Doomed Queen Anne (17 page)

ON THE COLD NIGHT of the twenty-fifth of January, the wind howled and moaned around the walls of Whitehall, rattling the windows of my chamber. Gowned in black silk and wrapped in the ermine-trimmed crimson mantle, I waited and paced fretfully.

Only loyal Nell waited with me. In another chamber of the palace my mother and father also waited, as did my brother. We had agreed that my sister-in-law, Jane, who was notoriously loose-tongued, would know nothing of this, nor would my sister, Mary.

This was hardly the kind of wedding I had dreamed of for so long, but secrecy was necessary if we were to outmaneuver the pope. Our friend, Thomas Cranmer, was soon to be named archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Clement. As archbishop, Cranmer would have the power to declare Henry’s marriage to Catherine invalid. But if the pope learned first of this secret ceremony, he would surely cancel Cranmer’s appointment, Henrys marriage to Catherine would stand, and the child I carried would be born illegitimate. Another bastard.

The door swung open, startling me even though I’d expected it. There stood King Henry, accompanied only by Will Brereton and a single manservant carrying a torch. The king leaned on a golden walking stick. He looked weary.

“Come,” said the king, reaching for my hand.

Wordlessly the king lead me through the dark passageways, lit only by the smoking torch. Along the way, Brereton paused at a door and knocked. My parents and brother emerged and joined our silent procession.

Climbing a narrow twisting stairway, we arrived in a chamber above the Holbein Gate. Tapestries had been hung over the windows; Will Brereton and George set about lighting the candles in two large gold candelabra on a long table. From the shadows stepped a man garbed in priest’s vestments; he was a stranger to me.

“I trust you have the pope’s license?” the priest asked King Henry.

“Do you think I would proceed if I did not?” the king demanded haughtily. “I did not think it necessary to show it, and there is not time now to return for it. Let us proceed.”

It was only a half-truth; the license the king had from Pope Clement would become valid only when the previous marriage was annulled. That had not yet happened. We were taking a great risk.

The priest looked to me for confirmation. “It is not for you to question the king,” I said.

“Begin the ceremony,” the king gruffly ordered the priest and again seized my hand.

Once we had exchanged our vows and the priest had pronounced the blessing, the candles were quickly extinguished, and we stole back to our separate apartments as silently as we had come. We wore no rings and agreed to tell no one what we had done. We parted without even a kiss. In this manner I became the wife of King Henry VIII.

At first it didn’t seem real. As the night wore on and dawn spread slowly across the sky, I lay in my cold bed with Nell asleep by my side and marveled at what had happened: I had gambled, and I had won. I was married to the king of England and pregnant with his child. My coronation as queen of England in a few months would be followed in due course by the birth of the king’s son, a future king. I had done it! I had done it all! A part of me wanted to fling open the windows and shout the glorious news for all the kingdom—no, all the
world
-—to hear:
I am the queen!

But I did no such thing, for a worm of doubt still burrowed deep in my heart and gnawed at my happiness. I reached over and shook Nell awake. “What is it, mistress?” she asked sleepily.

“There is still much that can go wrong, Nell,” I whispered urgently. “I have the king’s love. But can I win the people’s love as well? I carry the king’s child in my womb. But is it the son he wants and needs? Tell me what you think!”

“I know not the answers, mistress,” she murmured drowsily “Only God knows. You must have faith.”

“I cannot rest easy until I have achieved all!” I said, but Nell was already drifting off again, and I was alone.

CHAPTER 15: “The Most Happy”, 1533

The secret of my pregnancy proved difficult to keep, in part due to Henry himself His enthusiasm caused him to drop broad hints to his courtiers, calling attention to my swelling bosom and belly even before my condition might have become evident. Soon everyone was speculating.

“Cranmer has been consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, so the pope is no longer a threat,” I reminded Henry. “My lord, you must make public that I am now the queen.”

“In good time, sweetheart,” he said, “in good time.” And I had to be content with that.

Then Henry dispatched the dukes of Norfolk and of Suffolk (my uncle and Henry’s brother-in-law, Charles Brandon) to call upon Catherine in her remote manor house, informing her that King Henry was no longer her husband and she was no longer queen. I was present when the men returned with Catherine’s reply.

