devonshirems

'In late 1537 Mabel Brigge, a servant in the house of John Lockar, fasted for three days. When asked by Lockar why she did this, she replied that Isabel Bucke had hired her. Mabel had fasted once before in the hope that a certain man would die and when in fact the man broke his neck Mabel was believed by some to have magical powers. Mrs. Bucke had hired Mabel in the hope that the King and the duke of Norfolk would likewise die'.

Mary served Queen Anne Boleyn along with many other Howard and Boleyn relatives. It was to be expected that a new queen would pack her household with family, her natural supporters in this world where patronage and kinship were so often entwined. The king's own mother, Elizabeth of York, had done just the same. Thus Queen Anne's mother Elizabeth, Lady Boleyn, her sister Mary, the widowed Lady Carey, sister-in-law Jane, Viscouness of Rochford, cousins Mary and Margaret Shelton and aunt Elizabeth, another Lady Boleyn, were all part of her regular household along with Mary Howard.

As the only surviving daughter and doubtless cherished as a baby and child, she soon became, in defiance of her mother, a strong supporter of Anne Boleyn. She appeared as a major participant in four crucial ceremonies, her first cousin's investiture as Marchioness of Pembroke before the trip to France in 1532, the masque and ball in Calais when Francis I danced with Anne Boleyn, the new queen's coronation in May 1533, and then the christening of Princess Elizabeth in September of that year. To the court of Anne Boleyn, the Howard daughter brought all the training of her family and their sophisticated codes of etiquette. She also brought a high sensitivity to language and literary ideas, as evidenced by her relationship to the Devonshire Manuscript of poetry, a major source for the texts of Wyatt and other early Tudor poets and, for Marotti, a crucial 'medium of socioliterary intercourse' in the English Renaissance. She also gave intellectual friendship and patronage to reformed Christian humanists such as John Foxe and John Bale and became, at her estate at Reigate in Surrey during the Edwardian years, one of the two greatest patronesses of reformed Christian writing in the Edwardian world, collecting numerous dedications.

In all this Surrey proved himself loyal, hardworking and conscientious. His frequent letters to Wolsey and the Council were scrupulously obsequious, but after his succession to the dukedom in 1524 they concealed a stubborn determination to acquire power at the Council table as well as in the field; such an ambition required the destruction of Wolsey. The Cardinal stood in the way of the Howards' attempt to secure control of the government, and they saw him also as arrogant and 'jumped-up' (a butcher's boy) and responsible for the unjust execution of Norfolk's father-in-law the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke's Irish exile had been the last straw and to some extent explains his savage outburst of hatred.

Relations between Henry and his sister, Margaret, Queen of Scots, had been shaken by his treatment of Catherine and Princess Mary. Having condemned his sister's divorce from Angus, Henry's own efforts to take a new wife and break with Rome had met with little sympathy in Catholic Scotland. In an attempt to repair the damage, he sent Anne's uncle, Lord William Howard, north as ambassador in 1534. Margaret wrote in response, 'your Grace is our only brother and us your only sister, and since so it be, let no divorce or contrary have place, nor no report of ill advice alter our conceits, but brotherly and sisterly love ever to endure.'

Naturally, her temper did not diminish as her power increased. In November 1530, Chapuys reported how Anne Boleyn had been seen at a small window which commanded the gallery where the King was granting him an interview, 'overlooking and overhearing all that passed'. At one point the King was sufficiently apprehensive of his Lady's reactions to move nervously into the middle of the room, lest she hear some words that would offend her. About the same time, Anne Boleyn clashed with the Duchess of Norfolk over the marriage of the latter's daughter (and Anne's first cousin) Lady Mary Howard. She 'used such words to the Duchess' that the latter—Buckingham's daughter and the premier Duchess in England— was nearly dismissed from court.