I kept silent and shook my head, waiting to see what he wanted.
“It’s the queen, isn’t it?” he said. “That’s what you’re thinking. That’s what they’re all thinking.”
I did not know whether to agree or disagree. I kept a wary watch on him and held my peace.
“It’s that damned marriage,” he said. “I should never have done it. My father didn’t want it. He said she could stay in England as a widowed princess, ours for the ordering. But I thought…I wanted…” He broke off. He did not want to remember how deeply and faithfully he had loved her. “The Pope gave us a dispensation but it was a mistake. You can’t dispense against the word of God.”
I nodded gravely.
“I should not have married my brother’s wife. Simple as that. And because I married her I have been accursed with her barrenness. God has not given this false marriage his blessing. Every year he has turned his face from me and I should have seen it earlier. The queen is not my wife, she is Arthur’s wife.”
“But if the marriage was never consummated…” I started.
“Makes no difference,” he said sharply. “And anyway, it was.”
I bowed my head.
“Come to bed,” Henry said, suddenly weary. “I cannot stomach this. I have to be free of sin. I have to tell the queen to leave. I have to cleanse myself of this dreadful sin.”
Obediently, I went to the bed and slipped my cloak from my shoulders. I turned back the sheets and got into bed. Henry fell to his knees at the foot of the bed and prayed fervently. I listened to the muttered words and found that I was praying too: one powerless woman praying for another. I was praying for the queen now that the most powerful man in England was blaming her for leading him into mortal sin.
Autumn 1526
WE RETURNED TO LONDON, TO GREENWICH, ONE OF THE KING’S most beloved palaces, and still his dark mood did not lift. He spent much time with clerics and with advisors, some people thought that he was preparing another book, another study of theology. But I, who had to sit with him most nights while he read and wrote, knew that he was struggling with the words of the Bible, struggling to know whether it was the will of God that a man should marry his brother’s widow—and thus care for her; or whether it was the will of God that a man should put his brother’s widow away—because to look on her with desire was to shame his brother. God on this occasion was ambiguous. Different passages in the Bible said different things. It would take a college full of theologians to decide which rule should take precedence.
It seemed obvious to me that a man should marry his brother’s widow so that his brother’s children could be brought up in a godly home and a good woman well cared for. Thank God that I did not venture this opinion at Henry’s evening councils. There were men disputing in Greek and Latin, going back to original texts, consulting the fathers of the church. The last thing they wanted was a bit of common sense from an immensely ordinary young woman.
I was no help to him. I could be no help to him. It was Anne who had the brain he needed, and Anne alone who had the ability to turn some theological tangle into a joke that could make him laugh, even as he puzzled over it.
They walked together, every afternoon, her hand tucked in the crook of his elbow, their heads as close together as a pair of conspirators. They looked like lovers but when I lingered beside them I would hear Anne say: “Yes, but St Paul is very clear in his discussion of this…” and Henry would reply: “You think that is what he means? I always thought that he was referring to another passage.”
George and I would walk behind them, malleable chaperones, and I watched as Anne pinched Henry’s arm to drive home a point or shook her head in disagreement.
“Why does he not just tell the queen that she must leave?” George asked simply. “There’s not a court in Europe that would condemn him. Everyone knows he has to have a son.”
“He likes to think well of himself,” I explained, watching the turn of Anne’s head and hearing her ripple of low laughter. “He could not bring himself to turn off a woman just because she’s become old. He has to find a way to see that it is God’s will that he leaves her. He has to find a greater authority than his own desires.”
“My God, if I was a king like him I’d follow my desires and I wouldn’t worry myself whether it was God’s will or no,” George exclaimed.
“That’s because you’re a grasping greedy Boleyn. But this is a king who wants to do the right thing. He can’t move forward until he knows that God is on his side.”
“And Anne is helping him,” George observed mischievously.
“What a keeper of a conscience!” I said spitefully. “Your immortal soul would be safe in her hands.”
