Doomed Queen Anne (12 page)

“My sweetheart is as high-spirited as her palfrey!” he roared. “A tongue as sharp as a rapier is a fine weapon for a lady, provided she does not draw more blood than she intends!”

I smiled. Clearly, the king enjoyed my quick wit, but I resolved that I must keep it in careful check, as I did the little palfrey.

I LOOKED FORWARD eagerly to the coming Yuletide season. My father, observing the esteem in which the king now held me—esteem that reflected well upon Thomas Boleyn—saw to it that I had all the moneys I needed to order the wardrobe necessary to my new and more public role: a gown of tawny velvet trimmed with black lambs’ fur, another of russet silk, two in black velvet, one in white satin with crimson sleeves, a robe of purple cloth of gold lined with silver, thirteen kirtles, eight embroidered nightgowns, three cloaks furred with miniver, and two dozen pairs of black velvet slippers.

In acknowledgment of my place as the most important lady at court—save for the queen—and in the king’s heart, my father presented me with a lovely jewel, the letter
B
set with diamonds, to wear upon a ribbon about my neck. I recognized that my father intended the jewel to be a reminder to King Henry of the notability of the Boleyn family. My father was using the king’s obvious love for me as a way to increase his own power and influence.

Yet in the midst of all the attention being paid to me in that first autumn of King Henry’s open courtship, I was often unbearably lonely. There was no one with whom I could share the simple pleasures of my new life. When I was not in the king’s company, I was alone, except for occasional visits from George. No matter where I went, all talk ceased and all eyes turned to glare at me. I had the king’s love. But at the Yuletide banquets Catherine still sat by his side on the royal dais. Princess Mary, who’d been moved from distant Ludlow Castle to Richmond Palace, west of London, shot me hateful looks. Everyone at court had heard that the king intended to leave his wife and marry me. And they despised me for it.

The ladies who sat with their needlework also embroidered their stories about me. The card players placed bets that I would not stay long in the king’s favor. They whispered about the blemish upon my neck and the budding sixth finger. The ladies—including my sister-in-law, Jane Boleyn—spoke to me only when compelled by the customs of the court.

It was a different story with the gentlemen. They were drawn by my dark looks, my witty conversation, my laughter, the hint of danger and enticement that clung to me like an exotic perfume. They hovered about me, vying for my attention, but I trusted these gentlemen no more than I trusted their wives.

Yet whom
could
I trust? My family was loyal to me, certainly, tied by bonds of blood, but, with the exception of my brother, George, I felt close to none of them. My sister was jealous of me; my mother advised me not to make too much of the king’s attentions; my father only wanted to use me for his own gains and seemed to dislike me. The answer, always, was that I was truly alone.

KING HENRY SENT ME a handsome ruby ring, but there was no invitation to join him and the queen and the princess and his court favorites for the exchange of gifts on New Year’s Day. I knew the reason—my presence would have offended his wife and daughter—and I resented it.

“Never again!” I cried angrily to my mother. “Never again will the old queen occupy what the king means to be
my
place!”

“Perhaps you are wrong about that, dear Nan,” my mother replied in her mild voice. “The king may speak of his love for you, but it is still Queen Catherine who sits beside him.”

“What can I do? The king promises that he will soon be free to marry, but—”

“But,” my mother interrupted, “perhaps you are asking for too much. You already have the king’s favor.

I took from my mother the book she’d been reading, closed it, and laid it aside. Then I knelt at her feet and clasped her two hands in mine. “What is it that you suggest. Mother?” I asked.

She stared down at our joined hands. “Become the king’s mistress,” she said softly. “As your sister once did. Is it not better to know that you have the king’s ardent love, and to settle for that, than to risk losing all by continuing to refuse what he asks of

I let go her hands and rose to my feet. “I shall have all,” I stated flatly.

“Then it is all or nothing?”

“It is not a question of ‘all or nothing,’ Mother. I mean to have
all
.”

THROUGHOUT THE WINTER, I waited. King Henry continued to visit my apartments as frequently as ever and to flatter me with gifts, including an emerald ring and a love knot cunningly set with diamonds and rubies. In February my father was made an earl by the king, and thus my mother became a countess. Both were quite pleased by their higher standing at court.

