Brief Gaudy Hour

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  Henry found himself in a quandary. “Hush, Nan! Speak not so openly of having read it. The matter is dangerous,” he warned uncomfortably. Greatly as he desired to read those words, he had, ostensibly at least, always upheld the Cardinal against these new Lutheran tendencies. “Parts of the Gospels and the Prophets I have already read,” he admitted, blustering a little because he would not be outdone in the matter of literature by a woman. “But to borrow the Cardinal’s English version on so frivolous a pretext—”

  Anne’s brain worked twice as quickly as his. “You could write it as an anthem,” she coaxed on a ripple of warm laughter. “There is nothing frivolous about an anthem.” Already she was easing the signet ring from his little finger, her touch less of a theft than a caress. “Here, Zouch!” she was calling over her shoulder to that grinning young dog of an equerry. “Take the King’s ring to milord Cardinal. And listen attentively to what his Grace wishes to say.”

  Not even his sister, Mary Tudor, could have managed him more effectively, since in the end he imagined it was he who gave the order. And he was allowed no time for considered thought. Almost immediately the young man was speeding gratefully on his errand to York House, and Anne was improving the occasion. Still fondling Henry’s hand, she drew him down beside her. “While we are waiting, shall I entertain your Grace with an amusing story of how milord Cardinal stole the book?” she offered.

  “Stole it?”

  “Yes. From one you love.”

  “From one I love?”

  “At least, you have given me good reason to suppose so.”

  “Nan, what things you say!”

  Beguiled by her sparkling eyes, he drew her closer, and seeing that their attendants had tactfully withdrawn, she told him about the missing Bible, with disarming candour. Never once did she stress her own danger, or her brother’s. She told the story simply, as the folly of two lovers to whom she had been kind.

  “It was like my own darling to forgive them,” he commended, kissing her. “But if you are to be mistress in your own household, you must enforce more discipline.”

  Anne had her answer ready. “Was not I myself once forgiven in similar circumstances, when my cousin Thomas filched my pomander chain, and used it indiscreetly? So that I had grateful cause to learn magnanimity at its source?”

  Henry pinched her cheek and chuckled, feeling himself a god.

  “And well I remember,” she added, “how gently your Grace chided me for some inadvertent word which betrayed our love to London gossip. And, taking the words to heart, I had it in mind to safeguard us both from the Cardinal’s indiscretion. For if it were his intention to make an example of my household, as I fear it was, what unwelcome attention it would indeed have given to your Grace’s private affairs.”

  Henry frowned with annoyance. “I had given Wolsey credit for more sense!” he growled, grudgingly allowing himself to be jolted by a new aspect of the case. And, turning to take the great Bible, he opened it before them all and began to read.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  All winter the divorce proceedings dragged on. Henry Tudor and Katharine’s nephew, Charles of Spain, entreated, cajoled and even threatened the distracted Pope, who could ill afford to offend either of them. Wolsey professed himself diligent in his master’s behalf, while still finessing with France. Anne found herself the figurehead of a party which opposed both the power of Rome and the dominance of Wolsey, and represented the personal ambitions of her father, her uncle, and the Duke of Suffolk.

  And through it all Katherine of Aragon remained adamant.

  Nothing would persuade her to make things easy for Henry or for herself. Although it was years since she had cohabited with him, she would not save herself distress and indignity by retiring, with royal honours, into a convent. Henry Tudor’s wife she was, and his wife she would remain. And never would she acknowledge any other woman as Queen of England. Regally, without even acknowledging Anne’s existence, she had taken her place beside him in public until he actually deserted her. And now, lonely at Greenwich, she still fought singlehanded for her daughter’s legitimacy, consulting with the Spanish ambassador, sending an unending spate of letters to Spain and Rome, and even managing to obtain a copy of the Papal brief which had been sent to her parents authorizing her second marriage.

  But finally, against her wishes, Pope Clement had been persuaded to send another Legate to support Wolsey and decide the matter in England.

  Campeggio, the Italian Legate, was a gouty old man, quite lacking in the outer graces of his English colleague. First he had produced a formidable array of carefully prepared forensic arguments in an effort to dissuade Henry from the whole business, only to find that the King of England knew more about the subject than most of his lawyers. Then he flattered Katherine into using him as her Confessor, and gained nothing more helpful than her solemn assurance that she had slept only seven nights with young, ailing Arthur Tudor and that, in spite of the lad’s boastful talk, she had kept her virginity. And, after that, he even went so far as to suggest that, since Henry professed to be clamouring for divorce mainly because he had no legitimate son to succeed him, the difficulty might be solved by marrying his daughter Mary to his illegitimate son, Fitzroy!

  Finally, finding it impossible to shelve the dispute, he roused himself from his various ailments sufficiently to hold a Legatine court in London. The great hall of the Blackfriars was packed with bishops and lawyers, over whom he and Wolsey presided. Katherine herself swept into court. And when the herald called “Henry, King of England” and the Tudor was forced to face her, he managed to fulfil his role with dignity. Averring lifelong affection and admiration for his wife, he dwelt upon her virtues and swore that nothing but fear of living sinfully and anxiety for the succession could make him seek to divorce her.

