Anne of Cleves- Unbeloved

by D Lawrence-Young

  Then, in complete silence, complete that is apart from the sound of the quietly cooing baby prince, the gathered assembly stood as the archbishop christened the prince and the gentlemen at court lit their torches. As the Chapel Royal was now bathed in the flickering light, the Garter King at Arms moved to the front of the platform and in his rich baritone voice declared, “God, of His almighty and infinite grace, give and grant good life and long to the right high, right excellent, and noble Prince Edward, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester, most dear and entirely beloved son to our most dread and gracious lord, King Henry the Eighth!”

  Then a Te Deum was sung, trumpets sounded a fanfare and the newly-christened Prince Edward was taken to his joyful parents, King Henry the Eighth and Queen Jane who had been waiting all this time in their own apartments in the palace. Here the king blessed his son and then distributed alms to a small group of selected poor men and women.

  And it was in this heady atmosphere of joy and pageantry that the courtiers, together with the other royal and clerical officials, guards and servants drifted back to their places in the palace to resume their usual round of duties. As they were doing so and standing in a side corridor running from the Great Hall to Hampton Court’s vast kitchens, Lady Margaret of Durham was discussing the christening with her sister, Catherine.

  “Now, Cat, wasn’t that something? We haven’t had a christening like that here for so long.”

  “Of course we haven’t. Young Prince Edward is the first prince to be born in over twenty years. But don’t you think the queen looked a little pale today? I mean, when she came out to take her child afterwards.”

  “But of course she did. It’s not surprising considering the ordeal she went through. It wasn’t an easy birth, after all.”

  “I know that, Margaret. But she looked so weak, and from where I stood I noticed she was positively sweating and shaking a little when she had to stand up to take the little baby. I’m telling you, she didn’t look well at all, even taking into account that she’d had a long and difficult labour and delivery.”

  “You are wrong there, Cat. You’re always exaggerating. You always look on the dark side. I am telling you, in a few days’ time the queen will be up and about and everything will be as it was before. You mark my words. You’ll see I’m right.”

  But Lady Margaret was not right. The next day the queen’s temperature rose and she became more feverish. Her face became more flushed and her ladies in attendance were spending all their time wiping the sweat off her face with scented cloths while trying to calm down their royal mistress at the same time. But they did not succeed. The hot and sticky queen kept kicking off all of her heavy bedcovers, groaning, and trying to pull away from the scented cloths. “When will this end? The pains in my belly and legs,” she moaned and screamed. “Cannot you do anything for me? Where are the doctors? Where is my husband?” And she continued to moan and scream incessantly.

  The king, of course, with his obsessive fear of illness stayed away from her chamber, but was kept informed of the situation by a steady stream of ladies and servants.

  “How goes it with her? Is she still sweating? Is she still screaming?” he would ask. And the answer was always the same. “Yes, Your Majesty. Her ladies cannot seem to bring down her temperature or stop her from sweating so much.”

  “Then send for the doctors, the physicians,” the king roared. “What am I paying them for? Just to live and eat there at the palace?”

  But nothing helped. Neither the attendants’ loving care and concern and nor the doctors’ learned advice. Nor did prayer, medicine nor herbs help. The pale-faced and haggard queen continued to suffer for more than a week. Then on 24 October suddenly her delirious attacks ceased and she lay completely still under her heavily embroidered bedcovers.

  “Has she gone?” an exhausted lady-in-waiting whispered, scared to hear the answer.

  “No, not yet, Alice, but I fear she doesn’t have long now. The Duke of Norfolk has sent a message to Chancellor Cromwell telling him to return to court as soon as possible. It looks as though there’s going to be a lot of work for him to do. But come, let us pray and hope for the best.”

  But despite all their prayers, the medicine and the constant care, Queen Jane Seymour, King Henry the Eighth’s third wife, after several days of pain and hysteria, quietly slipped out of this earthly world leaving her shattered husband to seek solace in his own silent chambers. Despite his fear of sickness and death, the king had come at last to her chamber to be with his wife. He had been present during the queen’s last few hours trying to bring some comfort to his now silent and dying wife. He had truly loved her and although no-one could have known it then, it would be beside his third wife, Jane, the only one who had given him a son, who he would lie beside when his own time came ten years later.

  Just as the christening of Prince Edward had been a magnificent occasion so too was the queen’s funeral. Her embalmed body lay in state for a week in the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court, the chief mourner being Lady Mary, the prince’s older half-sister. Dressed in mourning black, she and the other ladies at court had masses sung for the departed queen. Parallel with this, the Lord Mayor of London ordered twelve hundred masses to be sung throughout the City before the queen’s body was transported to Windsor Castle in a long and silent procession. This included two hundred poor men all clad in black, wearing the queen’s symbol, a phoenix rising from a castle.

  Eighteen days after she died, and after a long ceremony, the queen was buried in a vault at Windsor Castle leaving her grieving husband to mourn for her in London at Whitehall Palace. The final requiem mass took place in St. Paul’s Cathedral and the capital city’s church bells tolled for a full six hours.

  Jane had reigned as queen for only sixteen months and now she was gone. What would the distraught king do now?