And still I waited.

On May Day the members of the court gathered on Shooter’s Hill, near Greenwich Palace. A rustic banqueting chamber had been erected, the walls covered with flowers and sweet-smelling herbs. The king, disguised as Robin Hood, arrived in the company of two hundred archers dressed in green velvet. When the banqueting had ended, “Robin Hood” summoned the master of the hounds, who presented me with a pair of excellent greyhounds, to be taken on the summer hunting progress.

A week later King Henry called me to his privy chamber. He had good news: The pope, who had managed to escape from captivity, had granted authority to Cardinal Wolsey and an Italian cardinal, Campeggio, to hear arguments and to make a judgment concerning the king’s marriage. The king was elated, confident that the judgment would go in his favor.

“It is not too soon to begin planning our wedding, sweetheart,” he said. This was the first time he had used the word
wedding!
“I expect to have the nullity granted in a matter of weeks, and then we shall be wed.”

Like any happy young bride, I rushed to tell my mother. She was delighted to help me with designs for what I determined would be an occasion of unrivaled magnificence. The only event I could imagine that would surpass my wedding would be my coronation as queen.

CHAPTER 10: Fatal Illness, 1528-1529

The king was wrong. The weeks passed with no encouraging word of an annulment; Cardinal Campeggio seemed in no hurry to make the journey from Rome. Then we received frightening news that eclipsed all other concerns: An outbreak of the sweating sickness was sweeping through London. Many had died.

Dr. Butts, the royal physician, first raised the alarm. “The sweating sickness has scourged London three times in the past,” he reminded us, “each time claiming more lives than the time before.”

As our awareness grew of the rapid advance of this terrible illness, our fear grew as well. The sweating sickness had no cure. It struck down its victims with awful swiftness, taking the lives of the strong, the youthful, and the hale, leaving behind the weak, the old, and the sickly, as though they were beneath the notice of the Angel of Death. Few would be left to tend the dying and dispose of the dead. But London, a city of seventy thousand souls, was a few miles upriver from Greenwich. Perhaps, I thought, the scourge would pass us by. It did not.

“It is the punishment for our sins!” cried Nell, rushing into my apartments with the news: Several servants in the king’s scullery, one of the royal apothecaries, four or five of the attendants in the king’s chambers, and Nell’s own sister had been stricken with the sweats. “Mistress, they are already dead!” she wailed.

“And the king?” I asked, trying to rise but already faint with dread.

Nell shook her head, burst into tears, and fled. I hastened after her, not knowing if her sobs meant that the king, too, had been stricken.

My flight was intercepted by my brother, George. “Come, Nan,” he said, seizing my hand, which was cold and trembling. “Let us return to your apartments. I have a letter for you from the king.”

He called for a servant to fetch us wine. There was no response. The servants had all disappeared. “What is happening?” I said, weeping. “Where is the king?”

“He has gone to his manor house in Essex,” George replied, “in order to escape the poisonous vapors.”

“The king is gone?” I asked, my lips quivering.

“He is the king, and he must preserve his own life before any of ours. Surely you understand that, Nan?”

“Yes, I understand,” I murmured.
But if he truly loves me, why did he leave me? Why did he not take me with him?

I broke the seal on the king’s letter. The writing was not in King Henry’s own hand but that of another; the letter was merely a list of precautions to be taken if one hoped to escape the illness. The king had ordered that live coals be kept burning in braziers in every chamber, and vinegar sprinkled about liberally. We were advised to eat and drink sparingly, to avoid the company of large numbers of people, and to try not to give way to fear. At the end the king had added his own scrawl,
“Be of good comfort, cherished sweetheart. H.R.”

I crumpled the letter and tossed it away distractedly as I paced about the chamber, suddenly gripped by dread—fear for the king foremost, but also fear for my own fate. “Suppose he dies, George! Then Princess Mary inherits the throne, and Queen Catherine rules in her stead until Mary is of age. Can you imagine my life if Catherine rules and King Henry is no longer here to protect me? She will make my life a living—”

I stopped abruptly when I saw that my brother had slumped over the table, clutching his head. “George!” I cried, shaking him. He made no reply. His eyes were open, but he saw nothing. Perspiration was soaking through his doublet, giving off a foul odor. My brother had the sweating sickness!

