The Boleyn Wife

by Brandy Purdy

  I vowed I would make him pay!

  19

  That summer the King and Queen went on progress as usual. The tension between Henry and Anne increased with every day that passed. Everyone watched and waited with bated breaths for the inevitable break.

  In September the royal cavalcade galloped into the courtyard of Wolf Hall, Sir John Seymour’s modest manor in Wiltshire. The house itself was far too small to accommodate the royal retinue, and servants immediately began erecting tents on the sprawling pastureland that surrounded the house, shoving aside the woolly white sheep, while the courtiers stood idly about fanning themselves, mopping their brows, sipping cold wine, nibbling sugar biscuits, and complaining about the rusticity they must endure for six whole days.

  Sir John Seymour, a portly, graying country gentleman with a balding pate, paunchy belly, and deferential but jovial manner, and his wife, the still lovely Lady Margery, came out into the courtyard to welcome the King and Queen. With them came three of their five children—their sons, Edward and Thomas, auburn-bearded and in their early thirties, one taut-lipped and the other smiling, and their eldest daughter Jane.

  Jane. Jane Seymour. Well-a-dee, well-a-day, I thought; so once again I meet the only Jane who is plainer than me. I had known her briefly when she served as one of Queen Catherine’s ladies, but when the Spanish Queen was sent into exile, away too went Jane Seymour, home to Wolf Hall to busy herself with the buttery and larder and other domestic pursuits. A bland and boring, whey-faced creature, at seven-and-twenty she was still unmarried and likely to stay that way. A brainless little ninny, she barely had sense enough to answer “yea” or “nay” whenever a question was put to her. King Henry barely allotted her a glance as she curtsied before him, her head bowed demurely in its gable hood so that her big, beaky nose pointed down at the ground. She was so meek she dared not even raise her little eyes of pallid, nearly colorless blue until he had passed her by. And the look Anne gave her was pitying and disdainful as her dark eyes took in the old-fashioned gable hood and the high-necked partlet, or yoke, of white lawn that modestly filled in the square-cut bodice of her plain gray gown. A dowdy little nobody who would live and die a spinster, worthy only of pity and contempt—that was everyone’s assessment of Mistress Seymour. But on the morrow we would learn that appearances can be deceiving.

  It was just another hunt. Men and their mounts and baying hounds crashing through the forest, with the ladies following, to please their husbands and lovers and, most of all, the King. The ladies were more concerned with whose riding habit was the most becoming and winced at the shrill clarion call of the hunting horn, hoping it would all be over soon. All except Jane Seymour. In the saddle she proved fearless, a true Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, equally the match of the most courageous and able man, charging ahead in determined, single-minded pursuit of the stag, taking every jump without qualm, heedless of the burrs, branches, and mud that deterred the other, more fastidious females.

  Afterwards, when we were riding back to take our ease and enjoy a sumptuous picnic, something happened that caused Mistress Seymour’s horse to take fright. Perhaps a serpent or some small furry animal crossed its path. Whatever the cause, suddenly the air was rife with frightened whinnies and snorts as the great bay hunter bucked and reared and kicked his hooves in the air. Jane Seymour dropped her riding crop and held on for dear life. They were beneath a tree, and the branches caught and tore away her gable hood; then her hair, plaited and coiled at the back of her head, also became ensnared. The pins pulled free, falling to the ground to be mashed into the earth beneath her horse’s mad, crashing hooves, and the long braid unfurled and became tangled in the grasping branches.

  It was King Henry himself who rode to her rescue, masterfully quieting the frightened horse and untangling her hair.

  And what hair it was! Verily, we were all amazed to see the glory that Jane Seymour kept hidden beneath her hood. Lustrous, wavy, abundant masses of white-blond hair of such a hue that it is rarely seen except on a child no older than two. It was the kind of hair the moonlight gilded silver and the sun made sparkle with a radiant life of its own; white kissed with the barest hint of yellow. But what a waste! Such hair belonged on a temptress, a Snow Queen, not a plain, prim little spinster like Jane Seymour.

