This is Part 30 of Esther Hyams’ wonderful series of poems on the life of Anne Boleyn.

Cromwell vs. Anne Boleyn

Thomas CromwellThomas Cromwell was becoming an intelligent and dangerous man
Especially to the endangered, forsaken and abandoned Queen Anne.

Thomas Cromwell gave his magnificent chambers to Mistress Jane
This indicated that Thomas Cromwell’s helpful favour had shifted again.

This officially showed that Cromwell had joined with the Seymour’s
And now inconsistently, the power of Anne he had come to abhor.

Cromwell found that Queen Anne was now becoming a danger to him
Despite the fact that with her husband, Henry, her power had dimmed.

Plus, like Cardinal Wolsey, a King’s loyal servant had an unofficial duty
No matter how loyal you were for so many years: no one had immunity.

This duty was to give at that time King Henry the wife that he wanted
No matter how impossible the odds, or how you might be taunted.

Cardinal Wolsey’s disastrous fate was there, so that no one could forget
Power and love from the King would never come without a great debt.

Anne BoleynFrom this time, from this moment, Thomas Cromwell would take the lead
Nurturing, plotting and growing the already hateful, odious planted seed.

In what soon became open season for the hatred of Queen Anne Boleyn
A terrible doomed battle in which neither Anne nor the Boleyn’s could win.

Not only had history repeated itself in another abandoned queen in distress
But unlike Catherine of Aragon, Queen Anne Boleyn was utterly helpless.

The anxious and apprehensive Queen Anne watched her future slip away
Amid the traditional rituals of the English court, minute by minute, day by day.

King Henry’s liaisons and end of his love for her, Anne tried so hard to forget
But the court ritual, she of all people, knew how to construe and interpret.

By Esther Hyams

Click here to read the next poem in the series.