Sobbing, I called out for help, but no one came. With great effort I tugged his limp body off the table where he had collapsed and attempted to drag him into my bedchamber, but he was far too heavy for me. Bringing a pillow for his head, I tried to make him comfortable where he lay, although he seemed past awareness of either comfort or misery. Although the day was warm, he had begun to shiver violently. I heaped coverlets upon him, wiped his face with my handkerchief dipped in a bit of water left in a flagon, and set out once again to find help.

It began as a little pain in my head and a weakness in my legs as I hurried through the gallery to the Great Hall, where I hoped to find servants or an apothecary or anyone at all who could come to my brother’s aid. Quickly the pain grew much stronger, and my legs much weaker. I cried out as I fell to the floor, unable to move, unable even to think. I remember a mangy dog coming to snuffle at my face. After that, I remember nothing at all.

MY MOTHER LATER described to me what had happened. George and I were both found, more dead than alive, by guards who recognized us. The guards summoned an assistant to the royal astrologer, who arranged to have us transported by litter all the way to Hever. My father, similarly stricken, was brought to Hever soon after. I know not how many days I languished there, life ebbing and flowing like the tides in the River Thames.

“The priest administered the last rites to all three of you,” my mother told me as she sat by my bedside when at last it seemed likely that I would live. “I did not expect any of you to survive, despite my ceaseless prayers.”

“And the king?” I asked weakly “Has there been some word from him?”

“There has. When he learned of your illness. King Henry sent Dr. Butts to minister to you. This he did, preparing an herbal plaster, favored by the king himself, to draw out the poisons from your body. He fed you concoctions made of herbs and ginger mixed with wine—do you remember none of this. Nan?—but the good doctor could only tell me, as he tells everyone, ‘There is nothing more to be done for the patient but to pray.’”

All of us did survive, but my poor mother was in a state of exhaustion. Many of our servants had either died of the terrible disease or were still weakened themselves.

Then a royal messenger delivered a letter sealed with the king’s insignia. With trembling hands I broke it open.

The uneasiness caused me by my doubts about your health have much disturbed and alarmed me
, the king had written.
Therefore I beg of you, my beloved, to have no fear or to be uneasy at our separation, for wherever I am, I am wholly yours.
At the end of the letter King Henry had drawn a heart enclosing my initials and placed his own, H.R., on either side of the heart. I smiled and touched my lips to the heart.

My mother took the letter from me as I fell back upon my pillows. “I trust it is good news?” she asked.

“He loves me still,” I said, drifting off to sleep once more.

It was at this time of great danger to all, from mighty king to lowliest pauper, that I first truly realized the depth of my feeling for King Henry. What had begun as a game and become a goal had grown into genuine love on my part as well as his.

DAILY WE RECEIVED news of more sickness and death. Among those who had not survived was Lady Honor Finch; I managed a brief prayer for the repose of her wretched soul. Nell had fallen ill but recovered; the lad to whom she was betrothed was not so fortunate. I had not yet left my bedchamber when we received the sad news that Will Carey had fallen victim, and my widowed sister was beside herself with sorrow.

“She knows not what to do or where to turn,” my mother said. “She trusts that we will help her.”

I was still very weak when Mary arrived at Hever with her two young children, looking so haggard and bent with care that I scarcely recognized her. Her condition touched my heart. Leaning upon each other for support, we walked slowly to the sunny bower where three years earlier we had talked together. Mary had spoken blithely then of the king’s infatuation that had resulted in his naming a ship for her. How low she had fallen since. My sister was now a widow with fading looks, two children, and no prospects.

“I am desperate, Nan,” she confided tearfully. “I have no money; William left nothing but gambling debts.” She raised her great blue eyes to meet mine, pleading. “I have no way to pay them, save to pawn my few jewels. Unless you can help me,” she added, lowering her eyes once more.