Mayflowers for November: The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn (31 page)

‘She talked with the groom of the stool about the death of the King. That’s treason,’ the woman said.

So she did, I had heard them. She was angry with Norris for deserting the Boleyns and heedless of the consequences of words she spoke in anger.

‘If she’s innocent, why would she speak about the King being wise and merciful and wish him long life when he has put her unjustly to death?’ the man asked.

‘Traitors at the block always speak so of the King and wish him long to reign. It’s good manners,’ his wife said.

‘She should know; she’s seen plenty of heads fall on to the straw since we wed. She never misses an execution, master ferryman, and on execution days I get cold fare for supper,’ the husband said.

‘There’s no harm in cold meats,’ his wife told him. ‘You’re none the worse for it. And as to the matter of traitors losing their heads, they’ve their families left behind to think of.’

‘That’s right,’ the lawyer said. ‘It wouldn’t do to anger the King. Let’s not forget that our King is God’s representative on this earth. Thus, to displease the King is to displease God. Also, Anne Boleyn had her daughter’s future to think of.’

‘She asked us to judge the best of her,’ I said. ‘Does this mean that those who would meddle in her affairs would find her innocent? Because if this is so, then Queen Anne has said that the law is at fault in finding her guilty.’

The lawyer nodded. ‘Take heed how she was at the end, smiling, and boldly going to her death, and thus she bespeaks her innocence.’

‘Now, if you want to meddle in the matters of a dead Queen, sire,’ Master Lydgate said, tapping his nose with his finger, ‘I’ve seen comings and goings on this river every day these three years and more. Give me times and dates and I’ll tell you the tides and who was where and when and with whom.’

‘God’s truth, but you speak like an almanac, master ferryman.’

‘I speak as I am, a river man, master lawyer, sire.’

‘I’ll give you names and dates,’ a gentleman’s voice declared and I turned to see George Constantine sitting behind me. I had not noticed him when I boarded the wherry. He looked so different from his usual self, so grim and sad.

‘These are sorry days,’ he said and reached forward to pat my hand.

‘Here are some dates for you master ferryman, for I was at the trials and heard all. On the sixth and twelfth of October 1533, the Queen was accused of adultery with my master, Sir William Norris, at Westminster.’

‘The King and Queen and all of the court was at Greenwich on that day,’ Master Lydgate announced.

‘The Queen was still in her chambers lying in after the birth of Princess Elizabeth, and not yet churched,’ I said, astonished.

‘Adultery with my friend, Sir William Brereton at Hampton Court Palace on the eighth of December 1533, master ferryman, what say you to this?’ Constantine asked.

‘The court was at Greenwich at that date also, sire,’ Master Lydgate said.

‘So the accusations be all lies,’ the young lawyer said. ‘As I told you.’

‘I had thought my good friend and my master to be innocent but when I heard Sir Henry confess at the block I thought he must indeed be guilty but if it be all lies told at the trials, I know not what to believe,’ Constantine said.

‘Aye, well, there is adultery in the thoughts and adultery in the deeds and perchance your Master Norris was confessing merely to being guilty of the former,’ the lawyer said.

‘Although none would call her pretty, Anne Boleyn knew how to seduce a man,’ the woman said.

Her husband sniggered. ‘Aye, that’s how she caught the King.’

‘Seduced by witchcraft, King Henry was,’ the woman said. ‘But he’s safe now because he’s drawn her blood. Blood has to be spilled to be freed from a witch’s spell. That’s why the King had her beheaded and not burned.’

‘Anne Boleyn has been very much esteemed by true friends of the Gospel in England, and across the water, for advocating the scriptures in the common tongue,’ Constantine told the lawyer.

‘I wonder if Jane Seymour and her ladies will sew as many shirts for the poor,’ I said.

‘Aye, I know about Anne Boleyn’s charitable works,’ Master Lydgate said. ‘I’ve heard of a poor man in Kent who found a golden sovereign sewn into the hem of a shirt Queen Anne had given to him. And now she’s dead, and only God and the Devil know whether she be in heaven or in hell.’

Chapter 36

Tuesday 1st November 1558

‘What do you write, mistress, that takes so much thought between each scratching of the quill upon the paper,’ White Boy asks.

I should tell him that it is none of his business, but I don’t.

‘I am writing to someone who was once a good friend to me.’

‘A good friend once but not now?’

