Anna of Kleve, the Princess in the Portrait

by Alison Weir

  * * *

  —

  Anna walked into her privy chamber to hear her ladies talking about the closure of the last of the great abbeys. Canterbury, Christchurch, Waltham, and Rochester, where she had stayed, had all surrendered themselves to the King’s commissioners.

  “I never thought to see this day,” Margaret Douglas mourned, viciously jabbing her embroidery tambour with her needle. “At the outset, the King intended only to dissolve the smaller religious houses.”

  “Good riddance, I say,” chimed in Lady Suffolk. “Hotbeds of popery, all of them.” Most of the ladies were nodding their agreement. Margaret, a devout Catholic, seemed poised to retort, but kept silent. It was tantamount to treason to criticize the King, and she had known what it was to be sentenced to death and languish in the Tower.

  Only last night, Henry had come to sup with Anna wearing on his thumb the great ruby that had adorned the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury.

  “Becket was a traitor to his King,” he’d told her. “Last year, I had his bones exhumed and thrown on a dung heap, which is all the shrine he deserved.” She had shrunk from the violence in his tone.

  For all that he upheld the old faith and its rituals, and was effectively pope in his own realm, it worried Anna that he had appropriated the Church’s riches for his own coffers, and was now selling off monastic land to loyal noblemen. It was a clever ploy, for he was binding his lords to the Crown by ties of gratitude and obligation. They were hardly likely to oppose religious reforms that had so lavishly benefited them.

  Dr. Harst shared her concerns. When they were next alone, taking the air together in her privy garden, he opened his mind.

  “Forgive me, Madam, I do not wish to speak ill of the King, but I have learned that, in England now, the sick and the poor go destitute, since they can no longer receive succor from the monasteries.”

  “Not to mention the monks and nuns who have been turned out,” Anna murmured. “The King says they have all been given pensions, but it is not much—and it cannot compensate those who had vocations. Yet who will dare speak up for them?”

  “Two abbots who refused to surrender their houses were hanged. That probably silenced dissent.”

  “It is almost as if the King is encouraging Lutheranism,” Anna reflected, sitting down on a stone bench. “The Protestants applaud the dissolution. What worries me is that people here, both Catholics and reformists, see me as a champion of reform, and some even think I hold Lutheran views.”

  “I know, Madam,” Harst said, sitting down beside her. “I had to correct a clerk who asserted that your Grace refused to come to England while there was still one abbey standing.”

  “I can believe it,” she said bitterly. “I am sure they are blaming me for the closure of these last monasteries.”

  “Your Grace must give the lie to them by assiduously observing the rites of the Church.”

  “I do, Dr. Harst, I do! I would not be a Protestant in England for the world. The penalty for heresy is terrible.” She shuddered, imagining what it must mean to go to the stake. “Yet the reformists flourish. Even Lord Cromwell is one.”

  “They are not heretics. They want the Church reformed from within. As for Lord Cromwell, there is talk in the court.” Harst lowered his voice. “He is tottering. You are acquainted with Bishop Gardiner of Winchester? He is a staunch Catholic and hates all reformers, and Cromwell in particular. Cromwell had him dismissed from the Council, but now he is back, and in favor with the King, a sure sign that Cromwell’s influence is not what it was.”

  “It was Cromwell who made my marriage.” Anna looked fearfully at Harst. “Gardiner, I hear, is hand-in-glove with the Duke of Norfolk. The Howards resent me. They might persuade the King to divorce me, and there would be good grounds—” She clamped her mouth shut as she realized what she had said.

  “You mean the precontract, Madam?” Harst looked puzzled. “That is no impediment, and the matter is being dealt with. Your marriage is valid, and there are no good grounds for dissolving it, whatever Norfolk and Gardiner may say.”

  Anna bit her tongue. “If the King decides to get rid of me, a way will be found. Look what happened to his first two queens!”

  “Madam,” Harst said firmly, “you are seeing trouble where there is none. Has the King given any hint that he wants to be rid of you?”

