Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (12 page)

As for “history”, or rather that accumulation
of hearsay commonly thought to be the true representation of the
past, I have some knowledge of it here. I do not recognize the
woman they call “Anne Boleyn” either in her temperament or in some
of her actions. I certainly do not recognize the motives, thoughts
and intentions attributed to her. The historic “Anne” is not much
loved, whereas I was loved much, and might have been for the span
of my normal life, had I not “demanded” Henry marry me.

That one misspoken, insincere demand was the
beginning of a period of humiliation and soul-crushing loneliness
that continued through the entire remainder of my life, even during
those times when I had unprecedented honor and tribute bestowed
upon me. It caused me anxiety, and took a sharp toll upon my
temperament. This created an even greater backwash of anger and
disapproval from those who were on the receiving end of my moods
until there were far more who wished me harm than not. In
retrospect, they had good reason: I became a shrew.

Henry’s love had a very high price.

•
~
۞
~•

Henry wanted a woman who could challenge him,
to whom he could talk, and with whom winning an argument was a true
triumph. He wanted an equal partner. He did not feel himself
henpecked—not at first. He felt exhilarated by the parrying between
us, and proud that I had intelligence enough to force him to think
as he defended his position when we disagreed.

We liked to argue. Henry liked
me
to
argue. It made his eyes shine when we disagreed, and made him cross
when I sat silent, or calmly reasoned with him as Katherine had. He
would bait me endlessly to get a reaction from me, and would sulk
if he could not.

“Good God, woman!” he would bellow. “Hast
thou no ears? Hearest thou not what I just said? By Jove, I
know
she has a
tongue
!” He said this drolly,
affectionately.

Once in answer to that, I stuck out my tongue
at him and made a face. He broke into a smile, then grew fierce
again as he resumed his pursuit of a disagreement. I was obliged to
join him lest he grow truly ill-tempered.

“By my troth, you speak gibberish,” I would
often say with mock condescension. “Speak sense and I will happily
give thee my response.” Then I would assail him with the reasons
his logic was faulty. He would pace back and forth as he
rationalized his position and I would sometimes concede, sometimes
not. As he spoke, he often looked at me for approval. Was I coming
around to his thinking? When he sometimes saw that I had not, he
would change the direction of his logic to be more in line with
mine, and would then take credit for having “convinced” me.

As suddenly as the argument had begun it
would be over, and Henry would be purring into my ear. Those who
spread their comments throughout the court never mentioned the
purring, or the smiles, or the personalities involved. What they
observed was that our relationship was “volatile” and “fraught with
conflict”.

Henry would be irksome or tired and would
snap at me, and across England it was said that he was preparing to
forsake me. He had a terrible temper, and was prone to rages. I was
not afraid, and sometimes shouted back. This meant only that he
felt sure enough of me to show his anger, and I felt sure enough of
him to stand in his path. In normal conversations, once Henry grew
less uncertain of me, we would snap and parry and quarrel in
perfectly good temper. We could not do this without witnesses, and
editorials, and interpretations of what he meant and what I had
done to provoke him. He could not accept a playful verbal jab from
me without raised eyebrows and the word “henpecked” being
whispered. These observations would get back to me and, from nerves
and strain and anger over being hated and misunderstood, I subtly
grew shrill.

I was poorly suited to the notoriety. I was
bred for a life as nobility, not royalty. There is a difference,
reflected in my lifelong inability to handle pressure. Daily I
faced situations I had grown up never expecting, nor wanting, nor
been taught to face. I was high-strung and nervous by nature, and
suffered from a shortage of confidence originating in my appearance
and my hand, and in my mother’s habit of finding me lacking. My
level of confidence lessened further, when public examination of my
family history revealed me to be inferior, then sunk even lower
when it became a common topic of discussion that I had no appealing
attributes to attract any man, much less a king.

One cannot successfully face an enemy while
one is questioning one’s own worth, and presuming the enemy is
worth more.

I suppose I was fair game, but I did not have
the inner strength to maintain my poise in the face of it all.
There are dangers in court and in politics, and I was only safe as
long as Henry loved me. Public opinion might sway him. He was daily
advised to cast me off. I grew frightened and depressed for, as I
had feared, I had lost myself and my heart once again. I pressed
Henry for safety nets, first a marriage and then a coronation. He
gave me both, and neither saved me in the end.

I began to sense it would not end well for
me. I could not fight the world forever. I had nothing to cling to
but Henry’s love for me. Even the smallest sign that I might lose
it made me frantic and ill-tempered toward those who could not
answer back to me.

At the very basis of my insecurity was the
knowledge that Henry had a wife whom all but Henry—and Henry’s
God—considered to be his true wife and his queen. While I had to
make a public show of support for Henry’s position that his
marriage was false, I also secretly considered Katherine to be his
true wife, and I acknowledged her as queen.

I was consumed by guilt and discomfort over
my own more tenuous position. I was the most-loved woman, but I was
still the “other” woman. I was a threat to the country and the
wellbeing of Katherine, whose subjects loved her greatly. I was of
childbearing age and so threatened their beloved daughter and her
claim to the throne, should I produce a male infant. Few of my
countrymen viewed me with sympathy or came to my defense, and
perhaps my position was indefensible. I would have happily avoided
being in that position at all.

Sudden silences fell over groups of people,
when I approached, and unkind remarks were carelessly flung in my
hearing. Few ever knew this; I hid it well by holding my head up
and feigning cold indifference, but I was sensitive, and words or
snubs stung me like nettles. I grew more and more withdrawn as time
passed, and grew more cold and demanding in my public demeanor. I
developed a habit of displaying a haughtiness of manner to hide my
trembling lip and palpitating heart, for I was too proud to show
that they could reach my feelings and hurt me there.

