Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII's Obsession (6 page)
James Butler had been raised at the English court and Anne would almost certainly have met him shortly after her arrival in England. No details survive of the meeting between Butler and Anne but there is no evidence that they ever formed an attachment to each other. It appears that Anne quickly set her mind against the marriage, perhaps not relishing the prospect of banishment to Ireland. While the marriage had the approval of the king, it was gradually allowed to drift away and, by May 1523, Piers Butler had come round to the view that the marriage would not happen and he would need to defend his claim by force. It is likely that Thomas Boleyn, who always appeared lukewarm at the prospect of the match, had made difficulties, hoping to achieve the earldom for himself rather than the descendants of his daughter. Equally, it may have been Anne’s own behaviour that helped scupper the match and, as Anne’s biographer George Wyatt pointed out, ‘she was indeed a very wilful woman’.
Anne quickly decided that she would not marry James Butler. Although, for Anne, the Butler marriage was dead, negotiations dragged on for some time and she would have known that no other marriage would be arranged for her whilst this marriage retained the support of the king. Anne, as a sixteenth century woman, was very aware that her future prospects lay in making a good marriage and she immediately set about arranging such a marriage for herself. This was an entirely unusual step for a woman to take and one which, once again, shows Anne’s defiance of convention and her independent spirit.
Anne also had a high opinion of her worth and her choice of a husband fell on Henry Percy, heir to the earldom of Northumberland. Percy was a member of Wolsey’s household in 1522 and Anne would have seen him regularly, noting his attachment to her. The relationship moved fast, probably at Anne’s instigation and, according to William Cavendish, in his
Life of Wolsey:
‘My lord Percy, the son and heir of the Earl of Northumberland, then attended upon the Lord Cardinal, and was also his servitor. And when the lord Cardinal chanced at any time to go to the court the Lord Percy would then resort for his pastime unto the queen’s chamber, and there would fall in dalliance among the queen’s maidens, being at the last move conversant with Mistress Anne Boleyn than with any other. So that there grew such a secret love between them that at length they were engaged together, intending to marry’.
Percy fell completely in love with Anne, even to the extent of defying his father and entering into a secret engagement with her. Anne’s feelings for Percy are less clear. Certainly, a marriage with Henry Percy was a very grand match for her and one that would usually have been out of her reach. It is almost certain that the prospect of becoming Countess of Northumberland would have been the first consideration for the practical and ambitious Anne. However, it is possible that she also had feelings for Percy coincidental to the advantages of the match. Henry Percy was aged around twenty in 1522, a similar age to Anne and the couple may well have had interests in common. Anne’s enmity towards Wolsey also stems from his interference in this match. It is possible that she bore him a grudge for the loss of her future position as Countess of Northumberland. This would seem unlikely since, by the time she acted against the Cardinal, Anne knew that she would become queen. It seems more likely that Anne’s feelings were hurt by the Cardinal’s interference and the loss of her relationship with Percy.
Anne was pleased with the effect that she had on Henry Percy and she willingly entered into an engagement with him as soon as he asked. The exact nature of the engagement between Anne and Percy has often been debated and the formalities that they did or did not go through in establishing the connection would have a dramatic effect on their future lives. In 1532 Percy’s wife, Mary Talbot, whom he was forced to marry soon after the end of his relationship with Anne, claimed to the king that her husband had entered into a binding betrothal with Anne. The Percys’ marriage was notoriously unhappy and this was probably a move by the Countess to attempt to secure her own divorce on the basis that Anne had been precontracted to Percy. This was also something that would be raised, to much greater effect, in the days leading up to Anne’s death.
In the sixteenth century, a precontract was taken to be as binding as marriage and the existence of an earlier precontract was a legitimate ground for divorce. In 1483 Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was able to invalidate the marriage of his brother, Edward IV, on the basis that the king had earlier entered into a precontract. Given this security, precontracts were frequently consummated and Anne and Percy would both have considered themselves married following their engagement and it is likely that they also consummated their relationship.
