Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All

by M. T. Anderson

  If this is to be my end, I know what it looks like now. If I am to be burned, that is another thing entirely.

  * * *

  —

  Sir William Kingston enters my privy chamber smelling of sawdust, blood, and sweat…smelling of injustice. He has come from the men’s executions on Tower Hill. “Madam, your execution has been set for tomorrow morning. You shall not suffer the flames, but the kinder death of beheading. The King has specially commissioned an expert executioner from Calais to sever your head in the French manner—by sword, not axe.”

  “The King is very merciful,” I say.

  Before Kingston leaves, I must know. “Did any of the men protest my innocence before they died?”

  “All but the musician Smeaton. He confessed that he deserved to die,” the constable answers.

  “Well, then I shall soon see four men in Paradise. God have mercy on Mark Smeaton. I fear he has condemned his soul forever.”

  After the constable closes the chamber door behind him, Lady Rochford crumples at my feet. “Was it as awful as I imagine, to watch George, my dear husband—”

  “You were right not to come, Jane.” Madge pats her back and hands Lady Rochford some wine.

  “I cannot bear to even think of it,” she whimpers. She takes a large gulp from her cup. “I should have done more to save him. I tried to appeal to the King, but I failed. It’s all my fault.”

  “No, Jane. You cannot blame yourself. My brother knew how devoted you were to him.” I reach for her hand. “Your husband is with God now. And tomorrow I will join them.”

  Lady Rochford bites her lip to hold back tears, and my other ladies look almost as grim.

  I clutch the hand of Caroline, who is but a girl of fifteen, my most recently appointed lady-in-waiting, and sweet as strawberry jam. One never heard an unkind word pass from her lips. “I have missed you all dearly,” I say, forcing a smile. “It’s been awful to be trapped here with the spies. So tell me what gossip goes around the court?”

  “Are you sure you want to know, Queen Anne?” my cousin asks. “Much of it is about you.”

  “Nothing can be worse than what has already been said. So spare no detail. But to begin with, how fares the King?”

  Madge raises her eyebrows. “Very well; some say too well. The King has been hunting, sporting with his friends, playing cards, in a very jovial mood around court.”

  I try not to look hurt. “And the Lady Jane Seymour?”

  “She was removed from Westminster,” Lady Rochford answers. “And it is rumoured that every night the King visits her by boat. Some ballads have been composed about Jane and the King, not kind ones. People think it unseemly that you are in the Tower and Jane is pouncing on His Majesty.”

  I shake my head. “It makes me wonder if it wasn’t Jane Seymour who gave testimony to Lord Cromwell for my arrest.”

  Madge responds immediately. “No, Your Grace. It wasn’t her.”

  “You sound very assured, cousin. Why? Do you know who it was?”

  “I feel confident about two ladies who spoke against you, but I can’t be certain beyond that,” Madge says.

  “At my trial Lord Cromwell said three ladies in my household provided him with details that helped to condemn me,” I remind them.

  “Three?” Lady Rochford questions.

  “Yes, three.”

  My sister-in-law quickly says, “Well, I know one was Nan Cobham.”

  I puff out my cheeks. “That woman has despised me ever since I arrived in court. I think she holds me accountable for every misdeed of the Boleyns. She hated my sister, Mary, as well. I should have known she would be eager to give false testimony against me. Who else?”

  Madge hesitates. “It may seem unlikely, but the other informant is Lady Worcester.”

  “No, that’s not possible,” I say. “She is my dear friend. I was to be her child’s godmother. I don’t believe it.”

  Caroline speaks for the first time. “Did Your Grace not request that Lady Worcester attend you these last days? And yet she’s not among us.”

  “But I assumed that was because she felt unwell with her pregnancy.” I look around, pleading with my eyes for one of my ladies to say that I’m right.

  “I’m sorry, Your Grace.” Caroline rubs my hand.

  “I feel as though I might faint.”

  Caroline finds a cloth and presses it to my forehead.

