The Concubine

by Norah Lofts

  XVI

  And I heard it reported…that Mistress Anne Boleyn was much offended with the King, as far as she durst, because he so gently entertained my lord.

  Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey

  GRAFTON. SEPTEMBER 14TH, 1529. EVENING

  HENRY WAS AWARE THAT SOME ignorant, common people whispered that Anne Boleyn was a witch; and he had more than once said to her by way of a joke that he agreed with them, and that she had put a spell on him; but when, all duties done, he came to say good night to her and found her rooms stripped of her personal possessions and her women packing her clothes, he stood for a minute in the doorway and felt cold fingers on his spine. How could she have known what was said in a room on the other side of the house and overheard by no one?

  He steadied himself: of course she couldn’t know; she had mistaken the date for leaving Grafton. Women were notoriously vague about dates, which seemed strange, considering how much of their lives were necessarily concerned with them.

  He said in a loud, jovial voice,

  “Your poor wenches! All to unpack again. We’ve four days more at Grafton.”

  She said nothing; she made a sign with her hand and within five seconds they were alone, with both doors closed. Then she turned and looked at him, so coldly that her glance burned, as iron on a freezing day can burn.

  “We,” she said, “have no more time anywhere. I am going back to Hever tomorrow.”

  It was exactly what—in a few days’ time, when his mind was settled—he was going to suggest himself. But that was unimportant now.

  “You can’t do that,” he said.

  “No? Well, I suppose not. You are King of England, I am your subject, I must be where you bid me But I think that by deciding to go home I merely forestalled your order.”

  Completely flustered, he said,

  “You know very well that I never gave you an order, never would give you an order. How you knew…Well then you must know that nothing was decided; I only said I’d think it over. And all the time I’ve been out there, remembering the old names and learning the new ones and talking about cows and wives and horses and children…I knew I couldn’t do it, sweetheart. Not even for a week, far less some months. I just couldn’t do it. They can say what they like, do what they will; I need you, right here beside me, within hand’s reach every day, all day.”

  He was talking about something of which she had no knowledge, and at the moment no wish to know. She said,

  “So you say. That kind of talk has fooled me before, but it will never fool me again. The Cardinal is my open enemy, and your secret one. We’re told to forgive our enemies and by God’s Grace I might perhaps forgive him for being mine, but we are nowhere told to forgive the enemies of those we call friend. I don’t forgive him for what he did to you and you had no right to forgive him for what he did to me! You called him traitor in July. In September you help him to his feet, you put your arm about him and talk to him privately for hours. The man who could have set you free, and wouldn’t.”

  “And for that you would leave me?”

  “For that I am leaving you—with your permission, of course.”

  “But in God’s name, why? Because I looked at a sick old man aged by ten years since I saw him last, too much overcome, too weak to get to his feet, and gave him a hand? And put my arm across his shoulders to draw him from the throng? And listened to what he had to tell me, something of great concern to us both. Sweetheart, be reasonable. He’s a tool. I’ve used him before and I shall use him again.”

  “He failed you and he’ll fail you again. Dally with him and you’ll stay tied to Catherine until one of you dies. You yourself called him Cardinal Facing-both-ways. Leave the business of the Roman Court to him, as you left the one at Blackfriars and the Amicable Loan, and he’ll manage it as he managed before. He hates me, I tell you, and would go to any length to prevent me from being Queen. And I am tired, Henry; tired of having no place, no security, no future. So let them have their way, Clement and Wolsey and Campeggio and Fisher. I’ll retire and leave them victors in the field.”

  And he thought—Six years, I’ve waited six years.

  He said, almost piteously,

  “And what shall I do?”

  She said, “I think you must find someone who is willing to be your concubine; for that is all they aim to allow you. Or again, when I am gone, they may see fit to set you free to marry someone of their choosing.”

  He thought—That’s it! Clement told Campeggio, and Campeggio told Wolsey. I was to ask her to leave Court and enrage her; and it wouldn’t be a rumored rift, it would be a true one. Crafty, slippery swine! For the first time in his life he felt a revulsion for churchmen—he, who but for Arthur’s death, would have been one himself.

  “I don’t care what they want,” he said, violently. “I know what I want. You, you, only you. I’ve done with Wolsey—you’re right about him! I was a sentimental fool to mind his whipped-dog look and think about the past. I must look to the future. I’ll find somebody wholly on my side to carry my case to Rome and show Clement plainly that he can’t play fast and loose with me any longer. I’ll cut Wolsey off, and by God, if Clement won’t give me justice, I’ll have done with him, too. I’ll show them just how far they can go with me! Sweetheart, Anne, my darling, my darling, you’re crying. But why? Here, come here.”

  It was true; tears of relief had filled her eyes and spilled gently over.

  He took her in his arms and kissed her, her eyes, her mouth, the place where the black sweet-scented hair grew to a point from her forehead.

  “They’ve tried everything, now, to separate us,” he said. “I see it clearly now. They can’t bear to think of a man being happy, as I am happy with you. And you must never, never, never speak again of leaving me. The very thought tears the heart out of my breast. You belong to me, and I to you and nobody, nothing, shall keep us apart.”