Henry Percy, of all Anne’s earlier suitors, is the man that Anne Boleyn is most likely to have consummated her relationship with. It was the Percy engagement which kept coming back to haunt Anne in her later life and Anne, who was not prepared to throw herself away without a secure promise of marriage, may well have been prepared to consummate her relationship in the hope of concluding the marriage more quickly. This was certainly Anne’s tactic in her relationship with Henry VIII and, once she was certain that she would be married soon, Anne was happy to consummate her relationship to ensure that marriage was achieved more quickly.
There is also a tantalising hint that Anne was a woman with a past in her own correspondence. An unusual letter was written by Anne in 1532 before her marriage to Henry VIII. Anne wrote to a Lady Wingfield, who was probably a member of Henry’s court. In this letter Anne took an unusually subservient tone:
‘Madam, though at all times I have not shewed the love that I bear you as much as it were indeed, yet now I trust that you shall well prove that I loved you a great deal more than I made fayn for, and assuredly, next to mine own mother, I know no woman alive that I love better’.
Anne’s letter continues in the same tone and it is clear that she was anxious to remain on friendly terms with Lady Wingfield. The reason for Anne’s desperate need to keep Lady Wingfield friendly is not clear but it also appears that a deathbed confession by Lady Wingfield, of something that she knew about the queen, was used in the investigation into Anne that ultimately led to her arrest and execution. Lady Wingfield was, perhaps, present at court during Anne’s relationship with Henry Percy. She may have been friendly with Anne and learned the secret that Anne, considering her marriage to Percy to be a certainty, agreed to consummate the relationship. When Anne later became involved with the king this was a secret that she would have wanted to keep at all costs and there is no doubt that Anne’s relationship with Percy was used by the king when he wanted to be rid of her. As the example of one of Anne’s successors as Henry’s wife, Catherine Howard, shows, a lack of premarital chastity was a potential reason for removal from court, something that Anne would have wanted to avoid at all costs.
A question mark must certainly hang over whether or not the relationship between Anne and Percy was consummated, but it is possible. Be that as it may, however, the relationship itself was doomed. Anne probably hoped to be securely married to Percy before word of the attachment became commonly known. This was not to be and it ‘came to the king’s knowledge. Who was much offended’. It seems likely that the king, who in 1522 or 1523 had no interest in Anne, was angered by the match given the disparity between the potential bride and groom. He instructed Wolsey to break the engagement and Wolsey summoned Percy to him, rebuking him and ordering him to break off his attachment to Anne as she was beneath him in rank.
Faced by the wrath of the Cardinal, Henry Percy burst into tears. He did attempt to defend Anne, demonstrating his love for her. Percy, in spite of his terror, answered the Cardinal that:
‘I considered that I was of good years, and thought myself sufficient to provide myself with a convenient wife whereas my fancy served me best, not doubting but that my lord my father would have been right well persuaded. And though she be a simple maid, and has but a knight to her father, yet is she descended of right noble parentage. For by her mother she is near to the Norfolk blood: and on her father’s side lineally descended from the Earl of Ormond, he being one of the earl’s heirs general’.
Anne must have coached Percy in her family history. However, in spite of what Percy claimed, he knew full well that his father could never be persuaded to agree to the match. Wolsey was angered by Percy’s defiance and sent for his father. Percy might have had the courage to try to stand up to Wolsey but he was no match for his own father and the old Earl of Northumberland commanded Percy to break the engagement and whisked him away from court, marrying him quickly to Lady Mary Talbot.
Percy’s marriage to Mary Talbot was a much more suitable match for him as she was one of the daughters of the Earl of Shrewsbury but the marriage was notoriously unhappy and the couple separated after their only child was stillborn. Once Anne began her relationship with the king it also became very dangerous to stand as a possible impediment to her marriage and Percy would always strongly deny that there had been any precontract between them. In a letter written at the time of Anne’s fall, Percy, perhaps concerned that he might fall with her, wrote angrily to Thomas Cromwell refuting any suggestion of an engagement between him and Anne:
‘This shall be to signifie unto you that I perceive by Sir Raynold Carnaby, that there is supposed a precontract between the queen and me; whereupon I was not only heretofore examined upon my oath before the Archbishopps of Canterbury and York, but also received the blessed sacrament upon the same before the Duke of Norfolk, and other the king’s highnes’ council learned in the spiritual law; assuring you Mr Secretary by the said oath, and blessed body which affore I received, and hereafter intend to receive that the same may be to my damnation, if ever there were any contracte or promise of marriage between her and me’.
