Anna of Kleve, the Princess in the Portrait

by Alison Weir

  She was too restless to read or embroider. She found herself staring out of the window at the gray-tiled roofs of the gallery and loggia below her, which fronted the quayside. In the rooms beneath hers, Mutter would be settling in, unaware that her world was about to be shattered. At the thought of that, Anna wept again.

  * * *

  —

  Supper, as usual, was served to the ducal children in their own chambers. Anna took one look at the Sauerbraten and fried spinach before her and sent it away, feeling nauseous.

  “I am not hungry,” she told her maid.

  She was in a fever of anxiety to discover whether Mother Lowe had spoken to Mutter yet. It was not until the bell sounded seven o’clock that the nurse came to her chamber, her face grave.

  “Your lady mother wants to see you,” she said.

  Anna rose shakily, unable to speak. Her throat felt as if it was closing up. She went ahead of Mother Lowe, down the stairs and through the public rooms to the door leading to Mutter’s chamber, her legs feeling as if they might give way. The guards stood to attention, raising their crossed pikes. An usher sprang forward and pushed open the door.

  “Madame la Marquise de Pont-à-Mousson!” he announced.

  Anna walked past him, her eyes searching out her mother’s face as she curtseyed.

  The Duchess was alone, seated in her usual chair. At her nod, the doors closed behind Anna and Mother Lowe. Anna was utterly shocked to see that Mutter had been crying. Mutter never cried. She offered up her troubles to God, certain that He would succor her. But evidently this trial Anna had inflicted on her was beyond divine help.

  “Sit down, Anna,” Mutter said, indicating a stool. Her voice shook. “You know what this is about. It is too painful for me to reiterate what Mother Lowe has told me, so we will not dwell on that. You must go to confession, do penance, and make your peace with God. What concerns me is what happens now. Mother Lowe reckons that you are about five months…” She gave an involuntary shudder.

  “Yes, my lady,” Anna whispered. “I am so sorry.”

  “I am sure you are.” Mutter’s voice was tart. “When I think of all the times I exhorted you to virtue, I could weep. If you had heeded me properly, we would not be having this conversation today. But what’s done cannot be undone, however much it grieves us. And Mother Lowe has told me how deeply it has grieved you, having to live with the consequences of your sin. I bear in mind your tender years and your innocence. I like to think that you were more sinned against than sinning, as appears to have been the case.”

  Anna bowed her head. Such understanding was more than she deserved. She would be eternally grateful to Mother Lowe for giving such a sympathetic account of her transgression.

  Now was the moment to plead for her future. “My lady,” she ventured, “we were wrong to do what we did, but we love each other. Otho wants to marry me!”

  Mutter stared at her. “Are you out of your mind, girl? Do you really think that your lord father would marry you off to a bastard?” Anna had never heard her mother speak so vehemently.

  “But it would avoid disgrace, my lady,” she whispered.

  “There are other ways of doing that!” The Duchess shook her head, as if despairing. “Anna, heed me. On no account must anyone ever find out that you are with child. Have you told anyone?”

  “No, Madam. But shouldn’t Otho be informed?”

  Mutter’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Absolutely not! He should be horsewhipped for what he did to you, but it is better that he remains in ignorance of what has come of it. And your father must never know either. It would break his heart…as it has broken mine.” Her voice trembled again. Anna was overcome with remorse—and resentment. She had hurt Mutter badly, yet Mutter was being very unreasonable.

  “So,” her mother’s voice was brisk again, “we will say you are ill, with a humor of the stomach. Mother Lowe tells me your appetite has been poor lately, so maybe others have noticed too. You will go to stay at Schloss Burg, where the air is healthy, and there, in the spring, you will make a full recovery, God willing. Mother Lowe will accompany you, and she will arrange for a midwife to attend you in due course. When…when all is over, you can return to court, as if nothing had happened, and no one will be any the wiser.”

