Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (5 page)

From those two things (and from fanciful
suggestions from George’s by-then-unhappy-and-embittered wife,
whose comments Henry had encouraged) Henry concocted his charge of
incest.

۞

I pause here at the thought. I feel outrage
strongly enough to kill. I whirl into a frenzy of anger while words
come to me, calming me, soothing me, attempting to reason with me
as I reel about in pain and affront.

I move ahead too quickly, I am told. Fury
keeps me picking at a sore I would be wiser to leave alone. There
is much time here to dwell on anger, but it serves no purpose. I
must stay with the task at hand.

“Calm yourself. Calm yourself . . . ”

In time I do, and I move forward.

۞

During the years we were growing up, Henry’s
brother Arthur took Katherine of Aragon as his bride. Arthur, a
weak sort, died soon afterward leaving a wife and a throne he had
not lived long enough to claim. His younger brother Henry laid
claim to both. That Henry should ascend the throne was never
questioned. That he should also claim a woman as part of the
inheritance was looked upon by some in askance.

When Henry was 14, his father made him
publicly declare the arrangement of his marriage to Katherine was
not of his choosing in order to shame the Spanish crown over some
passing political peevishness, but in fact, the marriage
was
of his choosing. On first sight Henry, at age 10, had wanted
Katherine and would stop at nothing to have her. From his
perspective, the death of his brother was a convenience that
confirmed what he knew to be true: God intended for her to be his
wife.

Others stated that God did not approve of
marriage to a brother’s spouse, but Henry was adamant and his
father certainly had no objection. Spain and England had both had
gone to some trouble to marry Katherine to the British crown. At
the same time, Spain’s queen, Isabella, was dying and anxious for
her daughter Katherine to be settled. Rome proved the hardest to
convince, but Henry pressured his father who manipulated the stakes
so that all involved would approve.

Katherine, who was never asked how she felt
about any of it, suffered through the haggling like a head of beef
at auction, then went to Henry, finally, as his wife. When his
father died and Henry took the throne, Katherine became a
queen.

Henry dearly loved Katherine, and was clearly
born to be king despite his position as second son and his early
expectation of entering the Church. My family talked of nothing but
Henry for months, even years, it seems. He was such a fine, strong
king and we were so proud to be his subjects. His well-known
feelings for Katherine fueled Mary’s and my adolescent fantasies
and yearnings for romantic love. To a young girl, he was the
perfect king and she, the perfect queen.

Katherine, the fairy tale princess from
Spain, intrigued me. For a time, I developed a preference for
anyone or anything of Spanish origin, fixing a mantilla upon my
head and posing before the looking glass, insinuating myself into
friendships with Spanish visitors, practicing Spanish dances on my
harp or lute. I referred to Katherine by her Spanish name,
“Catalina”, and reverently rolled the word over my tongue,
sometimes in a whisper to myself, like a love poem or a song.

I developed so strong a reversal of those
feelings, as years passed, that my distaste will transcend that
lifetime. I have grown to so thoroughly dislike the country and the
people and the language and the music and the history that the word
“Spanish” equates itself in my mind with “hellish”.

Had Katherine been Danish, I would have
detested the Danes.

Then, however, I was proud that my dark hair
and complexion were like that of my queen. Our great king had
chosen a dark bride rather than a golden one, and he adored her.
For the first time in my life, I was not ashamed to be dark and for
that, I fervently loved her.

Mary was frivolous with her intellect, as was
I, and liked to daydream, sketching landscapes from the window.
Developed early and eagerly interested in young men, she often sat
in a reverie of love toward one gentleman or another, and sometimes
spoke of being attracted to the King. Most young ladies were, when
Henry first entered his manhood. Mary talked of tossing him roses
and of having him bow to her from the jousting field like a
romantic figure from the days of the Crusades. Then she flitted on
to the next young man who caught her fancy and dreamed of him
instead. She planned for a handsome knight to fetch her away
someday, and worship and adore her. In the meantime, anyone of good
name would do, and in the absence of a young man of good name, a
masque or a festival would suffice.

