10

Happiest of Women

The eve of Easter Sunday fell on the 12th of April in 1533. On that Saturday morning, Anne, dressed in robes of estate and laden with diamonds and other precious stones, proceeded as Queen of England to her closet to hear mass; sixty maids of honour followed her. At last she had achieved her chief ambition, and she had adopted for her motto the legend 'Happiest of Women'. Her success now seemed assured, and she was confident that the child she carried would be the son for which the King had always craved.

The court looked on with ill-concealed dismay. According to Chapuys, even some of Anne's own supporters felt that the King should have waited for his marriage to Katherine to be formally dissolved before taking another wife. The King, sensing that his nobility were less than enthusiastic about their new queen, commanded them to pay court to her, announcing that he would have her crowned on Whitsunday, 1 June. Within days, the Lord Mayor of London would have been ordered to prepare a lavish civic welcome, with pageants, for the occasion. Henry had taken an irrevocable step; he might have gained his heart's desire, but he now had to face the consequences to himself and his kingdom and the censure of most of Europe.

On the evening of 12 April, the King authorised Cranmer to pass judgment on his union with Katherine, believing, rather naively, that his marriage to Anne would put an end to any opposition from the former Queen. He also set about appointing the officers of the new Queen's household: Lord Burgh was to be chamberlain, Edward Baynton vice-chamberlain, Anne's uncle Sir James Boleyn of Blickling would be chancellor, and John Uvedale secretary. Another Boleyn relative, William Cosyn, was master of her horse. Her ladies included Anne Saville, Anne Gainsford (now Lady Zouche), Lady Berkeley, Jane Seymour (who had served Katherine of Aragon), Anne's cousin Madge Shelton, and Norfolk's mistress Elizabeth Holland. As soon as all these had sworn their oaths of allegiance, Queen Anne summoned them to attend the first meeting of her council, and exhorted them to be virtuous and discreet. Male servants were forbidden to frequent brothels, on pain of instant dismissal.

On 15 April, Chapuys saw the King and tackled him on the subject of his marriage to Anne. 'I cannot believe that a prince of your Majesty's great wisdom and virtue will consent to the putting away of the Queen,' he said. 'Since your Majesty has no regard for men, you should have some respect for God.' 'God and my conscience are on good terms!' retorted Henry. Chapuys tried further remonstration, but to no avail. 'You sting me!' cried the King, at which the ambassador apologised, knowing he would never be able to help Katherine if he fell foul of Henry. But he had already overstepped the mark, for in May he was summoned before the Privy Council and warned not to meddle further in the Queen's affairs, an order Chapuys chose to ignore.

News of the King's new marriage spread quickly; it was anything but well received. Courtiers and subjects alike resented Anne. Her elevation to queenship spelled disaster for Anglo-Flemish trade, and might well plunge the country into a war with the Emperor. Moreover, by her behaviour she had alienated many people who might have supported her.

In April, there was a spate of public protests against the marriage: a priest, Ralph Wendon, was hauled before the justices for saying that Anne was 'the scandal of Christendom, a whore and a harlot'; another priest in Salisbury, commending the King's new wife to his flock, suffered greatly at the hands of his female parishioners. When, at the end of the month, the order went out that Queen Anne was to be prayed for in churches, one London congregation walked out in disgust: the Lord Mayor later suffered a reprimand when the King learned of it. The Dean of Bristol lost his office for forbidding his priests to pray for Henry and Anne. Some people even suffered imprisonment for slandering the new Queen, such as Margaret Chancellor, who had not only cried out 'God save Queen Katherine!' but had also called Anne 'a goggle-eyed whore'.

The King was determined that those who spoke out against him would be silenced, and the government made strenuous efforts to eradicate seditious talk. In May, it issued the first of a series of propaganda tracts designed 'to inform his Grace's loving subjects of the truth'. His Grace's loving subjects were not impressed.

Abroad, news of Anne's elevation met with little enthusiasm. Cromwell's agents in Antwerp informed him that a cloth picture of the new Queen had been pinned obscenely to a portrait of Henry VIII; and in Louvain, students were scratching scurrilous slogans about Henry and Anne on the walls and doors.

On 15 April, Katherine's chamberlain, Lord Mountjoy, received a message from the King, bidding him warn the Princess Dowager that she would soon be retired to a smaller house, there to live on a reduced allowance which Chapuys feared would not be enough to cover the expenses of her household for three months. Chapuys was, in fact, very anxious about Katherine's future, having perceived that her very existence posed a threat to Anne Boleyn's security. The ambassador realised that the King's subjects were too frightened to intervene on Katherine's behalf, while he knew that Anne could be vindictive and that her influence over the King was enormous. If Chapuys was not mistaken, malignant forces were already at work against Katherine, and on 16 April he warned Charles V that the King was 'in great hope of the Queen's death. Since he was not ashamed to do such monstrous things, he might, one of these days, undertake some further outrage against her.' It was a well-founded conclusion, given Anne's rumoured involvement in the poison plot against Fisher. Katherine and Mary now posed the most serious threat to her future, and that of her unborn child. What might she not do to them? Katherine herself was aware of the danger threatening her and Mary, and from now on would keep a careful vigil, wary of anything that might be an attempt on her life.

Henry soon learned from Chapuys that the Emperor would neither recognise Anne Boleyn as Queen of England, nor accept any judgement of Cranmer's on his marriage to Katherine. The King remained unmoved, and told the ambassador he would 'pass such laws in my kingdom as I like'. Cranmer, meanwhile, had summoned various divines and canon lawyers to a specially convened ecclesiastical court in the twelfth-century priory at Dunstable, not far from Ampthill. At the end of April, Katherine was cited to appear before this court in May, but ignored the summons because she did not recognise Cranmer's competence to judge her case. Although the recently passed Act of Restraint of Appeals prevented any person from appealing to Rome for any cause whatsoever, Katherine maintained that she was Henry's wife, not his subject, and not bound by his laws. Cranmer declared her contumacious, and proceeded without her.

Six miles from where Katherine now lived the clergymen gathered on 10 May to decide her fate. Several days of debate followed, then at last - on 23 May, the Archbishop finally reached his decision, and with the assent of the learned divines in the court, pronounced Henry VIII's union with Katherine of Aragon to be 'null and absolutely void' and 'contrary to divine law'. The Pope, said Cranmer, had no authority to dispense in such a case.

Cranmer then dealt with the King's marriage to Anne Boleyn, and on 28 May 1533, from a high gallery at Lambeth Palace, he announced that he had found it to be good and valid. The Dunstable court was then closed. After six long years, Henry finally had what he wanted: Anne was now legally his, and their child would be indisputably legitimate.

Cranmer's pronouncement had come not a moment too soon, for on that very day, Queen Anne was escorted by barge by the Lord Mayor of London and his brethren from Greenwich to the Tower, where she would spend the night before her civic reception and coronation. Norfolk, as Earl Marshal, had been put in charge of the arrangements, but so fraught was the relationship between himself and his niece that by the time Anne left Greenwich they were barely on speaking terms. On that day, the much tried Duke confided to Chapuys that he had always opposed the King's marriage to Anne which was a lie - and had tried to persuade the King therefrom - an even bigger lie. He even went so far as to praise Katherine of Aragon for her 'great modesty, prudence and forbearance, the King having been at all times inclined to amours'. Anne, of course, was neither modest, prudent, nor forbearing, but she had arranged brilliant marriages for two of Norfolk's children - his heir, Surrey, married the daughter of the Earl of Oxford, and his daughter, Mary, married the King's natural son, Henry FitzRoy - and she had persuaded the King to waive a dowry in the case of his son's bride. This went a long way towards endearing her to Norfolk's estranged Duchess, who stopped plotting the restoration of Queen Katherine and returned to court.

In spite of the antipathy of the Earl Marshal towards the Queen, the coronation festivities went as planned. When Anne came to the Tower, the river was full of gaily decorated barges, many of them filled with musicians. Crowds lined the riverbanks to see the water pageants and the Queen's own barge, hung with cloth of gold and heraldic banners, making its stately way along the Thames. At the Tower, Anne was greeted by the King who displayed a 'loving countenance' and kissed her heartily before leading her into the newly refurbished royal apartments where they would spend the next two nights. On the Friday evening, Henry dubbed eighteen gentlemen Knights of the Bath, an ancient ritual normally performed only at the coronations of reigning monarchs.

On Saturday, 31 May, wearing a surcoat of white cloth of tissue and a matching mantle furred with ermine, with her hair loose beneath a coif and circlet set with precious stones, Anne rode in a litter of white cloth of gold drawn by two palfreys caparisoned in white damask through the City of London to Westminster. Before and behind her streamed a great procession of courtiers and ladies, said to have extended for half a mile, and over her head the Barons of the Cinque Ports held aloft a canopy of cloth of gold with gilded staves and silver bells.

Anne's civic reception and the route she followed were much the same as at Katherine of Aragon's welcome to London thirty-two years earlier, and the pageants - staged at great cost to the citizens - were on similar themes. As was customary, free wine ran in the conduits for the crowds lining the streets, children made speeches, and choirs raised their voices in honour of the new Queen. The verses recited in one pageant were composed by Nicholas Udall, Provost of Eton College from 1534 to 1541, and ended in the chorus:

 'Honour and grace be to our Queen Anne!' She was wished 'hearty gladness, continual success and long fruition'. 'Queen Anne, prosper, go forward and reign!' she was told and in St Paul's Churchyard the choristers sang an anthem, 'Come, my love, thou shalt be crowned!' The City of London had spared no expense in honouring a queen who was not popular, even commissioning Hans Holbein to design triumphal arches for the processional route, and regilding the Eleanor Cross in Cheapside for the occasion. But although the crowds had turned out in their hundreds, perhaps thousands, their reception of their new queen was cold. They came to stare, not to cheer, and as Anne passed by, smiling and greeting the people on either side, she counted less than ten people who called out 'God save your Grace!' as they had once called to Queen Katherine. Anne's fool, who rode in the procession, was angered by the sparsity of uncovered heads in the crowds, and yelled, 'Ye all have scurvy heads and dare not uncover!' Worst of all, when the people saw the intertwined initials of the King and Queen amongst the decoration, they roared with laughter, crying out 'HA! HA!' When Anne finally arrived at Westminster Hall, to be greeted by Henry, she was upset at the hostility shown her by the crowds. 'How liked you the look of the City, sweetheart?' enquired the King. 'Sir, the City itself was well enow,' Anne answered, 'but I saw so many caps on heads and heard but few tongues.' Chapuys too had sensed the hostility, although he had not been part of the procession. 'All people here cry murder on the Pope for his procrastination in this affair,' he told the Emperor.

Sunday, 1 June 1533 was Anne's coronation day. Dressed in a gown of crimson velvet edged with ermine beneath a purple velvet mantle, and with her hair loose beneath a caul of pearls and a rich coronet, Anne walked in procession from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey beneath a glittering canopy of cloth of gold. Following her went a great train of lords and ladies, the yeomen of the King's Guard, the monks of Westminster, bishops and abbots richly coped and mitred, and, finally, the children of the Chapel Royal with the two archbishops. The red carpet along which they proceeded extended right up to the high altar of the abbey, where Anne sat enthroned upon a raised platform. Cranmer performed the ceremony of anointing, then he placed the crown of St Edward upon her head, a sceptre of gold in her right hand, and a rod of ivory in her left, thus effectively crowning her as queen regnant, as no other queen consort has been before or since.

A fanfare of trumpets announced the Queen's return to the Palace of Westminster. 'Now the noble Anna bears the sacred diadem!' enthused the future Bishop of Ely, Richard Cox, an eyewitness, but his enthusiasm was shared by few of his fellow Englishmen. Chapuys thought the coronation was 'a cold, meagre and uncomfortable thing', and the London crowds evidently agreed with him, for again they watched in silence, few bothering to cheer or uncover.

Anne's coronation banquet in Westminster Hall was a lavish affair that lasted several hours. She was seated alone at the centre of the top table, with two countesses behind her, ready with napkin and fingerbowl. She ate three dishes (out of twenty-eight served) at the first course, and twenty-three at the second. As the Knights of the Bath served the food, trumpeters played. When the feast ended, Anne was served wine, comfits and sweets, and gave the Lord MayorofLondon her gold cup, thanking him and the citizens of London for their efforts on her behalf. The King also gave them his hearty thanks on the day following. Court festivities continued for some days after the coronation with tournaments, hunting expeditions, banquets and dancing, the courtiers falling over themselves to do honour to their new mistress. Yet, as the French ambassador observed, this was not because they approved of her, but because they wished to gain favour with the King.

Henry had done for Anne all he had promised to do: he had married her and had her crowned with as much pomp as if she were a reigning monarch. It was now up to her to seal her part of the bargain by presenting him with the son which Henry, at forty-two, now needed more desperately than ever, not only to ensure the succession, but also to justify the risks he had taken to marry Anne and break with Rome. The birth of a male heir would bring many waverers and dissidents over to his side, and, he was well aware, it would silence once and for all that infuriating woman at Ampthill.

On the day of Anne Boleyn's coronation, the Nun of Kent was publicly prophesying doom for the King and his new wife, something she had been doing effectively for the last two years. This time the authorities acted, and in July she was brought before Cranmer to be examined. He let her go with a warning not to incite the people with her so-called prophecies, but in August, the Privy Council received a report that she had ignored this, and she was brought before Cranmer again. This time, she admitted she had never had a vision in her life. In September, she and her associates were arrested, having confessed that their visitations and revelations were fraudulent, and in September, the Nun was sent to the Tower. Chapuys applauded Katherine's repeated refusals to see Elizabeth Barton: there could be no suspicion of collusion, although the Council was doing its best to unearth evidence of it, and so incriminate her in the Nun's treasonable activities. But there was nothing to find, and even Cromwell told Chapuys he admired Katherine's prudence: 'God must have given her her wit and senses,' he said. Yet Elizabeth Barton had now said enough to convince the Council that she and her associates were guilty of high treason, and they were made to do public penance at Paul's Cross before being sent back to the Tower.

