Following the death of Jane Seymour, Henry went into extravagant mourning. It was left to Thomas Cromwell to raise the matter of another queen – and the issue of more children – even before Jane Seymour was interred. He approached the King to remarry ‘for the good of the realm’.
Henry had time to look for a wife. He had a lawfully born son, as well as two bastard daughters and so he could now make his mark on European diplomacy with a significant marriage. Henry had made two marriages amongst his own subjects, but neither of these had enhanced his international reputation or forged useful links abroad, nor had they generated a substantial dowry.
Henry’s ministers approached several courts with a view to entering into a diplomatic marriage. The King of France was making overtures to the Emperor and if they allied, this would leave England out in the cold, vulnerable to French attack. Therefore, a French alliance would seem to be more beneficial. The widowed Marie of Guise, daughter of Claude, duc de Guise of Lorraine, was chosen as a possible prospective bride, but unfortunately, by the time Henry had arranged for Sir Peter Mewtas, courtier and gentleman of the privy chamber, to go to France and report on the lady, Marie was already betrothed to Henry’s nephew, James V of Scotland.
If an alliance with France was not possible, what about the Empire? The Emperor’s niece, Christina, was the widowed Duchess of Milan, and Sir Thomas Wyatt was instructed to make tentative enquiries as to her availability. At the same time, Sir Philip Hoby was sent to the court of Mary of Hungary, Regent of the Low Countries, where Christina was staying, to report on her physical appearance. The court painter, Hans Holbein, was told to produce her likeness. Holbein’s portrait showed her to be exceedingly charming and the King became more cheerful at the prospect of a pretty young wife. A plan was drawn up that Henry would marry Christina, and that his daughter Mary would marry Dom Luis of Portugal, the heir to the throne. Sir John Hutton wrote to Cromwell in December 1537, describing Christina, thus: ‘The Duchess of Milan … is of the age of 16 years, very high of stature for that age … of goodly personage of body, and competent of beauty, of favour excellent, soft of speech, and very gentle in countenance … She resembleth much one Mistress Shelton, that some time waited in the court upon Queen Anne.’1
Unfortunately there were problems. Henry and Christina stood within the Church’s proscribed degrees of consanguinity, and the Pope was hardly likely to give Christina a dispensation to marry a King who had expelled him and his Church from England; Princess Mary was technically a bastard, which also made her a poor match for the heir to the throne of Portugal. The Emperor Charles was quite prepared to ally with England against France, but he had no intention of seeing Christina’s Duchy of Milan fall into English hands, or of supporting Henry in the teeth of opposition from the Papacy.
Francis I put forward the names of more French princesses to Henry. Possible candidates were Louise and Renée of Guise, Marie of Vendôme and Anne of Lorraine. Philip Hoby and Hans Holbein had their work cut out providing reports and painting portraits of these ladies. Eventually, to speed up matters, Henry even suggested to the King of France that a number of eligible princesses should be assembled at Calais so he could come and inspect them before making a choice. As can be imagined, Francis I vetoed the idea, adding that French ladies were not commonly displayed like brood mares for sale.
The delays proved costly when Henry’s negotiations fell through entirely. In June 1538 Francis I and Charles V met at Nice and signed a 10-year treaty; neither made any mention of England, leaving her friendless and vulnerable. Henry now realised that a new alliance had to be found, and quickly. Cromwell believed that an alliance with the German states would be most valuable to England as a balance against the French and Spanish–Imperial powers. To this end, he settled upon the second daughter of the Duke of Cleves, 24-year-old Anne, since Sybilla, the eldest, was already married. In the previous year it had been suggested that Princess Mary should marry William, then heir to the Duke of Cleves, Anne’s brother, but it had come to nothing.
The Duchy of Cleves, incorporating the states of Mark-Jülich-Berg, was of considerable importance amongst the German states, lying as it did on the lower Rhine. Duke William wanted the alliance as badly as Henry: the English King needed a confederate against a French–Imperial alliance, and Duke William wanted a powerful ally in his dispute with Charles V for control of Guelderland, which William claimed through his mother. The Cleves family also had the advantage that, like Henry himself, they had never fully espoused the new Protestant religion, but, like him, saw themselves as Catholics who did not consider it appropriate to be ruled by a corrupt Papacy.
The King, ever the romantic, sent Holbein to paint Anne of Cleves’ portrait and requested the usual diplomatic report on her appearance. Christopher Mont reported to Cromwell, and he assured Henry that Anne’s elder sister, Sybilla, was considered to be a beauty, but Anne ‘excelleth as far the Duchess [Sybilla] as the golden sun excelleth the silver moon.’ Similarly, Holbein’s portrait miniature of Anne of Cleves, enclosed in a carved ivory box shaped like a rose, is romantically supposed to have persuaded Henry that here was a chance to mix politics with personal delight. In the event, the portrait was later agreed to have been hopelessly flattering.
