Lady Rochford quickly lifts the covers from the bed to shield me from their inquisitive stares and I slip between them and sit up with my back against the pillows. On the other side of the bed a young man, Thomas Culpepper, kneels for Henry to lean on his shoulder and another man takes the king’s elbow to push him upward. King Henry grunts like a weary carthorse as he hauls himself into bed. The bed dips at his great weight, and I have to make an ungainly little wriggle and grab the side to stop myself rolling over toward him.
The archbishop raises his hands above his head for a final blessing, and I look straight ahead. Katherine Howard’s bright face catches my eye; she has her hands pressed together, held against her lips as if devoutly praying, but she is clearly struggling not to giggle. I pretend I have not seen her, for fear that she should set me laughing, too, and when the archbishop completes his prayers I say: “Amen.”
They all go then, thank God. There is no suggestion that they should watch the marriage being consummated, but I know that they will need to see the sheets in the morning and know that it has been done. This is the nature of the royal marriage. That, and marrying a man old enough to be your father, a man whom you hardly know.
Jane Boleyn, Greenwich Palace,
January 6, 1540
I am one of the last to leave, and I close the door quietly on yet another marriage of the king’s that I have seen progress through courtship to the marriage bed. Some, like that young fool Katherine Howard, would think that this is where the story ends, that this is the conclusion of everything. I know better. This is where the story of a queen begins.
Before this night there are contracts and promises, and sometimes hopes and dreams; rarely there is love. After this night there is the reality of two people working out their lives together. For some, it is a negotiation that cannot be done; my own uncle is married to a wife he cannot tolerate, and they live apart now. Henry Percy married an heiress but could never free himself from his love for Anne Boleyn. Thomas Wyatt hates his wife with a vengeance, since he fell in love with Anne when she was a girl and he has never recovered. My own husband… but I will not think about my own husband now. Let me remember that I loved him, that I would have died for love of him – whatever he thought of me when we were put to bed together for the first time. Whoever he thought of when he had to do the deed with me. God forgive him for holding me in his arms and thinking of her. God forgive me for knowing that, and letting it haunt me. In the end, God forgive me for having my head turned and my heart turned so I liked nothing more than to lie in his arms and think of him with another woman – jealousy and lust brought me so low that it was my pleasure, a wicked sinful pleasure, to feel his touch on me and think of him touching her.
It is not a matter of four bare legs in a bed and the business done. She will have to learn to obey him. Not in the grand things, any woman can put on a bit of a show. But in the thousand petty compromises that come to a wife every day. The thousand times a day when one has to bite the lip and bow the head and not argue in public, nor in private, nor even in the quiet recesses of one’s own mind. If your husband is a king, this is even more important. If your husband is King Henry, it is a life-or-death decision.
Everyone tries to forget that Henry is a ruthless man. Henry himself tries to make us forget. When he is being charming, or setting himself out to please, we like to forget that we are playing with a savage bear. This is not a man whose temperament is tamed. This is not a man whose mood is constantly sweet. This is not a man who can manage his feelings; he cannot keep constant from one day to another. I have seen this man love three women with an absolute passion. I have seen him swear to each of them an eternal, unchangeable fidelity. I have seen him joust under the motto “Sir Loyal Heart.” And I have seen him send two to their deaths, and learn of the death of the third with quiet composure.
That girl had better please him tonight, and she had better obey him tomorrow, and she had better give him a son within a year, or I, personally, would not give a snap of my fingers for her chances.
Anne, Greenwich Palace,
January 6, 1540
One by one they leave the room, and we are left in candlelight and an awkward silence. I say nothing. It is not for me to speak. I remember my mother’s warning that whatever happens in England I must never, never give the king reason to think that I am wanton. He has chosen me because he has faith in the character of the women of Cleves. He has bought himself a well-mannered, self-controlled, highly disciplined Erasmian virgin, and this is what I must be. My mother does not say outright that to disappoint the king could cost me my life, because the fate of Anne Boleyn has never been mentioned in Cleves since the day when the contract was signed to marry me to a wife killer. Since my betrothal it is as if Queen Anne was snatched up to heaven in complete silence. I am warned, constantly warned, that the King of England will not tolerate lightness of behavior in his wife; but no one ever tells me that he might do to me what he did to Anne Boleyn. No one ever warns me that I, too, might be forced to put my head down on the block to be beheaded for imaginary faults.
The king, my husband, in bed beside me, sighs heavily, as if he is weary, and for a moment I think that perhaps he will just fall asleep and this exhausting, frightening day will be over and I can wake tomorrow a married woman and start my new life as Queen of England. For a moment, I dare to hope that my duties for today will be done.
I lie, as my brother would want me to lie, like a frozen moppet. My brother had a horror of my body: a horror and a fascination. He commanded me to wear high necks, thick clothes, heavy hoods, big boots, so that all he could see of me, all anyone could see of me, was my overshadowed face and my hands from my wrists to my fingers. If he could have put me into seclusion like the Ottoman emperor with his imprisoned wives, I think he would have done so. Even my gaze was too forward for him; he preferred me not to look directly at him. If he could, he would have had me veiled.
