Above All Others

by G Lawrence

  But when I was about court, I pretended I was oblivious to their hatred. I could not face this persecution like a wounded lamb. Any hint of weakness was enough for many at court to pounce. I laughed off people’s hatred in public, claiming that I cared not. But I did. It would have taken a much harder heart than mine to stand before such censure and not be affected. Supporters and friends at court, I had many, and yet their numbers seemed small when I gazed from my window to see how many hundreds and thousands of people hated me in England, and throughout other courts of the world.

  In my braver times, I spoke sternly to myself. I would be Queen. They would forget this hatred. I would show them, when I was Queen, how good I meant to be. They would see how I meant to use my power to support universities, scholars, and reform the corruption of the Church. One day, they would cheer me as they once had Katherine. The time would come. My time would come.

  To some it seemed I was there already, for du Bellay noted in his dispatches to his master in France that my uncle Norfolk was now the King’s chief advisor, and More his Chancellor, but, “above all others, the Lady Anne” was truly in charge. I smiled when I read the stolen papers that my father acquired… Above all others. I liked the sound of that. Perhaps it was true enough as well, for as Henry gathered new men to give him counsel in Wolsey’s absence, he also often turned to me.

  With Wolsey gone, Henry and I entered a period of peace. He had finally taken action against my greatest enemy, and I knew how much it had cost him. I was unaware, then, of the messages of support he had sent to the Cardinal, and, in my innocence, I felt only closer to Henry. I believed he had made the ultimate sacrifice for me.

  I was kind to Henry, shying away from arguments, and seeking only to soothe him. We played at cards, went out for long hunting trips, and I played on the virginals or lute at night to calm his mood. He loved to hear me sing, for I had a good voice, and often when we sat together, after he had read through state papers, or had attended meetings all day, I sang him to sleep, with his tired head upon my lap. He grieved for the Cardinal as though Wolsey had died, and I made it my task to try and comfort him. Henry was pleased by this. Although I think he enjoyed the stormy parts of our relationship as much as he feared them, there were many times when we were not a raging, passionate couple, but a pair of friends, looking after each other. It was a side of us that many people did not see. Our arguments were famous, but there were other sides to our story; times when we were gentle and calm together. This time after Wolsey’s fall was one of those.

  Whilst Henry sorrowed for the loss of Wolsey, he could not but be amazed at the fabulous riches that had come into his pocket through the fall of the richest man in England. As the properties and goods that Wolsey had surrendered to him came into his possession, Henry was astounded by the volumes of riches that he now controlled. Gold and silver plate and ornaments were piled in front of him like apples at a market. Jewels, coin, rings, bracelets, and necklaces sat in heaps in coffers. Tapestry, carpet and painted hangings were lain out for Henry to view. Furs, cloth, velvet gloves, leather hunting gear, saddles, footstools and richly decorated reins were like mountains in the great hall. In the mews there were hordes of falcons, sakers, and hawks, and Wolsey’s hounds were plentiful in number too. Although Henry may have suspected it often enough before, it was now obvious Wolsey had been even richer than the King himself. The Cardinal had spent a lifetime acquiring goods and money, and had hoarded much wealth not only from his own revenues, not only from dissolved monasteries but also from Henry’s pocket. He had received rich bribes from those currying his favour, and had taken money from pensions from France as well. His lands had been numerous, and all the rents, taxes and tithes from those had flowed into his coffers too. Oh yes… there was more wealth than a man could imagine here. The riches of princes… The riches of the people… The riches of the Church. Even I, who had known much of Wolsey’s corruption, could hardly believe my eyes.

  “How has this man so much?” Henry asked in wonder, eyeing the trunks, chests and piles of tapestry that continually arrived at his feet. Wagons had creaked along the streets for days, depositing load after load of goods, fabric, coin and jewels.

  “From you, my lord,” I said calmly, fingering a section of gorgeous embroidered cloth. “From revenues and from incomes that should have been yours, always. From your people and from those who wanted to buy Wolsey’s loyalty.”

  Henry glanced at me with an uneasy face, but he nodded slowly in agreement. He looked around him and in a sudden change of topic, typical of Henry when he wished to avoid a painful subject, he went on. “This palace, Anne, this shall be yours and mine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He turned to me and his blue eyes were sparked with the fire of his imagination. “This shall be our palace. We will design and build upon it. We will make it our own,” he said, opening his arms. “Here, we shall make our mark, together… Your ideas and mine will be made into physical form, here for our sons and daughters and all of our line to see. They will view York Place, and they will remember us here. They will honour the start of the dynasty that continued to rule for a thousand years!”

  He laughed suddenly and crossed the room, putting my arm through his and marching off through the palace. Henry started to talk rapidly about his ideas, and I added my thoughts to his. Even before we had walked about the whole place, he was sending messengers for his workmen to come to him. He wanted to expand the palace, and there was land about it to do so. It was grand and vast already, but Henry wanted it to be awe-inspiring. And he wanted to undertake this project with me.

