‘Tis nothing strange in such negotiations, for in our world love of the romantic kind is but another name for foolishness. And love within a marriage — the only kind permitted — is no more than duty. But in my heart I decry such principles as these, and so to my sweetheart I raged at this abomination of our separate betrothals, and swore against those who would keep us parted.
“The Cardinal and King stand with my father on this,” whispered Percy. “What am I to do?”
Softer still and trembling said I, “Defy and marry me!” I saw his face go pale in fear and dread.
I asked if he did not remember the Kings own sister Princess Mary. I myself had been in her retinue of waiting ladies when she sailed for France to marry old King Louis. I told him of the great love Mary shared with one Lord Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and how for reasons of alliance, that love was pushed aside. Obedient servant to her brother and her country, the Princess knew that she must sit upon the throne of France as Queen. But before she sailed upon that cold and blustery day from Dover shores — for I was there and saw her with my own two eyes — Mary pleaded that if Louis died that she’d be free to marry Brandon then. Henry gave his promise that this could be, and we set sail. I told Percy how with three short months as Queen, the old King died and waiting not for Henrys word, she and Brandon married secretly, then returned to England bonded thus. And how Henry raged and hurled abuse and sent them both from Court disgraced. “But soon, my love,” I said, “he brought them home forgiven, and here they live today.”
“Your point?” asked Percy, much confused.
“That our good King has beating in his breast a tender heart which knows how lovers feel, and will forgive us our defiance as he did his sister. And if our King shows clemency, then, too, Cardinal Wolsey and our parents must do the same. And we will have won a rare and wonderful thing. A marriage of love.”
He laughed in terror and delight and grasped my hands. “Sweet, sweet Anne, I have never known a woman such as you. My feeble words tell nothing of my longing, so let my arms, my lips, my body tell you instead.”
“And like the Princess and her Brandon shall we defy and marry?”
“Yes, yes!” he cried. Curious eyes of ladies, gents and Queen did turn upon his oath, so we returned to calm and proper converse. The morning went to afternoon all sweet and full of soft endearments, promises and plans. Much too soon a call was heard that all of those returning to the Cardinal’s house must go with haste or miss the tide.
I did not wish to lose him withal, so walked with him out to the misty river edge. Cloaked in darkness we kissed. O, it made grow a great fire in my loins, shook my legs and arms and seemed to melt my very chest! We clung and touched, my hand found his hardness and his my breast. I had dallied some in France but this flame, this sweet desire was new to me.
Then the torches lit the scarlet Cardinal down our way and we were forced to separate. Hasty goodbyes, quite dignified under his master’s ice cold stare. But it mattered not at all, for we were betrothed by our own hearts. This promise shall stand, and by the by in fullness of time Lady Percy I shall be.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
22 November 1522
Diary,
How do I begin? My heart is broke. My life is done. Percy, gentle love of mine is banished North, his Fathers wrath a smothering shroud. I too am sent from Court disgraced, and languish now in my family home at Hever in the Kentish countryside. How came this all to pass, you ask?
When last I wrote the world was bright with possibility. The English Court felt more like home and France a lovely memory. Life was gay. Presiding like a living God our King Great Harry, hale and hearty made the ground to shake beneath his feet. In shimmering satins dripping gold at revels he led the leaping dancers like a stag. He rode robustly, jousted hard, yet sang and played, composed sweet verse and made the Court a wondrous place.
I served the Queen and spent the summer days in restless pleasures, hawking, riding, dancing, finding secret time alone with my beloved. O, together we did make a dazzling light and walked upon the air. Our various and false betrothals seemed a distant dream forgot. Our marriage was in all but law a fact and soon we would be joined, we knew.
