Six Wives (69 page)

    The Progress began on 4 July. Henry and Anne stayed at Waltham Abbey for five days and then, on the 9th, continued to Hunsdon. The King, the Venetian ambassador reported, 'will proceed, hunting and amusing himself as far as "Nourgam" (Nottingham) . . . and then return by another road, at the end of September'. 'He is accompanied solely by the French ambassador,' he added.
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    The plan, it seems, was for another long Progress, in which one of the areas of the country least sympathetic to innovation –
any
innovation – would gradually get accustomed to Anne.

    According to Chapuys's gleeful report, the plan backfired and the Progress had to be abandoned by the end of July. 'The King was on his way to the Northern parts', he wrote in his despatch of 29 July, 'when he suddenly changed his purpose and came back to town.' The reason was popular reaction. 'Wherever he went accompanied by the Lady, the people on the road so earnestly requested him to recall the Queen, his wife, and the women especially so insulted the Royal mistress, hooting and hissing on her passage, that he was actually obliged to retrace his steps.'

    The story was of course just what Chapuys wanted to hear. But he had the grace to report, as hot news, another explanation. 'I heard yesterday, and again today . . . that the chief cause of the King's sudden return is that he wishes to be prepared for the interview, now in contemplation, between himself and the King of France, at Calais, on the last day of September.' The source, Chapuys added, was 'very authentic'.
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    It was indeed.

    We learn full details from De La Pommeraye, who, as we have seen, was on the Progress. Ever since they had left Greenwich, he reported on 21 July, the King had made him good cheer and used him familiarly. 'All day long', he wrote, 'I am alone with him in the chase.' During the hunt, 'he discusses with me all his [private] affairs' and he takes 'as much trouble to give me good sport as though I were some great personage'.

    From Henry's point of view, of course, he
was
a great personage. As Francis's ambassador, he represented the King himself. And it was Francis whom Henry was trying to charm into agreeing to the proposed interview. The interview itself, as it happened, was conceded rather easily. But Henry would have preferred the world to think that it was Francis, not he, who had suggested the idea. He even tried to persuade De La Pommeraye that Francis should appear to be the suppliant by coming first to visit him at Calais. But here Pommeraye drew the line. It was against his master's honour, he said flatly. Finally, after weeks of wheedling, Henry had to admit defeat. The terms of the interview were agreed and it was Henry who was to pay the first visit to Francis on his own territory at Boulogne.

    But Henry also had another agendum. It was more secret and more important, and he did not trust himself as negotiator. Instead, he deliberately threw the ambassador into Anne's company. And she, if anything, outdid the King in her kind attentions.

    'Sometimes', De La Pommeraye informed his correspondent, the French minister Montmorency, 'he puts my Lady Anne and me, each with our crossbow, to wait for the deer to cross our path, as you know this fashion of hunting.' 'On other occasions', he reported, 'she and I are together, quite alone, in some other place, to watch the deer run.' Anne had even supplied him with a brand-new set of hunting equipment, making 'me a present of a hunting frock, hat, horn and greyhound'.

    According to De La Pommeraye, Anne was simply doing what Henry instructed her to do. From what we have seen of Anne's personality, this does not seem very likely. In fact, Anne wanted the interview with Francis at least as much as Henry. Above all, she wanted to be there herself. And getting her there was the object of
her
wooing of De La Pommeraye.

    She was not so foolish, of course, as to ask directly. Instead, she would have chosen her moment and her point of attack with strategic care. It was, we can guess, one of those moments when she and De La Pommeraye were alone. There was, perhaps, a lull in the sport and maybe the quiet of the forest in the late summer afternoon seemed to invite confidence. She had something very secret to tell him, she whispered. But first he must promise never to reveal his source. He promised. She was, she continued, an ardent friend of France. But many of Henry's friends and councillors were not, and persisted in their hostility to the traditional enemy. Here she lowered her voice still further. Henry himself, she disclosed, wavered. But one thing would bind him to Francis forever. What was that, the ambassador asked eagerly. She hesitated before replying. Then she overwhelmed him in a burst of apparently artless confidence. Let Francis write to Henry to invite
her
to the meeting and all would be well. And it would be even better if Francis's sister, Marguerite of Angoulême, came too. She had such happy memories of her and so longed to see her again!

