The Last Wífe of Henry VIII

by Carolly Erickson

  It was no wonder I was upset by seeing my sister-in-law and Charles Brandon together. Yet when Anne herself confronted me about it, I tried not to let her see how much it bothered me.

  “I saw you peeping through the door at us the other day, Cat,” Anne said when she found me alone. “I suppose you ran right to your little brother and told him what you had seen.”

  “What you do is between you and your conscience, Anne. I am no talebearer.”

  “Still the well behaved girl, even though you are a wife.”

  “A faithful wife.”

  “No doubt you are more happily married than I am.”

  “I wish every woman were as happy as I am.”

  “Oh, don’t be so pure and lofty, Cat! I’m sure your handsome husband has flaws. They all do.”

  I thought for a moment. As a husband, Ned was unfailingly kind and loving. But in handling the estate, I did see something in him that troubled me a bit. I called it his “hurry sickness.” He tended to become too caught up in the tasks he undertook, and to feel that they were not being done quickly enough. Instead of letting the tenants on our estate weed the crops or build the fences or milk the cows and goats according to their own time-honored ways he would plunge in and work alongside them, urging them to work harder and faster until he all but collapsed from exhaustion. That winter he had shoveled snow until his hands bled, and I had to put a healing salve on his wounds and wrap them in bandages.

  “Ned does get very caught up in what he is doing. Sometimes he can’t seem to stop.”

  Anne’s eyes widened. “Your brother, on the other hand, can’t seem to start.” She looked at me for a long minute while I digested this information. “Yes, you know what I mean. Frankly I don’t think he likes women very much.”

  She paused, letting the meaning of her words sink in.

  It couldn’t be. Surely Will was not among those, accursed in the Bible, who practiced the abomination of sodomy? It was unthinkable: I did not let myself think it.

  “Have you never wondered why we have no children? Come now, admit it.”

  “I have been expecting to hear good news from you for some time.”

  She shook her head. “There will be none.”

  “I’m sorry Anne. Perhaps things will change?”

  “No.”

  “So,” I said, after a time, “you take your pleasure where you can find it.”

  She smiled, a seductive smile.

  “It finds me.”

  “I have not known illicit pleasure,” I responded at length, knowing that my words made me sound more priggish than I actually felt, “but I believe it is said to be keener than the other kind.”

  Anne nodded knowingly.

  “But then, little Cat, there is an illicit pleasure you do take, you and your husband.”

  “What is that?”

  “You read forbidden books—or rather, one forbidden book.”

  I realized at once what she meant. Ned possessed a copy of the New Testament in English, as translated by William Tyndale who was burned at the stake for heresy a hundred years ago. Even though it was against the law, he had read it—indeed we read it together sometimes. We saw no harm in it—in fact it seemed to us, speaking only between ourselves of course, that to read the word of God in our own tongue brought us closer to the mysteries of faith. Yet we knew that such attitudes were condemned as “reformist” and we kept the precious Bible hidden in a storeroom. I was particularly careful not to let Grandmother Fitzhugh know that I had read the gospels in English. Had she known she would have called me a heretic.

  But it seemed our secret was discovered.

  “How did you find out?”

  “You are not the only one that spies on people. I have known for some time.”

  “And you would use your knowledge against me.”

  “Only if I must—to prevent you from spreading stories about me.”

  She was threatening me, yet I felt no enmity from her, I was aware only of her skill at self-protection.

  “We are not enemies, Anne,” I said, meeting her level gaze.

  “Let us hope we do not become enemies then,” she said and left me.

  When spring came, and the great chestnut tree bloomed and spread its leafy branches wide over the lawns and gardens around the manor house, I took long walks through the damp grass and rejoiced that warm weather had come again. I set the servants to taking down the hangings and airing out the featherbeds, wiping the patches of mold off the walls and applying new whitewash. The floors were washed and the cupboards cleaned and fresh sprigs of lavender and rosemary were hung in the wardrobes to make the clothes smell sweet.