Others had also expressed their disapproval of Anne Boleyn's coronation. The Marquess of Exeter, the King's cousin, and his wife stayed away, pleading sickness. Henry was not fooled: both were known to be supporters of the Princess Dowager and associates of the Nun of Kent. When the Nun was arrested, Lady Exeter wrote a grovelling letter to the King protesting that she had never meant to offend him, and the Exeters escaped Henry's wrath for the time being. Bishop Fisher had also believed in the Nun of Kent; he was now under house arrest, having been placed there on Palm Sunday, 'the real cause of his detention being his manly defence of the Queen's cause', according to Chapuys. In fact, Henry had wanted Fisher silenced when Cranmer came to pronounce judgement.

In Spain, the Emperor was outraged at the way in which his aunt had been treated, though Chapuys was forced to admit to the Council that his master had no intention of declaring war on Katherine's behalf. At this, Cromwell openly expressed his relief. It was as well the Princess Dowager was a woman, he reflected: 'Nature wronged her in not making her a man. But for her sex, she would have surpassed all the heroes of history.'

The Pope, meanwhile, having heard the shocking news from England, was realising at last that he ought to act swiftly, and on 11 July, he declared the marriage between Henry and Anne null and void, and threatened Henry with excommunication if he did not get rid of Anne by September. He also annulled all the proceedings of the Dunstable court, and in August issued a brief of censure when he realised that Henry meant to ignore his decrees. Henry continued to take no notice. 'God, who knows my righteous heart, always prospers my affairs,' he told Chapuys loftily.

In May, the Princess Mary was officially informed by a deputation of the Privy Council of Cranmer's judgements. She bravely told them that she would accept no one for queen except her mother, whereupon the councillors forbade her to communicate in any way with Katherine, and would not allow even a note of farewell. For Mary, the long, sad years of trial had begun. Her defiance, inspired by Katherine's courage, had the effect of fanning Anne Boleyn's smouldering resentment into bitter hatred, and also caused an open rift between Mary and her father. Anne tried at first to bribe Mary into submission by sending cordial letters and inviting her to court, asking her to honour her as queen, and promising it would be a means of reconciliation with her father. Mary replied curtly that she knew of no queen of England save her mother, but if 'Madam Boleyn' would intercede for her with the King, she would be much obliged. Anne was furious, but she sent Mary another invitation. Again, Mary rebuffed her, so she moved to the next stage in her campaign, threats. These had no effect either, and from then on it was open war, with Anne publicly vowing to bring down the pride born of Mary's 'unbridled Spanish blood'.

Katherine was not officially informed of the Archbishop's two judgements until 3 July. On that day, another deputation of lords of the Council, headed by Lord Mountjoy, arrived at Ampthill and presented her with a parchment advising her that the King was lawfully divorced and married to the Lady Anne, who was now queen. 'As the King cannot have two wives, he cannot permit the Dowager to persist in calling herself queen,' she was informed. It would be better for her if she accepted this new marriage and recognised Anne as Queen of England - better for everyone, in fact. But Katherine took a pen and, to the horror of Mountjoy, scored through the words 'Princess Dowager' with such vehemence that the nib tore the parchment, which still survives today bearing the marks of its mutilation. 'I am not Princess Dowager but the Queen and the King's true wife!' she cried angrily. 'And since I have been crowned and anointed queen, so I will call myself during my lifetime.' When Mountjoy ventured to remind her that the rightful queen was now Queen Anne, Katherine retorted with scorn that 'all the world knoweth by what authority it was done,' and declared she would abide by no judgement save that of the Pope.

The lords, who had heard her out with growing irritation, then delivered an ultimatum from the King. If she persisted in her obstinacy, he might withdraw his fatherly love from their daughter. Katherine blanched at this, but remained resolute and said she would not yield for her daughter's sake or anyone else's, notwithstanding the King's displeasure. Warned that she was putting herself in danger of the King's anger and its consequences, she replied: 'Not for a thousand deaths will I consent to damn my soul or that of my husband the King.'

Henry was furious at the failure of Mountjoy's mission, and took his revenge by ordering, at the end of July, that Katherine be moved to the Bishop of Lincoln's thirteenth-century palace at Buckden in Huntingdonshire. Part of this building still survives today. When Katherine stayed there, the newer Great Tower assigned to her was already fifty years old, and rendered chilly and uncomfortable by the damp that rose from the Fens upon which it was situated. Katherine and her much reduced household were lodged in a corner turret of the three-storyed red-brick building, which was, by intention, more comfortless than the rest. Buckden was also very remote, and a long way from London and the court. It was surrounded by a secure moat, and located in a wild and desolate area, overlooking the Great Fen. Few people lived in the district, a fact that had not escaped

Henry's attention. But if he had hoped to bring Katherine to submission by exiling her to such a place, he was destined to be disappointed. As the former queen's cortege wound its way to Buckden on 30 July, the country people ran after it in hordes, wishing Katherine comfort and prosperity, and professing themselves ready to serve her and, if need be, die for her.

At Buckden visitors were forbidden, by the King's express command, and there was very little money. What Katherine could spare she gave in alms to local poor folk. Nor was food plentiful, and she fasted often, usually for religious reasons. Beneath her clothes, she wore the hair shirt of the third order of St Francis, to remind her of the frailty of the flesh. Her leisure hours were spent on embroideries with her women, fashioning altar-cloths for the churches in the district, but the greater part of her days was devoted to prayer, and it was prayer that sustained her. At Buckden, a room with a window adjoined the chapel, and Katherine would kneel here, day and night, praying at the window. When she had gone, her ladies would find the sill wet with her tears, for she shed many for the loss of both husband and child. Yet her forbearance was remarkable. When one of her women began to curse Anne Boleyn, Anne's greatest rival bade her hold her peace and 'pray for her', for the time would come when 'you shall pity and lament her case'.

Chapuys relates how in August, Anne demanded that Katherine surrender the rich triumphal cloth and christening gown she had brought from Spain. These were in fact Katherine's personal property, and she refused to let Anne have them: 'God forbid I should ever give help in a case so horrible as this!' she exclaimed. Nor did the King press the point. The christening robe remained at Buckden.

In August, the Pope drew up a sentence of excommunication against Henry VIII. Katherine, appalled, wrote to Clement, begging him not to put it into effect, and Clement, for once, heeded her plea. But by September, she was feeling desperate about her predicament. The Pope must be made to give judgement, and soon.

There is no justice for me or my daughter [she wrote to Chapuys]. It is withheld from us for political considerations. I did not ask His Holiness to declare war - a war I would rather die than provoke - but I have been appealing to the vicar of God for six years and I cannot have it! Write to the Emperor, bid him insist that judgement be pronounced!

She had also heard malicious gossip, designed to scare her, that the next Parliament would decide if she and her daughter were to 'suffer martyrdom'. Bravely, she declared she did not fear it, but what was ominous to Chapuys was that Katherine's keepers had been instructed to break her resistance with such threats.

The Queen's pregnancy progressed well. It was made public in May, when her increasing girth obliged her to add a panel to her skirts. Being Anne, she complained bitterly about the loss of her figure, but her father told her bluntly to thank God she found herself in such a condition. In July, she went with Henry to Hampton Court to rest, and was reported to be in good health and spirits. Normally at that time of year Henry would be preparing to go on progress, but in 1533 he stayed near London, hunting, so as to be on hand. He also ordered prayers for her safe delivery to be said in churches. Astrologers and seers were consulted by the future parents about the baby's sex. Only one dared predict it would not be a boy: William Glover, famous throughout the kingdom for foretelling the future, told Anne he had had a vision of her bearing 'a woman child and a prince of the land'. This was not well received.

In August, the first cracks in the relationship between Henry and Anne began to appear. With his wife fully occupied with preparations for the coming child, and perhaps no longer inclined to want his sexual attentions, the King, who had now settled down in his marriage to a point where he could be complacent about it, had been unfaithful. The identity of this fleeting inamorata is not known, although Chapuys thought her 'very beautiful', and reported that many nobles had promoted the affair, doubtless to spite Anne. Whoever she was, the liaison was quickly over. However, Anne found out. Unlike Katherine, she was not reticent about such matters, and made a fuss. Henry was irritated to find her upbraiding him for a passing infidelity; now that they were married, he expected her to be as meek, docile and submissive as Katherine had been, and he did not take kindly to her censure. Worse still, he was hurt, for he had just presented her with a great French bed, part of the ransom for the Duke de Longueville in 1515, and he made it clear that it was as well it had already been delivered, for she would not have had it now, having used displeasing words and shown herself so full of jealousy. This only made Anne angrier, but Henry cut her short. Chapuys says he told her she must shut her eyes, 'and endure as more worthy persons. She ought to know that it was in his power to humble her again in a moment, more than he had exalted her before.' After this, he avoided her for three days, and then there was much 'coldness and grumbling' between them. Chapuys dismissed this as a 'love quarrel, of which no great notice should be taken', but there was more to it than that. The wheel had come full circle: not a year before, Anne had been the mistress and Henry the servant. Eight months of marriage had changed all that. Henry was now dominant, and he expected Anne, as his wife, to play a subservient role, though, after seven years of having the upper hand, this did not come easily to her. It would be foolishtoread into Henry's remarks much more than the bluster of a man caught straying, but all the same they are an indication that he was mentally comparing Anne with Katherine and finding her wanting. Anne had now been queen for five months, long enough for him to realise that she lacked the dignity and circumspection required for success in that capacity, and long enough for her arrogance to begin to irritate him. This is not to say that her spell was wearing thin, merely that marriage had altered the balance of their relationship. Henry was still in love with her, but that did not now preclude sex with other women when he felt the need. In the middle of August, the King and Queen went to Windsor, then to Greenwich, where Anne took to her chamber to await the birth. 'I never saw the King merrier than he is now,' commented a courtier, Sir John Russell, as Henry occupied himself during the last tense weeks of waiting with his favourite sport, hunting. At last, on the morning of 7 September 1533, in a bedchamber hung with tapestries depicting St Ursula and her 11,000 virgins, Anne went into labour, just as the Duke of Suffolk, whose wife Mary Tudor had died in June, was being married in another part of the palace to thirteen-year-old Katherine Willoughby, daughter of Maria de Salinas, Katherine's close friend. On the face of it, the bride was a strange choice, but the 48-year-old Duke had wanted her when she had been betrothed to his son, and had broken the betrothal to marry her himself. He must have set out with every intention of avoiding his formidable mother-in-law whenever possible, for he had already suffered a conflict of loyalties during his first marriage. As it turned out, though, he forged a satisfactory friendship with Lady Willoughby. His young wife grew up to be an ardent reformist and one ofthe early luminaries of the Protestant faith.

Suffolk's marriage, however, was completely eclipsed by the events taking place in the Queen's apartments. All went well, the mother-to-be being sustained by the assurances of the physicians and astrologers that her child would be male. A vain fancy, as it turned out, for the infant born to her shortly after three o'clock that afternoon was a girl.

According to Chapuys, both Henry and Anne were disappointed at the child's sex, and Henry was angry that he had been so misled by those paid to make predictions about it. Yet his new daughter was strong and healthy, with Tudor red hair and her mother's features, and her arrival surely presaged a long line of sons. When Henry came to see his wife and child for the first time after the birth, he had had time to reflect on this, and was philosophical when Anne expressed regret at not having given him a boy. 'You and I are both young,' he told her, 'and by God's grace, boys will follow.' It was not perhaps the most tactful remark to make to a woman who had just experienced childbirth for the first time, particularly when he went on to assure her he would rather beg from door to door than forsake her. Their child, he announced, would be called Elizabeth, which by happy coincidence was the name of both his mother and Anne's.

Reaction to the birth was predictable. Chapuys spoke for the Emperor and the rest of Europe when he concluded that God, by sending a daughter, had entirely abandoned the King. The Princess Mary, who had been forced against her will to attend Anne's confinement, was secretly triumphant, knowing that as far as Catholic Europe was concerned Elizabeth would never be regarded as anything other than a bastard begotten and borne in sin by an infamous courtesan. In England too, there was unfavourable comment. The Bishop of Bath's secretary, John Erley, made insulting remarks about the King's apparent inability to sire male heirs. 'I would have gotten a boy,' he boasted, 'or else I would have so meddled with the Queen till my eyes did start out of my head!'

Letters announcing the birth of a prince had already been prepared; now, with an SS added, they were dispatched abroad. The King ordered aTe Deumto be sung in churches, and went ahead with the splendid christening he had already planned for the hoped-for son. On the Wednesday after her birth, the Princess Elizabeth was wrapped in a purple mantle with a long train furred with ermine, and, escorted by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, was carried in the arms of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk under a canopy of estate to her baptism in the chapel of the Observant Friars. Neither Henry nor Anne attended, and the central figures at the christening were the baby's godparents, Archbishop Cranmer, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, the Dowager Marchioness of Dorset, and the Marquess of Exeter - who, as a supporter of the former Queen, told Chapuys he really wanted to have nothing to do with the ceremony, but did not wish to displease the King.

Inside the chapel, a vast throng had gathered. The font was of solid silver, three steps high, and covered with a fine cloth. Around it stood many gentlemen with aprons on and towels over their shoulders, who received the baby when she was lifted, naked and dripping wet, out of the font by the Archbishop. A brazier burned in a nearby cubicle where she was dressed after the ceremony. Then Garter King of Arms cried: 'God, of His infinite goodness, send prosperous life and long to the high and mighty Princess of England, Elizabeth!' The trumpets blew a fanfare, and the child was brought to the altar, where the Archbishop confirmed her. Then refreshments were served to the guests, and the godparents presented the Princess with gifts, standing cups of gold and gilt bowls with covers.