  Chapter Two - Cherchez la femme

  Grey clouds and teeming rain dragged their way over from the west, blotting out the sun over London during the second week of January 1539. Rivulets of water streamed down the red-brick walls of Hampton Court Palace; and the flooded lawns and flowerbeds together with the large puddles in the courtyards reflected the threatening grey skies. As a result, the king’s courtiers and officials who had to step outside did their best to avoid the puddles as they made their way from one building to another.

  Everyone was complaining about the permeating damp and did their best to stay dry, wearing their heaviest clothes and sturdiest boots and shoes. But none of their efforts could lighten their feelings of depression. This was as true for the haughty aristocrats such as the Duke of Norfolk as much as it was for the lowliest servant working in the royal kitchens scouring the huge iron pots. Everyone, but everyone was suffering from the cold and the damp and that included Thomas Cromwell, the King’s Chancellor and chief minister.

  On this depressing January day, he was gingerly weaving his way over the slippery cobblestones in the great courtyard, hoping he would not fall into one of the many puddles that threatened to entrap and soak him. He was on his way to the king’s chamber for there he had an appointment with his royal master, and this master you never kept waiting. Never.

  “Come in, Thomas,” the king called out as his loyal minister shook off his sopping cloak. He handed it over to a servant who left the chamber to hang it up near a fire. Henry pointed to a heavy wooden chair opposite him at the window. “I saw you dodging below in the rain and I was wondering if you’d fall, but you didn’t. That was a masterful performance you put on down there. I was very impressed as I was sure you were going to slip over. But now I’ll order some warm wine to take the chill out of your old bones. And some sweetmeats, too.”

  “Excuse me, Your Majesty, but my bones are not that old. A mere fifty years, that’s all.”

  “Fifty?” the king guffawed, slapping the seated chancellor on his fat thigh. “Fifty, you say? Fifty and a few more is what I say, and what I say counts, does it not? And just think, I made you my chancellor
six years ago and you cannot even count. Fifty! Ha!” and he slapped him again. “But come, sir, I have not summoned you here on this miserable day to discuss your mathematical skills and knowledge. No, I’ve called you here to talk about your finding me a new wife or, rather, about your lack of success in finding me a new wife. Now what have you got to say to me about that, eh?”

  Cromwell was silent. The king had surprised him; he had not expected the question of a future queen to be the subject of their discussion. He had assumed they would be talking about some of the monasteries that had been recently dissolved.

  “And by the way, Thomas, you may also remove your cap. I’ll keep mine on because all I need now is to catch a cold in this wretched weather.”

  Cromwell took off his flat black cap and placed it on the vacant seat behind him. He knew that the king never removed his own hat in front of anyone as he did not want the world to know that he was rapidly balding. Time was working on that famous Tudor ginger hair and Henry was doing his best to deny it. The king hoped that the longish strands of hair sticking out from under his hat would give the impression that he was still the owner of a full head of thick luxurious curls, the hair that the young women had loved to run their fingers through some thirty years before.

  The overweight Chancellor looked down at the floor and waited. He knew his king did not tolerate failure. In fact, as his eyes were looking down he was thinking of those men and women, proud nobles and humble servants alike, who had failed His Majesty and had paid for this with their lives.

  “Come, Thomas, you are not very cheerful company on this gloomy day. Just listen to that rain outside. It hasn’t been like this for months. Not since last winter.” He then stretched out his heavily bejeweled hand and pushed over a plate of comfits to his chief servant. “Now let me tell you about why I have called you over.”

  Cromwell waited. He was interested to hear how this conversation would develop.

  Henry looked out of the window for a moment and then continued. “Thomas,” he began slowly, “it’s not so bad being without a wife for a while, but I must admit that fourteen months without a regular woman in my bed is not really for me. I mean I’ve had the odd wench from time to time but it’s not the same thing, is it?”

  Cromwell looked up and gave a small smile.

  “And of course,” the king continued, “There’s this trouble with my accursed leg. It never does seem to heal and the pain is sometimes quite unbearable.”

  Cromwell knew what his royal master was talking about. For the past seven years the king had been suffering from ulcerous sores on his legs and six months ago he had nearly died from the bright red fistulas that had suddenly become blocked.

  “God’s wounds,” the king swore. “Do you remember that day, Thomas? My poisoned legs nearly killed me. I could hardly speak for the pain. I had to lie there on the bed like a half-dead fish, writhing in agony, squirming and fighting for breath. I was sure I was going to die. The only thing that brought me any comfort was knowing that I now had a son to succeed me. Oh my God! The agony of it all!” The king paused for a moment as he recalled that traumatic morning. “And my clever surgeons and apothecaries,” he continued. “Could they do anything? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! I could have hanged the lot of them. All they could do was to wipe a damp cloth over my forehead and tell me the pain would pass soon. Any of my servant girls could have done that. Luckily for those useless doctors the pain did pass. But I tell you, Thomas, it was the Lord’s work, not theirs. But let’s not talk about that now. What I want to talk to you about are my plans for my next marriage.”

