Ambition's Queen (Bridget Manning #1)

by V. E. Lynne

  Sir Christopher Hales, the Attorney General, a spare-looking gentleman, got to his feet and read the indictment. This was the first time that the queen had heard the full extent of the charges against her, but she did not betray a flicker of emotion as they were enumerated. Catherine and Joanna’s eyes bulged when they heard that the queen was alleged to have “procured her brother and the other four to defile her and have carnal notice of her, which they had done often, and that they had conspired the death of the king, for she had said to them that she had never loved the king in her heart . . .”

  Hales droned on, his thin voice rising at times to a shout in order to be heard over the din of the multitude. Anne sat still, looking neither left nor right, her back ramrod straight. She was like a queen carved in ice. As each charge was put to her, she responded in a loud, firm voice, “Not guilty.”

  Hales came to the end and Thomas Cromwell rose to his feet. He clasped his meaty hands behind his back and waited until the Hall had fallen totally silent before he spoke. “Your Majesty,” he began, inclining his head towards Anne, “is it not true that you are very close to your brother, my lord of Rochford, and that you have danced with him many times in your chamber, and that you have been seen to kiss him on many other occasions?”

  Anne merely looked at Cromwell and made no answer. He continued, unruffled, “Is it not also true, Majesty, that you wrote a letter to your brother, informing him that you were expecting a child?” Anne again said nothing, seemingly not wanting to sanction such a line of questioning.

  “I have the letter here, sir!” a man called out, waving a sheaf of papers, “you cannot deny that you wrote such a thing, madam!” Anne regarded the man with contempt, but the crowd cheered him on and Cromwell took the proffered letter from him and pretended to read it with great interest.

  After a few moments, Cromwell finished reading, carefully folded the letter, and continued on with his interrogation. “Your Majesty, have you and Lord Rochford ever laughed at the king, have you ever made fun of his dress, or of his poetry?” Several people tittered in the Hall, and Catherine leaned across and said, “Is this really all they have? Innuendo and court gossip?”

  Bridget replied, “I cannot believe that the queen would be convicted on evidence such as this.”

  Anne made her first answer to Cromwell. “Yes, I have sometimes laughed at the king, through foolish jealousy of his greatness. However, I have always been true to him with my body and my heart.” The crowd murmured in approval.

  Cromwell, taking his cue from the crowd’s reaction, kept silent and moved on to the subject of Sir Henry Norris. “Majesty, is it not true that you desired to marry Sir Henry Norris and, to that end, you both conspired the death of the king?”

  “No, never,” Anne replied.

  “In that case madam, why did Sir Henry feel it necessary to go to your almoner and swear, upon the Bible, that you are a good woman after you were heard arguing with him?”

  Anne moved forward slightly in her chair. “Sir Henry went to my almoner because we, as you say, had argued, foolishly I admit, and neither of us wanted the argument to be misconstrued.”

  “Why should it be misconstrued, madam?” Cromwell demanded. “Surely, if it were an innocent disagreement, then no misconstruction could be placed upon it?”

  “Aye!” several people called out.

  Anne opened her mouth to reply, but Cromwell beat her to it. “Is it not the truth, madam, that the reason you had Norris go to your almoner was because you had argued over your mutual plot to kill the king and marry afterwards?” Cromwell picked up one of his papers and said, “Did you not say here, and I quote, ‘You look for dead men’s shoes, for if ought came to the king but good you would look to have me’!”

  Mini pandemonium broke out, and the Duke of Norfolk had to call for silence. When she could be heard, the queen said, “Those words were ill chosen, sir, but they did not pertain to any relationship or plot between myself and Sir Henry. I was angry with him because he was taking so long to marry my cousin, Mistress Shelton.”

  “Ah, so you care very deeply whom Sir Henry marries?” Cromwell jeered, and there was general laughter. Having made his point, he carried on to his next target. “Tell me, Majesty, have you ever given money to Sir Francis Weston?”

  The queen looked puzzled and readily agreed that she had. “I have given money to several gentlemen,” she said, to yet more laughter. Cromwell raised his eyebrows and looked meaningfully at the jury.

  “You are aware, madam, that Weston, along with Norris, Brereton, and Smeaton have all accused you of satisfying your unnatural lust with them?” There was some hissing in the Hall, and the Duke of Norfolk threw a look of utter contempt at the queen.

  “No, sir, I am aware of no such ‘accusations,’ only the so-called ‘confession’ of Master Smeaton, who was tortured,” she paused, “as you are no doubt aware.”

  Cromwell’s round features coloured somewhat, and Anne looked pleased to have caused him at least a moment of discomfort. He seemed momentarily lost for words which allowed an opportunity for Anne. “Master Secretary,” she asked, “surely you do not mean to tell me that the confession of Smeaton is to be enough to convict me of high treason?”

  “In your case, it is sufficient, madam,” the Duke of Norfolk interposed, his tone icy. Cromwell had recommenced rifling through his papers and now he produced a stack of documents that he began reading from. “I have here the testimonies of several women who have laid evidence against your Majesty. I begin firstly with the Lady Wingfield.”

