by Karen Harper
“And if I am?”
“If you are, I warrant it is another man. Married to a sodomite, I am, now wouldn’t your father and the king, too, like to know that? I swear, the only woman you ever loved was your precious, spoiled sister Anne!”
Their voices were beginning to fade. At least they weren’t coming in here, where they could see us or force us to retreat farther into the maze. More secrets of the Boleyns, I thought. Secrets on secrets, all dangerous, even for someone simply to know.
“Leave Anne out of this!” George demanded. I had to strain now to hear their words over the rustle of my gown as I got to my feet. “How do I know you’re not out here, playing the doxy, meeting someone?” he ranted on. “No wonder I could not get you with child when we Boleyns are prolific, our Howard kin too!”
“George, blast you, you can’t get a woman with child unless you lie with her, and you haven’t been in my bed for . . .”
They were gone. Before the brazen Seymour could seize me again, I started away. “Kat,” he said, still sitting on the ground but snatching at my ankle to hold me there a moment more, “I know where there is a room not being used, clear up under the eaves on the north side. And it has a truckle bed.”
“I can’t,” I told him.
“I’ll let you know when the coast is clear,” he said as I pulled my ankle loose. “I adore you, sweet, and want to prove it in every way.”
I almost made a wrong turn, but I saw lights from the palace through the leafy wall and fled.
What saved me from being seduced to lie with Tom, on the grass, no less—and loving every moment of it, I suppose—was his being called home from court when his youngest brother died: not the eldest one, the heir whom he had wished did not exist. After that, either his father or Sir Francis Bryan sent him to the Continent, so he was gone for nigh on two years, and I admit I missed him sorely and feared he’d die abroad. I learned Cromwell’s wife had died; perhaps that was another reason besides his raw ambition that his work consumed him: he became the king’s chief secretary and took on more duties than ever.
Yet thirteen months after I first arrived at court, the divorce dilemma dragged on. The Campeggio proceedings at Blackfriars, which the king thought would free him, were challenged by Queen Catherine’s dramatic appearance and pleas. The king finally banished her from court, sending her to various distant old castles and forbidding her to see her beloved daughter, the Princess Mary. In October of 1529, Wolsey was stripped of his powers, leaving the Boleyns and their kin, the powerful Howard clan, especially the Duke of Norfolk, greatly in control of the court, and they thought, the king. Wolsey was arrested for treason—Henry Percy was sent by the king to do the deed, no less—and was heading to London for trial when he died in October 1530. His Majesty quickly took York Place that I had so admired in London for his own, began massive renovations and renamed the wondrous building Whitehall Palace.
But perhaps, most amazing of all that happened in my early years at court, Cromwell suggested to the king that, if the Pope would not grant him an annulment or divorce, he should become head of the church in his kingdom and declare himself free to wed the Lady Anne. It might mean his excommunication from the Holy Mother Church he had once championed, it might mean religious rebellion in his kingdom, but the king would not be denied Anne at any price.
People were stunned and, depending on their religious leanings, were either gladdened or horrified, especially by the charges that the great abbeys, monasteries and nunneries of the land were corrupt and must be rooted out, with their vast properties and funds going to the king and those he favored. I must say that was a clever move, for it kept many nobles quiet in the purge of those who opposed the king. How could they argue with all that while they were building their new manors on former church lands? But the king’s daring move hardly surprised me: I had seen where Secretary Cromwell got that idea years before. It had been set in place by His Eminence Cardinal Wolsey when he had Cromwell close a few small rural monasteries so he could take the money to dedicate two colleges to himself.
What shocked and saddened me was that I, who never took ill, was laid low with a fever and could not go to France in the large entourage that met with the French king, Francis, in Calais; His Grace took Anne and her ladies with him. I was so downhearted, especially because everyone said it was a great success in many ways—including that, for some reason, the Lady Anne had at last decided the king needed an extra fill-up to keep him totally in thrall and had finally let him share her bed.
