The Boleyn Wife

by Brandy Purdy

  “Oh, but I do,” he insisted. “I need them all. And I do not want to be your everything, Jane. Verily, I find your love as stifling and oppressive as a tomb. When I am with you I feel as if I am boxed inside a coffin. It is a sad truth that we are mismatched, and not one common interest do we share. You married for love—or, if you want to quibble words, you married your ideal of love—while I married as my father dictated. Let us be friendly, Jane, but let us abandon all pretense and go our separate ways, and perhaps we will both find happiness after a fashion. I wish you well, Jane, and would you did the same for me.”

  “I’ve no doubt that you will go your own way, as you have always done!” I cried, and I would have slapped his face had he not divined my intentions and caught hold of my wrist. “Would that I could be like Anne; perhaps then you would love me!” Stumbling, blind with tears, I fled back to my chamber and threw myself weeping upon the bed. If only, if only, if only I could be like Anne! How very different my life would be, and George would love me!

  With her sumptuous new finery, Anne returned to court and resumed her duties in Queen Catherine’s household, though it was the King who most often availed himself of her services.

  He summoned her to his chamber to play her lute and sing for him, or read aloud when his eyes were wearied, or to walk with him by the river or in the pleasure gardens. Dutifully, she hunted and hawked and danced with him. She diced and risked fortunes at cards with him, and applauded his performance at the tennis court, bowling green, tiltyard, and archery butts. Yet through it all she remained aloof, toying with him like a cat plays with dead things. At Henry’s side she seemed more a wax figure than a flesh-and-blood woman.

  It was only with George and their merry band of friends that she truly came alive. With them her spirits soared and her laughter rang like a bell. Henry noticed this too, and I think it was then that his heart first began to harden against these men who had long been his most loyal servants and friends, the gentlemen of his privy chamber who attended him at all his most private functions—his baths and bowel movements, robings and disrobings—and who each took turns sleeping on a pallet at the foot of his great bed whenever he retired alone. Herein, I believe, is the answer to why, years later, it was so easy for him to condemn George, Weston, Brereton, and Norris—they had Anne in a way that he never could.

  But Anne continued to turn her lips away from his and to shun and evade his embrace. She steadfastly refused to become his mistress, though Henry avowed, “It is not just your body I covet, Anne, but you, Anne, you! Your vivacity and bold, daring, untamed spirit! I can talk to you of books and ideas, for you are no docile, simpering sycophant; you have a mind of your own and are not afraid to speak it, and I want to possess and know all of you. I want to stir your soul as well as your body and heart!”

  “Your wife I cannot be; your mistress I will not be.” Those were her words, cold and to the point, like a dagger in the heart.

  “But if I were free of Catherine…” he persisted.

  “But you are not.” Anne shrugged and continued along the rose-bordered path, pausing to inhale the perfume of a lush pink rose.

  They were in the rose garden at Hever once again, and I was secreted behind the shrubbery, just like before.

  Anne had all of a sudden quit the court without the King’s consent and, summoning George to be her escort, returned to Hever, leaving Henry to come scurrying after, the moment that he missed her.

  “But if I were…”

  “But you are not and cannot be,” Anne said crisply, snapping the rose’s stem and holding it against the skirt of her pink satin gown. “Her Majesty strikes me as being a woman in excellent health, nor have I heard her express the desire to renounce the world and retire to a convent.”

  “For the third and last time”—Henry seized her arm and spun her round to face him—“if I were free of Catherine, would you marry me and give me sons?”

  “Verily, Sire, I do not know,” said Anne, idly twirling the rose by its stem. “I should have to think on it.”

  She pulled her arm free of his grasp and strolled onward, humming to herself and twirling the pink rose.

  This was the spark that lit the fuse of what would at first be called “The King’s Secret Matter,” then “The King’s Great Matter” when it became common knowledge.

  Henry confided to Anne that for some time his conscience had been troubling him. He feared that his marriage was accursed by God, and for this reason he had been denied a living son, the male heir that was vital to safeguard the succession.