  “Yes, Mutter,” Anna replied dully. Her punishment could have been a lot more severe, and she might even have forfeited her mother’s love, but couldn’t Mutter have been a bit more understanding and exercised her considerable influence to persuade Vater to let Anna marry Otho? How happy she would have been! But now…

  “What of the child?” she asked, playing her last card. “It needs a father.”

  Mutter’s lips tightened. “You should have thought of that! It will be put out to nurse and fostered. None shall know who its parents were. Mother Lowe, you will arrange that while you are at Solingen.”

  “Yes, Madam.” The nurse nodded.

  The Duchess turned to Anna. “You may not believe it now, but this is all for the best. All I ask of you is your cooperation and your discretion.”

  “Yes, Madam,” Anna whispered, unable to contain the tears any longer. “Shall I have to confess to Father Gerecht?” She felt sick at the prospect—and suddenly frightened at the thought of facing what lay ahead without Mutter’s reassuring presence.

  “No. Mother Lowe will arrange for a priest to visit you at Schloss Burg,” her mother said. “Someone who does not know you.”

  Despite her resentment, Anna knew she had been very lucky. “Madam, I cannot thank you sufficiently for your goodness to me, which I know I do not deserve,” she said tearfully. “I am very sorry to have grieved you so; and I will miss you.” She sank to her knees, crying hard now, her shoulders heaving, her face in her hands.

  A gentle hand rested on her shoulder. She raised her wet face to see Mutter bending over her. “I will miss you too, my Anna,” she said, her voice softer. It came to Anna that her mother’s reserve did not arise so much from disapproval as from sadness. She was holding on to her emotions, as she always did. Anna had not yet mastered that art. She flung her arms about her mother’s waist.

  “Do not forsake me utterly!” she cried. “Please do not cast me out. I would rather die than lose your love.”

  Mutter pried her hands away and held them. “No one is casting you out, Anna. I am doing what is best for you because I love you. Now, go to your chamber, take to your bed and pretend to be ill. And when you are away, we will write to each other and you can let me know how matters are progressing. Go with my blessing, and God keep you.”

  * * *

  —

  Schloss Burg had always been one of Anna’s favorite places; she had spent much of her childhood there. Isolated on its rocky plateau high above the River Wupper, and surrounded by dense forests, the magnificent palace, formerly the chief stronghold of the Duchess Maria’s ancestors, the counts of Berg, was also a favorite abode of the Duke, on account of the good hunting to be had thereabouts, and because it was perfect for hosting the courtly festivities he loved. In its distant days as a fortress, it had commanded a sound defensive position. Now, it was a cluster of pepperpot towers and pretty black-and-white timbered buildings surrounding a massive donjon. Vater appreciated it for its splendor, the security it afforded his family, and because it was a much healthier place for his children than the city air of Düsseldorf.

  Leaning on the arm of Mother Lowe, accompanied only by the maid her nurse had chosen, who had been waiting inside the great arched Zwingertor to greet them, Anna walked slowly across the courtyard, aware of the two knights of her escort watching her with sympathy. Clearly she’d made a convincing show of being ill, and no doubt they thought she had come here in the forlorn hope of prolonging her life. Fortunately, it was now winter and her heavy furred cloak concealed her burgeoning stomach.

  She ascended the grand processi
onal stair one slow, careful step at a time, until they reached the public apartments on the first floor and entered the Rittersaal. This vast aisled Knight’s Hall had long been used for the great ceremonies of state hosted by the dukes of Kleve, and before them, the counts of Berg. Mutter and Vater had been married in this hall twenty years ago, and Sybilla had been betrothed to the Elector here. Today, fires had been lit in the two elegant French-style fireplaces against their coming, but the room remained chilly, as if it needed warming by the presence of a great throng of people. The candles were unlit, giving the hall a gloomy aspect, and as Anna walked past the stone pillars that supported the lofty beamed ceiling, she shivered from both the cold and a sense of loneliness.