  “And how did the Queen answer?” Anne Boleyn asked eagerly, the moment the King’s party was returned from Blackfriars. She had drawn Hal Norreys apart; for Henry himself, looking neither to the right nor to the left, had gone straight to his private apartments, and she dared not approach him.

  “For a few moments she said nothing. Her Grace was obviously deeply moved,” answered Norreys.

  “He told me what he intended to say—it was all sanctimonious policy, of course,” interrupted Anne, impatiently.

  But clearly Norreys had been deeply moved, too. “She got up and crossed the court. With difficulty, because of her thickening infirmity. Somehow that seemed to make it all the more dignified. She was all in black, some trailing sort of stuff that rustled as she walked. Every eye was upon her.” He broke off, seemingly lost in mental contemplation of the extraordinary scene.

  “And then?” prompted Anne.

  “And then she went down on her knees before him. Her English was all broken up with little Spanish expressions, the way it is when she is distressed. And she was crying. She was speaking to him personally, but the court was so still we could hear every word. About all their years of happy married love, their mutual tolerance. I think she must have been thinking about Lady Blount and your—your sister, and how she forgave him. She reminded him of her obedience and devotion, and of the Princess Mary in whom they had such mutual joy. Once she spoke about their little son whom God had taken. I swear there were tears in his eyes, too.”

  Eaten by shame, Anne hardened her heart. “Ah, perfidious one!” she muttered, in French.

  “And then the Queen seemed to remember that she was not alone with her husband, but in a court of law. She got up and looked him straight in the eyes and, raising her voice, called upon God to witness that he knew her to have been virgin when he took her.”

  Norreys moved to the window and stood looking out at the grey, hurrying river, almost as if he had forgotten he was not alone. He was young and generous, and his own mother was about the Queen’s age. To get any more out of him Anne had to follow him and shake him by the arm. “And th
e King—what did the King say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing! You mean, he didn’t use this heaven-sent chance to deny it before them all?”

  Norreys turned and looked at her, seeing her for the first time as strained and hard. “Perhaps he could not,” he suggested.

  Anne gave a little indecisive moan and let her fingers drop from his sleeve. “But he must have said something—done something.”

  “No one did anything except the Queen. She beckoned to one of her gentlemen, and leaned upon his arm, and walked away.”

  “And no one stopped her?”

  “The King tried to. I think he must have realized that all Christendom would condemn him if he allowed judgment to be passed against her, and she not there. He bade the usher recall her. She must have heard quite distinctly what he said. But she never even looked back. She, who had never in her life disobeyed him or accorded him anything but courtesy! ‘Go on, it is of no consequence,’ she said casually to the man whose arm she leaned on. ‘This is no impartial court to me.’ And in that moment she made us remember, suddenly, that she was no subject, but a daughter of Imperial Spain. Unhurriedly, with her ladies and her two bishops following, and no man daring to detain her, she walked towards those great doors that lead out into Bridewell Palace. And the doors closed behind her. It was as if she were walking, unbeaten, out of his life.” Ever since he was a page, Hal Norreys had lived close to the King, admiring his prowess and enjoying his kindly favour. But he was shaken out of all formal discretion. He and Anne moved within the same circle of friends and he had to say what he thought. “Nan, I am sure that she still loves him,” he assured her, out of the complication of his own feelings, “but when she appealed to him about a thing like that and he didn’t answer, I think, for the first time, she despised him.”

  Anne herself made no comment for awhile. It was as though, through her companion’s eyes, she gazed upon a rival drama of which she was not the heroine. A drama which she resentfully recognized as being too big for her own tawdry technique. Katherine, of course, had been magnificent. With half her mind and soul, Anne envied her. To be able to respect oneself without reservation must compensate for a great deal, she supposed. “Please God she has walked out of his life at last,” was all she said.

  And so the Legatine negotiations, from which she had hoped so much, came to an ignominious end.

  Campeggio claimed leave to return to Rome for the accustomed autumnal recess. Katherine retired to Windsor. And Henry, desirous of leaving London as soon as possible—labouring under the delusion, perhaps, that a man can separate himself topographically from an uneasy conscience—discovered the immediate necessity of a circuit through the Midlands.

  And now he and Anne and all the Court were awaiting the Italian Cardinal’s farewell visit at Grafton. “And the sooner the better,” grumbled Henry, who had been forced to forego a good day’s hunting. Never once had he referred to Katherine’s trial; but, whatever the bitterness of his disappointment, for policy’s sake he could not vent his spleen upon the foreign Legate. An English Legate was, of course, another matter. Cardinal or no Cardinal, Wolsey was Henry’s subject, and had not been officially invited.

  “There is no room in the house for him, and his ridiculous retinue will incommode our host,” objected Anne, when she perceived that Henry would have offered him belated hospitality. “Perhaps our good Hal can find him some accommodation.”

  And so the great Chancellor of England, who time and again had entertained them all with princely magnificence, was lodged in a local inn. And waiting, he had time to review his grievances.