  Lady Rochford slumps onto the floor and shakes with tears, despondent. “What will I do without George? Without you, Anne? What will happen to me?”

  Madge shakes Lady Rochford with aggression. “What is wrong with you? Queen Anne faces execution and all you can think about is your own selfish interests? You should be ashamed.”

  “Don’t be too hard on Lady Rochford,” I say. “She has just lost her husband. In grief, many unlovely things slip from one’s tongue. I will be with our Lord tomorrow. It is you, my ladies, who must remain dans ce monde cruel. I, too, worry what will become of you. And I pray for you all.”

  Caroline looks at me wistfully and asks, “Queen Anne, aren’t you afraid to die?”

  I shake my head. “No. I welcome death. It’s a great relief to me. I have asked forgiveness for my sins and will be in Paradise. I only fear what will happen to my daughter when I’m gone.”

  “But you were convicted of crimes you didn’t commit. How can you welcome your death?” Madge wonders.

  “I didn’t sin against the King, this is true, but I treated his daughter the Lady Mary with contempt. I convinced myself that to protect the interest of my own daughter, to protect Elizabeth’s line of succession, the awful things I did to Mary were justified. But wickedness and malice are just that, and must be atoned for. I should have been kinder to her. Mary will never forgive me, and should not. God requires my death as penance to her.”

  Madge opens her mouth to say something further, but then closes it.

  Caroline picks up her sewing. Lady Rochford kneels before the Book of Hours. I seek a quill and parchment. Sunlight winks in and out of the room, dancing prisms around the floor. Ravens call one after another on the lawn. I wonder if Paradise will smell like the ink of this quill or like soot in the hearth or like the Greenwich garden in spring? Or perhaps Paradise will smell entirely new. I close my eyes, overcome with a memory of Greenwich roses newly bloomed, how they smell like dirt and soap and my sweet Elizabeth’s hair. Elizabeth, ma petite, Maman’s little rose, how I ache for you.

  Jane, I assume, will be Henry’s next Queen. I pray she treats the King’s daughters with the kindness, fairness, and gentleness of a rose. Then she will be a far better Queen than I.

  19 MAY 1536

  The Tower of London

  The Queen’s Lodgings

  Just Before Dawn

  My cousin raps lightly on the closet door. “Sorry to disturb Your Grace, but the archbishop will arrive soon to hear your last confession.”

  “Has the night passed so quickly?”

  “It’s nearly dawn. Is there anything we can do for you, Queen Anne?” Madge asks.

  “I need a few moments more, and then I will join you,” I say.

  * * *

  —

  I stopped speaking my thoughts aloud many hours ago. But whether audibly or in my head, I was talking to someone nonexistent and ephemeral—in truth, I told my story only to myself.

  But how I wish it were otherwise.

  How I wish that someone could have heard all this, and one day would share it with a particular little girl when she is ready. When she grows older. When she feels confused and afraid and alone. When she seeks the truth. When she misses her mother.

  A soft light seeps under the door. The morning of my execution has broken. I feel weak-kneed and almost giddy.

  Mon temps est enfin venu.

  My time has finally come.

  MY LAST SACRAMENT

  As early-morning bells do toll

  Let those who witness soon extol

  I ate and drank
and found console

  And swore to God was faithful whole,

  No carnal sins did I confess

  For of such crimes I am guiltless.

  19 MAY 1536

  The Tower of London

  From Queen’s Lodgings to the Great Courtyard

  It’s odd, the Purgatory of these final hours. I’ve lost all sense of things. I can’t describe the colour of the sky this morning or what flavours my jam. I no longer smell the damp earth or hear the birds sing outside the window. I have prepared myself so thoroughly to die it’s as though I’m not here anymore. Yet I am.

  Madge, Caroline, and my brother’s widow pray beside me. However, the girls tend to cry more than they comfort. I suppose it’s consoling to know they care so greatly that they mourn the loss of me already.

