What happened then was that I was questioned. I gave straight answers; the questions didn’t merit protest. This was to be gone through, it seemed. Fine, then: let’s go through it. Did I have sex with Harry, Mark, on such and such a date, at Greenwich, Hampton Court, Bridewell, Whitehall, Eltham?
No, I didn’t. No, no, no.
Only once did I lose my temper. A particular date struck a chord: a September day, a couple of years ago. ‘That’d have been a week after Elizabeth was born. What are you suggesting? That he came sauntering into a roomful of women and charmed them all into looking the other way while he snuck into my bed, onto the bloodied bedlinen, for some fun?’ He did flinch, I saw it; I saw, too, the distaste with which he’d always regarded me. Good, you foul little man; why should I be nice for you?
‘I’m suggesting nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m asking you a question.’
‘And the answer’s no, isn’t it.’
‘Is it?’ Official, checking: in your own words.
‘The answer’s no.’
In the end, he said, ‘Right.’
My blood prickled: Yes, but what happens now? What is this really about?
He answered my unspoken question immediately. ‘I shall need you to accompany me to the Tower.’
‘The Tower?’ Actually, it was the last thing I’d expected. ‘But I’ve just told you: none of it’s true.’
‘Nevertheless,’ he said, shuffling papers, declining to look at me, ‘you’re under arrest and will have to reside at the Tower.’
‘Oh, this is absurd,’ I said. ‘I need to see Henry. NOW.’
‘It would benefit you,’ this was emphatic, as if I were a child, ‘to come without fuss.’
Oh, and you’d know, would you? How much do you know? How much of this, then, is your doing?
He added, lightly and crisply, as if being helpful: ‘Don’t pack. Just come with us. We’ll send along whatever you request.’
My turn to say, ‘Right.’ Have it your way. I stood. ‘Let’s go.’ I’d let him see that I couldn’t be intimidated.
The two Williams sloped off. Only my uncle came with me to the river, and, on the way, he dropped his officious manner, shaking his head and tutting as if to say, Well, well, well, what a business. As if I—rather than him and other liars—were somehow at fault. I asked him where my father was.
‘Keeping his head down,’ he said.
I should’ve known. I asked him where Harry was. In the Tower, was the answer.
I wondered if I’d see him, there. I supposed not. ‘And Mark, too?’
He nodded.
I hadn’t seen them go. No one had, as far as I knew. Perhaps no one was seeing my departure, either. I hoped not. It wasn’t my own barge that was waiting for me; the queen’s barge, which had been the Spaniard’s before I’d had her emblems knocked from it and replaced with mine. For that, I remembered, Henry had ticked me off: Couldn’t you have waited? I’d done so much waiting, by then, though, hadn’t I.
This one, to take me to the Tower, was an anonymous royal barge, at the royal steps. And there, on those steps, was Tom. He’d dared to show up, to show his miserable face. Actually, it was a miserable face: he was affecting an expression of world-weariness, as if he were the one with the problems. As if this was all very regretful. Hurts me more than it hurts you. In truth, though, he must have been delighted. I said, while walking past him down the steps, ‘You’ve certainly exercised your imagination with this one, haven’t you.’
He said nothing.
At the bottom of the steps I turned and spoke up to him. ‘It’s all a bit obvious, though, isn’t it? I must admit I’m surprised at you. A bit easy. My husband’s best friend? And some gullible little hanger-on?’ Settled in the barge, I added, ‘Needs must, though, I suppose. You need something on me, and you can’t find anything else.’
The barge seemed to buckle as he stepped aboard.
‘Your problem,’ I continued, ‘will be making it stand up in court. You must have thought about that. It must be worrying you. I mean, you might like to believe in all this bed-hopping; but it’s quite possible, isn’t it, that no one else will. A jury might just see right through it. And then what? This could be your one big mistake, couldn’t it.’ I checked, ‘I presume I will be going to court?’
His tone matched his face. ‘Yes, Anne.’
I smiled at him. ‘A fair trial?’
‘All the king’s subjects get a fair trial.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I laughed. ‘Yes, of course.’
