Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn

by Nell Gavin

  I am stubborn though, as I said, and feared God and Katherine as much as I loved Henry. I also knew the pain it would cause my sister, whose heart Henry had broken when he had fancied then discarded her. He had also (unproven rumor had it) “fancied” and discarded my mother once, before turning with interest toward me. Part of me found his attentions to be insulting and frivolous, and I snapped (out of his hearing) that I feared with his insatiable appetite for Boleyns, he would next take an interest in my brother George when he had tired of me, or else one of the sheep in the Boleyn pastures.

  I would not, I said in private to Emma, be chosen only two pegs above mutton.

  “Then, by my troth, if thou dost insist upon declining him, we must hide George and ready a sheep!” Emma had replied with mock urgency. “After he satisfies one appetite, we can roast the little darling to satisfy another, and so please him twice yet still spare thee.”

  Another part of me wanted him, but this I did not confess to anyone. I perhaps might not have been so adamant about denying him otherwise. In the act of turning him away, I saw myself as fighting demons in both my spirit and my heart, and I drew upon my usual forceful will to do it. Had I not felt so deeply, I might have gone to him with a shrug.

  From a personal standpoint, I was reluctant to embark on a relationship with Henry because I had a deep fear of losing myself in him, as I had lost myself in Hal. I was familiar with his tactics, and could look forward to his pushing my infant and me away, as he had done with Mary, or pushing me onto someone who owed him a favor, as he had done with Bessie Blount. He was looking for a new wife, it was rumored, but I had no illusions that he would find one in me. I was too proud to bed him with those expectations, and still too angry about Hal whom I had, since our handfasting ceremony, viewed as my husband.

  I was too afraid of what Henry would do to my heart. I had now experienced a broken heart and was not strong enough to suffer another.

  There were also the moments—these came with frequency—when I would think of him as king and feel as if I had climbed to a great height. The view of the ground from this crest left me frozen with terror. I suffered just that feeling in my stomach, when I thought of Henry as more king than man. Once he knew me, he would uncover my unworthiness and spurn me, because all that attracted him was on the surface, I believed. I could combat my discomfort and fears of disappointing him only by tormenting him with mild tauntings to keep him at bay, and to make him more man than king.

  Back in court, I wanted Katherine to know my loyalty was with her. I made great show of this, and I was sincere. She has never thanked me.

  I turned Henry away, tactfully but firmly, again and again for all these reasons.

  For doing this, I was called a “whore”. I could not please them. They would have me be a whore no matter what I did or did not do, simply because Henry loved me. Had I lain with him the first night and been discarded in the morning, they would have not have objected to me at all and oddly, would not have used the word “whore”. The court was roundly promiscuous and my behavior would not have been questioned, for their own behavior was far, far worse. I had never heard the word used for Bessie Blount, his longtime mistress. It was rare to hear the word used with any of his lovers (although Henry had used the word with Mary, to my anger and indignation). To be selected by Henry was an honor, and was treated as one. Others had never prompted these furious protests as I did, when the issue was love and not purely sex. The more I tried to prove my modesty, the faster came the judgments.

  My refusal to bed Henry, who had never before been refused, prompted accusations of manipulation. I was withholding my favors until his desire reached the point where I had him enslaved. “They” knew this with absolute certainty.

  I did not want a slave, and it still infuriates me, for I was not manipulative! That was Katherine’s forte, not mine. I was too honest. These were accusations based on jealousy, or prompted by anger over loss of favor. Many personal ambitions were tied to the crown of Queen Katherine, and Henry’s love for me threatened them.

  People also project onto other people what they themselves feel in similar circumstances. I was surrounded by grasping, ambitious rabble who presumed I was of their ilk. What you hear of me is more a reflection of the speaker than the woman spoken of, especially with regard to my motives. No one can speak for another’s heart. Certainly no one ever spoke with accuracy for mine!

