The Case of Anne Boleyn

THERE is something Greek, something akin to Œdipus and Thyestes, in the tragedy of Anne Boleyn. It is difficult to believe, as we read it, that we are viewing the actions of real people subject to passions violent indeed yet common to those of mankind, and not the creatures of a nightmare. Yet I believe that the conduct of the three protagonists, Henry, Catherine, and Anne, can all be explained if we appreciate the facts and interpret them with the aid of a little medical knowledge and insight. Let us search for this explanation. Needless to say we shall not get it in the strongly Bowdlerized sketches that most of us have learnt at school; it is a pity that such rubbish should be taught, because this period is one of the most important in English history; the actors played vital parts; and upon the drama that they played has depended the history of England ever since.

In considering an historical drama one has to remember the curtain of gauze which Time has drawn before us, and to allow for its colour and density. In the case of Henry VIII and his time, though the actual materials are enormous, yet everything has to be viewed through an odium theologicum that is unparalleled since the days of Theodora. In the eyes of the Catholics, Henry was, if not the actual devil incarnate, at all events the next thing; and their opinion has survived among many people who ought to know better to the present day. Decidedly we must make a great deal of allowance.

Henry succeeded to the throne, nineteen years of age, handsome, rather free-living, full of joie-de-vivre, charming, and with every promise of greatness and happiness. He died at fifty-five, unhappy, worn down with illness, at enmity with his people, with the Church, and with the world in general, leaving a memory in the popular mind of a murderous concupiscence that has become a byword. About the time that he was a young man, syphilis, which is supposed to have been introduced by Columbus’ men, ran like a whirlwind through Europe. Hardly anyone seems to have escaped, and it was said that even the Pope upon the throne of St. Peter went the way of most other people, though it is possible that this accusation was as unreliable as many other accusations against the popes. Be that as it may, the foundations were then laid for that syphilization which has transformed the disease into its present mildness. It is impossible to doubt that Henry contracted it in his youth[1]; the evidence will become clear to any doctor as we proceed.

The first act of his reign was to marry for political reasons Catherine of Aragon, who was the widow of his elder brother Arthur. She was daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and, though far from beautiful, proved herself to possess a great and noble soul and a courage of well-tempered steel. The English people took her to their hearts, and when unmerited misfortune fell upon her never lost the love they had felt for her when she was a happy young woman. Though she was six years older than Henry, the two lived happily together for many years. Seven months after marriage Catherine was delivered of a daughter, still-born. Eight months later she had a son, who lived three days. Two years later she had a still-born son. Nine months later she had a son, who died in early infancy, and eighteen months afterwards the infant was born who was to live to be Queen Mary. Henry was intensely disappointed, and for the first time turned against his wife. It was all important to produce an heir to the throne, for it was thought that no woman could rule England. No woman had ever ruled England, save only Matilda, and her precedent was not alluring. So Henry longed desperately for a son; nevertheless as the little Mary grew up—a sickly child—he became passionately devoted to her. She grew up, as one can see from her well-known portrait, probably an hereditary syphilitic. For a time Henry had thought of divorcing Catherine, but his affection for Mary probably turned the scale in her mother’s favour. Catherine had several more miscarriages, and by the time she was forty-two ceased to menstruate; it became clear that she would have no more children and could never produce an heir to the throne.

[Photo, Anderson.
MARY TUDOR.
From a portrait by Moro Antonio (Madrid, Prado).