Now, with the trumpets sounding before them, the procession reformed and made its way back through corridors lit by 500 torches to the Queen's apartments, where Anne, robed and lying on her great French bed with the King at her side, received her daughter joyfully, and offered the guests more refreshments.

Elizabeth had been baptised with all possible ceremony, yet there were no attendant celebrations. The tournament planned by the King was cancelled, as were the fireworks, and no bonfires were lit in the City of London. Two friars were arrested for saying they had heard that the Princess had been christened in hot water, 'but it was not hot enough'. Chapuys thought 'the little bastard's' christening had been 'cold and disagreeable', but he was viewing it through prejudiced eyes. The fact remained, however, that although Elizabeth was Henry's recognised heir, she had not been welcomed like one.

Anne quickly conceived a deep and protective love for her child, and to begin with hated to let her out of her sight. When she returned to take her place at court, there, by her throne under the canopy of estate, lay her baby on a velvet cushion. She had wanted to breastfeed Elizabeth herself, but Henry was shocked at the notion: queens never suckled their own offspring. A wet-nurse was engaged, and Anne was forced to endure the first break in the bond between herself and her child. In December, when she was three months old, Henry assigned to Elizabeth her own household, and established it at Hatfield Palace, which was convenient for London yet well away from its unhealthy, plague-infested air. Lady Margaret Bryan, who had formerly cared for the Princess Mary, was appointed Lady Governess to Elizabeth, and had the command of a veritable army of nursemaids, laundresses, officials and servants. Chapuys noticed that

the child was taken to Hatfield from Greenwich by a roundabout route, via Enfield, 'for the sake of pompous solemnity', and the better to impress upon the people the fact that she was the King's heiress.

The Princess Mary's trials began in earnest after Elizabeth was born. She was deprived of the title of princess, and her household was disbanded. Then, in December, she was sent to Hatfield - not without protest - to act as a maid of honour to her half-sister, whose title she refused to recognise. Her beloved Lady Salisbury was dismissed, and in her place were appointed Lady Anne Shelton and Lady Alice Clere, two female relatives of Anne Boleyn, who had been set to spy on her and generally make her life a misery. Anne, commented Chapuys, had alienated the King from his former humanity and was doing her utmost to break Mary's resolve.

She began her persecution by demanding Mary's jewels, on the grounds that the King's bastard daughter could not be permitted to wear what was meant for his heiress. Nor did Anne approve of the King visiting Mary, and would throw a tantrum whenever he suggested doing so. Once she even sent Cromwell after him to Hatfield, to dissuade him from seeing Mary, but when Henry was leaving, he chanced to look up and saw his daughter on a balcony, kneeling in supplication to him. Deeply moved, he bowed and touched his hat, at which all the members of his retinue followed suit; then he rode away, not daring to defy his wife by actually speaking to Mary. When Anne heard about the incident, she was not pleased.

By this time, Mary was perilously near to breaking-point, and her health had suffered, though four months of misery in Elizabeth's household had only strengthened her determination to defend her rights and those of her mother. This took courage, however, in such a hostile environment. She missed her mother intolerably, and thought of little but escaping from England, though Katherine forbade it, bidding her obey her father in all things save those that touched her conscience.

Henry strayed again sexually while Anne was lying-in after the birth of Elizabeth. At the same time, rumours were circulating in the court that he was beginning to tire of her. In November 1533, the French ambassador noticed that 'the King's regard for the Queen is less'. Disappointment in not having a son may have accounted for this; for all his brave words at Elizabeth's birth, Henry must have felt that Anne had failed him. In less than a year of marriage the magic had worn off to some degree and the King had leisure to wonder why he had risked so much for her, though he would not have admitted as much. He still maintained he had been right to put away Katherine and marry her, but he could see for himself how unpopular Anne was. 'There is little love for the one who is queen now, or any of her race,' reported the French ambassador in November, and in January 1534 there were more outbreaks of treasonous talk, with Henry accusedofbeing a heretic living in adultery and Anne of being a mischievous whore who would one day be burned at the stake. Even the Duke of Northumberland, Anne's former admirer, was overheard by Chapuys saying to a friend that the Queen was a bad woman, which effectively demolishes the myth that he loved her to the end of his days. And when Lord Dacre was tried for treason, having long supported Katherine of Aragon and been one of Anne's most bitter enemies, twenty-four peers and twelve judges, having heard him speak for seven hours in his defence, unanimously acquitted him. The Queen's anger knew no bounds when she heard of this, yet both she and Henry were aware that Dacre's acquittal was symbolic of the general mood.

By Christmas 1533, all was well again on the surface between the royal couple. They exchanged gifts, Anne giving Henry a splendid gold basin encrusted with rubies and pearls and containing a diamond-studded fountain with real water issuing from the nipples of three solid gold naked nymphs. Yet the same festive season saw quite a drama being acted out at Buckden. Early in December, the Princess Dowager had sent a message asking the King if she might move to a healthier house, as her present lodging was hopelessly damp and cold, and her health was beginning to suffer. Of course, this was what Anne Boleyn had intended should happen, and she suggested that her rival be moved to Somersham Castle, near Ely. Henry agreed to this, but when Chapuys protested that Somersham was 'the most unhealthy and pestilential house in England, surrounded by deep water and marshes', he changed his mind and said Katherine should go to the old Yorkist stronghold Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire instead. Unknown to Chapuys, Fotheringhay was in an even worse condition than Somersham, and Henry knew it. Katherine knew it too, and when she was informed of the proposed move, she refused to go there. Henry, goaded by Anne, was equally adamant that she should, and dismissed yet more of her servants, insisting that those remaining must not address their mistress as queen, but as Princess Dowager, the title she refused to acknowledge. To enforce her obedience, the Duke of Suffolk was sent to Buckden with a detachment of the King's guards.

Suffolk did not relish his task. It was December, and he was reluctant to leave the warmth and splendour of a court preparing for Christmas and his bride of three months for a damp, lonely house on the Fens and a mission he found distasteful: harrying a sick woman. He told his mother-in-law, Lady Willoughby, that he hoped he would meet with an accident on the way that would prevent him from carrying out his orders. Unfortunately for the Duke, he arrived at Buckden on 18 December safe and sound, and entered almost immediately into a heated exchange with Katherine, who told him she would rather be torn in pieces than admit she was not the King's wife. This set the tone for the visit. Suffolk told her he had come to escort her to Fotheringhay, at which - without further argument she withdrew to her chamber and locked herself in. 'If you wish to take me with you, you will have to break down the door!' she cried, and no threats or entreaties could persuade her to come out.

Suffolk dared not force the door, or seize Katherine by force: she was the Emperor's aunt, and there would be repercussions. So he proceeded to the business of dismissing her servants, leaving only a few to care for her needs. Those remaining were ordered in the King's name to refer to their mistress in future as the Princess Dowager, but her chaplains, Father Abell and Father Barker, insisted that as they had both sworn their oaths of service to Queen Katherine, they could not perjure themselves by calling her anything else. Suffolk placed the two priests in custody in the porter's lodge, and wrote to the King, asking what he should do with them.

While he waited for a reply, Suffolk was reduced once again to standing outside Katherine's door and pleading with her to come out. She would not listen, either to him, or to Lord Mountjoy, or to her almoner, Father Dymoke. Suffolk wrote again to the King, telling him her defiance was 'against all reason'; unless he bound her with ropes and 'virtually enforced her', there was no hope of her compliance. He was heartily sick of his mission, having seen for himself how the years of anxiety and sorrow had taken their toll of Katherine's health. Nevertheless, he thought her 'the most obstinate woman that may be'.

Meanwhile, word had reached the local people, via Katherine's departing servants, of what was going on in the castle, and men from the surrounding district began to gather silently outside the walls, armed with scythes, pitchforks and other implements. They did nothing, but watched and waited for any sign of ill-treatment of the woman they still held to be their queen. Suffolk grew uneasy, and wished he had never heard of Buckden. As it was, he was obliged to remain there until 31 December, when he received instructions from the King bidding him leave Katherine where she was and return to court. Henry would graciously allow the Bishop of Llandaff, who spoke Spanish, to remain as Katherine's chaplain. When Suffolk had gone, the labourers dispersed, and Katherine emerged from her chamber to find her rooms stripped of most of their furniture, and the majority of her servants gone.

Suffolk was not entirely an unfeeling man, and when he returned to Greenwich, he warned the King about Katherine's precarious health. Later, Henry told Chapuys she had dropsy, and would not live very much longer. 'I think he would be glad,' commented the ambassador. In fact, Katherine did not have dropsy, but Henry was right on one point: she was already in the first stages of the cancer that would eventually kill her. Henry, who could not have known this, thought her environment was responsible for her ill health, and he callously left her at Buckden in the hope that she would soon succumb to her malady.

Queen Anne conceived again soon after the birth of Elizabeth. At the beginning of December 1533, her family knew she was pregnant for the second time, and her cousin, Lord William Howard, made the news public while on an embassy to Rome, for which he had left England early in December. Care was taken not to weary the Queen, and Archbishop Cranmer warned the reformist preacher Hugh Latimer not to make his sermons longer than an hour and a half, as Anne tired easily. Nor did disturbed sleep help the exhaustion of early pregnancy. Henry had just been presented with a peacock and a pelican, but unfortunately these birds made such a clamour outside Anne's windows from dawn onwards that she could not rest in the mornings. The King therefore found the birds another home at Sir Henry Norris's house in Greenwich - Lady Norris's broken nights were not a matter of state importance. Birds of a different sort found more favour with Anne when, in May 1534, Lady Lisle, wife of the Governor of Calais - who was anxious to ingratiate herself with the Queen as she had daughters she wished to place at court - sent her a brace of dotterels (a species of game bird) and a singing linnet in a cage. 'The Queen liked them very well,' reported Lady Lisle's London agent, especially the songbird, 'which doth not cease at no time to give her Grace rejoicing with her pleasant song'.

In April, Anne and Henry visited their daughter, who had moved to Eltham Palace, and there inspected the preparations that were in hand 'against the coming of the Prince'. That month, Anne's receiver-general reported that she was already showing 'a goodly belly', and she made it known that her chief desire was to present the King with a son who would be the living image of his father.

In March 1534, the King paid Anne the supreme compliment of providing for her to be regent and 'absolute governess of her children and kingdom' in the event of his early death. Then, on 23 March, Parliament passed one of the most controversial pieces of legislation of Henry's reign: the Act of Succession, which vested the succession to 'the imperial crown of England' in the children of Henry and Anne. On 1 May, the contents of this Act were proclaimed in all the shires of England, and the King's subjects were warned that anyone saying or writing anything 'to the prejudice, slander or derogation of the lawful matrimony' between the King and 'his most dear and entirely beloved wife Queen Anne', or against his lawful heirs, would be guilty of high treason, for which the penalty was death and forfeiture of lands and goods to the Crown. Furthermore, it was proclaimed that the new Act required all the King's subjects, if so commanded, to swear an oath 'that they shall truly, firmly, constantly, without fraud or guile, observe, fulfil, maintain, defend and keep the whole effect and contents of this Act'. The oath also required recognition of the King's supremacy. Those refusing to take it would be accounted guilty of misprision of treason and sent to prison. The Crown had thrown down the gauntlet, and it remained to be seen how the people of England would react to the challenge.

Nothing now could save the Nun of Kent. She had been attainted, with her accomplices, of high treason on 20 March, and on 20 April, all five were drawn on hurdles to the gallows at Tyburn and there hanged, cut down while still alive, and beheaded before great crowds. Theirs was the first blood spilt as a result of the 'great matter'. It would not be the last.

Most people, including members of the religious orders, took the oath required by the Act of Succession without demur. Although Anne Boleyn herself was unpopular, the new order in England was welcomed by many, and people flocked to the churches on Easter Day to hear, in the words of Chapuys, 'the most outrageous and abominable things in the world', which presumably included the bidding prayers for Anne and Elizabeth. On 5 May, Convocation met at York and formally renounced its allegiance to the Pope.

Thomas Cromwell, promoted in April to be Secretary to the King, was now in a position that involved him in increasingly confidential business; he was also able to advise Henry on decisions on policy. Though Henry never had the affection for Cromwell that he had had for Wolsey, nevertheless 'Mr Secretary' was to prove extremely useful to him, having successfully planned the break with Rome, and the King congratulated himself on having discovered the man's undoubted ability and potential. Most important of all was the fact that Cromwell was prepared to deal with those tasks that called for a certain flexibility of conscience, and that made him invaluable. Those who wanted to communicate with Henry generally had to go through Cromwell, and hence, though outwardly on good terms with most people, he became both envied and greatly resented. The old nobility despised him for his lowly origins, much as they despised Wolsey, and many feared him, knowing his lack of scruple. His spies were known to be everywhere, and with the King so touchy about his marriage and the royal supremacy, even chance remarks, heard by the wrong ears, might be construed as treason.

Some brave souls were defiant, and refused to take the oath to the Act of Succession. One was John Fisher who was still under house arrest, and had received letter after letter from the King containing 'terrible' words about his opposition to Henry's remarriage. In January 1534, Henry had deprived Fisher of his bishopric, and in March, he was attainted of misprision of treason for having supported the Nun of Kent, and sent to the Tower. Chapuys thought him to be 'in great danger of life', even though Fisher had written to the King protesting his loyalty. In April, Fisher refused to take the oath, and when, in May, Henry learned that the Pope had made the former bishop a cardinal, and was sending his red hat to England, he observed tartly that Fisher would have to wear it on his shoulders, for by the time it arrived he would not have a head to put it on.

