Read The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn Online
Authors: Robin Maxwell
The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn (22 page)
She closed the trunk with a thud, again sending dust into its swirling sunlit dance, and pulled the lid off one of the wooden crates. Books. They were Anne’s books. These things Elizabeth knew were most precious, for they had formed the substance of Anne’s intelligence and beliefs. The Queen took one in her hands and read the gold lettering on the leather cover. “The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting.” There were Chaucer’s well-worn “Canterbury Tales,” several romances, several books of French verse. Here was a great volume of drawings of all England’s flowers and trees and one of medicinal plants and their uses. Then she found a book, the wine-colored leather thin, the binding torn, which bore the title “Obedience of a Christian Man.” Tyndale’s work. The one her mother had given her father so Henry might read and educate himself about the New Religion. Carefully Elizabeth opened the book and turned its pages as she imagined both her mother and father had done. She stopped, riveted to a nearly invisible line of indentation which ran down the side of a long passage on page seventy-one. It spoke of a King’s duty to see to the souls of his subjects. It was the passage Anne had marked with her fingernail for Henry’s perusal.
The New Religion. How many had died, Elizabeth wondered, for the right to believe that a man could speak to God directly, and chose reason over faith? If the Reformation had been a road, it would have begun at the city gates of Luther’s Wittenberg and stretched across the Continent, winding its way from Germany into every city and village and burgh. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, like great generals, had led armies of the converted down this road littered with the martyred dead to a revolution that had changed forever the history of the world.
And in England, mused Elizabeth, running her finger down the indented passage of Tyndale’s book, a young woman born a commoner’s daughter had, to the dismay of the faithful, led her staunchly Catholic king away from Rome to religious independence. To be sure, England’s road had been a winding and rutted path. Henry, once the Pope’s most cherished sovereign, was far from a zealous reformer. Indeed, until his death he remained a faithful Catholic in every way but one — his lack of belief in the supremacy of the Pope. Had it not been for the blind passion he’d held for her mother, thought Elizabeth, and the political necessity of the male heir she had promised him, England might yet be squeezed within the steely grip of Papal authority.
Her father’s infamous conscience, renowned for its insistence that marriage to one’s brother’s widow was a blasphemy in God’s eyes, had not extended to championing the right of an Englishman to read the scriptures in his own language. Though Henry had himself read Tyndale’s works, he had heartily condemned that priest’s translation of the Bible into English. Elizabeth remembered her tutor telling of how Henry had named Tyndale a felon for merely attempting to have his Bible printed in England, and how the royal agents had persisted in hounding and stalking him as he fled to Europe to find a printer there. Finally in the very year Henry stood before the Canterbury Convocation and named himself Supreme Head of the Church in England, prompting his excommunication, he had ordered Tyndale’s execution as a heretic. The man who had once said to a Catholic friend, “If God spare me, ere many years I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scripture than you do,” was publicly strangled and burned at the stake crying, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes!”
When her father died clutching the hand of his friend Thomas Cranmer, Elizabeth’s half brother the boy King Edward VI had taken the throne and led England into its first engagement with fanatical and persecutive Protestantism. But Elizabeth knew that Edward’s minions had stripped the churches less to be rid of their sacred Catholic icons than to pillage them for their gold and silver altar plate and enrich his depleted royal treasury.
Later in her sister Mary’s reign, the religious counterrevolution had been nothing short of nightmarish. Ties with Rome restored and the Reformation driven underground, Protestant heretics had died by the thousand, including Thomas Cranmer. Even Elizabeth herself had barely survived those years. Forced to take the mass to pretend her belief, she had prayed daily to Jesus for the strength to go on and one day return the nation to its true destiny. And once enthroned, Elizabeth had accomplished her goal without further bloodshed.
But religion was nevertheless a confusing affair, thought Elizabeth, turning over the pages of Tyndale’s “Folly.” Even she, with her moderate and lenient views, believed vehemently that priests should remain celibate. How could they attend carefully and uncor-ruptedly to God’s work with women in their beds and children to be raised? And her dramatic nature, she had to admit, yearned for the high ritual, soaring music, and rich vestments of the old faith. It was an issue, Elizabeth finally concluded as she shut the book and tucked it into the folds of her skirt, that was as deep and complicated as the landscape of one’s own soul, an issue that would live and change for as long as she reigned and far into the future of England. But it gave her great pleasure and a measure of amusement that the momentous upheaval of church and state, if not originating with Anne and Henry, had indeed taken its greatest turnings around her parents.
Elizabeth closed the wooden crate, shut the mullioned window, and with a satisfied smile left the room of her mother’s memories until she should return of another day.
15 August 1531
Diary,
They call me arrogant and cunning. But tell me, what woman lives and breathes who could resist a certain arrogance when, on behalf of her, the very King of England banished from the Court his own wife and Queen? Thank Jesus, this has finally come to pass. In every one of Henrys palaces Lady Anne Rochford now inhabits those apartments that were once Katherine’s. How lovely not to feel her icy stares, see that dour and humorless expression, endure on every feast day her stately public presence, pious air. The King is much relieved, for Katherine is fallen from the throne and yet we have heard from Rome of no castigation nor excommunication.
