The Tudor Wife

‘Your wife I cannot be; your mistress I will not be.’ Those were her words, cold and to the point, like a dagger in the heart.

‘But if I were free of Catherine…’ he persisted.

‘But you are not.’ Anne shrugged and continued along the rose-bordered path, pausing to inhale the perfume of a lush pink rose.

They were in the rose garden at Hever once again, and I was secreted behind the shrubbery, just like before.

Anne had all of a sudden quit the court without the King’s consent and, summoning George to be her escort, returned to Hever, leaving Henry to come scurrying after, the moment that he missed her.

‘But if I were…’

‘But you are not and cannot be,’ Anne said crisply, snapping the rose’s stem and holding it against the skirt of her pink satin gown. ‘Her Majesty strikes me as being a woman in excellent health, nor have I heard her express the desire to renounce the world and retire to a convent.’

‘For the third and last time’—Henry seized her arm and spun her round to face him—‘if I were free of Catherine, would you marry me and give me sons?’

‘Verily, Sire, I do not know,’ said Anne, idly twirling the rose by its stem. ‘I should have to think on it.’

She pulled her arm free of his grasp and strolled onward, humming to herself and twirling the pink rose.

This was the spark that lit the fuse of what would at first be called ‘The King’s Secret Matter,’ then ‘The King’s Great Matter’ when it became common knowledge.

Henry confided to Anne that for some time his conscience had been troubling him. He feared that his marriage was accursed by God, and for this reason he had been denied a living son, the male heir that was vital to safeguard the succession.

It all began with a verse from Leviticus that Henry interpreted to suit his desires. ‘If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.’ These words hammered at his mind, while lust for Anne hammered at his loins. To Henry’s mind, being childless and sonless amounted to the same thing.

Catherine had been first and briefly wed to his elder brother Arthur, and by marrying her, Henry had convinced himself, he had unknowingly committed a sinful and incestuous act. God had shown his displeasure by denying him living male issue; all the baby boys had been born dead or died shortly after as divine punishment. The Pope who had issued the dispensation that allowed them to marry had committed a grave error, he insisted, and it was one that must be rectified as soon as possible. The Pope must grant him a divorce from Catherine so that he might lawfully remarry and beget sons while there was still time. And Anne, he had already decided, would be the mother of those sons. Already he could see them in his mind’s eye, a brood of hale and hearty red- and black-haired boys, replicas of himself, lusty, broad-shouldered, and strong-minded. To Henry it all seemed such a simple matter.

6

Like a shuttlecock hurtling to and fro, Anne would, upon a moment’s whim, leave court and return to Hever. Then the King would come, hot on her heels, or else his messenger would follow, bearing lavish gifts and ardent love letters.

But every time, Anne would just laugh and dismiss the messenger with a haughty wave of her hand and the words, ‘No answer.’

Often she allotted these outpourings of the King’s anguished heart no more than a cursory glance, and she was very careless with them, leaving them lying about where anyone could find them.

I remember a day when she sat idly by the hearth in the Great Hall, with Henry’s latest letter in her hand and the accompanying gift lying at her feet.

‘ “Because I cannot always be in your presence,”’ Anne read aloud, aping Henry’s voice—she really was an excellent mimic—‘ “I send you the thing that comes nearest—my portrait set in bracelets, wishing myself in their place. Signed, Your Servant and Friend, Henry Rex.” ’

With a bored and indifferent sniff and a shrug of her shoulders, Anne let the letter fall to the floor, ignoring her father’s pursed lips, her mother’s worried frown, and Mary’s quizzical stare as she again grandly intoned the words, ‘No answer,’ and sent the messenger on his way.

‘Anne!’ Elizabeth Boleyn wrung her hands and looked near to tears. ‘It is cruel of you to keep the poor King dangling with no reply!’

‘Indeed, Mother, I never said it was not.’

‘Anne.’ Sir Thomas Boleyn approached her, rubbing his palms, with a crafty gleam in his eyes. ‘Your mother is correct. It is most unkind…’

‘Verily, you should know, Father. Upon unkindness you are expert!’ Anne answered flippantly, while toying with her sapphire velvet sleeves.

‘Anne’—he paused, biting his lip and making a great effort to control his temper—‘would you like me to compose a reply to His Majesty? Then all you need do is copy it in your own elegant hand and sign your name.’