  XVII

  The King’s sudden departing in the morning was by the special labour of Mistress Anne, who rode with him only to lead him about, so that he should not return until the Cardinals had gone—who departed after dinner.

  Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey

  GRAFTON. SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1529

  NEXT MORNING, WHEN WOLSEY, WHO had risen early, rode into the courtyard at Grafton, all agog to continue his talk with the King and to lay before him some subtle suggestions, the fruit of a wakeful but happy night, he found the place all astir with horses and hounds, with huntsmen and servants busy with hampers and baskets. The King and the Lady Anne were off to hunt at Hartwell, and were taking their dinner with them.

  The King was amiable, but in a curious, remote kind of way, considering how they had parted yesterday.

  He said, “I have seen Cardinal Campeggio and he is waiting now for you to take him to Dover.”

  Wolsey said, “But, your Grace…we were to continue our talk. Someone else can escort him and I will wait here until such time as is convenient for you.”

  “I should prefer, my lord Cardinal, that you escorted your fellow commissioner in the proper manner. I wish you both a safe and pleasant journey.”

  And having said that Henry swung round and with an agility surprising in a man of his weight got himself into his saddle. The gay, brightly clad hunting party trotted off, the Lady, all in bright tawny with a nodding feather in her hat, riding a dapple gray. As she passed the Cardinal who stood by his richly trapped mule, holding his cap in his hand, she gave him one look. There was no spite in it, no malice, merely the calm here-it-is expression of the player who at the end of a long game produces the winning card.

  Henry, doting fool, must have told her of the plot to deceive Clement, and she had taken it as a serious attempt to sever her from the King. Nothing else, Wolsey thought, could have justified that look.

  As for the King…Standing there, still with his cap in his hand, Wolsey thought—He was amiable enough. Evasive, because having thought it over, and talked it over, he
had decided not to send the Lady into even temporary retirement, but disliked the idea of saying so. Yes, evasive. And there was something harsh to the ear about the words “your fellow commissioner.” The night-crow had been at work, without doubt. Yet the King had wished him a safe and pleasant journey. It had been a hasty leave-taking, but amiable.

  It was as well that he should think so; for he was never to see Henry, never hear him speak again.

  XVIII

  Whereupon the Earl of Northumberland and Master Walsh, with a great company of gentlemen, as well as of the Earl’s servants as of the country, which he had gathered together in the King’s name (they not knowing to what purpose or what intent), came into the hall at Cawood.

  Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey

  CAWOOD. NOVEMBER 1530

  WOLSEY HAD ALMOST FINISHED DINNER. It had in no way resembled the meals which were set before him in the days of his glory; nor was the dining-chamber crowded with so-called friends, place-and-favor-seekers, and sycophants. All was changed now, and he had changed, too. Since his final fall from favor, since Henry had mercilessly stripped him of every secular office and all his property, he had become ascetic in his way of life; he ate and drank sparingly, wore a hair shirt next to his skin, spent long hours on his knees, and devoted all his energies and talents to the running of his diocese. To the few faithful friends who remained with him, and to his servants, he seemed to have taken on a quality of saintliness.

  Cavendish, whose loving eye missed very little, could see a great difference between Wolsey as he had been during those two months before the visit to Grafton, and as he was now. Then he had wavered always between hope and dread; been, hard as he tried to conceal it, worried and fretful. Now that the worst had happened he seemed resigned, almost happy, like some sea-battered sailor come at last to a safe, if humble, harbor.

  In London Henry was busy rearranging York House, which was now to be called Whitehall; and upriver he was doing the same with Hampton Court, the lovely palace which Wolsey had made from a modest manor. Sir Thomas More was Chancellor, which was a sign of changing times, for More was not a churchman, nor a nobleman, but merely a good honest lawyer. In Rome the validity of Pope Julius’s dispensation was still being debated, dragging on and on.

  But Wolsey seemed no longer to care what happened outside whatever, as Archbishop of York, he might be held responsible for in the eyes of God.

  In the old days a clatter on the stairs that led up to the dining-chamber would have meant that some lord and his attendants had come to pay court to the Cardinal and to taste his hospitality. In this remote and quiet place, the noise caused a stir, and Wolsey, chewing the last of his dried raisins, said, “See who has arrived.”

  A servant hurried to the door, looked down the stairway, and hurried back.

  “My lord, it is the Earl of Northumberland.”

  Wolsey rose and crossed the room so swiftly that he met the Earl as he reached the head of the stairway. He embraced him with genuine pleasure. Young Harry Percy, who had been sent to him to learn manners, now came, as a few other faithful friends had done, to pay his respects to the fallen favorite.

  “Ever since I came to Yorkshire, my lord, I have hoped for a visit from you. I only wish that I had been forewarned, so that I might offer you a better welcome. I have just finished my dinner. But no matter. Come in, come to the fire. We will give you what we have.”

  Northumberland said stiffly, “We have dined, my lord?” He went to the fire, and his riding clothes began, almost immediately to steam in the heat.

