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

Norfolk folded his arms and looked at her coldly. One would have thought he was her bitterest enemy rather than her kinsman.

“Your paramours have confessed,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “’Twould be better if you did likewise.”

“I have naught to confess. Have I not told you! What should I confess? I do not believe that these men have made confessions; you say so to trap me. You are my enemy; you always have been.”

“Calm yourself!” said Norfolk. “Such outbursts can avail you nothing.”

They made fast the barge; they led her up the steps; the great gate opened to admit her.

“Oh, Lord, help me,” she murmured, “as I am guiltless of that whereof I am accused.” Sir William Kingston came out to receive her, as he had on that other occasion. “Mr. Kingston,” she asked, “do I go into a dungeon?”

“No, Madam,” answered the constable, “to your own lodgings where you lay at your coronation.”

She burst into passionate weeping, and then she began to laugh hysterically; and her sobs, mingling with her laughter, were pitiful to hear. She was thinking of then and now—and that in but three short years. A queen coming to her coronation; a queen coming to her doom.

“It is too good for me!” she cried, laughing as the sobs shook her. “Jesus have mercy on me!”

Kingston watched her until her hysteria passed. He was a hard man but he could not but be moved to pity. He had seen some terrible sights in these gray, grim buildings, but he thought that this girl, laughing and crying before him, presented one of the most pathetic he had ever witnessed. He had received her on her first coming to the Tower, thought her very beautiful in her coronation robes with her hair flowing about her; he could not but compare her then with this poor weeping girl, and so was moved in spite of himself.

She wiped her eyes, controlled her laughter, and her dignity returned to her. She listened to a clock strike five, and such a familiar, homely sound reminded her of ordinary matters. Her family—what of them?

She turned to the members of the council, who were about to leave her in Kingston’s care.

“I entreat you to beseech the King in my behalf that he will be a good lord unto me,” she said; and when they had taken their leave, Kingston conducted her to her apartments.

She said: “I am the King’s true wedded wife.” Anne added: “Mr. Kingston, do you know wherefore I am here?”

“Nay!” he answered.

“When saw you the King?”

“I saw him not since I saw him in the tiltyard,” he said.

“Then Mr. Kingston, I pray you tell me where my lord father is.”

“I saw him in the court before dinner,” said Kingston.

She was silent awhile, but the question she had longed to ask, now refused to be kept back longer. “Oh, where is my sweet brother?”

He could not look at her; hard as he was he could not face the passionate entreaty in her eyes which pleaded with him to tell her that her brother was safe.

Kingston said evasively that he had last seen him at York Place.

She began to pace up and down, and as though talking to herself, she murmured: “I hear say that I shall be accused with three men, and I can say no more than ‘Nay!’” She began to weep softly, as if all the wildness had been drained out of her, and there was only sadness left. “Oh, Norris, hast thou accused me? Thou art in the Tower, and thou and I shall die together; and Mark, thou art here too? Oh, my mother, thou wilt die for sorrow.”

She sat brooding awhile, and then turning to him asked: “Mr. Kingston, shall I die without justice?”

He tried to comfort her. “The poorest subject the King hath, has that,” he assured her.

She looked at him a moment before she fell into prolonged and bitter laughter.

Silence hung over the palace; in the courtyards men and women stood about whispering together, glancing furtively over their shoulders, fearful of what would happen next. Wyatt was in the Tower; who next? No man in the Queen’s set felt safe. In the streets the people talked together; they knew that the Queen was a prisoner in the Tower; they knew she was to be tried on a charge of adultery. They remembered how the King had sought to rid himself of Katharine; did he seek to rid himself of Anne? Those who had shouted “Down with Nan Bullen!” now murmured “Poor lady! What will become of her?”

Jane Rochford, looking from her window, watched the courtiers and the ladies crossing the courtyard. She had expected trouble, but not such trouble. Anne in the Tower, where she herself had spent many an uneasy hour! George in the Tower! It was Jane’s turn to laugh now, for might it not be that her whispered slander had put Cromwell on the scent? Had she not seen grave Norris and gay Weston cast their longing glances at the Queen? Yes, and she had not hesitated to laugh at these matters, to point them out to others. “Ah! The Queen was born gay, and my husband tells me that the King . . . no matter, but what is a woman to do when she cannot got children. . . .” Poor George was in the Tower now, though it was whispered that no harm could come to him. It was others, who had been her lovers, who would die.

Jane threw back her head, and for some moments she was weak with hysterical laughter. Poor little Jane! they had said. Silly little Jane! They had not bothered to explain their clever remarks to her; they had cut her out, considering her too stupid to understand. And yet she had had quite a big part to play in bringing about this event. Ah, Anne! she thought, when I was in the Tower you came thither in your cloth of silver and ermine, did you not! Anne the Queen, and Jane the fool whose folly had got her accused of treason. Now, who is the fool, eh, Anne? You, you and your lovers . . . dear sister! Not Jane, for Jane is free, free of you all . . . yes, even free of George, for now she does not cry and fret for him; she can laugh at him and say “I hate you, George!”

And he will be freed, for what has he done to deserve death! And he was ever a favorite with the King. It is only her lovers who will die the deaths of traitors . . . But he loved her as well as any.