  He had worked harder than any man in the land, spending money and leisure and health prodigally in the king’s service. Born in an ordinary unpretentious home, he had by his own endeavours won the regard of princes and theologians, become a Cardinal, and made England a power to be feared throughout Europe.

  All winter he had been forced to steer a course between two dangers. Either he must disobey the King or offend the Pope—the authors of his hard-won temporal and spiritual power. And all for the sake of a black-eyed devil of a woman in whom ambition, fed on flattery and family urging, soared obscenely. Like some sudden unnatural meteor she had risen into his cloudless sky, darkening the established rays of his power by the speedy brilliance of her progress. Ambition in other men he had never been at a loss to cope with. But with a woman’s white body and tortuous wiles bewitching the King, he was no longer sure of Henry’s friendship.

  Humbling himself, he had done his best to propitiate this Boleyn wench. At Henry’s wish he had gone to considerable trouble to provide her with a house almost as resplendent as his own, hanging her private apartments with arras from his own world-famous collection. On her behalf he had incurred the Queen’s distrust and the enmity of Spain. Together, she and Henry had fooled him over that marriage-negotiating visit to France. And when he had come back, there she was, loaded with the King’s jewels, laughing at him.

  Just as she was laughing now standing between him and the closed door behind which the King was talking to Campeggio. Always standing between him and the King.

  The scene was deliberately set for his discomfiture.

  But although Wolsey’s wisdom far exceeded Spanish Katharine’s, he lacked her courage and inherent breeding. Pushing his way into the crowded, improvised anteroom at Grafton, he betrayed embarrassment. Scarlet silk and fine Venetian lace could no longer hide the flabby bulk of his once-powerful body, but served only to enhance the unhealthy sallowness of his pendulous cheeks. His probing, prominent eyes, so accustomed to intimidate, were lowered before the watchful stares of underlings. And he allowed himself to be disconcerted by the impudent popinjays clustered admiringly about Anne, many of whom had learned their fine manners in his house.

  From wicked, slanting eyes, Anne glanced across the room and marked him where he stood, a sick and hesitant man. “The wheel is come full circle. If only Percy, my love, were here to see him now!” whispered the devil of vengeance in her mind.

  And Wolsey, meeting her hatred with his own, thought, “If only I could break up this love affair as easily as I crushed her first!” It was easy enough to make the London people shout “Concubine!” and “We want no Bullen!” when she rode abroad, and secretly to inflame their demonstrations of affection for the young Princess Mary. But if only he could come by some secret knowledge or some fear to hold over her, as she held over him that chance-gotten information about his youth!

  Through her satellites, her mocking hostility flowed towards him. No one made way for him, no usher announced him, no single group of persons ceased their chatter—and yet, he felt certain, everyone in the room was watching him and wagering whether the King would receive him or not. Whatever lesser men had suffered awaiting a moment of his own valuable time, Thomas Wolsey suffered now.

  “I know the night crow who has the King’s ear and misrepresents my every action,” he muttered to his bullet-headed secretary, Cromwell; certain in his own mind that, without persuasion, Henry would not have misused him so. And because, in order to cover his embarrassment, he must needs speak to someone, he—the most gifted speaker in all Europe—began a pitiful, pointless conversation with his usher, Cavendish.

  “See how cleverly Anne baits him,” whispered Jane Rochford.

  “Another few moments of this and he will give up all hope of an audience and call for his milk-white mule,” laughed Anne.

  But she had mocked too soon. In the middle of her excited laughter the door behind her was flung open by a page and Henry’s genial voice, together with scraps of his relieved leave-taking, drifted out into the anteroom. And presently Henry himself appeared, accompanying the departing Cardinal. Anne had not counted upon that. Pleasantly, a little absently, Henry stood a few paces within the room, watching him go. And as his eyes followed one scarlet-clad figure they lighted upon another.

 
Anne tried to intervene, to head Henry off with the preamble of some hastily recalled jest. But he did not seem to hear her. The habit of old friendship was too strong. Wolsey made a pleading gesture, not wholly from self-interest, and seemed to totter a step or two forward. His face was all broken up and working painfully, like a child’s that has been shut out. And generously Henry hurried to meet him, all grudges and malicious insinuations forgotten. “Why, Thomas!” he exclaimed, just as if it were the other who had absented himself.

  “Your Grace!” stammered Wolsey.

  And there before all his abashed enemies, they embraced. Two men who had worked and feasted together, each moulded by the same events, sharing the same memories and tastes, comfortable to each other as a pair of well-worn slippers. Two men who, each in his own way, had just been through a trying time. “I had an idea, now that that foreign nincompoop is gone,” began Wolsey, lowering his voice.

  “Yes, yes,” encouraged Henry eagerly, drawing him into his own room.

  “I could act alone, with his Holiness’ brief of authority. It included us both—”

  “If we can get hold of it—”

  Already they were closeted together in the King’s room. Anne could see them standing close together in the window recess, Wolsey making confident gestures with his white, puffy hands, and the King listening attentively. She was aware of her uncle Norfolk, craning his neck round the jamb, and of the smothered oath that escaped her father. And then Henry, glancing over his shoulder, snapped his fingers impatiently and someone closed the door, shutting out all jealous prying.