  Who could have predicted what would happen? Surely not I. I merely wanted Henry to leave me in peace! Could no one see? Even history has failed to recognize my impossible situation. Even after I had recovered from the loss of a marriage that would not only have been advantageous, but to a man I deeply loved, after my dear Hal married someone else, I still had to deal with the issues of duty and responsibility. I would not hurt or betray people I loved by becoming King Henry’s mistress, though he repeatedly begged. I would not disappoint God and lose my tattered immortal soul by encouraging the interest of a married man.

  For months, years, I did everything I could to dissuade him, finally even saying we would have to marry before he could have me. Exasperation prompted that demand for marriage, and I was not sincere. How could he have taken me seriously? Who—with sense—would make that demand of a married king? Even a king rumored to be looking for a new wife. What insignificant lady of the court would seriously demand that a married king discard his queen for her, except as an act of desperation concocted by a pair of giddy women amid shrieks of laughter? A marriage of my own choice was my aim. It was not a decision I wanted to entrust to Henry when his interest in me had dimmed. I would never find a husband under the glare of his attentions and I was nearer 30 than 20, to my mother’s continued dismay. I would soon be too old for a match even half as agreeable as the one I had lost, were one even to be found at all. So, straight-faced but inwardly laughing, watching so I could be certain to have his expression right when I relayed the tale to the others, I pretended to have impossibly high expectations, so he would turn me away with disbelief and contempt.

  I intended it to be the final episode in a story a very small knot of ladies had been enjoying for many months. The picture I had in my mind, and the role I was preparing to act out for the ladies, was of Henry growing apoplectic over my insolence. I imagined him ordering me out of his life as he had Mary, who had only asked for his love. With impish anticipation, I practiced Henry’s bug-eyed fury in the looking glass in preparation for the telling of my final chapter.

  I had gotten very good at mocking poor lovesick Henry, and loved to tell a tale for an audience. I was not above orchestrating the scenes and the players for the sake of the tale, which is what I was doing with Henry in this instance. I was creating a funny ending to a long story. I do not like to say, “That’s all it was,” for laughing at Henry’s deep felt love was a despicable act of cruelty. But I was not, as everyone insisted, coldly and calculatingly using him to advance my position. I am innocent of that.

  He agreed to my terms. He humbly agreed to my outrageous terms, and my heart broke for him, right then and there. Tears of shame sprang to the corners of my eyes when Henry took my hand and gently kissed it.

  “As thou dost wish,” he had said softly. “I am thy servant, and if that is what pleaseth thee, that is what I must do. I shall set to work on it immediately.”

  I had never dreamed he cared that much for me—not really. His words of love had meant nothing to me, as I thought it was a game to him. I was out of his reach and, if caught, would become the object of his contempt. We were playing chase, like children, nothing more than that.

  One did not disrupt one’s life and a country’s entire political and religious foundation over a game of chase. It was the first moment when I truly knew it was no game to Henry. I did not understand until that moment. I swear upon the blood of Christ I did not understand, or I would never have tried to provoke him with a demand for marriage. I would have agreed to become his mistress very early on, and remained so, had I known the e
xtent to which his feelings could take him and the havoc they could bring to all. It was, however, too late for that the moment Henry agreed to take me as his wife.

  The hurt and betrayal I would inflict upon those whom I was serving or protecting were nothing compared to what I was doing to Henry. His feelings for me would not, or could not, be undone by my turning away and his disappointment would exceed even God’s. I knew it must. I had been making sport of his sincerity, while he was offering more than I could even fathom at the time, resolving to discard his wife, his daughter’s claim to the throne and his God. For me. He had broken my heart with pity for him already, and I did not yet know in entirety the sacrifices he could make for me.

  “Oh, no, Sire!” I had said, frantic. “I truly was not serious . . . I cannot ask it of you . . . no, no please . . . ”

  Henry turned to me in alarm.