  Wolsey turned and greeted all the Earl’s followers, shaking each by the hand, exercising his phenomenal memory for names and faces. Then he went to his guest by the fire, and studied him with a mounting feeling of disquiet. He’d been such a handsome boy, merry of face and glowing with health. Now he was thin and sallow; sharp lines ran from his nose to the corners of his mouth, others marked his hollow cheeks.

  “I trust I see you well,” Wolsey said, doubtfully.

  “My health is excellent. And yours, my lord?”

  He did not look at Wolsey as he spoke and the older man thought—He probably sees as sad a change in me.

  “At the moment indifferent. A bout of the flux; but it will pass.”

  Northumberland said nothing. A nerve twitched in his cheek.

  Wolsey said, “I am glad to see that you have retained so many of your father’s old servants.”

  “My father was reasonably well served; I saw no reason to make any change.”

  His voice was cold and flat.

  “They say friends, wine, and servants improve with keeping. And I am indeed delighted to see an old friend.” As he spoke he put his hand on the Earl’s arm, and it lay there for an instant, then Northumberland moved, muttering that he would dry his other side, and as he twisted the hand fell away.

  Old, blind, egotistical fool, he thought. Had he no perception? No memory? Had he forgotten that only seven years ago he had rated him like a schoolboy, called him willful and denounced his love for Anne Boleyn as a foolish entanglement: sent for his father and concocted the plan to marry him off to Mary Talbot and thereby ruined his life? How could he possibly think that now, when he was utterly disgraced, and all men of good sense were steering clear of him, Harry Percy should have come to Cawood voluntarily, or on any good errand?

  Of course he couldn’t. He knew! The friendly welcome, the assumption of friendship, even the greeting and the handshaking for the servants, were all part of some instantly adopted plan, a kind of game of bluff for which, in his heyday, the old man was so renowned. He probably thought that by charm, by sentimental reference to past days, he might woo Percy from the performance of his errand and over to his side.

  It was a wildly fantastic thought, but it was feasible…he, Harry Percy, might, if he wished, today start a rebellion in England. The North country was the most stoutly orthodox of all districts, the most opposed to the new ways of thoughts, to the threatened breach with the Pope, to the divorce of Catherine. And the two most powerful men in the North, Darcy and Dacre, almost minor kings, were certain supporters of any move against the King.

  The nervous tic in his cheek became more active as the Earl thought—I could do it, if I cared; but I no longer care for anything. Something, misery or sickness, has gnawed me hollow. Even revenge has no savor now. I shall merely perform my errand.

  Standing there, in a haze of steam and the stink of wet wool and wet leather drying, listening with half an ear to Wolsey’s talk, and making, now and then, a perfunctory answer, the Earl of Northumberland looked back over his brief, unhappy life, and was puzzled, as always, when he thought of the past. There was nothing so very extraordinary in what had happened to him. Almost all well-born men had their marriages arranged for them; and if they had fallen in love elsewhere, such fancies were soon forgotten in the realities of life. It had just been his misfortune—and he recognized it—to have fallen in love with a woman who would not be forgotten. He’d tried hard enough, God be his witness; he hadn’t wanted to go through life heartsick for something he could not have. He was not romantic, he liked things to be easy and comfortable; he had wanted to live with his wife and rear a family, like any other man. But he was haunted, or cursed. Never once had he been able to approach his wife—or any other of the women he had tried in the three years following his marriage—without being unmanned by the memory of Anne; the promise in those black eyes, the scented silkiness of her hair, the clasp of her thin, immature arms. He was the one man in the world who fully understood his King’s predicament; Anne cast a spell, and once you had fallen under its influence no other woman really existed as a woman, for you. You always remembered her at the wrong moment. He had, always. Sometimes he had been useless as a eunuch, sometimes he had taken his wife with a defiant savagery. In the end she had left him and gone back to her father and between them they had concocted a plan that surely outrated anything in the world for irony. Mary had tried to divorc
e him because he was precontracted to Anne Boleyn!

  He’d gone quite mad then. It was not that he cared whether his marriage to Mary stood or fell; but it was so typical of how old men tried to order things with their sly, false ways. Separate him from Anne by saying that he was precontracted to Mary Talbot and then turn about and try to separate him from Mary by saying that he was precontracted to Anne!

  And there was more in it. Danger! For by that time the King had made plain his intention to have Anne. And for him, now Earl of Northumberland, to hint at any claim on her would have landed him in the Tower, which was, no doubt, what his spiteful wife and her father wanted.

  Wyatt had written,

  And graven in diamonds in letters plain

  There is written her fair neck about:

  Noli me tangere; for Caesar’s I am.

  Wretched as he was, the Earl had no wish to end in the Tower so he had harshly denied all knowledge of any precontract, and since there was no evidence of it, he had remained married to Mary Talbot. But in fact she was no wife to him; and he had no child; and nothing that he ate put any flesh on his bones, nothing that he drank lightened his spirits. Old before his time he cared for nothing except the preservation of some sort of dignity, which implied a carrying out of any duty.

  And here, making conversation, and smiling paternally at him, was the author of all his misery. If only he’d said, seven years ago, “Silly boy, go ahead and marry your love with my blessing,” then Harry Percy would now have been a whole man, happy and fulfilled, and his firstborn would have been six years old.