The Favored Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Third Wife

by Carolly Erickson

  Saddest of all, on coronation day, as the new queen feasted on a banquet of twenty-seven dishes and we all dined with her, we heard cries of alarm and anguish in the streets outside. For hundreds of hungry Londoners, eager to enjoy the royal bounty in food and wine spread out on tables in the open air for them to share, pressed in too closely and many of them were crushed to death.

  It was a sign that the Lord was punishing England for the transgressions of its ruler. One more sign among many that a change had come, a darkness had fallen over the kingdom, and nothing in our lives would ever be the same again.

  * * *

  I had been avoiding Will for months, but I could not avoid him forever. Our paths crossed often at court, for, as Ned had once predicted, Will was destined for preferment and had all the qualities needed to rise high in royal service. The all-powerful Thomas Cromwell had singled Will out and recommended to the king that he be made principal chamber gentleman to the prince, Henry Fitzroy. His promotion to that post soon followed. And as Fitzroy, who at the time of Anne’s coronation was fourteen years old, was being put forward by the king at every opportunity, given a prominent role in every ceremony and occupying a place of honor at banquets and other great occasions, Will too was on constant view, and we were often thrown together.

  At the time I thought it ironic that Will, who had always insisted that what he wanted most was a quiet life in the country, far from any undue attention, as far away as possible from the bustle and intrigue of the royal household, should now be rising ever higher at the center of power around the king.

  Each time I saw him he looked older, more weighty in both mind and body (his waist had definitely thickened), less the eager, sweet, affectionate boy I had known and cherished since our childhood and more the man of affairs—not with Ned’s ruthless edge but with the purposeful walk and serious demeanor of a high official, preoccupied with important matters. As Henry Fitzroy’s principal chamber gentleman Will received not only a very substantial income but valuable extra funds; like his father, he was appointed to many offices—Collector of the Fifteenth, Armorer of the Tower for Powder, Constable of the King’s Castle of Etall—and was paid a handsome sum for each, though the actual labor was carried out by subordinates. His newfound prosperity was evident in his costly doublets and fine linen shirts trimmed in Belgian lace, his jeweled caps and doeskin gloves, the flashing rings on his stubby fingers and the heavy gold buckles on his shoes.

  There was a definite change in his manner as well. Whenever I saw him, it seemed, he was barking out orders to his underlings, criticizing them impatiently for being slow to carry out his commands or for making errors. I overheard him one day reprimanding a young clerk who had erred in tallying a tax. His voice was shrill, his words harsh and unsparing.

  “Can’t you do anything right?” he was saying. “From the first day you were appointed to work under me you have had to be watched, and corrected, and prevented from doing harm making wrong entries in the records.”

  He went on, continuing to raise his voice in criticism while the young clerk looked down at his feet, his face flushed in shame.

  “I—I’m doing my best, master,” he said. “I have no talent for this work. I am a cordwainer by trade—”

  “Then what are you doing here?” Will barked, more impatient than ever. “Did you lose your way, and stumble into the tally room?”

  “No, master. I was sent by Master Cromwell.”

  “Then I must inform Master Cromwell that he himself has made an error. He has chosen badly. Very badly indeed!”

  Will’s choler brought tears to the young clerk’s eyes. I felt very sorry for him. I wanted to intervene, but held back. Something told me all was not well with my betrothed. I needed to wait until we were alone to talk to him about it. In the meantime it was clear to me that my Will, who had once wanted to be a gentleman farmer, had become a gilded courtier with a tense, nervous edge to his voice and a merciless attitude toward those who disappointed him.

  One morning he sent me a message to say that he needed to speak with me urgently. I changed my gown and put on my costliest gold-trimmed headdress—a recent castoff from Anne—in an effort to match his splendor. But when we met, I found that Will had little attention to spare for my appearance. He cared only for the warning he had come to give me.