  “No?” He whispered faintly with a terrible pain in his eyes, “What dost thou mean, ‘no’?” Then louder, hurt and accusing: “Thou art taunting me again. I beg thee—”

  “Please, I only meant—” I only meant what? To make sport of him? To laugh? I was entrapped by my own cruel foolishness and frightfully poor judgment. I could never speak aloud my original intention in making the demand. I silently prayed that my friends would know better than to mention it lest Henry find out how cruelly I had laughed at him. I could not bear for him to know. I would henceforth have to endure the embarrassing accusations and criticism rather than confess. I would henceforth be known as a woman with incredible vanity and nerve, and shameless grasping ambition, but that was easier than watching Henry understand the truth.

  He covered his face with his hands. I thought he might weep.

  “Oh, Your Grace. I spoke out of turn. That is all I meant. Oh truly I cannot ask it of you. I will be your mistress. That is all I want from you, nothing more. Oh please . . . ”

  I was, at first, aghast, but later turned the prospect of being Henry’s wife and queen around and around in my mind. Not only would it quiet my critics, I predicted, but it might suit me as well. Most certainly, it would please my parents, I thought. As time went on, I felt more and more that it would suit me. And then, I felt I would die if I could not have it. I truly felt as if I must be a queen or die. It had taken root in my mind, much as the thought of a male heir had taken root in Henry’s.

  In the end we were wed. It would have been best had I cut out my tongue before suggesting marriage. It would have been best had I died before accepting the title of queen. I think there is nothing in life I would wish for less, than to be a queen. It is a vanity and an encumbrance I wish for not at all.

  What started as a jest turned most shockingly monstrous.

  Some time after the time we first discussed marriage in 1526, I was stricken by the “sweating sickness” and hovered near death for days. The impact this had on Henry as he waited a safe distance from infection cannot be described. He could not come to me. He could not risk death; he had to survive to rule. So he waited, hearing word of dozens and dozens who died (including my sister Mary’s husband) as the sickness swept through London, sending prayer upon prayer heavenward for my recovery. He could not lose me, he swore. God help him, he could not.

  God heard Henry’s prayers over the prayers of those who wished me dead, and so I managed to survive.

  The illness had an impact on me as well. I could no longer pretend to Henry that I did not love him. I had nearly died without telling him so. That seemed to me the greatest sin of my entire life, and one that must be rectified. From that point onward, my letters to him and my speech grew warmer and fonder.

  Yet I refused to be his mistress for four years more. In my heart, I was still bound by my vows to Katherine, even though our enmity was far-progressed by then. There was a nagging shame in the midst of my anger and it made me hesitate, even as I was anxious to take what Henry offered me. I was also adamant that I would not be discarded as my sister had, and was persistent in reminding Henry of this. I would not be a great fool. I would have it all, or Henry would have nothing.

  Despite my insistent virtue, I had finally tucked Hal away in a far corner of my soul and had turned the full focus of my affections on Henry.

  Henry was gentle and charming and funny. I was still teasing, but now took some pains to encourage him, for I truly wanted to be with him. Even had the discussion of marriage not taken place, my illness would had forced me to face him—and myself—with the truth about my feelings for him.

  I had come to deeply care for him, and to feel a kind of connection with him. He somehow knew me better than anyone but Hal ever had, catching me constantly off guard with his insight, and what he knew, he loved. This discovery, that Henry knew me well and loved me still, quieted my initial fear that he would scorn me. I marveled at his love as if it were a miracle.

  His eyes were pulling me, and I was drawn by his physical presence into imagining what it would be like to lay with him, and to wish it. I began to imagine more and more and to wish it strongly enough to know that I would not be turning him away for long. I was growing weak, then found myself growing stronger in my resolve to see my imaginings come to pass. I thought of God, and prayed for His forgiveness. I knew I would have to sin, and soon.

  Finally, it was time. Years into our relationship, after years of effort on Henry’s part to marry me, when we had finally reached the point where it seemed the marriage could really take place, it was finally time. I had no plan, nor did I know how to say the words, but I could no longer wait. More importantly, I began to fear that Henry could no longer wait. I felt I had pushed him as far as he could endure.