I perhaps focused more on the snubs and
sneers of the English subjects outside the palace and the Spanish
faction within, than I did on the sudden race among the others to
win my favor. Some sensed the wind now blowing in favor of Anne
Boleyn would continue for some time to come, while others insisted
their careers were safer if they showed more loyalty to Katherine.
There was no possible way for a lady of the court to overthrow a
queen, they said. Common sense told them my days were numbered.

I was fully aware of the choices being made,
and was stabbed to the heart by some who chose to side against
me.

Once again, as in my childhood, my public
image did not reflect my behavior in private. When I felt hurt, my
petulance took hold and I turned childlike. I stopped reasoning as
an adult, and knew only that someone must take away the pain. I did
not know how to endure, or to fight. They do not teach “endurance”
in the French or English courts. Since I was female, fighting
political battles was a lesson I had never heard discussed by my
tutors or at my parents’ knees. I had learned Latin and music and
sewing. I knew how to handle lazy or thieving servants, and to run
a household. I was skilled at directing my maid servant in
arranging my hair. I was taught to speak fluent French, and to
interpret conversations at court, and I knew what colors were most
flattering when selecting fabric for a gown. I was not brave and
strong under siege, and knew not how to be. I had no examples
except for Mary, and she had handled her crisis with Henry by
breaking Mother’s Venetian crystal (retaining enough presence of
mind, I cannot resist observing, to break Mother’s rather than her
own) and crying for weeks. When distressed, I could not measure my
actions as Katherine could, nor weigh my words with care, and it is
here that one can pinpoint exactly where my downfall originated. I
became a child under stress.

For the love of God, I swear I did not want
to break up Henry’s marriage. However, once spoken aloud the
thought of marriage to me had germinated in Henry’s mind, as did
thoughts of a legitimate male heir.

I was powerless to stop him, and concentrated
instead on chiding him to speed up the process. Once we were
married, people would stop being mean to me, for I would be his
wife, not his whore. I was obsessed with this. I wanted everyone to
stop being mean. The talk and the accusations, the rumors and the
vicious comments all tore at me. It wounded me that the masses of
people all throughout England knew my name and hated me. I could
not leave the palace walls without hearing them scream insults and
tauntingly shout my name as I hid within my carriage, hands pressed
over my ears and eyes shut tight. It humiliated me that I was being
called a whore when I had worked so very hard to retain my
respectability and God’s eternal grace.

In private quarters, away from prying eyes, I
would “retire from nerves” and succumb to hysterics.

“Make it stop!” I would demand of Henry, over
and over again. I screamed and cried until my face swelled,
agonizing over another list of hurts and insults I had accumulated
since the last bout of tears. I mourned losses of friendship, and
shuddered with pain from each successive broken trust and
unflattering rumor. Henry would sit helplessly, holding me,
thinking of what he might do, soothing me as well as he could while
I clung to him sobbing.

I sometimes threatened Henry by saying I
would leave him because I could not endure the strain. During those
episodes, the terrified little orphan would surface and begin to
weep and plead with me. My heart would break, and I would comfort
him and promise him no, I would not leave. I could not anyway
except by death. I can truthfully say that, had he been stripped of
his riches and his crown and been banished in shame to an island of
rocks, I would have followed him there. I would have had no choice.
I was tied to the man like a dog.

People do not understand simple love.

One after another, good friends were turning
coldly polite.

Others were feigning friendship they had
never thought to cultivate before. I knew not whether I was being
used for my influence or to provide them with gossip or both, and
knew not which of them to trust. Lies were being spoken as truths,
and were carried throughout the palace and beyond. I could not be
certain who was the source of them. I made guesses, sometimes
incorrectly, and alienated some who had done no harm out of
suspicion that they had. I grew closer to, and confided in some who
were, in fact, the source of the lies, not suspecting.

As anyone else, I wanted to be liked, and
loved, and understood. Instead, I was England’s most detested
female villain. Nothing would change that, except perhaps a
marriage. If I were married and legally under Henry’s protection,
they would have to stop attacking me, and so I pushed, and Henry
pushed, and Katherine and her supporters pushed back with
tenacious, bitter strength.

In the end, the Roman Catholic Church in
England would be replaced by the Church of England with Henry at
the head of it, Katherine would be disgraced and exiled, Henry’s
daughter Mary would be declared a bastard and I would become
Henry’s second wife.

Through all this, Henry fought like the devil
for me. He was so proud of me. He elevated my status to ridiculous
heights, often pulling me into roles for which I was not suited,
and he listened to me when I spoke on matters of state (I chose my
position from conversations with my brother George) giving far more
weight to my opinions than they deserved. He defended me, and
rewarded those who would show respect while punishing my critics.
He gave me more power than I wanted or was capable of handling, and
the manifestations of that power were heavily influenced by my
insecurity, hurt and anger. I learned that power could be used to
spite people. I learned that power could silence and punish.

It is here that I get into trouble. Here in
the Memories, my shame comes not from love for Henry, but from
misuse of power. I find my punishments will come from spiteful acts
made possible by the large power Henry foisted on me, and even from
the small power each person has to make others feel loved or
unlovable. I misused the small power as well, most often with my
tongue.

Ironically, it is my love for Henry that will
soften that punishment. I will gain for having tried for so long to
protect his wife and my family, and will be forgiven in large part
for succumbing to him because my intent was not selfish, nor was it
frivolous. It might have been punishable under other circumstances,
but these are considered, and weighing largely in my favor were my
conscious efforts and reluctance to bring anyone pain. Also
considered was my strength against the strain of loving him without
holding him; I held out for just as long as I could and still be
human in the face of his persistence and my need of him. Given
greatest weight was the force of pure love that in the end caused
me to bring harm to so many people. The love far outweighed any
ill-intent toward anyone.