Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All

by M. T. Anderson

  Wulfhall has never seemed so far away.

  Life here is an unending cascade of drudgery and sameness. Queen Katharine keeps us at our sewing, and reading the Bible, singing prayers. Except for the moments when King Henry appears. He is as handsome as I had always heard. Tall with bright, intelligent eyes and shining golden-red hair. He is so very male. I cannot help but marvel at the glamour of the royal couple.

  Anne catches me staring. When the King and Queen exit the chamber, she turns to her hangers-on and with a spiteful glance at me, says, “It seems our poor Jane, here, has never seen a man before. She looks so goggle-eyed at the very sight of our King.” They laugh and I feel my cheeks and the tips of my ears burn. I imagine I am as crimson as one of my Young Lady Garden roses.

  “I have brothers, Mistress Boleyn,” I say lamely. I lose my nerve and don’t finish the thought: Of course I have seen a man.

  Anne laughs once more, and I am certain I hear her hiss to her cronies, “Plain milkface Jane: No man will ever look back at her, either.”

  I want to crawl behind a tapestry and hide for the rest of my life. She knows exactly where to thrust her daggers.

  “Jane?” It is Nan, my one friend here. “Are you all right?” I shake my head, tears welling in my eyes. “No, I suppose not after a display like that. Come on, let’s go clean up, shall we?” She walks me from the room, to the basin where I can splash cool water on my face.

  “Welcome to the serpents’ nest,” I mutter to myself.

  One day, as I, alongside a bevy of maids of honour, am bent over a piece of needlework—we are assiduously sewing costumes for the coming masquerade—the King stamps into the Queen’s presence chamber.

  He is fuming. I overhear them argue as she airs her humiliation, the offence she takes not only at Henry’s wandering hands and eyes, but also at the ennoblement of the King’s bastard son, Henry FitzRoy, by his former mistress Bessie Blount. “Oh, how you shame me, my King!” Her shrill cry causes me to prick my finger. A single ruby drop of blood wells up at the site of the tiny hole. Every pair of eyes in the room is stuck fast to either the King or the Queen.

  “You dare speak to me in such a way!” the King rages.

  FitzRoy, who is but six years old, was brought to court and admitted to the Order of the Garter, with all sorts of honours and titles conferred upon him. Now he is to be raised as if he were the true son of the King and Queen. Poor Katharine, forced to bear the stain of dishonour. But I know that this is the way of men.

  I never stopped to think of how my mother must have felt, all those years ago, when she learned my father had taken my own sister-in-law into his bed. I could think only of how broken my brother Edward seemed. How ferocious his anger was. But my mother, spurned so awfully, never once let her own grief or anger or humiliation show. She focused all her devastation on the rift between father and son—her son.

  Now, however, I watch as the Queen’s heart is trampled by her own husband, and I wonder what true feelings my mother must have hidden away. My heart aches for her. She seems at peace with my father, now that the rift is bound up. But I wonder…does the hurt that comes from knowing one has been mistreated and betrayed ever heal?

  William and I were…friends. While I cannot say I was in love with him, nor can I say I was truly betrayed, I had hoped. I had placed my hope in the promise of a future—with him, with children, with family and the companionship and love that follow thereon. The disappointment I harbour is still keen, all these months later. But it is nothing compared to what my mother endured. To what Queen Katharine endures. My heart wells up with sorrow for her. My eyes well up, too. With the Queen’s outburst, I let loose my own flood of tears. Oh, the embarrassment! Plain Jane indeed. And a witless, blubbering baby, too.

  I glance up and catch Anne’s eye. She smirks at me, then licks her lips and turns to watch the King. I note how he returns her gaze. Something passes between them. A flicker, a spark. Anne Boleyn also serves as a maid of honour to Queen Katharine, but there is a quality to her sly looks, her sleek beauty, that makes me uneasy. I think of a viper lying in wait.

  Katharine weeps softly now. “I shall submit and have patience, my lord,” she says.

  King Henry’s face is mottled purple and twisted with rage. I can see he wants to howl, to strike, but he keeps his voice low. “I shall speak with you later,” he snarls.