  She thought back. “There were rumors he found me unappealing, but, apart from that, no.”

  “Then your Grace has nothing to fear. And if anything perturbs you, I am here to serve you and protect your interests—and I would make myself heard!”

  She allowed herself to be reassured. But underneath there remained an insidious, worming doubt. The repeated resurrection of the tiresome matter of the precontract, her unconsummated marriage, her deferred coronation, not to mention the forces that might be working against her at court, and her inability to read the King’s mind, were making her feel very vulnerable. If only Henry could, or would, make her his wife in every sense! If only she could bear him a son! Then she would be invincible.

  How often, she wondered, had her predecessors had that very same thought?

  * * *

  —

  In the second week of April, the court moved back to Whitehall, so that the King could be present when Parliament opened. Anna was sad to be leaving Hampton Court and hoped they would return soon.

  It seemed the rumors about Cromwell were baseless as, soon afterward, Henry created him earl of Essex and appointed him Lord Great Chamberlain of England. Anna watched Cromwell kneeling before the King in the presence chamber to be invested with his coronet and mantle and given his patent of nobility. Harst had been wrong. It was the Catholic party who would be tottering now, in the face of Cromwell’s elevation. She felt a little safer.

  After the ceremony, Henry supped with Anna in her privy chamber.

  “Did you see Norfolk’s face?” he asked gleefully, breaking his manchet bread in half. “He hates Cromwell because Cromwell wasn’t born in a castle with a pedigree stretching back to Adam. He told me to my face I shouldn’t be giving the earldom of the noble Bourchiers to a blacksmith’s son. I told him that blacksmith’s boy had been of far more use to me than the Bourchiers ever were.”

  “I have heard that Norfolk resents Cromwell because he is for reform,” Anna ventured.

  “Norfolk is jealous of Cromwell’s power,” Henry said. “He hates everything he stands for. I’m well aware of the political tilting that goes on, Anna. Let me help you to some of this brawn—it’s excellent.” He placed slices on her plate. “The French King’s sister, the Queen of Navarre, has asked for miniature pictures of us.” He turned to Susanna, who was interpreting as usual. “Mistress Gilman, would you ask Master Horenbout to attend me. He can paint them.”

  Susanna curtseyed and left. Henry turned to Anna. “I want you to be the first to know that I am making your brother a Knight of the Garter, alongside Prince Edward, when I hold a chapter of the Order later this month.”

  That was good news! So great an honor bestowed on Wilhelm, and thereby on Kleve too, surely augured well for Kleve receiving English aid.

  “The Duke will be overjoyed, as I am,” she said, from her heart. “Sir, I cannot sufficiently express my appreciation.”

  Looking pleased with himself, Henry patted her hand.

  Anna sat with the King in the oriel window of the gatehouse at Whitehall, awaiting the start of the triumphal jousts that were being staged to celebrate May Day, a festival—she had learned—that was traditionally observed with great entertainments by the English court. It was a glorious day, with the sun shining down and a gentle breeze blowing, and everyone had donned new attire in honor of the occasion. Anna wore a pale gray gown of gossamer silk with a gold and pearl biliment at the neckline; it rippled about her as she moved, and the French hood of gray damask became her w
ell, she thought.

  It was hard to believe it was five months since she had left Kleve. She missed her family still, of course—their letters always unsettled her—but she felt she was beginning to adapt to her adoptive land and was making the best of the hand Fate had dealt her.

  Beside her, Henry was applauding the arrival of the contestants in the wide thoroughfare below, which was being used as a tiltyard. The lords and ladies surrounding him and Anna were leaning forward for a better view. The jousts had been proclaimed in France, Flanders, Scotland, and Spain, inviting the flower of European chivalry to respond to the English challengers, and knights from far and wide had come for a tournament that would last five days. Forty-six defenders, led by the gallant and accomplished Earl of Surrey, were parading around the arena, followed by the richly appareled challengers, all wearing white doublets and hose in the Burgundian fashion, and riding horses trapped in white velvet. At their head rode Sir John Dudley, Anna’s own master of horse, and among them she recognized the debonair Sir Thomas Seymour and the faintly repellent Thomas Culpeper.