  “Will you help to dress me one last time?” I point to the black robe lined in ermine with the simple white hood, and the scarlet kirtle to wear beneath it. I run my fingers through the soft fur. Royal ermine I wear to remind everyone that I will be the first Queen of England to lose her head. And red is the colour of martyrs. The neckline of my final piece of fashion drops low enough that I won’t need to remove anything but my headpiece for the executioner. My last armour I’ve designed to aid in my destruction.

  Madge blubbers as she adjusts the net covering my head. “Anne, you don’t deserve to die. You cannot die!”

  “I do deserve to die. I am prepared to die. And I will finally die today.” I grasp her hands to stop her gushing about.

  Now my brother’s widow starts to wail. “No, no!”

  I shake my head. “Ladies, please stop.”

  The girls muffle their sobs, but their faces hold the most sorrowful expressions.

  I pat Lady Rochford’s hand and smile. “Think of it this way: We ought to thank His Majesty. Henry just continues to advance me in my career. I began as merely a private gentlewoman, then he raised me to marchioness, and from a marchioness I became the Queen. And now, because I’m innocent of the crimes for which I’m sentenced, I shall die a martyr. Therefore, in Heaven I will become a saint. And there’s nothing greater one can aspire to be. So, as always, the King proves ever kind and generous to me.” I laugh at my cleverness.

  Constable Kingston appears at the door, solemn as ever. “The hour approaches, madam. Make yourself ready.”

  I cross myself, kneel, and say a final prayer:

  Ma petite, I pray that I take all the bad parts of me and your father to the scaffold today, and leave for you, in you, only the good.

  Sir William clears his throat.

  I nod at him and rise. “I am prepared, Sir William.”

  My ladies and I follow the constable one final time down the twisting staircase onto the Tower Green. Two hundred of the King’s guard wait to escort me to the scaffold. I follow with my head held high. As the procession moves through the large twin towers of the Cold Harbour Gate, I see that a vast crowd has assembled in the Great Courtyard to watch me die.

  If there’s noise now, I don’t hear it.

  Whether there’s rain or sun in this moment, I can’t say.

  But the scaffold, I see that vividly—a wooden structure draped in black, strewn with newly gathered straw. It sits only five feet off the ground, and several men stand upon it. But it holds no chopping block like the one for the five men who died before me. I will lose my head by the blade of a sword, not an axe. But where is the swordsman? No one brandishes a sword, and no one wears executioner’s black.

  Madge gently nudges me. “Queen Anne, don’t forget to pass out your alms.”

  I nod at Madge and distribute my last coins to those in the crowd who look to need them most.

  My purse emptied, the scaffold only ten feet ahead, a serenity washes over me. I feel as if I’m floating slightly above the ground.

  Constable Kingston takes my arm and assists me up the scaffold’s wooden steps. There are so many gathered to witness my death, more people than it looked like from a distance.

  Before the constable releases me, I beg him kindly, “Sir William, I ask you humbly if I may speak to the people. I promise I have only good things to say.”

  Sir William nods without hesitation and I move to address the crowd, but first I ask one additional favour of the constable. “Will you please not signal for my death until I have finished?”

  Kingston agrees. Now I take careful steps to the centre of the scaffold. My throat feels dry and scratchy and I wish for a drink.

  “Good Christian people,” I begin, but my voice sounds only half as loud as I need it to be, failing me in my last moment. I close my eyes, pray to Heaven, and try again. I repeat, more loudly this time, “Good Christian people.”

  The crowd falls hushed; not even a cough can be heard. I survey the faces before me. If my father’s here, I can’t readily see him. Perhaps he hasn’t the strength to watch me die.

