Anne Boleyn: Henry VIII's Obsession by Elizabeth Norton Page B

than Henry was prepared to consider and the Book of Deuteronomy contains an express command for a man to marry his brother’s wife should his brother die childless. Both Anne and Henry would have hoped that Leviticus would be considered the more applicable in Henry’s case.
    On 18 May 1527, soon after Anne had agreed to marry the king, Cardinal Wolsey summoned a church council at Westminster to consider the validity of Henry’s marriage. Both Henry and Anne hoped that Wolsey would quickly pronounce the sentence of divorce and that they would be married within a matter of months. It was intended that the trial should be kept a secret in an attempt to prevent Catherine from appealing to her powerful nephew, the Emperor Charles V, before sentence could be given. Anne, kept in the background and unable to attend, waited anxiously as the hearing progressed. If Henry thought that he could keep the court secret however, he was very much mistaken and both Catherine and the Imperial ambassador knew of the proceedings within hours. Catherine asked the emperor to alert the pope so that he could stop Wolsey from pronouncing sentence and, on 31 May, Wolsey was forced to adjourn the court when it became clear just how widely known proceedings had become. This was the first setback for Anne and Henry and, although Anne would not have realised it, it was only the beginning of a very long wait to become queen.
    Anne had been raised to see the king as an all-powerful figure and she expected that Henry could quickly secure his divorce, regardless of any opposition from Catherine’s family. When the court was adjourned on 31 May and it became clear that Henry would have to seek his divorce from the Pope, both he and Anne may well still not have anticipated great difficulties in bringing about their marriage. All this changed however when news reached England that the emperor had sacked Rome on 16 June 1527 and was holding the Pope as a virtual prisoner. Both Anne and Henry knew that, with the Pope in the hands of Catherine’s nephew, the divorce was likely to become a much more lengthy process.
    Anne was still a member of Catherine’s household when news of the divorce leaked out and she must have found it difficult to remain silent as rumours flew around the court. Henry himself always claimed that his conscience was first pricked regarding his marriage due to a comment made by the Bishop of Tarbes, who was the French ambassador to England when a marriage was being arranged between Princess Mary and the Duke of Orleans. The Bishop suddenly broke off negotiations ‘because (as he said) he was not fully persuaded of the legitimacion of the Ladie Marie beinge the king’s daughter begotten of his brother’s wife’. Henry always claimed that it was this that first alerted him to the invalidity of his marriage and that his desire for a divorce was based solely on his troubled conscience.
    While this was the official reason, it was not widely believed either in England or in Europe. For Henry and Anne, however, it was a convenient claim to divert attention from their own relationship and Anne must also have been glad to hear rumours circulating at court which claimed that it was Wolsey who had set the king on the path to divorce. This was a widely held view and Catherine of Aragon herself believed that it was Wolsey who first suggested divorce to the king. It was also convenient for Anne, whose position was still not widely known, to allow the king’s chief minister, and her greatest enemy, to bear the blame for the king’s actions.
    Anne found herself in a difficult position as word of the king’s actions leaked out in the spring and summer of 1527. At this early stage, she feigned ignorance of the divorce and she must have been glad to be out of the queen’s company as much as possible. Anne knew that, for all her apparent submissiveness and obedience, Catherine was a formidable opponent, and she cannot have failed to be aware of the