“I have a passion for eating apples!” she crowed to a crowd of us in late autumn when the court was back in London. “His Majesty needs me and he needs a son, and I shall see to both!”
I seldom carried messages between her and Cromwell anymore, for the Boleyns had so inserted themselves into the politics of the land that she oft summoned Cromwell to her as if she were England’s ruler. Cromwell was rising farther and faster: he was named Privy Councillor to the king, on equal footing with Anne’s father and uncle.
Still, I was bound to report to Cromwell—usually now through Master Stephen—when I found something new about the Boleyns, whom he yet thought bore watching. But today, when Master Stephen came down the back stairs at Whitehall where I used to meet with Cromwell, I said, somewhat petulantly, “I suppose he knows the lady is with child, but he might want to know she’s flaunting it, and those about the court who detest the Boleyns for being climbers are seething.”
“The first, he knows; the second, he assumes, but will care for,” Stephen told me with a tight smile. He was so much like his master. Both spoke quickly and concisely almost without moving their mouths. “So, how are you getting on after several years here and wherever the court progresses, mistress? You know, our mutual master was greatly impressed that you did not get snared by that young cub Seymour when you first arrived at court.”
I gaped at him. I had learned to assume certain facial expressions to dissemble my true feelings as well as the next courtier, but his mention of Tom—and that he knew of us—took me off guard. When I just stared at him, he added, “As young as Seymour is, he has a reputation as a bed swerver, so let that be a word to the wise, because he’s coming back to court; his older brother Edward too.”
“So, our mutual master, as you said, spies on his spies?”
Stephen only smiled, waved and started back upstairs. “Oh,” he called to me, and came back down, “I forgot to tell you the biggest surprise of all—though not to those who are as watchful as you. Of course, you know the Lady Anne is with child. His Grace desperately wants their son to be born legitimate, so he intends to wed her privily, and soon. Keep an eye out for signs of that, lest we miss it somehow.”
Astounded at all I had heard, I leaned against the stairwell wall until my legs steadied, then went back out into the biting winter wind blowing off the Thames.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH
GREENWICH PALACE, NEAR LONDON
May 31, 1533
Look, a boat with a moving dragon, one belching smoke and fire!” Queen Anne called to her ladies. Before us, coming up the Thames toward Greenwich Palace, where we stood waiting at the water stairs, were at least fifty boats decorated by the merchant guilds of London. In her royal barge, Anne, accompanied by her ladies, was to be escorted by the flotilla into the city. Tonight, as was tradition, we would stay at the palace within the Tower walls to prepare for her coronation parade the next day before her crowning in Westminster Abbey.
Music flowed around us as we set off in the queen’s barge, which had hastily been stripped of Queen Catherine’s crests and colors and replaced with Anne’s. Gay tunes from sackbuts and crumhorns, trumpets and drums, serenaded us from various watercraft. The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Stephen Peacock, had outdone himself for this first part of the great public play in which the new queen would enter London and be shown to all the people.
It was a wonderful time to serve her, and I felt so excited that I could have flown. Granted, Their Majes
ties had arguments at times, some over his attentions to other ladies while Anne was six months gone with child. Last week, when she had dared to scold him in public for his roving eye, he had turned on her and spewed out, “You had best wink at such things, madam, and put up with them, as your betters have before you!”
Though she dared not answer, I warrant his calling other queens her betters set her back, for Anne was on a crusade to outdo her predecessor. For a while after that she seemed to coddle the king. If she threw a tantrum, in light of her condition, the king forgave her. After all, soothsayers and astrologers alike had promised His Majesty the babe would be a boy. Mostly, with plans for her coronation, they had been cooing doves.
My life was better too, for no more did I carry notes between Anne and Cromwell. The king’s chief secretary was now Master of the Jewels, a symbolic position of power, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, a real position of power. If Anne dared to send billets-doux to Wyatt or even to Percy, I, thank the Lord, was not involved.
