Page 34 - All About History - Issue 52-17

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Bo e yn Sisters

while Mary Boleyn was prominent At first, the royal marriage had seemed to be a love-match,
among the white satin clad with Henry taking delight in surprising Katherine with
ladies as ‘Kindness’. Anne, dancing and merriments. As the years passed, however, the
appropriately enough as age gap between the couple, which had once seemed so
it would later prove, was insignificant, became a chasm. Katherine, who lost all but
William ‘Perseverance’. A place one of her children – a daughter, Mary – in infancy, turned
Carey
married was also found for the to the church for solace, while Henry looked towards other
Mary Boleyn, siblings’ future sister- women. By 1525, when Anne Boleyn was finally permitted to
but died of in-law, Jane Parker, a return to court, he had no prospect of a legitimate son.
the sweating
sickness in woman later accused When Anne Boleyn caught Henry’s eye around 1526, he
1528 by one courtier of being was looking only for a new mistress, hoping that she would
driven by her “lust and replace her sister in his affections. In February 1526 he made
filthy pleasure.” a public display of his new love by arriving at a joust wearing
Thanks to Mary, the the motto ‘Declare I dare not.’ To Henry’s surprise, Anne –
Boleyn family were in the who had witnessed her sister’s abandonment – refused to
ascendancy in the early 1520s, follow her into the king’s bed.
although Anne’s time at court was Instead, she retreated home to Hever, where she was
to be brief. Soon after arriving, she entered into a secret followed by Henry’s increasingly ardent and frustrated letters.
relationship with Henry Percy, heir to the earldom of He said he was reminded “of a point in astronomy which
Northumberland and leagues above her socially. The young is this: the longer the days are, the more distant is the Sun,
man, who enjoyed visiting Katherine’s household, would and nevertheless the hotter; so is it with our love, for by
“fall in dalliance among the queen’s maidens” and openly absence we are kept a distance from one another, and yet it
favoured the graceful Anne. It was soon rumoured that retains its fervour, at least on my side.” In another missive,
the couple were engaged, with both Cardinal Wolsey – in he complained that “it seems a very poor return for the great
whose household Percy served – and the king becoming love which I bear you to keep me at a distance both from
furious when they heard. Percy’s father was equally enraged, speech and the person of the woman that I esteem most in
spiriting his son away where he was hurriedly married to the the world.” He was desperate to hold her in his arms, “whose
daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Anne was sent home to pretty dukkys [slang for breasts] I trust shortly to kiss.”
Hever in disgrace. Although she must have been flattered, Anne continued
During Anne’s time in Kent, Mary Boleyn’s relationship to refuse Henry, even when he finally offered her the
34 with the king began to fizzle out. Although she had been unprecedented position of his official mistress, to whom
his mistress for years, Mary, as a married woman, had no
hopes of marrying the king. Nor would Henry VIII have even A n ne, w h o w a nte d to marry w e ll, w a s not
considered it. The king, who had come to the throne as a 17
year old in 1509, had almost immediately married his former
sister-in-law, Katherine of Aragon – the widow of his elder intereste d in b e coming H e nry’s concubine
brother and more than five years his senior.

A painting depicting the Field of the Cloth of Gold, which was a summit in 1520 designed
to forge the bonds of friendship between Henry VIII and King Francis I of France