During these years Henry’s morals had been no worse than those of any other prince in Europe; certainly better than Louis XIV and XV, who were to come after him, or Charles II. He met Mary Boleyn, daughter of a rich London merchant, and made her his mistress. Later on he met Anne Boleyn, her sister, a girl of sixteen, and fell in love. We have a very good description of her, and several portraits. She was of medium stature, not handsome, with a long neck, wide mouth, bosom “not much raised,” eyes black and beautiful and a knowledge of how to use them. Her hair was long, and it appears that she used to wear it long and flowing in the house. It was not so very long since Joan of Arc had been burnt largely because she went about without a wimple, and Mistress Anne’s conduct with regard to her hair was probably worse in those days than for a girl to be seen smoking cigarettes when driving a motor-car to-day. At any rate, she acquired demerit by it, and everybody was on the look-out for more serious false steps. The truth seems to be—so far as one can ascertain truth from reports which, even if unprejudiced, came from people who knew nothing about a woman’s heart—that she was a bold and ambitious girl who laid herself out to capture Henry, and succeeded. Mary Boleyn was thrust aside, and Henry paid violent court in his own enormous and impassioned way to Anne. We have some of his love letters; there can be no doubt of his sincerity, or that his love for Anne was, while it lasted, the great passion of his life. Had she behaved herself she might have retained that love. She repulsed him for several years, and we can see the idea of divorce gradually growing in his mind. He appealed to Pope Clement VII to help him. Catherine defended herself bravely, and stirred Europe in her cause. The Pope hesitated, crushed between the hammer and the anvil, between Henry and the Emperor Charles V. Henry discovered that his marriage with Catherine had come within the prohibited degrees, and that she had never been his wife at all. It was a matter of doubt then—and I believe still is—whether the Pope’s dispensation could acquit them of mortal sin. Apparently even his Holiness’ influence would not have been sufficient to counterbalance the crime of marrying his deceased brother’s widow; nevertheless it was rather remarkable that, if Henry were really such a stickler for the forms of canon law as he now wished to make out, he never troubled to raise the question until after he had fallen in love with some one else. He definitely promised Anne that he would divorce Catherine, marry Anne, and make her Queen of England. Secure in his promise, Anne yielded to her lover, seeing radiant visions of glory before her. How foolish would any girl be who let slip the chance—nay, the certainty—of being the Queen! Yet she was to discover that even queens can be bitterly unhappy. Anne sprang joyfully into the unknown, as many a girl has done before her and since, trusting to her power to charm her lover; and became pregnant. Meanwhile the struggle for the divorce proceeded, the Pope swaying this way and that, and Catherine defending her honour and her throne with splendid courage. The nurses and astrologers declared that the fœtus was a son, and the lovers, mad with joy, were married in secret, divorce or no divorce. The obliging Archbishop Cranmer pronounced that the marriage with Catherine was null and void, as the Pope would not do so.

The time came for Anne to fulfil her promise and provide an heir. King and queen anticipated the event in the wildest excitement. There had been several lovers’ quarrels, which had been made up in the usual manner; once Henry was heard to say passionately that he would rather beg his bread in the streets than desert her. Yet it is doubtful whether Anne Boleyn was ever anything more than an ambitious courtesan; it is doubtful whether she ever felt anything towards him but her natural wish to be queen. In due course her baby was born, and it was a girl—the girl who afterwards became Queen Elizabeth.

Henry’s disappointment was tragic, and for the first time Anne began to realize the terror of her position. She was detested by the people and the Court, who were emphatically on the side of the noble woman whom she had supplanted. She had estranged everybody by her vain-glory and arrogance in the hour of her triumph; and it began to be whispered that even if her own marriage were legal while Catherine was still alive, yet it was illegal by the canon law, for Mary Boleyn, her sister, had been Henry’s wife in all but name. Canonically speaking, Henry had done no better by marrying her than by marrying Catherine. A horrible story went around that he had been familiar with her mother first, and that Anne was his own daughter, and moreover that he knew it. I think we can definitely and at once put this aside as an ecclesiastical lie; there is absolutely no evidence for it and it is impossible to conceive two persons more unlike than the little lively brunette and the great fresh-faced “bluff King Hal.” Moreover, Henry denied the story absolutely, and whatever else he was, he was a man who was never afraid to tell the truth. Most of the difficulties in understanding this complex period of our history disappear if we believe Henry’s own simple statements; but these suffer from the incredulity which Bismarck found three hundred years later when he told his rivals the plain unvarnished truth.