The Concubine (35 page)

C
ARNABY HAD BEEN RIGHT ABOUT
the heat. As the Earl of Northumberland reached the entrance of the room in the Tower which had been converted into a courtroom, a wave of warmth and the smell of close-packed bodies rolled forward to meet him and his feeling of nausea quickened. Still, he was reasonably certain that he could not actually vomit; for finding the attack persistent, he had subsisted all Saturday on buttermilk, attempted to eat on Sunday morning and sickened, and since then had taken nothing except tiny sips of well-watered wine. Abstinence seemed to have increased the pain rather than lessened it and he felt more ill than he had ever felt before.

He was worried, too, for in the room where the lords had assembled he had had an opportunity of learning the temper of the peers who constituted what was, after all, a jury, and who should have come together this morning with unprejudiced minds. There wasn’t one—or at least there wasn’t one who spoke in his hearing—who didn’t seem convinced of the Queen’s guilt. No, that was not quite true; not one who didn’t seem convinced of the necessity of a conviction; and from recognizing that need to being convinced of her guilt was only a short step. And the Duke of Suffolk had struck an alarming note when he had said brutally, “The adultery is only part of it, as you will shortly hear. There was a conspiracy against the King’s life, and talk that would amount to treason even had she been locked into a chastity girdle.”

Northumberland had tried to stand, to move about among the rest, but weakness had compelled him, after a few minutes to take a seat in the window, and watching from there he had gained an impression that the Duke of Suffolk—and the Duke of Norfolk, too—had concentrated their attention upon such of the lords as might possibly be open-minded, those who as a rule took little part in affairs, were not often at Court and might not be fully informed of the King’s wishes. Some of Suffolk’s approaches were not unsubtle. To Northumberland for instance he had said, “I am glad to see you sufficiently recovered to attend. It must have cost you an effort. His Grace will be appreciative. At such a moment every sign of loyalty is comforting to him.” He had added, “It should not take long. From what I hear the evidence is overwhelming.”

Only a village idiot could have failed to hear the message; it rang as clear as a crier’s bell—Unless you vote her guilty you too are a traitor.

And traitors died horrifying deaths. That was a thought fresh in everyone’s mind, for only three days previously Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeaton had been condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Smeaton had already confessed; the others had been offered a free pardon if they would do so. Their confessions could then have been used as evidence against Anne. They had all refused. Brave men. Could he match them?

Distress of mind seemed, as it often did, to increase the pain in his body. When he stood up to take his place in the shuffling line entering the hall he found himself unable to stand erect. He felt as though a great needle threaded with red-hot cord were stitching his ribs to his hipbones. He was obliged to walk bent over, like an old man. He was aware of attracting glances of curiosity and sympathy, and Lord Oxford immediately behind him murmured “This won’t be long drawn out.”

There was something sinister in this general belief that the verdict was a foregone conclusion and that the trial would be brisk. How could they know? Was there to be no defense?

The King, or his advisers, had decided to give the trial an open-and-above-board look by admitting some members of the public. They were much the same as those who had been present at the Cardinals’ Court at Blackfriars; the Lord Mayor of London, some representative of the City Companies, and a crowd of ordinary citizens, many of whom, just three years earlier, had stood and watched Anne go in beauty and in triumph to her Coronation.

The Duke of Norfolk, appointed Chief Steward for the trial, took his seat on the chair under the canopy; the other lords moved to their appropriate places and a tense hush fell.

He had intended to watch her arrival, to judge in that moment when she was first confronted with the Court, whether her demeanor showed any sign of guilt or not, though, and he admitted it to himself, he had no notion of what he would look for. If she were guilty of such terrible things, she must be brazen and capable of outfacing her judges; and the most innocent creature on earth, accused of such crimes, might well blench and shrink. Yet he had an obscure feeling that he would know; some chord, long untouched, would wake and respond, and he would know. But at the very moment a wave of nausea hit him and everything wavered and shook before his eyes. He thought—I am about to die! And waited, limp, resigned, for the cloud to thicken. But it cleared, and presently he saw her, standing on the platform, well in front of those who had escorted and attended her. She was curtsying toward Norfolk, toward her peers, and then toward the citizens. She looked ill, worn, haggard, haunted, but calm, and extremely dignified. He had a sharp, sudden mental vision of her as she had been, so young and pretty and gay. Another person altogether. Then he looked down and saw his own yellowish, claw like hands tense on the sharp ridges of his knees. He, too, was a different person. And he thought—Is this life which promises so much and gives so little, and handles us all so roughly, worth clinging to? I’m willing to die.

But not as a traitor.

Then he found himself listening to the arraignment, read out in the dispassionate, official voice. It was horrible, as he had known it would be. It was so horrible that no man present could feel anything save disgust and shock and revulsion. But when, at its end, Anne raised her hand and said in a clear, firm voice, “Not guilty,” and sat down, the Earl of Northumberland knew that the moment of revelation which he had missed earlier had come. As he had felt, from the first, she was innocent. However brazen, no guilty woman could possibly have listened to that arraignment and preserved that remote look, as though what was being said concerned some other person.

What was terrible was to think that there could be, in England, a mind depraved enough to concoct such charges, and at the same time so careless.

One woman stood up and testified that the Queen had misconducted herself with Sir Harry Norris in the first week of October in the year 1533, just a month after the birth of the Princess Elizabeth. How many people, people within this hall must remember that after the birth of her daughter the Queen had been afflicted by one of the childbed ills, white-leg as it was called? It was not so dreaded or so fatal as childbed fever, but it would be a powerful deterrent to adultery.

