Jean Plaidy - Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

The book was a book of prophecies; there were many in the country, she knew, who would regard such prophecies as miraculous; it was alarming therefore to find herself appearing very prominently in them.

She called Anne Saville to her, adopting a haughty mien, which was never difficult with her.

“Nan!” she called. “Come here! Come here at once!”

Anne Saville came and, seeing the book in her mistress’s hand, grew immediately pale.

“You have seen this book?” asked Anne.

“I should have removed it ere your ladyship set eyes on it.”

Anne laughed.

“You should have done no such thing, for this book makes me laugh so much that it cannot fail to give me pleasure.”

She turned the pages, smiling, her fingers steady.

“Look, Nan! This figure represents me . . . and here is the King. And here is Katharine. This must be so, since our initials are on them. Nan, tell me, I do not look like that! Look, Nan, do not turn away. Here I am with my head cut off!”

Anne Saville was seized with violent trembling.

“If I thought that true, I would not have him were he an emperor!” she said.

Anne snapped her fingers scornfully, “I am resolved to have him, Nan.”

Anne Saville could not take her eyes from the headless figure on the page.

“The book is a foolish book, a bauble. I am resolved that my issue shall be royal, Nan . . .” She added: “. . . whatever may become of me!”

“Then your ladyship is very brave.”

“Nan! Nan! What a little fool you are! To believe a foolish book!”

If Anne Saville was very quiet all that day as though her thoughts troubled her, Lady Anne Rochford was especially gay, though she did not regard the book as lightly as she would have those about her suppose. She did not wish to give her enemies the satisfaction of knowing that she was disturbed. For one thing was certain in her mind—she was surrounded by her enemies who would undermine her security in every possible way; and this little matter of the book was but one of those ways. An enemy had put the book where she might see it, hoping thereby to sow fear in her mind. What a hideous idea! To cut off her head!

She was nervous; her dreams were disturbed by that picture in the book. She watched those about her suspiciously, seeking her enemies. The Queen, the Princess, the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, the Cardinal . . . all of the most important in the land. Who else? Who had brought the book into her chamber?

Those about her would be watching everything she did; listening to everything she said. She felt very frightened. Once she awoke trembling in a cold sweat; she had dreamed that Wolsey was standing before her, holding an axe, and the blade was turned towards her. The King lay beside her, and terrified, she awoke him.

“I had an evil dream . . .”

“Dreams are nothing, sweetheart.”

She would not let him dismiss her dream so. She would insist that he put his arms about her, assure her of his undying love for her.

“For without your love, I should die,” she told him. He kissed her tenderly and soothed her.

“As I should, without yours.”

“Nothing could hurt you,” she said.

“Nothing could hurt you, sweetheart, since I am here to take care of you.”

“There are many who are jealous of your love for me, who seek to destroy me.” She blurted out the story of her finding the book.

“The knave who printed it shall hang, darling. We’ll have his head on London Bridge. Thus shall people see what happens to those who would frighten my sweetheart.”

“This you say, but will you do it, when you suffer those who hate me, to enjoy your favor?”

“Never should any who hated you receive my favor!”

“I know of one.”

“Oh, darling, he is an old, sick man. He wishes you no ill. . . .”

“No!” she cried fiercely. “Has he not fought against us consistently! Has he not spoken against us to the Pope! I know of those who will confirm this.”

She was trembling in his arms, for she felt his reluctance to discuss the Cardinal.

“I fear for us both,” she said. “How can I help but fear for you too, when I love you! I have heard much of his wickedness. There is his Venetian physician, who has been to me. . . .”

“What!” cried the King.

“But no more! You think so highly of him that you will see him my enemy, and leave him to go unpunished. He is in York, you say. Let him rest there! He is banished from Westminster; that is enough. So in York he may pursue his wickedness and set the people against me, since he is of more importance to you than I am.”

“Anne, Anne, thou talkest wildly. Who could be of more importance to me than thou?”

“Your late chancellor, my lord Cardinal Wolsey!” she retorted. She was seized with a wild frenzy, and drew his face close to hers and kissed him, and spoke to him incoherently of her love and devotion, which touched him deeply; and out of his tenderness for her grew passion such as he had rarely experienced before, and he longed to give her all that she asked, to prove his love for her and to keep her loving him thus.

He said: “Sweetheart, you talk with wildness!”

“Yes,” she said, “I talk with wildness; it is only your beloved Cardinal who talks with good sense. I can see that I must not stay here. I will go away. I have lost those assets which were dearer to me than aught else—my virtue, my honor. I shall leave you. This is the last night I shall lie in your arms, for I see that I am ruined, that you cannot love me.”

Henry could always be moved to terror when she talked of leaving him; before he had given her Suffolk House, she had so often gone back and forth to Hever. The thought of losing her was more than he could endure; he was ready to offer her Wolsey if that was the price she asked.

He said: “Dost think I should allow thee to leave me, Anne?”