At this offer Anne threw back her head and fairly screamed with laughter.

‘It is no jesting matter, girl!’ he snarled. ‘Look at those diamonds!’ He snatched up Henry’s neglected gift and shook the bracelets in her face. ‘Just look at their clarity, their sparkle; clearly these are diamonds of the first water!’

Mary, her mother, and I obligingly clustered round and oohed and ahhed in admiration at the King’s florid and heavy-jowled countenance ringed in twinkling diamonds.

‘Oh, Father.’ Anne sighed as, stretching languorously, she got to her feet. ‘It is a pity our good King Henry hasn’t the Second Edward’s tastes, since you are so much more appreciative of his favors than I am!’ And with those words she swept grandly from the room, leaving her father speechless and boiling with rage, and her mother wringing her hands and repeating endlessly, ‘Oh dear!’ I myself maintained an air of dignified silence, while my husband, it grieves me much to say, rolled on the floor in gleeful laughter, and a blank-faced and bewildered Mary besought an explanation regarding Anne’s reference to the tastes of King Edward the Second.

But the Boleyns needn’t have worried. Anne knew how and when to play her cards. Upon New Year’s Day 1527 she decided the time had come to answer all the King’s letters.

But she did not take up her pen to write to Henry, but to the goldsmith instead, for it was he who would fashion her answer. A brooch, but not just any brooch. Exquisitely wrought of gleaming gold, a little lady with long black enameled hair, dressed in a gown of scarlet enamel spangled with seed pearls and diamond chips, sat in a boat christened Love, being rocked upon a tempest-tossed sapphire sea, with her hands clasped and upraised as if to implore ‘Have mercy upon me!’

So there could be no doubt as to her meaning, when she knelt at the King’s feet to present her gift, at a private audience where no one but her family were present, Anne wore a pearl- and diamond-spangled scarlet gown with her long black hair unbound.

A smile of pure delight spread across King Henry’s face as he gazed first at Anne, then down at the brooch upon its bed of tufted black velvet, then back at Anne again. But when he reached for her, Anne swiftly stepped back.

‘If you make me Queen of England I shall brave the storm that is your love and give you sons!’ she announced; then, after bobbing the briefest of curtsies, she turned her back, in direct violation of royal etiquette, and walked out of the presence chamber.

7

Anne immediately resumed her old ways, going back and forth to Hever, ignoring the enamored King’s increasingly ardent love letters, and dismissing the messenger with ‘No answer.’

Anne had played her card. Now it was time for Henry to make his move.

A secret court was convened, presided over by Cardinal Wolsey, with a panel of bishops to weigh the evidence and render a verdict.

Henry presented himself, slump-shouldered and morose, as a man whose conscience was sorely troubled by the nagging thought that he, by taking his dead brother’s wife, had unwittingly sinned against God. Queen Catherine, he solemnly avowed, was a fine woman and he would like nothing better than to hear that all was well and that she could remain at his side as his wife always, but the qualms that assailed his conscience were just too great to be ignored. Thus, he looked to them, the cardinals and bishops of England, to free him from this torment. It was a grand performance. Only those in Anne’s inner circle knew that she was the cause of it all, this intricate, tangled web of theological and legal quibbling that would soon rise from a whisper to a scream. Even Wolsey never suspected that it was Anne Boleyn Henry aimed to wed; he was led to believe it was a French princess Henry coveted so that he might have legitimate male heirs and a dynastic alliance all in one stroke. Queen Catherine was also kept unawares until the wily Spanish Ambassador whispered the truth in her ear. But by then Henry had lost his round.

After three days of heated debate, the court concluded that the marriage was sound, since a papal dispensation had been issued beforehand. Henry was assured that his conscience could rest in peace.

But Henry refused to accept the verdict, and Wolsey bore the brunt of his displeasure. Wolsey, that upstart son of an Ipswich butcher, who used the Church as a stepping stone to power and cared more for worldly goods than the word of God, had promised Henry the verdict he desired.

But then failed to deliver.

To make matters worse, now Queen Catherine had been dealt into the game, and she had a very powerful card to play. Her nephew Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, would never sit passively by and let his aunt be humiliated and cast aside.