  When Nan sees me break into tears, she quickly pulls me to the far side of the Queen’s chamber, presses me against the wall, and shields me with her body. Still, the King, in his fury, hears my snuffling and turns around, his eyes seeking out the source of the noise. When he spies me, he throws his hands into the air, disgust evident on his face, then hurries from the room.

  Nan squeezes my hand gently and offers me a delicately embroidered handkerchief. I wipe my dripping nose. “You mustn’t draw such attention to yourself, Jane,” she whispers. I thank her, and thank God that there is one decent friend for me here at court.

  I turn back to Anne and watch her dark eyes, thoughtful and sharp. If I didn’t know better, I would think she is concocting a plan of some sort. I shall keep my distance from her and hope she leaves me alone. If I venture too close, I have no doubt she will strike and bite. She returns my gaze with a contemptuous one, narrows her eyes, as if to say, Don’t watch me too closely, then spins away, a malicious half smile quirking her lips.

  LONDON

  March 1529

  We sit in the Queen’s chamber, sewing clothing for the poor and talking in hushed tones. Nan is beside me. We know that Katharine is no longer held in favour by the King. His attentions have turned to Anne Boleyn. Truly, he seems utterly transfixed by her. But Anne works no magic. Rather she understands what he wants of her and how to keep herself just beyond his reach.

  She dances close to him when we gather in the great watching chamber at night, letting her fingers curl into the hair at the base of his neck. Then she sways her hips and dances away, and I think, I could never do that. I would never have the nerve. I see how he looks at her with such hunger. It makes my belly ache. Yet my heart aches for our Queen.

  One evening, Anne coyly spins a golden bracelet around her wrist. “A gift from the King,” she says to a gaggle of girls, casting her eyes about to see who is near, who is listening.

  Queen Katharine’s dearest friend and lady-in-waiting, María de Salinas, is close.

  “He sent it to me with another love letter. He has sent so many letters, filled with so many silly romantic poems and other expressions of his love for me, I hardly know what to do with them.” Anne’s laugh is a cruel twinkling, like shattering crystal.

  The other girls titter and look about, as though they do not want to catch trouble. But they are hooked. Anne’s power is inimitable and seemingly without limit. She speaks as she likes, and keeps Henry on a hook, wriggling and no better than a fisherman’s worm.

  Nan turns to me and shakes her head, disgusted.

  I whisper, “I cannot believe her brazenness. She truly knows no respect, has not a single care for the poor Queen. Anne is bound by oath to serve Queen Katharine, and yet she takes it upon herself to torment her daily.” I cannot keep the heated anger from my voice.

  “It is too sad, indeed,” Nan agrees.

  “Anne does not love Henry,” I say. “The Queen is so true in her love for him. How can he not see it? How does Anne have him so transfixed?”

  Suddenly, Anne is in front of me. She slaps my face and says imperiously, “How dare you speak so? You, little mouse, know nothing. And I will bid you to shut up.”

  I put my hand to my smarting cheek, tears welling in my eyes. I dare not say any more to her. Catching Anne’s attention so was not wise. Not wise at all.

  (QUEEN) ANNE’S COURT, LONDON

  June 1535

  How time marches on, trampling all of us, any of us—no matter our station—beneath her feet. Princess Mary, pitiable and prone to sickness and weak nerves, remains banished from court, isolated and alone. T
he poor thing is only nineteen. When I think of her, I cannot help but remember how my own family cast me out of Wulfhall so that I might work to raise them up. Pawns, all of us, it seems.

  Meanwhile, her mother, Queen Katharine, lies dying, a drawn-out and, by all accounts, painful death, far away from London in cold, boggy Kimbolton. The whispered rumours that swirl through court say she continues to profess her eternal love for King Henry, despite his mistreatment of her. Oh, my lady Katharine is so good. Generous and kind, dignified and devout.

