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

Jane was not a little troubled by this most secret love affair between herself and the King; she was terrified of the Queen, whose rages could be awful; she had been maid of honor long enough to witness many a scene between their Majesties, and at these scenes the Queen had been known to outwit the King. The Queen was more physically attractive than any woman at court; it was impossible to be near her and not see the effect she could have on those about her. There were men who, conceiving passions for her ladies, would visit them, and on the coming of the Queen would be unable to take their eyes from her; she had but to throw a stray word in their direction, or a quick smile, and they were ready to do anything for her. She had that power. There might be those who said the King was tired of her; and so he was . . . at times. There might be those who would say that her only hope of holding the King was to give him a son; that was true in part, but not wholly. Jane had seen the many and conflicting moods that had come to the King as he watched this woman; anger and hatred had been there, strong enough to let in murder; but something else too, passionate hunger which Jane could not understand but vaguely feared. “What if through Your Majesty’s visits I should be with child?” she had asked. He had patted her thigh indulgently. “Then, my Jane, you would please me mightily; you would show yourself worthy to be my Queen.” “But how may I be your Queen when you have already a Queen?” His eyes glinted like tiny diamonds. “Let not thy head bother with matters too big for it, Jane!” A warning, that had been; do not meddle in state affairs, child. It is a dangerous thing for a woman to do.

All the same, Jane was uneasy. She would tell herself that the King was bewitched, the Queen had sorcery in her eyes; it was not necessary to be clever to see that. Those huge, black, flashing eyes had more witchery than was natural for a woman to have; and the Queen was careless of what she said, as though she had some hidden power to protect her; she could draw men to her with a speed and an ease that had magic in their roots. She would weave spells round the King who, having realized her wickedness and his folly in submitting to it, would now escape. She had brought evil into the court when she entered it. She had brought misery and great humiliation to the true Queen and her daughter Mary. Jane could weep to think of the child. And now her spells were less potent, for though she could weave them about men, she could bring no son to the King, since children were of heaven and Anne’s powers came from hell. This was how Jane saw it. When the King caressed her, she would close her eyes tightly and say to herself: “I must endure this, for in this way can I save our lord the King from a witch.” She prayed that her body might be fruitful, for she saw that thus could she fulfill her mission.

She thought continually of the Princess Mary. She had known her when she had been a maid to Katharine, before the coming of Anne Boleyn; she had ever deplored the King’s infatuation for Anne; she had secretly adhered to Katharine all through the dangerous years, and so had she won the approval of Chapuys and many of the nobles who condemned the break with Rome. Thus they had been pleased when the King’s fancy had lighted on her, and had sought to help and advise her.

She said to the King when he came to her: “I have been thinking of the Princess Mary.”

“What of her?” he asked indifferently.

“I but thought of the hardship of her life, and how sad it is that she should be banished from the court. I wondered if Your Majesty would most graciously allow her to be brought back; I fear she suffers deeply from the humiliation which has been heaped upon her.”

The King looked at Jane with narrowed eyes. He said with exasperation: “You are a fool! You ought to solicit the advancement of the children we shall have between us, and not others.”

When he left her Jane assured herself that her duty was to rescue the Supreme Head of the English Church from a wanton witch who would never release him in this life. And as Jane did not know how she could rescue him, except by bearing him a child, she knelt down by her bed and prayed that her union with the King might bring forth fruit.

The Queen was gay, recklessly so. Her eyes were enormous in her pale face; she was almost coquettish; she was lavish with the smiles she bestowed on those about her. The King was spending more and more time with the Seymours, and there was no doubt in Anne’s mind that Jane was his mistress; moreover she knew this to be no light affair; there was deep meaning behind it. Those two brothers of Jane’s were eager and apprehensive; they watched, they waited; indeed all the court was watching and waiting for something to happen. The loss of her boy, they whispered, had finished Anne. Cynical courtiers murmured together: “Is he trying out Jane? If the King is waiting to produce a child before divorcing Anne, he may wait a very long time!”

