by Jean Plaidy
So I returned to Hever.
On my first night there, I awoke feeling alternately hot and cold. I touched my face. It was wet. I tried to sit up but I had not the strength to do so. My nightgown clung damply to my skin, and a fearful lassitude had taken possession of my limbs.
I do not remember very much of the days which followed. I saw vague figures in the room and recognized that of my stepmother. Occasionally my thoughts were lucid. Then I said to myself: So this is the end of all my dreams of glory. I shall never be Queen of England. I am to die, as so many have before me, of the sweating sickness. The Queen will be pleased, and the King…he will love me forever because I am dead.
They were strange thoughts but I must have been near delirium.
Later—it must have been much later for I had lost count of time—I was lying on my bed aware of my damp sheets and pillows; they changed them frequently but they were always damp. I heard them speaking about the crisis. So they would soon know whether I was to live or die.
In that strange state of being in limbo as though suspended between two worlds, I was not sure which way I wanted to go. I was vaguely aware of a crown for which I was reaching… and on the other hand there was a delicious peace which seemed to me infinitely more desirable.
I learned later on that they were all convinced that I would succumb to the sickness as so many had before me. My stepmother called it a miracle that, when the crisis was over, I was still with them.
I was aware of a man standing by my bed. I heard my stepmother's voice. “The King has sent him, darling. He will make you well.”
So …I was not to die. I was too weak to move but no longer affected by the dreaded sweat. I could recover.
My stepmother was ever at hand, bringing me soothing possets from which I turned away until she begged me to take them for love of her.
“The King is beside himself with anxiety, Anne,” she said. “You must recover for his sake. He has sent his physician, the great Dr. Butts. Dr. Butts says, if aught happens to you, he would not dare to return and face the King's wrath. So you must try, sweetheart. You must get well for all our sakes.”
Dr. Butt commended my stepmother for her care of me. She had nursed me not only tenderly but wisely. Rest was what was needed now—and nourishment. “The Lady Anne is strong and healthy,” he said. “We shall soon have her well again and gracing the Court.”
My stepmother told me that the King was still wandering around the country with a small company of courtiers. If there was the slightest hint of the sickness near any place, he avoided it.
“The greatest calamity to the country would be if aught happened to him,” she said.
She read me the letter which he had sent with Dr. Butts. It was all that I could have wished for.
The most displeasing news that could occur came to me suddenly at night. On three accounts I must lament it. One to hear of the illness of my mistress, whom I esteem more than all the world, and whose health I desire as I do my own. I would willingly bear half of what you suffer to cure you. The second from the fear that I shall have to endure my wearisome absence much longer, which has hitherto given me all the vexation that was possible. The third because my physician, in whom I have the most confidence, is absent at the very time when he could have given me the greatest pleasure. But I hope by him and his means to obtain one of my chief joys on earth, that is, the cure of my mistress. Yet, from the want of him, I will send you my second and hope that he will soon make you well. I shall then love him more than ever. I beseech you to be guided by his advice in your illness. By your doing this, I hope to see you soon again, which will be to me a greater comfort than all the precious jewels in the world.
Written by that secretary who is, and forever will be, your loyal and most assured servant. H.R.
“What a beautiful letter,” said my stepmother. “How he loves you!
Who would have thought that a King could care so much!” I put out my hand; she took it and kissed it. “Thank you,” I said, “for all you have done for me.” “My dearest child,” she replied, “it has given me great joy to be of ser
vice. As for what I have done, you must repay me by getting well. I long to see you on your feet again.”
My stepmother had kept disturbing news from me, and I was dismayed to hear that my brother had taken the sickness—so had my father. They had both recovered before I was told. Mary's husband, Will Carey, had not been so fortunate. Mary was now a widow.
She came to Hever in some distress, not knowing where else she could go.
My stepmother welcomed Mary but she clearly had not the same affection for her as she had for me. I think she had been greatly shocked by Mary's behavior in France. To have been sent home because of her immoral conduct was something which could not be easily forgotten; and then she had blithely entered into a relationship with the King, which was quite different from mine. Until now her misfortunes had sat lightly on her, but this was a bitter blow, because she had lost not only her husband, of whom she was quite fond, but her means of sustenance as well. Will Carey had been ineffectual but he had—owing to his complaisant attitude to his wife's affair with the King—been awarded certain grants which had given him a fair, if not affluent, income on which he and his family could live in comfort. He had been Constable of Plashy Castle and Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster—both very desirable posts. On his death, of course, there had been no lack of people clamoring to take them up, and the King had bestowed them.
This was to be expected, but what of Mary? She was left penniless.
“I do not know how I shall live,” she told me.
“Have you never saved anything?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“But all the time you were at Court …”
“I never asked for anything. Clothes I had, which the King's treasury paid for… but there was nothing else. And clothes wear out.”
“What do you propose to do?”
“I thought you could help?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“If the King would listen to anyone it would be to you.”
I felt ashamed that Mary should have been left like this. Of course it was her own fault. She had been feckless—or perhaps I should say over-generous. I felt a shiver of alarm. She had been his mistress—not just casually but over a long period. And here she was… cast off, penniless. What a lesson! That should never happen to me.
