Doomed Queen Anne (11 page)

I explained that “Marie,” now Mary Carey, was the contented mother of two and spent less time at court.

“And you are following in the footsteps of that great courtesan, are you not, Mademoiselle Anne?” he asked. “I understand that King Henry has a great fondness for you. He shows himself to be a man of exquisite taste.” François winked broadly.

“I am the king’s loyal subject, and the queen’s,” I replied with a deep curtsy. François merely smiled, bowing gallantly.

Three days later Princess Mary, lost in her heavy robes and ornate jewels, was pledged to the king of France. At the banquet that followed in honor of the newly betrothed couple, a masque was performed to entertain the French king and his courtiers. I was one of the dancers, as was the princess. As the master of revels rehearsed us in the steps of the dance, I was aware of the princess peering at me shortsightedly I wondered if someone—the queen, perhaps?—had spoken to her of me, but then I realized that the king’s attentions to me were so transparent that the child could see for herself that her father was in love with me. When I became the king’s wife, she would be my stepdaughter; I guessed that it would not be an easy association.

During the time of the French visit, the king had fewer opportunities than usual to come to my apartments. It was mid-May before Princess Mary and her governess departed for distant Ludlow, where the princess kept her own household, and François sailed for France.

The day after their departure, my brother brought me a report of the latest court gossip. “Prepare yourself for a rival. Nan.”

“Rival? Of whom do you speak, brother?” “Princess Renée of France, a cousin of François.” My old friend. Princess Renée, to be my rival? “I have not heard of this,” I said, trying to recall when I had last exchanged letters with Renée.

“You are hearing of it now. The match is the idea of your great champion. Cardinal Wolsey.”

“My champion!” I spat furiously. “I will see that ‘champion’ in his grave!”

“You may, indeed, dear sister,” said George agreeably, and he rose to take his leave.

When he had gone, I paced restlessly about my chamber.
Princess Renée! Wolsey!
In a rage I seized George’s empty tankard and flung it against the wall. The metallic clatter caused Nell to rush in. She found me dissolved in bitter tears.

THAT NIGHT King Henry stormed into my apartments and flung himself into his chair, one of the few chairs in the palace and kept there for his sole use.

“Outrage!” he shouted, and barked orders at Nell to fetch him two dozen oysters. When she had hurried away to do his bidding. King Henry sat with his head in his hands. He looked weary and overburdened. Then he managed a smile and beckoned.

“Come, sweetheart, and sit with me.”

Obediently, I permitted him to draw me upon his knees, a liberty that I had recently begun to allow. “Has all not gone well. Your Majesty?” I asked.

“What cunning deceivers, those French!” he said. “The king’s ambassadors met with me as they were preparing to leave, and, after all that I had done for them, the lengths to which I had gone to entertain them, you cannot imagine what they said!”

“Tell me, my lord,” I urged.

“They have refused to agree to a wedding! They say that perhaps in another three or four years, when Princess Mary has become a woman, she will be fit for marriage and childbearing. The insult!” The king pushed me from his lap and began to pace from one end of my chamber to the other. The space was too small to contain the king and his wrath. Even the prompt arrival of the oysters did little to soothe him.

“That is not all,” announced King Henry. “I ordered Wolsey to convene a secret court with representatives from the pope in order to obtain an annulment of my marriage to Catherine, but the queen learned of my intent. Now she protests her undying love for me—for that she may be forgiven—but she refuses to admit that our marriage is not valid and never has been. She argues with me! She points out that if the marriage is invalid, then our daughter is made a bastard.”

And what of Princess Renée?
I ached to ask, but I dared not.

“‘So be it,’ I told her,” King Henry continued, his face growing red. “‘Mary is a jewel, the pearl of the world, but she is still only a woman and unfit to rule, no matter whom she marries. I must have sons!’ I was reasonable; Catherine was not. She will have none of it. I cannot understand her stubbornness. The queen is an intelligent woman! I respect her judgment in many things. But she has determined not to agree with me in this.”

