Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (9 page)

It was a game. I was compulsively
flirtatious, another legacy from Egypt, and often toyed with men in
that way (while keeping them always at arm’s length). I did not
really want Henry at that time; I simply wanted him to notice me.
Having succeeded, I was ready to return to my comfortable obscurity
and occasionally flirt with him when the situation presented
itself. I had no desire to bed him, for I was promised to Hal
Percy. This infatuation for Henry was a totally separate thing from
the love I felt for Hal, and was being played out in my imagination
rather than in my heart. I did not know there was a deep well of
real love beneath the surface. I was merely giving a gift to a
dark, plain young girl who once parted her lips in awe over a
glance from a handsome man. That is how I saw it.

That is not how Henry saw it.

Eyes followed his, always, and rested upon
me. Within minutes, everyone knew whom the King now viewed with
interest and, even then, tongues began to wag. The speculation
would die down when nothing came of it, and I would think my life
could go on as I had planned, but Henry would not forget me. It
would just be some while before he would take action. He would
spend the ensuing months watching me, thoroughly assessing the
situation, and putting all the pieces into place while I
unwittingly prepared for my life with Hal.

The first indication that a harmless
flirtation had proven harmful occurred when Hal Percy asked for
permission to marry me and Cardinal Wolsey refused him following
instructions from the King. The reason given was that a woman of my
lower status was not suitable for a man of Hal’s position. There
was also the matter of a marriage arranged for him when Hal was a
child, and this marriage was now to be forced upon him, much
against his will and most bitterly against mine. No worse
misfortune could have befallen us. We were wondrously paired, and
should have lived a long and contented life together. We both
grieved, as we had chosen each other for love.

I blamed Henry for this, and resented him
deeply. I grew silent and melancholy. I slept and cried and stared
at the ceiling. I withdrew for many months to home at Hever, and
stayed there nursing my spirit and my grudge until my mother
prodded me back to court. She was alarmed by the length of time I
could maintain that level of despondency, and was anxious over the
time I was wasting.

During my absence from court, the King began
appearing at our door for this or that—some minor business or
another—and would request that Mistress Anne be present. It grew
quickly into a situation of unmanageable difficulty for me. At
first merely stubborn and angry over my broken marriage plans, I
eventually found my emotions complicated by our growing
familiarity. I found myself fighting with my conscience as I grew
ever more flattered, then interested in Henry’s appearances, and
ever more interested in charming him. My love for Hal forbidden, I
found I had an outlet for it elsewhere, in Henry. There were fewer
and fewer days when I thought of nothing but Hal and my grief.
There were more and more when I knew exactly how long it had been
since the King had last visited, and when he was likely to come
again.

I am stubborn though, as I said, and feared
God and Katherine as much as I loved Henry. I also knew the pain it
would cause my sister, whose heart Henry had broken when he had
fancied then discarded her. He had also (unproven rumor had it)
“fancied” and discarded my mother once, before turning with
interest toward me. Part of me found his attentions to be insulting
and frivolous, and I snapped (out of his hearing) that I feared
with his insatiable appetite for Boleyns, he would next take an
interest in my brother George when he had tired of me, or else one
of the sheep in the Boleyn pastures.

I would not, I said in private to Emma, be
chosen only two pegs above mutton.

“Then, by my troth, if thou dost insist upon
declining him, we must hide George and ready a sheep!” Emma had
replied with mock urgency. “After he satisfies one appetite, we can
roast the little darling to satisfy another, and so please him
twice yet still spare thee.”

Another part of me wanted him, but this I did
not confess to anyone. I perhaps might not have been so adamant
about denying him otherwise. In the act of turning him away, I saw
myself as fighting demons in both my spirit and my heart, and I
drew upon my usual forceful will to do it. Had I not felt so
deeply, I might have gone to him with a shrug.

