Anne Boleyn: A Novel (7 page)

Suffolk had been enlisted by her Uncle Norfolk; she had spoken to him several times and been antagonized by his contemptuous appraisal. Here was the tool that might lever Wolsey out of his position, if used properly, and as a tool he judged her. In return Anne quipped maliciously at his expense and was dismissed with the observation that the King had no liking for shrews. Suffolk’s attitude was typical of the men who suddenly took an interest in her; they were arrogant and ruthless and they conveyed to the uneasy Lord Rochford and his daughter that their patronage was a high honor.

If Rochford was quelled, Anne was not. But she swallowed her resentment for she needed the Suffolks and Norfolks at court on her side and not on Catherine’s; she needed them to influence Henry politically while she achieved a stranglehold on his heart. When she was Henry’s wife the time would come to remind them of their condescension in the past.

Henry’s wife. She lay back in the litter with her eyes closed, her thoughts back to him again. He was the one man who could never wound her sensitive pride; he was the King and any contact with him could only elevate her. Had the situation been different, she would have become his mistress in spite of her vow to the contrary, and treasured the experience of walking in his shadow even for a few months. No wonder women yielded, no wonder her silly sister Mary had gone open-mouthed into his bed and left it almost empty-handed, with nothing but the memories to reward her.

Anne understood now. The power and personality of the man enhanced his kingship, whereas usually the crown gilded the man. If Catherine’s place had been secure, the litter would never have started for Hever; there would have been no intrigue. She would have become his mistress, and fought to remain so as fiercely as she was going to fight to be his wife. She did not love him, no; there was no tenderness, such as she’d felt for Tom, no thickening of her blood at the thought of Henry’s arms. And nothing like the feeling, more distant, but still painful, that was aroused by Henry Percy. She’d seen him at court that winter, taller and thinner than before, with his wife at his side. They’d spoken and passed on politely, then caught each other looking back. Nothing of the past was left to them but a regret and a debt to Thomas Wolsey which she intended to repay.

Those two men who had once entered his life had no rival in the King; though the King had driven them both out, he could never touch her as they had done, but he’d spoiled her for any man now but himself. They had infected each other with the fever to possess the unattainable; his was the simple desire of a man who relished the pursuit above the capture; hers was the passion for prominence which would only be satisfied now by the highest role open to a woman.

Wife to the King and mother of a Prince of Wales.

She stayed at Hever Castle for nearly two months. The King rode from London three times to see her, and he wrote to her daily.

She answered irregularly with letters shorter than Henry liked, and rather formal. But his disappointment in them was forgotten in his anxiety when she didn’t write at all. Their meetings were as tantalizing as ever. Once she allowed him the liberty of kissing her breasts when they were alone, and then pulled away and ran out of the room. To his intense rage, he thought she was laughing. She had a trick of rousing his passions with a deliberate skill that made a mockery of her virtue, and another trick of placating his temper with a disarming show of gentle innocence. In mingled longing and exasperation he wrote to her at Hever.

“Once again I await some word from you, and have received none, wherefore my heart is heavy considering whether the love I bear you is returned or no. For a year now I have been wounded by the dart of love, and such is my despair that I determine upon learning whether you look upon me with a like feeling, or not knowing, then doubtless time will abate my great folly.

“Sweet mistress, Henry your King kneels at your feet and offers you the first place in his heart, swearing that if you return to court and to him who desires you above life itself, he will renounce all other mistresses and remain faithful only unto you before any who may have held his affections or have designs thereon.

“Send news to him who waits with eagerness and wishes only that he may long remain your humble servant, Henry R.”