Anne of Cleves possessed none of the characteristics that would have made her acceptable to Henry. She spoke only Low German, and she could only dance slow, formal German steps. Her one skill was in needlework, on which ladylike practice she spent most of her time, and much was made of her modesty (when the King’s representative tried to see the lady, she was so wrapped and draped that he could hardly make out her features at all). Nicholas Wotton reported that she had no musical accomplishments, ‘for they take it here in Germany for a rebuke and an occasion of lightness that great ladies should be learned or have any knowledge of music …’2 It would be more correct to say that she had been brought up by her mother to be formal and worthy, adequately educated and without any sparkle. It would be hard to find a personality that would appeal less to Henry VIII.
In 1539 Henry married Anne of Cleves by proxy, a union that was to last a bare six months. Henry recognised that this marriage was purely political and that if his bride pleased him, he would have to look on that as a heaven-sent bonus.
Anne travelled slowly from Cleves to Calais, where Lord Lisle, the governor, received her. Lady Lisle wrote to her daughter, one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, that Anne seemed kind, and suggested that she would be an easy mistress to serve. In a letter dated 22 December 1539, Anne Bassett wrote to her mother: ‘I humbly thank your ladyship of the news you write me of her Grace [Anne of Cleves], that she is so good and gentle to serve and please. It shall be no little rejoicement to us, her Grace’s servants here [London], that shall attend daily upon her …’
While in Calais Anne attempted to master English card games and began learning about English court manners. She was going to try her best to be a good queen to Henry and to England. The King had to wait to meet his queen, however, as bad weather delayed the sailing beyond Christmas, and it was not until late December that Anne finally set sail. When she arrived in England on 27 December 1539, Anne was met at Dover by a retinue of nobles led by Henry’s dearest confidante, Charles Brandon, whose young wife, Katherine d’Eresby, was to be one of her ladies. They travelled to Rochester in Kent for New Year’s Day.
On New Year’s Day, King Henry played one of those masquerades that he loved and which had been so successful 30 years before:
‘On new Years Day in the afternoon the King’s Grace with five of his Privy Chamber, being disguised with mottled cloaks with hoods so that they should not be recognised, came secretly to Rochester, and so were up unto the chamber where the said Lady Anne was looking out of a window … and suddenly he embraced and kissed her, and showed her a token which the King had sent her for a New Year’s gift, and she being abashed and not knowing who it was thanked him, and so he spoke with her … and when the King saw that she took so little notice of his coming he went into another chamber and took off his cloak and came in again in a coat of purple velvet. And when the Lords and knights saw his face they did him reverence, and then her Grace, seeing the Lords doing their duties, humbled herself lowly to the King’s Majesty ...’
Henry had never played his game of disguised, romantic stranger with so little success. Anne did not know that she was supposed to be intrigued and entranced by this handsome and powerful gentleman whose obvious nobility should have been clear. Instead she may well have been embarrassed by personal contact with someone she took for an impertinent noble. Nobody in the Court of Cleves had ever behaved in such a way and Anne must have been puzzled and possibly a little frightened. It was only when Henry reappeared in his own character that she was able to respond, but the damage had been done. He could have accepted awe, excitement, even a little frisson of desire or fear, but he would never accept the indifference of a bride who barely looked at him.
When Henry left Anne at Rochester Abbey on New Year’s Day, he was not impressed. Travelling back to Greenwich by water, he told Sir Anthony Browne, ‘I see nothing in this woman as men report of her and I marvel that wise men would make such reports as they have done.’ That evening, Cromwell, who had praised her, asked Henry how he liked his bride; the King replied, ‘Nothing so well as she is spoken of. If I had known as much before as I know now, she should never have come into the realm.’
Charles de Marillac, the French Ambassador, wrote to Francis I that Anne was, ‘tall and thin, of middling beauty, with determined and resolute countenance.’ To the Constable, Anne de Montmorency, he wrote she was, ‘not as young as was at first thought, nor so handsome as people affirmed.’ Lady Browne, who was a member of Anne’s household, wrote that she was so unsuitable that the King was never likely to love her.3
They were married in great splendour on Twelfth Night (6 January 1540) in her rooms at Greenwich. Henry sulked throughout, and Anne found herself married to a man who barely spoke to her. Henry told anyone who would listen that he had been badly treated, and that he was only going through with the marriage for the sake of England, ‘… if it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that I must do this day for none earthly thing.’ The wedding night turned into a disaster, with the King maintaining he found the Queen completely unattractive, and the Queen displaying all the enthusiasm of a totally innocent virgin – he didn’t want to and she didn’t know how.
The next day the King told Cromwell she was, ‘nothing fair, and had very ill smells about her.’4 Whereas Henry’s description of her as a ‘Flanders mare’ may be apocryphal, she turned out to be a tall and anxious woman, with a pockmarked face and a big nose, who talked with a heavy German accent. Henry certainly did remark that, having felt her naked breasts, he did not believe she was a virgin. He also later claimed that he could not bring himself to consummate the marriage. Henry’s choice tended to fall on vivacious beauties, not sturdy German hausfraus. For four nights, the ill-matched couple shared a bed, but, according to Henry, only to sleep. At the end of this time, he said, ‘I liked her not well before, but now I like her much worse.’5 Still, for the sake of the Cleves alliance, the marriage continued.