  The jousts began with a fanfare, then the great destriers were thundering toward each other; there was a clash of lances, and shouts erupted. Anna was on the edge of her seat, expecting to see someone killed at any moment. But Henry was in his element, jerking in his chair whenever the contestants engaged, and living each move as if he were taking part himself—which doubtless he wished he was. Anna almost screamed when Culpeper was unhorsed and crashed to the ground, but to her immense relief he got up and walked away. When victory was declared for the defenders, Henry roared his approval. Anna added her congratulations, as he presented the winners with handsome prizes of money and the deeds to fine houses.

  At the end of the afternoon, he led Anna in procession along Whitehall to the great checkered gatehouse at the far end, and through it to the Strand. Crowds had gathered to see them, and Henry raised his hand in greeting as he and Anna passed through their ranks.

  “What is that?” she asked, indicating a beautifully sculpted stone monument adorned with statues of a queen, which stood to their right.

  “It’s the cross that Edward the First built in memory of his beloved Queen Eleanor,” Henry replied, almost shouting against the hubbub.

  How wonderful to be remembered in such a way, Anna thought. What great love there must have been between them.

  The challengers had ridden ahead to Durham Place, an imposing mansion on the Strand. Here, they were keeping open house, to feast the King and Queen, her ladies, the courtiers, and the visiting knights. The stately chambers had been hung with sumptuous tapestries and furnished with massive cupboards of plate. Sitting at the high table in the hall, Henry and Anna were served choice dishes to the pleasant sound of minstrelsy. It was a fitting finale to a lovely day.

  * * *

  —

  Anna attended all the tournaments held that week, during which open house was maintained at Durham Place, where she and Henry—and the whole court, it seemed—resorted in the evenings for suppers and banquets. The weather was balmy and on the last night they gathered in the gardens by the Thames, eating sweetmeats offered by servitors carrying large gold salvers, and sipping wine from jeweled goblets. Henry was in an expansive mood, going over every move in the jousts with the crowd of young combatants encircling him. Anna and the ladies listened in admiration, while the knights made eyes at her maids-of-honor. Anna was keeping a watchful gaze on the latter. As their mistress, she was in loco parentis, and responsible for their good conduct.

  It was then that she noticed the King smiling familiarly at Katheryn Howard. Little auburn-haired Katheryn was full of beauty and sweetness, a frivolous girl who seemed to care only for clothes and lap dogs. She had always served Anna well and willingly, and never given her any trouble—until now.

  Anna could not help herself. She stared, shocked, as Katheryn smiled pertly back and Henry’s eyes narrowed lasciviously in a way they had never done for her. She remembered where she was and realized she had not the faintest idea of what the young knight on her left had been saying. He was looking at her curiously, as was Susanna, so she made herself smile at him, and hastened to excuse herself. “My apologies, Sir. I felt faint for a moment, but I am better now.”

  Escaping his solicitude, she made her way back indoors, evading the few courtiers who made to speak to her. She found an empty chamber, and closed the door behind her, finding herself in a study furnished with a desk and bookshelves. The latticed window overlooked the garden. She peered through it. Katheryn Howard had moved nearer to Henry now. Her girlish laughter rang out.

  Surely it was nothing! The King, everyone knew, had always had an eye for the ladies. Why should he not find Katheryn appealing? Smiling at her did not mean he was pursuing her. But what was it someone had said, in Anna’s hearing? When he takes a fancy for a person or a thing, he goes the whole way. Now she really was running away with her imagination. Stop it! she admonished herself. It was a passing flirtation.

  Or was it?