    Those famous coal-black eyes smouldered and De La Pommeraye, gallant Frenchman that he was, did what they ordered.

    'Monseigneur,' he wrote to Montmorency, 'I know reliably and from a good source that the greatest favour which the King [Francis] could do to the King his brother and to my Lady Anne, is that our Sovereign Lord should write to me that I should request King Henry to bring Lady Anne with him to Calais, in order that Francis could see her and entertain her.' In return, Francis must bring Marguerite of Angoulême to entertain Henry. 'I do not reveal my sources', Pommeraye explained, 'because I have sworn an oath.'

    Anne had been equally open about whom Henry did
not
wish to see. Above all, Francis should not bring his wife, Queen Eleanor. She was Charles's sister and Catherine's niece and her very appearance would bring back bad memories for the King. Henry, Anne explained, 'hates Spanish dress since it makes him see a devil [in women's clothes]'.
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    Anne, of course, had already said very similar things about Spaniards to the ladies of the English Court. They had been shocked. But Francis, she had reason to know, would appreciate the abuse. This was because her famously outspoken cousin, Sir Francis Bryan, who was then ambassador in France, had once more spilled the beans. King Francis had been forced to marry Eleanor in the aftermath of his defeat at Pavia, and he regarded her as his badge of servitude to the Emperor. He also found her personally unattractive, Bryan wrote. Even when they were in the same house, 'they lie not together once in four nights' and Francis continued to make open love to his mistress. Marguerite of Angoulême was even blunter. Francis found his Queen repellent, she told the Duke of Norfolk. And what made it worse was Eleanor's characteristic Spanish uxoriousness. 'She is very hot in bed and desireth to be too much embraced.' Francis could not get a wink of sleep next to her.
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* * *

Preparations for the meeting of the two Kings now went swiftly ahead. Time was short and even Cromwell's organisational abilities were stretched. He corresponded with Sir Edward Guildford, Sir Henry Guildford's elder half-brother, about shipping arrangements across the Channel. And he sorted out the all-important question of his-and-hers jewellery for Henry and Anne.
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    Cromwell had taken over administrative responsibility for the royal jewels and plate when he was appointed Master of the King's Jewels on 14 April 1532. He found the paperwork of the office in some disorder. New inventories were drawn up and (as was then customary) he drafted in his own servants. These included Stephen Vaughan, who, like other of Cromwell's radical friends and dependants, now thought it safe to return to England. In the summer of 1532, Vaughan was acting as one of Cromwell's go-betweens at the Court, and he found himself kicking his heels. 'If you would come to Court', he wrote to Cromwell from Woodstock, where Henry and Anne were in residence from 7–18 August, 'the King would put me to some occupation'. He did not have long to wait.
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    Probably in late August, he was despatched to Cromwell with the King's 'devices' (sketches) for the making and remaking of some important piece of jewellery, including his great State collar set with balas rubies and diamonds. Probably on Thursday, 5 September, Vaughan returned with the worked-up designs from Cornelis Heyss, the royal Goldsmith, for Henry's approval.

    On the Friday night he had audience with the King 'when he returned late from hunting'. Vaughan showed him the design for the collar (he calls it a 'chain'). At this point Henry called in Anne to have her advice. Luckily, they both approved – though Henry had feared that Cornelis would have put in more than seven balases, thus making the collar too large. Anne had a query, too: she wanted to know if Vaughan had brought her anything from Thomas Alvard, who had charge of the remains of Wolsey's plate and jewels at York Place. Her question was directed, almost certainly, at the eighteen diamonds set in troches of gold (that is, buttons set with three stones in a bunch) which Alvard eventually supplied to Heiss on 18 September.
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    But not even Henry's vast store of jewels was enough for Anne: she decided she must have Catherine's too. Norfolk was sent to do the dirty work. But Catherine, so Chapuys heard, brushed aside his diplomatic feelers with scorn. She would never, she said, willingly give up her jewels to bedeck 'a person who is the scandal of Christendom'. However, if Henry sent her a direct personal command, she would submit as a good wife must. Swallowing the insult, Henry sent the required message by a Gentleman of his Privy Chamber.
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    Anne had the Queen's jewels. She would not give them up easily.