Her eyes narrowed; her heart began to pound against her side, but her mind was very calm. She could see his face clearer in her mind’s eye—calm and cynical, ever courageous. If he could stand before her, his eyes would despise her, would say “Very well, Jane, do your worst! You were always a vindictive, cruel woman.” Vindictive! He had used that word to describe her. “I think you are the most vindictive woman in the world!” He had laughed at her fondness for listening at doors.

Her cheeks flamed; she ran down the staircase and out into the warm May sunshine.

People looked at her in a shamefaced way, as they looked at those whose loved ones were in danger. They should know that George Boleyn meant nothing to her; she could almost scream at the thought of him. “Nothing! Nothing! He means nothing to me, for if I loved him once, he taught me to hate him!” She was a partisan of the true Queen Katharine. Princess Mary was the rightful heir to the throne, not the bastard Elizabeth!

She joined a little group by a fountain.

“Has aught else happened?”

“You have heard about Wyatt. . . .” said one.

“Poor Wyatt!” added another.

“Poor Wyatt!” Jane’s eyes flashed in anger. “He was guilty if ever one was!”

The man who had spoken moved away; he had been a fool to say “Poor Wyatt!” Such talk was folly.

“Ah! I fear they will all die,” said Jane. “Oh, do not look to be sorry for me. She was my sister-in-law, but I always knew. My husband is in the Tower, and he will be released because . . . because . . .” And she burst into wild laughter.

“It is the strain,” said one. “It is because George is in the Tower.”

“It is funny,” said Jane. “He will be released . . . and he . . . he is as guilty as any . . .”

They stared at her. She saw a man on the edge of that group, whom she knew to be Thomas Cromwell’s spy.

“What mean you?” he asked lightly, as though what she meant were of but little importance to him.

“He was her lover as well as any!” cried Jane. “He adored her. He could not keep his hands from her . . . he would kiss and fondle her . . .”

“George . . . ?” said one, looking oddly at her. “But he is her brother. . . .”

Jane’s eyes flashed. “What mattered that . . . to such . . . monsters! He was her lover. Dost think I, his wife, did not know these things? Dost think I never saw? Dost think I could shut my eyes to such obvious evidence? He was forever with her, forever shut away with her. Often I have surprised them . . . together. I have seen their lovers’ embrace. I have seen . . .”

Her voice was shrill as the jealousy of years conjured up pictures for her.

She closed her eyes, and went on shouting. “They were lovers I tell you, lovers! I, his wife, meant nothing to him; he loved his sister. They laughed together at the folly of those around them. I tell you I know. I have seen . . . I have seen . . .”

Someone said in a tone of disgust: “You had better go to your apartment, Lady Rochford. I fear recent happenings have been too much for you; you are overwrought.”

She was trembling from head to foot. She opened her eyes and saw that Cromwell’s spy had left the group.

The King could not stop thinking of Anne Boleyn. Cromwell had talked to him of her; Cromwell applied enthusiasm to this matter as to all others; he had closed his eyes, pressed his ugly lips together, had begged to be excused from telling the King of all the abominations and unmentionable things that his diligent probing had brought to light. The King dwelt on these matters which Cromwell had laid before him, because they were balm to his conscience. He hated Anne, for she had deceived him; if she had given him the happiest moments of his life, she had given him the most wretched also. He had, before Cromwell had forced the confession from Smeaton, thought of displacing Anne by Jane Seymour; and Jane was with child, so action must take place promptly. He knew what this meant; it could mean but one thing; he was embarking on no more divorces. There were two counts which he could bring forward to make his marriage with Anne null and void; the first was that pre-contract of hers with Northumberland; the second was his own affinity with Anne through his association with her sister Mary. Both of these were very delicate matters, since Northumberland had already sworn before the Archbishop of Canterbury that there had been no pre-contract, and this before he himself had married Anne; moreover he was in full knowledge of the matter. Could he now say that he believed her to have been pre-contracted to Northumberland when he had accepted her freedom and married her? Not very easily. And this affair with Mary; it would mean he must make public his association with Anne’s sister; and there was of course the ugly fact that he had chosen to forget about this when he had married Anne. It seemed to him that two opportunities of divorcing Anne were rendered useless by these very awkward circumstances; how could a man, who was setting himself up as a champion of chastity, use either? On the other hand how—unless he could prove his marriage to Anne illegal—could he marry Jane in time to make her issue legitimate?

There was one other way, and that was the way he wanted. He wanted it fiercely. While she lived he would continue to think of her enjoyed by and enjoying others; he could never bear that; she had meant too much to him, and still did. But their marriage had been a mistake; he had been completely happy with her before it, and he had never known a moment’s true peace since; and it was all her fault. She could not get a male child, which meant that heaven disapproved of their marriage. He could see no other way out of this but that that charming head should be cut from those elegant shoulders. His eyes glistened at the thought. Love and hatred, he knew, were closely allied. None other shall have her! was his main thought. She shall enjoy no more lovers; she shall laugh at me no more with her paramours! She shall die . . . die . . . die, for she is a black-browed witch, born to destroy men; therefore shall she be destroyed. She was guilty of adultery, and, worse still, incest; he must not forget that.