  It all began with a verse from Leviticus that Henry interpreted to suit his desires. “If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.” These words hammered at his mind, while lust for Anne hammered at his loins. To Henry’s mind, being childless and sonless amounted to the same thing.

  Catherine had been first and briefly wed to his elder brother Arthur, and by marrying her, Henry had convinced himself, he had unknowingly committed a sinful and incestuous act. God had shown his displeasure by denying him living male issue; all the baby boys had been born dead or died shortly after as divine punishment. The Pope who had issued the dispensation that allowed them to marry had committed a grave error, he insisted, and it was one that must be rectified as soon as possible. The Pope must grant him a divorce from Catherine so that he might lawfully remarry and beget sons while there was still time. And Anne, he had already decided, would be the mother of those sons. Already he could see them in his mind’s eye, a brood of hale and hearty red-and black-haired boys, replicas of himself, lusty, broad shouldered, and strong-minded. To Henry it all seemed such a simple matter.

  6

  Like a shuttlecock hurtling to and fro, Anne would, upon a moment’s whim, leave court and return to Hever. Then the King would come, hot on her heels, or else his messenger would follow, bearing lavish gifts and ardent love letters.

  But every time, Anne would just laugh and dismiss the messenger with a haughty wave of her hand and the words, “No answer.”

  Often she allotted these outpourings of the King’s anguished heart no more than a cursory glance, and she was very careless with them, leaving them lying about where anyone could find them.

  I remember a day when she sat idly by the hearth in the Great Hall, with Henry’s latest letter in her hand and the accompanying gift lying at her feet.

  “‘Because I cannot always be in your presence,’” Anne read aloud, aping Henry’s voice—she really was an excellent mimic—“‘I send you the thing that comes nearest—my portrait set in bracelets, wishing myself in their place. Signed, Your Servant and Friend, Henry Rex.’”

  With a bored and indifferent sniff and a shrug of her shoulders, Anne let the letter fall to the floor, ignoring her father’s pursed lips, her mother’s worried frown, and Mary’s quizzical stare as she again grandly intoned the words, “No answer,” and sent the messenger on his way.

  “Anne!” Elizabeth Boleyn wrung her hands and looked near to tears. “It is cruel of you to keep the poor King dangling with no reply!”

  “Indeed, Mother, I never said it was not.”

  “Anne.” Sir Thomas Boleyn approached her, rubbing his palms, with a crafty gleam in his eyes. “Your mother is correct. It is most unkind….”

  “Verily, you should know, Father. Upon unkindness you are expert!” Anne answered flippantly, while toying with her sapphire velvet sleeves.

  “Anne”—he paused, biting his lip and making a great effort to control his temper—“would you like me to compose a reply to His Majesty? Then all you need do is copy it in your own elegant hand and sign your name.”

  At this offer Anne threw back her head and fairly screamed with laughter.

  “It is no jesting matter, girl!” he snarled. “Look at those diamonds!” He snatched up Henry’s neglected gift and shook the bracelets in her face. “Just look at their clarity, their sparkle; clearly the
se are diamonds of the first water!”

  Mary, her mother, and I obligingly clustered round and oohed and ahhed in admiration at the King’s florid and heavy-jowled countenance ringed in twinkling diamonds.

  “Oh, Father.” Anne sighed as, stretching languorously, she got to her feet. “It is a pity our good King Henry hasn’t the Second Edward’s tastes, since you are so much more appreciative of his favors than I am!” And with those words she swept grandly from the room, leaving her father speechless and boiling with rage, and her mother wringing her hands and repeating endlessly, “Oh dear!” I myself maintained an air of dignified silence, while my husband, it grieves me much to say, rolled on the floor in gleeful laughter, and a blank-faced and bewildered Mary besought an explanation regarding Anne’s reference to the tastes of King Edward the Second.

  But the Boleyns needn’t have worried. Anne knew how and when to play her cards. Upon New Year’s Day 1527 she decided the time had come to answer all the King’s letters.