Never for a moment would Catherine’s convictions waver. She was Henry’s lawful wife and Queen of this realm, and such she would remain until her dying day. Nor would she oblige the King by slinking away to a nunnery. Though her faith was strong, and she was without a doubt devout, she had no vocation; she would not, like some she could name, use the Church as a means to achieve an end. She loved her husband dearly and was sorry to court his displeasure by disobeying him, but God and her conscience must come first.

At that time the situation in Rome was dire. The Holy City had been sacked; mercenary soldiers in the Emperor’s service ran amok, raping and pillaging; the streets ran red with the blood of the slain; and the air was filled with smoke, flies, and the cries of the dying. Pope Clement himself was a prisoner, and he was not about to risk the Emperor’s further wrath by siding with Henry.

It should all have ended there, but Henry was not about to let his desires be thwarted. Come what may, he would have Anne Boleyn.

Around this time Tom Wyatt, dallying with Anne and their friends in the palace gardens, playfully snatched a little bejeweled tablet that dangled from a delicate gold chain Anne wore about her waist, claiming it was high time she gave him a love token. He pressed it to his lips, then, laughing, held it high, beyond her reach, as she leapt and grasped for it, once even daring to duck his head and swiftly steal a kiss.

‘Keep it if you like.’ Anne shrugged. ‘It is but a little thing, and of no great consequence. And while that bauble may be beyond my reach, greater jewels than that are within my grasp.’ And upon her right hand she proudly displayed an enormous emerald. ‘The stone of constancy, His Majesty says, and thereby a most fitting symbol of his love for me.’

She did not confide that in exchange for this great, gaudy, glittering green ring, King Henry had snatched from her finger a dainty ruby heart set in lacy gold filigree. ‘I shall take this heart until you vouchsafe me your own,’ he said as he forced it onto his little finger, the only one it would fit upon.

A few days later the King and his gentlemen gathered for a match upon the bowling green while Anne and a bevy of ladies assembled to watch and cheer them on.

The King and Tom Wyatt were both expert players, and a moment arose when it was uncertain whose bowl had rolled nearest the jack; it was so close, sight alone could not settle the matter.

‘Wyatt, I tell you it is mine!’ Henry’s voice boomed as he pointed to the smooth, round wooden bowl lying in the grass, seemingly just a hand’s span from the upright white jack. As he pointed he waggled his little finger, making sure Anne’s ruby heart caught Wyatt’s eye.

With a cocky smile, Wyatt withdrew Anne’s jeweled tablet from inside his doublet.

‘If Your Majesty will give me leave,’ he said, extending the golden chain, ‘I shall measure it with this, and hope that it shall be mine.’ And boldly he kissed the jeweled tablet.

Already flushed from the heat of his heavy brocade and silken garments and a vigorous game on a warm day, Henry’s face flamed scarlet. His eyes narrowed and that cruel little mouth became crueler still.

‘It may be, it may well be that I have been deceived!’ And with that he turned his back on Wyatt and stormed from the bowling green. Abruptly he stopped and spun round and went to confront Anne.

‘Mistress, you will explain! How haps it that trinket is in Wyatt’s possession and that he wears it upon his heart?’

‘Thievery,’ Anne answered smoothly. ‘The same manner in which Your Majesty acquired my ring.’

For a long moment no one dared move or breathe. Anne had just called the King of England a thief!

‘As for why he wears it above his heart,’ Anne continued, ‘I can only suppose that were he to wear it around his waist, as intended, people would laugh; the effect is not quite so becoming without skirts.’

Henry threw back his head and roared with laughter.

‘By my soul, Anne, what a woman you are!’ He offered her his arm and together they strolled back into the palace, all smiles and merry spirits.

Watching them, George shook his head and smiled.

‘There is no one like Anne!’ he declared with pride.

It was all I could do not to snatch up one of the wooden jacks and beat him over the head with it. I had a vision of myself doing so, so vividly real it was ghastly and made me feel sick with shame. In my mind’s eye I saw myself raising the jack, and bringing it down with all the force I could muster, and hearing his skull crack, and his voice cry out, pleading with pain, as blood gushed out, and I raised the jack and brought it down again and again and again, hoping and wishing with all my might that I could bash all thoughts of Anne out of his brain.

