Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘Whatever the truth of Anne’s pregnancy, by September 1534, she had no second child and Henry’s attention had strayed. Coming just sixteen months after her glorious coronation, it must have seemed that the wheel of fortune had turned decisively against her.’

‘By Christmas, Anne was already pregnant, and with Henry so keen to ensure their child would be legitimate, he showered his new wife with the visual signifiers of rank. It was accompanied by the declaration Catherine was no longer to be referred to as queen, but instead to be called dowager princess, her title from her marriage to Arthur, and she was to be treated accordingly.’

‘Her heart bled for the King and the death of his hopes. It would be a searing disappointment. But perhaps he would now see that this pretended marriage was cursed by God, and put Anne away. Jane was not cruel; she imagined a fine house somewhere far from court, in which Anne could live with her bastard, comfortably pensioned off and served with honour...’

I am enjoying this much more than the Anne Boleyn one, nearly as much as the Katherine of Aragon one but not quite. I think the big difference is that for most of this book Jane doesn’t do a lot, she overhears things and makes comments, but she isn’t very active, at least not compared to Katherine and Anne. I am nearly halfway and she has only just caught Henry’s eye.

“I know enough to be convinced that with you I could be a happy, contented man, at peace with myself. I no longer want a wife who flirts with others and mocks me in what passes for wit. I want a loving woman with an even and constant temper. I like your gentleness and I admire your virtue, for I know that neither is feigned. Anne is too bold; she must have her own way. I do not think you are like that, Jane.”

‘It was notorious that he tired of his mistresses all too quickly, and no decent man wanted another’s leavings, even the King’s. No, she would not let him spoil her for marriage. Besides, he was married himself. Not that she would have any qualms about betraying Anne, for Anne was not, and never could be, his lawful wife. But Katherine, his true Queen, lived, and Jane would never be disloyal to her.’

‘Jane crossed herself. The child was lost or deformed, there could be no doubt of it. Detest Anne as she did, she could yet feel a sisterly pity for her. It was tragic for a woman to endure months of the discomfort of pregnancy, only to lose her babe at the end of it. It was so easy for the King - or any man - to demand sons; they did not have to undergo the bearing of them.’

‘She became ‘fiercer than a lioness’, and dared to take a shot at her remaining enemy, saying that she ‘wished all the Spaniards were at the bottom of the sea’ and would rather see Catherine ‘hanged than have to confess that she was her queen and mistress’. Anne was in her ascendancy and did not see her own areas of vulnerability. With Wolsey it was class. With Anne, it would be gender.’

‘Verbal agreements were considered binding by the church and gave sufficient licence to allow the couple to indulge in various acts of foreplay, or ‘bundling’. It is very unlikely that Henry and Anne slept together this early, as they would have wanted to be certain of the legitimacy of any child she may conceive, but it is not impossible... it seems more likely that they indulged in limited intimate acts’

‘In the two years since Jane had last seen her, Anne had grown hard-faced and her eyes - once her chief claim to beauty - were now shadowed and watchful. Her sumptuous crimson gown, rich furs and satin French hood could not compensate for the loss of her youth and the lines of discontent around her mouth. And yet the men flocked around her.’

‘Archbishop Cranmer had ruled that the King’s marriage to the Lady Katherine was null and void. The King had married the Lady Anne, and that marriage was good and valid. The Lady Anne was now queen of England. Jane wept into her pillow, crying for Katherine, to whom this would be heavy tidings indeed, and for herself, for in serving Anne as queen, her betrayal of Katherine would be the greater.’

“The King is taking the Lady Anne to France, and Father will be in attendance on his Grace, to show where his loyalties lie. Lizzie is going, and Edward. I hope to go too, if Sir Francis permits. Think of your future, Jane. There will be no advantage in remaining with the Queen - quite the contrary!”
“No,” Jane said. “I will not compromise my principles for anyone.”

‘Louthe, and other writers including George Wyatt, present Anne as being the catalyst for the Reformation, reading her possession of this book, her influence over Henry and her approval of his break from Rome as significant. However, Anne’s actual degree of religious influence, and that of her faction, is difficult to determine.‘

I can’t figure out if Rosamond actually loved Lydgate, even if just at the beginning? She seemed to, being devastated when he stopped seeing her, but she doesn’t seem to care about his debts or feelings in general when they are married.