  “Jane,” he said when he came up to me in an antechamber of Anne’s apartments, “you must guard the queen’s kitchens. See that the entire staff is sent away if you feel you must.” The urgency in his tone alarmed me.

  “But why?”

  “Someone is poisoning the food,” was Will’s curt reply, his expression grim. “The prince has had a narrow escape. Last evening after supper he had only taken a few bites of his food when he began to feel queasy. The plate was removed at once and all the dishes given to the beggars who wait at the outer door for scraps.” He frowned, shook his head, and then went on. “Two of them died. Another is dying. There can be no doubt. It was poison.”

  “Do you know who has done this?”

  “We suspect the Spaniards, naturally. Or Ambassador Chapuys imperial spies. They want to disrupt the succession. Henry Fitzroy is the king’s designated heir. They may try to poison Anne—and kill the infant in her womb.”

  “I will tell the queen at once,” I began to say, turning to go, but Will stopped me, taking hold of my arm. His grip was gentle, but firm enough to make me pause.

  “You must be cautious about whom you tell about this, Jane.” He lowered his voice, and looked around the room. “It is possible, you see, that Queen Anne, or those around her, may be responsible.”

  I looked at Will. “You mean—”

  “Yes. There is no need to say the words.”

  Was it possible? Had Anne sent a poisoner to put some deadly substance in the dishes prepared in Henry Fitzroy’s kitchens? I remembered what Father Bartolome had said about the story being told in Flanders, about Anne’s having arranged the death of Jane Popyngcort.

  “Remember,” Will was saying, “anyone who hinders her plans in any way could be vulnerable.”

  I let the full weight of Will’s words sink in. If the dark accusations were true, then any one of us, including me, might be at risk. I did not want Anne for an enemy!

  “But surely, by showing concern about the safety of her food, the loyalty of the kitchen staff, I am proving my own loyalty to her,” I protested.

  “Unless the result is different from what you expect. It could be that in your rigor to cleanse the Augean stables of her kitchens, you flush out a poisoner who is in her pay!”

  While pondering this worrisome outcome, I could not help but notice that along with his fine clothes and serious demeanor, Will was acquiring the elevated speech of the cultivated royal servant. Augean stables indeed! Will was a gentleman’s son, he had been tutored in Latin and knew the Greek myths—as did I, to an extent, having been allowed to sit quietly by from time to time and listen while Ned was being tutored. But this was a change indeed from the Will I used to know.

  “I will try to use discretion,” I told Will. “Meanwhile, I will avoid dining altogether.” This made him laugh, and for a moment I thought I glimpsed the old familiar Will under the carapace of his newfound gravity. His expression softened, I glimpsed the old fondness in his blue eyes.

  “Jane, about our plans—our hopes—” He sighed. The subject was uncomfortable for him. “My father continues to promise that Chevering Manor will be mine one day, but that day seems farther and farther away.” I noticed he did not say, “Chevering Manor will be ours one day.”

  “There is a cottage on the estate that my father would let me have, to live in, but as my duties keep me here in London—”

  “As do mine,” I interjected. “And I quite agree, a cottage would not be suitable. Not suitable at all.” Though even as I said this I thought, there was a time, not too long ago, when Will and I would have rejoiced in a cottage of our own, our own garden, our own family. But that had be
en before Galyon.

  In truth I was relieved at what Will was saying, though what he said next came as something of a shock.

  He was looking down at his feet, always a sign, with Will, that he was embarrassed or guilty.

  “I ought to tell you, Jane, just to be completely honest, that it might be best if we no longer considered ourselves to be promised to one another. Given our circumstances.”

  I heard regret in his voice. Regret—and remorse.

  Yet I heard myself agree with alacrity. I felt only relief.

  “You will always be—like a dearest sister to me, Jane. I will always love you like family.”

  I had to smile. In the past Will’s family—and my own father’s misdeeds—had prevented my marriage to Will. Surely the mention of family brought as much anguish and sorrow as it did comfort and reassurance. Or was I thinking only of myself?