By now the whole court knew that the King wanted Anne, and bets were being laid about how long she would resist before she became his mistress. But Anne herself only hinted at her true intentions, saying once to her sister, ‘You went first, but I aim to go further.’

Even Queen Catherine knew. Always before she had stoically endured her husband’s infidelities, pretending that she did not hear or see. But this was different; Anne was different.

One afternoon Her Majesty bade us join her for a game of cards. Obediently we sat down around the table. At her request, I dealt the cards. All continued amicably until Anne triumphantly slapped down a card.

‘Mistress Anne.’ Queen Catherine regarded her sadly. ‘You have the good fortune to stop at a King, but you are not like the others, I think. You will have all…’

‘…or nothing,’ they finished as one.

Their eyes locked, Catherine’s intent and searching, Anne’s scorching with ambition.

At last, Catherine sighed and shook her head, her gray eyes misty with sorrow and what, for just a moment, looked like pity, but it passed so quickly I could not be sure.

‘That will be all,’ she said quietly. ‘Leave me now. I am weary,’ she murmured, pressing a hand against her brow, her fingers rubbing as if they could erase the lines that time and worry had etched there, while her other hand reached for the rosary beads ever present at her waist.

As we walked away Anne said, ‘She is as stubborn as one of her Spanish mules! Even a blind fool could see the King no longer loves her. Why doesn’t she just accept it and get the best terms while she can? Henry is prepared to be generous; he will allow her the title of Princess Dowager and love her like a sister—which is what she is—his sister by marriage. Why does she not give in? I do not understand her at all!’

And she would not understand until she herself stood where Queen Catherine stood now.

Henry’s next move was to dispatch Wolsey to France to barter for a French bride; while at the same time another messenger was, unbeknownst to the great and powerful Cardinal Wolsey, sent secretly to petition the Pope in Rome.

Henry chose to keep Wolsey in the dark simply because he feared the Cardinal would not work as hard to bring about the divorce if he knew Henry’s intended bride was Anne Boleyn.

When Anne learned of this she scoffed, ‘You all but bend your knee to Wolsey! Are you King of England or does the butcher’s boy wear the Crown? I thought it was the Chancellor’s task to do the King’s bidding, not the other way around!’

Thus she brought the King around to her way of thinking, and Wolsey’s star began its slow descent.

8

While Anne played for a King, her heart would suffer another blow when Tom Wyatt chose to graciously withdraw from the field where he had battled Henry for Anne’s love.

Ever the poet, he renounced her in a poem:

Whoso list to hunt? I know where is a hind!But as for me, alas! I may no more;The vain travail hath wearied me so sore;I am of them that farthest cometh behind.Yet may I by no means my wearied mindDraw from the deer; but as she fleeth aforeFainting I follow; I leave off therefore,Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.Who list to hunt, I put him out of doubt,As well as I, may spend his time in vain!And graven in diamonds in letters plain,There is written her fair neck round about:‘Noli Me Tangere; for Caesar’s I am,And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.’

I was there the night he stood up and recited it to the court. And I saw sorrow, true and deep, in his brown eyes.

Their eyes met across the banquet table where Anne sat beside the King, who possessively rested one meaty, jewel-laden pink paw upon her knee. They shared a long glance of regret, mourning for what could never be.

Though Wyatt had never replaced Percy in her heart, Anne truly did love him in her way. And, had he been free, I am certain they would have wed.

When he spoke the last four lines, Anne’s hand reached up to touch the choker of diamonds encircling her neck, and a pained expression flashed across her face. Then it was gone and she cast her eyes sideways at Henry, who was nodding in approval at the words ‘Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not), for Caesar’s I am.’

When he finished Wyatt bowed low to the sovereign, and Henry leapt to his feet, applauding loudly. The court, ever quick to follow the King’s lead, did the same.

Only Anne remained seated and silent, then slowly she stood. I was seated only two places down and I heard her softly plead a headache and that she must go at once to bed.

As she passed him, Henry seized her wrist and said in a voice that made me shiver, ‘Rarely when I hunt does the quarry escape me, no matter how fleet of foot or cunningly it hides. Make no mistake, Mistress Anne, I will catch you, and you will be mine!’

Anne curtsied quickly and fled.

