Of course, learning languages was a very important part of our education. Along with French, we were expected to learn Greek—taught to us via Homer’s epic tales—and of course Latin. My cousin Mary easily managed the French because she had Simonette to help her from the early years of her life, but would often have her ears teasingly boxed by our frustrated priest because of her backwardness in regard to learning the other required languages. Eventually, she managed sufficient Latin to be able to say her Psalter well enough, but that was the end of that.
I reflect as I write that Mary must have felt completely left out in the cold while we had our lessons, because she found it all beyond her uncomplicated intellect. As I have mentioned before, Mary, during her parents’ long absences, frequently sought out every excuse to avoid the time we spent in the library where the harder lessons were taught. It was so different for George, Anna, and me. We savoured every moment of Father Stephen’s tutelage. He jokingly called us the three muses, and often said that we all would have been dedicated to and followers of Apollo if we had been born in the time of ancient Greece.
Father Stephen, when the day promised to be warm and dry, would take the four of us out of doors for our lessons. Aristotle, Father Stephen frequently said, would no doubt have taken his young charges out of doors when the weather beckoned. He then reminded us that one of these charges grew up to be Alexander the Great, proving implicitly that customary education away from books and the quill did not prevent satisfactory learning. Indeed, it often proved the greater benefit.
On these days Father Stephen would take us on long walks in the woods near Hever, and encourage us to discover for ourselves the many different species of plants that grew there. His knowledge of this subject was absolutely amazing. It appeared to us that Father Stephen knew the name of every living plant found within the borders of our Kentish home. I remember these long walks with so much joy and simple exhilaration.
If I shut my eyes for a moment I can still see us: four children rushing around the towering trees while Father Stephen stood steadfast, his great body overshadowed by the tall oaks, with sunlight filtering through the green leaves, dappling their design on him.
Aye. There, deeply engraved in the memories of my childhood in his long, grey cassock, our Priest will eternally stand. Father Stephen was the centre of our universe, and we (yea, I believe even Mary!) were his four unstable and very energetic planets, forever seeking out ways to rotate around him.
*
I think it now must be obvious that, to us these two people—our aging priest and our gay, young French belle—were a greater influence on our lives than were those other two elusive figures, the seemingly forever-absent lord and lady of the manor.
Having been fortunate in my own father, I could not but help wondering how the fates could have bestowed Anne and George on such an unimaginative and cold man as the Lord Thomas Boleyn. Perhaps he too was bewildered by the offspring that he had begot. I wonder about this because I often caught my uncle gazing on these two of his offspring with a look that could only be described as deep dislike and utter contempt. This attention seemed to be fixed especially on poor George. George, who was sensitive, artistic, gentle, brave—all the things which his father was not.
And there is one more thing I will write down now. Something I have kept deeply repressed in my memory; something only now I remember… Was Uncle Boleyn really the father to these two amazingly talented youngsters? George told me, when we were children, how he had once heard his parents having a violent argument, and George heard his father call his mother no better than a whore and accuse her of trying to fob her bastards onto him. Knowing now what time held for all of us, knowing how Uncle Boleyn cold-heartedly offered to sit on the judgements of both his children, judgements certain to condemn them both to violent deaths, I remember now that narrow-eyed look he sometimes gave to both of them. And I cannot help but wonder.
CONTENTS
* * *
Chapter 3
“And I have leave to go of her goodness.”
Our lives began to change drastically after Mary’s departure to Brussels. It was obvious Uncle Boleyn’s interest in his other offspring was now increased, as if debating with himself the best course to take concerning their futures.
This was the time when the betrothal between our Princess Mary Rose to Charles of Castile, later elected the Holy Roman Emperor, was broken off after Ferdinand—Charles’s grandfather—betrayed our King—his son-in-law—by signing a treaty for peace with Maximilian, Charles’s other grandfather. Thus, Cardinal Wolsey brought into being a new political alliance more to his own liking. The young Princess Mary of York was wed to King Louis XII of France.
Even at nearly twelve I was aware of the uproar this marriage caused. How could I not be? Simonette and the other women of the household buzzed here, there and everywhere their deep disapproval of this spring-to-winter marriage. Furthermore, my father told me their feelings of disgust were likewise echoed throughout England to those people living beyond our shores. Mary was just eighteen, and said to be a true paragon of beauty. Many called her “The Rose of all England.” Aye, England’s budding Rose married to Louis of France—a tottering, toothless old man. When the news finally reached us at Hever Castle, our feelings of sympathy speedily went out to the young Tudor Princess. However, Mary was no less than a Tudor and it was known she had obtained from her brother the promise that, after this forced diplomatic marriage, she alone would have the choice of who her next husband would be.
Thus, after a proxy marriage had been performed at Westminster in October of 1514, preparations were put under way for the beauteous new Queen’s departure to her husband’s kingdom.
Part of the preparations was deciding which attendants would accompany Queen Mary to the French court. Because of her own youth, it was decided several of the Queen’s attendants would be some nubile girls—children who would greatly benefit from being educated at the French court.