Thomas Abell, Katherine's chaplain, was also attainted in March 1534, and sent to the Tower, where he would suffer dreadful privations during his imprisonment. And in April, the King's wrath reached Sir Thomas More, who had likewise refused to swear the oath. More, who had declared himself the King's loyal subject and had denied he had ever been against Anne Boleyn, 'this noble woman really anointed Queen', was arrested, and asked again if he would take the oath. For the second time he refused, and no amount of persuasion could make him reveal his objections. By then, Queen Anne was crying out for his blood, and on 17 April, he too was sent to the Tower, and lodged in a cell above Fisher's in the Bell Tower. His arrest shocked many, given his standing as lawyer, scholar and statesman, and his former friendship with the King. Finally, the Princess Mary's former tutor, Richard Fetherston, went to the Tower in December 1534.

In March 1534, the Pope gave judgement at last on Henry VIII's nullity suit, after seven years of procrastination. As a result of the pressure brought to bear upon him by the Emperor, Clement had reluctantly convened the consistory in January finally to resolve the problem. Katherine, hearing of this from Chapuys, wrote to the Emperor in February: 'Beg His Holiness to act as he ought for God's service. There is no need to tell you of our sufferings. As long as I live, I shall not fail to defend our rights.' For weeks, Clement dithered and prevaricated, until his cardinals lost patience with him and urged him to proceed to sentence. Finally, on 23 March, he pronounced that the marriage between Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon 'always hath and still doth stand firm and canonical, and the issue proceeding standeth lawful and legitimate'. Henry was ordered to resume cohabitation at once with 'his lawful wife and Queen, to hold her and maintain her with such love and princely honour as becometh a loving husband and his kingly honour so to do'. If he refused, he would be excommunicated. As a final indignity, Henry was required to pay the costs of the case.

When Henry heard the sentence, from the French ambassador, he was visibly shaken, but undeterred. The Pope, he declared, no longer had any authority over English affairs. News of Clement's judgement spread rapidly, and here and there public celebrations were held to herald Katherine's expected return to favour. At Buckden, there was a loyal demonstration of goodwill towards her, and Katherine herself went down on her knees and thanked God. After seven long and bitter years, she was at last vindicated, and now trusted that the King would restore her to her lawful place. Patiently, she waited for a message from him, summoning her back to court, her heart brimming with forgiveness. But no such message ever came, and gradually the bitter truth dawned: nothing had changed so far as Henry was concerned, nor would change. In deep sorrow, Katherine wrote to Chapuys, and came as near as she ever would to urging the Emperor to use armed force to deal with her husband. 'She now realises that it is absolutely necessary to apply stronger remedies to the evil,' wrote the ambassador, but 'what they are to be, she durst not say.' When the Emperor realised that Henry meant to ignore the Pope's judgement, he told his advisers he would not fail 'in what is necessary for the execution of the sentence'. What was necessary, Chapuys told Katherine, was armed force, but Charles had not meant to imply this. He meant to compel the Pope to excommunicate Henry, in the hope that that would bring the English king to his senses. Charles also instructed Chapuys to advise Katherine and Mary to take the oath required by the King, protesting that they were taking it out of fear; 'it cannot prejudice their rights,' he wrote.

From April 1534, Chapuys's reports are full of unspecified dangers threatening Katherine and her daughter. Henry might not countenance the outright murder of his wife and child, but he was not above hounding them to their deaths by ill-treatment, and in this Anne Boleyn aided and abetted him. She also urged the King to put them to death by judicial process, but Henry was too concerned about the consequences to agree to that, although he made threats often enough. There remained poison, and many people, among them Chapuys, believed Anne to be quite capable of using it to achieve her end, while Dr Butts, Henry's physician, believed that unless the King fell ill - when he might be persuaded to listen to the advice of someone other than Anne - the lives of Katherine and Mary were in danger.

Anne's hostility was on a personal level. It was based on jealousy of Katherine's breeding and virtues, which showed up Anne herself in none too favourable a light, on rage that Katherine had dared defy Henry for so long, and on fear, because Katherine and her daughter appeared to be doing their best to oust her own daughter from the succession and herself from the throne. 'Neither the Queen nor the Princess will be safe for a moment while the Cuncubine still has power; she is desperate to get rid of them,' warned Chapuys. He alerted Katherine to the danger threatening her, and told her bluntly that he had heard Anne saying she 'would not be satisfied until both the Queen and her daughter had been done to death by poison or otherwise'.

Katherine exercised constant vigilance to ensure that her food was prepared only by those servants she trusted. At any time now the King's commissioners would come and demand that she take the oath. Failure to do so could mean imprisonment. But when the Archbishop of York arrived to administer the oath to her and her household, Katherine stood firm and, ignoring the Emperor's advice, refused to swear. The Archbishop, who had been briefed 'not to press very hard', was dismayed by the hostility shown him by Katherine's servants, who either refused to take the oath or pretended not to understand English, and in exasperation he dismissed those who proved obdurate.

Katherine's obstinacy provoked the King, at the end of April 1534, to order her removal to Kimbolton Castle in Huntingdonshire, a house built in 1522 of wood and stone. It was a secure residence, access being gained only through an archway on the western side, and would be, in effect, Katherine's prison. Today, the Tudor house is encased in a Georgian exterior, and Katherine's rooms have been entirely remodelled. Two officers of the Crown were appointed her governors, Sir Edmund Bedingfield and Sir Edward Chamberlayne. Her small household would accompany her, and would only remain subject to Bedingfield's approval. Katherine asked if she could be allowed to keep her confessor, her physician, her apothecary, two menservants, and 'as many women as it should please the King's Grace to appoint. I am often sickly,' she told Bedingfield, 'and I require their attendance for the preservation of my poor body.' Her request was granted; fortunately, most of her people were Spaniards who had not been naturalised and were therefore exempt from taking the oath.

Katherine was taken to Kimbolton early in May 1534, and found herself housed in two rooms on the opposite side of the courtyard to the governors' apartments and the great hall. Bedingfield and Chamberlayne kept very much to their side of the house, and Katherine's household of twenty servants had as little communication with them as possible. Bedingfield was not the kindest of gaolers, and he was later to report to Cromwell that 'my fidelity in executing the orders of the King renders me no favourite with the Princess Dowager, therefore she conceals everything from me'. In fact, he hardly ever saw her. A division was apparent in the household from the first, as Katherine refused to speak to anyone who did not address her as queen.

She had been at Kimbolton for three weeks when the Bishop of Durham was sent by the King in another attempt to make her swear the oath. She told him she would never relinquish the title of queen, but retain it till death. The Bishop then threatened her, as he had been authorised to do, with the penalty required by the law for persons who refused the oath, but at this her anger flared. 'Hold thy peace, Bishop!' she cried. 'These are the wiles of the devil! I am Queen, and Queen I will die! By right, the King can have no other wife. Let this be your answer.' The Bishop warned her she might be sent to the scaffold if she persisted in her obstinacy. 'And who will be the hangman?' she retorted. 'If you have permission to execute this penalty on me, I am ready. I ask only that I be allowed to die in sight of the people.' At this, the Bishop backed down, for he had rather exceeded his brief. The penalty for refusing to swear the oath was imprisonment, not death, and Katherine could be said to be suffering that already.

When the Bishop came to administering the oath to Katherine's household, he was neatly outwitted, for the naturalised Spaniards readily swore, in their native tongue, as Katherine had bidden them: lEI Rey se ha heco cabeza de la Iglesia.'The Bishop had expected considerable opposition, and was surprised at such co-operation. He did not know, however, that, instead of acknowledging the King to be head of the Church, they had merely acknowledged that he had made himself head of the Church!

When the King heard that Katherine had again refused to take the oath, he grumbled bitterly to Chapuys that 'the Lady Dowager is being well-treated in everything, but has very disobediently behaved herself to us'; although he had sent bishops to give her advice 'in the most loving fashion', she had disobediently and wilfully resisted and 'set at naught and condemned our laws and ordinances'. Chapuys, who had his own secret links with Katherine, knew that Henry was lying. It was an alarming situation, and Chapuys was not alone in his concern. He told the Emperor: 'Everybody fears some ill turn will be done to the Queen, seeing the rudeness to which she is daily subjected.' He considered her loyalty to Henry to be superhuman: 'She is so scrupulous, and has such great respect for him, that she would consider herself damned if she took any way tending to war.'

In the spring of 1534, Mary became very ill. Her sickness was undoubtedly the result of sorrow and stress. The ambassador begged the Council to allow Katherine to nurse Mary herself, but they refused. Henry trusted no one these days, and believed that together mother and daughter would hatch a plot with the Emperor to depose him. Cromwell told Chapuys that Mary's present predicament was her own fault, 'and that if it pleased God . . .'. He did not finish, and Chapuys concluded that the King 'really desires the Princess's death'.

In July 1534, recovered from her illness and fortified by a letter from her mother secretly conveyed by Chapuys, Mary refused to take the oath. Lady Shelton, who was present, shook the girl violently in front of the Earl of Wiltshire, who had been sent to administer the oath. 'If I were the King,' she cried, 'I would kick you out of the house! I would make you lose your head!' But Mary stood firm, and when Anne heard what had happened, she wrote suggesting Lady Shelton administer 'a good banging' to 'the cursed bastard'.

By this time, Anne was well advanced into her pregnancy. In June, she was reported to be in good health. The baby was due around the end of July, but before the Queen could take to her chamber, something went wrong and it was born prematurely; it was either stillborn, or died very soon after birth. Such was the secrecy surrounding the event that even the sex of the infant is not recorded - it was probably a girl, and Henry could not afford to lose face a second time. Anne made a quick recovery, but the loss of her child had been a bitter blow and she was very difficult to live with for a time. Late in July, the King and Queen went on their annual summer progress without any official announcement of the end of her pregnancy being made.

During that summer, Chapuys became increasingly concerned about Katherine's health. He had heard that her condition had deteriorated. In July, Henry agreed he might visit her, but had second thoughts about it and sent a messenger after the ambassador, commanding him to return to court, where he was informed by Cromwell that at no time in the future would he be permitted access to the Princess Dowager. In mid-September, when Katherine's illness grew worse, and it was thought for a time that she was dying, Lady Willoughby begged Cromwell for leave to see her, but it was likewise refused. Hearing of his aunt's illness, Charles V questioned the English ambassadors closely about reports that she had been badly treated. Henry personally instructed his envoys to say that the reports lied, and that the Lady Katherine had an honourable establishment with her own servants and money to meet her needs;  as for his daughter, he would deal with her 'as we think most expedient'. Charles was not deceived by all this; he had, after all, read the dispatches of Chapuys, which told an entirely different story.

In September 1534, Anne thought she was pregnant again. Yet her hopes were premature, for on 23 September, Chapuys informed the Emperor that 'the Lady is not to have a child after all.' Relations between the royal couple were not at all satisfactory just then. Once again, at the end of Anne's last pregnancy, the King had been unfaithful. Chapuys reported that the object of Henry's desire was 'a very beautiful and adroit young lady for whom his love is daily increasing'. She was probably one of the Queen's ladies, but her name is unknown. However, the ambassador had hopes that the affair would serve to diminish Anne's influence with Henry. The young lady was known to be sympathetic towards Katherine and Mary, and that could only be to their advantage. The course of the affair was interrupted by the summer progress, but when Henry returned, he renewed his attentions more ardently than before, and without bothering to conceal what was going on from the Queen, whose sexual attraction had begun to pale; Chapuys noted triumphantly that Henry was 'tired to satiety of her'. Thus, when Anne remonstrated with him, and threatened to send the girl away from court, he turned on her and angrily told her that she had good reason to be content with what he had done for her, which he would not do now if he were to begin again. Chapuys did not attach too much importance to these remarks, 'considering the changeable character of the King and the craft of the Lady, who well knows how to manage him'. But Anne did.

With the loss of her second child, she realised she had lost much of her influence, and some good measure of Henry's love. Her French ways of love-making were beginning to repel him and drove him into the arms of other women, while Anne was left facing the bitter fact that only by bearing a son could she revive her husband's love and respect. The diminishing of Anne's influence, noted Chapuys, 'has already abated a good deal of her insolence'. Her gradual fall from favour meant that some courtiers now deemed it safe to visit the Lady Mary; even Anne herself wrote her a conciliatory letter, telling Mary to be of good cheer for her troubles would soon be at an end. She perhaps feared she might one day be in need of Mary's clemency, given the insecurity of her own position.

Anne's discontent and unhappiness were made worse in the autumn of 1534 by the appearance of a pregnant Mary Boleyn at court. It transpired that Mary had secretly married - for love - a young man of little standing and no fortune called William Stafford. This was a highly unsuitable match for the Queen's sister; Wiltshire, learning of it, immediately cut off Mary's allowance, and Anne banished her and her husband from court. It was three months before Mary attempted a reconciliation, and when she did it was by means of a letter to Cromwell, in which she confessed that 'love overcame reason'. Yet while she begged Mr Secretary to help her recover the 'gracious favour of the King and Queen', her letter had a sting in its tail, which perhaps holds a clue as to the true nature of the relationship between the sisters, who had never been close, for it ended:

For well I might a' had a greater man of birth, but I assure you I could never a' had one that loved me so well. I had rather beg my bread with him than be the greatest queen christened.

The letter, unfortunately, came into the hands of the Queen, and her reaction to it shattered any hopes of a reconciliation, for Anne, naturally, did not take kindly to the obvious comparison with herself. The taunt went too deep. Mary Stafford and her husband were never again received at court, and retired to William's modest house in the country, where they lived together in peaceful obscurity until Mary's death on 19 July 1543.