Tom Wyatt’s eyes followed her as his body dared not do. He pressed a hand briefly to his heart as if it pained him, then he forced himself to smile and gave himself over to the congratulations of his friends.

The clock had just struck midnight when Anne appeared at George’s door, huddled in her satin dressing gown and trembling violently.

Wordlessly, he gathered her in his arms.

Her words came out in a rush. A nightmare. Anne in a fawn satin gown running frantically through the forest, pursued by baying hounds, hoofbeats, and hunting horns. Then she was cornered, her back against a tree, and the King was there before her, steadily advancing, willful and determined, pressing into her, holding her fast, and lifting her skirts. It was then that she awoke, screaming.

Murmuring soothing words, George led her to sit beside the fire. There was wine warming in a small cauldron and he ladled some into a goblet and pressed it into her hands.

Both of them ignored me standing in the doorway.

‘I want to stop, George,’ she sobbed.

‘Then stop,’ he said as he sank to his knees before her and, taking the goblet and setting it aside, took both her hands in his.

‘I cannot! It has gone too far! I thought when the court failed to deliver the desired verdict that would be the end of it, and I could wave farewell and dance away from him, but he will stop at nothing to have me! I have become trapped in my own net! And Father and Uncle Norfolk never stop pressing me. Winning is all that matters, they keep telling me—it doesn’t matter how I play the game, only that I win! “Do not fail, Anne!” they caution with such hardness in their eyes it takes all the will I have not to let them see me give way to tears. They come at me from all sides, urging me to “Give in, Anne, give in! It is a great honor to be the mistress of a King!” until it is all I can do not to stamp my feet and scream and tear the hair from my head! Were he not King I would tell him what I truly think of him! Every time I see him I must bite my tongue to keep the words from spewing forth else he send me to the Tower and have them chop off my head, and yet I cannot help but think that at least then I would die with the truth upon my lips; that would be better than living a lie!’

‘You mean you no longer want to be Queen?’ I asked.

Sobs shook her and Anne buried her face in her hands.

‘If the prize is within my grasp I shall take it; it would be folly to reject it, and there would be no forgetting or forgiving if I did, but do not ask me whether it is worth it because I no longer know! I am so tired, George, so very tired, yet the battle rages on and I must keep fighting!’

‘Then you must rest, darling Nan.’ He stood up and gathered her tenderly in his arms and carried her to his bed. ‘Sleep now,’ he said as he laid her down and drew the covers up over her. ‘And I shall sit here’—he brought a chair close to the bedside—‘and see that no one disturbs you.’

And there he sat, stroking her hair, until sleep claimed her.

‘Damn them all for doing this to you, my sweet sister,’ I, still lurking in the doorway, heard him whisper.

‘Now you have what you have always wanted,’ I jibed. ‘Your sister is in your bed! Do not let my presence keep you from joining her!’

‘Bite your viper’s tongue!’ George hissed, and flung his slippers at my head.

I turned my back and started back to my own bed, but my feet had scarcely crossed the threshold when I felt his fingers biting into the soft flesh of my arm.

He pushed the door shut so our conversation would not disturb his dear, precious Anne.

‘Why do you always do this?’ he demanded. ‘Why do you say these awful things? What has Anne ever done to you to make you despise her so?’

‘She has stolen what is rightfully mine!’ I rounded on him furiously. ‘She has stolen my husband!’

George laughed wryly and threw up his hands.

When I heard him laugh at me, mocking me, I wanted to throw myself at him and claw at his face, raking long, bloody furrows into that handsome visage with my nails. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself doing so, and I hated myself for it. How could I have such violent, bloody thoughts about hurting the person I loved most? It was Anne who deserved pain and punishment, not my beloved George.

‘You are a madwoman!’ he declared. ‘You talk naught but nonsense. Anne is my sister. You talk of her as if she were my mistress!’

‘She is!’ I shouted. ‘She is your mistress! Mistress of your heart! No brother loves his sister as you do her—it is unnatural, George, unnatural! I should not have to compete with my sister-in-law for my husband’s attention, or his affection, but I do. Every day of my life, Anne is always between us. I know you bed other women, but I never worry about them because I know that for you there is only Anne, and that with her no other woman can compare! You don’t want a wife or a mistress, George; the only woman you want is Anne! And I hate her for it!’