Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII's Obsession Read Online Free PDF Page A

[with] him in that affair, he would do for me therein to the best of his power, whether it were in his realm or out of the same. Whereunto I answered, that I would disclose unto him the secret of my heart in hu[mili]ty, as unto the prince of the world after your grace in whom I had m[ost trust], and so declar[ed] unto him the good mind [which] for divers consi[derations I] bear to my lord of Suffolk, asking him not only [to grant] me his favour and consent thereunto, but [also] that he would of So Pleasing in Her Youthful Age his [own] hand write unto your grace, and pray you to bear your like favour unto me, and to be content with the same; the which he granted me to do, and so hath done, according as shall appear unto your grace by his said [letters]’.
     
    Mary begged her brother to agree to the marriage saying that she only told Francis this because of ‘the extreme pain and annoyance I was i[n, by reason] of such suit as t[he French kin]g made unt[o me not accord]ing with mine honour’. Mary Tudor was in an agony of confusion as she stayed at Cluny, something that must have been witnessed by her ladies as she attempted to fend off the married Francis’s advances towards her.
    Like Suffolk, Mary had assured her brother that she would make no promise of marriage before she returned to England. However, when Suffolk arrived in France Francis gave him an audience, telling him that he knew that he had come to marry Mary. Suffolk tried to protest that this was not the case but Francis ignored him, promising to help him arrange the marriage. Francis had also been putting pressure on Mary and, in terror, she had come to believe that she would be married to Charles V if she returned unmarried to England. When Suffolk went to see Mary he found her in a distressed state and, according to his own account she ‘would never let me [be] in rest till I had granted her to be married, and so, to be plain with you, I have married her harettylle [heartily] and has lyen wyet her, in soo moche [as] I fyer me lyes that sche by wyet chyld’.
    Henry VIII was furious when he heard of his sister’s marriage, but the couple had presented him with a fait accompli and there was little he could do. The couple returned to Dover on 2 May 1515 and were publicly married later in the month at Greenwich. For Mary Tudor and most of her ladies, the marriage signalled the end of their time in France. Anne Boleyn did not return with her mistress and, presumably using her language skills and other accomplishments, quickly secured a place for herself at the French court in the household of the new queen of France.

 
    CHAPTER 3
     
    MADEMOISELLE BOLEYN
     
    Anne and Mary Boleyn entered the household of Queen Claude upon Mary Tudor’s return to England. Anne was to remain with Claude for seven years and the French queen must have developed a fondness for her. It seems likely that Anne would have been called upon to act as an interpreter between Mary Tudor and her stepdaughter, Claude, and this may be how Anne first came into contact with her.
    Claude was fifteen when her father, Louis XII, died and her husband, Francis I, came to the throne. Due to the Salic Law in operation in France, Claude, as a woman, was barred from inheriting the crown but she was Duchess of Brittany in her own right following the death of her mother. Although treated respectfully by Francis I and his court, Claude was overshadowed by Francis’s mother, Louise of Savoy, and his sister, Marguerite of Angouleme. She also suffered yearly pregnancies and died young. Such was her piety, that there were suggestions that Claude should be canonised after her death. Given the fact that Anne Boleyn stayed with Claude for seven years she must have had some regard for her. Claude’s rather staid household was tedious for the lively Boleyn sisters and both would have been glad on the rare occasions when Claude’s household joined the main French court.
    Francis I was only in his early