  * * *

  That evening, still pondering all that Will had told me, my stomach rumbling from hunger (for I could not bring myself to eat what was brought to us from the royal kitchens), I joined Bridget Wingfield and several of the other maids of honor in preparing for bed.

  It was a time for confidences. One of the young maids, Arden Rose, Lord Edgewater’s daughter, was about to marry a diplomat who was leaving soon for France and confessed to us that she was unsure about how she would be treated by the French women—and by her husband-to-be, who was a commanding man and a very critical one. Anne Cavecant told us of a lump in her side that seemed to be growing larger and that the king’s own physician could not account for. She was fearful and asked us to pray for her.

  “At least the queen’s midwives are full of good news,” Bridget Wingfield told us. “The baby kicks lustily. They say he will be big and strong like his father. A warrior. A jouster. A man of many abilities—above all a kingly man.”

  “Do you think he will be named for his father?” Arden Rose asked. “Will he be the ninth Henry?”

  None of us knew what to say to that. Anne did not like us gossiping about her baby, or speculating about his name or when he would be born. The astrologers had made their calculations as to the day of his birth, but they were keeping their calculations secret.

  “There already is a ninth Henry,” put in the sour Anne Cavecant. “Henry Fitzroy.”

  “Don’t let the queen hear you say that!” Bridget snapped. “She doesn’t want the royal bastard anywhere near the court. She and the king quarrel about him all the time—especially now that he is to be married to the duke’s daughter.”

  Henry Fitzroy was about to marry his long time betrothed Mary Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, in a lavish ceremony that was almost on par with a royal wedding. Tongues wagged endlessly about why the king was continuing to keep his natural son so much at the center of things. Was it because he feared Anne’s son might not be a suitable king? Did he want to promote a rivalry between the two boys, one a weakling on the threshold of young manhood, the other as yet unborn?

  “September fifth, that’s the wedding day,” Bridget told us. “And from what I hear, there will be at least three other weddings at the same time—at least three of the prince’s gentlemen marrying three of Mary Howard’s women.”

  Bridget looked pointedly at me. “I believe, Jane, that your old admirer Will Dormer is to be one of the bridegrooms. Am I right?”

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again. So that was why Will wanted to make it plain that our engagement, however long it had lain dormant, was at an end. Because he planned to marry someone else.

  “Yes,” I managed to say. “Yes, I believe he told me he plans to marry.”

  “He was quite good-looking once,” Bridget mused. “No wonder you were in love with him. But he’s gotten quite fat—and much too impressed with himself. You’re better off without him.”

  And I was, I thought. Bridget was right. Yet at the same time I felt a pang. For I still wanted a husband, a home, a family, children, a future. Now I had lost that dream. A dream I had once shared with Will, and could never have with Galyon, no matter how I treasured our moments together.

  Life was moving on, passing me by. That summer, the summer of Anne’s coronation, I was twenty-six years old, nearly twenty-seven. I was already long past the age of ripeness for a marriageable young woman.

  I lay down on my narrow bed and tried in vain to settle myself for sleep. Dark thoughts crowded out my drowsiness. I could not rid my mind of a disturbing image, an image of Will with a much younger, vivacious, pretty girl, dancing with her, pledging himself to her in church, his face brightening into a wide smile with her beside him.

  I had let Will go. What would happen to me now?

  My feet felt cold, the thin blanket that covered me left me shivering. Galyon’s feet were always warm, but Galyon was elsewhere, and we would never share a marital bed, with all its warmth and comforts.

  Unable to prevent myself, I sank lower and lower into despair. I felt as if I was standing at the edge of a black pit, looking down into a well of loneliness. Aloneness. Into a future in which I would never have a family of my own.

  My time had come and gone, I told myself. I would be a spinster. The fate every girl dreaded most.