  The King pulled the bedraggled Mistress Seymour, in her mud-splattered and tattered brown fustian riding habit, from her saddle and onto his. For a moment his bearded chin rested atop the disheveled glory of her wild, tangled tresses, and his lips planted such a brief, feather-light kiss there that the lady herself did not even feel it. It was so swift and light that only a few of us saw, and even then, most did not believe and thought their eyes deceived.

  “She looks good on a horse,” Anne observed tartly from atop her own mount, immaculate in her black velvet habit with a spray of black and white plumes swaying gracefully atop her hat. “What a pity for her that there are no horses in the King’s bedchamber.”

  “Perhaps she will ride the King as well as she does a horse,” I suggested.

  “Shut up, Jane!” George and Anne snapped as one, swatting at me with their riding crops.

  “He will sleep with her and give her some paltry trinket or a manor house, then marry her off to some obliging fool when he gets bored,” Anne surmised.

  Even I, at the time, thought the same.

  There was dancing that night in the Great Barn, an immense thatched-roofed outbuilding so large it nearly dwarfed the house itself. The Seymour family held all their great celebrations there—weddings, feasts, and holiday revels.

  Anne and her friends greeted this information with much mirth and mockery. Francis Weston quipped that they should attend the festivities clad as barefoot yokels in homespun garb, ragged, dirty, and threadbare.

  All of them—Anne, George, Weston, Brereton, and Norris—made such a din laughing, jumping and spinning about, clapping their hands, shouting, and stomping their feet in a parody of high-spirited peasants kicking up their heels at a country dance, that the King himself came in to see what all the ruckus was about and sternly reprimanded them for their rudeness in making jests at their hosts’ expense.

  In truth, the Seymours had done an admirable job transforming their barn. Fine tapestries had been tacked up on all the walls, and garlands of lavender, rosemary, and other sweet-smelling herbs draped the rafters. Great lanterns, suspended from the roof beams, lit the scene. A new wooden floor, sturdy, flat, and polished until it shone, had been laid down especially for this occasion, and outside, to accommodate the overspill of dancers, a ring of glowing torches surrounded the yard, raked and swept clean of rocks, with any holes and ruts filled in so that it was firm and flat and fit for dancing feet.

  A long trestle table had been pushed back against the far wall. Though the family’s silver intermingled with much pewter—the Seymours being an old family, but of modest means—both the quantity and variety of fare was bountiful. There were trays heaped high with crayfish, mutton, venison, chicken, beef, fish, sausages, and meat pies; fritters, tarts made of custard and various fruits, nuts, and spices; great rounds of yellow cheese; loaves of bread, with earthenware tubs of fresh churned butter, honey, and several kinds of jam; and, in the center of it all, a gigantic spice cake made with red currants and nuts, frosted with frothy white cream that peaked like waves. To drink there were casks of beer, ale, cider, mead, claret, malmsey, and perry, the Seymours’ famous pear wine made from fruit from their own orchard. There was no grandiose roasted peacock or swan re-dressed in its feathers, or boar’s head with gilded tusks, nor were there any fantastically sculpted sugar or marchpane subtleties. “But,” Sir John Seymour explained, “we thought Your Majesty might welcome a simple country repast as a change from the more sumptuous fare you are accustomed to at court,” and he was rewarded with a broad smile and a hearty slap upon the back from Henry.

  When Sir John informed him that all such things—the harvesting of honey from the hives, the making of butter, cheese
, and preserves, and all that had to do with the provisioning and care of the household—were entrusted to his daughter Jane, Henry bade her sit beside him and asked her a multitude of questions, leaning forward, plainly enthralled, lavishly praising her domestic accomplishments, calling her the perfect chatelaine; a paragon of housewifely virtue.

  Through it all, Jane Seymour blushed and kept her eyes turned down, staring at her hands, folded primly in her lap. She answered his questions in as few words as possible and in a voice so soft Henry had to lean forward to hear her.

  Clearly rankled by her husband’s neglect, Anne laughed, too long and too loud, flirted outrageously, and danced every dance, but not once did Henry look her way.