And yet, he constantly spied on me. Whether I was in my mother’s chamber sewing under her supervision, or in the yard looking at the horses, I would glance up and see him staring at me with that look of irritation and… I don’t know what… desire? It was not lust. He never wanted me as a man wants a woman; of course I know that. But he wanted me as if he would dominate me completely. As if he would like to swallow me up so that I should trouble him no more.
When we were children he used to torment all three of us: Sybilla, Amelia, and myself. Sybilla, three years older than him, could run fast enough to get away; Amelia would dissolve into the easy tears of the baby of the family; only I would oppose him. I did not hit him back when he pinched me or pulled my hair. I did not lash out when he cornered me in the stable yard or a dark corner. I just gritted my teeth, and when he hurt me, I did not cry. Not even when he bruised my thin little-girl wrists, not even when he drew blood with a stone thrown at my head. I never cried. I never begged him to stop. I learned to use silence and endurance as my greatest weapons against him. His threat and his power was that he would hurt me. My power was that I dared to act as if he could not. I learned that I could endure anything a boy could do to me. Later, I learned that I could survive anything that a man might do to me. Later still I knew that he was a tyrant and he still did not frighten me. I have learned the power of surviving.
When I was older and watched his gentleness and his command of Amelia and his pleasant respect to my mother, I realized that my stubbornness, my obstinacy, had created this constant trouble between us. He dominated my father, imprisoned him in his own bedroom, usurped him. He did all this with the blessing of my mother and with a proud sense of his own righteousness. He allied with Sybilla’s husband, two ambitious princelings together, and so he still rules Sybilla, even after her marriage. He and my mother have forged themselves into a powerful partnership, a couple to rule Juliers-Cleves. They command Amelia, but I could not be dominated or patronized. I would not be babied or ruled. For him I became an itch that he had to scratch. If I had wept, or b
egged, if I had collapsed like a girl or clung like a woman, he could have forgiven me, adopted me, taken me under his protection and cared for me. I would have been his little pet, as Amelia is: his sweetheart, the sister that he guards and keeps safe.
But by the time I understood all this it was too late. He was locked into his frustrated irritation with me, and I had learned the joy of stubbornly surviving, despite all odds, and going my own way. He tried to make a slave of me, but all he did was teach me a longing to be free. I desired my freedom as other girls desire marriage. I dreamed of freedom as other girls dream of a lover.
This marriage is my escape from him. As Queen of England I command a fortune greater than his, I rule a country bigger than Cleves, infinitely more populous and powerful. I shall know the King of France as an equal; I am stepmother to a granddaughter of Spain; my name will be spoken in the courts of Europe, and if I have a son he will be brother to the King of England and perhaps king himself. This marriage is my victory and my freedom. But as Henry shifts heavily in the bed and sighs again like a weary old man, not like a bridegroom, I know, as I have known all along, that I have exchanged one difficult man for another. I shall have to learn how to evade the anger of this new man, and how to survive him.
“Are you tired?” he asks.
I understand the word tired. I nod, and say: “Little.”
“God help me in this ill-managed business,” he says.
“I don’t understand? I am sorry?”
He shrugs; I realize he is not speaking to me, he is complaining of something for the pleasure of grumbling aloud, just as my father used to do before his ill-tempered mutterings became madness. The disrespect of this comparison makes me smile and then bite my lip to hide my amusement.
“Yes,” he says sourly. “You might well laugh.”
“Will you like wine?” I ask carefully.
He shakes his head. He lifts the sheet, and the sickly smell of him blows over me. Like a man seeing what he has bought in a market, he takes the hem of my nightgown, lifts it up, pulls it past my waist and my breasts, and leaves it so that it is in a roll around my neck. I am afraid I look stupid, like a burgher with a scarf tied tight under the chin. My cheeks are burning with shame that he should just stare at my exposed body. He does not care for my discomfort.
He puts his hand down and abruptly squeezes my breasts, slides his rough hand down to my belly, pinches the fat. I lie absolutely still so that he shall not think I am wanton. It is not hard to freeze in horror. God knows why anyone would feel wanton under such handling. I have stroked my horse with more affection than this coldhearted groping. He rears up in the bed with a grunt of effort and pushes my thighs apart with a heavy hand. I obey him without making a sound. It is essential that he knows that I am obedient but not eager. He heaves himself over me and slumps between my legs. He is taking his full weight with his elbows planted on either side of my head, and with his knees, but even so his great flaccid belly, pressing down on me, is stifling me. The fat of his chest is pressing on my face. I am a good-sized woman, but I am dwarfed underneath him. I fear that if he lies any more heavily, I will not be able to breathe; it is quite unbearable. His panting breath on my face is foul from his rotting teeth. I hold my head rigid to stop myself from turning my face away from him. I find I am breathless, trying not to inhale the stink of him.
He puts his hand down between us and grabs onto himself. I have seen them with the horses in the stables at Duren, and I know well enough what is going on in this hard fumbling. I snatch a breath sideways, and I brace myself for the pain. He gives a little grunt of frustration, and I can feel his hand pumping away, but still nothing happens. He punches repeatedly at my thigh with his moving hand, but that is all. I lie very still. I don’t know what he wants to do, nor what he expects of me. The stallion at Duren went rigid and reared up. This king seems to be weakening.