  Cromwell looked down again. “Fear not, man,” Henry laughed. “I’m not going to chop off your head yet, at least not for a while. So stop studying the floor as if it were more important than me and listen to what I have to tell you what has happened over the past year. I know you organized much of what I am going to tell you, but listen anyway.”

  Cromwell sat up higher in his chair and the king pulled over a sheet of paper lying on top of a pile of documents.

  “Now I know that you wrote to and spoke to various European ambassadors about potential wives, did you not?”

  “Yes, Sire. At the end of November ‘37, a month after your dear wife, Queen Jane, passed away.”

  “And?”

  “I received an answer from John Hutton, your ambassador to the court of Mary of Hungary, the Regent of the Low Countries and…”

  “And what did he say? I don’t remember any of the details about that. What happened?”

  “He wrote to me from Brussels where he’d been conducting a secret search to find out if there were any eligible ladies, suitable for Your Majesty and… please wait a minute, I have the report right here in my pouch.” Cromwell stood up and then bent down to pull out a rolled up parchment from the leather pouch which had slipped onto the floor under his chair. “Ah, here we are,” and he started reading out from the now straightened parchment record which he held out in his fleshy hands.

  There is in the court waiting upon the queen, the daughter of the Lord of Breidroot, 14 years old and of goodly stature, virtuous, sad and womanly. Her mother, who is dead, was daughter to the Cardinal of Luke’s sister; and the Cardinal would give her a good dote.”

  “Dote? What’s that, Thomas?”

  “It’s another word for dowry, Your Majesty, but please, may I continue?”

  Henry nodded his head and his chancellor continued reading.

  There is the widow of the late Earl of Egmond, who repairs often unto the court. She is over forty, but does not look it. There is also the Duchess of Milan, who is reportedly a goodly personage and of excellent beauty.

  “Hmm,” Henry smiled, running his tongue round his lips. “Have you any more news about her?”

  “No, Sire. I just have something about this last lady, Lady Cleves. Anne of Cleves.”

  “Well, read on, Thomas, read on.”

  And Thomas did.

  The Duke of Cleves has a daughter, but there is no great praise either of her personage or her beauty.

  Henry was silent for a moment. Then he looked up and asked his chancellor if anything had happened to this “Duchess of Milan or that Cleves woman.”

  “No, not as far as I know, Sire. A month after I received this report, the French king, King Francis, wrote to his ambassador…”

  “Castillion?”

  “Yes, Sire. He thought it would be most beneficial if you would take a French bride as your next wife and, if I remember correctly, he recommended Madame de Longueville.”

  “The Marie of Guise woman?”

  “Yes, Sire. So I sent an emissary, one Peter Mewtas, to France to see whether the young woman was agreeable and…”

  “She wasn’t.”

  “That is correct, Sire. When Mewtas returned to London he said that when she heard that you were a big man and that you would want a big wife, she replied that she may be a big woman but… and please excuse me, Your Majesty, but the following words are hers…”

  “Yes, yes, Thomas, what did she say?” Henry asked sharply.

  “She said, Your Majesty, that she might be a big woman but that she had a very little neck.”

  Henry exploded. “God’s wounds, Thomas! Won’t these people ever forget what I did to Anne Boleyn?”

  Cromwell did not answer. He hid his face behind the document he had just been reading and waited for the royal storm to blow over. Fortunately it did. This was not the first time the execution of the king’s second wife had been mentioned in front of him and the chancellor continued talking about Marie of Guise.

  “In any event, Your Majesty,” Cromwell added quietly. “The lady in question missed the opportunity to marry you for soon afterwards she married King James the Fifth of Scotland.”

  “Ah, that’s right. I remember now. It was last year in June, was it not? By proxy, too?”

  “Yes, Sire. You are right on both counts. And then he married her in person in church later on, although the
exact date escapes me for the moment.”

  “No matter, Thomas, although I am surprised you’ve forgotten that one. You are normally very good at remembering such details. But tell me more. What happened to the Duchess of Milan woman?”

  “Ah, Christina of Denmark, Sire. Well, John Hutton, your ambassador to the Low Countries, recommended that you marry her. He said that she was, and here I quote him, ‘beauty of person and birth.’ He also noted that she much resembled your dear departed Queen Jane, except that her skin was less white than hers.”

  “What a memory you have, Thomas. Even though you forgot that small detail about the marriage of Marie of Guise, you remembered all that about the Duchess of Milan. No wonder I made you my chancellor. How could I do without you?”

  Beneath his sallow complexion, Thomas Cromwell blushed. It was not often he received such praise from His Majesty.

  “Now wasn’t that the woman who had two pretty dimples in her cheek and another on her chin?”

  “Yes, Sire. And I see that you also have a good memory for details.”

  “Of course I do, Thomas. And especially when it comes to talking about marriageable women,” Henry replied, wetting his thick lips again.

  “And I remember, Sire, you sent Master Holbein, your court painter, over to Brussels to paint her portrait for you. If I recall, he went over there with Sir Philip Hoby, the diplomat.”

  “Ah, that’s right, Thomas. And he said that she looked remarkably like Margaret Shelton.”