‘We live in different worlds.’

‘You used to share the same world and were friends. What separated you?’

I imagine White Boy’s eyes damp with pity behind his clout.

‘What separated us? I suppose it was the death of Anne Boleyn.’

‘Who is this friend of yours? Is it the rat boy who disappeared from Greenwich? How will you know where to find him? Why do you laugh, mistress?’

I cannot stop myself and soon White Boy joins me and we are laughing together, he with his head flopped in his arms upon the board and me holding my big belly and rocking upon my stool.’

‘I have no idea why I am laughing,’ White Boy splutters.

‘Then you are a fool,’ my husband calls from the threshold while he pulls off his wet waterman’s boots. These days he returns early from his work and always peeks his head around the door with an expression of excitement mingled with fear.

‘I am fine. Just as I was when you left this morning,’ I say in answer to his questioning look. ‘White Boy thinks that I am writing to Thomas the rat boy,’ I say.

My husband smiles. ‘Not much need for that.’

He throws his wet stockings playfully on to my lap. ‘Who’s going to wash these while you’re lying in?’

‘Aunt Bess, of course. Who else?’

He picks up my letter, reads a line or two and frowns. ‘Why write this now? It is too soon; Queen Mary is not yet ...’

He thinks better of what he is about to say, even in the privacy of our home. ‘Elizabeth has not yet come to London.’

‘It is merely something that I have pledged myself to do before the child is born. Afterwards, I may be too busy.’

Except for the bubbling of the cooking pot the house falls silent.

Afterwards, I may be dead. It is a fact. Some women do not survive childbirth and I am older than most and more vulnerable. Two of King Henry’s wives died after giving birth: young Jane Seymour and, later, after the King’s death, Katherine Parr when she had married again, for love.

We eat our supper. Afterwards, while White Boy scours the pots, I ask my husband to read my letter. It is the first I have ever written.

To Mistress Blanche Ap Harry, Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Elizabeth.

Remembering your kyndness to me at my time of great sorrow when I was but a girl I thought that you would not think it amiss that I should, after all these years, presume again upon your kyndness and write to you.

You will be surprised that a maid of my poor degree has learned to read and to write. Since my marriage, more than two score years ago, my husband has instructed me daily and these few words are sent to you by my own hand, which, I think, will very much surprise you.

There is a matter concerning a promise I made to the late Queen Anne Boleyn that I would disclose to you. Knowing that you have stayed in the service of her daughter since she was in her cradle, and knowing the great love you always professed for her, I thought you would know best whether Princess Elizabeth would desire to have a keepsake from her mother, wrought with her own hands, and also a miniature portrait by Master Hans Holbein which I have kept secretly until it be safe to discharge my duty.

Any word from you after all these years would be very welcome to someone who has loved you as a sister and remembers you with fondness.

Written upon this day, 1st November, 1588, knowing that I am shortly to go into confinement for the birth of my first child.

Your loving friend, Avis

‘It is a written in a fair hand, and states the matter clearly,’ my husband says. ‘I find no fault in it at all, so it be a pity that you must write it out again,’

‘Why so?’

‘You must leave a space before Elizabeth’s name to insert her title. When the time is right to send the letter she will be our queen.’

He is quiet while we eat our supper; a mutton pottage with barley, his favourite, although today he does not say so as he usually does.

‘We must talk alone, tonight,’ he whispers to me. ‘White Boy shall play and sing for Widow Purvis awhile.’

He lights the lantern and taking White Boy by the arm ushers him away across the lane. We sit on the settle before the fire, sipping small ale and saying nothing. My lips are tight. If he has list to talk let him be the first to speak. Finally, he begins:

‘What do the goodwives say?’

‘Women’s talk of puddings and …’

‘What do they say of me,’ he interrupts, impatient. ‘Don’t look away like that, tell me what they say.’

I shake my head.

‘What do they say, Avis?’ he asks, taking my hand. I snatch it away and rise from my

seat.

‘I am tired and need my bed.’

He grabs my hand, this time with more force and pulls me back on to the settle.

‘Tell me what they say.’

‘Why do you ask? You know what they say. They see you going across the river. They see that you don’t return until the following day. They talk of what you seek at Southwark.’

‘And what do I seek at Southwark? Tell me my wife, what do you believe my business to be across the water?’

‘Your business is your own affair. You have been very clear to tell me so all these years.’