“My lord?” I whisper.
He throws himself off me and grunts a word that I don’t know. His head is buried in the richly embroidered pillow; he is still facedown. I don’t know if he has finished or is merely beginning. He turns his head to me. His face is very red and sweating. “Anne…” he starts.
At that fatal name he stops, freezes into silence. I realize that he has said her name, the first Anne that he loved, that he is thinking of her, the lover who drove him to madness and whom he killed in jealous resentment.
“I, Anne of Cleves, am,” I prompt him.
“I know that,” he says shortly. “Fool.”
With a great heave that pulls all the bedcovers off me, he turns around and lies with his back to me. The air released from the bed is stale with an awful smell. This is the smell of the wound on his leg, this is the smell of putrid flesh, this is the smell of him. It will scent my sheets forever, till death us do part. I had better get used to it.
I lie very still. To put a hand on his shoulder would, I think, be wanton behavior, and so I had better not, though I am sorry if he is weary and haunted by the other Anne tonight. I will have to learn not to mind about the smell and about the feeling of being pressed down. I shall have to do my duty.
I lie in the darkness and look up at the rich canopy of the bed above me. In the dimming light that gets darker as each square block candle, one by one, gutters and goes out, I can see the glint of gold thread and the rich colors of the silks. He is an old man, poor old man, forty-eight years old, and it has been a long and exhausting day for us both. I hear him sigh again and then the sigh turns into a deep, bubbling snore. When I am certain that he is asleep, I put my hand lightly on his shoulder, where the thick damp linen of his nightshirt covers the fat sweaty bulk of him. I am sorry that he should fail this night, and if he had stayed awake, and if we had spoken the same language and were able to tell each other the truth, then I would have told him that even though there is no desire between us I hope to be a good wife to him and a good queen for England. That I feel pity for him in his old age and weariness, and that no doubt when he is rested and less tired we will be able to make a child, the son that we both want so much. Poor sick old man, I would have given much to be able to tell him not to worry, that it will come out all right, that I do not want a young handsome prince, that I will be kind to him.
Katherine, Greenwich Palace,
January 7, 1540
The king was already gone before we arrived in the chamber on the day after the wedding, so I missed seeing the King of England in his nightshirt on his wedding morning, though I had set my heart on it. The maids of work went in with her ale, and wood for her fire, and water to wash in, and we waited until we were called to help her dress. She was sitting up in bed with her nightcap on and a neat plait down her back, not a hair out of place. She didn’t look like a girl who had made merry all night, I must say. She looked exactly the same as when we put her to bed last night, quite calm and pretty in that cowlike way, and pleasant enough with everyone, not asking for any special favors and not complaining of anything. I was by the bed and since nobody was taking any notice of me I twitched up the sheet and had a quick look.
I didn’t see a thing. Exactly so. Not one solitary thing. Speaking as a girl who has had to smuggle a sheet down to the pump and wash it quickly and sleep on it damp more than once, I know when a man and a maid have used a bed for more than sleeping. Not this bed. I would put my precious reputation on the fact that the king did not have her and she did not bleed. I would put the Howard fortune on a bet that they slept just as we left them, when we put them to bed, side by side like a pair of little dolls. The bottom sheet was not even rumpled, never mind soiled. I would bet Westminster Abbey that nothing has happened between them.
I knew who would want to know at once, Lady Nosy-Parker of course. I made a curtsy and went from the room as if I were running an errand and found her, just coming from her own chamber. As soon as she saw my face she snatched my hands and drew me back into her room.
“I bet you a fortune that he has not had her,” I say triumphan
tly, without a word of explanation.
One thing that I like about Lady Rochford is that she always knows what I am talking about. I never have to explain anything to her.
“The sheets,” I say. “Not a mark on them, they’re not even creased.”
“Nobody has changed them?”
I shake my head. “I was first in, after the maids.”
She reaches in the cupboard by the bed and brings out a sovereign and gives it to me. “That’s very good,” she says. “You and I, between us, should always be the first to know everything.”
I smile, but I am thinking about some ribbons I shall buy with the sovereign to trim my new gown, and perhaps some new gloves.
“Don’t tell anyone else,” she cautions me.
“Oh?” I protest.
“No,” she says. “Knowledge is always precious, Katherine. If you know something that no one else knows, then you have a secret. If you know something that everyone else knows then you are no better than them.”
“Can’t I at least tell Anne Bassett?”
“I’ll tell you when you can tell her,” she says. “Perhaps tomorrow. Now go back to the queen. I am coming in a minute.”
I do as I am told, and as I go out I see she is writing a note. She will be writing to my uncle to tell him that I believe that the king has not bedded his wife. I hope she tells him that it was I who thought this first and not her. Then there may be another sovereign to go with the first. I begin to see what he means about great places bring great favors. I have been in royal service for only a matter of days and already I am two sovereigns wealthier. Give me a month, and I shall make my fortune.