From a personal standpoint, I was reluctant
to embark on a relationship with Henry because I had a deep fear of
losing myself in him, as I had lost myself in Hal. I was familiar
with his tactics, and could look forward to his pushing my infant
and me away, as he had done with Mary, or pushing me onto someone
who owed him a favor, as he had done with Bessie Blount. He was
looking for a new wife, it was rumored, but I had no illusions that
he would find one in me. I was too proud to bed him with those
expectations, and still too angry about Hal whom I had, since our
handfasting ceremony, viewed as my husband.

I was too afraid of what Henry would do to my
heart. I had now experienced a broken heart and was not strong
enough to suffer another.

There were also the moments—these came with
frequency—when I would think of him as king and feel as if I had
climbed to a great height. The view of the ground from this crest
left me frozen with terror. I suffered just that feeling in my
stomach, when I thought of Henry as more king than man. Once he
knew me, he would uncover my unworthiness and spurn me, because all
that attracted him was on the surface, I believed. I could combat
my discomfort and fears of disappointing him only by tormenting him
with mild tauntings to keep him at bay, and to make him more man
than king.

Back in court, I wanted Katherine to know my
loyalty was with her. I made great show of this, and I was sincere.
She has never thanked me.

I turned Henry away, tactfully but firmly,
again and again for all these reasons.

For doing this, I was called a “whore”. I
could not please them. They would have me be a whore no matter what
I did or did not do, simply because Henry loved me. Had I lain with
him the first night and been discarded in the morning, they would
have not have objected to me at all and oddly, would not have used
the word “whore”. The court was roundly promiscuous and my behavior
would not have been questioned, for their own behavior was far, far
worse. I had never heard the word used for Bessie Blount, his
longtime mistress. It was rare to hear the word used with any of
his lovers (although Henry had used the word with Mary, to my anger
and indignation). To be selected by Henry was an honor, and was
treated as one. Others had never prompted these furious protests as
I did, when the issue was love and not purely sex. The more I tried
to prove my modesty, the faster came the judgments.

My refusal to bed Henry, who had never before
been refused, prompted accusations of manipulation. I was
withholding my favors until his desire reached the point where I
had him enslaved. “They” knew this with absolute certainty.

I did not want a slave, and it still
infuriates me, for I was not manipulative! That was Katherine’s
forte, not mine. I was too honest. These were accusations based on
jealousy, or prompted by anger over loss of favor. Many personal
ambitions were tied to the crown of Queen Katherine, and Henry’s
love for me threatened them.

People also project onto other people what
they themselves feel in similar circumstances. I was surrounded by
grasping, ambitious rabble who presumed I was of their ilk. What
you hear of me is more a reflection of the speaker than the woman
spoken of, especially with regard to my motives. No one can speak
for another’s heart. Certainly no one ever spoke with accuracy for
mine!

Who could have predicted what would happen?
Surely not I. I merely wanted Henry to leave me in peace! Could no
one see? Even history has failed to recognize my impossible
situation. Even after I had recovered from the loss of a marriage
that would not only have been advantageous, but to a man I deeply
loved, after my dear Hal married someone else, I still had to deal
with the issues of duty and responsibility. I would not hurt or
betray people I loved by becoming King Henry’s mistress, though he
repeatedly begged. I would not disappoint God and lose my tattered
immortal soul by encouraging the interest of a married man.

For months, years, I did everything I could
to dissuade him, finally even saying we would have to marry before
he could have me. Exasperation prompted that demand for marriage,
and I was not sincere. How could he have taken me seriously?
Who—with sense—would make that demand of a
married king
?
Even a king rumored to be looking for a new wife. What
insignificant lady of the court would seriously demand that a
married king discard his queen for her, except as an act of
desperation concocted by a pair of giddy women amid shrieks of
laughter? A marriage of my own choice was my aim. It was not a
decision I wanted to entrust to Henry when his interest in me had
dimmed. I would never find a husband under the glare of his
attentions and I was nearer 30 than 20, to my mother’s continued
dismay. I would soon be too old for a match even half as agreeable
as the one I had lost, were one even to be found at all. So,
straight-faced but inwardly laughing, watching so I could be
certain to have his expression right when I relayed the tale to the
others, I pretended to have impossibly high expectations, so he
would turn me away with disbelief and contempt.