  When we returned to court Jane Seymour came with us, as Anne’s newest lady-in-waiting, appointed, per the King’s command, as a reward to the Seymour family for their gracious hospitality.

  20

  Christmas found Anne desperately trying to remind Henry of the passion she had once aroused in him. Gowned in evergreen velvet with enormous emeralds about her neck and edging her French hood and low square-cut bodice, with Mark Smeaton—proudly sporting the new forest green velvet doublet she had given him—sitting, like a dog, at her feet, accompanying her on his lute, she raised her voice plaintively in song, her chin quivering with hurt pride, reproach, desperation, and unshed tears as she reprised Henry’s ode to undying love—“The Holly.”

  “Green groweth the holly, so doth the ivy.

  Though winter blasts blow never so high,

  Green groweth the holly.

  As the holly groweth green

  And never changes hue,

  So I am, and ever hath been,

  Unto my lady true.

  As the holly groweth green,

  With ivy all alone

  When flowers cannot be seen

  And greenwood leaves be gone.

  Now unto my lady

  Promise to her I make:

  From all others only

  To her I me betake.

  Green groweth the holly, so doth the ivy.

  Though winter blasts blow never so high,

  Green groweth the holly.”

  When she finished she arched an eyebrow at Henry. It was a question and a challenge all rolled into one, conveying more than words alone could ever say.

  The courtiers stood about uncertainly and turned to look at Henry, waiting to take their cue from him before they risked applauding.

  Slowly, the rubies on his deep red velvet and gold brocade doublet flashing blood red in the candlelight, Henry turned his back on Anne.

  A few paces away stood Jane Seymour, eyes demurely downcast, staring at her clasped hands. She was beautifully garbed in a gown of icy blue satin adorned with white ribbon roses nestled amidst a trellis of silver embroidered foliage. The low, square bodice was filled in with a white lawn partlet delicately edged with blue and silver embroidery. Upon her head she wore a gable hood with a snood of matching ice blue satin to contain her hair, and a border of pearls to frame her face. The color did wonders for her eyes; their pale, practically colorless blue seemed to absorb the color of her gown, intensifying them to a startling glacial blue, like ice over a pure running river. Before our eyes she was blossoming like some rare, night-blooming flower.

  Wordlessly, Henry approached her and held out his hand.

  Mistress Seymour shyly looked up to meet the King’s ardent gaze as, after but a moment’s trembling hesitancy, she laid her hand in his.

  Henry’s hand closed around her trembling fingers like a trap.

  “The air in here stifles,” he announced. “Mistress Seymour, will you accompany me into the garden, where the winter air is pure, crisp, and clean?”

  Jane Seymour nodded and answered softly, solemnly, “Where Your Majesty leads I shall follow. Like Our Lord in Heaven, thou art my shepherd.”

  The crowd parted, the gentlemen kneeling and the ladies sinking into deep curtsies, their bright, jewel-hued skirts pooling gracefully around them, to let the King and his new ladylove pass. Only Anne remained standing in stunned and silent humiliation. George, as always, was beside her, and through it all, as Henry made his preference known, Weston, Norris, and Brereton had been edging nearer.

  “Eternal and evergreen shall ever be my love for you,” Anne said softly, scornfully, bitterly repeating the words Henry had spoken the night he dedicated his song to her. “What liars men are!” she seethed, tossing her head contemptuously.

  “Not all men, darling Nan,” George answered. His hands gently clasped her shoulders and he leaned in so that his forehead touched hers. And there they stood, brow to brow, leaning into each other, as close as two peas in a pod.

  “Not I, dear lady!” Francis Weston exclaimed in mock indignation.

  “Nor I!” Henry Norris asserted proudly.

  “Nor I!” echoed loyal Will Brereton.

  “Nor I,” Mark Smeaton, still seated at her feet, whispered in a voice too soft for Anne to hear; but I read his devotion in the movement of his lips. Then, unnoticed by Anne, he gently lifted the hem of her gown and pressed it reverently to his lips. But there were others who did notice. I was one of them, and Cromwell was another.