* * *

Cromwell even dealt with matters of female dress. On 21 August, Norfolk wrote to him from the Court at Langley to countermand a previous order for crimson velvet robes for three countesses. 'The King's pleasure', he reported, 'now is that no robes of estate shall now be made but only for my wife. I send you the pattern.' Garter King of Arms, Norfolk ended, must also be at Abingdon on Saturday, 24 August.
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    These were preparations not for the forthcoming interview but for another ceremony. For it had been decided that, before Anne met Francis as Henry's Queen- and Consort-to-be, she should be given appropriate rank by being created a peer in her own right. The title chosen was Marquess of Pembroke, which had strong royal associations, since the earldom of Pembroke had been held by Henry's great-uncle, Jasper Tudor, to whose lands he had succeeded as a boy.

    Anne's creation took place in the grand and already historic setting of Windsor on Sunday, 1 September 1532. In the morning, Anne was conducted in procession to the King; she was accompanied by the peers, headed by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, by the French ambassador, De La Pommeraye, and by the heralds. Garter (who had been summoned to Abingdon to prepare for the ceremony) carried her Letters Patent of creation. Anne herself was magnificent. She wore a surcoat of crimson velvet, furred with ermine, and with straight sleeves. She was supported by two countesses, while her train was born by another great lady. And, according to the Venetian ambassador, she was 'completely covered with the most costly jewels'.

    But here there had been a change of plan. The original intention, as Norfolk's letters show, was that Anne's train-bearer would be his wife, Elizabeth Stafford, daughter of the executed Duke of Buckingham. Formally, the task was an honour. But, for Elizabeth, it was an insult. For a Stafford to carry the train of a Boleyn was bad enough. Still worse was the fact that she was Catherine's oldest English friend and supporter. Her opposition to Anne had become increasingly blatant. Now Elizabeth refused the task point-blank and her daughter Mary had to be her substitute.

    For Anne, however, nothing could detract from the moment as, 'in her hair', with her splendid auburn tresses hanging round her shoulders, she advanced towards Henry and knelt. Garter delivered her Patent to Gardiner, the royal Secretary, to read it out. Did he swallow as he pronounced the flowery Latin phrases setting out her lineage, merits and honour? Then Henry himself draped the mantle round her shoulders and put the coronet on her head. He also handed over her Patent of creation and another Patent settling lands on her worth £1,000 a year. Thomas Cromwell, inevitably, had organised these as well.

    There followed 'a most solemn Mass' which Gardiner celebrated in the Chapel Royal, in his capacity this time as Bishop of Winchester. Immediately afterwards, in a deliberate pendant to Anne's creation, the Treaty of Mutual Aid with France, which had been agreed on 23 June, was ratified. Henry and the French ambassador advanced to the altar. The terms of the treaty were read. Then the King and De La Pommeraye signed the treaty and swore a solemn oath to observe it. The oath-taking was followed by a sermon delivered by Almoner Foxe. There was already a close alliance with France, he explained. But this treaty was 'for the purpose of uniting the two crowns more closely . . . to which effect the two Kings will employ their money, troops, their persons and all their forces'. 'For this purpose', he concluded, 'they will have an interview, to take counsel together and arrange what is necessary to be done.' 'After this the singers began to chant the
Te Deum Laudamus
, to the accompaniment of trumpets and other instruments.'
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* * *

Three days later, on 4 September, England's old friend, Guillaume du Bellay, sieur de Langey, arrived from France. He bore the eagerly awaited letters with Francis's formal request that Anne should be one of the party. Anne showed her gratitude by inviting the ambassador to a dinner which she gave for Henry at her new house at Hanworth.
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    Henry and Anne sailed to France in the
Swallow
. At the last minute, Marguerite of Angoulême had declined the invitation on grounds of ill health. This was a disappointment for Anne and meant that, since there was no woman of the right rank to receive her, she could not accompany Henry to Boulogne on 21 October. But she made up for it when Francis paid his return visit to Henry at Calais on the 25th and stayed till the 29th. Francis began the mutual exchange of courtesies by sending her the gift of a magnificent diamond. Then, on the Sunday after supper, Anne led the party of seven masked English ladies who danced with the Kings and lords. Anne, naturally, partnered Francis. Henry, determined to show off Anne (and to show that she was dancing with Francis), snatched off the ladies' masks. They danced a little longer, and then Francis 'talked with [Anne] a space'. We do not, alas, know what they said.
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