  I recall how I hadn’t wanted to leave Wulfhall, travel all the way to London. Those first weeks at court…months or years, even…the time blurs together in a haze like the fog hanging over the River Thames…I wept constantly from loneliness and fear. Yet, as the foreignness of it all has shifted into familiarity, I have found my way. Morningtime to noon, I am tucked away in the Queen’s presence chamber, sewing—costumes for the balls and masquerades or clothing for the poor—and if I can deafen my ears to the whispers and gossip and plotting, I can almost find comfort in the quiet.

  My mind wanders again to the welfare of Princess Mary. I wonder if she weeps, too, as she waits alone for news of her mother’s demise, for the return of her father’s embrace, for his forgiveness.

  Now, she has been cast aside truly; the King has gone and married Anne Boleyn more than two years ago, and she’s borne him a little girl. Elizabeth. She is a golden child, bouncing and giggling, the brightest light of her father’s eyes. Her curls are the most perfect ringlets, her mouth a perfect rosebud. I have never seen a more beautiful child.

  When my father occasioned to leave his sanctuary and come to court for the tournaments, he took the opportunity to grab my arm, his fingers digging in so that I was left with blue and violet bruising, and insist upon my taking the oath of service to Anne. I tried to argue against it, so disturbed I was by the way she comported herself in her treatment of Queen Katharine.

  “Father, you cannot mean it,” I said.

  “Listen, daughter, and listen well,” he said, his voice of steel. I glanced around his chamber, the dark wood-panelled walls seeming to close in on me. His breath reeked of onions and ale. “You will serve as an attendant to the new Queen, no matter how distasteful, detestable you find it—find her.”

  Edward stepped in then, to try to soften the blow. “Jane, you know Father is right. You must do what is best for our family, and that means doing as the King of England would have you do. Serve his new Queen-in-waiting. Not the one he has cast aside.”

  I couldn’t help but stare at him, so surprised was I to hear Edward taking my father’s side. I suppose time does mend wounds after all. Time, or perhaps, ambition. It seems my father and brother can agree on promoting the cause of the family. But where do honour, love come in? Edward’s gaze was sympathetic but unwavering.

  I bowed my head in supplication and said, “I will do this thing, brother.” So now I attend Anne as a maid of honour. Imagine that: A once-maid-of-honour is now the Queen.

  * * *

  —

  My friend Nan was married two years ago and left to live with her husband in the country. No one has filled her spot in my heart. Anne has amassed a large household, bigger than our first Queen’s, but everyone is nervous and the genteel camaraderie that Queen Katharine once fostered amongst her ladies does not flourish any longer. Loneliness continues to plague me, but the heartaches of the last ten years have worn away, as the sea’s ceaseless waves beat smooth the cliffs and rocks and sand.

  Anne is not altogether unkind to the women who wait on her. She is a bit of an enigma. She still frightens me, especially when her temper flares, which it does often. And I know the latent cruelty that lingers beneath any façade of graciousness. I remember all too well her loudly whispered jibes. But then she also exhibits a seemingly boundless concern for the poor. She commands us to sew shirts and smocks for the widows and orphans. She gives more alms than Katharine did, and there is something angelic in all her charity work. But then Anne will fly into a fit of jealousy when Henry’s lusty attention wanders, and she will do something spiteful, like steal all of poor Princess Mary’s jewels or kick her fool. Once, though the Princess has been kept stowed away, out of sight, I even overheard her threatening to have Mary poisoned. Anne cherishes her own daughter, Elizabeth, who is a sweet little babe, coddling and stroking, spoiling and showering affection upon her.

  Yet she infects the court—the whole kingdom, truly—with this new Reformist religion. She has broken with Rome entirely and bids her ladies to take up the English Bible she leaves about in her privy chamber. Ladies reading a Bible! The Holy Word. It is meant only for the men of the cloth to interpret, to explain, to teach and guide us. The heresy frightens me to the root of my very soul. She has poisoned everything.

  I sit at my needlework, my shoulders aching slightly from remaining hunched over for too long without rising. I have been thinking about my faith. When I was a little girl, Father James, a priest my father hired to educate the boys, would sometimes give my sisters and me a lesson. He taught us to read and to say our prayers. I remember learning the letters of the alphabet. “A” for “apple,” “B” for “boy,” “C” for “Church.” And in my mind the Church was the same as my faith. It was my safe harbour. Now Anne and the King have thrust everything into such turmoil. What happens to the folk who still believe in the Roman Church? Are we all doomed?