  In truth, Henry was speaking too rapidly and too excitedly for me to believe that he was actually so overcome by this new idea that he had forgotten Wolsey. Henry often sought to forget the painful past and smother it with his future plans. He was seeking, in that exuberant display, to force Wolsey from his mind and concentrate on the future, with me. I did not try to wrestle him from his dreams. I entered into the performance, and we wandered about the palace making plans for expansion and change. In time, York Place would be known as Whitehall Palace, and it would become the greatest, and largest of all of Henry’s creations.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Greenwich Palace

  Autumn 1529

  One afternoon I was walking to Henry’s Presence Chamber from my apartments in Greenwich. A page in Katherine’s colours stepped out of the King’s rooms as I approached, holding a pile of fine linen shirts. “What are these?” I demanded, stopping him. I put a hand to the linen, which clearly belonged to the King and touched the shirts with a horrible suspicion growing in my mind. The page was wearing Katherine’s pomegranate emblem upon the traditional colours of red of a servant of the royal apartments.

  “The King’s shirts, my lady,” he said. Although he bowed, he also, just perceptively, curled his lip. Katherine’s servants hated me, as well they might, although about the court they could show only small signs of their disdain. The page made to leave, thinking that since he had answered, I would let him go, but I stopped him.

  “Where are you taking them?”

  “To Queen Katherine…” He shied back as my face darkened with anger.

  “What do you mean? Why do you take the King’s shirts to her?”

  He coughed uncomfortably. “I take the King’s shirts to the Queen so that she may mend them and make him more, my lady… As she has always done, as part of her wifely duty to the King.”

  I whipped him a look of sheer malevolence and he shrank from me as though I were the Devil. “I wish to see the King,” I said coldly, as though this page was the guard on Henry’s door, and then I pushed past him with my ladies following me in a scampering, whispering flock. The page fled.

  I marched past the Yeomen Guard who stood at the door of Henry’s private chambers. They nodded at me. Their gilt halberds, swords and silver breastplates glittering in the light that shone through the windows. Their tunics were of green and white velvet, e
mbroidered back and front with the Tudor rose and decorations of gold and silver. They were all giants of men, standing tall, head and shoulders above the other men of the court, but even they moved aside when they saw me coming. One of them banged on the door, and Norris came to unlock it, as only he, aside from the King and the Queen, held a set of keys to that inner sanctum.

  Henry called me in and before he could stand and utter his customary, “sweetheart…” I marched in as though I were on my way to battle. “It is a matter of shirts,” I announced coldly, my black eyes snapping with anger and my hands resolutely by my side, clutching into fists as I faced my sovereign as though I should murder him then and there.

  He stepped back and, noting my white face and clutched fists, spoke slowly, clearly baffled. “A matter of shirts…?”

  Anger swelled inside me like a storm’s wave. He nodded to his men who left the chamber, looking in astonishment at their king who seemed to accept the arrival of a Fury in his house with the greatest calm. “Those shirts that your wife still makes for you, Henry!” I cried.

  Henry rubbed a hand over his short beard. “I know not what you mean, Anna…” He sounded genuinely confused.

  “Pah!” I threw my hands in the air. “Those shirts that your wife makes, sews and mends for your body, my lord! Those shirts that you wear on your back even now as you say to me you know not of what I talk! That shirt, my lord, those shirts that she sews for you as her wifely duty!” I stood stock still, glowering at him. “Those shirts that she still makes for you even though you say she is no true wife! Even as you pledge yourself to me you still wear her shirts!”

  Henry looked both amazed and angry. “I had little thought of it,” he said, trying to restrain his temper. “She has always sewn them for me. I considered it of no importance… I do not hand the shirts to her men, Anne. Servants have their tasks, many of which have been in place for a long time… If they still come and take my shirts to Katherine, it is not by my daily and direct order, but only by tradition! Of that I assure you...” He scowled. “I have not time for these… women’s matters,” he mumbled into his short beard.

  “Women’s matters!” I exclaimed. “Women’s matters? They are none such! These are your matters, Henry, yours and mine! How can I be a wife to you when you have another already? How can I fulfil my role in your life when another grabs it from me? There is no task that Katherine should now do for you! Every time you allow her such an office, she finds a way to creep back into your life. Every time you allow her a wifely duty you maintain the fiction that she is indeed your wife! You complain mightily about her resistance to leave, my lord, but you do not push her from you, do you? And every time you go to dine with her or sit with her, or talk about your child… you break my heart!”

  My lip curled and my nostrils flared like those of an angry horse. He stared at me in naked astonishment, as though none of what I was saying had ever occurred to him. “No! No matter, Henry, that your wife still makes your clothes, no matter that she still performs each wifely duty for you as though you were truly married. No matter that each and every one of those duties keeps me from you. No matter that the two of you are still in this marriage and I am kept out by the laws of men and Popes and by your failure to make true effort to rid yourself of her!”