  I knew what to do, for I had observed my mother overseeing the spring cleaning at our old country house and at our London residence in Blackfriars many times and she was a good and thrifty housewife as well as being a fine and highborn lady.

  Only one thing marred my happiness that spring: I was not yet carrying Ned’s child.

  And then in May my sister-in-law’s wayward behavior became a family scandal. Anne announced that she would henceforth live on her own, as a free woman. She left Will and went away—no one knew where. Anne’s father the earl was furious and sent out men to find her, but they returned without success. My mother and Uncle William were ashamed and embarrassed, though Grandmother Fitzhugh was full of “I told you sos” and was almost gleeful in her vindication.

  Will was sad. I think he had loved Anne in his way, and missed her. What the truth was between them I didn’t know, I had only Anne’s word that theirs had not been a marriage in the physical sense, and that Will had not felt the love of a husband for a wife.

  I kept Anne’s secret, and wondered whether, after a time, she would either return to Will or seek an annulment. For though the church did not allow divorce, it was possible to have a marriage annulled, if it had not been consummated. Anne did neither. For the time being, she had simply dropped out of our lives.

  Ned threw himself energetically into spring ploughing and planting, overseeing the preparation of the fields and joining in, as he usually did, to work beside the tenants and day-laborers. When he came home in the evening his shirt was sweat-stained and his boots muddy, and his fingernails were always so black with earth that he could not scrub them clean.

  Some days I went out to join him in the fields, enjoying the scent of the freshly-turned soil and the anticipation of seeing the first green shoots rising from the muddy ground. I helped carry the midday meal to the laborers and joined them in their meal of soup and coarse black bread and slabs of cheese. I brought Ned his midday flagon of ale, which he drank heartily before lying down with me for an hour’s nap.

  Replete and happy, we lay in each other’s arms, drowsing in the shade, while the afternoon drifted by. Then Ned was up and working again, his face full of purpose, a sheen of sweat on his brow, urging the others to ever greater efforts.

  Sometimes the hurry sickness would overtake him and he would work on, alone, by torchlight, the others having given up from exhaustion, until nearly midnight. Then he would stumble across the threshold, bleary-eyed and weary, and sleep until noon the next day. I tried my best to reason with him, to make him see that a slow and steady pace was best and accomplished most. But he was stubborn. All my reasoning was wasted on him when the hurry sickness came over him and held him in its unhealthy grip.

  Late one afternoon I heard the servants talking agitatedly to one another.

  “It’s a messenger!”

  “No, soldiers!”

  “Hundreds of them, milady, come and see!”

  I went out onto the lawn and looked out along the road that led to Gainesborough from Netherhampton, our nearest town. Sure enough, there were hundreds of riders advancing along the road toward us. Each rider wore crimson, and each horse had crimson trappings.

  I remembered where I had seen just such an array of red-clad horsemen before: in the Golden Valley, when I was a little girl. These were the attendants
of the mighty Cardinal Wolsey, the king’s chief minister.

  Just as I thought, the cardinal himself soon appeared in the midst of his grand entourage, his large bulky figure draped in a scarlet cloak and a round red cardinal’s hat on his head.

  While we watched he was helped down from his mule and, escorted by two attendants, made his way to where I stood flanked by my chief household servants and a small crowd of kitchenmaids, gardeners and grooms.

  He was very old and very fat. His ugly face with its small, close-set watery eyes and fleshy lips was gray and he was evidently weary, his gait was so slow.

  I knelt as he approached and he held out his hand to me. I kissed his ring.

  “Milady Burgh, I am sent by his majesty the king to give you the joyful news that he will soon be with you. He is on progress to the North, and will be at Gainesborough in six weeks’ time.”

  Six weeks! At once I thought, how can we possibly prepare to receive the king here in six weeks?

  “He brings but a small retinue. Seventy servants for himself and fifty for Mistress Anne Boleyn, who will accompany him.”