When, some weeks later, her ladies quizzed Anne on whether or not she might be pregnant, she said, no. Lady Edgecombe asked her, ‘How is it possible for Your Grace to know that and lie every night with the King?’ Lady Rochford went a little further, ‘By Our Lady, Madam, I think your Grace is a maid still.’ Anna told them that at night, when they were alone in bed together, ‘he kisses me and taketh my by the hand and biddeth me, “Goodnight, sweetheart”, and in the morning kisses me and biddeth me, “Farewell, darling”.’ Lady Rochford told her, ‘Madam, there must be more than this, or it will be long ere we have a Duke of York, which all this realm much desireth’. Anne seemed puzzled, ‘Nay, is not this enough? I am contented with this, for I know no more.’6
On 4 February Henry and Anne came by barge from Greenwich to Westminster; they were greeted by a 1,000-gun salute from the Tower. She now joined her new household of 126 people, a few German, but mostly English. Henry had insisted that all her ladies should be ‘fair’, that is, good looking. All the noble families wished to place their relatives in service with the queen.
Cromwell could see the way the wind was blowing. Almost immediately he began making enquiries about a precontract between Anne and the Duke of Lorraine; if valid, it would mean that the marriage with Henry might be illegal and could be dissolved. Unfortunately this supposed contract had already been examined, and it had been accepted by all parties as being irrelevant. At this stage Cromwell seemed to be managing things quite well. In May 1540 he was made Earl of Essex and Lord Great Chamberlain. He had matters in hand to end the Cleves marriage and even when William of Cleves backed out of marrying Princess Mary, and looked for a French wife, this was not seen as a major problem; he would still make a good ally against the Emperor. Religious divisions and quarrels were to seal Cromwell’s fate. These problems, caused by radical Protestants, were largely due to Henry’s policy over many years, done with his agreement and approval, but Cromwell was blamed for everything that now went wrong. He was arrested on 10 June, charged with treason (maladministration and abuse of power), found guilty, and executed on 28 July.
For Henry, the only bright spot in the whole marriage fiasco was that he met and fell in love with one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting, the 19-year-old Catherine Howard, which provided another reason for ending the German marriage. Burdened with a dull, sexually unattractive wife with whom he was not sleeping, it is not surprising that his eye roved over the lovely ladies who surrounded her.
On May Day, Anne attended the official Court celebrations. She had been improving her English and people seemed to like her. It was to be her last formal appearance; from this time on, she was marginalised. On 25 June she was at Richmond, where the King’s Commissioners came to her and advised that Henry planned to divorce her on the grounds that he had been coerced into marriage by Cromwell and that the marriage had never been consummated. Henry gave his word that he had not had sex with Anne, and this was sufficient for a divorce, since one of the principle reasons for marriage was the sanctioned production of children. All Anne had to do was agree that she remained a virgin.
Where Catherine of Aragon or Anne Boleyn might have hotly denied this and fought for their position, Anne apparently took the whole thing quietly and calmly. She wrote to Henry saying that she would be bound by whatever he decided, and signed the letter, not ‘Queen’, but ‘Daughter of Cleves’. Henry’s delight at such a helpful wife manifested itself in a more than generous separation gift of estates valued at £3,000; the only condition of divorce was that Anne would have to remain in England as Henry’s subject. Anne had no objections; she seems to have liked England, liked her freedom, and made some good friends.
It is perhaps ironic that Anne understood Henry the best of any of his wives. Her letter of submission to him, written on 11 July 1540 from Richmond, struck all the right notes. She started by pointing out that the whole question had been raised by the King’s Council and the Clergy, and Henry was not to blame. She recognised her love for him (and implied his love for her), but acknowledged that there were greater forces at work: ‘… this case must needs be most hard and sorrowful unto me, for the great love which I bear to your most noble person, yet having more regard to God and his truth than to any worldly affection …’ They would be divorced because it is the right thing to do, and Anne would remain his devoted friend and sister.7 With Anne so compliant and agreeable, the alliance with Cleves could be maintained. Duke William had no cause to say that his sister had been ill treated; in fact, she had done very well. She was even given precedence over all English ladies, save the king’s wife (when he had one) and Henry’s daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. Anne was to be the king’s ‘good sister’. Thus William was able to keep England as a friend and supporter against the Emperor, and Henry was able to keep a hand in European politics.
Two years later, during the investigation into the misbehaviour of Catherine Howard, rumours began to fly that Henry VIII was considering taking back his fourth wife. Chapuys wrote to Charles V that Henry had been out hunting and might have visited Anne. Her brother, the Duke of Cleves, had sent letters to his ambassador, Dr Heinrich Olisleger, broaching the subject of Henry remarrying Anne. At such a sensitive time, on 5 December 1541, the Privy Council recorded that a lady named Frances Lilgrave had ‘slandered the lady Anne of Cleves, and therein, the King …’8 Lilgrave had been sent to the Tower along with Richard Tavernor, a Clerk of the Signet, to whom she had told her tale and who had reported it to the Council.