On 26 September 1534, Pope Clement died, and three weeks later the College of Cardinals elected his successor, Paul III. The new pontiff was infinitely more resolute than his predecessor, and one of his first acts was to threaten to put into effect the sentenceofexcommunication on Henry VIII drawn up by Clement but never published. Though Henry ignored this, there still remained the ever- present threat that Paul would publish his Bull and incite the Emperor to war: Henry, as an excommunicate ruler standing alone, could not expect aid from the other Christian princes of Europe.

The King tired of his unnamed mistress by the end of October 1534, although Anne knew by now that there were sure to be others. There are hints in contemporary letters that Henry kept several young girls for his pleasure at Farnham Castle, and Norfolk, who knew Henry well, told Chapuys that his master had always been 'continually inclined to amours'. A man called William Webbe was out on his horse near Eltham Palace one day, with his pretty sweetheart riding pillion, when he chanced to encounter his sovereign on the road. The King pulled the girl from the horse and kissed her in front of the aghast Webbe, then took her straight back to the palace with him. Such encounters were purely sexual and did not last, yet there was a strong anti-Boleyn faction at court that would dearly have loved to see Anne displaced, and who did their best to encourage any amorous intrigues of the King.

Anne was now ageing visibly. The portrait of her painted at around this time shows she had already lost her looks. Her once vivacious eyes now regard the world with suspicion, her smiling lips are pinched tight shut, and her cheeks are beginning to sag. The frustration, sadness and stress she had suffered had left their marks on her face, and Henry's desire for her had cooled, leaving him susceptible to the charms of younger women. Anne had bitterly resented Henry's last affair, and had conspired with her sister-in-law Lady Rochford to have the girl removed from court, but the King found out and banished Lady Rochford instead. When Chabot de Brion, the Admiral of France, came to England on a state visit in November 1534, the King made a point of inviting a number of beautiful ladies to court to take part in the festivities. 'He is more given to matters of dancing and ladies than he ever was,' observed Chapuys hopefully. A great banquet was given in the Admiral's honour. The Queen was present; she had for some time been trying to bring about a marriage between the Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Angouleme, third son of Francis I. If the French were to agree to it, then Anne would have manoeuvred Francis I into recognising her as Queen - which, to her chagrin, he had never done - and her daughter as lawfully born.

Chapuys records that at the banquet, the Admiral sat talking to the Queen while they watched the dancing. Then the King arrived and told Anne he would fetch the Admiral's secretary and present him to her. Moments after his departure, de Brion realised that Anne was no longer taking part in their conversation: she was glancing about the hall furtively. Then, to his consternation, she suddenly burst out laughing. The Admiral, ever conscious of his dignity, asked if she were amusing herself at his expense, but she shook her head, still laughing, although tears were in her eyes as she pointed across to where the King was standing. 'He went to fetch your secretary,' she said, 'but he met a lady, who made him forget the matter!' And she laughed again, but without mirth.

Christmas 1534 was not a happy one. Anne's favourite dog Little Purkoy (from the French wordpourquoi,presumably because of his enquiring expression), a gift from Lady Lisle, died. A great dog lover, the Queen had 'set much store' by him, and no one dared tell her the sad news until, in the end, the King broke it to her. Yet he was feeling less than sympathetic towards her at the time. She had quarrelled again with Norfolk, exercising her peculiar talent for alienating her supporters; Norfolk told the King she had used words to him that should not have been used to a dog; he, however, had retaliated by calling her 'a great whore'. Once upon a time, Anne might have expected Henry to avenge such a gross insult, but not any more. Henry's view was that she had provoked Norfolk beyond endurance, and he sympathised with the Duke.

Chabot de Brion's secretary, Palmedes Gontier, met Anne at a court banquet on 2 February 1535, and recorded his impressions in a letter to his master sent three days later. He perceived that all was not well. She seemed extremely apprehensive. Three days later he saw her again, and noted how her face fell when she saw that there was no reference in the letters he brought from the Admiral (who had returned to France) to her daughter's proposed betrothal. When the King was out of earshot, she complained to Gontier of the long delay in receiving word on this matter, saying it had 'caused and engendered in the King her spouse many strange thoughts, of which there was great need that a remedy should be thought of. She could only conclude that King Francis intended her to be 'maddened and lost, for she found herself quite near to that, and more in pain and trouble than she had been since her espousals'. She dared not speak as openly as she would have liked, she went on, 'for fear of where she was and of the eyes that were watching her countenance'. She told Gontier 'she could not write, could not see me, and could no longer talk with me.' She then left with the King, leaving Gontier to conclude that she was 'not at her ease' and that she had 'doubts and suspicions' of her husband.

It seems Henry had finally realised that marrying Anne had been a mistake. No longer did he see her through a lover's eyes: after two years of marriage, he was well able to regard her objectively, and could see little to impress him. Her arrogance, vanity and hauteur all proclaimed her inadequacy as a queen, and her public displays of emotion and temper were embarrassing. She had succeeded in making enemies of those who might have been her friends, and had displayed an unbecoming eagerness to wreak vengeance upon her enemies. She had probably lied about her virginity, and - worst of all - she had failed as yet to produce a son. Not only did Henry regret having married her, he had also brutally acquainted her with the fact. Yet, given any sign that he was contemplating her removal, the imperialists would be urging him to take Katherine back, something he could never contemplate. For the time being, therefore, Anne must remain; she might yet give him an heir. A son would still solve all her problems, as she well knew, but she told Henry early in 1535 that God had revealed to her in a dream that it would be impossible for her to conceive a child while Katherine and Mary lived. They were rebels and traitresses, she said, and deserved death. Henry failed to rise to her bait, another sign that her power was diminishing.

In February 1535, Mary fell gravely ill, and there were fears she might die. Even the King was alarmed, although he refused to heed his physicians' advice, and Chapuys's pleas, that she should go to her mother for whom she was pining. Katherine, in desperation, wrote to Cromwell, begging him to urge the King to let her nurse Mary herself at Kimbolton: 'A little comfort and mirth with me would be a half health to her.' She would 'care for her with my own hands and put her in my own bed and watch with her when needful'.

In March, Mary's condition worsened, and Katherine's anguish deepened, for she knew her own sickness to be mortal, and once again she begged Henry to let her see Mary. Yet still he refused. 'The Lady Katherine,' he told Chapuys, 'is a proud stubborn woman of very high courage. She could easily take the field, muster a great army, and wage against me a war as fierce as any her mother Isabella ever waged in Spain.' His remarks are proof that he knew very little about Katherine's illness. Fortunately, Mary recovered, and by April she was well enough to rejoin Elizabeth's household which was then at Eltham.

In February 1535, the King found a new mistress, thanks to his wife, who had now come to terms with the inevitable and reasoned that, if Henry had to have an affair, it should be with someone sympathetic to her, and not a member of the imperialist faction. She had therefore deliberately selected her cousin and lady-in-waiting Madge Shelton, who was the daughter of Lady Shelton; Anne persuaded Madge, who seems to have been quite amenable to the arrangement, to encourage Henry's advances. In no time at all, Madge was in the King's bed, where Anne hoped she would use her influence to make Henry a little kinder to his long-suffering wife. However, the short affair resulted, predictably, in Anne once more suffering pangs of jealousy; nor did it improve her situation at all.

By mid-March, though, she was in an altogether happier frame of mind, for she had discovered she was pregnant again. By 24 June, her condition was obvious, and Sir William Kingston remarked that 'she hath as fair a belly as I have seen'. But after that no more is heard of this pregnancy, and it is safe to assume it ended in a stillbirth at around the sixth month at the end of June. Again, details of the confinement were kept secret: Henry did not wish to parade another failure before the world. Nor was Anne's disappointment helped by news brought from France by her brother that Francis I would not agree to Elizabeth's betrothal to his son. Her mood now swung from hopeful anticipation to despair, and then to anger. 'She has been in a bad humour,' wrote Chapuys, 'and said a thousand shameful words of the King of France and the whole nation.' Sometimes she managed to hide her chagrin and grief under a faqade of gaiety. Margaret More, visiting her father in prison, told him that there had been nothing else at court but sporting and dancing, and that the Queen 'never did better'.

Alas, it pitieth me to remember into what misery, poor soul, she will shortly come f mused More. These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will spurn our heads off like footballs, but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance.

None knew better than he how easily the King's favour could turn to wrath.

Around this time, Cromwell, earning the approval of the reformists and the Queen, was preparing an enquiry into the abuses said to be rife within the religious houses. Closure of minor houses, or badly run ones, had been commonplace since the days of Henry V, and had accelerated under Wolsey, but this was something of quite a different order. Cromwell meant to have every monastery and convent visited and reported upon, with a view to its possible closure and the appropriation of its wealth by the Crown.

It was a masterful plan, and it had great appeal for a king who had long since squandered his father's fortune and was now desperately in need of funds, and who as its supreme head, was trying to divest the Church of England of the kind of abuses that had corrupted the Roman Church as well as any lingering allegiance to the papacy. It is doubtful if either Henry or Cromwell foresaw the far-reaching social consequences that would result from the closure of a large number of religious houses, nor that they envisaged much opposition from the English people, who had not protested overmuch about the break with Rome. Cromwell was made Vicar General in January 1535, and given permission to arrange for the visitation of every religious house in England. His report on the wealth of the Church - theValor Ecclesiasticus -was compiled by July 1535, and in that month the King's commissioners began their visitations, starting with minor establishments.

Queen Anne vigorously supported the reforms. After she became queen, she had become the focus of all the hopes of those who had secretly embraced the Lutheran faith; they imagined she shared their views, which was not so, although she did constrain the King to be tolerant with heretics. One Protestant, Robert Barnes, who had once fled from England for fear of persecution, was able to return, thanks to Anne's protection, and preached openly in London, unmolested. In 1534, Anne secured the freedom of another convicted heretic, Richard Herman, whom Wolsey had sent into exile for having advocated the translation of the Bible into English, something of which Anne herself was strongly in favour. Not for nothing did Miles Coverdale, in 1536, dedicate his English translation of the Bible to both Henry VIII and 'your dearest wife and most virtuous Princess, Queen Anne': this book, with Anne's initials beautifully embossed on the cover, is now in the British Library. It is a fact that not a single heretic was burned while Anne was queen. Her tolerance was unusual in an age that favoured rigid religious practice. However, it also lent ammunition to her detractors, for, to many, it was proof that she was herself a heretic.

In 1533, Anne had tried to save Catesby Priory from closure at the request of the nuns, and even offered to buy it herself. However, when the King learned that the nuns were unable to support themselves, he was compelled to refuse her request. Two years later, Anne would not have been so anxious to help. In 1535, she sent her officers to examine the famous phial of the Holy Blood at Hayles Abbey in Gloucestershire, which had been revered for centuries; back came the report - it was the blood of a duck, renewed as necessary by the monks who charged pilgrims to see it. The Queen ordered it to be removed from public view, but as soon as her men had gone, the monks put it back, and people still flocked to see it. In December 1535, Anne visited Syon Abbey, and harangued the nuns about their popish forms of worship.

Of the ten bishops preferred to sees while she was queen, seven were of the reformist persuasion, and in this her influence was plain. 'What a zealous defender she was of Christ's Gospel!' John Foxe would write many years later; and the Scots reformer, Alexander Aless would one day tell Elizabeth I that 'true religion in England had its commencement and its end with your mother'. Elizabeth's first Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, began his career as Anne Boleyn's chaplain, even though Anne knew he favoured the teachings of Luther.

She was also a patron of the new learning. In 1533, Erasmus dedicated two books to her father, and referred in each preface to 'the most gracious and virtuous Queen Anne'. She also assisted the French humanist Nicholas Bourbon, who had been imprisoned in France for his religious views - Anne earned his undying gratitude for securing his release, and even after her death, when her name was never uttered, he would boldly dedicate one of his treatises to her memory.

 As she grew older, Anne consciously cultivated a new image for herself, that of godly matron. She rarely appeared in public without a book of devotions in her hands. She aided scholars, particularly poor ones, and provided money for their education, maintaining several at the University of Cambridge, and she entrusted her nephew and ward, Henry Carey, to the fine tutelage of Nicholas Bourbon. She also helped Wolsey's bastard son, Thomas Winter, when he returned penniless from his studies at the University of Padua, which had been paid for by the King.

Anne's charities were widespread, yet little publicised during her lifetime. She had begun them in 1532, when she had, among other good deeds, sent money and medicine for the relief of the mother of Richard Lyst, a lay brother in the convent of the Observant Friars at Greenwich. Lyst had at one time been much against her, but her kindness softened his heart, and he became such a staunch supporter that other members of the community scathingly referred to him as Anne's 'chaplain'.

Anne gave alms weekly to the poor to the value of 100 crowns, together with clothing sewn by herself and her ladies. Throughout her reign, she discreetly provided also for widows and poor householders, sometimes giving out 3 or 4 for cattle or other livestock. When visiting a town or village, she sent her almoner ahead to find out from the parish authorities if there were any needy families in the district. A list would be drawn up, and the Queen would make grants of money towards their support. After her death, there was found among her papers a list of grants she intended to use for the relief of poor artisans. At the end of the sixteenth century, George Wyatt estimated that her charities had amounted to at least 1,500 yearly for the poor alone. He also commended her work for the poor in providing them with garments she had sewn herself; he had seen with his own eyes examples of her needlework in the fine tapestries on display at Hampton Court; yet, in his opinion, far more precious in the sight of God 'were those works which she caused her maidens to execute in shirts and smocks for the poor'.

