Anne of Cleves- Unbeloved

by D Lawrence-Young

  I smiled. “And now that the king’s widow has married him I don’t suppose Lady Throckmorton can do much about it, can she?”

  Now it was Lady Rutland’s turn to smile. “No,” she said. “All she can do, and probably will, is to shout at her husband who, knowing him, will run off to the council chamber where he knows no women are allowed.”

  Despite my earlier, mixed feelings about Lady Catherine, I was very pleased on her behalf. She had been married to three older men and for her, marriage often meant acting more as a nurse to them rather than being a lusty wife with her own feminine needs to fulfill. This time she was marrying for love. What could be better than that?

  And in addition to running her new household, she took in her two cousins, Princess Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey. These two lively girls were just the sort of daughters Lady Catherine would have wanted for herself. They were bright, loved to read and to learn and they both had sharp enquiring minds. They were just like younger versions of their aunt. They would provide her with all the warm and intellectual companionship that she needed when her husband was away from home.

  And so 1547, a year which had started with my past husband’s death turned into 1548 a year which started with the news of a birth.

  One windy day at the end of March Lady Browne told me that Lady Catherine was with child.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, for neither she nor her husband were very young. She was thirty-six and he was ten years older.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “The baby is due at the end of the summer - some time in August or September.”

  I clapped my hands. “That’s such lovely news,” I said. “And I suppose she’ll be wanting a boy to carry on the good name of the family.”

  “Of course, my dear Anne. Oh, I’m so happy for her. I do hope everything works out well for her. She certainly deserves it.”

  But it was not to be. At the end of that summer, ten days into September, the Earl of Rutland and his wife sought me out while I was paying a brief visit to court. They beckoned me to follow them and led me to a small and little-used chamber at the back of the palace where we could talk in private. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim room and the single flickering torch, I noticed that the eyes of my chamberlain’s wife were wet. I put my hand on her shoulder and asked what was wrong.

  “Has anything happened to you or your family?”

  “No, my dear, but it has to Lady Catherine. She is dead.”

  I stood there in shock. It was not possible. I’d seen her only recently and she had been so happy at the thought of giving birth to her first child. She had said that she was sure it was a boy. ‘Just feel him kicking inside me,’ she had said and placed my hand on her round belly. ‘I’m sure it’s a boy,’ she’d smiled, ‘but whatever it is, I just want it to be healthy. Oh, my dear Anne, I cannot wait for the day. I’ve wanted to be a mother for so long.’ And then she’d told me that her husband was so happy that he’d even put aside his quarrels with his brother.

  But now their happiness had crashed into dust. The baby, a girl whom they’d called Mary in honour of Princess Mary, was born without too many problems. Everyone was so happy and Lady Catherine lay back in her bed, radiant in her new-found motherhood. And then a week later she was dead. The dreaded childbirth fever had killed her.

  “Just like with Queen Jane,” Lady Rutland sobbed. “It’s so unfair.”

  One hour later I ordered my carriage, and my guards and I left the palace. There was no point in staying there. My visit had turned to ashes. Anything I’d wanted to do that day could wait for happier times. I was in no mood to speak to the council or any of its officers about the state of my finances, one of the reasons I had come to London.

  One of the first things I’d noticed after King Henry’s death was that my financial situation had worsened and that the upkeep of my belovèd Richmond Palace had become a serious burden. As the time passed I found it harder and harder to pay for repairs to the luxurious apartments in its massive stone keep or to pay for the repairs to the wooden galleries which linked the apartments to the gardens. As the palace began to look more and more neglected, I began spending more time at my other residence at Bletchingly. Although it was not as grand as Richmond, it was, as the English say, more ‘cosy.’

  My keeper of the house and lands at Bletchingly was Sir Thomas Cawarden. He was a man of many parts. Although he’d been appointed for this rôle seven years earlier, in 1540, he’d also become the M.P. for Bletchingly two years later and then held this position for five years. He must have kept His Majesty happy for while he was fulfilling these two positions, the king appointed him to be his Master of Revels and Tents. I must admit that I found this a strange sounding title and so one day when she was on one of her visits to me I asked Lady Rutland what it meant.

  “My dear Anne, it means that in addition to being responsible for the various entertainments we enjoy at court, Cawarden is also responsible for all the equipment that the players, musicians and others use as well as being in charge of the upkeep of all of His Majesty’s tents.”

  “But why is that so important? Why cannot one of the stewards have this job?”

  “Because, Sir Thomas not only has to look after the tents used for our entertainment, but he also has to look after those used in war – on the battlefield. That’s why King Henry took him on his campaign to France a few years ago.”

  “And is that why the king granted him the right to keep forty liveried servants for his own use?”

  “It is, indeed. It seems that Sir Thomas pleased His Majesty so much that he knighted him on the battlefield at Boulogne and that’s why he has that expensive house now at Blackfriars in London.”

  “I see,” I said slowly. “And I suppose that’s why he keeps asking me if I’d be willing to sell Bletchingly to him.”

