On the other side, Anne was harder than ever to manage. Henry was still in love with her, but sometimes he stormed out of an interview with her, purple with anger, vowing that in all her life his first queen had never dared use such language to him. Anne would not or could not understand the difficulties in the way of moving the case [of his divorce to Catherine of Aragon] an inch forward, either at Rome or in England, and at times she was scornful of a lover unwilling to defy pope and emperor and all the world for her sake.
Sometimes her royal lover was driven to undignified shifts to appease her. On one occasion Chapuys [the Spanish ambassador] was astonished to find himself assailed by an unexpected volley of arguments and reproaches about the divorce when he came to see Henry on quite another subject. The ambassador’s efforts to shift the discussion were unavailing, and he was quite unable to understand why Henry talked so much more threateningly than usual, using terms of the Emperor [of Spain] that were almost abusive, and speaking almost at the top of his voice, until shifting his ground the ambassador noticed at a little window giving on the great gallery a listening head that could only the Lady’s [Anne’s].
Chapuys was malicious enough to pretend to take offense and to begin a heated rebuttal, whereupon the King, seizing him by the arm, marched off with him down the gallery, dropping his voice as he did so and changing from threats to explanations and apologies, although his manner (Anne could still see if she could no longer hear) was as imperious as ever.
Source:
Mattingly, Garrett. “Part III: The Divorce of Henry VIII (1527-1536); Chapter Three, Section iv” Catherine of Aragon. New York: Quality Paperback , 1990. 330-31. Print.
Further Reading:
Women had little chance back in those days. One false move and you were decapitated or burned.