Princess Mary is also driven from Court, Henry forcing her permanent separation from her mother which I thought excessive, even cruel. But Henry says, and rightly so, that both together they are strong and could foment a plot, perhaps an uprising against ourselves.
And what woman with no cunning in her soul would find her self presiding with the King and the Ambassador of France at the banquet high table looking down upon her own Father and the Dukes of Norfolk and of Suffolk, and center of negotiations for her hand in marriage. I suppose I am cunning. But I did not seek this strange and dangerous path. I was just a simple girl who loved a simple boy. But with that love rent from my heart, and Henry’s thrust upon me I do admit I changed, hardened, gathered enemies and learned a form of courtly warfare where a less hardy soul would soon fall gravely wounded and die.
Not I. No, not I. This pitched battle for England’s crown, once joined, has a single resolution. I will be Queen. Those who struggle by my side will be handsomely rewarded. Those who oppose me will wish they had not done so.
These days the King is like some great bull who sees a lush pasture far afield and trampling opposition underfoot, hies thereto despite all deadly obstacles. Deep felt love for Henry sadly still eludes me, tho my prayers for that love are never ending. But I believe that something close akin to it is forming in my breast.
I would be a cold wanton if I were never moved by such devotion. I think that I shall love him soon.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
29 September 1531
O Diary!
That I write to you at all, this or any other day again, comes of good luck and the loyalty of one kitchen server name of Margaret. Abroad after visiting her sick brother south of London, she made for my Fathers river house Durham, through the streets where she found gathered unnatural groups of common people congregating all together. With loud and angry cries against
my name
they called forth from homes and rude hovels all women who hated me and loved the Queen. Hundreds, nay thousands seemed to join together, picking up their brooms and knives, clubs and sticks to stab the air as tho it were my breast or head. “No Nan Bullen. Kill the goggle eyed whore,” they shouted.
My servant said she trembled fearfully, was even made to swear against me, lest she lose her life. As she made her way to home, the mob — for that was what it had become — swelled not just with women but with men disguised in women’s clothing, also armed with murderous weapons. And this mob began to shout my whereabouts at Durham House.
Margaret wished to run here with news but feared her actions most suspicious to the angry crowd, and so was forced to find her careful way thro streets now surging with the murderous throng, ahead of them to my Father’s house.
The day was warm and I was with my Mother in my bedchamber being fitted by our silk women for several gowns for Court. Father was away in France and Henry, on the hunt, was also far away when Margaret, red and sweating, panting like a hound burst thro the door spitting out the news.
“Begging your pardon Lady Rochford, but a great mob is on the way and they mean to do you harm!”
My Mother’s eyes met mine. “Go!” she said to the silk women, and to Margaret, “Tell the other servants to quickly drop all work and take their leave. All but Master Richardson. Tell him meet us at the river door.”
I’m shamed to say that I was at first paralyzed with fear and I had only presence of mind enough to grab this diary and hide it neath my skirts ‘fore my Mother’s sure hand guided me down stairs and to our steward’s helpful care. Richardson was strong and calm and with a haste I hardly fathomed, hurried us cross the broad lawn where a poor boat was floating at the dock. Then I heard a sound which came upon the wind. A sound I knew, yet could not place. I stopped to listen, my feet rooted in the warm grass and tried remembering.
My Mother called, “Anne, come quickly!” I knew the sound then — a low roar growing louder. The roar was voices, many voices, and their shouts were murderous voices in my name, clattering weapons, heavy marching bootsteps coming closer, closer …
Richardson grabbed my arm and pulled me to the boat where my Mother’s terrified eyes greeted her pathetic daughter. As we rowed away we heard glass shatter, dull clubs beat on stone, saw the hateful mob storm my Father’s house, horrible strangers pour from our back doors onto the river lawn. Wretched women ran to meet the shore, all their angry faces, upturned brooms and staves, screaming curses that the boat should sink and shrieking hopes that I might die.
I am lodged now in Greenwich and write with trembling hand by candlelight. I am not a perfect soul but I swear I do not warrant such venom. I pray God loves me and sees my goodness.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
14 May 1532
Diary,
A great war pitting Henry and Cromwell gainst the English clergy and Thomas More has been joined and won. Henry had taken issue with the Church’s loyalty to Rome which stood before their loyalty to England and the Crown. Within that thinking the Pope was their true King and Henry but a pawn. The Bishops Tunstall and Fisher defended most staunchly these ancient edicts and this enraged Henry. Tho he worried that his subjects held the Church laws sacred, and feared for those laws’ banishment as in the days of Thomas Becket, Henry and Cromwell lately went to Parliament with this case and the lords of that body supported their cause. Parliament’s “Supplication Against the Ordinaries” took exception to Rome’s ecclesiastic courts and canon laws which, writ in Latin, imposed upon the English harsh measures, all without their consent.