He was at Hampton Court when he received her answer, a long letter describing in such detail her health and pursuits since his last visit that he swore with impatience. Then she thanked him for offering her the post of his official mistress; she was filled with gratitude and humility that she had awakened such a regard in the heart of her lord. Encouraged by his declaration, she laid aside her maidenly modesty to admit that the dart which had struck him had dealt her a mortal wound of love. But she could not do violence to her conscience, though she risked His Grace’s anger, by coming to him until he was as free in the eyes of men as he had convinced her he was in the eyes of God. On that most blessed day she would lay her heart and herself at his feet. For this scruple she begged his indulgence and prayed that he might not withdraw his love from her, believing her ever his devoted and humble subject until death.

Slowly Henry got out of his chair, one hand resting on the oak table in front of him, the other holding the letter. He stood in a circle of pale February sunshine which streamed through the tall windows and made patterns on the polished wood floor. The insanitary rushes which harbored fleas and dirt at Greenwich and some of the country palaces like Hunsdon were being replaced by fine rugs from Persia. It was a luxury that he learned from Wolsey, like covering the paneled walls with hangings of Spanish leather, beautifully painted and embossed.

With the letter in his hand he walked to one of the windows; the room was originally Wolsey’s own study, and it was one of the most elegant and luxurious in the whole of that splendid palace. The ceiling was high and gilded; the Cardinal’s coat of arms had been replaced by the arms of the King; the walls were paneled in pale polished wood and the floor was laid in a pattern. There was a heavy chair of state set against one wall with crimson velvet hangings, because the King sometimes granted audience there, and there were tables and chairs covered with elaborate carving, cushioned in velvet. A harp stood by the window, set to catch the best of the light, and he often played on it or took up his lute and sang the songs which reminded him of Anne.

So she refused to be his mistress. He looked out of the window onto the Clock Court, that most striking feature of Wolsey’s creation. Henry loved the chiming clock set up above the archway which led out to the main courtyard. She had rejected what had really been an ultimatum, and presented him with another. He began to reread the last part, “A mortal wound of love.” It was the first time she had ever plainly admitted that she loved him and suddenly his pleasure was so intense it was very near to pain.

But she would not yield to him, accept the promise that she would be his wife in everything but name, with all the honors and advantages he’d promised her. She could not come to him till he was free, the words said gently. As free before men as he was before God.

The heavy gilt hands of the Court Clock moved to the hour; it was three in the afternoon. The preliminary chimes rang out over the red roofs and twisted chimneys in a delicate harmony before the first resonant stroke echoed over the courtyard, sending dozens of dozing pigeons to flight. He remembered that Catherine refused to stay on that side of the palace, preferring the rooms overlooking the Base Court, because she could never sleep within sound of the clock chimes.

If he wanted Anne, he would have to marry her. That’s what the letter meant; that’s what she herself meant when she left him that night after the masque at Greenwich. Never, even in the extremes of passion and despair, had Henry thought of marriage. But he stood by his window on that sharp, sunny February afternoon, and thought of it then. His marriage was going to be annulled. It was incestuous, sinful, barren...He was defiled in soul and body by living with Catherine, Wolsey had said so over and over again. She must go, so he could marry again. Not again, he corrected himself, marry, lawfully and with God’s blessing, and produce at least one son.

It was taken for granted that he would marry the sister of the King of France, or some other Princess with an alliance as part of her dowry. After one hideous mistake, undertaken at the command of his father because he wished to keep the friendship of Spain and Catherine’s bridal portion at the same time, after damning his soul for sixteen years, he must embark on marriage with another woman chosen by someone else...Why not a woman he chose for himself? Why should the King be denied domestic happiness while his subjects enjoyed it. What power was that, he asked angrily, if a King’s will was fettered while a peasant’s was free?

Anne was young and beautiful and healthy, Anne could bear him the sons he needed. And he loved her, he thought hotly. He wanted her by his side every day and in his bed at night. And if he wished to marry her, by God, who had the right to question it?

She would carry her position well, he knew that, not with the stately poise of Catherine, who had been born royal, but with spirit and grace. He thought of her bearing a child, and bit his thin lips, imagining the cries of the London crowd, the bonfires blazing up and down the countryside, the pealing church bells and saluting cannon, and himself with the new Prince of Wales in his arms...