I said: “I will speak to the King.”
I wrote to him of her plight.
His reply was another of those love letters which he sent to me while I was absent from him. I had a number of them, all professing undying devotion. There was hardly a mention of Mary except that I should speak to my father, telling him that it was the King's wish that he should look after his daughter. Of course, it was what my father should do, and it angered me that he should need the King's order to do it.
When I pondered on the matter, it occurred to me that Henry had shown no interest or compassion to one who must have been very close to him at one time. It should have been a lesson to me, but I was heedless of lessons in those days. Looking back, I can see many that I failed to learn.
I knew that Henry hated any mention of Mary. She troubled his conscience not because of his affair with her and her present need but because he feared her relationship to me might prove a stumbling block in our union.
Henry was single-minded; he had no thought to spare for a discarded mistress who had fallen on evil times.
The tragic summer dragged on.
Cardinal Campeggio had left Rome and was on his way. He had been on his way for weeks. He was so old, so full of gout, that traveling was painful to him. He would travel for a day and rest for two in order to regain his strength.
At home in Hever, I fumed. Sometimes I despaired. I believed that the Pope had decided that the matter should never be settled and that, terrified of the Emperor as he was, he was determined to drag it out— hoping perhaps that Henry would gr
ow tired of me. Perhaps that thought was in my mind too. Mary's affair had not helped to appease it. But I would get those letters of his, pulsating with his desire for me—and my optimism would return. I would beat them all—Katharine, Wolsey, Campeggio…every one of them.
My relationship with Wolsey would always be uneasy; no matter how we displayed our new friendship, for the pleasure of the King, the animosity was never far below the surface. I knew that he regarded me as an upstart. Is it not upstarts who are most antagonistic to other upstarts? At least I had not been born in a butcher's shop. Wolsey respected me now, but as a formidable enemy. Before, I had been a foolish girl. That was the difference.
Wolsey could see that another—as he would say—had the King's ear. Before my coming, Wolsey had been closer to the King than anyone. The King had, from the first, seen Wolsey's tremendous capabilities and moreover had a deep affection for him. Wolsey had carried him through many a difficult situation, but this matter of the divorce was defeating him. He had been thrust into an almost untenable position. He was a Cardinal who owed allegiance to the Pope, and it was almost impossible to serve two masters. Many powerful forces were against him. Before, his own power had been so great that he could withstand his enemies; now they were crowding around him, seeing the champion weakening, waiting for the moment to give him the coup de grâce.
I was not sorry for him. Mine was not a forgiving nature. I often thought of what my life might have been: the peace of it in Alnwick Castle with my husband who would love me devotedly all our lives, our children sturdily growing up in the clear northern air to be strong men and women. The Northumberlands were the kings of the North. I should have been a queen in a kingdom more congenial to me than that of the Court.
Wolsey had prevented that. No, it was the King, who had commanded it because all those years ago I had had a special attraction for him. But why had he let me go for so long? All that time he had been sporting with my sister Mary who now, poor girl, was cast aside and was an embarrassment to him. He simply did not want to know of her; he wanted to forget she had ever existed.
Was that the first warning sign? Perhaps my guardian angel was showing me a signpost on the dangerous road along which I was traveling. But I did not see that then and it was only afterward that these thoughts came to me.
If only I had had the wisdom to take heed!
Mary stayed at Hever. My father would of course have to provide for her, which he would have done, I suppose, though grudgingly. But now he must do it with a fair grace since the King commanded it.
Perhaps I wasted sympathy on Mary. As soon as she knew that she would be able to live in some comfort, she cast off her dejected looks and was almost her old self. Misfortune sat lightly on her.
My stepmother wanted me to be quite well before I returned to Court. I was nothing loath to remain at Hever during this time. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold off Henry. He was impatient. He was not going to go on being content with a few caresses. All the time he was urging me to greater intimacy. Instinct told me I must hold back. If I submitted, where would be the incentive to fight for this divorce when he could have what he wanted without? It was a very difficult position for me. I often wondered whether I dared hold out, whether his lack of satisfaction might indeed curb his passion. On the other hand, if I submitted, would he decide to drop this contentious matter of the divorce which so many people seemed determined to prevent?
It was a quandary which hung heavily upon me. This was why I was delighted to stay at Hever and was in no great hurry to end my convalescence.
Mary and I were sitting in that garden where I had had my first encounter with Henry. I always remembered it when I was there, for it was the beginning of all that happened afterward.
She told me that she had had a letter from her sister-in-law Eleanor Carey, who was a nun.
“The Abbess of Eleanor's convent has recently died,” she was saying. “That means her place is vacant. Eleanor would dearly love to step into it.”
“Perhaps she will.”
“It needs influence.” Mary looked at me. “Eleanor asks if you would help.”
“I? What do I know of convents?”
“You don't have to know anything about them. A word from you to the King is all that would be needed.”
“I don't usually meddle in such matters.”
