Anne bowed her head, and was silent for a moment; she then, with a great air of sadness, nodded.
“You are right. There is nothing for George to know. Only you and I will ever know what really happened.”
“Thank you, Anne. I know you hate having secrets from George… I too, find it a very new experience. No doubt, one day, he will put together the bits and pieces that made no sense to him this day… But, Anne, I now… I, at this moment… I am too unsure and confused… I think I can come to terms with all this better, Anne, if George does not look at me with pity.”
“But Tom, George would nev…” But at this point Anne had to break our conversation, because we could hear George’s deep voice singing, becoming closer and louder with every passing second.
George entered into the chamber carrying two lutes: his own and mine. Simonette followed swiftly after him, again bearing a tray loaded with food, this time two cooked fowl and more fresh bread and cheese.
“It seems today that I have been taken back to the days when you three were in the nursery,” Simonette now said. “Here am I, ensuring that your stomachs stay full! My lady Anne! Why are you still out of your bed? Back there at once, chère belle, before I grow cross.”
“Oh, Simonette, my brother and Tom are here!”
“My dear, dear lady! As if they would care if you were abed or not! I did not say that they were to go, but you need all your rest, and they can talk or sing to you while you are resting.”
“Yea, Anne. We will come and sit near you by your bed,” George said in support of our nurse. Anne did appear to be worn out again, so I took her arm and gradually led her back to her rumpled bed. When she had walked those few steps, and had almost reached her destination, her body began to sway and I sensed her utter weariness, so I picked her up again in my arms, her head nestling into my chest, and carried her those few remaining steps to the bed.
“Oh, Tom,” she said, laughing softly, as I gently placed her slender form on her bed covers, “I could have walked myself.”
I smiled at her, pulling some of the bed covers over her, and took up the breakfast tray, which we had left before. I turned around, still holding the tray, to see George watching me with a strange glint in his eyes. God have mercy! I thought. I think he begins to put together the true pieces of the puzzle! But then George quickly lowered his eyes, and when, a few moments later, he glanced up again, it was as if he had shuttered away all his thoughts, pushing them into the far recesses of his mind. Simonette put the new tray of food onto Anne’s bed, and took the other tray from my hands.
“I will leave you three to enjoy your meal in peace,” Simonette said as she passed George and I, before going out the chamber’s door.
George was still holding both our lutes as Simonette left the room. He slowly walked from where he was to pass over my lute to me.
“Come, Tom,” he said, as I took the lute from him. “This is what I have dreamt of since you wrote to me that you planned to return to England. The three of us together, playing music like we used to.”
I smiled at him.
“Yea, cousin. Many a time I would dream that dream too.”
Thus, we walked together to Anne’s bed, pulling up two stools, and began to tune our instruments. I glanced at Anne to discover that she was lying amongst her pillows, smiling lovingly at us both. I smiled back at her, and then placed my instrument on the floor.
“Perhaps it would be better to eat first, and play with full stomachs. You said before, George, that you have not eaten since early morn.”
George nodded in reply, and put his instrument alongside mine.
“Aye. Let us eat, and talk, and keep the greater pleasure for the last.” He arose from his stool and walked over to sit on the edge of his sister’s bed, reaching over to pull apart a fowl. He passed to me a leg, and then offered the other leg to his sister. Anne shook her head slightly and said, “Nay, brother. I have no appetite for meat.”
“Come, sister,” George said, taking Anne’s right hand in his free hand. He then placed the fowl leg in her hand and closed her fingers firmly around it. “I insist you eat something, Nan. How do you expect to put some flesh back on your bones if you will not eat?”
“Am I an infant that everyone needs to fuss over me? Tom will tell you, George, that I have already eaten well this day.”
But, on reflection, I could remember her eating little, though picking much.
“Nay, Anne. I cannot tell George that you have eaten well this day, because you have not. I agree with George; you are a shadow of what you should be. Eat, Anna. You need to eat to regain your strength.”
“Jesu!” Anne exclaimed, pulling herself up so she was sitting upright. “You both win! But just wait until I become strong again! We will see, then, who will be the winner of the arguments!” Anne, after an impish smile at both of us, began to chew upon the fowl’s leg in her hand.
Thus, while we all ate, we spoke together. George restarted the conversation by saying: “I must tell you, Anne, the King grows more fond of those manuscripts of mine. You made the right decision to give them to him, so he could study them well.”
“What manuscripts are those?” I asked.
Anne lifted her head from eating, and answered: “’Tis a long story, Tom.”
I laughed. “You know how I like long stories, Anna. Can you not share this one with me?”
“If you must know, Tom, it all began when one of the Queen’s ladies entangled herself badly in a mess of politics and love. Good fortune, it now seems, has now decided to smile kindly at her. And me too, I suppose…”
“But you spoke of manuscripts?” I was beginning to feel very bewildered.
“What my sister speaks so cryptically about, Tom, is this: Anne was able, by her quick thinking, to save two of the Queen’s attendants from the threat of certain destruction. And she even risked herself in so doing.”
“Oh, George! Do not make too much out of so little! I believe that I have a good understanding of the King. I never thought, for one moment, that there was much chance of making him angry at me.”
