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Before the Glory: Anne Boleyn Before Henry VIII - Page 4

© Ellen McDaniel-Weissler

Over the next several years Anne does not figure prominently in the chronicles of court life, and her main claim to historic fame during this time is a run-in with Cardinal Wolsey over her desire to marry one Henry Percy, heir to the Earl of Northumberland. Somewhere before the autumn of 1523 she and Henry became engaged by virtue of their declaring, before witnesses, their intention to marry. This match was not at all uneven, and the engagement apparently had the tacit blessing of both families until Cardinal Wolsey (according to the later accounts of his Gentleman Usher, George Cavendish) chose to put a stop to it. Wolsey informed Percy that the king had other plans for the two lovers, and that the engagement must be terminated under threat of Percy's father being brought into the business. (It may be that at this time there was still some hope of the marriage between Anne and James Butler.) When Percy attempted to stand up to Wolsey, saying that he could not in honor draw back from so public an engagement, Wolsey berated him and did, indeed, summon Northumberland to London to castigate his erring son. Anne was bundled off to the family estates in Kent to be out of the way, and Percy was hurried into a marriage with Mary Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. (Tragically, this marriage ended in unhappiness for both parties, and Percy was ironically forced to sit in judgment at the trial of his former betrothed in 1536. By 1537 he was dead.)

Historians differ as to whether or not Henry VIII was behind the dissolution of Anne's engagement to Percy. There is no evidence that Henry had any interest in Anne at this early date, or that any reasons other than matters of state would have led him to take a hand in breaking the engagement. Yet, because it is impossible to pinpoint exactly when Henry began to desire Anne, it is injudicious to state unequivocally that Henry had nothing to do with the end of the Percy affair. What we can state with some certainty is that, by 1525, Henry's interest in Anne was more than just tentative.

His affair with her sister Mary had ended by this time, but it is evident that, if Henry were indeed seriously interested in Anne, it was probably with the idea of making her his mistress rather than his wife. Yet, in 1527, Henry persuaded the Pope to issue a bull stating that, if and when Henry were free to marry again, the bull included permission to marry a woman "who has already contracted marriage with some other person (Percy), provided she has not consummated it". We know that Henry's doubts about the legality of his marriage began before he seriously began pursuing Anne, yet his increasing desire for Anne was undoubtedly a spur to his growing yearning to be free.

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