Henry rose, placed his hands on his hips, and bent to place his own face very close to Cromwell’s. “Well, there shan’t be, I can tell you that!” he roared. “She must submit completely to my will and swear her oath to the Act of Supremacy, as many have done before her, to their credit! I will not have my own daughter telling me what shall be and what shan’t! See to it!”
Cromwell had been in the royal circle for many years, but he had still never accustomed himself to Henry’s rages. His heart began to beat very fast and it became hard to draw breath. But he must show no sign of such weakness. Some reply was expected, but just as he was about to speak, Jane forestalled him.
“But Your Grace,” she said in her soft voice. “The people are pressing to have the Lady Mary back at court. We must reinstate her household, and…”
Henry turned and silenced her with a look, then turned back to Cromwell.
“Well, can you or can’t you?” roared the king.
“Of a certainty, Your Grace,” said Cromwell smoothly.
“Good. I expect to have her complete submission signed and sealed immediately. The people,” he said, emphasizing the word and turning to cast a gimlet eye at Jane, “will expect to see her highness at the wedding. Which she will not be, if she does not comply with my wishes instantly and without any more of this fuss and bother.”
“But Your Grace,” said Jane. “How will it look if the ladies Mary and Elizabeth are not at the wedding? The people expect…”
Cromwell paled as the angry king turned to face Jane. She would learn, he thought.
“Are you daft?” he bellowed. “You should be thinking of your own children, Madam, and not of my bastards!” The need to explode at someone, anyone, had been overwhelming, unstoppable; but now that he had expended his rage, Henry was able to turn back to Cromwell with a calm face.
Cromwell stole a look at Jane. He had expected to see her in tears or perhaps suffering an attack of the vapours in response to the king’s angry words, but to his astonishment, Jane simply smiled indulgently at the king and resumed her stitching on the scarlet velvet upon which she was sewing seed pearls so tiny that Cromwell wondered how she could see them. The poor mite; he hoped that the girl knew what she had gotten herself into. She was no neophyte at court, so she must know.
“You may leave it all to me, Your Grace,” he said confidently.
Henry paced the floor, his hands behind his back. Cromwell knew this posture; the king was thinking. He waited.
“Send someone to see her, to talk sense into her.”
Cromwell nodded sagely, “An excellent suggestion, Your Grace. I have, in fact, already done so,” he said proudly. To the king’s unspoken question he said, “Lady Salisbury.”
“Have you, then? Good man. What result?” Henry fingered his newly acquired beard. The man was almost as clever as Wolsey. Almost.
“The result was this letter from her,” Cromwell replied. What was the matter with the chit? All she need do was her duty as a daughter, and act in accordance with her father’s wishes. The fact that her father was also the king of England was an added incentive. He intended to insure that Mary had no more clandestine visits from the Imperial ambassador. Surely it was he who filled the lady’s head with all this nonsense about conscience and scruple. No female that he knew was capable of such abstract thought.
“And?”
“I can bring her around, I do assure Your Grace. It may take some little time.” Cromwell had complete faith in his own abilities; no slip of a girl stood a chance against his clever brain.
“Bring her around?” roared Henry once again. “By God, she will either submit or I will have the royal justices proceed against her. She has much to answer for, disobeying her father and king! This is not a debate, it is a mandate. She will do as she is bid or she will answer for it!”
Cromwell’s heart began to beat wildly, but he knew he had to speak. He was no yes-man; his job was to advise the king, not simply to agree with him. He took a deep breath and said, “Let us not be hasty, Your Grace. Let us try a different tactic, if Your Grace will agree. Let us send a deputation from the Privy Council to reason with her. It would be best if she were seen to agree of her own volition, rather than being forced to it.” Always with Henry the bludgeon! The man may be king, but he had no subtlety.
“Very well, send them. I want you to draw up a set of articles that she will sign without any more of this shilly-shallying. And mark you, there will be no conditions! She may weep and wail all she likes, but she will submit, and she will do so publicly! Woe betide her if she does not!”