And then like deadly lightning from the sky came Cardinal Wolsey, thundering wrathful with clear intent to kill our love. Summoned, Percy went to stand before the portly priest whose bulging angry eyes pierced my lover’s calm and left him shaking like a sapling in a gale. “Desist,” he said, “and leave the girl alone.” Of common birth was I, not good enough for he. Our mutual contracting he fumed was “a dire breach, angering fathers, God and King.” Henry sought alliance between the Tal-bots and Northumberlands whose binding gave his northern borders strong defense. So Wolsey, courting favor with the King, smote us vilely, making two of one, tearing beating hearts from loving breasts.
Percy wrote (in secret missive, since we were never let to say goodbye) that he defended me, my birth as high as his, refusing to renounce our vows. I shuddered when I thought of him, a tender boy come toe to toe with such a fearsome enemy. And so did Wolsey curse my wretched love and send him home to his furious father. Our pledges made in honesty were rent apart, infringed, dissolved as tho they’d not existed.
For my part, Father called me to his rooms and thrashed me soundly. That hot pain was sweet and mild compared to nev-erending separateness from my beloved. Stinging from his blows I did not weep but stood my ground and held his marble eyes.
I said, “Great Cardinal Wolsey thinks he’s won this game with me a helpless girl who cowers neath his lash. But let me say one thing to you, an oath, that if it ever lays within my power I shall do the Cardinal as much displeasure as he has to me.”
My Father stood shocked and still at my outrageous words, a young girl presuming to threaten so high a man. Then Father banished me from Court and sent me packing home to distant Hever Hall where I now write.
Life is dull in Edenbridge, the days are empty as a sodden field at dawn. The flowers have no smell, the birdsong grates my ear, I lose my self within the green hedge maze and wish that I could fade to nothing. A letter came a day ago to say that Percy and the Talbot girl had married. I did not cry, for all my tears were spent. Instead, like sick and festering pustules bursting forth, new hatred exploded within me for Cardinal Wolsey, and I set a curse upon his head.
I’ll have his soul, be that assured. When? How? I cannot know. But Anne Boleyn shall have her day.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
25 March 1523
Diary,
I am wearied beyond imagining. Each and every day we sit, my good Mother and my self, before the hearth as Chaplain Parker drones the Psalms and Scriptures and we stitch, stitch, stitch upon an endless tapestry. I swear if I embroider one more hoof of unicorn or wing of mythic dragon I shall scream! How does my Mother live so dull a life? Week after month after year rising early to oversee the baking, brewing, cheese making. Seeing every servant stay full occupied, collecting feathers for our pillows, candle making and prayers, always prayers.
I see behind her clouded eyes a dying fire that once burned sharp and bright, but here among the bumpkins and the sheep, the endless fields broken by a pallid stream they call a river, my Mother’s dreams are extinguished like the candles in a chapel, one by one by one. She will not speak of it but I believe there once was affection between her and my always absent Father. Not a love match altogether, but once married they were glad of it. Elizabeth Howard proud of a husband not highly born but bold, who saw the world as his for taking. And Thomas Boleyn glad of a wife who raised his fortunes, a kindly heart and pretty face who proudly gave him one child a year and did not die. Who saw to fields, accounts and manor with an even temper, bearing lonely years in blessed silence.
My Mother, like some domestic tutor, impresses me with virtues I must learn if I would marry well. Chastity, of course, and modesty I can abide. But humility and evenness of temper, in truth, are words that
do not describe my self. She sees my sullen pain and tells me, “Do not brood so. You will be called to Court again. Go, take your hound Urian. Hunt, tend the gardens, ride to neighbors, pluck the lute.” But nothing changes such a leaden prison. Early to bed for saving candlewax, early to rise for household chores. The days drag on in deadly measure.
They say that with my love of Percy I invoked King Henry’s wrath and that his wrath is death. But this banished life he’s sent me to is worse than death. I nightly climb the dark narrow circle of stairs to my stone bedchamber, and with every step curse his name and Wolsey’s too. Lying on my stiff pallet, the moonlight cannot find its way through narrow window holes to cheer me.