I intended it to be the final episode in a
story a very small knot of ladies had been enjoying for many
months. The picture I had in my mind, and the role I was preparing
to act out for the ladies, was of Henry growing apoplectic over my
insolence. I imagined him ordering me out of his life as he had
Mary, who had only asked for his love. With impish anticipation, I
practiced Henry’s bug-eyed fury in the looking glass in preparation
for the telling of my final chapter.

I had gotten very good at mocking poor
lovesick Henry, and loved to tell a tale for an audience. I was not
above orchestrating the scenes and the players for the sake of the
tale, which is what I was doing with Henry in this instance. I was
creating a funny ending to a long story. I do not like to say,
“That’s all it was,” for laughing at Henry’s deep felt love was a
despicable act of cruelty. But I was not, as everyone insisted,
coldly and calculatingly using him to advance my position. I am
innocent of that.

He agreed to my terms. He humbly agreed to my
outrageous terms, and my heart broke for him, right then and there.
Tears of shame sprang to the corners of my eyes when Henry took my
hand and gently kissed it.

“As thou dost wish,” he had said softly. “I
am thy servant, and if that is what pleaseth thee, that is what I
must do. I shall set to work on it immediately.”

I had never dreamed he cared that much for
me—not really. His words of love had meant nothing to me, as I
thought it was a game to him. I was out of his reach and, if
caught, would become the object of his contempt. We were playing
chase, like children, nothing more than that.

One did not disrupt one’s life and a
country’s entire political and religious foundation over a game of
chase. It was the first moment when I truly knew it was no game to
Henry. I did not understand until that moment. I swear upon the
blood of Christ I did not understand, or I would never have tried
to provoke him with a demand for marriage. I would have agreed to
become his mistress very early on, and remained so, had I known the
extent to which his feelings could take him and the havoc they
could bring to all. It was, however, too late for that the moment
Henry agreed to take me as his wife.

The hurt and betrayal I would inflict upon
those whom I was serving or protecting were nothing compared to
what I was doing to Henry. His feelings for me would not, or could
not, be undone by my turning away and his disappointment would
exceed even God’s. I knew it must. I had been making sport of his
sincerity, while he was offering more than I could even fathom at
the time, resolving to discard his wife, his daughter’s claim to
the throne and his God. For me. He had broken my heart with pity
for him already, and I did not yet know in entirety the sacrifices
he could make for me.

“Oh, no, Sire!” I had said, frantic. “I truly
was not serious . . . I cannot ask it of you . . . no, no
please
. . . ”

Henry turned to me in alarm.

“
No
?” He whispered faintly with a
terrible pain in his eyes, “What dost thou mean, ‘no’?” Then
louder, hurt and accusing: “Thou art taunting me again. I beg
thee—”

“Please, I only meant—” I only meant what? To
make sport of him? To laugh? I was entrapped by my own cruel
foolishness and frightfully poor judgment. I could never speak
aloud my original intention in making the demand. I silently prayed
that my friends would know better than to mention it lest Henry
find out how cruelly I had laughed at him. I could not bear for him
to know. I would henceforth have to endure the embarrassing
accusations and criticism rather than confess. I would henceforth
be known as a woman with incredible vanity and nerve, and shameless
grasping ambition, but that was easier than watching Henry
understand the truth.

He covered his face with his hands. I thought
he might weep.

“Oh, Your Grace. I spoke out of turn. That is
all I meant. Oh truly I cannot ask it of you. I will be your
mistress. That is all I want from you, nothing more. Oh please . .
. ”

I was, at first, aghast, but later turned the
prospect of being Henry’s wife and queen around and around in my
mind. Not only would it quiet my critics, I predicted, but it might
suit me as well. Most certainly, it would please my parents, I
thought. As time went on, I felt more and more that it would suit
me. And then, I felt I would die if I could not have it. I truly
felt as if I must be a queen or die. It had taken root in my mind,
much as the thought of a male heir had taken root in Henry’s.