“But you are right, Your Majesty,” I assured him, concealing my deep concerns, “and the queen is wrong. Her Majesty may argue all she pleases, but in the end the pope will surely accept your reasoning, and Queen Catherine will be forced to accept his judgment.”

My calming words eventually restored the king to good temper, he called for more oysters, and so the evening ended peacefully. But worse news was soon to follow: Emperor Charles had ordered the sack of Rome, and Pope Clement had fled into exile. For the time being, the pope could do nothing for the king. But neither could the cardinal do anything about Princess Renée.

THROUGH ALL OF THIS, I was challenged to continue to play my role as maid of honor to the queen. I was constantly in Catherine’s presence. She didn’t send me away, as well she might have. How odd it seemed—my days were spent in the company of the queen and my nights in the company of the king, her husband. I was a player in two different masques and lived constantly with the fear that I would make a misstep with one or the other. The fear disturbed my rest. I worried that lack of sleep would take its toll on my appearance, although Nell reassured me that I had lost none of my allure.

One day in early summer, the queen summoned me to a card game, as she sometimes did. On that occasion I was unusually lucky.
Perhaps it is a sign
, I thought, as I discarded two of the last three cards in my hand and prepared to sweep up my winnings.

The queen said tartly “So, Lady Anne, you have discarded the valet and the chevalier but not the king! You continue to hold him fast in your hand. You will, it seems, have all!” She rose abruptly nearly knocking over the table, and all of us leaped to our feet as well. “You are dismissed, Lady Anne,” she said.

I was still the queen s subject, bound to obey her. I felt the blood rush to my face as I knelt and then left the queen s chamber in haste.

AS SUMMER APPROACHED, I decided that the wisest course was to retire once again to my family’s home at Hever—the better to tantalize the king with my absence and the better to avoid the queen’s icy stares. The night before the king and queen were to leave on summer progress. King Henry appeared in my apartments, seeming even more agitated than usual. I wondered if he had received more unwelcome news. For an hour or more he paced restlessly He called for oysters but didn’t eat them. He called for ale but didn’t drink it. He talked about the progress on which he would depart in the morning, the noble families he would visit, the hunting he looked forward to. I listened quietly and waited, concealing my own agitation.

Suddenly he stopped his pacing and gazed at me. He looked pale, and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
Is he ill?
I wondered. And then he dropped to his knees and knelt before me. I stifled a cry, for I had seen the king kneel only before God’s altar in the chapel royal.

“Marry me, dearest Anne!” he cried, as though his heart would burst. “Promise that you will be my wife!”

I caught my breath, feeling light-headed.
It is happening
, I thought,
just as I had hoped!
I, too, fell to my knees. “Unworthy as I am, Your Majesty, I could ask for nothing more than to be your devoted wife,” I told him. As we knelt together and King Henry’s kisses covered my face, I exulted:
I shall be the king’s wife!

Later, when the king had gone and I was alone, I began to dance. Around my chamber I danced my joy, leaping and gliding, inventing my own steps to the thrilling music that sang in my mind and my heart:
I shall be queen! I shall be the king’s wife, and I shall be queen!

CHAPTER 9: Engagement, 1527-1528

“I shall need additional moneys,” I informed my father soon after my return to Hever in July. “The king has proposed marriage.” I waited to see what effect my announcement would have.

Thomas Boleyn glanced up from a letter he was writing and frowned at me. “It is a poor jest that you make, daughter.”

“It is no jest, Father. King Henry wishes me to become his wife. I must dress the part.”

“It is common knowledge that the king intends to set aside the queen,” he said, eyebrows raised in doubt. “What makes you think that he means to have you as his wife?”

“I am certain of it,” I replied proudly I showed him a bracelet fashioned of gold with the king’s like-ness set in a medallion. “A gift from the king,” I said, “delivered by the king’s messenger this very day. And this, as well.” I handed him a letter.

I and my heart put ourselves in your hands
, the letter began, in French, and continued with many loving words.
Since I cannot be with you in person, I send you the nearest thing possible, my likeness set in a bracelet, wishing myself in its place. This from the hand of your loyal servant, H. Rex

What a pleasure, to have the upper hand in the presence of my usually scornful father! “Plainly, King Henry cannot approach you to arrange a betrothal so long as his marriage to Queen Catherine is valid,” I said. “But that matter will soon be finished.”