  Bridget glanced quizzically at Catherine, but the young maid merely returned her puzzled stare. Even Anne looked mystified. “Lady Wingfield, who was a former friend of yours and is now sadly deceased, confessed on her deathbed that you had been light in your behaviour both before and during your marriage to the king. She branded you ‘an infamous whore who should never have been queen’!”

  The main body of the Hall broke out into renewed tumult and Norfolk had to call for silence again. Bridget wondered who on earth this Lady Wingfield had been and how Cromwell knew what she had supposedly uttered on her deathbed! It would be humorous in any other situation. To think that the queen could lose her life based upon the alleged words of a dead woman made Bridget’s stomach turn.

  Cromwell threw down the Wingfield document and went on to another. “This is the testimony of the Countess of Worcester.” Anne gripped the carved armrests of her chair and Bridget lowered her head in despair. “Lady Worcester states that she, on divers occasions, saw the queen entertaining men in her chamber, at all hours of the day and night, that Her Majesty danced with them, laughed with them, embraced them, and whispered with them.”

  “That is not true!” Anne protested, but Cromwell ignored her.

  “Lady Worcester also says that she saw the queen kiss her brother, on the mouth, and lay with him upon her bed!”

  “That is false, my lords!” the queen cried, her eyes wide and pleading. The peers stared at her with a mixture of disbelief and disgust and a great deal of tut-tutting ensued. Bridget watched the Earl of Wiltshire’s reaction, but his face was a mask. He sat still and corpse-like, and stared straight ahead. “So, you never kissed and embraced Lord Rochford?” Cromwell asked with a deceptive mildness.

  “Yes!” Anne replied furiously. “But there was no wrong in it! He is my brother!”

  “Indeed he is, madam, which brings me to the testimony of your said brother’s wife, Lady Rochford.”

  The Hall went quiet and Bridget swallowed back the bile that was rising in her throat.

  “That good lady says, quite specifically, that not only did you kiss and embrace your brother, which you have admitted madam, but that you fornicated with him in your chamber and many other places besides!”

  The hubbub in the Hall rose to a crescendo, and several people called out, “For shame!” and some other braver souls shouted out, “Rubbish!” The queen had gone white and a single tremor ran through her from t
op to toe. Cromwell carefully piled his papers on his desk and sat down, clearly satisfied with his performance.

  Anne cast a look at the nobles and said in a loud voice, “My lords, I swear to you that everything that has been alleged against me in this proceeding is either completely untrue or a vile twisting of the truth. I am innocent. I have committed no offence against His Majesty.”

  Her judges regarded her coolly and began to confer amongst themselves. After what seemed a very short time, they were called upon to deliver their verdict. The young Earl of Surrey was the first to speak.

  “Guilty,” he said, that single word causing a general murmuring to rise once more, the sound a mixture of surprise and satisfaction. The crowd seemed to be fairly evenly divided, some exultant to see the queen condemned, others uneasy at the flimsy evidence brought against her.

  The verdicts continued on, each lord called upon to give his answer and each one declaring the queen to be guilty. The Duke of Suffolk did so with a smirk upon his face. Soon, it was the Earl of Wiltshire’s turn, and he condemned his daughter like all the others had, although his voice was so low that many did not hear him utter the dreaded word. He sat as quickly as he could and began rubbing his forehead, as if he was in pain. Anne did not look at him.

  “Madam,” Norfolk said, “you have been found guilty and now you must resign your crown into our hands.”

  Anne gazed sadly at the golden diadem, which was displayed upon a crimson cushion, its rubies and sapphires shimmering in the dull light. “I do so willingly, my lord,” she replied sombrely, “even though I am innocent.”

  Ignoring his niece’s statement, Norfolk continued. “You are now degraded of your titles of marchioness and princess.”

  Anne acquiesced and said, “Those titles were given to me by the king and I give them back to him readily.” Norfolk nodded once, his normally confident features suffused with nerves and what looked suspiciously like grief.

  It now fell to the duke to pronounce sentence on the queen, his sister’s child, but as soon as he tried to do so he burst into tears. He furiously wiped the tears away, and he had to clear his throat harshly two or three times before he could get the words out. On either side of her, Joanna and Catherine grabbed Bridget’s hands, and the young maid held onto her colleagues for dear life.

  “B-because,” Norfolk stuttered, “you have offended against our sovereign, the king’s grace, in committing treason against his person, the law of the realm is this: that you have deserved death and your judgment is this: that you shall be burnt here within the Tower of London on the Green, or else to have your head smitten off, as the king’s pleasure shall be known.”

  A terrible scream rang out in the Hall, and Bridget looked up to see Mrs Orchard in the gallery, on her feet, both hands pressed to her chest, her face contorted in horror. Joanna had slumped against her in shock, and Catherine’s control also broke and she began to weep pitifully. Even Lady Boleyn looked thunderstruck. Bridget herself was numb, as if she were watching a court masque and none of this was real. She could not stop the words of that bloody prophecy running through her mind: “When the Tower is white and another place green, there shall be burned two or three bishops and a Queen . . .” She didn’t know about the bishops, but the Duke of Norfolk had just sentenced the Queen of England to be burnt on Tower green, not very far from where they now sat. Was this actually happening?