I looked at both of them.
“I am confused! What have books to do with all this?”
“My cousin Tom, ’tis like this.” Anne turned to face me. “I have in my company a certain lady who has recently been betrothed. This lady is secretly of the Lutheran persuasion; thus, she often has in her possession books that can only be described as illicit reading. Her beloved, in jest, took away from her one of these books; no doubt thinking it was some romantic fable he could tease her with. But when he read it, he became so taken with this book that he took it everywhere with him. Fool that he is, he even took it to the royal chapel. My friend came to me in tears. It seems that she had somehow become aware that Wolsey had taken notice of her lover’s great idiocy, and was making moves to tighten a net around him. George had recently given to me his copy to read, and, as I read it, I could not help thinking that it contained certain sentiments that would easily gain the sympathy of the King. Thus, when my dear friend told me of her troubles, I decided to take matters into my own hands and gave to the King two of George’s books.”
“And how many sleepless nights I have suffered since!” George exclaimed, with a laugh.
Anna turned to her brother.
“Oh, George! I told you to trust me. Have I misread the King’s character yet?”
“Nay, Anne. But the tide runs with you. What will happen when the tide turns against you? That is my greatest fear.”
“Fear not, brother. I will have to make a gross mistake for that to happen. And, George, I do not plan to make that sort of mistake.”
“You are so confident, Anne. I feel that you almost mock the fates, my sister. I hope that the fates will not decide to put you in your place.”
Anne stuck her tongue out at George before pealing with laughter.
“Why do you laugh?” I asked her.
Anna gazed first at me and then at George.
“Because I believe we are all too serious… Either I am meant to be Queen, or I am not meant to be Queen. Let us wait, and see… and speak of other matters.” Anne tossed her meatless bone onto the platter placed on the bed. She then flung herself upon the pillows, and stared up at the ceiling.
George and I looked at each other; we knew, without having to say one word to the other, that Anne, despite her attempt at gaiety, had, for some reason, been swept away by a wave of sudden remorse, and was vastly in need of our comfort.
“Have you eaten enough, Tom?” George muttered under-breath to me.
“Yea, I have had my full,” I likewise replied.
“Cousin, let us then play our lutes, and sing to each other our new songs.”
Anne rolled over to her side, and leaned her face on a hand.
“Cannot we have some of our old songs? So many of the new tunes speak of only pain and heartache.”
When she said that I remembered the conversation I had only hours before. I had spoken of my regret to Simonette that things could not remain as we remembered them from our childhood. What had she said to me? Yea—I remembered her words.
Thus, I turned to Anne and said: “There is joy still to be found in our music, Anne; only you must not go seeking it, but let the joy find you.”
Anne wiped away some tears from her eyes with a free hand.
“How that brings to my mind dear Father Stephen! Do you remember, Tom, how he would often say to us as children, that true happiness could be found by not concerning overmuch with your own happiness, but by always seeking out the best ways for the happiness of others?”
“Yea, Anna. He was a very godly man.” I paused for a moment to look at Anna and smile. “Now George and I will wash our hands, and play to you our songs.”
So, that is what we did. My kinsman and I went over to the jug and basin placed on a square table near her bed, and washed and dried our hands. Then we played our lutes until the twilight moments of the day at length diminished, and the room became darkened by the night. And George and I found when we lit the candles around the bed that Anne had drifted into a deep slumber.
CONTENTS
* * *
Chapter 3
1528–1532
Patience, though I have not
The thing that I require,
I must of force, god wot,
Forbear my most desire;
For no ways can I find
To sail against the wind.
I left Hever Castle the next day, accompanied by no one, as George had made the decision to stay and try his best to cheer his still ailing sister. Within a week I sailed for Calais, leaving England and my heart behind.
My cousin George told me, the night before I left Hever, that he truly believed God had chosen Anne to lead the King away from the great evil of the papacy and take him and England back to the road of righteousness. George, I found to my great dismay and concern, had become very much a Lutheran during my time abroad, and we argued through the night about the rights and wrongs of what I could not help but see as a terrible calamity for the three of us. At last, we concluded that we would never agree, so it was best to allow the other his own opinions. George, though, did admit to being sometimes plagued at night by many doubts and fears.
My new duties in Calais were immense, but still they did not keep me so busy that I remained unaware of the happenings back home. For certes, with a constant flow of letters from George and my father, I often felt better informed than when I resided in England!
Not long after I settled into my new life in Calais, I heard that Anne was now returned to court, though George wrote that she never fully regained the physical strength she had lost. He wrote worryingly that she pushed herself so much that George feared she would soon have a new and worse collapse. The only outward show of her body’s weakness, however, was that her temper would suddenly flare with apparent little reason, leaving some poor mortal singed in its wake.