But I cannot say the same for my woman’s heart: for the first time in my life, it was involved. Though Tom Seymour was seldom at court, for he was yet oft sent on errands both in England and to the Continent, when he was about I took a page from Anne Boleyn’s book and kept him at bay. Kisses, yes. Caresses I craved, but I refused to be alone with him. It was working wonders. The idea of romance he once mocked now kept him on his toes: he brought me gifts from France, he even wrote me very bad sonnets, but I treasured them, and wrote him love letters back. I had no title, but neither did he. At least I was one of the queen’s court, so perhaps I could wed him someday and then I would deny him nothing. Yes, I looked to the queen for my inspiration on how to deal with men.
For besides Tom Seymour, I had a new man in my life, one of those who had swelled Her Majesty’s entourage after the king secretly wed her at Whitehall in January. Even as I watched and was part of the parade of boats, the sounds and sights of my first meeting with John Ashley floated through my mind again.
It was at a joust in the tiltyard at Hampton Court in late March, a sunny but windy day after much rain. In the third pass at the tilt rail, His Majesty had bested his challenger but dropped his lance, a new one that had replaced the one he’d splintered. Apparently winded, he was immediately helped off his horse. At age forty-one, he had waited for Anne for eight years. During their honeymoon period, he had seemed like a youth again, dancing and gaming till all hours. But lately his jowls had widened, and his girth even more. His appetite had increased. He sweated harder and breathed heavier.
People in the stands and higher in the painted and beflagged observation towers murmured as he was helped off toward the tiring tents with his armor clanking. “Kat,” the queen called to me—most called me Kat now—“take my handkerchief to His Grace so that his squire may wipe his brow. And pass on the message that, if his queen were not so heavy with his son, I would run down to care for him myself and hope to see him privily soon.”
I took the heavily embroidered square of linen and made my way out of the stands. Before I descended the stairs toward the tents, I noted that a man I did not know, big shouldered with finely muscled legs, rode out onto the tiltyard on a beautiful chestnut horse. At quite a gallop, without reining in to dismount, he snatched off his hat so he wouldn’t lose it, leaned down from his saddle and retrieved His Majesty’s dropped lance in one smooth grasp. As he put his hat back on, many in the stands applauded. I yearned to, but not wanting to muss the queen’s handkerchief, holding up my skirts to pick my way along the boards laid over the mud, I hurried toward the tiring tent where the jousters’ pieces of armor were strapped on or taken off.
The man who had retrieved the lance rode up beside me. Still holding it, he dismounted. I must admit I had never seen anyone—titled, noble, even royal—handle or sit a horse like he.
“Mistress Champernowne,” he said, and swept off his hat again, “it is muddy back here, and there are horse droppings. May I be of service?”
“You know my name, so you have me at a disadvantage, I’m afraid. I’m to take this token to His Majesty from the queen.”
“Best I put you up on my mount to save your slippers and skirts—with your permission,” he said, with a nod toward his horse.
“This is Brill, short for Brilliant, for he is that in the sheen of his coat and his loyalty and obedience, aren’t you, my boy?” He patted Brill’s flank.
I swear, that animal nodded as if he agreed. I had never been introduced to a horse, especially before hearing its master’s name. It was as if the steed were a person—a friend of its rider. But this intriguing man was speaking to me again.
“I know the tent where you will find His Majesty. I am John Ashley, new come to court as senior gentleman to the queen. I am distantly related to her and now find myself assigned to work with her Master of the Horse, William Coffin. I love horses and hope to write a book about riding someday,” he added, reaching up to stroke Brill’s sturdy neck. “I miss my home but am honored to serve. May I lift you up, then?”
I had to tilt my head to look up at him, for he was a bit taller than Tom. For some reason, suddenly shy at his smooth speech and fine face and form, I nodded. He leaned the lance against the side of the stands. Then, by my waist, as if I weighed naught, he lifted me up on Brill’s saddle and, as I held to the pommel with one hand, he led the steed back through the mud and mess toward the tents.