They called a family conference. I had been waiting for it. Ever since we had come home from Ludlow my uncle had been watching the two of us, Anne and I, with a silent intensity. He had been with the court this summer, he had seen how the king spent his days with Anne, how he was irresistibly drawn to wherever she might be. But how habitually he summoned me to him at nightfall. My uncle was baffled by the king’s desire for us both. He did not know how Henry should be steered, to do the best for the Howards.
George and Anne and I were ranged before the big table in my uncle’s room. He sat on the other side of it, my mother beside him on a smaller chair.
“The king obviously desires Anne,” my uncle began. “But if she merely supplants Mary as the favorite then we are no further on. Worse off, in fact. For she’s not even married, and while this is going on no one can have her, and once it’s finished she’s worthless.”
I looked to see if my mother flinched at this discussion of her oldest daughter. Her face was stern. This was family business, not sentiment.
“So Anne must withdraw,” my uncle ruled. “You’re spoiling the game for Mary. She’s had a girl and a boy off him and we have nothing to show for it but some extra lands…”
“A couple of titles,” George murmured. “A few offices…”
“Aye. I don’t deny it. But Anne is taking the edge off his appetite for Mary.”
“He has no appetite for Mary,” Anne said spitefully. “He has a habit for Mary. A different thing. You’re a married man, Uncle, you should know that.”
I heard George’s gasp. My uncle smiled at Anne and his smile was wolfish.
“Thank you, Mistress Anne,” he said. “Your quickness of wit would much become you, if you were still in France. But since you are in England I have to remind you that all English women are required to do as they are bid, and look happy while doing it.”
Anne bowed her head and I saw her color up with temper.
“You’re to go to Hever,” he said abruptly.
She started up. “Not again! For doing what?”
“You’re a wild card and I don’t know how to play you,” he said with brutal frankness.
“If you leave me at court I can make the king love me,” she promised desperately. “Don’t send me back to Hever! What is there for me?”
He raised his hand. “It’s not forever,” he said. “Just for Christmas. It’s obvious that Henry’s very taken with you but I don’t know what we can do with this. You can’t bed him, not while you’re a maid. You have to be married before you can go to his bed, and no man of any sense will marry you while you are the king’s favorite. It’s a mess.”
She bit back her reply and dropped a tiny curtsy. “I am grateful,” she said through her teeth. “But I cannot see that sending me to Hever for Christmas all on my own, far from the court, far from the king, is going to help my chances to serve this family.”
“It gets you out of the way so you don’t spoil the king’s aim. As soon as he is divorced from Katherine he can marry Mary. Mary, with her two bonny babies. He can get a wife and an heir in one ceremony. You just muddle the picture, Anne.”
“So you would paint me out?” she demanded. “Who are you now? Holbein?”
“Hold your tongue,” my mother said sharply.
r /> “I’ll get you a husband,” my uncle promised. “From France if not from England. Once Mary is Queen of England she can get a husband for you. You can take your pick.”
Anne’s fingernails dug into her clenched hands. “I shan’t have a husband as her gift!” she swore. “She won’t ever be queen. She’s risen as far as she can go. She’s opened her legs and given him two children and still he does not care for her. He liked her well enough when he was courting her, can’t you see? He’s a huntsman, he likes the chase. Once Mary was caught the sport was over, and God knows, never was a woman easier caught. He’s used to her now, she’s more a wife than a mistress—but a wife without honor, a wife without respect.”
She had said exactly the wrong thing. My uncle smiled. “Like a wife? Oh I hope so. So I think we’ll have a little rest from you for now and see what Mary can do with him when you’re not there. You’ve been rivaling Mary and she is our favorite.”
I curtsied with a sweet smile to Anne. “I am the favorite,” I repeated. “And she is to disappear.”
Winter 1526
I SENT CHRISTMAS FAIRINGS FOR MY BABIES IN ANNE’S TRUNK when she went down to Hever. To Catherine I sent a little marchpane house with roof tiles of roasted almonds and windows of spun sugar. I begged Anne to give it to Catherine on twelfth night and tell her that her mother loved her and missed her and would come again soon.
