Doomed Queen Anne (14 page)

“A fit wedding gift from a cardinal,” I whispered to my mother, who clucked disapproval of my mordant tongue.

MY FAMILY ROSE still higher in the ranks of the king’s court and exercised ever greater influence. In December the king awarded my father two more lofty titles, earl of Ormonde and earl of Wiltshire, and ordered a grand celebration in his honor.

“You will sit by my side at the banquet, sweetheart,” King Henry told me. “In the queen’s place.”

It would be the first time I was so honored in front of all the important nobility and their wives. I clapped my hands, as a child does, for pure delight, bringing an adoring smile to the king’s lips.

I was dressed in a splendid gown of black velvet, opening upon a petticoat of white satin, with diamonds set in hearts to wear in my hair—all a gift of the king for this occasion. The banquet itself was as splendid as a wedding feast, almost as splendid as mine would surely be. And sitting in the queen’s chair was just as thrilling as I had imagined, although my being there no doubt met with disapproval from some. I cared not a fig for their grumblings. I cared only that the king get on with the matter of arranging the
real
wedding. I felt I was still no closer to marriage to the king and coronation as queen, and everyone knew it. I chafed at the delays, but I could do nothing.

A few weeks later Queen Catherine returned to court and reclaimed her accustomed place beside the king. Any joy I’d had from the banquet completely faded. I knew that the king often dined privately with her as well. My patience was beginning to wear thin as tissue, and I feared that if the wedding didn’t happen soon, it might not happen at all. And I couldn’t bear to think of the consequences of
that
.

Fear made me short-tempered and sharp-tongued. “I see that some fine morning you will succumb to her reasoning and cast me off,” I railed at the king. “I have been waiting for a long time. By now I might have made a good marriage and had children. But, alas! Farewell to my time and my youth, wasted to no purpose at all!”

With these impassioned words, I burst into tears. The king seemed to understand that my nerves were to blame and sought to comfort me with sweet assurances.

SOON AFTER THE BANQUET my brother, George, now titled Viscount Rochford, was named a gentleman of the privy chamber. As I expected, George conveyed to me an endless stream of court gossip.

Some of George’s news was shocking, especially regarding the king’s bastard son, Henry Fitzroy, now ten years old. “He is said to be a bright young fellow. Certain of the nobility believe that the boy might be designated heir to the throne,” my brother reported. “Then, for good measure, married to Princess Mary.”

“Princess Mary is Fitzroy’s half-sister!” I exclaimed. “Certainly the pope would never permit such a union!”
But what if it’s true?
I thought;
what if the king is persuaded by such an appalling suggestion?

“I have another piece of information,” George said. “This has to do with the king’s sister, Mary Brandon. You insulted her, you know, at the banquet. She believes that she should have taken precedence over you and entered the hall before you.”

“What nonsense! Does she still fancy herself a queen?”

“She does. And she is also the duchess of Suffolk. In either case she outranks you, dear sister, and she resents the position the king has given you. She has persuaded her husband to oppose your marriage to King Henry.”

“Charles Brandon would not do that. He is the king’s friend.”

“True enough. But Brandon has been whispering in Henry’s ear that you are not a woman of the highest reputation. That you were once betrothed to Hal Percy and later in love with Thomas Wyatt, and that you gave yourself to both these men.”

“How dare Brandon say such a thing!” I exploded. “He has no knowledge of either matter. He says this simply to avenge his wife for some pretended slight!”

Nell returned with the tankards of ale I had sent her to fetch but stopped short at the sound of my angry voice. “Put them down and be gone!” I snapped. Nell did so, but not without a reproachful look.

Immediately I wished I could call my words back. I sincerely regretted that my impatience was taking its toll upon the worthy Nell, for I believed her more loyal to me than most of the ladies of the court.

MY RELATIONS WITH HENRY grew more and more difficult. Just days before the Yuletide festivities were to begin at Greenwich, I was on my way to the king’s chambers when I happened upon a servant carrying a bolt of very fine linen, of the kind the king ordered woven for his shirts. I questioned the girl and learned that she was taking the linen to the queen’s apartments. “For what purpose?” I asked.

“Her Majesty is to stitch His Majesty’s shirts, mistress.”

