Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII's Obsession by Elizabeth Norton Read Free Book Online

played the role of Perseverance.
    Anne must have been thrilled at the prominence that she was given in the masque. The castle was defended by another eight ladies playing vices. They were dressed like women of the Indies and, whilst they defended the castle, eight lords entered dressed in cloth of gold and blue satin. They stormed the castle, which the ladies defended with rose water and comfits until the eight bad ladies were driven away. The eight virtues then came down from the tower and danced with the lords. Anne’s partner is nowhere recorded but it must have been one of Henry’s favourites. Henry himself is most likely to have danced with his sister, Mary or, perhaps, Mary Boleyn.
    Mary Boleyn had been back at the English court for several years before Anne’s arrival and Anne is likely to have heard something of Mary’s reputation whilst she remained in France. By the time of Anne’s return to England, Mary Boleyn was well established as Henry VIII’s mistress. This was a very different relationship to the casual affair Mary had had with Francis I in France and the affair between Mary and Henry lasted for several years. It is possible that Mary’s marriage in early 1521 to William Carey, a gentleman in Henry’s privy chamber, was intended to protect her honour should she fall pregnant by the king. It is almost certain that she was already Henry’s mistress by this time.
    Mary Boleyn well-deserved the epitaph of ‘Kindness’ which was given to her in the court masque and she was eager to please and generous. Thomas Boleyn’s rise to greater prominence during the early 1520s is probably linked to the position that his eldest daughter held with Henry and it is probable that Mary was encouraged to begin, and to continue, her affair with the king. Even if Thomas Boleyn was unhappy with his daughter taking the role of royal mistress, he must have been pleased with the tangible benefits he received from the relationship. In 1520 he was appointed Controller of the Household and in April 1522 he was promoted to Treasurer of the Household, both coveted positions. The king’s affair with Mary Boleyn, which was almost at an end by 1525, was also behind Thomas Boleyn’s elevation to the peerage on 16 June 1525 when he was created Viscount Rochford. Mary herself received few benefits from the relationship and, when it came to an end in the mid 1520s, she was simply discarded by the king. Anne would have taken note of her sister’s treatment and it was something that she remembered in her own relationship with Henry. Anne Boleyn was a very different woman to her sister and would never be content with sacrificing her honour and her prospects of a good marriage for a few years of prominence at court, a few presents, a few honours for her father and a ship named after her in the royal fleet.
    Unlike her sister, Anne was determined to look for an advantageous marriage when she returned to the English court. It is probable that she would have been happy to remain in France and that she would, eventually, have arranged a French marriage for herself. In 1522 both Anne’s father and Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII’s chief minister, had other ideas. Anne, however reluctantly, had been summoned home from France for a marriage.
    In 1515 Anne’s great-grandfather, the Earl of Ormond, had died. Ormond left only two daughters, the elder, Anne, who married into the St Leger family and the younger, Margaret, who was the mother of Thomas Boleyn. The Ormond title and lands were not entailed on the male line and the Earl’s English possessions quickly passed to his St Leger and Boleyn heirs. In Ireland, the Earl’s title and estates were claimed by his cousin, Sir Piers Butler, who declared himself Earl of Ormond soon after the old earl died. Thomas Boleyn immediately claimed the earldom from the king, pointing out that Butler had no legal right to it. However, the king, anxious not to offend a powerful Irish family, asked Wolsey to