  But she did not take up her pen to write to Henry, but to the goldsmith instead, for it was he who would fashion her answer. A brooch, but not just any brooch. Exquisitely wrought of gleaming gold, a little lady with long black enameled hair, dressed in a gown of scarlet enamel spangled with seed pearls and diamond chips, sat in a boat christened Love, being rocked upon a tempest-tossed sapphire sea, with her hands clasped and upraised as if to implore “Have mercy upon me!”

  So there could be no doubt as to her meaning, when she knelt at the King’s feet to present her gift, at a private audience where no one but her family were present, Anne wore a pearl-and diamond-spangled scarlet gown with her long black hair unbound.

  A smile of pure delight spread across King Henry’s face as he gazed first at Anne, then down at the brooch upon its bed of tufted black velvet, then back at Anne again. But when he reached for her, Anne swiftly stepped back.

  “If you make me Queen of England I shall brave the storm that is your love and give you sons!” she announced; then, after bobbing the briefest of curtsies, she turned her back, in direct violation of royal etiquette, and walked out of the presence chamber.

  7

  Anne immediately resumed her old ways, going back and forth to Hever, ignoring the enamored King’s increasingly ardent love letters, and dismissing the messenger with “No answer.”

  Anne had played her card. Now it was time for Henry to make his move.

  A secret court was convened, presided over by Cardinal Wolsey, with a panel of bishops to weigh the evidence and render a verdict.

  Henry presented himself, slump-shouldered and morose, as a man whose conscience was sorely troubled by the nagging thought that he, by taking his dead brother’s wife, had unwittingly sinned against God. Queen Catherine, he solemnly avowed, was a fine woman and he would like nothing better than to hear that all was well and that she could remain at his side as his wife always, but the qualms that assailed his conscience were just too great to be ignored. Thus, he looked to them, the cardinals and bishops of England, to free him from this torment. It was a grand performance. Only those in Anne’s inner circle knew that she was the cause of it all, this intricate, tangled web of theological and legal quibbling that would soon rise from a whisper to a scream. Even Wolsey never suspected that it was Anne Boleyn Henry aimed to wed; he was led to believe it was a French princess Henry coveted so that he might have legitimate male heirs and a dynastic alliance all in one stroke. Queen Catherine was also kept unawares until the wily Spanish Ambassador whispered the truth in her ear. But by then Henry had lost his round.

  After three days of heated debate, the court concluded that the marriage was sound, since a papal dispensation had been issued beforehand. Henry was assured that his conscience could rest in peace.

  But Henry refused to accept the verdict, and Wolsey bore the brunt of his displeasure. Wolsey, that upstart son of an Ipswich butcher, who used the Church as a stepping stone to power and cared more for worldly goods than the word of God, had promised Henry the verdict he desired.

  But then failed to deliver.

  To make matters worse, now Queen Catherine had been dealt into the game, and she had a very powerful card to play. Her nephew Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, would never sit passively by and let his aunt be humiliated and cast aside.

  Never for a moment would Catherine’s convictions waver. She was Henry’s lawful wife and Queen of this realm, and such she would remain until her dying day. Nor would she oblige the King by slinking away to a nunnery. Though her faith was strong, and she was without a doubt devout, she had no vocation; she would not, like some she could name, use the Church as a means to achieve an end. She loved her husband dearly and was sorry to court his displeasure by disobeying him, but God and her conscience must come first.

  At that time the situation in Rome was dire. The Holy City had been sacked; mercenary soldiers in the Emperor’s service ran amok, raping and pillaging; the streets ran red with the blood of the slain; and the air was filled with smoke, flies, and the cries of the dying. Pope Clement himself was a prisoner, and he was not about to risk the Emperor’s further wrath by siding with Henry.

  It should all have ended there, but Henry was not about to let his desires be thwarted. Come what may, he would have Anne Boleyn.