Through the years, I would be her confidant
and her friend, applauding her for attentions paid by an eligible
suitor (or later, amorous kings) and wiping her tears when he would
disappoint her. I hid as much as I could all the details from
Mother, and Mary did the same for me. It was always best that
Mother know less rather than more, and she knew only as much as we
were jointly incapable of withholding from her.

At this I see Mother’s face, and even here I
stiffen from resentment and anxiety. The mother I reflect upon was
not soft. I always picture her in the dim light of the sitting room
in the evening, always in a restrained and muted glow, not in
sunlight or surrounded by garden flowers as some fondly recall
their mothers. I see her, handsome and slender, appearing taller
than she was, standing very straight and proper and inflexible,
issuing quiet orders that were to be obeyed promptly and without
question. I think of her and still feel I have to strive to be
better and am close to failure, for her requirements were high and
unforgiving.

Mother was a “presence” at Hever, which had
seemingly been built, not to be occupied, so much as to provide a
backdrop for her. Within it we were all merely satellites circling
her. This included my father whom one would have thought was the
more powerful figure of the two because of his gender and his
success at court. This was not the case. Mother had the better
bloodline and the sharper tongue. It was always Mother who had the
final say.

Father’s family was more recently come to
wealth and power so he was more conscious of them than Mother. She
assumed they were her due and never questioned it but ever felt she
was due more by right of superior birth and superior personal
attributes. Father, by contrast, knew they were things one fought
for with wit and energy. He enjoyed using them for the purpose of
being seen and acknowledged as someone of importance. Mother simply
knew
she was someone of importance. All who met her knew
this also.

Mother frightened me more than did Father. My
mood turned dark in the face of her disapproval, sometimes
spiraling into despair, whereas Father’s whip merely gave me pain
that passed within hours. I could always be certain why Father was
issuing a beating: my own behavior was the cause of it.

With Mother, my failures were less defined.
She had little patience with persons who fell short. One delivered
what she expected and no tolerant understanding would be
forthcoming if the end product was not as she had demanded. With
Mother, I had to guess, sometimes, what “falling short” entailed. I
too often discovered what it meant with unpleasant surprise.

She often seemed disapproving without saying
how or why I had failed her, so I tried to make her expectations
solid and substantial in order that I might understand and meet
them. I strove for perfect manners, and perfect curtseys, and
perfect gestures, and perfect accents, and perfect posture, and
perfect dance steps and perfect ways that things could be
done.
I wanted to please her so much that any small failing
caused me embarrassment as intense as death. There was a
hopelessness in that. She was looking for a perfect way for me to
be
and I was imperfect. Yet I remained possessed by the need
to make her proud of me. I turned my resentment in upon myself and
increased her disappointment in me by adding my own. My mother’s
expectations tainted the image I had of myself and I always fell
short. I always fell short.

Ironically, there was a tenderness to her
character that she did not ever show, and which I did not suspect.
She kept Rose and her idiot child, who contributed nothing in the
way of tangible servitude and often needed care themselves.

“They have nowhere else to go,” she would
coldly snap when asked. “I would not risk Hell by turning them out
to beg or starve.”

Her servants ate clean and wholesome food,
received the same medical treatment as the family, lived in
comfortable quarters and had no unreasonable tasks demanded of
them. They were given generous Christmas baskets, then were
secretly slipped pouches of coins when they came to Mother and
privately wept about ailing parents or a sickly brother. When
questioned about missing coins, Mother would face my father with
narrowed eyes and insist that he miscounted. It happened frequently
but he would not risk challenging her. It was only the servants
(and my father) who knew this side of her, for she hid her
compassion and publicly denied her charitable actions (if they were
uncovered) were anything more than irksome duty. It was Mother who
drew from the servants the passionate loyalty they felt toward all
of us. It is only now that I know this.