  I know the words I want to say, but my voice quivers under the gravity of where I stand and what I face. “Good friends, I didn’t come here to excuse or justify myself, for by the law I have been judged to die. So I come here to yield myself humbly to the will of the King, my lord.” My voice becomes steadier. “And if ever in my life I offended the King’s grace, surely with my death I will atone for it now. I don’t blame my judges or any person or any thing, only the cruel law of the land. I beseech you all, good friends, to pray for the life of the King, my sovereign lord and yours, who is one of the best princes on the face of the earth, and who could not have treated me better. I submit now to death with good will, humbly asking pardon of all the world.”

  The crowd remains noiseless and still.

  I look over at the constable and indicate that I am done. Then I address the men behind me, hoping to hurry things along. “Which of you is the executioner?”

  Constable Kingston answers, “He will make himself known to you very soon.” He hesitates before he says, “Madam, there is no hope for a pardon. You should confess now before it’s too late.”

  “I have nothing to confess.”

  We hold each other’s gaze for a few seconds.

  Sir William nods. “I would think not. Then have your ladies prepare you.”

  Caroline removes my mantle of ermine.

  “Please forgive me any harshness I ever showed to you,” I say to my dear ladies. “You’ve been so good to me. Be good also to the next Queen and always faithful to the King. And try not to forget me,” I say with a little less strength. “Pray for me.”

  I remove my headpiece, and Madge switches my net coif to a linen cap.

  A man approaches me now. “I beg Your Grace’s pardon, for I am ordered to do this duty.”

  “You have my pardon, sir, and be assured, the Lord’s above as well.” Then I ask, “What do I do now?”

  The executioner points to the centre of the scaffold. “Please kneel and say your prayers.”

  I tremble so violently it’s hard to walk straight.

  As I drop to my knees in the straw, I have a vision of my head rolling off the scaffold. La Reine sans tête. The eyes on my decapitated head eerily maintain sight. They look, with panic, up to Heaven.

  When will the sword come? I should have asked the man. I turn around to find the executioner. I can’t see him. I don’t know where he is! I look over to my ladies, who are bent in prayer. It’s hard to breathe until I repeat, “Jesu, have mercy on me, Jesu, have mercy on me…”

  I look above me and see sky, blue as a newborn’s eye, gold winking through clouds of softest wool. “Jesu, have mercy—”

  THE BALLAD OF ANNE BOLEYN

  My time had come. My judgement read,

  Condemned though innocent I pled.

  More than crown knocked from my head,

  So feared was I, they willed me dead.

  And to my fall, how was I led?

  No man but Henry shared Anne’s bed.

  I overstepped, and foes were bred.

  Too quick my tongue, and hence I bled.


  I prayed each day my sins to shed.

  And learned to face death without dread.

  Past Tower walls, saw light ahead

  To dwell with God, my soul be fed.

  Now that I’m gone, what shall be said

  Of Anne Boleyn without a head?

  Forget her fast, move on instead—

  The falcon died, the phoenix weds.

  The Lord God, Architect of all creation, simply spoke words in the vast emptiness and, with a few sentences, called this darkling world into being. At His word, the stormy wind arises or the sea is made calm.

  In the same way, the King speaks, and lives are made or broken; palaces appear or are torn down.

  In the month of May, a few days before the beheading, I rode with Thomas Cromwell to see one of the great monasteries sacked. I pointed at its splendid sanctuary, and the roof came off. At my command, men heaved the lead roofing up in rolls.

  Now I was head of the English Church—no more foreign interference by the Pope—and it was entirely my right to dissolve the monasteries in my own kingdom and seize their property for the Crown. The Pope should never have defied my wishes, for now I took out my revenge on each and every shaved-headed English monk I kicked out and sent to pasture. My will cannot be bent or broken.

  The monks watched their home torn to pieces in front of them as Cromwell showed me the tally of all the precious vessels of silver and gold, all of the livestock, all of the fields, orchards, and forests that became mine as this fallen house of God was emptied.

  Cromwell was a man I relied upon: my principal secretary, Lord Privy Seal, Chancellor of the Exchequer—a man who had committed enough crimes in his youth to know how to be of use to kings. He knew how to make decisions like a man, and I trusted him in everything.