  Beyond the Rittersaal were the spacious private suites used by the ducal family. Anna had spent many a day in Mutter’s ladies’ chamber, the Kemenate, where the women of the family lived when Vater was away. All the windows afforded beautiful views of the spectacular scenery outside. Beyond the Kemenate was the chapel, where, when she was in residence, the Duchess daily observed the liturgy of the Hours, herself reciting the Divine Office, with her children kneeling behind her.

  The servants had prepared Anna’s bedchamber. The green-tiled stove in the corner had been lit, the feather bed was airing, and floral tapestries had been hung on the walls. Mother Lowe had the little maid, Gerda, hastening to unpack Anna’s chests, and soon the room seemed like home again—except that nearly everyone who made Schloss Burg home was missing.

  * * *

  —

  As winter set in, and the child grew and kicked within her, Anna kept mostly to her chamber, looked after by Mother Lowe and Gerda, who had been told her mistress was suffering from a severe dropsy. Whether she suspected the truth, Anna never knew. For all that the girl was an unlettered farmer’s daughter, she had a vivid imagination, but she was willing, and very kind to Anna. Hopefully, she did not think to question her betters.

  Feeling her baby move for the first time had brought home forcefully to Anna the reality of the child growing inside her. She wept to think it would never know the love of its mother—or its father. She tried not to think of Otho; if she did, she knew she would go mad with longing and misery. He should be here, at her side. It was wrong to keep him in ignorance. It was cruel to make the babe an orphan.

  Mother Lowe made discreet inquiries locally, and found an experienced midwife, who was spun a tale about one of the Duchess’s married ladies being in an unfortunate predicament, and told that, having obtained permission to seek refuge in the castle, this lady required assistance and absolute discretion, and that the midwife would be paid well for both. Pleased with her good fortune, the midwife had undertaken to find a reputable wet nurse when the time approached. Her own sister was with child and might be able to help; she had had plenty of milk with her last babe. Mother Lowe had visited the midwife’s house, and that of her sister, and reported that both were spotlessly clean. Better still, the midwife knew of a family who had lost six infants at birth, one year after the other, and were desperate for a child. The husband, Meister Schmidt, was a prosperous and respected swordsmith, a craftsman with a fine house of timber and stone, and his wife was very devout. The nuns in the cloister of Gräfrath in the town would take care of the fostering. It was all arranged.

  Anna knew she had no choice in the matter. It was for the best, Mutter had said firmly. Anna would never believe it.

  * * *

  —

  Time dragged. The days were spent sewing a layette for the child to take with it to its foster home, or taking gentle exercise, or in prayer. Every week, Anna wrote to her mother, but there was not much to report, except that she was in good health and eating well. The fresh air of Schloss Burg had seen to that. Each day, she walked around the castle precincts, through a postern gate and into the gardens on the steep hillside beyond. They ended in a sheer drop, with the River Wupper far below.

  In this hilly fastness, surrounded by forests, it was easy to believe in all the tales she had heard of witches and fairies and ghosts. Gerda held that the castle was haunted, but Mother Lowe was brisk to tell the girl to hush up and forget such nonsense. Expectant mothers, she murmured in Anna’s ear, must not be affrighted!

  But Anna, desperately in need of some diversion, found herself wanting to know more. Had Gerda seen or heard anything herself?

  “No, Madam,” the girl had to admit. “But my cousin is a groom here, and he once saw a tall black-hooded figure standing by the window in the Rittersaal.”

  It could have been me, Anna reflected. Me, in my dark cloak. I am sad enough to haunt this place—a ghost from the present. “I have never experienced anything odd here,” she said, “but I do love ghost stories.”

  Gerda had a fund of them, to while away the dragging hours. Thrown together as they were, notwithstanding the difference in their rank and station in life, they had become friends. Mother Lowe, normally a stickler for etiquette, did not discourage it. She knew how lonely Anna was, how homesick for her family, and how greatly she needed company. And here was Gerda, about her age, flaxen-haired, cheerful and garrulous. As soon as she had finished her duties, there she was, in Anna’s chamber, chattering away. The final weeks of Anna’s pregnancy were enlivened by many dark and magical tales.