  But we have no room for so many people, I wanted to say. Gainesborough Hall is not a palace, merely a large country house. Where will we put them all? How will we feed them all? Because of my mother’s long service to the queen I knew that each royal servant had servants of his or her own, not to mention horses and grooms and stable-boys.

  “Milord Cardinal, may I ask how long his majesty will remain with us?”

  “Perhaps a day or two, perhaps a week. It will depend on the hunting. I have drawn up a list of requirements,” the cardinal said, reaching toward an attendant who handed him a roll of parchment. He unrolled it, looking it over briefly, and then handed it to me.

  “Will you take some refreshment, your grace?”

  “Thank you, no. We are expected at Ettinghall tonight.”

  Relieved, I knelt once again as the cardinal took his leave and the procession of riders resumed its course along the dusty road.

  Ned, who had been out inspecting the fields with our estate manager when the cardinal arrived, received the news of the king’s intention to visit us with an eagerness that surprised me.

  “Don’t you see, Cat, this is a great honor. It will be talked about in the neighborhood for years to come.” His eyes were bright as he talked on, putting his arm around my shoulders and walking with me along the stream that bordered our front garden.

  “I remember when I was very small, my grandfather told me about the time old King Henry, the present king’s father, came to stay at a hunting lodge not far from here. There were hundreds of tents, he said, with servants preparing food, washing clothes, caring for horses and dogs. It was a bedlam!”

  “Where did they all sleep at night? The hunting lodge couldn’t have been very large.”

  “He said they slept on the ground. Underneath the carts, beneath the trees, wherever they could. Servants get used to sleeping rough.”

  “Not the women, surely.”

  “The turnspits and laundresses and maids, yes. They are tough. The camp followers bunk down with the men. No doubt the ladies required beds and a roof.”

  Ned talked on, and as I listened to him I lost some of my worries. We had six weeks to prepare for the king’s arrival. We would do our best. The royal visit to Gainesborough Hall would be everything the king and his many retainers could desire.

  5

  IT SEEMED A TRULY MONUMENTAL TASK.

  The more we thought about it, the more Ned and I realized that preparing for the royal visit was going to demand far more of us than we could ever provide.

  It would not be like the visit of the late King Henry to the local hunting lodge that Ned had heard his grandfather describe. Then the king’s own servants had done all the work and none in the royal party had expected much comfort. The day’s sport had provided food. And the king’s entourage had not been very large, perhaps a hundred people all told.

  The royal visit we were expecting would be at least three times that size, with all the food to be provided from our own larders and pantries and cooked in our own kitchens. Our cellar would have to provide the wine and ale, our cupboards and chests all the linens.

  Cardinal Wolsey had given me a list of things the king and Mistress Anne Boleyn would require. “My lord the king is fond of mugget,” he wrote on the list, “and also of sturgeon’s liver.”

  “The mugget we can manage,” I said to Ned as we sat with our cook Mrs. Molsey and the steward Daniel Frith looking over the cardinal’s list. “We have plenty of veal. But sturgeon’s liver? In Lincolnshire?”

  “I’ve never seen a sturgeon,” Mrs. Molsey put in. “Let alone a sturgeon’s liver.”

  “Rhenish wine, sponge cake, larks—the king is partial to baked lark’s tongue—”

  “Of course we will have to build another brewhouse,” Daniel remarked. “Think of the barrels of beer all those southerners will want. We’ll need another cooper, and more trenches dug to store the barrels against the heat. It would never do to serve the king sour beer.”

  “Mistress Boleyn requires seventeen buckets of warm fresh milk daily,” I read aloud, my scorn no doubt apparent from my tone.

  Ned laughed in astonishment. “Seventeen buckets! But we only have two dozen milk cows, and half of those are still suckling calves!”

  “I’ve read about Roman emperors’ wives who used to take baths in milk. Maybe the high and mighty Mistress Boleyn imagines herself an empress.”

  “I don’t know how you can allow a woman like that under your roof,” said Mrs. Molsey. “It’s an insult to the good queen.”

  I kept my peace and said nothing, yet I agreed with her.

