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The Rise, Reign and Fall of Anne Boleyn, Part II

© Ellen McDaniel-Weissler

Henry VIII chose to believe that a simple appeal to Pope Clement would bring about the divorce he so desired, but Henry would prove to be incredibly naive on this point. His Lord Chancellor, Thomas Wolsey, saw the situation a bit more realistically. It is said that, when Henry announced to Wolsey his intention of pursuing marriage with the Lady Anne, that venerable and wily minister fell to his knees in tears and begged his master not to follow so disastrous a course. Wolsey foresaw at the start the inevitable rending of the fabric of Christendom which would result from this impetuous following of a king's whim, and he did his best to dissuade Henry, but to no avail. It was not just Henry's discarding of a powerful and well-connected wife which distressed Wolsey, it was Henry's choice of a successor to Catherine. If Henry had proposed an international alliance in the form of marriage with one of the available French princesses, it is likely that Wolsey would have held his tongue, or even approved, since he had no love for Catherine's Spanish relatives. Wolsey dreamed of some day becoming Pope himself, and knew that he could expect more support from France's Francis I than from Catherine's nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles. In fact, Henry and Wolsey had but recently tried to buy the Emperorship for Henry upon the death of its previous holder, Maxmilian, but had been outbid by the wealthy and powerful Charles. But Henry was determined to wed one who was his own subject, an almost unheard-of move at the time, and one who was, furthermore, little better than a commoner in the scheme of things, only one or two generations removed from the taint of commerce and merchanting which was considered so fatal to one's status in English society up until the early 20th century. Wolsey, at least, knew that the combination of inappropriate marriage, casting off of a beloved and well-connected queen, and failure to use the king's status to create a powerful foreign alliance through marriage could be fatal to England's dreams for the future - and, incidentally, to his own. But even Wolsey could not have fully predicted the disasters to follow - nor the totality of his own downfall.

There is a school of thought which says that Anne connived at the destruction of Thomas Wolsey, believing him to have been the architect of her broken engagement with her first love, Henry Percy. Whether this was the basis of her dislike of him or not, his servant and chronicler, George Cavendish , does quote her as saying after the broken betrothal that if it ever lay in her power to do him a mischief, he would feel her anger, though she was but a girl. She may well have encouraged Henry to distrust and eventually dismiss Wolsey - a mistake on her part, considering Wolsey's undeniable position as the real seat of wisdom, diplomacy and savvy behind Henry's throne. Had Wolsey retained his power, he might have weaseled out some way to obtain Henry's divorce without the comprehensive split from the Vatican which eventually took place. It is at least certain that Henry felt Wolsey's loss and replaced him as soon as possible with one who had been trained at his knee, the lawyer Thomas Cromwell - but we are getting ahead of the story.

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