by Jean Plaidy
Anne was very uneasy; more so than anyone, with perhaps the exception of George, could possibly guess. She would wander in the grounds around Greenwich, and brood on the future. She wished to be alone; sometimes when she was in the midst of a laughing crowd she would steal away. Anne was very frightened.
Each day she hoped and prayed for some sign that she might be pregnant; there was none. She had planned boldly, and it seemed as if her plan had failed. What will become of me? she wondered. She could not keep her secret much longer.
She had believed, when she told the King that she was with child, that soon she must be. Why was it that she was not? Something told her the fault lay with him, and this idea was supported by Katharine’s disastrous experiences and her own inability to produce another child. There was Elizabeth, but Elizabeth would not do. She murmured: “Oh, Elizabeth, my daughter, why wast thou not born a boy!”
She watched the clouds drifting across the summer sky; she looked at the green leaves on the trees and murmured: “Before they fall I shall have to tell him. A woman cannot go on for ever pretending she is pregnant!”
Perhaps by then…Yes, that had been the burden of her thoughts…Perhaps by then that which had been a fabrication of her tortured mind would be a reality. Perhaps by then there would be a real child in her womb, not an imaginary one.
The days passed. Already people were glancing at her oddly. Is the Queen well? How small she is! Can she really be with child? What think you? Is something wrong? Is this her punishment for the way she treated poor Queen Katharine?
She sat under the trees, praying for a child. How many women had sat under these trees, frightened because they were to bear a child! And now here was one who was terrified because she was not to bear one, because she, feeling herself in a desperate situation, had seen in such a lie a possible way out of her difficulties.
Her sister Mary came and sat beside her. Mary was plumper, more matronly, but still the same Mary although perhaps overripe now. Still unable to say no, I’ll warrant, thought Anne, and was suddenly filled with sharp envy.
“Anne,” said Mary, “I am in great trouble.”
Anne’s lips curled; she wondered what Mary’s trouble was, and how it would compare with her own.
“What trouble?” asked Anne, finding sudden relief as her thoughts necessarily shifted from herself to her sister.
“Anne, dost know Stafford?”
“What!” cried Anne. “Stafford the gentleman usher?”
“The very one,” said Mary. “Well…he and I…”
“A gentleman usher!” said Anne.
“All the world seemed to set so little by me, and he so much,” said Mary. “I thought I could take no better way out but to take him and forsake all other ways.”
“The King will never consent,” said Anne.
“Perhaps when he knows I am to have a child…”
Anne turned on her sister in horror. Mary had been a widow for five years. Naturally one would not expect her to live a nun’s life, but one did expect her to show a little care. Oh, thought Anne, how like Mary! How like her!
Mary hastened to explain. “He was young, and love overcame us. And I loved him as he did me….”
Anne was silent.
“Ah!” went on Mary, “I might have had a man of higher birth, but I could never have had one who could have loved me so well…nor a more honest man.”
Anne looked cold, and Mary could not bear coldness now; she did not know of her sister’s trials; she pictured her happy and secure, rejoicing in her queenly state. It seemed unkind to have from her no word for reassurance.
Mary stood up. “I had rather be with him than I were the greatest queen!” she cried, and began to run across the grass into the palace.
Anne watched her. Mary—a widow—was with child, and afraid because of it. Anne—a queen and a wife—was not, and far, far more afraid than Mary could understand, because of it! Anne threw back her head and laughed immoderately; and when she had done, she touched her checks and there were tears upon them.
When Anne told Henry there was not to be a child, he was furious.
“How could such a mistake occur!” he demanded suspiciously, his little eyes cold and cruel.
“Simply!” she flared back. “And it did, so why argue about it!”
“I have been tricked!” he cried. “It seems that God has decreed I shall never have a son.”
And he turned away, for there was a certain speculation in his eyes which he did not wish her to see. He went to the demure little lady-in-waiting.
“Ha!” he said. “It seems a long time since I kissed you, sweetheart!”
She was meek, without reproaches. How different from Anne! he thought, and remembered resentfully how she had commanded him during the days of his courtship, and how when she had become his mistress she continued to berate him.
By God, he thought, I’ll have none of that. Who brought her up, eh? Who could send her back whence she came? Women should be meek and submissive, as this one was.
Anne watched angrily, trying to follow her brother’s advice and finding herself unable to do so.
“Madge,” she said to her cousin, a lovely girl of whom she was very fond, “go to that girl and tell her I would see her this minute.”
Madge went, and awaiting the arrival of the girl, Anne paced up and down, trying to compose herself, trying to rehearse what she would say to her.
The girl came, eyes downcast, very frightened, for Anne’s eyes were blazing in spite of her efforts to remain calm.
“I would have you know,” said Anne, “that I have been hearing evil reports of my ladies. I am sending you back to your home. Be ready to start as soon as you hear from me that you are to do so.”
The girl scarcely looked at Anne; she blushed scarlet, and her lips quivered.