  “We do as the king requires,” said Ned gently but with finality. “We do not question his ways.”

  “I saw Mistress Boleyn once,” I said at length. “I was only a little girl. She was very dark, like a gypsy But she was a beautiful dancer.”

  “She’s a witch, they say.”

  “Hush! If the king heard you say that he’d hang us all!” It was the steward, cautious and circumspect.

  Mrs. Molsey lowered her voice to a whisper. “Well, what are we to think when she has six fingers! It’s monstrous! She must be a witch!”

  Ned cleared his throat loudly. “While she is under our roof, Mistress Boleyn is our guest—nothing more and nothing less. And I have been giving much thought to her comfort. I have decided to remodel the east wing of Gainesborough Hall, to accommodate her and her ladies.”

  It was the oldest part of the old house, built several hundred years earlier and not lived in for generations. Colonies of bats roosted there, the old high, narrow windows gaped open to the elements and the roof sagged and leaked. No one had tested the soundness of the old oaken floors in many years. But if it was renovated, the east wing could house the royal favorite and her ladies and servants, for it was spacious and had its own kitchens, laundry and great hall. The king and his retinue would occupy the main wing of the house, the one we lived in—and would have to move out of when the royal guest arrived.

  I plunged into the work that lay before me with as much enthusiasm as I could rouse, trying not to think about how much there was to do but just to accomplish each task as it arose. I hired dozens of additional servants from among the villages of Netherhampton and Ettinghall, and a cooper and two bakers from Lincoln. Laborers from the local hiring fair were brought in to build the new brewhouse and cut rushes for the floors and drive cattle and sheep into pens for slaughter. The expense was great, and I wrote to my brother Will to ask for a loan. Will had always been generous, especially with me; now that he had control of his wife Anne’s properties (though he no longer had Anne herself) he was wealthy as well. He sent me what we needed, and even promised to try to come and help with the preparations if he could.

  One morning I was in the hen house where a hundred newly bought hens were sitting on their eggs. The smell of the place revolted me, and
I felt my gorge rise. In a moment I was retching into the fresh straw. I returned to the house to lie down, and did not get sick again, but for the rest of the morning I felt queasy and was not able to finish all that I had hoped to accomplish.

  The next morning the same sudden nausea came over me, this time in the pantry where I was overseeing the unloading of some barrels of flour and honey. I hurriedly excused myself and was sick in one of the storerooms. Afterwards I went outside into the fresh air and made my way to one of the duck ponds where I could be alone. I had to think; was all the worry over the king’s visit to Gainesborough making me ill?

  I was very concerned about Ned, who was working alongside the carpenters and masons to repair the rooms of the east wing. They were tearing out old walls and hauling off rotted timbers and ancient stone work from daybreak until sunset, and even after sunset they worked on by torchlight, driven to do their uttermost by Ned’s tireless urging. Night after weary night Ned stumbled back to our bedroom, caked in grime and choking from the dust thrown up into the air from the crumbling walls. He had a bad cough, but worked on despite it; when he developed a fever he shrugged it off even though I saw him shivering with chills in the heat of midday.

  I was concerned about Ned, yes—but as I sat beside the duck pond I realized that my worry was not the cause of my nausea.

  With a thrill the truth came to me: I was carrying Ned’s child.

  I had not had my monthly flow since long before Cardinal Wolsey came to announce the king’s approaching visit. My breasts were tender and sore and I was almost irresistibly sleepy in the afternoon. I had often heard women say that all these things, plus nausea, were signs that a child was coming.

  I wished with all my heart that I could talk to my mother about this but she was far away, in attendance on the queen at Whitehall. Ned’s mother I had never known, she had been dead for many years. There were midwives in the nearby villages, of course, but I had never had any reason to consult them. Somehow the idea of talking to a stranger, any stranger, about my condition made me hesitant. Yet I longed for a woman to confide in. Having none, I kept my joyful discovery to myself, vowing to tell Ned as soon as he was rested and well again, and the work of renovation was behind him.