This refers to an incident that had taken place several months before when a baby had been born to one of Anne’s servants. Rumours were circulated that the child was Anne’s and, worse still, that the father was Henry himself. According to Chapuys, the King’s assertion that he and Anne had never had sex was false; she and the King had been having sexual relations, the result being that that summer Anne had retired to the country to give birth.9 The King certainly visited Anne and it was not impossible that he went to bed with her. Well-dressed, contented and relaxed, speaking English, no longer under pressure to impress, Anne may at last have shown Henry the slender, serene, intelligent girl in the miniature with whom he had fallen in love. This would have been disastrous. The King could not have a child by a divorced wife whom he insisted that he had never slept with, especially as he had just married Catherine Howard, who might yet become pregnant. In any event, Anne of Cleves always maintained that the child was that of her servant.
Some years later, in 1546, Stephen Vaughan, the King’s Factor in Antwerp, wrote to colleagues in the English Court that there were rumours in Holland that Henry was planning to divorce Catherine Parr and marry again: ‘a merchant … had dined with certain friends, one of whom offered to lay a wager with him that the King’s Majesty would have another wife …’. Vaughan went on that there were rumours circulating that the next queen was to be Anne of Cleves, that she and the King were lovers, and that she had already had two sons by him.10
Anne ended her days in England, rich in lands and houses, and popular with her Tudor family. She got on well with Catherine Howard, formally visiting her at Court during her brief reign, and was a favourite ‘aunt’ to the Tudor children, Edward, Mary and Elizabeth. She didn’t have such a good relationship with Catherine Parr, and tried unsuccessfully to have her annulment overturned once Henry was dead so that Anne, not Catherine Parr, would be Queen Dowager.
Anne of Cleves died on 16 July 1557, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. She had never remarried, although there wasn’t a reason why she should not. Perhaps, once having tasted freedom, she never wanted to give it up again. Perhaps the farce with Henry had put her off the very thought of marriage.
Back in 1540, living in comfort at her house at Hever, Anne of Cleves may have congratulated herself on a lucky escape, when the tragedy of her successor unfolded. However, Catherine Howard had not been the only woman who tempted Henry before and during his marriage to Anne of Cleves. There was another possible British candidate for queen – Anne Bassett, stepdaughter of Lord Lisle, and servant to Jane Seymour before her death.
Arthur Plantagenet, Lord Lisle, was a remarkable man, in that he, and his sister Elizabeth, Lady Lumley, managed to live under the Tudors at all. He was the only surviving bastard son of Edward IV by Elizabeth Lucy, a widow and daughter of Thomas Wayte, a gentleman from Hampshire. When Richard III reported that his brother’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had been illegal and their children were therefore bastards, it was a precontract with Elizabeth Lucy that he used as evidence. A precontract was almost as valid as a marriage, and the two children tended to lend support to the claim by Richard that his brother, the King, had made some kind of promise of marriage to the lady.
Perhaps Arthur Plantagenet’s survival was due, in part, to the fact that he had no son who could raise a claim to the English throne. Arthur had three daughters by his first wife and no children by his second. However, he did accumulate a large family of stepchildren from both marriages. His first wife, Elizabeth Grey, was the widow of Edmund Dudley by who she had three sons. His second wife, Honor Grenville, was the widow and second wife of Sir John Bassett and had three sons and four daughters by him; Honor also cared for four daughters of Sir John Bassett by his first wife, Elizabeth Dennys.
Lord and Lady Lisle made an interesting couple. Henry VIII said of Lisle that he had ‘the gentlest heart living’11 and he was universally loved as a kind and gentle person. Arthur’s second wife, Honor Grenville, on the other hand, was a less lovable person; she ran up huge bills with tradesmen like the king’s tailor, ‘Mr Skut’. She was domineering and ruthless, especially where her Bassett children were concerned; Honor and Lisle had no children.
The Lisles had settled in Calais in 1533 when Lord Lisle was given the post of governor, and unusually Lady Lisle took Frances Plantagenet, Lisle’s daughter, and the four Bassett girls – Philippa, Katherine, Mary and Anne – with her, rather than leaving them with noble families in England to be educated, as happened with Elizabeth and Bridget Plantagenet. Anne Bassett was about 12 years old at that time.
Once in France, Lady Lisle placed Anne and Mary Bassett with noble French families, while the three remaining daughters stayed with their parents. Anne went to the household of one of her father’s dearest friends, the soldier Thybault de Rouaud and his wife, Jeanne de Saveuzes, who lived at Pont de Remy, near Abbeville in northern France. The Rouauds were a fine old Poitou family, and Jeanne was related by blood and marriage to the finest families in Artois and Picardy. Anne Bassett’s sister Mary went to the household of Thybault de Rouaud’s sister, Anne, who had married Nicholas de Montmorency, siegneur de Bours. Mary, we learn from de Bours, was considered the beauty of the two, although Anne must have been almost as lovely. Anne de Bours wrote to Lady Lisle on 9 August 1534: ‘I find her of such an excellent disposition that I love her [Mary] as if she were my daughter, and she is beloved of all them that see her.’ De Rouaud wrote a year later, ‘My wife and I have been very sorry that Mistress Anne hath been taken with a certain sickness [possibly smallpox], but thanks be to God she is now wholly recovered from it … As for Mistress Marie, who is with my sister, she is merry, and is indeed the fairest maiden in the world to look upon.’
