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

© Ellen McDaniel-Weissler

The populace were divided in their reaction to Henry's destruction of Papal influence in England. Many welcomed it, but others saw it as the uprooting of security and familiarity in the country, the destruction of their spiritual lives - and the inevitable excommunication of their King which they saw only too clearly on the horizon terrified them, with its inherent repercussions for the rest of England. Many objected to the schism on doctrinal and religious grounds, many on the simple basis of fear of the unknown and love of the familiar. Henry, however, had the bit between his teeth and would not be swayed. In spite of the resignation of Thomas More, his new Lord Chancellor, and egged on by the advice of his new henchman, the unscrupulous and secretly Protestant Thomas Cromwell, Henry undertook the dissolution of the monasteries, abrogating to himself their incredible wealth, and filling his coffers with their collections of jewels and gold, dividing up their lands and estates for his own use and for rewards to his loyal servants - even taking to himself the fabulous Hampton Court Palace which Wolsey had built as his own showplace - an enchanted castle of over 1,000 rooms and unparalleled beauty, designed by Wolsey himself. Having once usurped the power of the Church in England, Henry could declare his own divorce, banish Catherine into one of his most barren, most distant palaces, exile his daughter Mary, the now-bastardized former heir to the throne, and marry Anne, thereby gaining gold, increased power and a new wife at one fell swoop. Though troubled by an inconvenient conscience which made it necessary for Henry to always be convinced of the rightness of his actions, the King seemed to have a very elastic vision of God's plan for him in the world, persuading himself that he was following God's plotted course on the conviction that he ruled by Divine Right, and that God would have stopped him if he were erring in any way.

His urgency was amplified by the events of late 1532 which saw him finally accomplish the fulfillment of one, at least, of his dreams. Sometime late in the year, Anne, possibly desperate at the snail-like pace of events, (or possibly succumbing to her own long-denied desires and needs, depending on which historian you believe), finally opened her bed to him in one last wild throw of the dice She became almost immediately pregnant with a child she was convinced would be the long-sought heir. Henry, overjoyed and panicked at the same time, secretly wed his Anne in early January 1533, and planned for her a royal coronation in the spring, the pomp and majesty of which would, he hoped, reconcile his unhappy subjects to his choice of a successor to their beloved Queen Catherine. Catherine was no longer a player at court, having been moved to a far corner of the kingdom and allotted barely enough servants or money to eke out an existence or to pay for the doctors which were becoming increasingly necessary to her survival.

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