The last of the clock chimes died away and the birds drifted back to their perches on the carved parapet of the red roofs and the window sills and alighted on the stone unicorns and prancing lions keeping watch from the four corners over the court.

Henry closed the window and folded the letter in his doublet. He had made up his mind to marry Anne.

In the summer of 1527, the cardinal was busy preparing for a second journey to France. He was more confident and more sure of his favor with the King than at any time in his career, in spite of the occasional clashes of opinion which arose between them. Henry’s temper was smiling and affectionate toward him; he made a great display of walking among the court with his arm round the Cardinal’s shoulders and invited him to his table several times a week. He had become as eager as Wolsey to secure the divorce. Now the scruples of conscience which he complained of so bitterly were related to his doubts about his marriage instead of the injury impending to the Queen. His softness for Catherine had given place to a stubborn wish to be rid of her as soon as possible, and the Cardinal rejoiced at his determination.

The King’s favorite, Anne Boleyn, had returned to court and taken up her post with Catherine again; Henry was still besotted, but Wolsey saw no harm to his plans or himself in the association. Anne kept the King in a good humor and though her powerful relative the Duke of Norfolk had taken her and her family under his patronage, Wolsey shrugged in contempt. No woman, and no one connected with a woman, had ever had the slightest influence upon Henry or profited through the association. Even Anne’s father, Rochford, had risen only because the King liked him and enjoyed his flattery; the charms of his two daughters would have brought him nothing on their own merit. And Henry hated Norfolk. The time to deal with the pretensions of the Boleyn family, and indeed the Norfolks, was when he returned from France. A few words to the King regarding the lady’s virtue, for instance...The Cardinal knew that terrible mixture of pride and prudery in his master. A hint that her relations were ambitious and trying to use the King for their own ends...No, he was content to leave the situation as it was. By the time he returned, Anne would probably be out of favor; she had lasted a year already.

There was no secrecy about his mission to France, because the whole issue of what was now known as the King’s Secret Matter had leaked out after the first deceitful move he and Henry had made to have the marriage annulled in England. He had been surprised by Henry’s sudden impatience to get the sentence of divorce pronounced, but he tried to meet the King’s wishes with a proposal of typical cunning.

Wolsey and Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, held a secret court at Westminster Palace and charged the King with marrying his brother’s widow and living in incest for eighteen years. Counsel for Henry was appointed to offer a faint plea against the indictment, while Catherine was neither told of the proceedings nor represented. After three sessions, Wolsey advised that a question should be put to the English bishops: was it lawful to marry a brother’s widow? There could be only one answer and the self-appointed court could use the opinion of the hierarchy as the instrument of annulment without reference to the Pope.

It was the easiest way and the quickest, and the Pope, harried by war and invasion from the forces of the Emperor Charles V, would be glad to acknowledge it.

But the Cardinal, so long accustomed to humoring the King himself, had misjudged the bishops of his Church. Their answer was simple and disastrous. Such a marriage was valid if granted Papal dispensation. Their reply went further, instigated no doubt by Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, a godly, outspoken man whom Wolsey had always disliked. Under any circumstances, the Queen had the right to appeal directly to the Pope against any decision annulling her marriage.

The court at Westminster never sat again, but its failure had the effect of hardening Henry against his unhappy wife, where success might well have made him merciful.

So much was at stake, as Wolsey pointed out; not only the condition of his soul, which was blackened with sin, but the plan for a French alliance against the Emperor must be cemented by Henry’s marriage to the French Princess, and every time the King risked his limbs jousting and hunting, he left his kingdom at the mercy of civil war with only an eleven-year-old girl as his successor. The time for tact was past.

Henry agreed so readily Wolsey was surprised. He decided he’d nursed the Queen’s feelings long enough and ordered the Cardinal to proceed openly against her. News of the impending divorce burst like a thunderbolt over the country.