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

find a solution to the problem which did not involve stripping Butler of his claimed earldom and the Irish Ormond lands. It was Anne’s uncle, the Earl of Surrey, who suggested a solution to Wolsey and it was quickly agreed by the king and the cardinal that Thomas Boleyn’s only unmarried daughter, Anne, would marry Butler’s eldest son, James. This match was formally proposed by the Irish Council to Henry in September 1520 and Thomas Boleyn was instructed to send for his daughter.
    Anne had no say in the marriage negotiations conducted on her behalf and this cannot have been easy for her. It is possible that Anne employed some delaying tactics whilst the marriage negotiations were conducted and, certainly, the gap of over a year between the marriage being mooted and Anne’s return to England suggests that neither she, nor her father, were entirely happy with the solution offered to the Ormond problem. Eventually, Anne was forced to bow to pressure and while she threw herself into court life in early 1522 the spectre of the Butler marriage would have been constantly hanging over her.
    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