In the spring of 1535 the shadow of treason, real or imagined, and the King's wrath with those who opposed his marriage and his policies hung over England. In April, an Oxford midwife was jailed for calling the Queen a 'goggle-eyed whore and a bawd', and a priest, Robert Feron, was also imprisoned for saying that 'the King's wife in fornication, this matron Anne, be more stinking than a sow'. But these were just the little fish. To snare more influential traitors the King would unleash a minor reign of terror, as he demonstrated to his subjects just how terrible his justice - and his vengeance - could be.

In May, the Prior of the London Charterhouse and four Carthusian monks, having denied the royal supremacy, suffered traitors' deaths at Tyburn. Sir Thomas More watched the men being tied to hurdles at the Tower, and noticed that they were 'as joyful as bridegrooms going to their marriages'. Wearing their habits, they were dragged by horses through the streets of London, strung up on the gallows, and left to hang until half-choked. Then they were cut down and revived with vinegar, so that they might suffer the full horrors of the punishment required by the law for treason: castration, disembowelling, and decapitation. After their deaths, their bodies were cut into quarters, which were publicly exhibited. The monks died bravely, before a shocked audience, and news of their end was greeted with horror throughout Catholic Europe. Of course, it was Anne who was blamed for the atrocity. She herself considered that justice had been done, and remained unmoved: one of the condemned men had had the effrontery to allege that Henry had once had an affair with her mother.

On 7 May, for the last time, Fisher and More refused to take the oath. Anne was constantly urging the King to put them to death, and 'when the Lady wants anything, there is no one who dares contradict her, not even the King himself,' wrote Chapuys. Anne was then pregnant, and must be humoured, since when Henry 'does not want to do as she wishes, she behaves like someone in a frenzy'.

In June, more Carthusian monks were executed for refusing to acknowledge the King's supremacy. They were chained upright to stakes and left to die, without food or water, wallowing in their own filth - a slow, ghastly death that left Londoners appalled. In the King's view, such measures were necessary to bring his subjects to heel, and while the monks suffered, he feasted with Anne at Hanworth, and allowed himself to be persuaded that Fisher, too, ought to die for his obstinacy. Two days later, the former bishop was put on trial for treason and sentenced to death, and two days after that, three more monks of the Charterhouse suffered at Tyburn. Fisher himself was beheaded on 22 June 1535 on Tower Hill at the age of seventy-six. A shocked populace blamed Anne for his death, and it was partly for this reason that news of the stillbirth of her child was suppressed - people would very clearly have seen the hand of God in it. Anne herself suffered pangs of conscience on the day of Fisher's execution, and attended a mass for the repose of his soul, though by the evening of the next day she had composed herself sufficiently to stage for the King's entertainment a masque depicting divine approval of recent events in England. Henry was so pleased to see himself cutting off the heads of the clergy that he told Anne she must have the performance repeated on the Eve of St Peter, a day formerly dedicated to honouring the Pope.

The political executions of 1535 gave Chapuys fresh cause for concern over the future safety of Katherine and Mary, who had also refused to take the oaths or acknowledge the royal supremacy. One Monday in June the King sent a deputation of his Council to Kimbolton to search Katherine's rooms for anything incriminating that might be hidden there. The councillors made no secret of their anger at not finding what they were looking for, and at court the advantages her death would bring were spoken of quite openly. On 30 June, Cromwell told Chapuys that 'if God had taken to Himself the Queen, the whole dispute would have been ended, and no one would have doubted or opposed the King's second marriage or the succession.' Fortunately for Katherine, the fear of Charles V, bent upon vengeance, was enough to stay Henry's hand.

Others were not so fortunate. On 1 July, Sir Thomas More was tried for treason in Westminster Hall and condemned to death. He mounted the scaffold on Tower Hill on 6 July, and died bravely by the axe, saying he was 'the King's good servant, but God's first'. If there had been tremors of horror at Fisher's death, there were shock waves now, and they reverberated around Europe, where the consensus of opinion was that Henry had gone too far this time. Even Henry had serious doubts that he had been right, and characteristically he blamed Anne Boleyn for More's death.

Then there was Father John Forrest, a member of the Order of Observant Friars at Greenwich, and a former confessor to Katherine of Aragon, who had been imprisoned for espousing her cause in 1533. In 1535, he was attainted and sentenced to be burned at the stake. Katherine, hearing this news, wrote offering what comfort she could to Forrest, signing herself 'your very sad and afflicted daughter, Katherine'. He replied promptly, saying her words had 'infinitely comforted me', and asking for her prayers, 'that I may fight the battle to which I am called. In justification of your cause, I am content to suffer all things.' However, on the following day, the King was graciously pleased to commute his sentence to life imprisonment. For some years to come Forrest would continue to assert that Katherine had been the King's true wife, and by May 1538 Henry had had enough, sending him to an agonising death at Smithfield: he was suspended by chains about his arms and waist above a slow-burning fire, and slowly roasted to death. His execution provoked murmurs of protest, and the French ambassador complained to Francis I that he had 'to deal with the most dangerous and cruel man in the world'. Mary's former tutor, Richard Fetherston, and Katherine's former chaplain, Thomas Abell, were also condemned to death in July 1540, their crimes being described as high treason. Even after both the women involved in it were dead, his 'great matter' remained a sensitive issue with the King for the rest of his life.

One person who escaped Henry's clutches was Reginald Pole, who had condemned the King's marriage to Anne Boleyn in 1533 after choosing exile on the Continent. Still hoping to gain his support, however, in February 1535 Henry asked Pole if he would set out in writing his opinions on the King's marriages. It was an invitation that Pole could not resist, and he spent several months working on a reply. When it came, it would be so damning, so offensive to the King, and so provocatively treasonous that Henry's suppressed dislike of Pole grew overnight into pathological hatred, and his reaction was ultimately so savage that Pole's friends knew he would never be able to return to England while the King lived.

With the loss of Anne's child around the end of June, Henry ceased playing the doting husband. In the summer of 1535 the Venetian ambassador reported that he was 'tired to satiety' of Anne, and there were rumours at court that he wished to put her away. Once he accused her of having been responsible for the recent executions, and for having been the cause of all the present troubles in his kingdom. Anne retaliated swiftly, reminding him he was more bound to her than man could be to woman. Had she not delivered him from a state of sin? Had she not helped to make him the richest prince in Christendom? Without her, he would not have reformed the Church, to his own great profit and that of all his subjects. Henry ignored her: Anne had done all these things and more, but she had failed to bear a living son.

Anne's chief consolation nowadays was her little daughter, and she often visited her at Eltham or Hatfield. Sir William Kingston thought Elizabeth to be 'as goodly a child as has been seen', and 'much in the King's favour, as should be, God save her!' Henry too was proud of his red-haired daughter, and liked to show her off to visiting ambassadors, sometimes dressed in rich clothes, and sometimes naked, so that they could see how well formed she was. Elizabeth had been weaned off breast milk at the age of one, at the King's express command, and with the Queen's assent. Orders were relayed from the royal parents through Cromwell to Lady Bryan, who had instructions to approach Mr Secretary on any matter relating to her charge. This meant that Cromwell's duties now ranged from overseeing the closure of the monasteries to approving nursery routines.

Anne was delighted when, in July 1535, King Francis at last agreed to enter negotiations for the marriage of Elizabeth to his third son. Yet it was Mary to whom people were looking when they considered the future. Elizabeth was not yet two, and if anything should happen to the King, Mary would have an infinitely better chance of holding the throne. Even Cromwell decided at this time to lend Mary his support, and discussed with Chapuys the possibility of altering the Act of Succession with a view to naming Mary the King's heir. The Queen got to hear of this, and her anger knew no bounds, but although she threatened Cromwell with execution, he paid little heed: 'She cannot do me any harm,' he told Chapuys.

Only five days after More's execution, Chapuys noted that his Majesty was happily dancing and flirting once again with the ladies of his court. When William Somers, Henry's fool, proclaimed to the court: 'Anne is a ribald, the child is a bastard!', Henry was angry - so angry, in fact, that Somers had to leave court for a while - but he did nothing more, whereas once he would have acted swiftly to punish anyone who slandered his wife.

In the summer of 1535, the King and Queen set off on a progress westwards towards Wales. There was, however, little of the usual holiday atmosphere, for Henry was troubled by news lately arrived from the Continent that the Emperor was about to take Tunis from the Turks, thereby depriving them of a great naval base and stemming the tide of their encroachment upon the eastern reaches of the Empire. What concerned Henry was that, if Charles were successful in this enterprise, his armies would be free to fight elsewhere, and England might be a prime target for invasion. Henry knew he was regarded as a schismatic rebel, and he feared Charles would make this the excuse to interfere on his aunt's behalf.

Late in July, the royal party arrived at Winchcombe; from thence they rode into Wales, and then back through the south-west of England, and so into the county of Wiltshire. On 4 September, Henry and Anne arrived at Wulfhall, a half-timbered manor house on the outskirts of Savernake Forest, where they were to stay for six days. Wulfhall was the home of the Seymour family, hereditary rangers of Savernake Forest, and its present owner was Sir John Seymour, whose daughter Jane was one of the Queen's maids of honour. There is no evidence that Henry VIII's courtship of Jane Seymour began during this visit, yet it is significant that mention was made of it in diplomatic reports within two months, and it may well be that the traditional assumption that it began at Wulfhall is the correct one.

Wulfhall has long since disappeared. In the sixteenth century, it was a substantial house that had already been standing for at least 300 years. The manor of Ulfhall (probably derived from 'Ulf's hall', after a Saxon or Danish thane) was recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086. The house Henry stayed in was built along traditional lines around a courtyard, with a chapel and a recently incorporated innovation, a long gallery, which was quite novel in the 1530s. Surrounding the house were three gardens.

Sir John Seymour was well known to his royal visitor. A man with a sound reputation for being a capable administrator, he had at one time carried out diplomatic missions abroad on the King's behalf. He had been Sheriff of Wiltshire since 1508, and Sheriff of Dorset and Somerset since 1518. He was also a Justice of the Peace for Wiltshire, and an extensive landowner in that county. The Wulfhall estate itself comprised 1,270 acres, most of which had been converted to pasture for sheep, conforming to the prevailing agricultural trend. For all this, however, Sir John ranked quite low on the aristocratic scale, and for him this royal visit was a signal honour.

Sir John, then nearing sixty, was the father of a large family. His wife was Margaret, the daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth of Nettlestead in Suffolk; as a young girl at Henry VII's court she had been a celebrated beauty, and the poet laureate, John Skelton, had written in her honour a poem entitled 'To Mistress Margery Wentworth', praising her maidenly virtues and her 'benign, courteous and meek' qualities. Mistress Margery had been married to Sir John Seymour around 1500 and for him it was a brilliant match, for although the Seymours were said to have been descended from one of William the Conqueror's Norman knights, surnamed St Maur after his birthplace in Touraine, they had never been more than country gentry. Their first certain ancestor came from Monmouthshire; a branch of the family was already established in Wiltshire at the end of the fourteenth century, and provided a Member of Parliament for Bedwyn Magna, the village near Wulfhall. The manor of Wulfhall had come to the Seymours by marriage to the heiress of the Esturmi family in the early fifteenth century, through which they also acquired the hereditary guardianship of Savernake. Thereafter, they proudly displayed in the manor house the great ivory hunting-horn, bound with silver, that was the symbol of their office. Gradually, by lucrative and advantageous marriages, they had, like the Boleyns, increased not only their land and wealth, but also their social standing. The marriage of Sir John Seymour to Lady Margaret Wentworth, however, was the most prestigious of them all, for Lady Margaret was descended from Edward III and Henry 'Hotspur' Percy, the hero of Shrewsbury. She was, in all respects, a most desirable wife for a man like Sir John, who was considered to be one of the foremost in the rising class of gentry known as 'new men', solid, respectable, loyal to the crown, and owing their status to wealth rather than breeding. Such men were greatly favoured by Tudor monarchs distrustful of the ancient blood of the older nobility.

Of the ten children born of the marriage, four died young, probably of plague. Two of the surviving sons, Edward and Thomas, were to play prominent parts in English history. The other son, Henry, shunned public life and led the existence of a country gentleman. The eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was a widow in 1535, her husband having died the previous year. The other daughters were Dorothy, later the wife of Sir Clement Smith, and Jane.

Unhappily, there had been a rift in the Seymour family some five years before the royal visit, and the ensuing scandal had shocked even Henry VIII's courtiers. Young Edward Seymour had been sent to court at an early age, and had served as page to both Mary Tudor when she was Queen of France, and the King himself. When still quite young, he had been married to Katherine, the daughter of Sir Edward Fillol. Very little is known about the marriage apart from the fact that Katherine bore two sons, John and Edward, in 1528 and 1529. A year later, Edward was shattered to discover that his wife and his father had for some time been lovers, and that there was every possibility that Sir John had fathered Katherine's two children. Edward's retaliation was swift. Katherine was bundled into a nunnery, where she died within five years. For a time, Edward spoke of divorcing her, though he did not do so, but he disinherited her two boys, and would have nothing to do with them. After his wife's death, he remarried immediately, his bride being the formidable Anne Stanhope, a lady who would rule both her husband and her family with a will of steel, and whose pride would be notorious.

By the time Henry VIII arrived at Wulfhall in 1535, the scandal had died a natural death, and a truce had been called between Edward and his father; Edward's new marriage had done much to mellow his bitterness. The King certainly knew of the affair, but probably felt that the family had suffered enough without his censure. As for Sir John, he must have seen his sovereign's visit as a sign that the past was done with and forgotten.

Although royal visits to private subjects were at this date by no means as crippling financially as they were to become under Elizabeth I, entertaining one's king and queen of necessity called for a substantial outlay to pay for the special fare provided for the royal table, for not only did the royal guests have to be accommodated but their retainers also, and that could mean a good many people. However, the King's charm and courtesy, especially towards the ladies, were well known; Henry VIII was invariably an appreciative and genial guest, laying aside formality and conversing with his host and the family as if they were his equals.