This letter was written on the day before Anne’s death and was an attempt by Percy to ensure that he was in no way implicated in her fall. At the time of his relationship with Anne he probably viewed matters between them very differently.
Percy may also, perhaps, have pined away without Anne and he spent the rest of his life suffering from ill health and invalidism. Percy was beset by some ailment throughout his adult life and in 1529 it was reported that his old disease had returned and that his death was expected. He was also ill in 1532, 1533 and 1534 and in February 1536 he reported that he had not left his chamber for more than a year. Percy outlived Anne, but only by a year, and died in his mid thirties. It is unclear what the nature of his illness was but it is possible that it was psychological.
While Percy pined for Anne, Anne herself must have been furious. According to Wolsey’s biographer, Cavendish, ‘Mistress Anne Boleyn was greatly offended with this, saying that if it lay ever in her power she would work the Cardinal as much displeasure as he had done her’. This is the origin of Anne’s enmity towards Cardinal Wolsey and she blamed him wholly for the loss of Henry Percy. She was however, not in a position to act against the Cardinal in 1522 or 1523 and she was sent away from court in disgrace. Anne’s relationship with Percy is the first indication of her independent mind and her ability to subvert the norms of society. It is also the first indication of just how attractive she was to men and she quickly had another admirer.
FAIR BRUNET
Anne must have felt humiliated and angry on her arrival at Hever following the end of her engagement to Henry Percy. She spent her time idly waiting for a summons back to court and the signal that she had been forgiven. For Anne, who was used to the glamour of the French court and the fast-pace of the English court, Hever must have seemed a tedious backwater. Her rustication to Hever did however allow her to reacquaint herself with a Kentish neighbour, Thomas Wyatt, and Anne was quick to embark on her next flirtation. Whatever Anne’s feelings for Henry Percy, she would have known that, following his marriage, he was lost to her forever.
Thomas Wyatt is the second man with whom Anne was romantically linked. He came from an old Kentish family associated with the Boleyns. His father, Sir Henry Wyatt, was a neighbour of Thomas Boleyn and they were both created knights of the Bath at Henry VIII’s coronation. They also shared the office of constable of Norwich castle from 1511, something which must have brought them and their respective families into contact with each other. Thomas Boleyn was also probably Thomas Wyatt’s godfather. No record of Anne and Wyatt’s early relationship exists but it is inconceivable that they would not have come into contact during Anne’s years of exile at Hever. The two families would have socialised regularly with each other when they were in the country and Anne may well have been attracted to Wyatt as a source of information about the court from which she was banished.
By 1525 Thomas Wyatt was a rising star at court and was held in high esteem by everyone there. He was a true renaissance figure: handsome, athletic and a poet. He was of a similar age to Anne and she is likely to have been flattered by his attentions. Wyatt also found himself fascinated by the exotic Anne and as well as being attracted to her appearance he was also intrigued by her ‘witty and graceful speech, his ear also had him chained unto her, so as finally his heart seemed to say, I would gladly yield to be tied for ever with the knot of love’. Wyatt may have offered his heart to Anne forever but both she and he would have been well aware that he could offer Anne nothing so permanent. In spite of his profession of undying love for Anne, Wyatt was already married.
Anne knew full well that Wyatt was married and, according to her biographer, Wyatt’s own grandson, she rejected him outright because of this. She did this gently, still enjoying a flirtation with him and knowing that Wyatt’s attentions ‘might the rather occasion others to turn their looks to that which a man of his worth was brought to gaze at in her’. Anne was, after all, still looking for a husband and Wyatt’s interest would have served to increase the interest of other more eligible men. She may also still have been grieving for her forced separation from Henry Percy and a flirtation with Wyatt would have taken her mind off her loss. Wyatt’s visits to Kent also provided a useful distraction to Anne from her life in the country. The wait must have seemed endless but, at last, the summons to court came and by late 1525 or early 1526 Anne Boleyn was back in the household of Queen Catherine. She did not forget her friendship with Wyatt however and their flirtation continued upon her return to court.