Anne Boleyn by Norah Lofts

Author:Norah Lofts [Lofts, Norah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 2012-06-12T23:00:00+00:00

8

The Act of Supremacy

If a lion knew his strength it were hard for any Man to rule him.

Sir Thomas More

That summer Anne did not accompany Henry on his Progress, and he contented himself by making short hunting trips, never away for long, never going far from Greenwich where Anne was awaiting the birth. He did his best to protect her from anything likely to disturb her peace of mind, yet things calculated to upset her had a way of drifting through.

She heard, for instance, of the scenes which took place when Katharine was moved from Ampthill to Buckden. The enthusiasm of the crowd had not waned. All along the route women stood weeping and men shouted, ‘God save the Queen’, asked how they could serve her and pronounced themselves willing to die for her. Mary moved from one manor to another at about the same time and was everywhere met by the same demonstrations of loyalty and affection.

About this, Henry could take action. He published an edict; it was henceforth a capital offence to address or refer to Katharine as Queen.

Then the Hanseatic merchants added to their insult by bringing into the Thames an unusually large number of ships which fired a defiant salvo under the very walls of Greenwich Palace and inviting Chapuys to a magnificent banquet on board one of the vessels. This just after the Emperor himself had written to his Ambassador, telling him to be more tactful in his dealings with Henry and not to do or say anything to jeopardise the friendship between the Emperor and England. Charles was, in fact, prepared to be conciliatory so long as the Eastern borders of his Empire were threatened by the Turks; he wanted to avoid a war on two fronts. But while refusing to support the Pope in anything he might say and do by armed might, Charles did give advice. The Pope should settle, with no further delay, this long-drawn-out question of who was Queen of England.

This Clement did in July, acting with the precipitance so often shown by the normally hesitant. He declared Henry’s marriage to Anne null and void and said that if Henry had not left Anne and taken Katharine back by the end of September, he would be excommunicated. Not being a simpleton, Clement must have known that Henry would not put away a woman due to be delivered of his child sometime in September and take back his ageing wife. And he must have known that without some backing from a monarch willing to take advantage of an excommunicated monarch’s plight, the threat had no teeth. It was a mere gesture.

Henry did his best to keep this bit of news from Anne and when he called his Privy Council and other advisers to meet him to discuss it, he chose Guildford as the place of meeting and told Anne that he was going to hunt at Windsor. But, of course, she was told; just as she was told something else. Henry had taken a mistress.

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