Anne Boleyn, a King's Obsession

“She won’t even listen to me!” Henry complained, when they were alone later that night after the others had left. “She insists that the dispensation allowing us to marry was infallible, and that she was never Arthur’s wife properly anyway, so Leviticus is irrelevant.”

“Is that true?” Anne asked, feeling increasingly resentful toward Katherine, who would not face reality and stand aside.

Henry stared gloomily into the empty fireplace. “My father was assured that her marriage to my brother was never consummated, and—well, to be plain, Anne, I was a virgin when we wed, and I would not have known the difference. I believed her—she is a woman of integrity and virtue. But now I wonder: was it that she, being innocent—as I have no doubt she was—did not understand what was meant to happen, or thought it hadn’t happened when it had? They did spend seven nights together.”

“Or she lied, because she still wanted to be Queen of England.”

“I don’t think so,” Henry said, flushing a little. It irritated her that he still held Katherine in high esteem and recoiled from any criticism of her. He could criticize, but no one else was supposed to! And that, she suspected, was because Katherine was still his Queen, still his wife. But she has no right! she fumed inwardly.

“That bar in Leviticus is not qualified,” she said. “A man may not marry his brother’s wife. It’s as simple as that, and no Pope can sanction it.”

“Katherine argues that Leviticus would only apply if she had borne Arthur a child. She cites a text in Deuteronomy that requires a man to marry his brother’s widow, but she’s wrong. It doesn’t apply to Christians.”

“She is grasping at straws.”

Life was unfair, she knew, but this was especially unfair. There was Katherine, who had no right to be queen, winning sympathy all round; and there was she, who had lived a blameless life, being cursed whenever she went abroad in the streets, and vilified now throughout Christendom—oh yes, she had heard the talk. Most people saw her as a Jezebel who had ousted a virtuous wife, and yet who was the more virtuous of the two? Katherine, who had lived in sin for eighteen years, or herself, who had jealously guarded her virginity and never given the King any encouragement? So it was hard nowadays to feel anything but resentment toward Katherine, for all her kindness.

“Cheer up, darling,” Henry said, pulling her into his arms. “We will win through. My case is sound. I trust, by the Cardinal’s diligence, shortly to be rid of this trouble.”

“And I trust that your trust is not misplaced,” Anne said, accepting his kiss.

“Come on, sweetheart, Wolsey is a good friend and a consummate politician—he will secure this annulment for me, and we’ll be joyfully receiving him at his homecoming.” And he bent his head, greatly daring, and pressed his lips to her breast where it swelled above the stiff square neckline of her gown. She let him go so far, but it was only when she thought of Norris that she found some pleasure in it.



It was September, and the air was turning cool. A masque was to be performed in the great hall, and Anne had put on a low-cut gown of white damask and threaded jewels through her hair, which she wore loose. It was long enough to sit on, and Henry loved to see it in all its glory. The Queen said nothing when Anne appeared, glittering in her finery, to attend her with a host of other maids and ladies, but Katherine’s particular friends, Lady Salisbury, Lady Willoughby, and Lady Parr, eyed her disapprovingly. She ignored them, dragons all of them, and was gratified to see that Henry could not take his eyes off her. She was aware, too, of another pair of eyes looking on admiringly, but when she glanced at Norris, he turned and spoke to another gentleman.

The masque was to portray the legend of Narcissus and Echo. Henry himself showed Anne to her chair, which had been placed to the right of the dais where he and the Queen were to watch the performance. But at that moment an usher approached.

“Your Grace, my Lord Cardinal is returned from France and waits outside, wishing to know where he should come,” he announced. Henry’s face lit up in anticipation of the news Wolsey brought.

Where he should come? What did he think the King was? A lackey? Anne’s blood boiled. Here was her chance to discredit Wolsey, and demonstrate her own power.

“I must go to him,” Henry said, beginning to rise.

Anne summoned her courage and turned to the usher. “Where else should the Cardinal come? Tell him he may come here, where the King is!” Katherine raised her eyebrows in astonishment. Everyone was staring at Anne. Let them! People must see that she enjoyed more influence with the King than the great Cardinal did.

“Yes, indeed,” Henry said, frowning, and nodded to the usher.

When Wolsey came into the hall, bowed low, and made his way to the dais, Anne moved to Henry’s side. Father, Norfolk, and Suffolk were looking on triumphantly; they would be pleased with her. She could see the dismay in the Cardinal’s face, the flash of anger at her presumption. He would not call her a foolish girl now!

She knew, from his manner and the way his shoulders were bowed, that his mission had been a failure. She was aware of Henry stiffening next to her, of the testy pace of his breathing. He knew it too.



It was becoming increasingly difficult to fend off Henry’s advances. With no end to the waiting in sight, the Pope still in thrall to the Emperor, and Wolsey apparently helpless, he was growing more and more frustrated.

“This delay is killing me!” he complained. “Be kind to me, Anne! A man has needs, you know.”

“And what needs do you expect me to satisfy?” she teased him. “You said you would respect my virtue.”

Fine words, but they had not stopped him from summoning her late at night to his privy chamber to be alone with her after his gentlemen had gone to bed. Norris always fetched her and escorted her to the secret stair that led up to the King’s most private apartments. It was torment for her, to have him take her to the King, and torment for him too, she suspected.

It was not just her inclination but her prudence that decided her to put a stop to these visits. She must not give Henry the opportunity to press his attentions. Who knew how long it would be before his self-control gave way?

“This is unwise,” she told him one night, when he grew particularly insistent, biting her neck, his hand cupping her breast.

“Why?” he gasped, face flushed, hair tousled. “I need you! I love you, Anne.”

She drew away. “Being alone with you is wrong.”

“Norris would never talk.”

“But I feel it is wrong. Henry”—for this she now called him in the privacy of his chamber—“until your annulment is in sight, I do not feel it is right for me to be at court. I want to go home to Hever.”

“No!” he cried. “Don’t leave me!”

Alison Weir's books