The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (77 page)
38
Wyatt,
Poems,
L. ‘answer’ = ‘An’er’ = Anna.
40
Harrier,
Canon,
pp. 204-5. R. M. Warnicke denies that ‘Brunet’ refers to Anne: ‘the brunette could have been his wife or anyone else from Kent’:
Rise and Fall,
p. 253. It is hard to discover any other brunette who made a stir in Kent equal to Anne, or imagine why otherwise Wyatt would change the verse.
41
Muir,
Life and Letters of Wyatt,
pp. 37, 85. The relationship existed by at least 1536-7.
42
Thomson,
Wyatt and his Background,
pp. 194, 196-200.
43
Wyatt,
Poems,
VII; ‘sithens’ = seeing that; George Wyatt implies that Anne adopted the motto ‘I am Caesar’s all, let none else touch me’, no doubt on the authority of this poem by his grandfather: George Wyatt, Papers, p. 185.
44
See pp. 77, 140; the courtier is never named but has been assumed to be Wyatt: Muir,
Life and Letters of Wyatt,
p. 22.
45
He was, however, rusticated later in life.
46
The court was at Greenwich.
47
Cal. S. P. Span., 1529-30,
p. 535.
48
Muir,
Life and Letters of Wyatt,
pp. 22-3.
49
The text reads: ‘the Lady Anne’s father and mother were in the court eight miles from Greenwich, where as everybody knows, they had taken up residence.’ This is possibly a confusion for ‘in the court at Greenwich, eight miles from where ...’ although Hever is actually 28 miles from Greenwich. Alternatively, the author may suppose that the Boleyns resided at Greenwich and had gone to join the court at, say, Whitehall (8 miles by river).
50
Muir,
Life and Letters of Wyatt,
pp. 66, 200-2.
51
Alternatively the story could be an insertion by the anonymous author.
52
Harpsfield,
Pretended Divorce
, p. 253.
53
Harpsfield,
More,
p. 341.
56
Harpsfield,
More,
pp. clxxvii, clxxx; Sander,
Schism
, p. 201.
59
The initial accusation against Katherine Howard was made to counsellors and Henry did dismiss the report as slander and assert his wife’s innocence.
60
George Wyatt, in
Wolsey,
ed. Singer, pp. 430-1, claims that Sander’s original was a story in which Francis Bryan told Henry of his own prior relationship with a lady the king was pursuing (not Anne); see also
Papers
, pp. 182-5.
61
Cavendish,
Metrical Visions,
p. 43; NB the pun: ‘queen’/‘quean’.
Chapter 6 A Royal Suitor
2
George Wyatt, in
Wolsey,
ed. Singer, pp. 426-7. The courtly setting suggests Anne Zouche as the source rather than Jane Wyatt, who was a girl at this date:
Narratives of the Reformation
, p. 52.
4
She must have been born not later than c.1510; George Wyatt was born in 1554. He implies [in
Wolsey,
ed. Singer, p. 422] that his mother was dead, and she was probably alive in 1595 [George Wyatt, Papers, p. 10]. Wyatt’s ‘Life’ certainly postdated Sander,
Schism
(1585).
6
Brewer,
Henry VIII,
ii. 162; Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII,
p. 152.
7
He occasionally shared her bed for appearance’s sake.
8
Henry told different stories about the origin of his doubts [Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII,
pp. 152-4]. The two versions differ in detail, but the claim that the French raised the question of Mary’s status during marriage negotiations was never denied. English attempts to keep the knowledge of French objections from the emperor strongly suggest that Paris had raised the matter. Charles was concerned lest a divorce would permit Henry to contract a menacing marriage with a French princess.
9
Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII,
p. 154.
10
Cal.
S. P. Ven., 1520-26, 1037, 1053.
11
Henry believed that the original Hebrew read ‘without sons’: V. Murphy, in
Henry VIII,
ed. MacCulloch, p. 139.
12
See p. 96. Richard Fox was consulted in April: ibid. p. 135. Henry may have begun distancing himself from Katherine at the end of 1526. It took the imperial ambassador two months from late December to see the queen privately. However, the diplomatic situation could account for this:
Cal. S. P. Span.
,
1527-29,
17, 110, 116.
13
J. Gairdner, ‘New light on the divorce of Henry VIII’, in
EHR,
11 (1896), 685; Herbert,
Henry VIII,
p. 393.
15
Love Letters
, pp. 40-1 [
LP,
iv.3220].
16
Ibid., pp. 38-9 [
LP
, iv.3219]. The letter ends with a cryptogram which can be transcribed variously. For one hypothesis, see Starkey,
Six Wives,
p. 281.
17
Ibid., pp. 32-4 [LP, iv.3218].
18
Knecht,
Francis
I, p. 192.
