Free The Boleyn Women: The Tudor Femmes Fatales Who Changed English History by Elizabeth Norton Page B

near to the Norfolk blood: and on her father’s side lineally descended from the Earl of Ormond, he being one of the earl’s heirs general.
    Although the Boleyns had come far since their humble origins at Salle, by the early sixteenth century they had not come far enough to please Percy’s father, the sixth Earl of Northumberland. On receiving a message from Wolsey, Northumberland hurried south, whisking his son away to marry Mary Talbot, the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Anne was sent home to Hever in disgrace, vowing that ‘if it lay ever in her power she would work the Cardinal as much displeasure as he had done her’.
    Anne Boleyn was finally able to return to court in 1525 when she resumed her position in the queen’s household. She soon found another admirer. The courtier and poet Sir Thomas Wyatt came from an old Kentish family. His father, Sir Henry Wyatt, was associated with Sir Thomas Boleyn, with them both being created knights of the Bath at Henry VIII’s Coronation in 1509 and receiving the joint appointment of constable of Norwich castle in 1511. Given the similarity of Christian names, it is not impossible that Boleyn was Thomas Wyatt’s godfather: the honour could have been returned with Boleyn’s second son, Henry, who did not survive infancy, who shared a Christian name with Sir Henry Wyatt.
    By 1525, Thomas Wyatt was a prominent figure at court, with a firm friendship with the king. 7 Although he had, by then, been unhappily married for some years, he and Anne engaged in a flirtation, with Wyatt finding himself attracted to her appearance and intrigued by her ‘witty and graceful speech, his ear also had him chained unto her, so as finally his heart seemed to say, I would gladly yield to be tied for ever with the knot of love’. Anne was well aware that there was no future in her relationship with Wyatt but she may well have been attracted to him and saw little harm in engaging in a little courtly love with him.
    The evidence for Wyatt’s interest in Anne survives both in a biography of Anne written by his grandson, George Wyatt, as well as in Thomas Wyatt’s own poems. To Wyatt, Anne was the exotic ‘Brunet’ who featured in some of his surviving poems. In one poem, written some time after the end of their relationship, Wyatt declared that
    Be sign of love. Then do I love again,
If thou ask whom, sure since I did refrain
Brunet that set my wealth in such a roar
The unfeigned cheer of Phyllis hath the place
That Brunet had: she hath and ever shall 8
    That this poem refers to Anne is evident from the fact that the third line quoted above originally read ‘Her that did set our country in a roar’. Given that she later refused absolutely to become the king’s mistress, it seems highly unlikely that she would have consented to become the mistress of Sir Thomas Wyatt, regardless of how attractive he was.
    According to George Wyatt, it was Anne’s relationship with Wyatt which first led to her coming to the attention of the king, with the two men competing for her affections. 9 While the couple were conversing one day, Wyatt playfully stole a small jewel from Anne, which she kept hanging on a lace from her pocket. Aware that the jewel would be recognised and that it would be presumed that she had given it to him, she immediately requested that it be returned, but Wyatt refused. Shortly afterwards, Henry VIII, who, after the end of his affair with Mary Boleyn, was looking for a new mistress, was flirting with Anne when he took a ring from her to wear on his little finger. He was still wearing it a few days later when he became engaged in a game of bowls with Wyatt. Henry, who had by then determined to make Anne his mistress, declared that he had won a game when it was clear to all present that he had not. Pointing with the finger on which he wore the ring, he declared, ‘Wyatt, I tell thee it is mine,’ a reference that his opponent knew full well was to Anne Boleyn rather than the game