I wrote twice to Percy, each time hiring secret couriers to carry the missive to his hands in Northumberland. I waited endless weeks that went to months for his replies. My heart grew still by measures till one grey morning when hope finally died, so died my heart. It withered then and turned hard like some sweet fruit that once past ripeness dries and goes to leather.
The quiet as I lay abed is terrible to me. Beyond these walls are only blackness, meadows, cattle, trees. No chambers gaily candlelit with gentlemen and ladies amused by jesters, jugglers, fools. No fetes, no masques, no dancing, music, lovers loving. I sometimes think that I shall go mad with the quiet and the dark and the loneliness. O sweet Percy lying cold and comfortless in your married bed, are we not cruelly punished for loving truly? I swear I will not have my Mothers helpless fate. I swear it on the stars.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
6 June 1524
Diary,
A celebration! George my brother rode home to visit Hever Hall and stayed a fortnight and a day. He is a charming boy who ladies love with handsome grace and reckless wit, and for these things I love him dearly too. Our Mother came alive with him at home, the only living son, adored and he adoring her. Special meals were made and we three sat for hours to gab, drink, make music, play at games.
But when I could I’d steal him far away, and we would ride for leagues, Urian running at the horses hooves. We’d take the hawks and hunt or walk the grassy path beside the River Eden, and idle days away. Full of gossip, current courtly jests and puns, he amused and filled me full where I had been bereft.
One day we lay beneath a shady elm, the hound lazy at our feet. He told the news that stirs our family’s fate. Our Sister Mary is still mistress to the King. “She does our family proud,” said George, a wicked grin upon his lips. “The saying has it that with Mary Boleyn, a King and his codpiece are always parted.”
“And how grows our good King’s manly accessory?” I asked gravely.
“Large as a pie plate, sister, and embroidered with the Tudor crest, all swords and stags and pomegranates.”
“Pomegranates!” We laughed together till our eyes were wet.
“I swear that girl is bold” he said and made a crown of wild daisies for my head. “She’s looking well. She glows in jewels and fine gowns he heaps upon her every day.”
“And what of William Carey? How does our brother in law enjoy his cuckolding?”
“As tho it happens every day, his wife made the Kings whore. I would think him wise if he were making use of it, seeking favor in return for use of Mary. But he does nothing.”
“A pity,” said I, thinking now upon my sister’s fate.
“No pity really,” replied my brother. “From Marys lot I’ve been shown some favor from the King. A manor house is mine. Small but very sweet. But our Father, he is in very great favor. A ceremony making him peer of the realm was held together with one making Henry’s bastard by Bessie Blount the Duke of Richmond. ‘Twas a sweltering hot day, but the new Royal Palace at Bridewell was very grand — all trumpets and golden canopies. Of course the main ceremony was for the child, but it was a great day for our Father. Very great in deed.”
“I suppose he was given money too.” I felt my mouth go hard.
“A pension of a thousand crowns. What is it, Anne? You look as tho a cat had crossed your grave.”
I said nothing then. My Father’s fortunes risen over Mary’s debauchery was natural to George. To all men. And should have been to me. But I was sickened. I thought, but did not say to him, “A woman is a castle or a piece of land, most valued, oft admired, improved upon. Then she’s sold or bought for fortune’s sake, for heirs, a bribe, a prize, a debt repaid. Her flesh, mind, aching heart forgot, nay, considered not at all!”
I stood and made to go. But George begged me stay. The sun was warm, he said the castle dreary. He promised he’d braid my hair. I forced my heart to calm, to brood in secret and let him soothe me with his idle talk and gentle ministrations. We spoke of my own banishment’s end, a return to Court.
“The Percy thing’s forgot and now with our family on the rise I see you back within the year.”
“Please, Christ, let it be so.”
“Thomas Wyatt asked me of your health the other day. He said a curious thing. Reminded me to bring you quills and ink. Who is it you write to? Wyatt? He’s a married man, and that is trouble you little need.” I must have blushed because he asked, “Not Percy, Anne?”