Despite the brooding presence of the Queen, Henry must have enjoyed his stay at Wulfhall, where the excellent hunting to be found in Savernake Forest provided a welcome respite from the cares of state. Sir John was a good host, and Lady Margaret typified all that the King thought a wife should be: meek, decorous, well bred, and, above all, fruitful - unlike Anne in every way.

Jane Seymour was probably the second daughter of Sir John and Lady Margaret. The date of her birth is nowhere recorded, and has until now been estimated as 1509-10. This calculation has been based on two things: a report of the Spanish ambassador, dated May 1536, stating that Jane was then more than twenty-five years old, and a miniature of her painted in the 1580s by Nicholas Hilliard, which gives her age as twenty-five in 1536. The miniature may be discounted as reliable evidence: it was based on one of Holbein's portraits of Jane Seymour, none of which give her age. A far more likely date of birth, based upon sound evidence, would be between October 1507 and October 1508. When Jane was buried with the full honours due to a queen of England in November 1537, twenty-nine ladies walked in he funeral procession: seemingly an odd number until one discovers that it was customary at medieval funerals to mark the age of the deceased in such a way, just as it was traditional to ring the passing bell once for every year the departed soul had spent on earth. On this assumption, Jane was twenty-nine when she died, and a birthdate of 1507-8 would accord with Chapuys's statement that she was over twenty-five in 1536.

This means that Jane was around twenty-seven when the King visited Wulfhall, a very late age to remain single in an era when most girls were married by fifteen or sixteen. There had, at an unspecified date, been talk of a betrothal between Jane and Sir Robert Dormer's son William; Sir Francis Bryan, who was connected by marriage to the Seymours, did his best to promote the match, but met with opposition from Lady Dormer, who seems to have felt that Jane was not a good enough match for her son. Eventually William Dormer was betrothed elsewhere, and it was probably this that precipitated Bryan into securing a position at court for Jane; thus she came to join the household of Katherine of Aragon as a maid of honour sometime during the 1520s.

Jane greatly admired Queen Katherine, and later used her as her own role model when she herself became queen. Catherine's court provided a kind of finishing school for young women of good family, and it was in this learned and pious atmosphere that Jane Seymour grew to maturity. Of her education, we know very little. During her childhood there had been a salaried priest, Father James, at Wulfhall, who may have given Jane some rudimentary lessons along with her brothers. As an adult, she could read and sign her name, but she was not learned as both Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were, nor was she as intelligent as they. For Jane, an education of a traditional sort had been provided, and it was doubtless her mother - as was customary - who taught her the usual feminine skills such as household management, needlework, and cookery. Jane's expertise as a needlewoman became legendary, and examples of her work still survived a century after her death to testify to her skill. Yet she also enjoyed outdoor sports, having been taught to ride at an early age, and as queen she would enjoy following the hunt.

Jane was just one of many aspiring young women in Queen Katherine's household. She grew to know and like the Princess Mary, eight years her junior, and she would also have known Anne Boleyn well, for she was a fellow maid of honour for a time. By virtue of her position, Jane would have been a witness to the events leading up to the legatine court hearing in 1529, and would have observed at first hand the downfall of the Queen and the rise to power of Anne Boleyn. She certainly saw enough of these things to make her decide that her sympathies lay with Katherine, and, later on, when Katherine was beyond all human help, Jane would extend her friendship to the Lady Mary, in an attempt to make up to her for what she and her mother had suffered.

When the Queen was exiled from the court in 15 31, Jane may have been one of those who went with her to The More and ultimately to Ampthill. Yet it is more likely that she transferred to the household of Anne Boleyn at this time: she had certainly joined it by Christmas 1533, and Anne would hardly have accepted someone who had chosen to share Katherine's exile. Like Anne, Jane was ambitious; her family, too, were ambitious for her. To remain in the service of a fallen queen, however much admired, would not have done much for Jane's chances of making her way in the world and contracting an advantageous marriage. Anne Boleyn was at that time amassing a huge train of female attendants, and it would have been easy for Jane, with her experience of the court, to secure a place with her.

At Christmas 1533, Henry VIII presented gifts to several ladies in his wife's household, among them Jane Seymour, whom he had known since she first arrived at court; he would certainly have approved of her timely transfer to Anne's service. Yet it was not until September 1535 that he began to take particular notice of her. This probably came about as a result of the visit to her family home. Far from being in residence at Wulfhall at the time of the King's arrival, which is the traditional version of events, Jane was in the Queen's train and travelling on progress with her.

Henry was no longer the athletic young man who had married Katherine of Aragon. After 1533, he had begun to put on weight, and became less active than in his youth; he had also had recurrrent trouble with one leg after being wounded by a fall from his horse in 1528. Yet he continued to hunt regularly and rode with skill, and people still thought him handsome, in spite of the fact that his red hair had receded, leaving the crown of his head bald. Although in recent years his latent ruthlessness and cruelty had become more evident, and his subjects now feared rather than loved him, he could be charming when he pleased, and he was being charming now.

For her part, Jane presented a welcome contrast to the Queen. She concealed her ambition beneath a veneer of placid gravity, and where Anne's eyes had once flashed an invitation, Jane's were kept modestly lowered. Her manner was pleasing, her temperament calm. The King was very taken with her, and before long his courtiers were aware, as was his wife, that he was pursuing the plain Mistress Seymour, and that - as Anne had once done to great advantage - the lady was holding him off while protesting a chaste devotion for her king. There were those at court who had been waiting for an opportunity like this to unseat Anne from Henry's affections, not only because she was unpopular and had not borne a male heir, but also because they resented her promotion of the reformist cause. Foremost among them was Chapuys, who desired nothing more than Anne's fall, and who, at a very early stage, saw in Jane Seymour the means by which this might be achieved.

Jane must have given the King some indication that his advances were welcome; his courtship presented her with an opportunity that was too good to miss. With Anne Boleyn's example before her to prove that a maid of honour could successfully aspire to queenship, she does not seem to have considered that by encouraging the King she was betraying the mistress to whom she had sworn an oath of service. The Seymours belonged to the faction which despised Anne and all that she stood for, while secretly reserving their allegiance to Katherine of Aragon and her daughter; thus they abetted Jane from the beginning, urging her to encourage the King's courtship and seeing it as a means to several ends. It is likely that, as the King prepared to leave Wulfhall after a good week's hunting, some of the courtiers were already predicting the imminent downfall of the Queen. Among them was Sir Francis Bryan, the son of Lady Margaret Bryan, a member of the King's immediate entourage, and one of his friends. Bryan had paid lip-service to Queen Anne, but he privately disapproved of her, and he was perhaps the first person to see in Jane Seymour a means of toppling Anne from her throne. Certainly, he did his best to encourage Henry's affair with Jane from the beginning.

When Henry and Jane were both back at court after the progress, their affair continued, gaining in intensity. In November, the French ambassador saw them together and concluded that the King was in love again. So open was the affair that courtiers were falling over themselves to win the friendship of the new favourite, leaving the Queen to sit alone in her empty apartments. History was repeating itself.

Jane's brothers, Edward and Thomas, were both with her at court, and they prudently warned her not to yield her virginity to Henry: she must create the impression of a modest and virtuous gentlewoman who wished to preserve her virtue until she was married. Jane played  her part perfectly, knowing full well that she was employing the same tactics Anne Boleyn had used years before - and, once again, Henry took the bait. A man who set much store by female virtue, he was enchanted, if frustrated, and set about laying siege to this virtuous citadel. Jane's resolve withstood this, but her virtue did not prevent her from accepting the expensive gifts that Henry gave her. Indeed, her calculated campaign to ensnare her mistress's husband shows her to have been a woman of ruthless determination. It is true that she enjoyed the vigorous support of her family, but it is impossible to believe that she was a mere tool of the imperialist party which was encouraging the affair: any woman setting out on the course Jane Seymour would follow over the next few months would have had to be possessed of both strength and resolution, as well as driving ambition and a flexible conscience. Jane had all these, hidden beneath a demure manner that deceived many. Yet, to her credit, she aimed to use her talents and her growing power to persuade the King to return to the fold of Rome and restore the Lady Mary to her rightful place in the succession. These were matters about which she felt strongly, although she knew she could only broach them once she had firmly established herself in the King's affections. Like Anne Boleyn before her, she had set her sights high.

In October 1535, Cromwell brought the King devastating news: Tunis had fallen to the Emperor, and the Turks had been crushed. Chapuys told his master that Henry and Anne looked 'like dogs falling out of a window', so dismayed were they by the news. And as if this was not enough, there were reports of a ruined harvest, due to the bad weather that year. Anne was even blamed for this by the common people: they saw it as a sign from God that He was displeased with the King for marrying her. General unrest was mounting, and there were still murmurs of disapproval about the executions that had taken place earlier in the year. It was not a happy homecoming when Henry and Anne ended their progress at Windsor on 26 October.

That same month, Katherine was writing to the Pope, begging him to find a remedy for what was happening in England; by so doing she was putting herself in grave danger, for, if intercepted, her letter could have been used as evidence that she had tried to incite a foreign power to make war upon the King, and that was treason. Henry suspected that Katherine was up to something of the sort, and in November he told his Privy Council that he would no longer remain in 'this trouble and fear and suspicion' engendered by Katherine and Mary, and insisted that proceedings be taken against them in the next session of Parliament, 'or, by God, I will not wait any longer to provide for this myself!' Seeing the dismay on the faces of his councillors, he told them it was nothing to cry or make wry faces about. 'If I am to lose my crown for it, I will do what I have set out to do,' he warned. When Chapuys reported this to Charles V, and told him that 'the Concubine has for some time conspired for the death of the Queen and her daughter,' Charles replied, 'The threats of which you speak can only be designed to frighten them, but if they really are in danger you may tell them from me that they must yield.' He did not share Katherine's professed enthusiasm for martyrdom, and he was in fact beginning to find the whole affair rather tiresome. 'I cannot believe what you tell me,' he wrote to Chapuys. 'The King cannot be so unnatural as to put to death his own wife and daughter,' even though Henry's treatment of them had been 'cruel and horrible'. But if the King would not go so far, Chapuys feared that Anne Boleyn would, for she 'is the person who manages and orders and governs everything, whom the King does not dare to oppose'. Anne believed mistakenly, as it turned out - that while Katherine lived, her own life was in danger. 'She is my death and I am hers,' she said at this time, 'so I will take good care that she shall not laugh at me after my death.' It was a supreme irony that Katherine's existence was later shown to have guaranteed Anne's safety, rather than having threatened it, for while Katherine lived, Henry dared not set Anne aside.

Anne's influence was to some degree restored during November because she had found herself to be pregnant with a child conceived during the autumn progress. Nevertheless, she was depressed during the first months of her pregnancy because she was fearfully aware that her whole future depended on its outcome: the King would not tolerate another failure. Outwardly, he was being solicitous, but George Wyatt tells us that he 'shrank from her' in private, 'at this time when most she was to have been cherished', which did not help Anne's frame of mind. The Bishop of Tarbes, visiting the English court, noticed that 'the King's love for his wife is less than it has been, and diminishes every day because he has new amours'. Anne was well aware of his pursuit of Jane Seymour, which was another reason for her depression.

Anne Boleyn's pregnancy brought Katherine and Mary nearer than ever to being put to death by judicial process or less lawful means. Anne, with the interests of her coming child to protect, now began a campaign to eliminate them both; Chapuys heard how Henry had not only promised to disinherit Mary, but also to kill her, and Anne had also let it be known that if Henry did not make an end of the girl, she herself would. 'If I have a son, as I hope shortly, I know what will become of her,' she declared. Yet Mary stood firm.

God [she told Chapuys] had not so blinded her as to confess for any kingdom on earth that the King her father and the Queen her mother had so long lived in adultery, nor would she contravene the order of the Church and make herself a bastard.

She had no sense of self-pity: 'Her grief is about the troubles of the Queen her mother.'

Yet Katherine's troubles would soon be mercifully at an end. She fell dangerously ill on 1 December 1535, having grown weaker and weaker during recent months, suffering pains in her chest. Unable to eat very much, she was now confined to her bed, and her physician doubted she would ever rise from it. Katherine herself realised that time was running out for her, even though she rallied after a few days and was able to get up and sit in a chair. Queen Anne, thinking she was recovering, went flying to the King and begged him once more to have the former Queen and her daughter put to death. But Henry had read the reports of Katherine's illness, and knew he need do nothing to expedite her end, although Anne, whom Chapuys called 'this she-devil', declared she would not rest 'until he is freed from these poor ladies'. From Spain, the English ambassador reported that 'people expected to hear every day of the execution of Queen Katherine, and that the Princess Mary was expected soon to follow her.'

Katherine had more mundane matters on her mind. Her funds were depleted, and on 14 December she was forced to beg the Emperor to pay her servants: 'I am as Job, waiting for the day when I must sue for alms, for the love of God.' Three days later, she celebrated her fiftieth birthday. It would be her last. On 26 December, she suffered a relapse, and was forced, in great pain, to take to her bed again, although she could not sleep. Her doctors, Dr de la Saa and Dr Balthasar Guersye, both knew her condition was grave, and de la Saa warned Bedingfield in writing that 'if the sickness continueth in force, she cannot remain long'. As the days dragged by, the pain grew worse, but Katherine refused to let Dr de la Saa call in other doctors, saying she had 'wholly committed herself to the pleasure of God'. This dismayed him, for he privately feared that his mistress was being poisoned, and did not wish to bear the responsibility of that diagnosis alone.