One of the principle purposes of placing the girls in French households was for them to learn to speak, read and write French; in a letter of March 1536, Mary records, ‘I have given the schoolmaster who taught me to read and write ten sols …’ She wrote to her sister Philippa, who was still living in the Lisle’s household in Calais, ‘I enjoy myself so much here in this country that I should be right well content if that I would often see my lady my mother, never to return to England.’12 Anne Boleyn had established the fashion for French manners, and the presence on the throne of France of the handsome Francis I maintained France as a leader in fashion. The Lisles were not going to have their beautiful daughters be disadvantaged by not following the fashion of the day.
Letters also advised of Mary’s musical talent; she was receiving instruction on the lute, virginals and spinet. She was also working at her needlework, playing cards and hunting with hawks. One can assume that Anne had similar tuition. There are also many references in letters relating to both girls, to clothing and jewels, so that they should be well dressed as the daughters of so illustrious an English noble and his lady.
In September 1536, Anne Bassett returned to Calais to be reunited with her family, and plans were afoot for her future. Mary stayed with the de Bours for the time being. Like her sisters, Anne Bassett would have a reasonable dowry (100 marks) and was of a good family, so she might expect to make an advantageous marriage. Coupled with this, she was a beautiful and talented girl whose stepfather’s contacts at Court meant that she might expect to move in more exalted circles than other girls from the same background.
The early months of the year saw the fall and execution of Anne Boleyn in May, followed rapidly by the marriage of Henry to Jane Seymour. In 1537 Lady Lisle learned that two Arundel nieces had found places at Court and she set about bribing her noble friends and relatives to find similar places for her daughters, Katherine and Anne. Initially some of these friends seemed to doubt that Anne was old enough, being only 16, and Katherine was the daughter most likely to find a place. In order to get the girls into the Court, Lady Lisle was making plans to place Katherine in the household of the Duchess of Suffolk, and Anne with the Countess of Rutland. Once at Court, if only as part of a lesser household, it would be easier for them to be considered when the next vacancy occurred in the queen’s circle of ladies. In the meanwhile, Lady Lisle sent gifts to a variety of contacts, primary amongst whom were the Dowager Countesses of Sussex (Elizabeth Stafford) and Rutland (Anne St Leger), and Lady Anne Seymour, the wife of Edward Seymour, Queen Jane’s brother. Through them, she sent presents of game birds to the Queen. A letter from Sir John Russell to Lord Lisle, dated 20 May 1537, sent from Hampton Court, explains the nature of the gift: ‘My lord, the King commanded me to write to you for some fat quails, for the Queen is very desirous to eat some but here be none to be gotten. Wherefore, my lord, I pray you in anywise that ye will send some with as much speed as may be possible; but they must be very fat.’
The quail, which were found in abundance in the area around Calais, were set before the King and Queen by the end of May, and were much remarked upon and enjoyed. Jane Seymour eventually agreed to meet the Bassett girls and take one into her household, as John Hussee wrote to lady Lisle on 17 July 1537: ‘… the Queen … chanced, eating of the quails, to comment of your ladyship and of your daughters … her Grace made grant to have one of your daughters; and the matter is thus concluded that your ladyship shall send them both over [from Calais], for her Grace will first see them and know their manners, fashions and conditions, and take which of them shall like her Grace best …’13
In fact it was several months before Anne and Katherine went to London. Lady Lisle believed she was pregnant; both she and her husband hoped for a son and heir. Unfortunately the ‘pregnancy’ dragged on well beyond the customary nine months, and by August it became obvious that her symptoms were the result of illness. It was not until September that the girls arrived, and John Hussee was able to write to Lady Lisle on 17 September 1537, ‘Your ladyship shall understand that Mrs Anne your daughter is sworn the Queen’s maid on Saturday last past, and furnisheth the room of a yeoman-usher … Mrs Katherine doth remain with the Countess of Rutland till she know further of your pleasure.’