  A new ripple ran through the already disordered court when one of the lords collapsed and had to be helped, pale and shaking, out of the Hall. “It is Northumberland,” people behind Bridget said, “he was betrothed to the queen once. It is too much for him, he must love her still!” Anne kept her eyes on him all the way out the door.

  Once a kind of order was restored, Anne looked at the ceiling, her hands clasped together in prayer, then she slowly lowered her gaze. She fixed the nobles with a penetrating stare and began to speak. “My lords, I will not speak against your sentence. I presume you have sufficient reasons for it, though they must be other than those you have produced here.” Sections of the assembly muttered in agreement. “I have always been faithful to the king. I admit I have been jealous, and suspicious, faults which I did not always have the wisdom to conceal. But God knows that I have not sinned against His Majesty in any other way. Do not think, sirs, that I say this to prolong my life. I am not afraid to die.”

  Anne paused, and the sobbing of Mrs Orchard, as well as Joanna and Catherine, could be heard echoing through the Hall. The queen did not react to it. “I have maintained my chastity and honour all my life, as much as ever a queen did, and I shall not abandon them now in my extremity. As for my brother,” she swallowed, “and the other men who have been unjustly condemned, I would willingly suffer many deaths to deliver them, but since I see it pleases the king, I shall accompany them in death with this assurance. I shall lead an endless life with them in Paradise where I will pray for the king and for you, my lords. For all of you.”

  She finished speaking and sighed once, deeply. Many of the crowd were in tears, including some of the peers. Wiltshire had bent his head so low no one could see his face, but Bridget saw that his shoulders were heaving with the force of his emotion. Cromwell was biting his lip and staring into the back of the Hall, clearly longing for the proceedings to be over and done with. Even Suffolk regarded Anne with something approaching pity. However, not all of the lords were moved by the queen’s words, and some protested at the ambiguity of the sentence.

  A dejected Norfolk would only say that, according to old custom, the queen should be burnt but that the final decision stood “in the king’s commandment.” The trial was now at an end, and Anne managed to curtsey elegantly to the peers who had sent her to the flames before Kingston came forward to escort her out. Bridget, in something of a daze, fell in behind her, along with Joanna and Catherine, and together they walked out of the King’s Hall.

  Once outside, they made their way through a large crowd of people that buzzed like a beehive, some brave voices among them shouting out, “God save your Majesty!” Anne greeted them all as though nothing remarkable had happened. Bridget felt her sleeve catch and she turned around to see Will Redcliff close behind her. “I am sorry,” he managed to say before the crowd surged forward. “Bridget believe me, I never wanted you to be involved in this, Bridget—”But the pressure of the mass of people got too much and he was overtaken.

  “Will!” Bridget called out, but he could no longer hear her. In the meantime, the queen and her ladies had swept on, and she had to hurry to catch up.

  She saw the royal party advance just up ahead, and then she also saw Lord Rochford being brought to the Hall for his own trial. He was accompanied by a gaoler and he tried valiantly to catch Anne’s attention, but the crowd of people between them was too great and she did not see him. But Bridget could clearly see him; the ashen expression he wore, the wrenching, deep sorrow that flashed across his face, as his sister disappeared from his sight. She also saw that sorrow pass and pure fear take its place as Rochford’s eyes strayed to the gaoler who walked beside the queen, tall and steady, his ceremonial axe turned resolutely towards his prisoner.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Anne was silent for much of the rest of the day and refused all food and drink. When news of the predictable guilty verdict was brought to her by Kingston, she merely said, “thank you,” and waved the constable away.

  Lady Boleyn and Lady Kingston were relieved of their duties as Anne, being a condemned traitoress, now required only the bare minimum of attendants. Lady Kingston would of course remain at the Tower with her husband, but Lady Boleyn would never see her niece again, at least not in this world. It must have been that realisation, or some latent family feeling, that caused her to burst into tears as she said farewell to Anne.

  “I shall pray for you, my lady,” she said, and Anne thanked her graciously.

  “Aunt! Please tell my mother . . . that I am sorry.” Lady Boleyn nodded wordlessly and quickly shut the doo
r behind her.

  The queen once again refused any supper and spent the main part of the night on her knees in her offertory, praying. Her four attendants were left to their own devices.

  Lady Lee played some games of cards with Joanna and Catherine, and when their eyelids began to droop, she ordered them off to bed. She came and joined Bridget by the fire. “Tell me, Mistress Manning, how old are you?” Lady Lee asked.

  “I am eighteen years old, my lady” Bridget replied.

  The older woman sighed and tiredly ran her hand over her face. “You are all so young! Joanna is your age, though she is not as mature as you, and Catherine . . . well, she is not yet fourteen! I dread what is to come, but I at least have some years on my side. But as for you young ladies . . . it is going to be very hard.”

  “Do you really think the king will have her burned?” Bridget asked.

  Lady Lee considered for a moment, then shook her head. “No, it will not be the flames. It will be the axe. That is a quicker and shall we say more merciful punishment, if there can be any mercy in such a thing.”