19
BL, Sloane MS 2495, f. 3; George Wyatt, in
Wolsey,
ed. Singer, p. 426.
20
Love Letters
, pp. 29-30 [LP, iv.3326].
21
Chaucer,
Roman de la Rose
, line 4385.
22
Love Letters
, pp. 34-6 [LP, iv.3325]: last line = ‘looks for no other’.
23
Ibid., pp. 27-8 [
LP,
iv.3221].
24
Ibid., pp. 41-3 [
LP
, iv.4537].
25
The later letters can be dated by internal evidence.
26
Cal. S. P. Span., 1527-29,
p. 432.
28
Quoted in J. Lingard,
History of England
(1855), iv.237 n. 3. The temporary banqueting house erected for the occasion was decorated with ‘H’ and ‘K’: Hall,
Chronicle,
p. 722.
29
Cal. S. P. Ven., 1527-33,
236.
30
Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII,
p. 149; David Starkey also suggests that Henry had had his eye on Anne from the winter of 1524-5: Six Wives, pp. 277-82.
31
Ibid., p. 282; see n.17, above.
32
Reginald Pole,
Pro Ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione
(Ingolstadt, 1587), f. lxxvi.
33
The etymology appears to be via the sense ‘to give a blow’. W. von Warburg,
Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch,
xii.294-5. I am grateful to Professor Peter Ricketts for his generous help on this matter.
34
Hall,
Chronicle
, p. 707. This could suggest that Henry began his pursuit of Anne soon after finishing with her sister.
35
The buck mentioned in the first letter suggests a date in the ‘grease season’, i.e. late summer and autumn.
37
RO, SP1/66, ff. 39-45 [LP, v.276].
38
Confirmation of the year is provided by the reference to 29 Feb. [f. 42v] which dates the document to either 1527-8 or 1531-2. There is a reference to Henry at Hampton Court on 3 Dec. which might suggest 1531, but the Beaulieu coincidence seems conclusive.
39
Love Letters
, pp. 36-7 [
LP,
iv.4742].
40
For Suffolk’s complicated exploitation of matrimonial law, see Gunn,
Brandon,
pp. 28-9, 95; Brewer,
Henry VIII,
i.95 n. 3.
41
Love Letters
, pp. 27-8, 46, 39-40, 48 [
LP,
iv.3221, 3990, 4410, 4894].
42
LP,
iv.4206:
Love Letters,
p. 48 [
LP,
iv.4894];
Cal. S. P. Span., 1527-29, p. 789.
Chapter 7 A Marriage Arranged
1
In general, for the following see Scarisbrick,
Henry VIII,
pp. 147-228.
3
Shakespeare reduces the episode to an emotional plea. For a modern account see Starkey, Six
Wives
, 240-2.
4
Cal. S. P.
Span., 7527-29, pp. 789, 831;
LP,
iv.App.206.
5
Ibid., iv.4942;
Cal. S. P. Span., 1527- 29,
p. 845; Hall,
Chronicle,
p. 754.
7
Love Letters
, p. 46 [LP, iv.3990].
8
Ibid., p. 47 [
LP,
iv.4597, a dating which assumes that the ‘book’ he was working on was not the one taken to Rome by Fox and Gardiner: ibid., iv.4120];
Love Letters
, pp. 46-7 [
LP,
4539].
9
Ibid., pp. 36-7, 48 [
LP,
iv.4742, 4894].
10
Pocock,
Records,
i.120-35, 141-55.
11
For the mixed reaction to Henry’s speech, see Hall’s eyewitness comment:
Chronicle,
p. 755.
12
Cal. S. P. Span., 1527-29,
pp. 845-6.
13
It may be at this time that Henry made an attempt to have renewed sexual relations with Katherine:
LP,
iv.4981.
14
Love Letters
, p. 37 [
LP,
iv.4648].
15
Ambassades de du Bellay,
171 at p. 481 [
LP,
iv.5016].
16
Strickland,
Queens of England,
ii.205.
17
Ambassades de du Bellay,
178 at p. 518 [
LP,
iv.5063].
18
Hall,
Chronicle
, p. 756. Campeggio had been a widower when he entered the Church.
19
Cavendish,
Wolsey,
p. 35.
20
Ibid., pp. 259-62; cf. W. Forrest,
The History of Griselda the Second,
ed. W. D. Macray (Roxburghe Club, 1875).
21
BL, Sloane MS 2495, f. 2v. The Latin MS edited by C. Bémont under the title
Le premier divorce de Henri
VIII,
fragment d‘une chronique
(Paris, 1917) agrees, but is not independent of the Sloane MS.
22
George Wyatt, in
Wolsey
, ed. Singer, p. 428. He does not mention Anne Zouche as the source; cf. ibid., p. 429.