She also had a tenderness with regard to
marriage. It was she who allowed me to remain unwed for as long as
I did, searching for a man I could love. She had loved my father,
and had married beneath her to be with him. To my knowledge she did
not regret the decision even though it meant sacrificing some of
her own position and lowering the prospects for her children. They
would not force me into a loveless marriage as so many parents did,
she vowed, though not to me. Time passed and Mother made earnest
efforts to marry me off, but she heard my objections to her
choices, and left me unwed and unpressured. In the meantime she
simply spoke untruthfully about my age and waited, for she believed
in true love. I took my time in the search because I believed in
true love as well.

Their intention being to secure me a husband
of some small worthiness, although their expectations were grim
given my defects of appearance and my hand, my parents spared no
effort or expense toward my education and my acquisition of
“charm”. I had considerable charm to begin with, if one could call
a babbling tongue and a shameless desire for attention “charm”, so
they intended to enhance what they considered to be my only hope.
That “hope” included my being taught—and actually learning—what
not
to say, and when, and to whom. That most important
lesson went unlearned.

At age 11, I was sent to the Netherlands
where I became a ward of Margaret, Archduchess of Austria, and
where I was tutored beside the children of European royals. My
father had served the Archduchess in an official capacity as
diplomat, and through this had become friendly with her. In
appreciation, she extended him an invitation to send his daughter
to her. This unique opportunity was to have gone to the elder
child, Mary, but Father viewed me as the one in greater need of any
advantage. He also judged me to be the brighter of the two of us,
and therefore the one most apt to bring credit to the family name.
So he sent me, the second daughter, in her stead.

It was here that my musical training began,
in a place where the greatest musicians of the day were gathered.
Ah! The blessed chance that led me to that place! For two years I
resided among the angels, listening to music that these beings had
smuggled from heaven to earth and which transported me to a state
of shivering ecstasy. My fingers ached to reproduce it, and my
determination to be one of them was fixed for a lifetime.

Then, my father called me home because the
political situation had become uncertain, and because another
opportunity had presented itself.

It was the general wisdom of the time that
charm and manners should be acquired in France, at court. Our
opportunity came when Henry’s younger sister, Mary Tudor, was sent
to France to marry its king, Louis XII. My father was rising at
court, and had made himself useful to King Henry on several
occasions. His efforts and position entitled him to make
arrangements for my sister and me to go as part of Mary Tudor’s
entourage, and so we and a number of other young ladies of rank
sailed across the Channel with her.

The crossing proved dangerous. It was
ill-timed and the weather was fierce. The fear that we might sink
was very real, and that fate was only nearly missed. England’s
finest young ladies heaved and vomited and writhed in the most
exhausting distress. Prayers for death were spoken aloud, and
although mine were among them, I thought I must already have died
and gone to Hell and was suffering punishment for a grievous
sin.

The Princess was carried off the ship, for
she had no strength to walk. The rest of us straggled behind with
matted hair and soiled gowns, drifting like pale waifs onto dry
land, supporting each other and mutely following as we were
instructed, our stomach muscles still reflexing as if the firm dry
ground was pitching waves. We were days away from a state of
physical comfort. Some of us were years away from fear of travel by
sea. Most of us viewed France, the unwelcoming gray land beneath
the overcast winter sky, with distaste.

I, myself, cast one long, lonesome look back
across the Channel toward a home I had only barely touched again
after two years, and missed.

Mary Tudor’s wedded “bliss” (or rather lack,
thereof) was to last only a few months. The royal husband to whom
she had unwillingly gone was an old man who died conveniently soon
after the ceremony. Before going to him, she had bargained with
Henry, agreeing to marry only upon the condition that she be
allowed to choose her own husband after she was widowed which, she
hoped, would not take so very long. She already had a lover in
mind, a commoner, and she was determined to marry him. It was only
through this bargain that such a marriage was even remotely
feasible, scandalous as it was.