I ignored them, Tom and my uncle, throughout the journey. I’d nothing more to say to them. They chatted to each other: nothing much; business. I shut it out, their mundane conversation. In its place were the oars, clipping the river-surface then rising from it and raining droplets. My mind was empty. I was exhausted. I did think, at one point, Harry, I’m coming: just like that, a clear cry but unsounded. Harry, in the Tower: he was where I was going; I was going somewhere he was. And any place where Harry was couldn’t be all that bad. Even if I didn’t get to see him. Mark’s music: maybe I’d hear that, in the distance, while I was there. I could listen for it. We’d come through this, the three of us, I told myself. No one would believe what was being said of us.
Henry, though: where was Henry?
Henry, I couldn’t sense at all; not his whereabouts, nor, indeed, anything else about him. Especially not his state of mind.
To my relief, we disembarked via the royal steps and not at Traitors’ Gate. Mr Kingston, the Tower’s superintendent, was there; he helped me ashore. Smiled, even, although seriously. A nice man, Mr Kingston. Before, I’d have said he was in the wrong job; now I know it’s the right job. Thank goodness for Mr Kingston, at the Tower. I asked him if I’d be going to a dungeon.
‘No, no, no, no, no,’ he said: I’d be going to my apartment.
My apartment! I’d forgotten its existence, I hadn’t been back there since my coronation. Suddenly, I started crying: relief, I suppose, along with weariness and self-pity. ‘Oh, my lovely apartment,’ I burbled, stupidly.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ he soothed, taking my arm, leading the way.
I could make this my home, I realized. Hole up here, and think everything through. Explore my options. Explain myself. Get help.
What wasn’t anywhere near so lovely as my apartment, though, was who was in it. Whoever had chosen my attendants had chosen carefully to give me maximum discomfort. My lady jailers gathered at the door to greet me. First, Auntie Liz. My heart seized up. She sniffed, up that long nose of hers. That was her greeting. Beside her, was Meg’s mum. She, I know, considers that I’ve led Meg astray. She looked at me with a peculiar mix of suspicion and satisfaction. Ready for me. Then there was Mrs Cosyn, wife of my own Master-of-Horse, my head of stables. I trusted Cosyn with my horses because he was extraordinarily dedicated. One of the reasons for his dedication, everyone knew, was that he preferred the stables to home. Who wouldn’t, if he was married to Mrs Cosyn. Silly bitch. Given to intrigues. Fancying herself as someone. Her eyes lit up when she saw me. She was as overdressed as ever. Last, but by no means least, was Mr Kingston’s wife. She’s nothing like him. Takes the job to heart, relishes the job in hand.
But then also, hanging back, two others. Tommy Wyatt’s sister, Marg. ‘Marg!’ My childhood friend. She smiled, shyly, embarrassed: difficult circumstances in which to meet again after so long. It was both wonderful to see her, and sad. She looked done-down, somehow. Me, too, though, I suppose. Age. And, ‘Mrs Orchard!’ My old nanny. And she really is old.
Was it a trick, these two being here? Were they going to go, now? I pushed past the horrible four to be welcomed by Mrs Orchard’s hug and, ‘Well, well, well,’ which, unlike my uncle’s wasn’t disapproving. I knew she wanted to finish with Haven’t you grown but was restraining herself. She’d shrunk. She and Marg seemed self-conscious in the company of the four; but I was here, now, wasn’t I, and if we didn’t quite match them in numbers, we were certainly a match for them in oth
er ways. Mrs Orchard was saying. ‘Come on, we’ve something for you to eat. You must be starving, after that trip.’ And, actually, I suddenly was; I was.
That evening, Mr Kingston came by to see if I had everything I needed.
‘Oh, she’s fine,’ his wife answered before I could speak. She was playing cards with her three fellow-spies. Ostensibly playing cards, but also, clearly, listening to my conversations with Marg and Mrs Orchard; with Marg, mostly, because Mrs Orchard was dozing.
‘I’m fine, yes, thank you,’ I told Mr Kingston, and invited him to stay a while. Unconventional, probably, but this was hardly a conventional incarceration. And, anyway, some male company seemed like a good idea.
‘Oh, well…’ If you’re asking. Ill at ease, yet obviously gratified, he settled himself down.
‘This is particularly good,’ I said of some pie.
‘Oh.’ Interested, he accepted a slice. He didn’t stop eyeing me, though; seemed wary of me. Probably he felt I should be crying. Well, sometimes I had been; but I couldn’t cry all the time. Or so I thought.