  As the child grew heavier inside her, so the evenings lengthened and the first buds of spring began to unfold. And one morning, in the middle of March, she felt the first pangs of travail.

  The midwife, installed with her birthing chair in the castle two weeks earlier, had told her what to expect. Afterward, she said it had been an easy birth. But nothing had prepared Anna for the force of the contractions, or the pain. It went on for hours and hours. Yet she was young and strong, and bore it well. Only at the last did she feel she could not endure any more—but then, urged to make one final, supreme effort, she felt her child slide into the world, and her ordeal was over.

  Mother Lowe laid the tiny infant in her arms, just for a few moments, so that he could receive his mother’s blessing before being parted from her forever. Anna’s heart turned over when she saw him; he was perfect, so adorable—and she could see Otho in him. She had never wished for anything as fiercely as she yearned to keep him, but she knew it was out of the question. It was a terrible moment, the worst one of her life, when Mother Lowe came back to take him away. Bravely, Anna swallowed her tears, kissed his sweet head and handed him over.

  “His name is Johann,” she whispered, “after my lord father.”

  Left alone, she lay there sobbing, feeling as if half her heart had been torn away.

  Mother Lowe came back and found her thus.

  “Have it out, my lamb!” she cried. “There, there. It was for the best, believe me. I have arranged for word of him to be sent to me from time to time, so that you will know he is happy and well. But now, you must look to the future. You have your destiny as a princess to fulfill, and I know you will do so with pride. You have had an easy travail, and your trouble is all behind you. You have been lucky.”

  “Lucky?” Anna wept bitterly. “Not when my arms are aching for my little baby, my Liebling! Not when I am missing him so dreadfully. If this is being lucky, what does bad luck feel like?”

  As her body healed and her milk dried up, her empty arms continued to ache for the child she had lost. She returned to Düsseldorf fully restored to health, but with her heart bleeding for what might have been. It felt impossible to resume life as she had known it, for she would never be the same again. And yet, as the months passed, and her secret grief turned to numbness, she began to see the wisdom of Mother Lowe’s words. As far as avoiding scandal went, she had indeed been lucky. But she still felt like weeping every time she thought of how different her life could have been had she been allowed to share it with the man she loved and their child.

  Chapter 3

  1538–1539

  Vater was d
ying. There was no hope. For the past four years, he had suffered a slow but steady mental decline. Where men had once called him “the Peaceful,” they now nicknamed him “the Simple.”

  Anna did not know what ailed him, and neither, it seemed, did the doctors. It had begun three years after she had returned from Schloss Burg, with Vater forgetting little things, making remarks out of character or addressing people by the wrong names. Sometimes Mutter wondered if there was anything wrong with him at all, but then he would do or say something odd, and they would all fall to worrying again.

  In October, he had suffered another illness, a mere ague, which had given his physician, Dr. Cepher, an opportunity to examine him closely. “His confusion is in his head,” he had told Mutter, who had been waiting anxiously outside the bedchamber with her children, “but his bodily reflexes are also deranged. This is a new development, and I do not understand it. I have never seen it before.”

  “Could it be serious?” Mutter had asked, anxiously.

  “Alas, I do not know, Madam. We shall have to see how he progresses.”

  “I will pray for him,” she had said, and had led her daughters to the chapel, where they spent the next few hours begging God to make Vater well.

  They had known something was really amiss in November, when, without warning, Vater had fallen headlong on the floor. He had not tripped or stumbled; he had just lost control of his limbs. The doctors had stood around helplessly, frowning and looking grave.

  His disease had followed an inexorable course until it reached the stage where he did not always recognize Mutter. Sometimes he called her Mathilde, his own mother’s name. By Christmas, he was bedridden, and had trouble speaking. On one of the rare days when he had known who Mutter was, Anna had watched as he tried to take her hand in his, gazing at her with eyes full of love. “You must…be…going through…the tortures…of the damned,” he murmured, finally getting the words out over long, painful minutes. That had been the last coherent thing Anna had heard him say.