I was astonished. Why was the queen still performing such an intimate service for the king? A service that should have been mine? My astonishment turned to alarm that I was losing ground in my determination to become the king’s wife. My alarm gave way to anger so strong that I could scarcely draw a breath. In this state I rushed into the king’s chambers.

“Sir!” I cried. “What is this that I have now discovered—that the queen is your needlewoman?”

The gentlemen surrounding the king looked at me in bewildered surprise; with a gesture he dismissed them. I gave him no opportunity for reprimand but shrieked, “How could you do this to me?”

“This has nothing to do with you,” the king said brusquely. “The queen is pleased to serve me, and the shirts turn out to my satisfaction.”

“It has everything to do with your love for me—or lack of it!” I cried.

“Silence, madam!” roared the king. “I will have no more of your vituperation! Now be gone with you!”

Mutely I reverenced the king three times, the blood pounding in my ears, and ran out of the privy chamber. I knew that I had pushed him too far, but I also felt deeply humiliated. I vowed to teach the king a lesson.

I would arrange my own Yuletide festivities at York Place, once Wolsey s and now mine to use as I pleased. Let King Henry do without me! Let him sit at Greenwich Palace with his worn old wife by his side, good for nothing but sewing shirts, and contemplate settling into old age with the puny princess as his only heir!

There was a risk in such a challenge to the king, but I believed I had to take it.

Within two days all was in readiness. On the Feast of the Nativity, the Great Hall of York Place smelled sweetly of rosemary and other herbs; expensive beeswax candles burned in golden candlesticks. I wore a gown made of cloth of silver and furred with sable. A boar’s head with gilded tusks and dozens of other dishes were prepared for the banquet. Minstrels entertained us with their music for hours. But the Great Hall was half empty. I had invited the king and queen, as custom required; naturally, they declined. (If the king had any reaction to my plan, he didn’t let me hear of it.)

My parents were there, as were my uncle, the duke of Norfolk, and his family, of whom I was not overfond. George brought his peevish wife, Jane, and various members of her family, whom I liked even less. I also yielded to my mother’s entreaties and invited my sister, whom I had not seen in more than two years. Although I provided sums regularly for my nephew, Henry, who’d been made my ward, I had had almost nothing to do with Mary and her children.

And so I was appalled when Mary arrived in a threadbare gown, her children clothed in garments long outgrown and outworn, her few servants not properly liveried. I offered Mary one of my own gowns for the banquet, but she had grown ample about the waist and bosom and nothing could be found to fit her. In the end I loaned her a robe to cover her shabby gown and petticoat. The sadness in the eyes of her children prompted me to make her a large gift of money.

“You have risen so high,” my sister remarked, having thanked me as she accepted the gift. “Much higher than I did. But that means you have much farther to fall. Do not forget that, Nan.”

A WEEK PASSED, and I heard nothing from King Henry. I began to fear that I had gone too far. But at the New Year the king sent me a lavish gift, a velvet sack filled with gold pieces, accompanied by many loving words. From now on, he pledged, it was Catherine who would sit alone while I would have the pleasure of the king’s company

My strategy had proved successful, but my heart was not at ease. I was still not the king’s wife, and I was still not the queen. I had been at court for eight years; nearly four had passed since the king had begun to pay court to me, yet I was no closer to my dream. Every time it seemed within my grasp, Fate snatched it away. Often, as I tossed sleepless in my bed, my sister’s words haunted me:
You have risen so much higher than I…You have much farther to fall.

CHAPTER 12: The Death of an Enemy, 1530

Time was passing. How long could I keep the love of this hot-blooded man? In my growing fear and desperation, I began to make mistakes. Perhaps my first serious error was my insistence upon having the queen’s jewels.

King Henry sat at a table in his privy chamber at Greenwich, a large sheet of parchment spread out before him, a quill in his hand. He was engaged in designing a complete remaking of York Place. He didn’t look up when I spoke of the jewels. “What of them?” he murmured.

I opened the door of the golden cage holding a pair of linnets, and one of the songbirds hopped upon my finger. “The jewels are the property of the crown, are they not?” The linnet cocked her bright eye as I carried her nearer to the king’s table. “They do not belong to Catherine herself?”