  She could never confront him, of course. It was beneath her dignity to do so, and anyway, he was the King, and accountable to no one. If he took a mistress, the best course was to ignore it. So long as he did not humiliate her in public, she would try not to mind. She did not love him, so it should not matter to her.

  But it did.

  Smoothing her skirts, she returned to the banquet, waving away the trays of food offered her. She rejoined the King, smiling and nodding as they conversed with the guests. She was pleased to see that Katheryn Howard had drifted away.

  That night, she asked Mother Lowe and Susanna to help her prepare for bed. She didn’t want her English ladies present. It would cause resentment, she knew, but she had more pressing things to worry about.

  “What do you know of Katheryn Howard?” she asked.

  Susanna’s face tautened. Don’t tell me it’s all around the court, Anna prayed.

  “She is a niece of the Duke of Norfolk,” Susanna said. “That makes her first cousin to Queen Anne. This is her first post at court, secured by her uncle, no doubt.”

  And for what purpose? No one would be more pleased than Norfolk if Henry pursued another of his nieces. It must have galled him to see Anne toppled from the consort’s throne; how he would welcome another aspiring to the same dignity. Anna would not have put it past the wily old fox to have pushed Katheryn in Henry’s path. A good, dutiful little Catholic queen, untainted by any connection to the reformers—that would suit Norfolk well! She hoped she was straying into the land of fancy.

  “She’s poor as a peasant,” Mother Lowe said. “She told me her father died last year, and that she has no fortune. Her mother passed away when she was a child, and she was brought up in the household of her grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. She didn’t seem to want to talk about that, only about how pleased she was to be at court.”

  “I find her too forward,” Susanna said, unplaiting Anna’s hair. “She’s a Howard, through and through.”

  “Why are you asking about her, Anna?” Mother Lowe wanted to know.

  Anna sat down so that they could remove her shoes and stockings. She decided it was best not to utter her fears. “It occurred to me that I have never paid her very much attention, and that I ought to know more about her. I am surprised the Howards have not found her a husband.”

  But maybe they have, an unwelcome inner voice taunted her.

  She would have liked to ask Susanna outright if she had heard gossip connecting the King to Katheryn, but was too afraid of the answer. It was probably better to remain in ignorance.

  Or was it? Over the days that followed, she found herself torn by doubt, watching Henry when he came to visit her, to see if his eyes strayed in Katheryn’s direction, and watching Katheryn too; but neither gave her further cause to wonder. After a week, she concluded that she must have been mistaken in the
first place. And when she received a gift of a jewel from the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, she exhaled in relief, because it seemed inconceivable that the Duchess would court the Queen’s favor with presents if she knew the Queen’s husband was pursuing her granddaughter.

  * * *

  —

  After the jousts, the King seemed sad and pensive. Anna feared that the contrast between his aging self and the young combatants had depressed him, reminding him of pleasures in which he could no longer partake. He had good cause to feel sorry for himself anyway, for he was not well. The malady in his legs was slowing him down, and some days he could hardly walk, let alone ride. Worse still, he had an abscess that oozed pus and had to be dressed daily, not a pleasant task as the wound stank. Anna could smell it as she sat at table with him. Sorry for him as she was, it quite put her off her food. She felt humiliated for him. He was in great pain, and once or twice she saw him close his eyes and take rapid breaths, as if he were at the limit of his endurance.

  One night, at supper, he sighed and laid down his knife. “I am weary of my life,” he said.

  “Can the doctors not do something to ease you?” Anna asked, feeling helpless.

  He shook his head. “Not unless I face the knife. I am summoning up my courage.”

  He did not come to her bed that night, or the next, and on the third day, he sent her a message to say he had been forced to submit to the attentions of the barber surgeons and have the abscess lanced.

  When she saw him again, he looked much better, and the pain had eased, although the leg was still bandaged.

  “I have ordered a new suit of tiltyard armor,” he told her. She could have wept for him, for it was plain to see that he would never wear it, never again be the athletic hero of his glory days.

  * * *

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