  He went to speak but I railed over his mumbled words. “Perhaps you still hope that sooner rather than later I shall give in and be your happy whore, bear your bastards and suffer Katherine’s glory as you continue with that Spanish crone as your Queen! Soon enough, perhaps, you think that all this will come to nothing, and so you keep her as your true wife as I live in the shadows! ‘Tis but a shirt you say…!”

  I drew myself up, beautiful and mighty before him in my anger. “…‘Tis the sign of your failure, I say!”

  I was angry, hurt… I wanted to shame him. I succeeded.

  He seemed to grow larger, towering over me, his nostrils flaring and face scarlet with wrath. His blue eyes were as cold as the ice on the Thames and his cheeks were almost black with fury. “You have said enough, Mistress!” he said in the most terrible voice I had ever heard. He looked set to strangle me.

  “Mistress is all I am to you, my lord,” I cried boldly. I was afraid of him then, terribly afraid, but I had always the spirit of a lioness when I was frightened. I faced him with every scrap of courage I had. He had to see, to see that this was but another way for Katherine to hang on to her place at his side.

  “It… is not so,” he growled from behind gritted teeth.

  “How can I believe in your words, when your actions show them to be lies?” I walked away from him.

  “Do not turn your back on me… I am the King!” he shouted, slamming his hand upon the back of a chair. I turned my head to him as I reached the door.

  “If it were not for your cruelty, your indifference, then I should never think of turning from you, Henry. But you are not my husband and so you do not control me, my lord. Go back to your wife!” I laughed bitterly and my lip curled. I hated him in that moment. He could see the revulsion in my face, and amidst the anger there in his face, there was also fear; fear that he would lose me. It was my greatest weapon. “Go to your wife, Henry of England,” I repeated, my voice shrill. “For I am not she, am I?” I swept from the room, scattering servants from before me like the winds scatter the chaff.

  Henry went to see Katherine that very day, and told her that no more would she make or mend his shirts, nor do any of the tasks she had performed in the past. Katherine protested, asking why, since she was his wife, should she give up such things? “You have always loved the clothes I made for you, my beloved,” she cooed, trying to take his arm. “Why should I not continue to please you?”

  “Nothing that you do pleases me!” he screamed at her. “I would that I could cast you into the seas and never have to look on your face again!” He stalked from her rooms and made sure that all her servants and his understood the new arrangements.

  From then on, his shirts and any other items were to be delivered to me. From that day onwards, until the very day before my arrest, I made Henry’s shirts.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  York Place

  Autumn 1529

  Parliament opened that year in early November, and although Henry was still in secret communication with Wolsey, he allowed many of his subjects to speak of the man with braying insult, setting free years of pent up envy, jealousy and hatred. Even the saintly Sir Thomas More, whose friends would have described as a moderate and sweet-tempered man, went about the business of picking Wolsey’s flesh from his bones with zeal.

  More’s opening speech compared Henry to a good shepherd who had seen that his flock contained those that were “rotten” and had to be removed. More went on to say that Wolsey had “so craftily, so scabbedly, yea, and so untruly juggled the King that men must surely think he was so unable to see his wrongdoing or had counted on his master’s ignorance.” More censured Wolsey for all the troubles that had occurred in Henry’s reign, and was as outspoken as any on his fall being for the better. More ended by saying that Henry had seen through Wolsey’s wiles, and that the Cardinal was now being offered a “most gentle correction,” by his master.

  For those who loved More, and there are many more of them now than there ever were when he was alive, it would have seemed impossible that such a modest, righteous man could have made such a speech about one he had apparently considered a friend. Oftentimes at court, More and Wolsey had been seen together and noted as friends and allies. But More had privately despised Wolsey for his avarice, much as I had, and was not at all sad to see the Cardinal disgraced.

  More was an oddity to many. He hated wearing the golden chain of his office and seemed more at ease with peasants than at court. Norfolk once went out to meet with him, and found the Chancellor wearing a plain gown and singing with a local choir in the church. “God’s Body, my Lord Chancellor!” he exclaimed to More when he emerged to greet him. “You are the Chancellor of Eng
land, man! And yet you behave like a parish clerk!”

  But, for all his supposedly humble ways, More was a dangerous creature. Luther once called More “the most cruel enemy of truth” and he was not far wrong. Whilst Henry gloried that such a man of eminently regarded wisdom should become his Chancellor, many had good reason to be troubled by his appointment. One of his first acts as Chancellor was in direct opposition to the charity and goodwill he had written about in his published work Utopia. In that text, his fictional account of a perfect state, he had called for love and charity to be shown to the poor. As Chancellor, one of his first proclamations was to condemn beggars and vagrants, instructing that should any man or woman be found outside their native parish without money to support themselves, they would be arrested, stripped naked, tied to a cart and whipped through the streets until their bodies were bloody and raw.