  I gave way to tears—but then, before long, another image came into my mind. A lovely fantasy in which Galyon and I moved into the cottage on the Chevering estate. In which we planted our garden, raised our children, and lived in a dream of happiness for the rest of our lives.

  If only, I whispered to myself. If only! And then my fantasy slipped into reverie, and I was dreaming.

  SIXTEEN

  “May I speak to you, sire?”

  I had found King Henry in his private retreat, the tower room where he mixed his medicinal formulas and read his treatises on alchemy. Though it had been five years since the terrible outbreak of the sweating sickness, he continued to wear around his neck the small pouch of live spiders that was said to keep the dreaded illness away, and Anne often joked about how the king would hang an elephant around his neck if he thought it would keep him free of disease.

  He sat at a table, hunched over pots and jars of powders and liquids. He looked tired, I thought. His shoulders were rounded, his brow furrowed. Though still a magnificent figure when he stood before the court in his doublets of purple velvet trimmed in gold, the tallest man in the room, his head held high, his growing baldness hidden under a rakish cap studded with gleaming jewels, it was apparent to those of us who had lived alongside him for years that he was aging. He limped heavily on his sore leg. Headaches plagued him, and the other affliction no one wanted to mention except in whispers—the pain in his swollen testicles—was by all accounts getting so much worse that it often forced him to take to his bed and call for his physicians.

  “What is it, Jane? I am just preparing some sorrel for a posset. The farrier tells me that it soothes aches in horses—why not in kings, eh? By all the saints, my leg aches…”

  “I’m very sorry, sire. I wish I had a posset of my own to offer you,” I said with a smile.

  He looked up at me and smiled back. “Your presence is always soothing.”

  “I feel I must tell you something disturbing. Will Dormer confided to me that poison was put in the prince’s food—poison that could have killed the boy, and that killed several men after they ate of it. Will fears an imperial plot to remove the prince and possibly also to threaten the queen and her child.”

  The king made a dismissive gesture.

  “That was no poison, that was spoiled fish. Or rancid wine. It happens, even in the best kitchens, with the best precautions.”

  I was silent.

  “But sire, what if Will is right? What if a poison was indeed added to the food? Would it not be wise to make certain nothing like that happens in the queen’s kitchens? To make certain she remains safe, and her child too?”

  He studied my face.

  “Jane, is there something I need to know? Is there someone I ought to suspect?”

&nb
sp; “If I knew for certain, I would not hesitate to say. Only—”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “There is a man, sire, who makes my blood run cold whenever I see him. I first saw him at the convent of St. Agnes’s. He was with the Nun of Kent. Now he has become the princess dowager’s confessor. He is called Father Bartolome.”

  Henry frowned, then with a sudden, lithe movement got up from his chair and went to the door of the small room and flung it open. All at once he seemed to throw off his weariness. He moved like a much younger man.

  “Get me Crum, at once,” he said to the guard who stood outside, then turned back to me.

  “Now then Jane, I want to know everything about this man. What he looks like, what he has said or done to make you suspicious of him.” I told King Henry what little I knew. While I was talking the squat, hefty Thomas Cromwell hurried into the room, out of breath, squinting at me and making his obeisance to the king.

  “Crum, ride to Buckden with a dozen of the guard and seize the princess dowager’s confessor. He calls himself Father Bartolome. Find out what he knows of the poisoning of the prince’s food. And turn out every servant in the queen’s kitchens, from the cooks to the turnspits.”

  Cromwell looked startled. “Even her favorite cook, the one she brought from Paris?”

  “Especially him. Now go!”

  The secretary hurried from the room.

  “You are quite right to raise the alarm, Jane. And you are brave to tell me of this Father Bartolome. Crum will show him no mercy.”

  I hesitated, then, as the king sat down again at his table, I felt emboldened to go on.

  “There is something more, Your Majesty. I am reluctant to mention it, fearing that it may anger you.”

  “What is it?”