When Anne eventually became Queen, many of the common people detested her because they saw her as the young hussy who had heartlessly used her youth to turn the King away from his older and more steadfast wife. Anne, they believed, was the shameless usurper—whore some called her—of a well beloved and sainted Queen. George wrote to me, in one of his many letters, how Anne still attended to the Queen even though it was now obvious to many at the court, what direction the tide took both of them. Indeed, the young woman the King wished to make his Queen would often play a game of chess with the older woman who had held right to that title for close to twenty years. George described one such scene so vividly that I felt I watched the same scene as he…
The Queen shifted the chess piece and, peering short-sightedly across at Anne, now puckered up her brow in concentration. With the final moments of daylight ebbing, a servant went around the room lighting candles in the Queen’s chamber. Waiting for the much younger woman to make her move, Catherine of Aragon—her Queen’s mask seemingly undisturbed—straightened her back and lifted her chin, rubbing the side of her face where her Spanish gable chafed her skin… Anne’s chair backed the long windows. Two hours before, when the game first started, sunlight shone bright upon the Queen, making her grey eyes water and squint in protest. But she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint. Rather, the game had been played with every iota of immense skill she could muster. Anne too played as if the game’s true meaning went beyond just a simple game. All watching knew the high stakes between these two women.
Hearing pieces click upon the board, the Queen dropped her gaze from studying the dark-haired girl, seeing her snatch a piece from the board. Dark eyes shining in triumph, Anne held the Queen’s king in her open palm. Catherine of Aragon’s composure broke.
“You are not satisfied with just the King; you mean to have all,” she snapped.
Yea. All who listened knew what the Queen meant—Anne held out for the crown.
Poor Queen Catherine! The Queen was not only very beloved by the common people—I was also one of those who were often torn with conflicting loyalties. As I heard one of my friends say, so will I say also: “Queen Catherine was beloved as if she was of the blood royal of England.”
Nonetheless, I do not believe that Anne was the complete cause of the final collapse of the King’s marriage. Yea, the King did fancy himself in love with Anne, but years before, when she was still a young child in her nursery at Hever Castle, he had already spoken to many at court of his doubts regarding his marriage to the good Queen Catherine.
My father told me one time in conversation how, as long ago as 1514, King Harry had flirted with the idea of getting rid of his Spanish wife. This was after his final falling out with Ferdinand, that old fox of Aragon, who also happened to be his wife’s father. Nonetheless, in 1514 Catherine was discovered to be again with child so the idea of a divorce was put aside, to eventually re-surface in 1528, when ten long years had gone by without the Queen showing any more sign of child-bearing. This could be hardly surprising, since it was also well known that the King and Queen very rarely co-habited with one another as husband and wife.
Furthermore, by this time King Henry had convinced himself that his marriage with Catherine had been cursed right from the start, taking as his proof a text in Leviticus, which said if a man married his brother’s widow their marriage would bear no fruit. True to his character, the King completely closed his eyes to the fact that there was a text in Deuteronomy that said a man should marry his brother’s widow, so to raise up living children in his dead brother’s name.
Yea. Events were rapidly on the move in England, moving swiftly to their final outcome. One only had look at what was happening to Cardinal Wolsey to realise how much change was in the air. Many years ago, when her heart was breaking over the loss of Hal Percy, Anne had sworn to me that one day she would bring the great Cardinal down. Letters from home made it clear that moves were now afoot in England to make that threat into an actuality. When Wolsey returned from France in the summe
r of 1527, Anne had tilted the power balance completely over in her favour. No longer would Henry sign Wolsey’s charters without first reading them for himself. No longer would the King receive Wolsey into his company without first acquiring the approval of that upstart Anne Boleyn. Clearly, the writing, for the Great Cardinal, was on the wall! However, nothing is ever that simple. The King still had need of the man who had virtually ruled England during those early years when the King was but a youth.
I gathered from my father’s letters that Wolsey was very uncertain if the King’s arguments regarding the validity of his marriage would hold much water when tested out in an ecclesiastical court. The Cardinal himself made it very clear that he did not fancy the prospect of Anne as the future Queen of England and, understanding how Anne felt about him, who could blame him!
The Cardinal pointed out to the King that if he were to decide on a political marriage—for instance deciding to marry a Princess of royal blood rather than insisting to marry for “love”—it would make achieving this divorce so much easier.
The King was flabbergasted and enraged by this argument; instead of making him change his stand regarding the divorce, it made him more determined than ever to triumph over all the obstacles that could be put his way.
George also wrote to tell me that Anne was making good use of the frequent separations of the King and Wolsey, using these absences to further the ever-widening gulf between them. My cousin went on to say, in this particular letter, that the nobles of the land, especially the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, were delighted in what they saw happening between the King and the Cardinal. Thus, they did all that they could to encourage and assist Anne in her endeavours to bring the mighty Cardinal down.
This was no surprise to me.
The powerful nobles of the land had long resented Wolsey’s influence over the King. The King and I, usually spoken by the Cardinal to foreign dignitaries in the Latin, ego et rex menus, had been said so frequently by the Cardinal over the years that it had now become a common saying. Verily, I remember well a season at court when it was much quoted by one and all. However, this authority of the Cardinal annoyed those who believed that the authority should belong only to them. Indeed, all the nobility of England whole-heartedly believed that the power the King gave Wolsey was the right of one of their own ranks, rather than one they sarcastically called “the butcher’s son”—since rumour at court claimed him as such.
Dear Heart, How Like You This Page 19