Under canon decree a man tried for heresy, a crime punishable by death, may have brought as witnesses against him vile and dishonest men who may wish him harm, whereas in our English Common courts, witnesses must prove their own honesty and good intentions ‘fore they speak against the accused. Henry’s own Chancellor More, as staunch a Catholic as lives, supported these most unfair prescriptions in his writings with the assertion that heresy is so evil a crime that no law could be too harsh if it succeeds in its purge of heretics — for souls are far more important than civil law.
In deed, More seemed to be provoking something more than opposition to Henry’s moves against the Church, but to the King’s divorce as well. Did he not know or care that Henry’s wrath is death?
Cromwell and Henry laid siege to the spineless clergy with bullying and threats and they, weak and frightened for their properties, and unwilling to stand as martyrs, surrendered to the King’s will once more. A document named “Submission of the Clergy” was offered up to Henry’s eager hands by England’s cowardly prelates. It effects great change within the Church, conceding to the Crown their ancient liberties and their authority. No laws henceforth can ever be made without royal consent, and even Convocation shall never meet without the Kings permission.
‘Twas a great day for Henry and for Cromwell and, too, my self for in so stripping Rome’s Church of its power, this brings Henry closer to divorce, and my self unto the throne. Chancellor More, soundly vanquished, did on the day following the Submission of the Clergy, in the garden of York Place, yield up to Henry the Great Seal to tender resignation, and retire from his public office. And Henry, now full master of his Kingdom and the Church, accepted it.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
20 August 1532
Diary,
Could any woman boast more or bitterer enemies than do I? Common, noble, men, women, young, old, clergy, even children. As I rode out with Henry one day last week a boy, not fully ten, did run across our horses’ path hurling insults at the “King’s whore” and disappeared twixt high grown fields. Henry made to have the ragamuffin captured, punished, but I asked leniency for him. Too young to know the import of his words or their result, said Henry, he will grow into a man who’ll hate me when I’m Queen. But on my wish he let the child go.
More disturbing is the Duchess of Suffolk, Henry’s sister, who doubtless does remember me a mere child, her waiting lady’s Sister when she journeyed to France to marry old King Louis many years ago. Now her brother wants to wed me, raise me far above her, making me
her
Queen. She snubs me openly, her venal and barefaced insults made of little more than jealousy. She was Queen of France for three short months, then in secret married Henry’s best friend Charles Brandon for love. Now the love’s gone sour. He treats her with brutality, contempt. She is his property.
But my Aunt, the ill tempered Lady Norfolk, lately showed a most outrageous hatefulness to me, taking much offense at my raising in position. True, the pedigree that Henry had commissioned for the Boleyn lineage is clearly false. This ornately gilt and richly painted family tree is rooted all in lies. My earliest forebear was one Geoffrey Boleyn, a wool merchant first known on English soil a hundred years ago — not as Henrys heralds writ, some venerable Norman lord come to England five hundred years before. But despite my warnings and my pleas, knowing this invention would incense nobility whose pedigrees were truly pure, Henry insisted on this deceit and thus displayed the proud and painted document within the halls of Court. Most ladies whispered, keeping their cruel jests at my expense behind their fluttering fans. Not so the Duchess Norfolk. She marched grandly in, looked upon the document, took it up within her hands and rent the thing in two!
No wonder that Henrys health does poorly. He’s turned forty now and the years show upon his face and form, both of which are grown substantially in bulk. His face, no longer boyish, is a careworn mask of misery. A great pustulant ulcer on his thigh causes more pain than a man should bear. His head aches constantly. He hardly rides at all.
I have tried to minister to Henry. Gone to see apothecaries, even women known as witches for the cures for all his ills. One potion of calendula and slippery elm made some fair improvement on his festering leg for several days, but soon it stank with poisoned blood and pus again. When he moans with head ache I take his head between my hands and knead the temples, smooth the furrowed brow. He whispers piteously, “Ah, Nan, your cool fingers, cool hands.” In these times when he is my prisoner, I do feel affection for the man. If truth be told I fear Henry too much to love him truly, love him in my heart as I once loved sweet Percy. To hear me lash the King with my sword tongue you would never know I quake at his approach. For I know his capabilities, the inner fire that goes to madness. In his soul I see a battleground, frightened demons in his head who rage perpetually gainst the angels of intelligence, of reason and of poetry. Only Wolsey knew this much about the King … and he is dead.
All others see him as he bids them do, most magnificent in deep slashed doublet, wide shouldered crimson silks and satins, furs and gilt, a great God Poseidon, earth shaker, storm bringer. He means for all to fear him thus, and when they do he then despises them. I fear the mad King but must transpose the fear to taunting laughter, harsh words to match his own. He does not see my great performance, thinks that save for royal blood I am his equal. Perhaps ‘tis only equal in the way the hart is equal to the one pursuing it, with horse and hound until the hart’s own death. But this equality I know to be the reason he does love me. Why he’ll move the Seven Hills of Rome to make me Queen.
Yours faithfully,
Anne