Anne dropped down into her hunter’s saddle as gracelessly as a farmer’s wife riding to market. There was no one to watch her, there was no benefit to being light and laughing.
“God knows why you don’t defy them and go down, if you love your babies so much,” she said, tempting me to trouble.
“Thank you for your good advice,” I said. “I am sure you meant it for the best.”
“Well, God knows what they think you can do without me here to advise you.”
“God knows indeed,” I replied cheerfully.
“There are women that men marry and there are women that men don’t,” she pronounced. “And you are the sort of mistress that a man doesn’t bother to marry. Sons or no sons.”
I smiled up at her. I was so much slower in wits than Anne that it was a great joy to me when once in a while a weapon came to my sluggish hand. “Yes,” I said. “I expect you’re right. But there is clearly a third sort and that is the woman that men neither marry nor take as their mistress. Women that go home alone for Christmas. And that seems to be you, my sister. Good day.”
I turned on my heel and left her and she had nothing to do but to nod to the soldiers who were to ride with her and trot out through the gateway and down the road to Kent. A few flakes of snow swirled in the air as she went.
It was clear what would become of the queen as soon as we were settled in Greenwich for the feast of Christmas. She was to be neglected and ignored and everyone in the court knew that she was out of favor. It was a vile thing to see, like an owl being mobbed in daytime by the lesser birds.
Her nephew, the Emperor of Spain, knew something of what was going on. He sent a new ambassador to England, Ambassador Mendoza, a wily Jesuit-trained lawyer who might be relied on to represent the queen to her husband, and to bring Spain and England into accord once more. I saw my uncle in a whispered conference with Cardinal Wolsey and guessed that he was not smoothing Ambassador Mendoza’s way.
I was right. For all of the Christmas feast the new ambassador was not allowed to come to court, his papers were not recognized, he was not allowed to make his bow to the king, he was not allowed even to see the queen. Her messages and letters were watched, she could not even receive presents without them being inspected by the grooms of the bedchamber.
Christmas went into twelfth night and still the new Spanish ambassador was not allowed to see the queen. Not until mid-January did Wolsey stop his cat-and-mouse game and acknowledge that Ambassador Mendoza was indeed a genuine representative of the Emperor of Spain and might bring his papers to court and his messages to the queen.
I was in the queen’s rooms when a page came from the cardinal to say that the ambassador had asked to attend on her. The color rose to her cheeks, she leaped to her feet. “I should change my gown, but there’s no time.”
I stood behind her chair, the only lady attending her, everyone else was walking in the garden with the king.
“Ambassador Mendoza will bring me news of my nephew.” The queen seated herself in her chair. “And I trust he will create an alliance between my nephew and my husband. Families should not quarrel. There has been an alliance between Spain and England for as long as I can remember. It’s all wrong when we are divided.”
I nodded and then the door opened.
It was not the ambassador with his retinue, bringing gifts and letters and private documents from her nephew. It was the cardinal, the queen’s greatest enemy, and he led the ambassador into her room as a mountebank might lead a dancing bear. The ambassador was captured. He could not speak to the queen alone, any secrets he might have carried in his luggage had been ransacked long ago. This was not a man who would bring the king back into alliance with Spain. This was not a man who could bring the queen back to her true status at court. This was a man all but kidnapped by the cardinal.
Her hand, when she gave it to him to kiss, was steady as a rock. Her voice was sweet and perfectly modulated. She greeted the cardinal with pleasant courtesy. No one would ever have known from her behavior that it was her doom that came in that day, along with the sulky ambassador and the smiling cardinal. She knew at that moment that her friends and her family were powerless to help her. She was horribly, vulnerably, completely alone.
There was a joust at the end of January, and the king refused to ride. George was chosen to carry the royal standard instead. He won for the king, and got a new pair of leather gloves by way of thanks.