My thoughts were jumbled. Master Ashley had left the king’s lance behind. He was obviously literate, bright and ambitious to speak of writing a book. And had not the queen realized it was mud and mire back here? It seemed either her new lofty position or her pregnancy had made her so sure of herself that she had become less thoughtful of others.
“If I may ask, Master Ashley, in what way are you related to Her Grace?”
“Ah, yes, connections are the keys to the kingdom here at court. My mother, Anne Wood, was a niece of the queen’s mother, Elizabeth Boleyn, who was born a Howard. I grew up in East Burnham in Norfolk.”
“Yes, the Howards, headed by the Duke of Norfolk. He and the queen’s father are the king’s closest advisers with Secretary Cromwell.”
“Exactly. Then, on my father’s side, I am descended from Lord Ashley, Baron of Ashley Castle in Warwickshire. But I won’t inherit as my mother was my father’s second wife, and he has a son by his first marriage, so I am here to make my own way. And you, Mistress Champernowne?”
“I was the ward of Sir Philip Champernowne of Modbury in Devon, cousins of my father. I have been at court in the queen’s household for four and a half years now.”
“Ah, a lifetime for surviving in favor here, but please tell no one I said that.”
He had slowed Brill, perhaps to give us more time to talk. Mud stuck to his highly polished boots. He was my own knight errant, I fancied, for I loved the old stories of chivalrous days, especially the tales of long-lost Camelot. Perhaps, like Sir Lancelot himself, John Ashley was dressed all in rich-smelling black leather; his skin was sunstruck, a bit darker than most pale Englishmen in springtime. He was rugged-looking with a straight nose, thick eyebrows framing sky blue eyes and a closely clipped beard. His eyelashes were sinfully thick for a man’s. Strangely, his deep voice sent shivers through me. I guessed he was about my age or slightly older, and I longed to know if he was wed.
“Have you left behind a family in Norfolk?” I asked as he halted the horse before a large tent where squires and pages darted in and out. In faith, I had nearly forgotten my mission and saw I had wadded the queen’s handkerchief in my sweating palm.
“Only my stepmother, father and elder half brother, both horse breeders,” he said, making me for the first time in months think about my family. Unlike Tom or other courtiers I knew, something wise and serious about this man made one think and feel deeply. “Here,” he said, “you can hardly go inside, and I warrant His Grace is resting. May I take that for you and then I’ll walk Brill back to the stands for you. Was there a mess
age?”
Staring down into his intent gaze, I nodded as if I had suddenly gone speechless, then blurted a nervous, jumpy rendition of what the queen had said: “With love from his love, and she hopes to see him privily soon.”
He smiled up at me, and our fingers touched when he took it. Tom would have made some tease or double entendre over what I had said, but John told me only, “A lovely thought for the most fortunate of men.”
“Oh, look at those wild men!” Madge Shelton shrieked next to me, jolting me from my reverie. She pointed at the barge with the dragon, which was being rowed directly beside us with the Tower and London Bridge in view. All around the dragon had suddenly emerged men dressed as monsters with long hair, wearing ragged animal skins and cavorting with screams and cries while people lining the riverbanks clapped and huzzahed. Anne and her ladies shouted and laughed to see such a display.
I stood there among them, joining in the fun but thinking again of John Ashley, imagining not only that he or I were mounted on his beautiful steed but that both of us were in his saddle together.
Some whispered that the king was giving Anne such a glorious flotilla, parade, coronation and banquet to make up for the ignominy of a secret wedding. Others said he’d worked so hard to have her that only a splendid effort would be appropriate. Yet some whispered he needed such pomp to establish her as queen with his subjects, many of whom were still loyal to Queen Catherine. The cast-off wife was now stripped of most of her staff and living in backwater, rural manors such as Buckden and Kimbolton. The Princess Mary, who also refused to recognize the new queen—Anne Boleyn was lately obsessed with humbling Mary—likewise lived exiled from court and her father.
The day of Anne’s grand entry into London, I was thrilled to be in the coronation parade that made its way from the palace within the Tower to Westminster Palace. From there Anne would set out to be crowned in the Abbey on the morrow.