  “Why, my dear, does he like this place so much?”

  “He certainly does. He just can’t wait to get his hands on its sixty-three rooms and its deer parks.”

  Lady Rutland then muttered something about how some people were never satisfied with their lot and were always grasping for more.

  “I suppose,” she said, “it’s because he was born the son of a trader – a cloth fuller – and now he sees it as his right to grab as much as he can, especially as he has found favour in the king’s eyes.”

  I agreed with her and then asked if she could tell me something about the present financial situation and why although I was considered very wealthy, I was finding it very difficult to pay all my bills for Richmond Palace.

  “I’m not quite sure, my dear,” she answered as she sipped a glass of sweet red wine. “I usually leave such matters to my husband, but I heard him say that the price of food has risen so much recently and that, together with the king’s debasement of the coinage, hasn’t helped. You know that our English coins over the past few years have been minted using base metals? According to my husband, that means they aren’t as in demand as other coins, say those from France or Spain.”

  I nodded my head as I absorbed Lady Rutland’s explanations. So there were good reasons for my present financial problems. It was not just a case of me overspending.

  “And Cawarden,” I said, “has become so unpleasant recently. In addition to criticizing me about the state of the house itself, he complained when I had some small buildings built, such as the inn, and also when my servants cut down some trees for firewood.”

  “He did that?” exclaimed a shocked Lady Rutland. “And to you, a past Queen of England? Me? I would chop off his head for impertinence.”

  I smiled. “I’m not sure I would go as far as that but he kept saying that those trees were very valuable and that it was a real waste of good wood to cut them down. I mean, what does the man want? That I should freeze to death during the winter months? But then I think he regretted being so forward because a short while after he’d complained to me, Sir William Goring…”

  “Your new chamberlain?”

&nbs
p; “Yes, and Goring told Sir Thomas to send me forty loads of charcoal so that I wouldn’t need to cut down any more of his precious trees.”

  “Oh, how very generous of him,” Lady Rutland said with a half-smile. “Or could it be that he still wants to buy Bletchingly complete with its own woodland?”

  I nodded in agreement and it seemed that Lady Rutland’s comment was well placed. In April that year, Sir Thomas Cawarden with help from King Edward was able to buy Bletchingly from under my feet, as it were, and add it to his own growing list of properties. As a result, I moved to my other manor at Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn’s birthplace, some twelve miles to the east.

  As you may imagine, forcing me to move my household - at the age of thirty-five - did nothing to endear Cawarden to me. Apart from his grasping nature, one of the reasons he acted thus was because of the religious differences between us. He was an ardent reformer, while I was more conservative. I heard that as soon as he was able to do so, he carried out some drastic changes in the church at Bletchingly. He whitewashed over the beautiful wall paintings and decorations, defaced the altar and removed the church’s rood loft.

  But to his surprise and annoyance, he discovered that he couldn’t ride rough shod over me all of the time. There were occasions on which I enjoyed some form of revenge. When I paid him visits at Bletchingly, as I had to from time to time, or to visit him at his fine Blackfriars house, I made sure that such visits cost him dearly. I would bring as many members of my household as I could. This meant that that our host had to pay for all our food, drink and other provisions such as fodder, clean floor rushes and candles. Naturally we would be wanting a very good meal after our journey and of course I insisted on being fed with nothing but the best! Naturally he had to supply us with everything we asked for as he had no wish to acquire the reputation of being a mean host. This meant that we dined well on spiced foods which included ginger, pepper and cloves, and that our meat dishes were garnished with prunes and raisins. And if that weren’t enough, Sir Thomas had to pay for our firewood and torches.

  It seems that my household’s demands were so many and so expensive that after we returned to Hever Sir Thomas wrote to the king’s council seeking financial compensation for our visit. I never found out if he received any but that was not my problem. He had treated me in such a high-handed way that he could not expect any sympathy. Usually I got on well with everyone I met, but I didn’t want my usual undemanding nature to be taken for granted, especially by the likes of this grasping official.

  Despite being relieved of maintaining Bletchingly, my financial situation worsened as the reign of King Edward progressed. I was forced to petition the council for funds but these took a long time in coming. His Majesty used his progress around the kingdom as an excuse for not replying promptly to my request and I looked back longingly to the days when his father would generously grant me extra funds and financial gifts whether I needed them or not.

  The situation became so bad that I seriously began considering whether to return to Cleves after all. I wrote to my brother and his reply was to send several ambassadors to England to speak to Archbishop Cranmer. The archbishop promised to do what he could but unfortunately these were just empty words. I appealed to the council again and eventually they granted me some money but it was not enough.

  If money was a problem then so too was religion. The new king had been brought up as a Protestant and so now that he was in power he surrounded himself with like-minded advisers. The most senior of these was Queen Jane’s older brother, Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset. He called himself the Lord Protector and presided over a council of sixteen members. Their duty was to advise the young king until he reached his maturity at the age of eighteen. The idea of this council had been devised by King Henry and he’d hoped that it would ensure a smooth succession after his death. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. The Lord Protector faced much opposition from several of the council members including his younger brother, Thomas. Baron Sudeley.

