a great deal in the negotiations with Chapuvs, and there can be no doubt what his position was in the council debates on the value which might or might not remain in a French alliance. As yet Cromwell was unaware of Charles’s new readiness to change tack, and the imperial climb-down over Anne Boleyn which the king was demanding must have seemed an impossibility. And, so he told Chapuys, his negotiations for an imperial alliance were again raising suspicions in Henry’s mind.
60
Cromwell would even lose the chance of building credit with those who wanted that alliance as much as he did, if he had to cool discussions in an attempt to force from Charles the concessions the king sought.
By the middle of April, therefore, Anne Boleyn had become a major threat to Thomas Cromwell. If his only problem had been the disagreement over foreign affairs, the minister could, perhaps, have remained sanguine. His customary neat footwork might well have distanced him from Chapuys, and he certainly absorbed the lesson that Mary’s illegitimacy was non-negotiable. But following Anne’s public attack on monastic secularization, this diplomatic difficulty was the last straw.
There were political consequences too. With Anne alienated, he would have few allies to fall back on. No longer would he be able to rely on the rest of the Boleyn faction and their vital role in the privy chamber. No minister under threat could expect staff there to risk their own careers for him — as Cromwell himself was to prove when he fell from royal favour in 1540. Furthermore, despite his current mastery of government policy and administration, the minister was in the second division when compared with the personal favour and private influence wielded by a man like Henry Norris. To Norris, Rochford and the senior members of the privy chamber circle, Cromwell was a functionary — someone who might from time to time be awkward and drag his feet, someone it was important to cultivate because of his mastery of the bureaucratic machine, but in the end a man who in their world of patronage, intrigue and profit would do whatever they could persuade the king to command, if necessary by enlisting Anne. Thus, although the Boleyn group in the privy chamber had been an asset to him, as long as they were there, Cromwell would always be constrained. Ambition as well as self-preservation therefore argued that he might be better off if the queen was out of the way, and that option, in the person of Jane Seymour, now appeared a realistic possibility for the first time since Anne’s marriage.
61