  Around this time Tom Wyatt, dallying with Anne and their friends in the palace gardens, playfully snatched a little bejeweled tablet that dangled from a delicate gold chain Anne wore about her waist, claiming it was high time she gave him a love token. He pressed it to his lips, then, laughing, held it high, beyond her reach, as she leapt and grasped for it, once even daring to duck his head and swiftly steal a kiss.

  “Keep it if you like.” Anne shrugged. “It is but a little thing, and of no great consequence. And while that bauble may be beyond my reach, greater jewels than that are within my grasp.” And upon her right hand she proudly displayed an enormous emerald. “The stone of constancy, His Majesty says, and thereby a most fitting symbol of his love for me.”

  She did not confide that in exchange for this great, gaudy, glittering green ring, King Henry had snatched from her finger a dainty ruby heart set in lacy gold filigree. “I shall take this heart until you vouchsafe me your own,” he said as he forced it onto his little finger, the only one it would fit upon.

  A few days later the King and his gentlemen gathered for a match upon the bowling green while Anne and a bevy of ladies assembled to watch and cheer them on.

  The King and Tom Wyatt were both expert players, and a moment arose when it was uncertain whose bowl had rolled nearest the jack; it was so close, sight alone could not settle the matter.

  “Wyatt, I tell you it is mine!” Henry’s voice boomed as he pointed to the smooth, round wooden bowl lying in the grass, seemingly just a hand’s span from the upright white jack. As he pointed he waggled his little finger, making sure Anne’s ruby heart caught Wyatt’s eye.

  With a cocky smile, Wyatt withdrew Anne’s jeweled tablet from inside his doublet.

  “If Your Majesty will give me leave,” he said, extending the golden chain, “I shall measure it with this, and hope that it shall be mine.” And boldly he kissed the jeweled tablet.

  Already flushed from the heat of his heavy brocade and silken garments and a vigorous game on a warm day, Henry’s face flamed scarlet. His eyes narrowed and that cruel little mouth became crueler still.

  “It may be, it may well be that I have been deceived!” And with that he turned his back on Wyatt and stormed from the bowling green. Abruptly he stopped and spun round and went to confront Anne.

  “Mistress, you will explain! How haps it that trinket is in Wyatt’s possession and that he wears it upon his heart?”

  “Thievery,” Anne answered smoothly. “The same manner in which Your Majesty acquired my ring.”

  For a long moment no one dared move or breathe. Anne had just called the King of England a thief!

  “As for why he wears it above his heart,” Anne continue
d, “I can only suppose that were he to wear it around his waist, as intended, people would laugh; the effect is not quite so becoming without skirts.”

  Henry threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  “By my soul, Anne, what a woman you are!” He offered her his arm and together they strolled back into the palace, all smiles and merry spirits.

  Watching them, George shook his head and smiled.

  “There is no one like Anne!” he declared with pride.

  It was all I could do not to snatch up one of the wooden jacks and beat him over the head with it. I had a vision of myself doing so, so vividly real it was ghastly and made me feel sick with shame. In my mind’s eye I saw myself raising the jack, and bringing it down with all the force I could muster, and hearing his skull crack, and his voice cry out, pleading with pain, as blood gushed out, and I raised the jack and brought it down again and again and again, hoping and wishing with all my might that I could bash all thoughts of Anne out of his brain.

  By now the whole court knew that the King wanted Anne, and bets were being laid about how long she would resist before she became his mistress. But Anne herself only hinted at her true intentions, saying once to her sister, “You went first, but I aim to go further.”

  Even Queen Catherine knew. Always before she had stoically endured her husband’s infidelities, pretending that she did not hear or see. But this was different; Anne was different.

  One afternoon Her Majesty bade us join her for a game of cards. Obediently we sat down around the table. At her request, I dealt the cards. All continued amicably until Anne triumphantly slapped down a card.

  “Mistress Anne.” Queen Catherine regarded her sadly. “You have the good fortune to stop at a King, but you are not like the others, I think. You will have all…”