Henry VIII was not oblivious to the charms of Anne Bassett. He had already mentioned her preferment to the Queen, although this was before she came to London with her sister Katherine from Calais, and he merely supported the Queen in taking one of the Bassett girls into her household, as his cousin Lisle’s stepdaughter. However, Peter Mewtas wrote a letter to Lord Lisle on 9 October, indicating that Anne had made quite an impression on Henry, ‘Sir, the King’s Grace, not two days past, talked of you and your children, amongst which I advertised him of your daughter that last came out of France. Howbeit his Grace thought Mistress Anne Bassett to be the fairest, but I said how that your youngest [Mary] was far fairer.’14
On 12 October, Jane Seymour gave birth to Edward, the Prince of Wales, but five weeks after Anne Bassett joined the Queen’s household, Jane was dead. Anne had attended the Prince’s christening, and now she performed her last office for the late Queen at Jane’s funeral. At the age of 16, Anne was once again out of a post. She went into the house of her cousin, Lady Sussex, while her sister Katherine was still with the Countess of Rutland. However, all was not lost. Presumably Anne had made a significant impression on Henry and he appears to have wanted to keep her in the queen’s household until he could marry again. John Hussee, the family’s London servant, wrote to Lady Lisle, ‘The King’s Grace is good Lord to Mistress Anne, and hath made her grant to have her place whensoever the time shall come.’15
Anne Bassett joined the circle of beautiful, clever, talented young people around the King. Even though they presently had no queen to serve, the ladies of the queen’s privy chamber paid a visit to Portsmouth in August 1539 and wrote a round robin letter to Henry concerning his ‘Greate Shippe’ (the Harry Grace a Dieu) which they had visited. The signatories were ‘Maybell Sowthampton’, ‘Margaret Tayleboise’, ‘Margaret Howarde’, ‘Alys Browne’, ‘Anne Knevytt’, ‘Jane Denny’, ‘Jane Meows [Mewtas]’, ‘Elisabeth Tyrwhyt’, ‘Elsabeth Harvy’ and ‘Anne Basset’. The ladies laid on their praise of the King and the Prince of Wales with a liberal hand, and of the ships that they had seen:
‘… which things so goodly to behold that in our lives we have not seen (excepting your royal person and my lord the Prince your son) a more pleasant sight; we beseech your Majesty to accept in good part, advertising the same that there rest now but only two sorrows; the one for lack of your royal presence that ye might have seen your said ships now at this time when we might have waited on you here; the other that we think long till it may eftsoons like you to have us with you, which we all most heartily beseech our Lord God may be shortly …’
Anne continued to be singled out by Henry for appreciation. He made her a present of a horse and riding saddle. When Anne was indisposed, she wrote to her mother that Henry ordered that she spend time with Jane Denny, a distant relative: ‘… I am now with my Cousin Denny, at the King’s grace’s commandment; for whereas Mistress Mewtas doth lie in London there are no walks but a little garden, wherefore it was the King’s grace’s pleasure that I should be with my Cousin Denny; for where as she lieth there are fair walks and a good open air; for the physician doth say that there is nothing better for my disease than walking …’16 Henry was entering upon one of his courtship rituals, giving Anne Bassett the means to ride out and take walks, both circumstances that could lead, quite naturally, to a sudden and ‘unexpected’ meeting between Henry and the lady away from the public gaze.
As matters progressed with the political marriage to Anne of Cleves, it seemed that Anne Bassett would soon be able to renew her position in the household of the queen of England. As luck would have it, Anne of Cleves spent some time in Calais, travelling to England, and Anne’s parents were able to write to her about her new mistress. Unfortunately, Lisle was ordered to stay in Calais, and Honor stayed with him, so Anne never got her wish to see her parents accompany the new Queen to London. Lady Lisle had written to Anne expressing her disappointment on not coming to Court, and Anne had duly relayed the information to the King: ‘This shall signify your ladyship that I received your letter … and according to the contents thereof, I have declared unto the King’s Highness all things, as your ladyship willed me to do, so that his Grace took the same in right good part, accepting your good will and towards mind ... For I knowledge myself most bound to his Highness of all creatures: if I should, therefore, in any thing offend his Grace willingly, it were a pity I should live.’17
Muriel St Clare Byrne, editor of one edition of the Lisle Letters, says that Anne was one ‘whom the king so fancied at one time that she was tipped for the dangerous honour of being the fifth Queen of Henry VIII.’ However, unlike Anne Boleyn or Catherine Howard, Anne Bassett could not or did not try to wrap Henry VIII around her finger. She wrote to her mother on 19 February 1540, thanking her for the preserves she had sent which Henry enjoyed. Lady Lisle had hoped for some gift or ‘token’ from the King, but Anne could not guarantee that one would be sent. A woman who enjoyed the king’s favour might be more forceful in getting her own way. Anne Bassett may have been unsure of how strong the King’s affection for her actually was; perhaps she adored Henry to the point of worship (as she says in her letter) and was too shy to press for any favours either for herself or her family. It is more likely that her upbringing under such a domineering mother meant that she was naturally shy and diffident. It may have been this diffidence that reminded Henry of Jane Seymour, so that this, coupled with her beauty, initially attracted him.
