by V. E. Lynne
Bridget shuddered and moved her hands closer to the fire. The queen’s great fear was being burnt, as a witch she reflected grimly, or as a heretical, adulterous wife. Would being decapitated as a traitor be a “mercy”? Like most people, Bridget had never witnessed an execution before, let alone a beheading, but she had heard the abbess speak of it once. King Henry, when he was young, had had a tax collector called Dudley beheaded for crimes committed during his father’s reign.
The abbess’s brother had witnessed it and told his sister of it. He said it had been a terrible sight and that the man had suffered a gruesome death, the executioner taking more than one stroke to separate his head from his body. Bridget felt the first true waves of panic build in her stomach. Lady Lee saw her distress and tried to comfort her. “You are frightened, my dear, but think what the queen must feel. We must support her and hide our own fear and trepidation. Now,” she said briskly, “you are overtired. You must get some sleep.” Bridget obeyed, as one in a dream, but she could not get the prospect of the axe out of her mind, or the images of blood it evoked. She barely slept a wink.
The next morning, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, arrived to speak to Anne. Despite the rancour of their last meeting, the queen greeted him with reverence and they went through to her privy chamber. This time she did not desire Bridget, or anyone else, to accompany her.
They remained closeted together for a long time, and when Cranmer emerged he appeared exhausted and would not look at anyone as he left. Anne also had undergone a great change, quite different from Cranmer’s. Gone was the dispirited, downcast, frightened woman who had almost accepted her terrible fate. In her place was the old Anne, self-assured, confident, her dark eyes bright and sparkling.
“Joanna, bring me a cup of wine, I feel as though I have not drunk for days!” she demanded, throwing herself down in the nearest chair, a broad smile upon her face. Joanna quickly fetched the wine, and the queen downed it in virtually one gulp and then asked for more.
The women looked at one another in confusion and eventually Bridget asked the obvious question. “Madam, did Archbishop Cranmer bring good news?”
Anne put down her second cup of wine and threw back her head and laughed. Then she did something unexpected. She leapt out of her chair, grabbed Bridget’s hands and danced round the room with her, singing with joy.
She did the same with Lady Lee, whom she whirled around so fast that the poor woman lost her bearings and almost toppled over. Anne stopped and steadied her before taking her seat once again, her face flushed with happiness. “Yes, Bridget,” she finally answered. “The Archbishop did bring good news! The king is to send me to a nunnery in exchange for signing a document to have our marriage annulled, which I did.”
Lady Lee and Bridget exchanged a look of disbelief, as did Joanna and Catherine. Anne had evidently expected a much different reaction and she sighed in frustration. “Well, do not all embrace me at once!” she exclaimed dryly.
“Madam,” Lady Lee ventured, “a nunnery may not be possible, as many of them are going to be dissolved. Some, as you know, already have been.”
Anne waved her argument away. “Oh, it will not be in England. I expect I will be sent to France. You see, Bridget, you shall cross the Narrow Sea after all! Though I do not know how many maids I will be allowed. I cannot be sent on my own I am sure.”
It all sounded a bit too good to be true. The king clearly intended to have the men executed, so why not Anne? Why let her live, even if in a faraway French convent? On the other hand, did Henry truly intend to kill his wife in front of the world? Perhaps all he had really wanted was her signature to the annulment, freeing him to start again with Jane Seymour. Now that he had it, there was no need to execute Anne. Better to send her away, out of the country, where she could not see her daughter and the king need never lay eyes on her again. There was no reason to spill her blood, to reduce her to ash. To end her. The more Bridget thought about it, the more sense it made.
Certainly, Anne believed she had been spared. She ate a hearty meal that evening and conversed easily with Kingston, even going so far as to discuss her future. “I shall miss my daughter greatly,” she said, “but I hope that we will not be separated forever. After a few years have passed, the king may allow me to come home.”
Kingston chewed his food slowly and made no comment. He did not need to. His old, drawn face spoke for him. He did not believe for a moment that there would be a French nunnery for Anne, let alone visits home. Bridget looked at him and all the hopes of exile she had entertained for the queen died. She swallowed and her mouth tasted of bile. Kingston was close to Cromwell, which meant that he was a well-informed man. He needed to be, in his position. Cranmer had deceived the queen, with promises of a comfortable banishment, in order to get her signature on a piece of paper that signed away her marriage and her daughter’s legitimacy. Now all that remained was for the king to sign away his wife’s life.
Easier in her mind, Anne slept well that night and was barely out of bed the next morning when there was a purposeful rap on the door. Joanna opened it and was met by a contingent of the guard. The captain entered and bowed respectfully to the startled queen.
Anne’s face clouded over, and she beheld him for a moment without speaking. Eventually, she gathered herself and said, “Yes? What is it, sir? Where is Master Kingston?” The man, who shuffled forward and flushed slightly, answered, “Majesty, I am Captain Gwynn, and I am here on Master Kingston’s orders to conduct you to the Bell Tower. The constable cannot conduct you himself, as he is at Tower Hill.”
Anne looked puzzled, but then a dawning realisation lit up her eyes. “The Bell Tower?” she echoed. “Wherefore should I go there? Am I to be lodged there?”