“I have no choice but to disobey my sage and holy husband,” she’d said. “I am still the queen. There is no other.” Then, the dukes reported, she’d shown them her servants’ new livery, embroidered with her initial entwined with the king’s.

My hatred of the old queen grew fiercer. Why would she not let go? “She does it for Lady Mary’s sake,” said the duchess of Norfolk, an explanation that infuriated me.

“Then I shall make a servant of Lady Mary,” I threatened, adding, “and I shall marry her to some varlet.”

I would have done so, had the king not always taken the part of his daughter. I understood well that Mary was a danger to my position, as well as to that of the child I carried, and would remain a danger for as long as she lived and could inherit the throne. Only now do I understand that my treatment of Mary was another serious error.

TOWARD THE END OF LENT, Henry drew me onto his knee and said, “The time is right. Beginning on Easter Eve, you shall be addressed as ‘Queen Anne.’“

Joyfully, I embraced the king, thanked him with kisses, and immediately began to plan my appearance at the festal Mass in the chapel royal.

On the Saturday night that ended Passiontide, trumpets blew a royal fanfare, and I made my entrance accompanied by a suite of sixty ladies who had suddenly declared themselves to be my supporters. I was garbed in a white gown with sleeves lined in crimson satin and a new mantle of cloth of gold. All the important nobles were present. The new archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, called for the worshipers to pray for “beloved Queen Anne,” and as I made my way down the aisle of the chapel, everyone bowed low. Whether they liked it or not, I was their queen.

Whitsunday, the seventh Sunday after Easter, was chosen as my coronation day. Seven weeks was not much time to prepare for an event of such importance. But there was good reason for haste; our child was expected in September, and for the infant’s sake as well as for mine, we could delay the arduous ceremonies no longer.

Yet there was so much to do: My coronation gown had to be fashioned to conceal my growing belly, my golden throne to be built and the cloth of estate designed to hang above it, my crown to be created by the royal goldsmiths and jewelers. Jousts had to be arranged, banquets planned, guests invited. All of this involved great expense, but many people balked at turning over the taxes needed to pay for such a large celebration; the king had to order them to do so. Resentment swelled among our subjects. I was determined to ignore the complainers and their complaints—another error.

I devised an emblem, a crowned white falcon on a bed of red and white roses, and chose a motto to be embroidered on my blue and purple livery:
La Plus Heureuse
—”The Most Happy.”

But the motto was a lie. I was far from happy. Once my marriage was made public, I was no longer simply Lady Anne, no longer the marchioness, and I could no longer be ignored. I was now the queen, the highest-ranking woman in the land. No one, save the king, was my equal. Every knee had to bend to me; everyone had to look up to me. At last I had achieved what I’d always wanted, but I was more alone and solitary than ever.

I could no longer even enjoy the attentions of the gentlemen of the court. There were scarcely any women with whom I might share a walk in the garden or a lighthearted conversation over a goblet of ale. Had it not been for the simple kindnesses of dear Nell, my maidservant, I would not have had the pleasure of any female discourse at all. So, although I had reached my goal of becoming queen, I recognized that I was losing the last of my support.

Even my family seemed to resent my new position. My father, required by royal custom to kneel in my presence, scarcely bothered to conceal his vexation. “Such ambition in a woman is unseemly,” said he, the most ambitious of men! My mother frowned and looked uncomfortable in my presence. My sister behaved correctly, kneeling at my feet as I had long ago told her she would do, but I could sense her jealousy seething beneath the surface:
I deserved this more than you.

Only George was unfailingly good-humored, immediately dropping to one knee whenever he visited my chambers, and my response to him was cheerful: I laughed, raised him up, and embraced him. I neither expected nor received any warmth from Lady Rochford.

Many in the kingdom remained stubbornly loyal to the old queen and to the former princess. At first, their feelings scarcely troubled me. Once I had provided them with the heir to the throne that they had longed for since the coronation of their young king, Henry VIII, nearly twenty-five years before, I would be welcomed into the hearts of even my most reluctant subjects.

Still, it was painful to learn that I was called the Great Whore by some of my enemies, a witch by others. Their slanders became louder and more vicious as coronation day drew closer.