Lord Lisle fell from favour during his time as Governor of Calais. The city was a haven for Catholics fleeing England, and Lisle was accused of sympathy with them, of allowing them to stay too long, and of not doing enough to deal with these enemies of the state. Lisle and his Council were away from the changing religious and political scene in London, and he was unable to apply the current rules, as he often did not know what they were. In July 1538 he wrote to Cromwell: ‘My lord, herebefore your lordship hath written and hath alleged that papish dregs did remain here with us of Calais. My lord, I dare well say, the King’s Highness hath not within his realm no manner of people who favour less the traditions of popes than the King’s servants and subjects do here, from the highest degree to the lowest … therefore I may know the King’s pleasure and yours, which shall be obeyed to the last drop of blood in my body.’18
He was further seen as a partisan of Reginald, Cardinal Pole, the outspoken enemy of Henry VIII. Pole and Lisle were cousins, as Lisle’s father, Edward IV, was the brother of Pole’s grandfather, George, Duke of Clarence. Lisle was a close friend of Reginald’s mother, the Countess of Salisbury. Despite this, Lisle was aware of a plot hatched by Henry VIII to have Pole kidnapped and brought to England to stand trial for treason, yet did nothing to warn Pole. Pole knew of the plot when he realised he was being watched. However, despite his continued service to the King, Lisle’s loyalties in this area were always suspect as far as Henry VIII was concerned. In November 1538 Henry had Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, her two sons, Lord Montague and Geoffrey Pole, who stayed in England, and her cousin Henry Courtney, Marquis of Exeter, (grandson of Katherine, youngest daughter of Edward IV) arrested on suspicion of treasonable plotting with Cardinal Pole. Lisle would have known that he would always be in a suspect position, because of his parentage. Undoubtedly, only his bastardy had saved him from execution as the last of the direct male heirs of the Plantagenets.
In April 1540, Lisle, who was visiting England on the invitation of Henry VIII, was arrested on Cromwell’s orders and confined to the Tower of London. Cromwell was desperately trying to save his own career by sacrificing anyone else who could be blamed for any of the religious confusion that the ill-thoughtout elements of the Reformation had thrown up. Lord Lisle was effectively ‘framed’ as being responsible for the religious confusion in Calais, and for supposedly having knowledge of a pathetically inept (and possibly imaginary) plot to surrender Calais to French and Papal forces. In fact, the arrest of Lord Lisle only delayed things. Cromwell was arrested and executed with considerable speed when Henry, in his turn, needed someone to blame for the failures of his own religious policy.
In Calais, Honor Lisle was held under house arrest in the Palace, and her daughters were sent to lodge with various families within the town. The matter of Honor’s arrest was complicated by the discovery that her daughter Mary had become secretly betrothed to Gabriel de Montmorency, seigneur de Bours, the son of her French hostess. The French were the enemy, and Mary should have told her parents, who should, in turn, have asked Henry’s permission for such a marriage. Honor Lisle ended up staying in the house of Francis Hall, a Calais official (a ‘Spear’), while she waited for news of her husband’s situation. Records suggest that she had a nervous breakdown.
It became obvious quite quickly, however, that Henry did not hold his cousin to blame for any of the feeble charges against him. For one thing, during a torrent of executions, Lisle was not marked for death immediately, as happened to so many of those whom Henry VIII suspected of treason. Henry was supposed to have remarked that Lisle had fallen, ‘more through simplicity and ignorance than through malice.’ A further point in his favour was that Anne Bassett maintained her position in the queen’s household.
Lord Lisle remained in the Tower for 18 months, but the replacement of his arms in the Garter Knights’ chapel at Windsor, removed at the time of his indictment, suggested that he was soon to be released and returned to favour. At the end of January 1542, Henry VIII was dining with his courtiers, when the Imperial Ambassador noted that he was paying much attention to Lord Cobham’s sister. He also commented that the King was paying similar attention to ‘a daughter that the wife of the former Deputy of Calais had by her first husband.’ This suggests that Henry was already thinking about a new queen, and that at least two ladies – young and lovely 16-year-old Elizabeth Cobham and Anne Bassett– had taken his fancy.
As it turned out, Elizabeth Cobham did not marry Henry VIII, but her married life was almost as complicated as the King’s. In 1547 Elizabeth married William Parr, Marquis of Northampton, the brother of Catherine Parr. He had previously been married to Anne Bourchier, only child and heiress of Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex. Once the marriage was finalised, Anne had almost immediately left William and set up home with ‘one Hunt alias Huntly’ who was the father of her children. Northampton divorced her in 1547, but he retained the title of Earl of Essex and married Elizabeth Cobham. Unfortunately, it later turned out that the divorce had not been correctly completed, so a bizarre farce unfolded. Firstly, in 1552, an Act of Parliament was passed ‘disannulling’ the marriage of the Marquis of Northampton and Lady Anne Bourchier, and for ‘the confirmation of the marriage between him and Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Broke, Lord Cobham and for the legitimation of the children that shall be between them’. In order to fully legitimise the marriage of Northampton and Elizabeth Cobham, in 1553 another Act revoked the Act for their marriage. This meant that now a formal divorce could be completed correctly between Northampton and Anne so that he and Elizabeth could marry again and the whole thing would be legal. Elizabeth died in 1565 from breast cancer. Despite all the efforts to legitimise the marriage for the sake of the heirs, she and her husband were childless. Northampton married again, this time to Helena von Suavenburgh, who survived him.