Sly creature! thought Anne angrily. And she the king’s mistress! What he can see in the girl I do not understand, except that she is a trifle pretty and very meek. Doubtless she tells him he is wonderful! Her lips twisted scornfully, and then suddenly she felt a need to burst into tears. Here was she, the Queen, and must resort to such methods to rid herself of her rivals! Was everyone in this court against her? Her father was anxious now, she knew, wondering how long she would retain her hold on the King; Norfolk no longer troubled to be courteous; they had quarrelled; he had stamped out of the room on the last occasion she had seen him, muttering that of her which she would prefer not to remember; Suffolk watched, sly, secretly smiling; the Princess Mary was openly defiant. And now this girl!
“Get you gone from my presence!” said Anne. “You are banished from court.”
The girl’s reply was to go straight to the King, who immediately countermanded the Queen’s order.
He left the girl and went to Anne.
“What means this?” he demanded.
“I will not have you parade your infidelities right under my nose!”
“Madam!” roared the King. “I would have you know I am master here!”
“Nevertheless,” she said, “you cannot expect me to smile on your mistresses and to treat them as though they were the most faithful of my attendants.”
He said coarsely: “If that is what I wish, you shall do it…as others did before you!”
“You mistake me,” she answered.
“I mistake you not. From where do you derive your authority if not from me! Consider from what I lifted you. I have but to lift my finger to send you back whence you came!”
“Why not lift it then?” she blazed. “Your pretty little mistress doubtless would grace the throne better than I. She is so brilliant! Her conversation is so witty! The people would acclaim her. But, Henry, do you not think she might put you a little in the shade…. Such wit…such brilliance!”
He looked at her with smoldering eyes; there were occasions when he could forget he was a king and put his hands about that little neck, and press and press until there was no breath left in her. But a king does
not do murder; others do it for him. It was a quick thought that passed through his mind and was gone before he had time to realize it had been there.
He turned and strode out of the room.
Jane Rochford had overheard that quarrel. She was excited; it gave her a pleasurable thrill to know that Anne was having difficulties with her husband, just as she herself had with George, though with a difference.
Jane crept away and came back later, begging a word with the Queen. Could the ladies be dismissed? Jane whispered. What she had to say was for Anne’s ears alone.
She expressed her sympathy.
“Such a sly wench! I declare she deliberately sets out to trap the King. All that modesty and reluctance…” Jane glanced sideways at Anne; had her barb struck a vulnerable spot? Oh, how did it feel, where you have shown reluctance to a king and complete indifference to the feelings of his wife, to find your position suddenly reversed; yourself the neglected wife and another careless of your feelings? Jane was so excited she could scarcely talk; she wanted to laugh at this, because it seemed so very amusing.
“But I have not come to commiserate with you, dear sister. I want to help. I have a plan. Were I to let her people know that she is in danger of disgracing herself—oh, I need not mention His Majesty—it might be a friendly warning…. I would try. I trow that, were she removed from court, the King would be the most loyal of husbands; and how can a woman get children when her husband has no time for her, but only for other women!”
Jane spoke vehemently, but Anne was too sick at heart to notice it. Everywhere she looked, disaster was threatening. She was young and healthy, but her husband was neither so young nor so healthy; she could not get a child, when the most urgent matter she had ever known was that she should first get with child, and that the child should be a son. The King’s health was doubtless to blame, but the King never blamed himself; when he was in fault he blamed someone else. There was evidence of that all about him, and had been for years. Francis had made an alarming move; he had begun to talk once more of a match between his son and Mary. What could that mean, but one thing! Mary was a bastard; how could a bastard marry the son of the King of France?
There was only one answer: The King of France no longer regarded Mary as a bastard. Her hopes had soared when Clement died and Paul III took his place; Paul had seemed more inclined to listen to reason, but what did she know of these matters? Only what it was deemed wise to tell her! Francis, whom she had regarded as a friend to herself, who had shown decided friendship when they had met at Calais, had decided it was unsafe to quarrel with Charles and with Rome. France was entirely Catholic—that was the answer. Francis could not stand out against his people; his sympathy might be with Anne, but a king’s sympathy must be governed by diplomacy; Francis was showing a less friendly face to Anne. She saw now that the whole of Europe would be against the marriage; that would have meant nothing, had Henry been with her, had Henry been the devoted lover he had remained during the waiting years. But Henry was turning from her; this sly, meek, pretty girl from the opposite camp was proof of that. She was filled with terror, for she remembered the negotiations which had gone on before news of a possible divorce had reached Katharine. Everyone at court had known before Katharine; they had whispered of The King’s Secret Matter. Was the King now indulging once more in a secret matter? Terrified, she listened to Jane; she was ready to clutch at any straw. That was foolish—she might have known Jane was no diplomatist. Jane’s art was in listening at doors, slyly setting one person against another.
Henry discovered what Jane was about.