“You must demand that these lies stop,” I insisted, weeping angry tears. Henry sent out orders forbidding anyone to speak ill of me and offered rewards to those who would come forward to denounce anyone who did. He commanded the clergy to pray for me by name, but many persisted in praying instead for Queen Catherine and Princess Mary. Nothing helped. The people hated me, and their ill will ate steadily at my soul.

JUST DAYS BEFORE my coronation, Archbishop Cranmer finally declared Henry’s marriage to Catherine null. An official decree declared Mary illegitimate and therefore unfit to inherit the throne. The last obstacle was gone. I was dizzy with relief.

Accompanied by my ladies of the court, I rode upriver from Greenwich to the Tower of London. The royal barge, painted in my colors of blue and purple and bearing my falcon emblem, was escorted by hundreds of small boats decorated with flowers and silk streamers and carrying musicians playing merry tunes. Cannons boomed a deafening welcome as I stepped ashore at Tower Wharf. Henry waited in my newly prepared chambers in the Tower. By tradition, the king would observe all of the coronation ceremonies in secret. I knew he hated that tradition—it was his nature to be at the center of everything.

Henry was occupied that night with a ceremony creating eighteen new Knights of the Bath, many of them my relatives. I tried to sleep, but in my sixth month the babe who leaped in my womb was as strong and restless as his father, and the calming potion that Nell brought me was of no help. As I lay awake in the sumptuous bed, I experienced again that fleeting shadow of doubt:
What if the babe is not a son, but a daughter?
I tried to drive off the qualm—
Nonsense
!
Of course it is a son!—
but the doubt would not leave me.

FOR YEARS I’D AWAITED this day. Under a perfect blue sky I climbed into my litter, furbished in white satin and cloth of gold; the two palfreys that bore the litter were trapped in white damask. I had chosen a gown of cloth of silver, the better to show off my dark hair, which fell almost to my waist, and my many jewels. The ladies who rode behind me wore crimson velvet. A canopy of cloth of gold held above me by my gentlemen ushers glinted in the sunshine.

Most of Henry’s courtiers joined the procession in a show of support for their monarch and his wife, but some did not—such as Thomas More, successor to Wolsey. More, who’d resigned his post as chancellor a year earlier, never tried to hide his disapproval of our marriage. Most of the planning for the coronation had rested in the hands of Thomas Cromwell, once Wolsey’s assistant, who had craftily worked his way into the inner circle of the king’s most trusted advisers.

At last, the procession moved forward.

It was my intention to wave and smile as I passed the crowds gathered along the way. But there were no cheers, no caps tossed into the air as my litter lurched through the narrow, rutted streets. The common people stared sullenly, like stupid sheep. Mostly there was silence.

Early that morning I had been visited by my chaplain, who advised me to pray to be a wise and good ruler, and I’d snapped at him, “Better to pray that my subjects show wisdom and goodness!” I couldn’t forget the mob that would have killed me on the night I managed to flee across the river. And I couldn’t ignore the painful insults shouted whenever I went abroad with the king: “No Nan Bullen for us! No Nan Bullen!”

“Your Majesty, you must turn the other cheek,” counseled the chaplain, “as the good Christian lady that you are. Find it in your heart to forgive those who sin against you.”

“Forgive them? Impossible!” I cried. “They are unworthy of forgiveness!”

“We are, all of us, unworthy of forgiveness, dear lady, and yet God forgives us.”

“Then let God forgive them, for I shall not.” I did not tell the priest that I was too deeply hurt to forgive them so easily.

ON THE FIRST DAY of June,
anno domini
1533, in Westminster Abbey I was crowned Queen Anne of England. What I thought would be the most triumphant day of my life turned out to be a day of misery.

I wore robes of purple velvet, furred with ermine; my long train was carried by my grandmother, dowager duchess of Norfolk. Dozens of churchmen and hundreds of noblemen and their wives participated in the ritual that lasted all morning. By the end

of the solemn High Mass, during which I prostrated myself before the altar and was anointed by Archbishop Cranmer, I was weary to the bone. But I still had to endure the slow procession through the sullen crowds. My head throbbed, my back ached from the jolting of the litter. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore my discomfort.