It happened so swiftly. Aye, so swiftly did we move from innocent childhood to somewhere and sometime that it demanded of us defences we had not. One October day George, Anna and I were enjoying some moments freed from serious study, partaking in a beautiful, splendid autumn day by climbing trees and shaking down leaves on one another. How we laughed until our sides ached! The next day, Simonette and Anne were frantically packing all their personal belongings into travelling chests. So it was happiness slipped away from one moment to the next.
That morning we had received a brief message from Uncle Boleyn telling us Anna had been summoned to form part of the assemblage to accompany Mary Tudor.
George, Anna and I were in a state of shock. Indeed, I know for certain that everyone at Hever felt completely broken up at the prospect of losing the child Anne forever more. Even Father Stephen seemed to lose his usual calm composure when he came into the library to find only George and me there, both of us subdued and close to tears, with Anne’s usual place forlornly and so obviously empty.
By the end of the day Anne and Simonette had finished packing. Aye, because of Anne’s extreme youth Simonette was also leaving to attend her in France, and also my cousin Mary, who had been summoned from the court of Brussels to be also an attendant to the new Queen. Anna felt comforted she would soon see her sister, as well as having the tender care of Simonette. But for George and me, it was not only Anna we were losing, but also the foster mother of our childhoods. I felt as if all my young blood had frozen somewhere in my heart. Looking at George’s sick face, I could easily see he felt the same.
Then the time came when we three children sat around a table, in a small room connected to the nursery, eating our final childhood meal together.
“At least Father Stephen has told me that Tom and I can come with you to Dover,” George said.
Anne looked up at that and smiled sweetly at her brother.
“Aye, George. That will give us a few more days together, perhaps even a week,” Anne replied.
/> “Thank the good Lord for small favours,” I sarcastically injected.
Anne suddenly lifted her head, as if she had just thought of something.
“Speaking of favours, coz… you’ve reminded me of something I wished to ask of you. Tommy, will you please look after Aster and Pluto for me? Oh, I wish I could… do you think that if I took Pluto with me to Dover they would allow me take him to France?”
George and I both looked at one another, probably with the same vision in our mind: an enormous Irish wolfhound, almost the height of a small horse, causing complete pandemonium aboard a small English galleon. George raised his hand to the right side of his face, and shook his head slightly in my direction.
“No,” I answered quietly for both of us, looking down at a trencher of food I possessed no hunger for. We all then became silent, with me lost in thoughts of what time could now hold in store for us three.
That night lives in my memory as one of the worst of my childhood. For hours I lay upon my bed, restless and in tears. Never had I thought that I would be separated from Anne so soon. Never had I realised how much I had bound myself—heart and soul—to my younger cousin. At long last, I sank into a fretful and unrestful slumber, tormented by ugly dreams.
Father Stephen awoke us for our journey before the break of day. George and I had spent the night before filling our saddlebags with the things we thought we would need for our journey to Dover. Thus, with our gear already prepared, we went down to kitchen to be given, by the cook, meat and some newly-baked bread with which to break our fast. Anne and Simonette, the servants told us, were busy doing a last minute check to ensure they had packed everything that they might need. However, before we had finished our bread, Anna came flying down the spiral staircase leading from the bedchamber she now slept in with Simonette.
“Simonette has shooed me away,” Anna said when she reached us. “She says I am just in the way… You know, I do believe she is in a bad mood this morning. I do not think she wants to return to France.”
Anna danced around the room, as if her feet would not let her stay still. I could understand Simonette’s reason for sending her away; you could almost breathe in the feeling of Anne’s nervous, unspent energy.
“Here,” said George and passed her half a loaf of bread from the inside of his doublet, “I saved you some food.”
“Thanking you most kindly, sweet brother!” Anne responded with a slight curtsey.
“Good lord,” I said in disgust. “You two act as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening.”
Both George and Anne looked at me in surprise.
“Is there anything we can do about it, Tom?” George asked, lifting an eyebrow at me.
No. There was nothing we three could do to stop the sands of time changing the pattern of our lives. Indeed, the journey to Dover soon became a memory of the past. As too the memory of our heart-broken farewells. And there is an image, frozen somewhere in my heart, of a priest’s huge figure over-shadowing two lanky boys. I know—aye, how I do know—one of those boys stood on that rocky shore, watching, in unspoken anguish, as a galleon vanished forever over a grey horizon.
Thus, my childhood ended.
*
Soon I entered fully into my thirteenth year and my father summoned me home to Allington so to inform me of my entry into St. John’s, of Cambridge University. It was not my father’s plan for me to obtain a degree (which I did not, as I was called home just before the close of my fourth year and the attainment of my Bachelor of Arts). Rather, my father hoped my time at Cambridge would set my feet upon the road he wished for me to take: for certes, to be in the future as he was now, a valued court official.
I was very thankful for the time I had spent with Father Stephen. For it was his tutoring which had first opened up the windows of my mind, building sound foundations for all that I studied at Cambridge: philosophy, theology, expanding my knowledge of classical languages, beginning too my grounding in civil law. This last my father regarded immensely important, as it prepared me for my expected role at court. But I never forgot my dream of spending my life with Anne, and I promised myself one day I would turn it into a reality.