“Certainly not Percy. ‘Tis poetry I write. Wyatt gave me most encouraging words before I went away, and so I try my hand at verses.”
“A woman poet, what a thought! Will you let me see the verses? You know I write my own.”
“No, no!” I cried, saying they were badly writ, not worth the parchment used. Then I changed the subject, said ‘twas getting dark and we had a far ride to home. He helped me up and put his arms round me then and held me with a brother’s sweet embrace.
“I brought the quills and ink for you,” he said. I laid my head upon his comfortable shoulder thinking that here was one man in all the world who loved me for my self. Too sad. Too sad. Too sad.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
4 July 1524
Diary,
Last night as I prepared to lay me down to bed I heard a quiet footstep near. I found it was my brother George with candle torch who crept the circular stair to my chamber clandestinely, a gift in hand. Unwrapt, I saw the reason for his secrecy. He’d brought to me a most heretical tract, Erasmus’ “Praise of Folly” which savaged Pope and Church and Clergy for corruption, priestly greed and lechery.
I thanked him soundly. Books to read are scarce in country life and one so bold as this a prize. George lamented that he’d failed to place his hands upon the newest scandalous tome, William Tyndale’s translation into English, of the New Testament.
“The books are burned at St. Paul’s Cross,” he said, “the author persecuted, running from our own King. The volumes that miss the fire, I’m told, are passed from hand to hand. The Church, in deed your good friend Wolsey, tracks these copies down searching house to house.” He spoke in even lower tones. “All known literates are suspect, and rewards offered to informers.”
“I do not understand,” said I. “In France I read the Christian Gospels translated into French. No ban there exists. In deed ‘twas encouraged by the King’s own sister and my tutor in such things, the Duchess Alengon.”
“You forget our King is, in Rome, the Pope’s own shining star. He’s named Defender of the Faith against all Protestant heretics.”
I begged my brother that he get me Luther’s tome. ‘Twas dangerous, he said, for Henry hated Luther, writing out against the German’s works, defending Catholic sacraments. Luther all outraged had called our Sovereign a “lubberly ass, that frantic madman, King of lies.”
I laughed out loud at such audacity. George put a finger to my lips, afraid and whispered, “We are still good Catholics, are we not?”
“I suppose,” said I. “We go to mass, take communion, confess. But brother, listen.” I drew him very close. “Have you no love for these Protestant ideas? That God and man can speak together without authority of priests? I tell you now it suits me well, this New Religion.”
His hands in mine
were trembling with my words. “They still burn heretics,” said George.
“I will be cautious, say nothing aloud to bring us harm. I promise you.” His trembling ceased, his posture eased. “But get me that Tyndale Bible when you can.”
He laughed and said, “Nan, you are a vixen. You’ll be the death of me, I swear.”
I bade him go, then put the volume in my hiding place behind a loose stone. I longed for daylight. A book to read! Treasure good as gold.
Before I laid me down I went to bended knee, the bedchamber my chapel — blasphemy — and called to Jesus Christ my Lord in supplication to save my miserable soul… and soon to bring me back to Court.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
ELIZABETH FOUND HERSELF TREMBLING as she closed her mother’s diary. Coming back into her own world from Anne’s was not unlike a barge gliding out from under the shadows of London Bridge into the blinding daylight. But tonight, with many of the candles Kat had lit round the chair having flickered out, the room was dark and gloomy outside the small halo of remaining light, and her eyes were fatigued.
Kat had become suspicious of these strange sessions. The secrecy irritated the Mistress of the Maids, for Elizabeth had never kept a secret from Kat since earliest nursery days. She’d complain about the Queen looking tired with great dark circles under her eyes after a night awake, or when Elizabeth remained silent about her solitary exercises behind closed doors, mutter quietly about evil habits and the Devil’s work.
Pinwheels of light swam before Elizabeth’s eyes and pain swelled in her head. When she stood she was gripped with a terrible nausea that made her clutch the chair for support. It was surely the onset of one of her bad headaches.
The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn Page 5