“What!” he shouted. “This is the work of Rochford’s wife. She shall be committed to the Tower by the Traitor’s Gate.” She wept and stormed, cursing herself for her folly. To think she had come to this by merely trying to help Anne! What would become of her now? she wondered. If ever she got out of the Tower alive, she would be clever, subtle…. Once before she had been careless; this time she had been equally foolish, but she had learned her lesson at last. George would bear her no gratitude for what she had done; he would say: “What a clumsy fool you are, Jane!” Or if he did not say it, he would think it.
All this she had done for George really…and he cared not, had no feeling for her at all. “Methinks I begin to hate him!” she murmured, and looked through her narrow windows onto the cobbles beneath.
George came to see his sister; he was secretly alarmed.
“Jane has been sent to the Tower!” he said. Anne told him what had happened. “This grows mightily dangerous, Anne.”
“You to tell me that! I assure you I know it but too well.”
“Anne, you must go very carefully.”
“You tell me that persistently,” she answered pettishly. “What must I do now? I have gone carefully, and I have been brought to this pass. What is happening to us? Mary in disgrace, our father quite often absenting himself from court, shamefaced, hardly looking at me! And Uncle Norfolk becoming more and more outspoken! You, alarmed that I will not be cautious, and I…”
“We have to go carefully, that is all. We have to stop this affair of the King’s with this girl; it must not be allowed to go on.”
“I care not! And it were not she, it would be another.”
“Anne, for God’s sake listen to reason! It matters not if it were another one; it only matters that it should be she!”
“You mean…there is more in this than a simple love affair?”
“Indeed I do.”
Madge Shelton looked in at the door.
“I beg your pardon. I had thought Your Majesty to be alone.” She and George exchanged cousinly greetings, and Madge retired.
“Our cousin is a beautiful girl,” said George.
Anne looked at him sharply.
He said: “You’ll hate what I am about to say, Anne. It is a desperate remedy, but I feel it would be effective. Madge is delightful, so young and charming. The other affair may well be beginning to pall.”
“George! I do not understand….”
“We cannot afford to be over-nice, Anne.”
“Oh, speak frankly. You mean—throw Madge to the King, that he may forget that other…”
“It is not a woman we have to fight, Anne. It is a party!”
“I would not do it,” she said. “Why, Madge…she is but a young girl, and he…You cannot know, George. The life he has lived….”
“I do know. Hast ever thought we are fighting for thy life?”
She tried to throw off her fears with flippancy. She laughed rather too loudly; he noticed uneasily that of late she had been given to immoderate laughter.
“Ever since I had thought to be Queen, there have been those ready to thrust prophecies under my eyes. I mind well one where I was depicted with my head cut off!” She put her hands about her throat. “Fret not, George. My husband, after the manner of most, amuses himself. He was all eagerness for me before our marriage; now?” She shrugged her shoulders and began to laugh again.
“Be silent,” said George. “What of Elizabeth?”
She stopped laughing.
“What of Elizabeth?”
“It has been decreed that Mary Tudor is a bastard, because the King tired of her mother and decided—as she could no longer hope to give him a son—that he was no longer married to her. Oh, we know of his conscience, we know of his treatise…we know too well the story. But, Anne, we are alone and we need not fear each other…. Ah! What a good thing it is to have in this world one person of whom you need not cherish the smallest fear! Anne, I begin to think we are not so unlucky, you and I.”
“Please stop,” she said. “You make me weep.”
“This is no time for tears. I said Mary has been decreed a bastard, though her mother is of Spain and related to the most powerful man in Europe. Anne, you are but the daughter of the Earl of Wiltshire—Sir Thomas Boleyn not long since—and he was only raised to his earldom to do honor to you; he could be stripped of that honor easily enough. He is no Empe
ror, Anne! Dost see what I mean? Mary was made a bastard; what of Elizabeth? Who need fear her most humble relations?”
“Yes,” said Anne breathlessly. “Yes!”
“If the King has no sons, Elizabeth will be Queen of England…or Mary will! Oh, Anne, you have to fight this, you have to hold your place for your daughter’s sake.”
“You are right,” she said. “I have my daughter.”
“Therefore…”
She nodded. “You are right, George. I think you are often right. I shall remember what you said about our being lucky. Yes, I think we are; for who else is there, but each other!”
The next day she sent Madge Shelton with a message to the King. From a window she watched the girl approach him, for he was in the palace grounds. Yes, he was appreciative; who could help being so, of Madge! Madge had beauty; Madge had wit. She had made the king laugh; he was suggesting they should take a turn round the rose garden.
Anne soothed her doubts with the reflection that Madge was a saucy wench, able to take care of herself, and had probably had love affairs before. Besides…there was Elizabeth!
The Dowager Duchess of Norfolk was uneasy. Rumors came from the court, and one could not ignore them. All was not well with the Queen. She herself had quarreled with her stepson, the Duke, because he had spoken as she did not care to hear him speak, and it had been of the Queen. I never did like the man, she mused. Cruel, hard opportunist! One could tell which way the wind was blowing, by what he would have to say. Which way was the wind blowing? She liked not these rumors.