By then, Chapuys had heard that Katherine had 'fallen into her last sickness'. His immediate impulse was to go to her; he had espoused her cause with a zeal beyond the requirements of his brief, and he felt it important that someone who cared for her should be there when the end came. On 30 December, he saw the King, and asked if Henry knew she was dying. 'Yes, I do not believe she has long to live; when she is gone, the Emperor will have no further excuses for interfering in English affairs,' was the reply. Chapuys, stung, retorted: 'The death of the Queen will be of no advantage! His imperial Majesty will never abandon her while she lives.' Henry shrugged. 'It does not matter, she will not live long. Go to her when you like.' He refused, however, to let Mary visit her mother.

Followed by Henry's spies, Chapuys rode off to Kimbolton that same evening; two days later, he arrived, and was duly admitted to the bedchamber of the former Queen, whom he had not seen for five years. He was profoundly shocked to see her 'so wasted that she could neither stand nor sit up in her bed'. Yet she was overjoyed to see him. 'Now I can die in your arms, not abandoned like one of the beasts,' she said. Then, remembering even now her duty as a hostess, she went on: 'You will be weary from your journey. We will speak further another time. I myself shall be glad of sleep. I have not slept two hours these past six days; perhaps I shall sleep now.'

Later that day, another visitor arrived, but this one had no permit from the King. Lady Willoughby, formerly Maria de Salinas, forced her way into the castle before Bedingfield and his men could stop her, so determined was she to be with the mistress she had served and loved for thirty-five years. Her arrival meant that Chapuys's presence was no longer necessary, and after three days he prepared to leave. 'In our last conversation,' he recorded, 'I saw the Queen smile two or three times, and after I left she was willing to be amused by

one of my people whom I left to entertain her.' Before his departure on 4 January, he saw Katherine's physician and arranged with him that, if her health deteriorated further, he would make her swear before she died that she 'had never been known of Prince Arthur'. Chapuys, knowing well that his contemporaries set much store by death-bed confessions, realised that this was the last, and the only thing he could do now for the woman whose cause he had so ably championed for more than six years.

Two days later, Katherine made her will. She asked that her debts be cleared and her servants recompensed 'for the good service they have done for me'. She wished to be buried in a convent of Observant Friars, little realising that their Order had recently been suppressed in England. She asked that 500 masses be said for her soul and that someone should go to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham - soon to be demolished - on her behalf. To her daughter Mary she left 'the collar of gold which I brought out of Spain' and her furs. Her other bequests were to members of her household, including her tailor, laundress and goldsmith. Lastly, she asked the King, 'my good lord', if he would 'cause church garments to be made of my gowns', a request he would refuse; nor did he honour Katherine's bequests to their daughter.

On the last evening of her life, Katherine felt herself growing weaker, yet before the end came, she would make one last effort to heal the rift between herself and the man she firmly believed to be her husband. Almost at the point of death now, her thoughts turned to Henry, whom she still loved, and who had once loved her long ago. Remembering their life together, she dictated a last letter to him, even though he had expressly forbidden her to communicate with him. The words came from her heart, in that quiet bedchamber, as darkness settled upon the castle:

My lord and dear husband,

I commend me unto you. The hour of my death draweth fast on, and my case being such, the tender love I owe you forceth me with a few words to put you in remembrance of the health and safeguard of your soul, which you ought to prefer before any consideration of the world or flesh whatsoever; for which you have cast me into many miseries and yourself into many cares. For my part, I do pardon you all, yea, I do wish and dearly pray God that He will also pardon you. For the rest, I commend unto you Mary our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I have hitherto desired. . . . Lastly, I vow that mine eyes desire you above all things.

Supported by her maids, the dying woman painfully traced the signature that symbolised all she had stood for and fought for during the last bitter years of her life. It was her final defiance: 'Katherine the Queen'.

Shortly afterwards, she fell asleep, with Lady Willoughby sitting beside her, who later would relate to Chapuys the details of Katherine's last hours. On the next day, 7 January 1536, she awoke at1.0 a.m., anxious to hear mass, but not before dawn, even though her confessor was ready to allow it; he had to wait until daylight came. Katherine received her last communion 'with a fervour and devotion that it was impossible to exceed', praying God that He would pardon the King the wrong he had done her, and that divine wisdom would give him good counsel and lead him to the true road.

She was sinking fast. At ten that morning, she received extreme unction, then drifted off again into sleep, while her household gathered about her. Early in the afternoon she woke, and there were more prayers, but the end was obviously at hand. Shortly before 2.0 p.m., Katherine of Aragon, sometime Queen of England, said clearly:'Domine, in manuas tuas commcndo spiritum meutri', and rendered her spirit to God.

After Katherine's death, Sir Edmund Bedingfield informed Cromwell of her passing and arranged for the wax chandler to carry out an autopsy and then embalm the body and 'cere' it in a waxed shroud. A plumber was also engaged to seal the corpse in a leaden coffin, 'for that may not tarry'. The autopsy was carried out that evening by the chandler and his assistant; Bedingfield would not allow either of Katherine's doctors or her confessor, the Bishop of Llandaff, to be present. The autopsy showed that most of the internal organs were normal, save for the heart, 'which had a black growth, all hideous to behold, which clung closely to the outside' and which did not change colour when washed in water; cut open, the heart was 'black inside. Modern medical opinion accepts this as conclusive evidence that Katherine died of a malignant tumour of the heart, yet to her contemporaries it appeared consistent with the symptoms of poisoning, and for this reason the autopsy report was suppressed. Later, Chapuys was suspicious when Dr de la Saa told him that Katherine's condition had worsened after she had drunk 'a certain Welsh beer': both men believed it had been tampered with, and Chapuys thought that if the body were properly examined 'the traces will be seen'. The bishop managed to obtain sight of the secret autopsy report, and told the ambassador about the growth on the heart. Chapuys concluded that Katherine had certainly been poisoned, and in view of the threats made by Anne Boleyn during the weeks preceding her death, this was a reasonable assumption to make. Nor was Chapuys alone in making it, for it was widely believed both in England and abroad that Anne had murdered her rival. Even King Henry had his suspicions.

The former Queen's death excited little comment in the chronicles and letters of the period, yet she was sincerely mourned by many, and it was with great sadness that Chapuys informed the Emperor of the death of his aunt, 'her, who for 27 years has been true Queen of England, whose holy soul is in eternal rest. There is little need to pray for her.' Many came to regard Katherine as a veritable saint, and an anonymous hand added a halo to one of her early portraits. Roman Catholics saw her as one of the great pillars of the old faith in England, and her death was regarded as the end of everything she had stood for. That she was in some measure responsible for what was now happening in England occurred to none of her apologists, as it had not occurred to her during her lifetime.

Katherine's devotion to the King, her single-mindedness, her strength of character, and her courage still inspire admiration, however misplaced they may seem to modern eyes. They were certainly misplaced in the view of some of her contemporaries: when Bishop Gardiner heard of Katherine's death, he announced that by taking her to Himself God had given sentence, a sentiment echoed by other reformists. Yet the people of England, who had taken Katherine to their hearts from the first, mourned her sincerely, remembering only her personal virtues, her many charities, her selflessness, and those five dead heirs to England.

It was Chapuys who broke the news of her death to the King. Henry displayed neither grief nor distress, only joyful relief- to the disgust of the ambassador - saying, 'God be praised that we are free from all suspicion of war!' Naturally, the Boleyn faction rejoiced: 'Now I am indeed a Queen,' declared Anne triumphantly, while Lord Rochford thought it a pity the Lady Mary did not keep company with her mother. The King had the Princess Elizabeth conducted to mass to the sound of trumpets, as if to underline her undoubted right to succeed him. Yet in private, the Queen showed herself troubled, perceiving with awful clarity that now only the fragile life in her womb stood between her and disaster. She had the full measure of Henry, and to her ladies expressed the fear that he might do with her as he had with Katherine, for she was perceptive enough to realise that, in the eyes of almost everyone, Henry was now a widower and free to remarry. If she were to lose this child, there was every reason to believe he would set her aside and do just that.

However, in public she showed herself confident. On 9 January, she and the King presided over a magnificent court ball held to celebrate England's liberation from the threat of war. Both Henry and Anne wore yellow, the colour of royal mourning in Spain, as a mark of respect for the woman whom Henry insisted had been his sister-in-law. The Princess Elizabeth was paraded round the room in the arms of her father, who took great pleasure in showing off the precocious child.

Henry chose Peterborough Abbey as Katherine's final resting- place, and gave orders that she was to be buried with all the honours due to a Dowager Princess of Wales, 'our dearest sister, the Lady Katherine'. He was so relieved that he spared no effort in providing her with a magnificent state funeral, at which a great train of ladies was to be present. The King himself provided black cloth for their apparel, as well as linen for the nun-like mourning veils and wimples then customary on such occasions. He also declared that it was his intention to raise to Katherine's memory a fine monument, and he kept his word, although nothing remains now of the beautiful tomb he had built over her remains: it was destroyed by parliamentary troops during the Civil War. Over the matter of a memorial service Henry was less lavish, deeming it an unnecessary expense, and he also confiscated all Katherine's remaining personal effects to meet her funeral expenses. Most of these were still in the Royal Wardrobe at Baynard's Castle, and included a clock set in a bejewelled and enamelled book of gold, a double portrait of Henry and Katherine, seven pairs of Spanish slippers, and even necessaries provided for the former Queen's confinements.

On 29 January, the body of Katherine of Aragon was conveyed to Peterborough with all the trappings of a medieval royal funeral. The chief mourners were Lady Bedingfield, the young Duchess of Suffolk and the Countess of Cumberland, Eleanor Brandon, the King's niece. Chapuys did not attend by choice, 'since they do not mean to bury her as Queen'. The funeral sermon was preached by John Hilsey, who had replaced Fisher as Bishop of Rochester; he was a staunch King's man, and alleged, against all truth, that Katherine had acknowledged at the end that she had never been the rightful Queen of England. Then the woman who had in reality stoutly maintained to the last that she had been the King's wife was buried as Dowager Princess of Wales in the abbey church, later the cathedral. Henry VIII was at Greenwich on that day, and he observed the funeral by wearing black mourning clothes and attending a solemn mass. Anne, however, donned yellow once more, and grumbled because nothing was spoken of that day but the Christian deathbed of her rival.

For more than 200 years, it was believed that Lady Willoughby was afterwards laid to rest in the same tomb as Katherine, and in 1777 an attempt was made to prove this. The grave was opened, yet only one coffin lay within. It was strongly fastened, and to open it was thought sacrilegious. Nevertheless, one curious witness bored a hole through the coffin lid and slid a wire through it, hooking out a fragment of the black and silver brocade robes in which Katherine had been buried. This smelt strongly of embalming fluid, but disintegrated upon exposure to the air. The coffin was then reinterred and has remained undisturbed ever since. Four centuries after Katherine's death, another queen, Mary of Teck, the wife of George V, gave orders that the symbols of queenship were to be hung above Katherine's resting place, and they may be seen there still, two banners bearing the royal arms of England and Spain. Thus, Katherine has been accorded in death the honours of which she was so cruelly deprived when she was alive.

Mary's reaction to her mother's death is not recorded, but may well be imagined, for in January 1536 she again fell gravely ill, and her life was thought to be in danger. Queen Anne wasted no time in extending an olive branch, and by 21 January had thrown the first bait by inviting her to court, where she would be exempt from carrying the Queen's train and would always walk by her side - but only if she submitted to her father's laws. Mary, however, had no intention of dishonouring her mother's memory by accepting such an offer: there could never be any question of a reconciliation with Anne Boleyn. She intended to take up the cause her mother had been forced to lay down, and carry on the fight to restore herself to her rightful place in the succession. She little knew it, but fate was already on her side.

After Katherine's death, Henry VIII told Chapuys that he desired to renew his former friendship with the Emperor 'now that the cause of our enmity no longer exists', and even asked if Charles V would use his influence to have the papal sentence in Katherine's favour revoked. Charles, of course, would never accede to such an outrageous request, but he too wanted to renew the Anglo-Imperial alliance. However, there were difficulties while Anne Boleyn lived, for the Emperor was reluctant to recognise her as Queen of England, though he might soon have no choice if she were the mother of a male heir to the throne.

On 24 January 1536, during a joust at Greenwich, the King was thrown from his horse and lay for two hours without regaining consciousness. When the Duke of Norfolk broke the news to the Queen, she showed very little concern, even though the Duke told her that most people thought it a miracle that her husband had not been killed.. Inwardly, however, Anne must have trembled at the thought of what would become of her if Henry died and left her to fend for herself in a hostile world in which civil war would be a near certainty

Fortunately the King's strong constitution triumphed, and he was soon up and about again. He would never, however, be a fit man afterwards. The old wound on his leg had reopened and an abscess had formed, which would remain open and suppurating for the rest of his life, in spite of the strenuous efforts of his physicians to heal it. From now on, he would have to wear a dressing and have the leg bound up. At first he adapted well to the disability, refusing to allow it to prevent him from riding and hunting, yet in time it severely curtailed his enjoyment of the sporting activities and dancing that had hitherto meant so much to him. For an active man, it was a cruel blow, and the effect upon Henry's already uncertain temper was disastrous. As his frustration at his enforced inactivity grew, along with the pain he suffered, he would become increasingly subject to savage and unreasonable rages. He was nearly forty-five now, growing bald, and running to fat; as he grew older, he would become more and more addicted to the pleasures of the table, and more and more gross. He would also, with each passing year, become more egotistical, more sanctimonious, and more sure of his own divinity, while still seeing himself as a paragon of courtly and athletic knighthood. The discrepancy between image and reality was one he could not bring himself to face.

In January 1536, this transformation was only just beginning, and the King's self-esteem was such that he regarded himself as the epitome of masculine charm, beauty and virility. He would have been shocked to learn that that virility was shortly to be publicly called into question.