That night I found the king in a somber mood, wrapped in a thick gown before the fire of his chamber, with a bottle of wine half-empty beside him and another empty bottle lolling in the white ash of the fireplace and draining its lees into a red puddle.
“Are you well, Your Majesty?” I asked cautiously.
He looked up and I saw that his blue eyes were bloodshot, his face slack.
“No,” he said quietly.
“What’s the matter?” I spoke to him as tenderly and easily as I might speak to George. He did not seem like a king of terror tonight. He was a boy, a sad boy.
“I didn’t ride in the joust today.”
“I know.”
“And I won’t ride again.”
“Ever?”
“Perhaps never.”
“Oh, Henry, why not?”
He paused. “I was afraid. Isn’t that shameful? When they started to strap me into my armor I realized that I was afraid.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s a dangerous business, jousting,” he said resentfully. “You women in the stands with your favors and your wagers, listening to the heralds sound the trumpets, you don’t realize. It’s life or death if you’re down in the joust. It’s not play down there.”
I waited.
“What if I die?” he asked blankly. “What if I die? What happens then?”
For one dreadful moment I thought that he was asking me about his immortal soul. “No one knows for certain,” I said hesitantly.
“Not that.” He waved it away. “What becomes of the throne? What becomes of my father’s crown? He put this country together after years of fighting, no one thought that he could do it. No one but him could have done it. But he did it. And he had two sons. Two sons, Mary! So when Arthur died there was still me to inherit. He made the kingdom safe by his work on the battlefield and his work in bed. I inherited a kingdom as safe as it could be: secure borders, obedient lords, a treasury filled with gold, and I have no one to hand it on to.”
His tone was so bitter that there was nothing I could say. I bowed my head.
“This business of a son is wearing me down. I walk every day in u
nholy terror that I will die before I can get a son to put on the throne. I cannot joust, I cannot even hunt with a light heart. I see a fence before me and instead of throwing my heart over and trusting to my horse to jump clean I have this flash before my eyes and I see myself dead of a broken neck in a ditch and the crown of England hanging on a thorn bush for anyone to pick up. And who could do it? Who would do it?”
The agony in his face and in his voice was too much for me. I reached for the bottle and refilled his glass. “There’s time,” I said, thinking how my uncle would like me to say such a thing. “We know that you are fertile with me. Our son Henry is the very picture of you.”
He huddled his cape around him a little closer. “You can go,” he said. “Will George be waiting to take you back to your room?”
“He always waits,” I said, startled. “Don’t you want me to stay?”
“I am too dark in my heart tonight,” he said frankly. “I have had to face the prospect of my own death and it does not make me feel like playing between the sheets with you.”
I curtsied. At the doorway I paused and looked back at the room. He had not seen me go. He was still hunched in his chair, wrapped in his cloak, staring at the embers as if he would see his future in the red ashes.
“You could marry me,” I said quietly. “And we have two children already, and one of them a boy.”
“What?” He looked up at me, his blue eyes hazy with his own despair.
I knew that my uncle would have wanted me to press forward. But I was never a woman who could press forward like that.
“Goodnight,” I said gently. “Goodnight, sweet prince,” and I left him with his own darkness.
Spring 1527
THE QUEEN’S FALL FROM POWER BECAME MORE AND MORE VISIBLE. In February the court entertained envoys from France. They were not delayed while their papers were scrutinized, they were welcomed with feastings and banquets and all sorts of parties, and it soon became clear that they were in England to arrange for the marriage of Princess Mary to either King Francis of France or to his son. Princess Mary was summoned from the quiet retreat of Ludlow Castle and presented to the envoys, encouraged to dance and to play and to sing and to eat. My God! How they made that child eat! As if she might swell in size before their very eyes in time to be of a marriageable girth within the months of the negotiations. My father, home from France in their train, was everywhere—advising the king, translating for the envoys, in secret conference with the cardinal as to how they should re-draw the alliances of Europe, and finally, plotting with my uncle how the family could be advanced through these turbulent times.