He laid aside his pen and sprinkled sand on the wet ink. “You are right, madam,” he said, gazing at his work admiringly.

“I want them,” I said, my voice too shrill. “I deserve to have them.”

Now the king glanced up. A look of annoyance flickered in his blue eyes. “But sweetheart,” he coaxed, “you have many pretty jewels, have you not?”

“That is not the issue. Catherine has no right to those jewels. They should be worn by the woman who sits by your side, who walks by your side. In a fortnight begins the Lenten season,” I reminded the king, trying to keep my voice sweetly calm. “I should like to wear the queen’s jewels on the Great Vigil of Easter.”

I was sure that Catherine would not surrender them willingly, but I wanted to know if the king had the courage to stand up to her. Easter was two months away.

“And so you shall, dear lady,” murmured King Henry, his attention already back on his drawings. “In time, you shall have all. If you will just be patient a little longer—”

“A little longer,” I said bitterly. “For how much longer will you promise ‘a little longer’? Until I am dead and in my grave?”

And so it went. We argued often now, my frustration erupting in angry words. I sometimes threatened to leave him, he tried to placate me, and I grew even more distressed.

It was apparent that the king grievously missed his old friend and adviser Cardinal Wolsey. King Henry had replaced him as chancellor with Sir Thomas More, a renowned lawyer and brilliant scholar. More had already shown his untrustworthiness by not adding his signature to a letter to the pope urging the head of the church to nullify the king’s marriage.

“When will you stop listening to men who are so lacking in courage?” I cried when I learned of this. “I beg you, my lord, do something! Put the pope’s hat on your own head, make yourself the head of the Church in England, and do that which you know to be right!”

For a tense moment the king stared at me; I met his stare for as long as I dared. Then I dropped into a deep curtsy and withdrew, leaving him to ponder my bold words.

THE LENTEN SEASON passed, my ninth as a member of the English court. Although I knew that I must speak no more of it, I found ways to remind the king of his promise to give me the queen’s jewels. He ignored my hints. Easter arrived, but not the queen’s jewels, and I wept with frustration. However, I was heartened when King Henry at last banished Catherine to a dank and dismal manor house far off in Hertfordshire, hoping that her will would weaken there. I hoped that she would rot. He decreed that she be called “dowager queen,” a title that acknowledged her as Prince Arthur’s widow but not as the king’s former wife. Lady Mary, no longer titled princess, had been sent to the royal palace, Beaulieu, and then ignored, for the most part. Mother and daughter were forbidden to visit one another or even to send letters. But I was certain that those two would manage to find a means of ignoring the king’s command, and I knew that Catherine still had many supporters who would always insist that she was the queen.

Even though I now occupied the queen’s place, on summer progress and at feast days celebrated at Greenwich or one o£ the other great palaces, I was feeling increasingly desperate. In this troubled state of mind, I invited my brother to sup with me.

“I wish to recruit some spies,” I told him.

“Where, Nan?” he asked, spearing a chunk of venison with his knife. “To what end?”

“In the household of the dowager queen,” I said softly. “I need to know how much support the old queen really has—who her friends are, what they may be plotting. I particularly mistrust Emperor Charles’s new ambassador, a man named Chapuys.”

This was the kind of assignment my brother enjoyed. “A kitchen maid to observe the comings and goings of unusual visitors,” my brother said, thoughtfully counting on his fingers, “a maid of the chamber to overhear conversations, and a groom to whom the queen and her friends might entrust their secret messages. That can be arranged.” “Then please see to it,” I said.

I REMAINED UNEASY about Wolsey as well. Although he was no longer chancellor and stayed far to the north in York, several days’ journey from Greenwich, I would not feel safe from the cardinal’s manipulations until he lay moldering in his grave. But I knew that persuading King Henry of this would not be a simple task.

Then in mid-November my father paid a rare visit to my chambers. He wore a somber expression, and I sensed that something was wrong.

“I have learned that the cardinal has been working secretly with the pope,” my father informed me, “and also with Emperor Charles to go against your marriage. They have persuaded the pope to issue an edict ordering King Henry, under threat of excommunication, to leave you and to send you into banishment.”