“No, madam,” Captain Gwynn replied, his Adam’s apple working furiously. “The Bell Tower overlooks the Hill, and you are to watch the executions to be held there this morning.”
Joanna cried out, and Catherine quickly put her arm about her. Anne swayed a little and Bridget hurried to steady her. Lady Lee looked stricken, and Captain Gwynn shifted his weight from foot to foot in unmistakable discomfort. Anne grasped the back of a chair and stared pleadingly at Gwynn. “I am to watch my brother die? And the others as well?” She shook her head emphatically. “No, I cannot believe I would be made to witness such a thing. I will not go. I refuse. I will stay here.”
Captain Gwynn was sympathetic, but he would not be put off. “I am sorry, madam, but I insist that you accompany me at once. Those are my orders. Please, do not make me force you, Majesty. I must follow the king’s command, as must you.”
He stepped forward, clearly ready to remove the queen, bodily, if need be. Bridget was horrified that her mistress was being made to watch five men die, but she could see that there was no way to avoid it. “Madam, we must go with the captain,” she said calmly. “Do not worry; we will all go with you. You will not be alone.”
Captain Gwynn looked relieved, and with his eyes, he silently thanked Bridget. Anne did not say a thing; she merely took Bridget’s hand and dolefully followed the captain out of her chamber, with Joanna, Catherine, and Lady Lee just a step behind.
It was a short journey from the queen’s lodgings to the Bell Tower. Captain Gwynn escorted them inside and up the winding stone stairs to a high room near the top. He opened the door and ushered the small party inside. “I shall wait out here, madam,” he said, quietly withdrawing. Bridget was relieved to see that his orders did not extend to physically compelling Anne to watch the men suffer.
Anne stood in the middle of the room and seemed at a loss. Even within these thick walls, the sounds of the crowd could be heard. They sounded maddened, and Bridget wondered if the executions were already underway. Anne listened to the tumult for a few moments and her mood turned determined. “I want to see my brother,” she said, and she walked hurriedly up to the small window.
Bridget and the other maids followed her, forming a barrier behind their queen, lest
she faint. Bridget looked over her mistress’s shoulder and gasped at the sight that met her. In the distance, a huge crowd had gathered on the hill, perhaps upwards of two thousand people.
“So many,” Anne murmured, and Bridget wondered who all these willing witnesses of death were. Had the Earl of Wiltshire come to see his son die? She searched the crowd and saw many gentlemen near the front, but she was too far away to recognise any of them. She silently hoped that Will was not among that jostling multitude, although a small, insistent voice inside her told her that he was.
The scaffold had been built high and it towered over the mob. It was draped in black, with the low wooden block near the front, surrounded by straw. The masked executioner, his brawny arms clearly visible, stood to the side, his smaller assistant holding the axe. Some official-looking men, Kingston no doubt among them, grouped together towards the back, looking as though they wanted to get as far away from the man, and his instrument of death, as possible.
One of them gave a signal—Bridget thought it was Kingston—and Lord Rochford walked up the stairs and onto the scaffold. The crowd roared when he appeared, as though he were the leading actor in a play, which Bridget supposed in a way he was. His role, however, was not to please this audience with his fine oration, or to tell a pretty story of heroism to excite them, or to speak of love to appeal to their finer feelings. His only role was to die, to spill his blood onto the straw and thus satisfy their baser instincts.
Anne stiffened when she saw her brother and pressed her shaking palm against the thick glass. “George!” she called out desperately, but he could not see her, let alone hear her. He spoke briefly to the officials before stepping forward to address the crowd.
He spoke at some length, and with obvious passion, his hands gesturing back and forth. The crowd had quieted down and seemed to be listening to him with a respectful silence. After some minutes he stopped and put his hand to his forehead. He turned to the executioner and handed over a pouch, doubtless the man’s payment. Then he stood for a moment before he took off his doublet, revealing a white, low-necked shirt underneath.
Lord Rochford approached the block quickly, falling to his knees with his hands clasped before him in prayer, his eyes obscured by a white blindfold he had donned himself. Therefore, he sightlessly placed his proud head upon the smooth wood, his hands reaching out and feeling for the dread object.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Anne repeated in a rapid tattoo as her brother carefully positioned his head, laying it slightly to the side so he would not see, even through his blindfold, the shadow of the executioner beside him. The awful man in his black clothes, the veins standing out on his arms, had his axe already raised, its descent waiting only for Rochford’s signal. Almost in slow motion, George Boleyn, the queen’s handsome, witty, bright, flawed brother, once one of the most powerful men in England, flung out his arms and the axe flashed downwards in the morning sun.
“George!” the queen screamed as the axe hit home, and Lord Rochford’s body jerked but his head did not fall. Anne wrenched herself away from the sight and buried her face in Bridget’s shoulder as the axe fell again and again until finally George Boleyn’s body lurched to the side and the executioner picked up his bloody trophy and brandished it to the shrieking crowd. A large pool of blood began to spread outwards, beyond the straw, and onto the wooden boards beneath.