With Catherine Howard arrested and awaiting trial and death, her household was disbanded. Anne Bassett, however, was retained at Court. Some of the Queen’s attendants returned to their families, while, ‘One maid of honour, Anne Basset, daughter of Lady Lisle, who had originally come from Calais to serve Anne of Cleves, was now specially favoured.’19 It may be that because Henry liked her (and even briefly considered her as his next wife) that he was reluctant to execute her father; she may have used her influence to ask the King to be lenient. In fact, there is little evidence that Henry really believed Lord Lisle was guilty of anything serious, and so he had no reason to be hard on Anne, or her stepfather.
On the death of Catherine Howard, Henry signed Lisle’s pardon and ordered his release. Tragically, Lisle died in the Tower the next day, supposedly ‘through too much rejoicing’ on being advised of his imminent release. Francis Sandford recorded the event in his Genealogical History of the Kings of England, published in 1707: ‘… receiving so great a pressure of Joy, his [Lisle] Heart was over-charged therewith, and the Night following … he yielded up the Ghost … this King’s Mercy was as fatal as his Judgements.’
With Lord Lisle’s death, Henry sent word to Honor Lisle that she was now at liberty, and in March she returned to England. She lived another 24 years, dying in 1566 at Tehidy, a house belonging to her grandson, Arthur, son of John and Frances Bassett. The house was also home to her son George Bassett, his wife Jacqueta Coffin, and their children, so her declining years were spent surrounded by her children and grandchildren.
Lord Lisle’s three daughters all married. The eldest, Frances, married first her stepbrother, John Bassett, and then Thomas Monk of Potheridge. By this union she was the great-grandmother of General Monk who played a key role in the Restoration of Charles II. Elizabeth married Sir Francis Jobson and produced four sons. Bridget married William Carden, and was widowed within 10 years. Thus the blood of the last Yorkist king continued.
Anne Bassett, thanks to the support of Henry VIII, remained a lady-in-waiting. She served Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr. When Edward VI came to the throne, Catherine Parr continued to maintain a household, and Anne Bassett received an annuity for her post, a sum paid to her even though she did not actually attend the Queen Dowager. When Catherine Parr died, Anne retired from Court. She was not to appear again until she became a lady of the privy chamber for Mary I.
In 1554, Anne Bassett finally met her match. She married Walter Hungerford, the son of Baron Hungerford, a supporter of Thomas Cromwell, who had died on the scaffold in 1540. When they married, and with the addition of a gift of 5,000 Marks from Mary I, the title of baron that had been lost when his father was executed was restored to Walter along with family lands in Wiltshire, Somerset and Cornwall. The reestablished Baron Hungerford was 21 years old, and his Baroness was 33 when they married in Mary I’s private chapel at Richmond Palace.
Baron Hungerford was known as ‘The Knight of Farley’. His portrait, mounted and costumed for the hunt, has an inscription that states that at the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth I he was a ‘champion huntsman’ and, if the image does not lie, something of a dandy. The marriage ceremony between Sir Walter and Anne Bassett was a cheery affair, according to a letter written by Robert Swyfte to the Earl of Shrewsbury from London, dated 11 June 1554: ‘On Thursday last was married at Richmond, Basset the Queen’s maid, to Mr Hungerfurthe, son and heir of Lord Hungerfurthe, at which day the Queen showed herself very pleased, commanding all mirth and pastime.’20
Happiness was to be short-lived for Anne Bassett. The date of her death is not known, but within four years Hungerford was free to remarry and we must assume that Anne died during this period. There are no children recorded for the marriage.
Hungerford’s second marriage took place in July 1558, and as the new Lady Hungerford, Anne Dormer, was one of the queen’s ladies, Mary I made a grant to return more of the Hungerford lands. Anne was the sister of one of the Queen’s favourites, Jane Dormer, who had captivated and married Don Gomez Suarez, the Spanish Duke of Feria.
Several letters survive from Anne to her sister, ‘ye Right Honourable the Duches of Ferya her grase’. The marriage did not go well and the Hungerfords parted company in 1569. Baron Hungerford refused to pay his wife any alimony and took her children away from her. She was obliged to fight for an allowance and, after his death, for her widow’s jointure and her children’s inheritance: ‘… the aforesaid Anne (Lady Hungerford), before claim to dower, viz on the 22nd of September 1597, disagreed to her jointure, and prosecuted her writ to recover her rightful dower against Sir Edward Hungerford [Sir Walter’s brother and heir], who was commanded to restore to her “the reasonable dower which fell to her of the freehold of Farley, Wellow, Telford, Rowley, and Wittenham”. So Lady Hungerford finally defeated the machinations of her late husband and his instigators, and spent the remainder of her life in comfortable circumstances. She died, at Louvaine, in 1603.’ At least Anne had something to leave to her daughters, but the bulk of the estate still went to Sir Edward. Four years later, Edward too was dead, childless; the estates and title went to yet another Edward Hungerford, son of Lucy Hungerford, one of the despised daughters of that Sir Walter who married Anne Bassett.21