As soon as he asked, ‘You’re bearing up, then?’ and I nodded, about to say that I was well-fed, warm, in good company, my throat closed and the tears began again.
He looked mortified, of course.
I reached over and reassured him with a hand on his arm. ‘It’s just the injustice of these charges,’ I managed. ‘You know? You’ve heard?’ Surely he had.
He nodded, looking at his shoes.
‘I mean,’ I despaired, ‘I’ve been thinking: I remember Franky—Weston—once saying he loved me. Declaring it in front of everyone. Like they do, these boys. And now I think, Oh, so, are they going to get him, too?’
And that’s exactly what happened. The very next day.
Franky.
And Billy, too, for good measure.
George: what happened with George was that he went from Greenwich to Whitehall as soon as he heard I’d been arrested, to see Henry. Presumably to find out what was happening, and to try to sort it out. He was arrested when he arrived, not having set eyes on Henry. The charges were the same as for his friends.
The same charges?
It was Mrs Cosyn who told me. The news had a physical effect on me: I stood and paced as if letting a pain die down. Then I turned to her and burst out laughing. ‘I’m not that stupid,’ I laughed. ‘Any woman who sleeps with George deserves what she gets.’
George and I were arrested last Tuesday. On Friday, the boys—minus George—went to trial: Harry, Franky, Billy, and Mark. My brother, as a peer of the realm, was due a trial by his fellow-peers. The boys’ trial was in Westminster Hall. The axe man would have been in attendance, his axe turned away from them until the verdict came. It didn’t take much to imagine the jury-rigging that would have been done to ensure the required verdict, but Mr Kingston told me, anyway. ‘Top notch,’ was how he put it. ‘Knights, all of them.’ All of them enemies of the boys.
‘Who was foreman?’
‘Ed Willoughby.’ He was just as impressed.
‘Oh, well, that was Billy done for, regardless,’ I said. ‘Ed Willoughby owes Billy a lot of money.’
Mr Kingston looked crestfallen. He’d been happyto believe in the system.
Some system: the boys probably weren’t even informed of the charges against them, and there’d have been no one to speak for them. They’d gone there to be judged guilty, as simple as that. To be seen to be judged guilty. The axe man turning his blade towards them. All they could have hoped for was that Henry would have a change of heart. Would have a heart.
On Saturday, my household—at Greenwich, where I’d left it—was dissolved. Anyone in my service was let go and absolved of any association with me. Which implied I wouldn’t be going back.
So, my trial—coming, on the Monday—was a formality. And yet it wasn’t: it was my one chance to be heard. That was if Henry didn’t step in, first, to stop it all. To send me away somewhere. Abroad, or a nunnery. And he would, wouldn’t he? That was what I was still hoping, on Sunday.
Because he didn’t hate me that much, did he?
George’s trial was to follow mine. We were treated to the Great Hall here at the Tower, a much bigger venue, because of the numbers of spectators expected. Two thousand, Mr Kingston later told me, impressed. His wife accompanied me into the hall, and settled me in the appointed chair. And there I was, facing my uncle again. He was Lord Steward. What pained me for an instant was that Hal was beside him: his son, deputizing as Earl Marshal. Hal didn’t look at me; not once, that I was aware of. I was grateful for that; it would have been more than I could bear. As it was, I sat calm, ready. Took a moment to look around. There was Tom, chewing his lower lip. We looked at each other, across that Hall. You or me. Because there was the faintest chance, wasn’t there? All those people: not all of them could be in his pocket or owe him a favour. Would someone stand up and say something? Could there be a kind of riot?
And then it began: my uncle’s listing of alleged incident after alleged incident. I’d heard it all before, of course, but the magnitude was still striking. Me, who’d refrained from sex with my married lover for almost seven years. Perhaps it was supposed to be that once I’d started, I couldn’t stop. Got a taste for it. Made up for lost time. So that even my own brother would do. Even when I was pregnant, recovering from a birth, a stillbirth, a miscarriage. Perhaps I did it to take my mind off all that.
My uncle’s tedious litany gave me time to continue looking around, and there was Harry Percy. One of the jury. Poor Harry, dragged down from Northumberland to do his duty. I couldn’t see how he looked—couldn’t see if what people said was true—because he was sitting with one elbow on the bench in front of him and his forehead resting in that hand. And then it was time for me to answer as charged.