“Yes, Your Grace, you may leave it all safely to me,” said Cromwell. The girl must obey in the end; she really had no choice. Cromwell wanted Mary alive and acquiescent. He believed that she could be a powerful and stabilizing influence in domestic politics, and that her reinstatement to the court could not but further and support the Imperial alliance, which was all-important. She must appear to agree to the Royal Supremacy and all that it meant of her own free will, and gladly. And Cromwell wanted to be the one to accomplish the task. He suspected that the king often compared him to Wolsey, and that irked hm. It should not; but it did.
Henry regarded his minister. “Very well, then,” he said. “I leave it you.”
Whitehall Palace, June 1536
Jane lay on the fur rug in front of the fireplace, swathed in the flimsiest of her gauze wrappers. Henry lay beside her snoring. She had not been at all certain what Henry had expected, but she was persuaded that he had been pleasantly surprised. She had gone virgin to her marriage bed, but she was far from ignorant. One could not live at court and not be acquainted with what went on between men and women. She was glad that she had always served a queen; lesser ladies enlisted their women to connive in their sordid intrigues. Jane knew all the distasteful tricks, some of which involved one lover coming in through the door as another left by the window, and the hapless husband of the lady never the wiser.
She arose very slowly so as not to disturb the king’s slumber, padded to the sideboard, and poured herself a goblet of wine. She sat down in the throne-like chair that Anne had used whilst entertaining her acolytes. Jane had always admired this chair, and now it was hers. She had it moved with her wherever the court happened to be. Henry was completely indulgent of her whims and had not even questioned the request. The chair was upholstered with rich, dark green brocade, with beautiful turnings on the legs.
She held out her hand in the firelight to admire the exquisite emerald and diamond ring that the king had given her the day after he had snapped at her about seeing to her own children and not bothering about the royal bastards. She had not been unaware of Cromwell’s surprise at her calm acceptance of the king’s annoyance at her words. Cromwell, who was such a brilliant tactician himself, underestimated the ability of a woman to ply the same strategies. Jane had observed Henry through two marriages. She knew that every bout of rage or temper tantrum in which he lashed out at his lady love was followed by the most abject of apologies, followed by gifts. Katharine had accepted the king’s ill humor with Spanish stoicism; Anne had given taunt for taunt. But while he still loved, Henry’s habit was to be contrite and seek forgiveness. Her own tactic was simply to smile as if at a naughty child. Her behavior baffled the onlookers, which gave her wry amusement. What many simply did not understand was that it was not the king’s fits of choler that mattered; it was how one reacted to them. Henry had come to despise Katharine’s calm acceptance and Anne’s resentful wrath. But Jane’s indulgent manner seemed to engender a certain respect.
So let him rage whenever he liked. Such rages were rarely directed at her, and even when they were, it gave her a freedom to say whatever she wanted to. As long as she smiled and accepted his reaction with tranquil approval, he always came back, he always apologized, and he never failed to bestow upon her some sop to his conscience. Jane turned her hand this way and that to catch the light. The diamonds flashed in their rainbow colors and the
emerald, so he had told her, was as green as her eyes.
Jane arose and poured herself another goblet of the rich, red wine of Burgundy, her favorite, and reflected back upon the past week. And what a week it had been! The night before the wedding, Henry had bestowed upon her as her marriage portion one hundred and four manors in nineteen counties, five castles and a number of forests and hunting chases. She had even observed her father and mother, for all their bleating about fairness and right, counting on their fingers the revenues such largess must signify.
Her unabashed brothers had needed no such justification as she had offered to her reluctant parents; they had their hands held out daily, grasping for everything they could get. And the royal golden fountain continued to spew in an unending stream the king’s bounty. Edward, created Viscount Beauchamp; Thomas, made a gentleman of the privy chamber; and even young Harry had been knighted.