‘Our neighbours tell you to your face that I go to the stews. This is so, is it not?’

‘No, they talk of it behind my back, but close, so that I shall hear.’

‘And you believe them?’

‘Should I?’

He sighs. ‘I thought I had your trust. Did you think that I would leave my marriage bed for a filthy whore? Avis, how could you?’

The very air inside the chamber is dead as stone.

‘What am I supposed to think when I wait in vain for you to come home to your family at night and go to our bed alone. King Henry and his gentlemen deserted their pregnant wives for …’

‘You are not at court now and I am no gentleman.’

‘No indeed, you are a waterman and must have your secret business.’

‘I want everything to be right between us when the child is born,’ he says quietly after many minutes. ‘Let us put this matter straight, about my night-time journeys. I have not told you what I do because should you be questioned it is better that you know nothing.’

I go to the cupboard bring a new cheese to the table. I cut a slice and take it to him on a platter with oatcakes I made from mother’s recipe.

‘The cheese is good,’ he says, ‘well worth what I paid for it. I have been sneaking our old priest across the river to see his wife,’ he says in the same breath. ‘He is miserable without her and she without him.’

The relief is so great I cannot disguise my joy.

‘Let the goodwives say what they will. I care little for their gossip so long as it is untrue,’ I say.

‘I thought you would have had more faith in me,’ he accuses.

I should apologise for doubting him, I know I should, but I don’t. I have been miserable too many months and I tell him that it is his secrecy that has made me so.

‘The priest’s wife has been more miserable, I think,’ he says harshly. ‘When Mary became Queen, and the priest became Catholic and abandoned his wife, he sent me weekly to her with a purse of money to pay for her lodgings, victuals, and clothes. Soon, she waxed lonely and sad and begged me to bring him to her once or twice. And thus it has been ever since, these night-time journeys across the river twice or more a week with the priest hidden under a heavy cloak. The more he visits her the more sorrowful she becomes when it is time to for him to leave and she clings to him weeping. She could not shed more tears even if he were lying before her in his coffin. I have told her that I will bring him no more until after the birth of our child, when you are up and about. They both hope that when Elizabeth is Queen she will bring back the new religion and they will be allowed to live as man and wife as they did in the boy Edward’s reign.’

I tell him that he is a good man and brave and I am glad that all is right between us but he frowns and turns away.

‘No, my wife, it is not right between us and cannot be until you hear my confession.’

All the joy goes out of me. He looks towards me mournful and guilty and I tell him I have no list to hear what he has to say. If he is going to tell me that he has been in another woman’s bed, I will never forgive him, never.

‘I am not King Henry and you are not Anne Boleyn. Why do you think of mistresses?’ He takes a deep breath. ‘It is of the death of your father that I speak. I was there, at Windsor Castle. I should have stopped them.’ The words tumble out of him and fall before me in a heap, like rubble.

‘Who? Stopped who?’

‘Those knaves who were paid to push him into the oven with the burning faggots, I should have stopped them,’ he says.

I am shaking. I tell him I don’t understand. Is he telling me that he could have saved Father? That he knew what was going to happen? I am pummelling his chest with my fists while he is wrapping a blanket around me, telling me to be calm for the child’s sake.

Later, when I am sipping warmed wine and the ague has passed he tells me that he must confess his secrets to me. The priest has told him so. He will have no peace until he does.

‘Let the past be what it be and lie at rest,’ I say. ‘You have made your confession to the priest and to God and have your absolution. Let secrets stay hidden.’

Death by burning is a terrible thing. How can I forgive my husband if he knew what my father’s murderers were about and did nothing?

‘White Boy has asked me many times to tell my tale so now you will have it.’

‘Let White Boy listen, too, and play his harp to calm me.’

‘So be it,’ he says and takes the lantern to light our servant home. The candle is almost burned out when my husband returns with White Boy.

‘Widow Purvis would not let me go until I played her favourite music a third time,’ White Boy says with pride.

‘Did she offer you a farthing for your night’s work?’ my husband asks sharply.

‘Yes, master, she did, so I shall forget to ask for her payment when I take her bread on the morrow. Here, take it master.’

‘Nay, keep it, you earned it,’ my husband says.

‘The master is going to tell his tale tonight,’ I say.

I light a new candle with the old. White Boy plays and my husband begins his story.