“Oh come, Anne, this is one of the family. Everyone knows that the King dotes on you. You have only to say the word and it as good as done.”
I must confess that I liked to feel I had influence with the King, so I wrote and mentioned the matter to him.
To my intense annoyance I heard that Wolsey had passed over Eleanor Carey and given the appointment to one of the other nuns.
Who became Abbess of the convent was of no importance to me, but that my wishes should be slighted was.
As soon as I heard, without waiting to hear any explanations, I wrote angrily to the King. Wolsey had deliberately ignored my request. He had known I wished the appointment to go to Eleanor Carey and because of this he had appointed someone else.
It was characteristic of Henry's devotion to me that he immediately called Wolsey and wanted to know why Eleanor Carey had been passed over when he had mentioned my interest in the matter.
Wolsey had his reply. Before appointing a woman to such a post, he must discover whether she was worthy of it. Under cross-examination, Eleanor Carey had admitted to having not only one illegitimate child but two—and with different fathers. Two priests, in fact, which made it worse. Wolsey had thought there was no need to report such a sordid happening because he was sure that all concerned must agree that such a woman was unfit for the post.
I was young and foolish. If only I had had the wisdom which later events were to force upon me!
I raged. I stormed. I would not let the matter rest. It should have been clear that Eleanor Carey's past made her unfit for the post, but I would not see that issue. All I saw was that I had asked a favor and it had been denied me because Wolsey thought it fit to do so.
I implored the King to give the post to Eleanor Carey.
Henry was torn between us; he hated to offend me and I think he understood the humiliation I had suffered.
He compromised. Neither Eleanor Carey nor Isabel Jordon—the woman whom Wolsey had installed—should have the post.
“But,” he wrote to me, “I would not for all the world clog your conscience or mine, to make Eleanor Carey a ruler of a House of God…”
He then went on to say that, as I had especially asked for it, this was the only way his conscience would allow him to act.
Wolsey could be foolish too. Isabel Jordon had already been appointed, he said. There was no way in which she could be cursorily dismissed.
I laughed when I heard it. I said: “Wolsey is one of the King's subjects who does not have to obey him.”
Henry was getting angry. The whole matter had been blown up to immense proportions. He sent a stern rebuke to Wolsey.
The Cardinal was the perfect diplomat. He put on a show of abject humility.
The epidemic had disrupted his household. He himself had been in a state of poor health. Somehow the matter had gone ahead too quickly.
The King's reply was: “It is understandable. The Cardinal would never go against my wishes.”
I was dismayed—fi rst at his lenience with Wolsey and secondly that I should be so blatantly outwitted by him.
I knew now that, for all his fine words and show of friendship for me, Wolsey was my enemy.
I think of that year as one of frustration and wild optimism, ending in the fear that nothing would ever be accomplished. I dared not think what would happen if the divorce was not granted soon. How long could Henry be kept with this burning desire for me? How long before he was as weary of the matter as I was?
It seemed then that everything worked against us. There was the Queen, who remained aloof with an air of piety which disturbed me more than any outburst of anger wo
uld have done. Wolsey was a frightened man, I knew. He feared that this matter of the divorce would be the end of him; he could hear his enemies baying at his heels. How Norfolk, Suffolk and the rest of them would rejoice to see him brought low. I shall never forget how two years before he had calmly handed over Hampton Court to the King. Hampton Court! The pride of his life, with its magnificent architecture and all its treasures which were indeed grander than many of those in the royal palaces.
“Should a subject have a palace more royal than those of his King?” Henry had asked him one day. He had long coveted Hampton Court, and Wolsey, so clever, so astute, knowing that the King's favor was essential to his well-being, had immediately realized his folly in creating such a residence and replied that a subject could build on the perfection of such a place with only one object in view. And that was to present it to his King.
What a masterly stroke! It was sheer genius. And how delightedly the King had accepted the magnificent gift. After that he had loved Wolsey more than ever. Wolsey knew better than to let a canker grow. Cut it right out was his method, however painful the surgery.
But this was something from which Wolsey could not escape. He was a Cardinal. Some would have said his first duty was to the Pope, and Henry would want none about him whose first duty was not to himself.
The Cardinal's power was slipping away from him. Yes, there were certain times when I thought he was a very worried man.
He was not the only one who was worried. That year was one of misfortune. Nothing seemed to go right.
We were still waiting for Campeggio's arrival. When the King made impatient inquiries, the reply was always the same. Cardinal Campeggio was an old man; he was racked with gout; he was making progress as fast as he could.
I was shuttling from Court to Hever. I never stayed long at Court—a fact which pleased me, for it was becoming more and more difficult to hold Henry off. His impatience was growing. He made constant references to the consummation of our love. I greatly feared it. How long would I be able to hold him once I had surrendered? But how long could I keep him at bay? It was a terrible situation to find oneself in. I often wondered at his devotion, which so far had not wavered, and sometimes I thought that all the obstacles which had been raised might have strengthened his purpose, made him more determined to overcome them, but at others I wondered if he would ask himself whether it was all worthwhile.