Watch, Harry. Listen. This is how to do it, this is how to be a man.
No, I had not slept with those named men on those dates or any other. No, I hadn’t promised to marry Harry Norris if Henry died. I hadn’t hoped for Henry’s death. Hadn’t poisoned Catherine, nor planned to poison Mary (I didn’t add, Although I wish I had). Yes, I’d given money to Franky Weston (who hadn’t?), but I gave money to a lot of people. I had money, they didn’t. I was queen, they needed looking after, or treating. It was expected. A pointed glare at my uncle: As you well know.
There was no case to answer, surely. I’d done well, I knew I had. I’d kept my cool. But it was time for the jurors to give their verdicts, each of them, from the most junior upwards, and they all knew which verdict was expected of them. And so it came, a string of carefully expressionless guilties. Harry Percy didn’t lift his head even to give his verdict. Mrs Orchard wailed; I recognized the voice, its fragility. When everyone was quiet, we all turned to my uncle: Let’s hear it.
And—can you believe it—he was snivelling. Leaking. Red-eyed, red-nosed.
Well, it was a bit late for that.
I’d have loved to have leant across and given him something to really cry about.
He pronounced sentence: death by burning or beheading. He didn’t have to add, dependent on Henry’s goodwill.
Henry’s goodwill.
Then it was time for my say. I knew I could say whatever I liked, but bear in mind that I was keen on Henry’s goodwill. I was understandably keen on that.
I said that what I regretted was that so many men were to die on my behalf. As for Henry, I said, I realized that I hadn’t been the ideal wife—and a king does need an ideal wife—but it seemed, after all, regrettably, that I wasn’t wife-material. I’d done him no greater wrong than that, though, I finished.
And sat down.
Harry Percy stood up. And fell down. The kerfuffle of a dead-weight body on wood, and of his fellow jurors galvanized. He was helped from the room. I still didn’t see his face, just the stooped back of him, and his feet dragging.
The spectators and jury stayed sitting for George’s trial. I was taken back to my rooms, to pick at
some lunch. The details of George’s trial, I later extracted from Marg. I don’t understand why she was reluctant. George put in a sterling performance. I’m proud of him. But, then, I always have been. I wouldn’t have expected any less of him. We’re Boleyns, after all. We don’t mess around.
He gave straight, calm denials to every charge, refusing to rise to the bait. The only hitch came when, finally, he was handed a piece of paper on which was written something he was supposed to have said; something of a delicate material, unsayable in public. The question, from our uncle, was, Had he or hadn’t he said it?
Quite properly, George wasn’t standing for such pussy-footing. He simply read it aloud: ‘The king is incapable of making love to his wife because he has neither the skill nor the virility.’ I imagine him enjoying it; carefully straight-faced but realizing he had nothing left to lose, and enjoying it.
Unlike Marg, who clearly hated having to tell me, to say it; she’s lived a rather sheltered life. If she was at all worried about my sensibilities, she shouldn’t have been. I laughed. It was me who’d said it, to George.
When the hushed uproar had died down, George handed the slip of paper back to our uncle. ‘No,’ he said, bored, ‘I never said it. Who says I did?’
Uncle Norfolk was so flustered by the direct question that he answered, kind of: ‘A lady at court.’
‘Ah,’ said George. ‘The only lady at court I know of who’d wish me this much ill is my own dear lady wife. Am I right?’ Turning his smile from our uncle to the jury, he said, ‘For any of you who aren’t aware, we’re not on the best of terms.’
Our uncle, of course, wouldn’t reply.
For the record, George is wrong about Jane being the only woman wishing him ill—although, George being George, he probably doesn’t realize it—but I suspect he’s right about the informant having been Jane.
The jury returned their guilty verdicts and my uncle passed sentence: Tyburn; not needing to add, pending the goodwill of the king. Time for George’s last words, and apparently these concerned his debts. That’s what was worrying him: the people he owed money. He apologized. ‘I would have paid up,’ he said, ‘you know I would. I just—’ and here, he smiled, helpless, and shrugged—‘didn’t see this coming.’
The Queen of Subtleties Page 27