  I worried and rehearsed before Henry’s arrival, then nearly fainted from nerves when he appeared and I had to face him, knowing as I did what I was planning to suggest.

  Henry usually arrived unannounced, creating havoc and internal discord within the house. Cooks fretted and scowled and shoved boys off to the storehouse for provisions, servants snapped at one another and raced to ready rooms, Mother wrung her hands and pressed her temples, and Father privately muttered complaints about the expense of feeding the King’s robust appetite, and that of all his party.

  In a short time following his initial visits, acknowledging their frequency, my parents permanently relinquished their own room to Henry and found another, thus ensuring that the finest bedroom in the house was always kept ready for him. Each time Henry came, he brought with him his own very large lock, and had it bolted to the door of this bedroom before he had barely set foot in the house. It, of course, would never have occurred to him that anyone might feel inconvenienced by his presence, or his demands.

  I was always whisked into my room where my hair was hurriedly arranged and my gown examined carefully, while Father entertained the King with conversation. On the occasion of this visit, I spent these moments deciding “Yes” or “No” and vacillated once again. I decided to let the evening progress on its own, and choose my course before the end of it.

  It was necessary for me to warn my mother in advance that I might be joining Henry in his room. This brightened her up considerably, and went far toward the curing of her head pains. She was transformed into a woman bustling and eager, delighted that I had finally decided to settle the matter. I could now place myself in a position to reap more substantial material rewards from the friendship than the baubles and dresses I had first cringingly come to accept and was now accumulating with indifferent expectation. Never mind that Henry had sent her other daughter away from him tearful and distraught. Mother was counting coins, imagining recognition for my father and brother, and wealth, status and favor for us all. My brother was looking at a position of more responsibility, and at acres of land. My father speculated on the titles he could earn through my horizontal efforts as he had through Mary’s and perhaps, though I had no proof, through my mother’s. There was a festive mood in our household with each member thinking of his fortune and his ambitions. Meanwhile Mary remained silent miles away, h
er heart and thoughts closed off to me. I thought of her more than I did the others. I thought of Katherine.

  I wanted none of Henry’s gifts. I wanted no payment for this. I only wanted Henry.

  On that evening when he came to visit, he began to tell a story to amuse me. In the telling, he mimicked members of the court with a comical precision that delighted me. Standing before me, he acted out the roles of the players until I began to laugh far more than was considered seemly. At one point, I squealed and hugged myself, and pressed my chest into my thighs, while tears rained down upon my cheeks. I collapsed with helpless, heaving laughter, and nearly slipped off my chair and onto the floor. Henry reached out and caught me seconds before I would have fallen, limp. He did it in a way that suggested he was not embarrassed by my behavior, in fact, he seemed genuinely delighted that he could so entertain me. He resumed his comical soliloquy, glancing at me from the corner of his eye as I delicately covered my mouth with my hand to disguise my hiccups. He then sent me into a fit of giggles by raising an eyebrow and frowning with each dainty “Hic”. His eyes were twinkling with pleasure even as he frowned.

  My mother found excuses to enter the room and deliver surreptitiously reproving glances and faint shakings of her head, and even fainter grimaces and hissed warnings. She then exited until the next eruption of mirth. I could barely see her through the tears and when I could, I laughed harder. Meeting Henry’s eyes as my mother disapprovingly swept out I could not stop laughing, nor could he.

  My gleeful outbursts, rather than offending Henry, spurred him on to further demonstrations. He clapped when I timidly contributed one of my own and, emboldened by this, I joined him. We created imaginary, ridiculous conversations between courtiers: a host of familiar characters swearing undying love to the persons they hated most; one of Katherine’s somber and black-garbed ladies cornering a handsome young man on the stairs; an intellectual, flagrantly effeminate nobleman wooing an illiterate horsehand. Each successive play was more outrageous than the last. We gasped for air, we were laughing so hard, and Henry, still laughing, picked me up and pulled me squealing and giggling onto his lap. He had never before ventured that kind of familiarity.