Edward, as Lord Chamberlain to the king, had wasted no time in making his cronies bedchamber men in place of the king’s erstwhile servants, now mouldering in their graves beside Anne. Jane knew that Cromwell has chosen the men to be accused with Anne very carefully; he had wanted to be rid of those who were most intimate with the king and had the greatest amount of influence over him. These new men owed their places to Jane’s allure for the king and to Cromwell’s desire to control the king’s servants. They would act accordingly.
Jane smiled to herself as she recalled that even now, some courtiers still could not resist the urge to utter sly innuendos well within her ability to hear them. The Seymours, they said, were leeches, suckling at the royal tit for all they were worth. Some whispered that she was as bad as Elizabeth Woodville, who had grasped all within her reach for herself and her family during the time of Edward IV. None would have dared to say such a thing in Anne’s hearing. But whereas Anne had had a hot temper and had been outspoken to the point of absurdity, Jane’s disposition was as cold as ice. She simply didn’t care what people thought or said. Why should she? All would be forgotten when she delivered a son and heir to the king and to the realm. In fact, the largesse was bound to flow like a waterfall on that day. She must conceive quickly, and had every confidence that she would do so. In a family so full of boys, why should she not? There was nothing to worry about, despite her mother’s fretting. At least she could vouch for the king’s abilities, which had been cruelly slandered by George Boleyn. And he had paid with his head for the satisfaction of a lie! The fool!
A log collapsed in the fire place and sent up a shower of sparks. The king stirred and turned over, drawing the furred cover over himself, but did not awaken. Jane watched him for a few moments and then slipped in beside him under the furred coverlet. There was only one way to get a son, and Jane planned to ensure that she wasted none of her opportunities. She had surmised that a bit of maidenly trepidation and reluctance was appropriate, but she had in no wise let that interfere with her enjoyment of the act itself. She, who had all but resigned herself to being a maiden aunt to her brothers’ brats the rest of her life, was now a wife indeed, and she hoped, she prayed fervently, that soon she would be a mother as well. She ran her hand along Henry’s thigh. He awakened and pulled her close. Perhaps, she thought, this might be the night…
# # #
Henry lay back luxuriating in the sense of well-being that he always felt in Jane’s presence. Her ardent response to his love-making had been a pleasant surprise. Jane had not allowed him to take the sort of harmless liberties that Anne had allowed him to indulge in whilst they were courting. (And that should have told him something about Anne, by God! The slut!) But from the very first Jane had been…there were no words to describe it. She seemed to promise something, while still retaining her distance. He had feared that her maidenly reluctance might indicate a cold nature, but he had been wrong...very wrong! She was anything but cold, and he thanked God for that.
The slurs that had been cast upon his manhood during the dark days of the recent trials galled him to no end. He wanted to get Jane with child right away, not only because of his burning need for a son, but to prove that what George Boleyn said wasn’t true; did not have a grain of truth in it. He would have had no patience for the shrinking virgin he feared that Jane might be, even while he rejoiced in her purity. But as in every other aspect of his new bride, he was completely, absolutely pleased. Even her desire to reinstate Mary into the royal fold was a worthy aspiration, and she seemed not to hold against him his fits of temper in that regard.
He simply could not stop his blood from boiling every time he thought of his exasperating daughter. He had every intention of restoring Mary to her position at court, not as the princess she used to be, but as his royal bastard. He required the girl’s cooperation in order to achieve this, and by God, he would have it, or know why!
The truth was, he needed the Imperial alliance, and one condition of it, albeit an unspoken one at this point, was for Mary to be brought back to court. Charles would accept nothing less, and probably expected a great deal more. But first things first...under no circumstances would he allow himself to be bullied or dictated to. And the emperor had amply demonstrated his goodwill by the brilliant reception he had allowed Chapuys to arrange for his new queen’s state entry into London. It had been a grand occasion, with he and Jane sailing together in the royal barge from Greenwich to Westminster. As they approached Westminster Palace at dusk, the Imperial barge had played a fanfare for them and put on a fireworks display. Jane had been so delighted that she had clapped her hands and laughed with glee.