“I am going to be sick,” the queen said, and she broke away from Bridget. She rushed to grab a bowl from a side table and immediately vomited into it. Lady Lee and Catherine went to attend her but were not fast enough to catch her before she collapsed to the floor. “I need something to drink,” she croaked. Lady Lee flung open the door and brusquely ordered Captain Gwynn to fetch Her Majesty some wine.
By the window, Bridget’s feet felt as though they were nailed to the floor and her whole body had broken out into a sweat. The scene unfolding before her sickened her yet she could not turn her eyes away from it. Joanna came and stood beside her and asked in a voice full of tears, “Is it Francis’s turn next?”
“No,” Bridget answered, her gaze upon the figure who was now climbing the scaffold stairs. It was Sir Henry Norris, his blond hair catching the early light, his kind and open face grey and careworn. He looked so old, and Bridget could hardly reconcile the wan, haggard man standing in George Boleyn’s blood with the gentle, elegant courtier she had known. He stared about him in a daze and spoke only a few words to the crowd before putting his head on the block. The executioner did a better job this time and had it off in one stroke. The people cheered.
Norris’s head and body were pushed to one side and now it was Weston’s turn. Sir Francis climbed the steps slowly, dragging his feet as though they were encased in lead. He emerged onto the scaffold and Joanna breathed in sharply. The horror of the last few weeks, which had so aged Sir Henry Norris, had not had the same effect on Sir Francis Weston. His youthfulness shone starkly out of him as his blue eyes, wide with fright, beheld the bloodied remains of his companions.
With a visible effort, Sir Francis tore his gaze away and looked out over the crowd. As he began to speak, Bridget could not restrain her tears. She remembered the handsome lad who had danced with her, who had flirted so outrageously with the queen and her ladies, who had made them all laugh with his stories and jokes. That young man was gone now, a distant memory, and the one who remained stood on a bloody platform, facing a gruesome death, trying desperately to be brave about it. All because he was an impudent, cocky boy with a winning smile who had no idea when to hold his tongue.
He knelt and Joanna averted her eyes, as did Bridget. They huddled together and said “Jesu, let it be quick.” The shouts of the crowd told them that he had been despatched with one blow.
Joanna wept, crossed herself, and fell to her knees in prayer. Bridget leant her sweaty forehead against the cool glass and through her tears saw that Sir William Brereton was about to die. She had no idea why he had been accused or even precisely what he had been accused of. Intercourse with the queen, she supposed, although the very idea of it was ridiculous. The queen liked Brereton well enough, but that was all. Then she recalled something Catherine Carey had once told her, that Brereton had had a man killed on his own lands, an act that had made him enemies, Thomas Cromwell the first among them. In an instant it all made perfect sense. The master secretary was using the queen’s fall to settle an old score.
Brereton died with one stroke and his corpse was added to the pile. “Is it over yet?” Anne called from across the room, where she still sat upon the floor, the bowl in her lap.
“No, madam,” Bridget replied flatly. “Master Smeaton is still to come”
As she said the words, the small figure of Mark Smeaton duly appeared. The pool of blood that had formed when Rochford’s head fell had turned grown so large that Smeaton nearly lost his footing as he staggered through it. He pushed his thick, yellow hair out of his eyes and looked about him with understandable trepidation. He shook as his spoke, and Bridget thought back to the day he had sung for them in the queen’s chamber at Greenwich. His voice had been pure and true and hauntingly sad. He laid his trembling head upon the scarlet block and his golden voice was silenced for good.
Bridget bowed her head and asked God to take the men to his mercy. Then she walked away from the window, on watery legs, and said, “Now it is over, madam.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Within an hour of overseeing the carnage on Tower Hill, a grim-faced Sir William Kingston came to the queen and informed her of her fate. “Madam, you are to die on the morrow. His Majesty the king, in his infinite goodness, has decided that you are not to be burnt but to be beheaded by the sword, in the French fashion.”
Anne’s eyebrows darted upwards at the news of the sword but otherwise she showed no reaction to the ghastly announcement. “I thank you, sir, and I am grateful to His Majesty that I am not to suffer the agony of the flames. Tell me, Master Kingston, what did my brother and the others say upon the sc
affold? Did they declare my innocence?”
“The men,” Kingston faltered a little, “died very charitably, all having confessed to being sinners, but only Mark confessed his guilt and said that he deserved to die.”
Anne exploded with anger. “He did not clear my name? Then I fear for his soul and I have no doubt that the Lord will punish him for his false accusations! But as for my brother,” she sighed, “and the others, I know that they are now before the great King before whom I appear tomorrow.”
The queen spent the rest of the day and night in prayer, joined by her ladies, eschewing all offers of food and drink. In the very early hours John Skip, her almoner, the man who had so foolishly preached the sermon comparing Cromwell to the evil counsellor Haman, arrived to pray with his mistress. Thus they continued until Thomas Cranmer, at about six o’clock, came to hear the queen’s confession and to give her Holy Communion.
Anne asked Lay Lee to summon Kingston to hear her confession and insisted that all her ladies be present as well. The queen took the sacrament with great reverence and then declared in a steady voice, “I am innocent of the charges against me. I have never offended with my body against His Majesty the King.”