She laughed softly. “You might force me to stay; you could force me to share your bed!” Again she laughed. “You are big and strong, and I am but weak. You are a king and I am a poor woman who from love of you has given you her honor and her virtue. . . . Yes, doubtless you could force me to stay, but though you should do this, you would but keep my body; my love, though it has destroyed me, would be lost to you.”

“You shall not talk thus! I have never known happiness such as I have enjoyed with you. Your virtue . . . your honor! My God, you talk foolishly, darling! Shall you not be my Queen?”

“You have said so these many years. I grow weary of waiting. You surround yourself with those who hinder you rather than help. I have proof that the Cardinal is one of these. “

“What proof?” he demanded.

“Did I not tell you of the physician? He knows that Wolsey wrote to the Pope, asking him to excommunicate you, an you did not dismiss me and take back Katharine.”

“By God! And I will not believe it.”

She put her arms about his neck, and with one hand stroked his hair.

“Darling, see the physician, discover for yourself . . .”

“That will I do!” he assured her.

Then she slept more peacefully, but in the morning her fears were as strong as ever. When the physician confirmed Wolsey’s perfidy, when her cousin, Francis Bryan, brought her papers which proved that Wolsey had been in communication with the Pope, had asked for the divorce to be delayed; when she took these in triumph to the King and saw the veins stand out on his forehead with anger against the Cardinal, still she found peace of mind elusive. She remembered the softness of the King towards this man; she remembered how, when he had lain ill at Esher, he had sent Butts, his physician—the man he had sent to her at Hever—to attend his old friend. She remembered how he had summoned Butts, recently returned from Esher, and had asked after Wolsey’s health; and when Butts had said he feared the old man would die unless he received some token of the King’s regard, then had the King sent him a ruby ring, and—greater humiliation—he had turned to her and bidden her send a token too. Such was the King’s regard for this man; such was his reluctance to destroy him.

But she would not let her enemy live; and in this she had behind her many noblemen, at whose head were the powerful Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, men such as would let the grass grow under their feet in the matter. George had talked with her of Wolsey. “There will be no peace for us, Anne, while that man lives. For, if ever you had an enemy, that man is he!” She trusted George completely. He had said: “You can do this, Anne. You have but to command the King. Hesitate not, for well you know that had Wolsey the power to destroy you, he would not hesitate.”

“That I do know,” she answered, and was suddenly sad. “George,” she went on, “would it not be wonderful if we could go home and live quietly, hated by none!”

“I would not wish to live quietly, sister,” said George. “Nor would you. Come! Could you turn back now, would you?” She searched her mind and knew that he was right. “You were meant to be Queen of England, Anne. You have all the attributes.”

“I feel that, but I could wish there were not so much hating to be done!”

But she went on hating furiously; this was a battle between herself and Wolsey, and it was one she was determined to win. Norfolk watched; Suffolk watched; they were waiting for their opportunity.

There was a new charge against the Cardinal. He had been guilty of asserting and maintaining papal jurisdiction in England. Henry must accept the evidence; he must appease Anne; he must satisfy his ministers. Wolsey was to be arrested at Cawood Castle in York, whither he had retired these last months.

“The Earl of Northumberland should be sent to arrest him,” said Anne, her eyes gleaming, This was to be. She went to her apartment, dismissed her ladies, and flung herself upon her bed overcome by paroxysms of laughter and tears. She felt herself to be, not the woman who aspired to the throne of England, but a girl in love who through this man had lost her lover.

Now he would see! Now he should know! “That foolish girl!” he had said. “Her father but a knight, and yours one of the noblest houses in the land . . .”

Her father was an earl now; and she all but Queen of England.

Oh, you wise Cardinal! How I should love to see your face when Percy comes for you! You will know then that you were not so wise in seeking to destroy Anne Boleyn.

As the Cardinal sat at dinner in the dining-hall at Cawood Castle, his gentleman usher came to him and said: “My lord, His Grace, the Earl of Northumberland is in the castle!”

Wolsey was astounded.

“This cannot be. Were I to have the honor of a visit from such a nobleman, he would surely have warned me. Show him in to me that I may greet him.”

The Earl was brought into the dining-hall. He had changed a good deal since Wolsey had last seen him, and Wolsey scarcely recognized him as the delicate, handsome boy whom he had had occasion to reprimand at the King’s command because he had dared to fall in love with the King’s favorite.

Wolsey reproached Northumberland: “My lord Earl, you should have let me know, that I might have done you the honor due to you!”

Northumberland was quiet; he had come to receive no honor, he said. His eyes burned oddly in his pallid face. Wolsey remembered stories he had heard of his unhappy marriage with Shrewsbury’s daughter. A man should not allow a marriage to affect him so strongly; there were other things in life. A man in Northumberland’s position had much; was he not reigning lord of one of the noblest houses in the land! Bah! thought Wolsey enviously, an I were earl . . .