At the university, we lived a very simple life. I could easily imagine life in a monastery similar to how we were expected to conduct ourselves while students at Cambridge. Divided into three camps—the first, of which I was a part, nobility and gentlemen living their lives close to the crown, as well as respected academics—the university mixed together nobility, gentlemen, scholars and esteemed persons, and a sprinkling of persons possessing very little status in our commonwealth.
As similar were our lives to that lived by monks, so was our garb, almost twin to the black robes worn by the Jesuit priests, though our hats were square rather than round like the ones they wore. I enjoyed my time as a scholar at Cambridge, feeling fortunate to be born in this time where all seemed turned to the enrichment of knowledge. Thus, it appeared to me all doors—in sooth, everything underneath the heavens—was open to us scholars.
*
The narrow bed groaned under my weight as I flicked a roving flea off my wrist, knowing full well that another and yet another would soon replace it. Grabbing my book from off my pillow, I became aware that light flowed all around me; my pillow—part of it now shadowed by my head and shoulders—gone from a dirty, dull yellow to hint at its former duck-feathers’ colour of a year past. I turned to see Harry Durham returned from his morning lecture, holding in one hand his square-shaped student hat and in the other, book-marked by finger, a thin Greek manuscript.
“Tom! ’Tis long time for you to be gone, my friend! Anon, if you do not go this very moment you’ll discover the door locked to your entrance.”
I took out from the pages of my book several pages of folded parchment, and again opened them on my lap.
“This letter from my kinsman came while you were gone, Harry. I wanted time alone to read it and make a beginning of a reply. Civil law can do without my company this morn.”
“Be it upon your own head, Thomas Wyatt!” Harry said, flinging the hat upon his own cot before pulling the long gown over his head.
Now with tousled hair and dressed in small clothes, he frowned at me, but I saw the merry glint in his gaze.
I smiled in response, thinking how fortunate I had been to find Harry to share my university abode with, meaning one other beside myself also needed to provide furniture and tableware for the room’s comfort, not forgetting provision of fuel for the chamber’s small fireplace. Not only did it reduce the cost of our board, but Harry and I also appreciated the fact that we had formed an advantageous friendship, which ensured both his kin and mine could well afford our stay at Cambridge. Indeed, it cost my father upwards of twenty pounds a year to ensure that my time of study at Cambridge was lived in a way our family’s station required.
Harry went to the one and only chair in the room and began to read his book. I likewise returned my attention to Anne’s letter, one of the many that had come my way via George, the same route I used to send her letters. During her first months in France, and because of her extreme youth, Anna was quickly made a part of the royal nursery. In the letter I held in my hand, Anna relayed how she had become fast friend of a princess of royal blood. Indeed, like her previous letters, her latest communication spoke of her growing love for all things French, but also of her continuing affection for all she had left behind.
For safekeeping, I placed the letter again between the pages of my book, and sighed, knowing full well the words I wanted to write to her in reply. But I knew it was useless to write and ask her when she expected to return to England. The decision was not in her hands. Anna would return when her father decided it was time for her to return.
Book Two
1520–1528
The joy so short, alas, the pain so near,
The way so long, the departure so smart!
The first sight, alas, I brought too dear
That suddenly now
from hence must part.
The body gone, yet remain shall the heart
With her, which for me salt tears did rain,
And shall not change till that we meet again.
CONTENTS
* * *
Chapter 1
“But since that I so kindly am served.”
Not long after I reached my seventeenth year a groomsman from my family’s estate at Allington arrived at my chambers at Cambridge with a message from my father demanding my instant return home. Anxious and yet curious about the reason my father would have me suddenly withdraw from my studies, I promptly informed the Dean of St. John’s of my father’s command. Having done this, I then immediately returned to my rooms to pack my saddlebags. Thus, with my father’s servant as my only company, I began the long and arduous journey to Allington. Arriving there, I found my father’s home in a state of turmoil—almost as if someone had upturned an ant nest, and its former inhabitants were scurrying here, there and everywhere in utter confusion. I spent some minutes questioning my father’s servants as to his whereabouts; thinking as I did how strange it was that many of them looked at me with an inquisitive, amused glint in their eyes. I then went to seek him out in the library.
I felt not surprised to hear from our servants that this was where my father was to be found. Since my mother’s death, my father took more and more consolation in making study of the classics. He especially admired ancient works of a stoic nature, and it was in these books he would seek to immerse himself, whenever freed of court duties. Yea, for many long hours, my father made a serious study of these works so their philosophies began to be mirrored in his every action.
When I entered into the chamber, my father stood by a bookstand near a large window at the far end of the room, dressed in a simple black doublet, unadorned by any jewel other than my mother’s large Celtic cross. Ever since her death, my father had taken to wearing this around his neck. The black garments, it seemed to me, greatly increased the impact of the silver of his hair. In recent years, my father had begun to age rapidly, but he still held himself erect and tall, and to my impressionable eyes, struck an extremely imposing figure. He looked up from the book he was reading.
Dear Heart, How Like You This Page 5
