Winter 1532–Summer 1533

Winter 1532–Summer 1533 marks the passage from pressure on the English Church to the public elevation of Anne Boleyn. In Margaret Pole’s account, Henry VIII’s expanding authority collides with Katherine of Aragon’s claims and Princess Mary’s inheritance, while cautious private loyalties persist beneath a court increasingly arranged around the king’s will.

A crisis rooted in the marriage dispute

The events of this period build on an older dispute over whether Katherine of Aragon’s marriage to Prince Arthur had been consummated. Margaret had previously been challenged over what she knew of the marriage and pressed to affirm that Arthur had been taken to Katherine’s room regularly. When she objected that Henry VII could not simply marry his former daughter-in-law, Margaret Beaufort argued that a papal dispensation could make such a marriage possible if Katherine continued to maintain that her first marriage had not been consummated. Margaret Pole was accused of supporting Katherine’s claim and urged to say that the marriage had been consummated. This earlier confrontation makes clear why the marriage question is more than a private matter: competing accounts of it bear directly on the legitimacy of Henry VIII’s union and the status of his household.

As the period approaches, the danger is also registered in Margaret’s encounter with Elizabeth Barton, a Benedictine religious woman regarded as a prophetess. In Margaret’s private chapel, Barton recognizes her guardianship of Princess Mary as a defense of the heir who will become queen. The encounter places Mary’s contested position within a larger conflict over religious authority and succession, even as the immediate court remains uncertain about what Henry will do.

The Church and the king’s authority

The news from court reaches Margaret and her family as a slow succession of blows. Montague tells Princess Mary that the Church has surrendered to the king: Henry VIII will rule the Church himself, and the Pope is to be disregarded in England. Thomas More has returned the Lord Chancellor’s seal, resigned his office, and gone home. Mary understands the change as an extension of royal possession over the country, encompassing the Church’s wealth, laws, and courts. Montague cannot reassure her that she is mistaken.

In January, the king’s envoy returns from the Pope with approval for Henry’s choice of Archbishop of Canterbury. William Warham, whose distress over the king’s treatment of the Church had marked his tenure, is to be succeeded by Thomas Cranmer, the Boleyn family’s chaplain. Montague sees an uneasy compromise in the decision: the Pope has accepted Cranmer’s appointment, but, as he understands it, has not thereby surrendered the English Church. Cranmer’s first sermon sharply alters the significance of that appointment. He declares that the king’s marriage to Katherine is sinful and that Henry must make a new union, giving public force to the very challenge that has unsettled the royal household.

A court divided over Katherine and Mary

During the winter, rumors about the Tower of London intensify. Henry and Anne inspect repair work there and reportedly urge that it be hurried; the City fears that Katherine may be removed from her residence and imprisoned in the Tower. Katherine is prepared to face a treason trial and directs that Princess Mary must never deny her name or birth, though she knows that holding to this instruction may expose them both to arrest. Her resolve turns the threat of confinement into a test of identity as well as safety.

At court, Anne holds state and wears the queen’s jewels, while the women Margaret regards as the realm’s established ladies are excluded. Mary Tudor Brandon avoids her brother’s court, saying that she is ill; Margaret and Gertrude Courtenay are also not invited. Anne’s close circle includes Mary Howard, Mary Boleyn, and Jane Boleyn, while the court’s young men and Anne’s brother George form a forceful, fashionable group. Margaret presents this court as driven by ambition and desire, fascinated by new learning, and suspended between the Pope’s awaited ruling and the king’s decision. Its members can regard the break with established authority as a new freedom, while Margaret sees the risk of religious transgression and political ruin.

Anne’s coronation and its quiet opposition

In June, Margaret witnesses Anne’s coronation and serves at the coronation dinner. The public display of rank does not produce the acclaim that ceremony might promise: there is not a single cheer along the procession route, and women call out for the true queen. The silence and dissent expose the limits of Anne’s public triumph even as the new order is staged before the city.

The ceremony also leads into a discreet channel of contact with Princess Mary. Geoffrey Pole, who had served Anne, comes upriver in a hired boat wearing a dark cape and a hat pulled low over his face. He sends Margaret’s granddaughter Katherine to summon her and brings something from the queen for the princess. The account does not disclose what is conveyed, but the guarded approach and private meeting show that family communication continues under conditions of political watchfulness.

Significance of the period

The span’s events connect changes in religious jurisdiction to changes in marriage, rank, and succession. Henry’s claim to rule the Church gives his decisions about Katherine and Anne a new institutional setting; Cranmer’s sermon then turns the disputed marriage into an explicit public judgment. Meanwhile, Katherine’s insistence that Mary retain her identity and the calls for the true queen at Anne’s procession show that royal declarations do not instantly extinguish other claims or loyalties.

Margaret’s account moves between official spectacle and private knowledge: the king’s control of the Church, Anne’s jewels and coronation, the feared Tower, and a concealed family approach by boat. The period ends not with settled consent but with competing versions of legitimacy still audible beneath the pageantry.