Know Weir went along with the extra fingernail thing in her book on Anne, but I am still surprised she mentioned it in this one. It is one thing having one that she manages to hide, but another thing unsuccessfully hiding it and people like Jane being able to see it. I really doubt Henry would have been with Anne if she had something like that, something that could be passed to his children or suggest she was a witch

‘She stepped forward, fell to her knees and did as she was bidden, thinking how old and sad the Queen looked. She was stout too - nothing like Jane had expected - and she had an overly prominent chin, yet there was a pleasing sweetness in her smile, her eyes were kind, and her dignified, gentle manner immediately set Jane at her ease.’

‘In places, the letters read like the record of a developing love affair, in others, the gradual wearing down of a woman’s resistance. Henry loved the idea of being in love and, for the time being, he was content to place Anne on a pedestal in anticipation of her future surrender. Together, the seventeen letters make a compelling case for coercion.‘

‘Anne was in her mid-twenties. She had already seen two potential husbands disappear, and had been wooed by a married man who could not promise her a respectable future. In 1525-6, she was in no position to anticipate that Henry could offer her the ultimate prize of becoming his wife and while his attentions were flattering, he was ultimately attempting to talk her into his bed, as he had done her sister.’

‘The romance progressed through the end of 1522, into 1523. It was probably that spring or early summer that the pair (Henry Percy and Anne) reached an understanding that they would like to be married. Anne would have been aware that it was not the match her father had intended for her, and it did nothing to settle the Irish question, but it was at least an equal match in terms of status.’

‘At twenty, she was already quite old in a marriage market that commonly saw aristocratic girls partnered off in their mid-teens. The Boleyns’ precedent of marital advancement, typified by the matches of Geoffrey, William and Thomas, indicate that her parents were waiting for an alliance with the right family, the Butlers, who could push the dynasty to the next level.‘

‘For Jane had no desire to be married. She wanted to be a nun. Everyone teased her for it, not taking her seriously. Let them. Soon they would find out that she was as determined as her brother Edward when it came to getting what she wanted in life. She could not imagine her hearty, jovial father objecting, nor her adored mother. They knew of the dream she had had of herself wearing a nun’s veil’

‘For Jane had no desire to be married. She wanted to be a nun. Everyone teased her for it, not taking her seriously. Let them. Soon they would find out that she was as determined as her brother Edward when it came to getting what she wanted in life. She could not imagine her hearty, jovial father objecting, nor her adored mother. They knew of the dream she had had of herself wearing a nun’s veil’

‘While Henry was composing this book in defence of the seven sacraments, prompting the pope to award him with the title Fidei Defensor, or Defender of the Faith, his future wife was resident in a court where royal support was being given to heretics. Where Anne was intellectually flexible, Henry was rigid and certain of his position, until such time as it benefitted him personally to raise questions’

‘Margaret would not have taken her entire household on the journey, but given that she invited Henry specifically to see the ladies of her court, the chances are that her eighteen demoiselles did travel with her, including the twelve-year-old Anne. It is known that Anne was among the party when Margaret travelled to Brussels in the summer of 1514, increasing the chances that she was included in this party too.’

‘From the scant evidence, and the possibilities for error, it would seem most likely that Mary was the eldest Boleyn child, born between 1498 and 1500, probably in 1499... To follow their father’s suggested timescale of a child a gear, Anne would have been the third child, arriving in 1501 after Thomas, followed by Henry in 1502, and by George, in 1503 or 1504.’

‘The fortunes of the Boleyn family really began with Geoffrey. Having remained in the countryside for generations, he made the remarkable ascent from apprentice to Mayor, accruing wealth, position, respect and a knighthood through determination, shrewd judgements and taking the opportunities on offer in his guild. It was a remarkable career arc, showing vision and bravery’

‘By 2 July Clement V had seen enough to convince him either that the Templars were guilty, or (more likely) that he could accede to the French demands without seeming simply to be rolling over... On 12 August he issued a bull known as Faciens misericordiam (‘Granting forgiveness’) setting up two parallel investigations’