  Sensing my gaze upon him, Cromwell turned my way. His dark, hard, penetrating eyes met mine, and a shiver slithered down my spine as he favored me with the briefest of nods, acknowledging me and what we both had seen; the knowledge we now shared.

  “Knowledge is power!” I could almost hear him speak the phrase that might as well have been his personal motto, it was so often upon his lips.

  Forsaking the festive warmth of the Great Hall, where Anne was laughing now amidst the fawning attentions of the men she had just dubbed her “evergreen gallants,” and calling for wine, to drink a toast “to the myth of undying love!” I stepped out into the garden and drew the sharp wintry air deep into my lungs.

  The ground was covered with snow as thick and white as ermine; icicles glistened like sharp, silvery daggers in the moonlight, hanging from the trees and eaves; and frost twinkled on the bare branches like diamond dust on lace. And there, in the midst of it all, stood the King and Jane Seymour.

  Jane shyly averted her eyes as Henry held both her hands in his. Tenderly, he leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss onto her lips. Then, with a sudden lunge, he tore the gable hood from her head and down spilled her hair, silvered by the moonlight, to swing about her hips.

  “Why must you hide such glory?” he demanded as he caught her hair up in handfuls and pressed the pale, silken strands against his lips.

  “Though I am a maid still, I am not a child, Your Majesty, and at my age it is not meet for any man but a husband to look upon my hair,” Mistress Seymour meekly explained, eyes once again averted as the royal mouth continued to ravish her hair with devouring kisses.

  “Jane!” With what eager yearning he breathed her name. “Jane, my gentle, modest Jane!” It was like a prayer, he spoke her name so reverently.

  He let her hair fall and his arms reached out to draw her into his embrace.

  “Love,” he pleaded, “let me hold you against my heart as I hold you within it!”

  Quivering, Jane Seymour took a step back, bobbed a quick, clumsy curtsy, then picked up her skirts and fled, like a frightened rabbit, back into the palace.

  “Jane!” Again Henry Tudor sighed her name, head thrown back, eyes shut, savoring it on his tongue. “By your love I shall be redeemed!” He threw up his hands and, twirling and laughing joyously, began to dance in the snow beneath the light of the moon.

  21

  Like a great beehive, the court was abuzz with gossip about the duel—“The Night Crow” versus “The Dove”—and wagers were being laid fast and furious all around about who would triumph. I put my money on “The Dove.” I was so confident that I pawned my pearls, my mother’s legacy to me, and staked that and all the coins I could spare on Jane Seymour. Had they been mine, I would even have staked Grimston Manor, Beaulieu, an
d Rochford Hall, but, alas, the deeds were all in George’s name.

  Jane Seymour and the King were everywhere together—riding for pleasure or in pursuit of game, at the ponds feeding bread-crumbs to the swans, strolling in the physic garden discussing herbal curatives, exploring the twists and turns of the maze, praying in the chapel side by side, touring the palace kitchens, visiting a new litter of spotted hunting hounds or a newborn foal in the stables or the falcons in the mews, and picnicking beneath the trees when all was lush and green again. When Jane embroidered he was there, sitting at her feet, serenading her with love ballads on his lute, reading aloud from morally wholesome works, and handing her her embroidery silks. And when he had one of his frightful headaches—megrims the doctors called them—he would lay his head in her lap, like a little boy, and close his eyes, and let her massage his brow and temples and apply a soothing poultice of chamomile.

  But when Henry sent her a purse of gold she refused it, falling upon her knees before the messenger and humbly entreating him to convey her deepest thanks to His Majesty, but she could not accept his gift; her honor was beyond price. When he sent her a brooch with his likeness ringed in diamonds she returned this also, imploring him not to send her jewels, but his likeness alone and unadorned instead; that would be of far greater worth to her than all the diamonds in Christendom.

  The King was completely besotted with his “gentle Jane.” He sent her a simple locket, oval-shaped and crafted of the purest gold, plain and unadorned as she requested, with his likeness inside. Upon receiving it, she pressed it to her lips and swore to wear it over her heart always. Countless times a day she was seen to open it and gaze lovingly down upon his features.