After high mass in the Abbey, they had proceeded to Whitehall Palace, where Jane had been formally presented to Chapuys. This was her first presentation as queen, and although he knew she had enjoyed the ceremony, after exchanging a sentence or two with the ambassador, she had run out of words. Chapuys tactfully bowed and departed. Jane had looked very pleased with herself.
There had followed a magnificent banquet, after which Jane’s ladies had been officially sworn in. Her household was larger and grander than either Katharine or Anne’s had been. He meant to show everyone that he held this queen, his only queen as far as he was concerned, in very high esteem. After all, she was to be the mother of his son. She must command the respect of the court, the devotion of her household, and the love of the people.
Henry knew that besides the production of an heir, Jane’s most important achievement, in her own mind, would be getting Mary reinstated to court. It was what everyone wanted. Charles wanted it as a sop to his conscience for not coming to Katharine’s aid in any substantive way; the people wanted it because they were sentimental about the girl on Katharine’s behalf; he wanted it himself because in his heart he loved Mary and had missed her sorely these past years. But she had to bend to his will. There was no other way. Surely she must see that.
He regretted not allowing Mary to attend his wedding to Jane, but it had been a very private, intimate affair, the ceremony having taken place in the Queen’s Closet at Whitehall. Except perhaps by the few intimates who had been present, she had not been missed. He had wanted to make it a grand affair, but one must show some discretion, he supposed. It was a pity…a splendid wedding would have been expected had it not been for his marrying Jane less than two weeks after Anne’s execution.
And although Jane’s family were expecting, he knew, a magnificent coronation for their daughter, none would be forthcoming. Not until she produced a son. Not a daughter; a son. Then would he shower her with more than just jewels. But she must prove herself first. In the meantime, he would be the devoted husband and king. One mustn’t upset a breeding animal, after all. Keep the nest warm and quiet. Deposit the royal seed as often as possible. And hope for the best. For her sake as well as his own, he hoped it would be soon. He did a swift reckoning; by the spring, with luck, there could be an heir in the royal nursery.
He loved her; he truly loved her. But if she should fail him, if she should prove barren or not capable of a son…he refused to think about it. Jane must
bear a son, and soon. He would not be made a fool of again.
Chapter 9
“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her...that his name shall not be put out of Israel.”
– Deuteronomy 25:5, 6
Hunsdon, Hertfordshire, June 1536
“But did they not ask to see me?” said Elizabeth, for the third time. The child dogged her every step as Mary hurried to make herself presentable.
“No,” Mary replied, distracted. “I am to see them alone.”
A delegation from the Privy Council, come to Hunsdon to see her! If only they had given her a day’s notice, or even sent an outrider…but they were here now and waiting for her. She smoothed her hair, twitched a piece of lint from her sleeve, and took one last glance in the mirror. She hoped her nervousness did not show. If only Elizabeth would go away!
It could only mean one thing; the king had finally sent for her. She had been sore perplexed when she had received no answer to her letters to either her father or to Cromwell. The time had come and gone, and the wedding was over. She was hurt; she could not understand it. Had he not wanted her at his wedding? Had he perhaps forgotten about her? No, she could not believe that. Impossible! So why…?
During the month of May, Mary had been receiving a steady stream of felicitations from people far and wide. People she had not heard from for years were now paying court to her. Some of her old servants had arrived unexpectedly at the gate in the days following Anne’s execution, asking to be taken back into her household. A household! Of her own! How wonderful that would be! The first thing she would do would be to rid herself of the hateful Lady Shelton. That weathercock female had done a volte face worthy of a Greek Janus upon hearing that Anne was to die. Since The Concubine’s arrest, Lady Shelton had not been able to do enough for her. Some of the changes had been at the king’s behest, which made his silence all the more confusing. And then her mind, in the vortex of myriad thoughts, arrived back at the beginning. Why had she not heard from her father? Why had he not answered her letters? And now here was the Privy Council…
The Baker's Daughter Volume 1 Page 26