It would have been a humiliating position for anyone; for Anne it was agonizing. She thought, This happened to Katharine while we tried for the divorce; it happened to Wolsey when he awaited his downfall; this is how More and Fisher must have waited in their homes . . . waited for a doom they felt coming to them, but knew not from which direction it would come. She was not the sort to show her fear; if during the lonely nights she would awake startled, the sweat on her forehead, having dreamed some nightmare in which the doom was upon her; if she lay awake for hours staring into darkness, thinking of the King with Jane Seymour, wondering if he ever thought of her, she never showed this. After such nightmares, such nocturnal wondering, she would be gayer than ever. Her clothes were still the talk of the court; she would throw herself feverishly into the planning of a new gown; she could no longer sit silently stitching for the poor, though she did not forget them. She would gather round her the most brilliant of the young men and women. Just as there had been Katharine’s sober friends in the old days who had held aloof from that set over which she and the King ruled together, so now there was yet another set, and this time it was the Seymour party, but the King was of the Seymour party. Round Anne fluttered the poets and the wits, not seeming to care that they scorched their wings. Her revels were still the wittiest; the Seymours’ were heavy and clumsy in comparison, but the King could not be lured from them. Handsome Henry Norris, who was supposed to be in love with Madge Shelton, had eyes for none but the Queen; people smiled at this man who was supposed to be engaging himself to Madge but was forever postponing his marriage. “What good does that do poor Norris?” they asked. “Surely he cannot hope to marry the Queen!” Francis Weston and William Brereton, younger and more sophisticated, were equally enamored of her; Wyatt was faithful as ever. She encouraged their attentions, finding great solace in the love of these men, wounded when she discovered that the King preferred dull Jane Seymour. She was reckless; she accepted the homage of those who loved her; she would dance and laugh immoderately; she was wittier than ever, and the wildness of her looks gave her beauty a new strangeness that for some augmented it. It would seem that she wished to lure all to her side, that only when she was surrounded by those who admired her did she feel safe. She sought to build up a wall of friendship round her. She had with her, in addition to Madge Shelton, those two friends, Margaret Lee and her sister Mary Wyatt, in whom she placed the greatest trust. Her own sister Mary came to attend her, and it was good to contemplate the serene happiness of Mary who, happy in her love for Stafford whom she had married, was as comfortable to be near as a glowing fire in winter. Anne felt secure with these people. Even Mark Smeaton, whom she had raised to be one of her chief musicians, might show his passionate admiration of her, and go unreproved.

There were always those to watch her slyly. The black eyes of the Spanish ambassador would meet those of the King’s vicar-general, and the Spaniard would guess what thoughts went round and round in Cromwell’s ugly shaven head. Jane Rochford was now openly unsympathetic towards Anne, not caring if she did invite her husband’s disapproval.

As for George, he seemed to have caught his sister’s recklessness; he rarely warned Anne now; he was like a man who had been running from danger and, feeling suddenly there is no escape, turns to face it.

It was pleasant to sit with George and Mary, Margaret Lee, Mary and Thomas Wyatt, talking of childhood days before they had been scattered and lost touch with each other.

“Well I remember,” said Anne on one occasion, “how we all played together in Norfolk, and then again in Kent, how we all talked of our ambitions and what we would do.”

“Ambition,” laughed George, “is like the moon; it looks so close, so easy to grasp, but the nearer knowledge takes you to it, the more unattainable you realize it to be. Ambition is a pernicious thing!”

“You said you would be a great poet,” said Anne. “Wyatt too.”

“And he at least achieved his ambition,” said George.

“Much good did it do him!” said Wyatt, looking meaningly at Anne.

“We hoped for too much,” she said; “all of us except Margaret and my sister Mary and your sister Mary. They are the happiest ones.”

They could look at those three. Margaret who was happily married to Sir Henry Lee, Mary Wyatt who had no husband but a serene countenance, Mary Boleyn who had many lovers, not for gain but for pleasure. The ambition of these three was happiness; they had found it. For the other three it had been power, and in a measure they had realized it too. There they were—Wyatt whose joy was in his verses and yet, being never satisfied with them, they could not give him complete happiness; Anne who would be a queen and had achieved her ambition and now listened for some sign to herald in disaster, as she scanned people’s faces and tried to read behind their eyes; George who through the fortunes of his sisters had come to fame. Three of those children who had played together—the ordinary ones who were not clever or brilliant, or made for greatness—had succeeded; it was the clever ones who had asked for much—though in a measure they had found what they desired—to whom failure had come.

Anne said: “We chose the wrong things; they chose the right. . . .” And none answered her, for this was a matter which it was unwise to discuss.

Mary would talk to her comfortingly.

“The King . . . ah! How well I knew him! Almost as well as you do, Anne.” Mary would smile at the memory. “He is wayward; none dare stand between him and his desires, but an a woman pleases she need fear naught.”

Ah, but Mary had known him as a mistress; Anne knew him as a wife.

The winter of that year passed into spring. Anne danced and sang as though she had not a care in the world; she would wander through the park at Greenwich, would watch the barges on the river, would sit under the trees; sometimes she would romp with the dogs, laughing gaily at their antics, throwing herself about in a frenzy of enjoyment, but her heart was sad and heavy; she would weep sometimes and mingle her tears with her laughter; this was a dangerous mood, for in it she cared nothing for what she said or what she did, and so laid herself open to attack from all her enemies. She would call Smeaton to her and bid him play, play something gay, something to which she could dance, something to make her gay and joyous; play music that told of love and laughter, not of sorrow. And the musician’s great dark eyes watched her passionately, and his long tapering fingers played for her, soothing her.