My father leaned on his elbows, making an arch of his fingers. “I have also heard, on good authority, that the pope is in no position to grant the nullity.”

“Must you always think the worst?” I asked impatiently. “Surely you know that the king has sent Chancellor Wolsey with a retinue numbering more than a thousand to Calais. He intends to bring about peace between France and the emperor, and so restore Pope Clement to his rightful place. Then the king’s annulment will proceed without further hindrance.” I jingled the bracelet. “And now,” I continued, “I wish to send the king a token.”

The next day my father delivered another sack of coins to me.

I had already described the design to the royal goldsmith: a little ship made of pure gold, with the tiny figure of a woman standing on the deck, the whole to be set with a large diamond. “With all haste,” I told the smith, counting out the coins.

Within a fortnight the small treasure was finished. Recalling my childhood voyage to Calais, I sent it to the king along with this brief message:
How like this maiden I am, tossed about by stormy seas, at the mercy of fate and Your Majesty’s will.

Soon I had from the king a letter expressing pleasure and thanks for my gift and enclosing another token, a love knot wrought of gold. While the king’s letters were always filled with deep yearning
(Consider well, my dearest love, how greatly my absence from you grieves me
...), I took care in my replies to reveal far less of my heart. The king must not be allowed to become too sure of my love, lest he tire of a prize too easily won.

The ardent letters and the king’s gifts continued to arrive throughout the summer.
Would you were in my arms or I in yours, for I think it long since I kissed you,
he wrote, and then described to me a hart he’d killed while out that day with his hunting party. He signed his letter,
by the hand of him who shortly shall be yours. H.R.

WITH THE COMING of autumn, I sensed a change, although my daily life proceeded as before. The king returned from his hunting progress, and my mother and I took up our residence once more at Greenwich Palace. I resumed my service as maid of honor to the queen, who pretended that I did not exist. The ladies of the court stopped talking when I entered, staring at me and making no effort to conceal their contempt. At banquets in the Great Hall, Queen Catherine took her customary place by the king’s side, smiling graciously as though nothing in her royal world had been shaken. But beneath the courtly behavior, tumultuous feelings seethed.

Then Wolsey returned from Calais. I could well imagine the anger—the fury!—that would overtake the cardinal when he learned of the king’s decision to make me his wife.

I employed sweet reason to keep at bay the king’s desire, which had grown even stronger during our separation. “Soon we shall be man and wife,” I told him. “Our marriage bed will be blessed, I promise you, and you will father many sons. But we must wait. I say this not from a selfish need to protect my reputation but from the need to protect the future of the throne. Would you risk having another bastard son, Your Majesty?”

“Ah, sweetheart, you are right,” the king agreed reluctantly.

I smiled at him winsomely. “Our day will come, my lord,” I said. “And our nights as well.”

In fact, I no longer had even a shred of reputation to protect. King Henry made no secret of his passion for me, and the entire court believed I had long since become his mistress.

Among the many gifts the king lavished upon me was a handsome gray palfrey with an elegant saddle and finely wrought trappings. There was also a beautiful falcon with an exquisitely embroidered leather glove, upon which the bird had been trained to perch, and a soft hood to cover her until she was ready to hunt. I was eager to try out my pretty little merlin. But on my first invitation to hunt with the king, I showed that I was not skilled at hawking, and King Henry proved an impatient tutor.

“Princess Mary hunts exceptionally well,” he informed me. “Perhaps I should have my daughter instruct you in the fine art of falconry.

I was incensed by his remark. Without thinking, I snapped, “Perhaps I should then instruct your daughter the princess in ways to enchant a French suitor.”

I was horrified at my own bold words, but there was no way to call them back. The king seemed stunned that anyone dared to speak to him in such a manner. We stared at each other, and my mind raced in search of a proper sort of apology. But the king burst into laughter so hearty that the rest of the hunting party turned to see the cause of the merriment.