  On one of her visits to Hever, Lady Browne told me about the council’s problems, especially those that existed between the two brothers, Edward and Thomas Seymour.

  “My dear,” she said as we sat in the gardens looking out over the rolling hills of the North Downs. “If you think you have had problems with your brother, they are nothing in comparison to what the Lord Protector is having with his brother. They’re much more serious. My husband told me that Thomas raised so many objections to Edward’s decisions that the Protector had to buy him off with a barony and a promotion.”

  “What sort of promotion? To be in charge of the army?”

  “No, my dear, the navy. The Protector made his brother Lord Admiral.”

  “And was he satisfied with this?”

  “No. Thomas Seymour insisted that as he was one of the king’s uncles, he wanted more power.”

  “Did he get it?”

  “No. So Thomas began plotting behind Edward’s back and did things such as giving extra pocket money to the king and telling him that it was his older brother, the Protector, who was keeping him in such a beggarly state.”

  “Did the Protector find out about this?”

  “Oh, he most certainly did. When he found out what was going on, he had his brother arrested on charges of treason and embezzlement. And not only that. There is to be a trial and the king is to testify against Sir Thomas.”

  This was terrible news. Whatever difficulties I’d had with my own somewhat stubborn brother I could not imagine him putting me on trial for treason. We had been brought up to keep our problems within the family and not let the whole world know of any disagreements we may have had. But clearly, the Lord Protector did not think like that. He arranged for the king to testify against Thomas Seymour and, as a result, an Act of Attainder was passed against him. Shortly afterwards, Lady Browne informed me that the younger Seymour was executed at the Tower and I felt very sad about this.

  I had met him a few times when I had attended court at King Henry’s palaces at Hampton Court or Whitehall and had found him to be a gentleman who was very courteous and pleasant to converse with. He never spoke about anything serious but I knew he had harboured great affection for Catherine Parr when she had been alive. Some people said that he loved her money and title more than the lady herself, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he loved her for herself.

  What I learned from the above was to make sure that I did not become involved in any politics or intrigues particularly those connected to the Regency Council. This meant that I visited the court only on rare occasions and that I spent most of my time entertaining my friends at Hever Castle. Perhaps I was somewhat too lavish in my entertaining for sometime in 1552, Jasper Brockehouse, my treasurer, told me that I was exceeding my annual budget by one thousand pounds every year. He tried to help me by trying to reduce my expenses and many in my household were very unhappy when he told them that they’d have to tighten their belts. One man who was greatly put out by the more economical way of life was my young cousin, Count von Waldeck. He had come to stay with me for a long visit and had brought eight servants with him. Now that he was told that they could not eat and drink and spend money on their horses as freely as they had been doing he became very angry.

  One day, while I was sitting in my chamber reading Sir Thomas Wyatt’s poem, I Find No Peace, my cousin knocked on the door and without waiting for permission to enter, stormed in and started complaining.

  “What’s happening here?” he shouted, standing there facing me, arms akimbo. “Why can’t I order that meat like we had last month and why can’t we have another half dozen barrels of that sweet red wine as well? Who is this Brockehouse fellow to tell me how I should wine and dine?”

  “My dear cousin,” I replied as calmly as I can. “We’ve been living too extravagantly and now we have to limit ourselves for a while and...”

  “Well,” he continued belligerently. “I didn’t come all this way to England to
live like a peasant.”

  “I’m sorry, but you are going to have to, as you say, live like a peasant until our finances improve. Remember, this isn’t like the old days when King Henry was alive.”

  “Why not?” he pouted.

  “Because then he’d always give me extra money so that we’d not have to think about what we were ordering,” I explained, “but now those days are over.”

  “Well, I’m not going to live like this. I’m going back to Cleves and after I return home I’ll tell your brother what it’s like here and how you treated me,” and he turned around and stormed out in the same way he had stormed in.

  He was as good as his word. A few days later he and his servants returned to Cleves and told my brother what he’d seen. Apparently he also told my brother that I should get rid of Brockehouse and his wife, Gertrude, and another servant called Otto Wyllik. All this I learned from a letter and after reading it I decided I wouldn’t carry out my brother’s ‘requests’ as he called them. What right had he to tell me how to run my life? He hadn’t seen me for twelve years. But my stubborn brother wouldn’t accept my decision and he wrote to the council and told them about my financial affairs and how I was living my life.

  The result was that the council ordered four of my servants including Brockehouse and Wyllik to ‘depart from the house and family of the Lady Anne of Cleves’ and if they returned to England it was ‘at their uttermost peril.’

  This miserable affair made me very sad, for I’d grown very fond of my servants, especially Brockehouse’s wife, Gertrude, but it paled in contrast to what was happening outside my private domain. However, this I will tell you about in the next chapter.