  We are told to put away our love for Rome, to sever this deepest and most mystical of connections. But I find I cannot. I must keep these feelings a secret. Like so much else that goes unsaid in this new world.

  I have watched Anne tease and tempt Henry, trading in secrets and enticement for almost ten years, and now here we are, arrived at this moment: hereticism and blasphemy unparalleled. I cannot countenance any of it, and I know my mother and father, and my brothers, feel the same.

  But still, I watch and I listen, as I did in my first years at court, as I always have. And I see that the people of England are not happy at this turn of events. They loved Katharine; they hate Anne. Even the King’s love for her seems, somehow, diminished. Tarnished. He looks tired.

  I wonder if he regrets this marriage.

  I wonder if he still loves her.

  * * *

  —

  My sister, Bess, has written to me; she plans to arrive at Wulfhall later this summer. Having lost her husband last year, she has grown lonesome and wishes to be restored to the bosom of her family once again. By happy coincidence, I shall be travelling with Queen Anne and King Henry on their summer progress, which is, by and by, also due to arrive at Wulfhall. My heart soars at the prospect of being home again, of seeing my beloved sister.

  WULFHALL

  September 1535

  I am home! Oh, how I rejoice. As we climb the stairs, I spy one of the older servants stumbling under the heavy burden he carries. I rush to his side and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?” I ask.

  The old man nods, moving to gather some of the tumbled sacks. “Yes, miss. I am sorry.”

  I touch his arm and say, “Please, sir, you must be very tired. Let me gather these for you.” I stoop down and begin to pick up the bundles until another servant comes and takes them from me.

  I rise and straighten, then become uncomfortably aware of the train of people staring at me. For a moment I had forgotten where I was—or rather, I remembered too well that I was at home, but I’d forgotten I was here as a member of the royal court. Even the King is staring at me. I bow my head in shame.

  Yet when I step inside, all the anxiety is shed, and I feel lighter, somehow. Bess has been awaiting my arrival in the chamber we used to share, and my feet could not feel sprightlier as I skip into the room to hug her.

  “My darling Jane,” she hums into my ear, “I am so very happy to see you.”

  “Oh, Bess, I have missed you terribly,” I say.

  “It goes hard at court, does it?” she says, her eyes knowing.

 
; “Is it that evident?” I ask, a sad smile drawing my lips upwards, then down.

  “I’m afraid so, sister,” she says, taking my hand. “Come, tell me everything.”

  We huddle in our room, which we’d shared since we were wee babes, huddling beneath the coverlet on the bed where we slept and shared all our childhood secrets. I fall into my sister’s sympathetic and familiar embrace as I tell her about the scandals and secrets, the wickedness and tension at court, and above all, how lonely I am there. “I shall never fit in; the secrets and lies and wicked behaviour just do not suit my temperament. Worse, I have grown older these last ten years, and now I am sure I shall never marry,” I say with a sniffle. “I’m destined to remain alone, I know it.”

  And as she holds me, I feel my shoulders shudder, and all the crying I’ve suppressed these many years suddenly comes pouring out of me. I sob on and on. I’m helpless to stop, until I feel drained. Empty of tears, empty of sorrow, empty of everything.

  “Oh, you must think me a terrible brat. I know you must be devastated, having just lost Sir Anthony,” I whisper.

  “Hush, Jane,” Bess says, stroking my hair. “Don’t say such a silly thing. I know you. I know your character, how kind you are. And I do not want you to lose heart: You can never tell what will happen next.”

  “But who will ever want me?” I say.

  I don’t cry anymore. Every last ounce of soul has been wrung from me.

  Still…I’m lonely.

  * * *

  —

  The royal party has overtaken the whole household, as one would expect. But in the evening, when I am used to walking about on my own, undisturbed, I find the proximity of so many bodies a nuisance. Before we are to go into the banquet hall for supper, I step outside into my beloved Young Lady Garden and breathe in the soft fragrance of roses.