Had that thought struck any other of the peers? Covertly, the Earl looked about; there were faces that looked sickened, faces that showed disgust, a few—most horrible of all—which betrayed the fact that these salacious details had roused a vicarious excitement. Nowhere could he see what he sought, the dispassionate, judicial,
weighing
expression which bespoke the open mind and the desire to return a just verdict.

A garrulous, incoherent old woman offered as her contribution the fact that the Queen had invited Sir Francis Weston to violate her—and that word had obviously been put into her mouth—on Holy Innocent’s day of this very year, 1536. The Queen was then carrying the Prince of whom she had miscarried. Would any woman in that condition have wished, have dared? Would Weston, handsome, young, happily married, have desired…”

And the evidence concerning George was not only obscene, it was ridiculous, dealing with one detail which no one could possibly have known, even if the incestuous act had been committed under some close-watching eye.

But there was no comfort to be gained from the obvious falsity of so much of the evidence; it announced too loudly and clearly that the King and his friends were determined upon her death, and so sure of obtaining a verdict of guilty that they could afford to dispense with logic, reason, likelihood.

And time was running out. She would soon be called upon to speak in her own defense, and then, one by one the peers would give their verdict, beginning with the lowest in rank. And since, muddled in with the evidence of the various adulterous acts there were accusations of conspiring to bring about the King’s death, and of saying that when he was dead she intended to marry each of her paramours, and of declaring that she had never loved the King, and that he was impotent, it was plain that what Suffolk had said in the anteroom was true. She was accused of treason and anyone who supported her risked sharing her fate. Dare he, who had once loved her, who had always remembered her kindly and often with longing, stand up and say “Not guilty”?

At the thought he burst out into a profuse perspiration, so hot, so unstaunchable that his immediate neighbors, the Earl of Arundel on his right, the Earl of Oxford on his left, stirred and drew away from him as far as they were able, thinking of the Sweating Sickness. Harry Percy thought of it, too, and wished that he were smitten, wished that he could be one of those who fell into coma and died quickly. He sat there, willing himself to die before the moment of decision came. But although his heart raced and his ears roared and his sight was blurred and the drenched satin of his doublet gave off an acrid, charnel stink, he was still conscious enough to hear some of what she said when it was her turn to speak.

As he had expected, she spoke well: her voice, though low-pitched and soft, carried clearly. She had missed no flaw in the evidence; nor had she missed, poor woman, the weight of the forces ranged against her. Yet every now and then the old wit flashed.

“My lords, I stand before you accused of such crimes as surely never were brought against any one woman before. I cannot claim to be without fault, or sin—being but human; but I do declare myself, before Almighty God, to be innocent of
the crimes set out in the arraignment
…Adultery is, of its very nature, a difficult charge to refute; a murderer might call a witness to say that he was elsewhere at the time of the crime; a thief might say, “Search me and see if I have stolen goods about me.” These things I cannot say; but this I do. I am Queen of England, well aware of the penalty that awaits those who cuckold Kings. To have behaved as some who have stood here today and said that I behaved, I must have been lunatic, and that, surely, would have been noticed earlier, and in some other respect…On one date mentioned as a day of sinful indulgence, I was abed and in a state to provoke no emotion in any man save revulsion, or, had he a kind heart, pity: on another I was with child. Women at such times are careful, and I assure you, that since it was my great hope to present you with a living Prince, I was more careful than most. Something that Lady Wingfield said to my discredit was mentioned. My lords, Lady Wingfield has been dead and gone to her account these many years; whatever she said is hearsay, and by English law hearsay is not evidence. I mention these things because they are samples of the evidence brought against me, and reasonable men, if there are flaws in a sample of cloth, suspect the whole roll and scrutinize it with especial care…I am not asking you for mercy, mercy is for the condemned. For justice I do beg, that being the prerogative of the King’s most humble subject.”

Once during her speech, when his sight cleared a little, the Earl of Northumberland found himself looking at the ordinary people in the body of the hall. They were with her; their faces showed their feelings. Briefly he envied them, these solid simple citizens who could reach their own conclusions and go home to their families and voice their views.

The faces of the peers wore the stony, stubborn look of those compelled, against their will, to listen to words which might, given any thought or attention, undermine their preconceived decision; here and there an uneasy look, an eyelid flickering, a twitch in the cheek, but on the whole a look of rebuttal tinged with boredom. No hope, he thought. No hope at all.

Traitors died horrible deaths. You were strung up, half choked, taken down while still conscious, your heart and entrails were cut out, then you were cleft into pieces.

Now they were getting to their feet; he tried but he couldn’t stand. He had the absurd thought—If I can’t stand, I can’t vote. But Arundel took one elbow, Oxford the other and heaved him up. The stitches that knit his ribs to hips screamed and broke. Near swooning with pain he hung there and heard the voices.

“Lord John Mordaunt?” “Guilty.”

“Lord Thomas Burgh?” “Guilty.”

On and up; Wentworth, Wyndsore, Sanders, Clynton. He thought of Norris and Weston and Brereton, condemned to torture before death, and offered free pardons if they would confess. God strengthen me, give me courage! He thought desperately of the long line of brave men whose name he bore; he thought of his dream…

“Henry, Earl of Northumberland?”

He mumbled, “I can’t, I can’t,” and sagged like an empty sack between the two supporting arms.

“How say you?” the inexorable voice demanded.

The Earl of Oxford jerked him by the arm and said, “Speak up, man!” And then, when no answer was forthcoming, gave it himself.

“Guilty.”

Then Arundel answered, and Exeter, and the Duke of Suffolk; and it was over. They hauled him into the anteroom and laid him by an open window.

So he was spared the ordeal of hearing Anne declared guilty and being sentenced to be burned or beheaded as the King willed. He did not see her stripped of every sign of royalty, not hear her last speech which included the stinging sentence,