Henry said she was still Queen and treated her as such but in letters from Henry to Anne Boleyn, that are from this time period, Henry begins speaking of a marriage between himself and Anne. In August Henry complicated the issue further by submitting for a dispensation to marry Anne Boleyn if the annulment from Queen Catherine was granted. He needed this dispensation since Anne's sister Mary Carey, was once Henry's mistress but many people felt that this was an embarrassment as Henry was seeking one dispensation while attempting to discredit another. The king again told his agent, William Knight, to keep his actions private and especially hide them from Cardinal Wolsey.5 But the cardinal did discover Henry's actions and quickly returned to England, from Rome, to speak directly with Henry. Upon Wolsey's return to England he found not only that Henry was acting on his own accord but doing so ineptly. Wolsey's position of influence had also been undermined in his absence and now he found Anne in great favor with the King and himself out of favor with many nobles and even with mistress Anne. Wolsey's position was beginning to erode away and the end of Cardinal Wolsey's influence was not far off. Seeing this himself, Wolsey began packing the privy chamber with his supporters. Woolsey added Sir Richard Page and Thomas Heneage to Sir John Russell as his supporters in the privy chamber. Anne, being wise to court politics, saw this and, having the king's ear for a great amount of time, requested her allies added to the privy chamber as well. Those men included George Boleyn and Francis Bryan. There was a third faction in the privy chamber as well and those were Henry's old friends, the marquis of Exeter and Sir Nicholas Carew. Both of these men favored Queen Catherine and were consistently attempting to antagonize Wolsey. This created an air of tension surrounding Henry that came to a head in early 1528 during "the matter at Wilt...
