Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession

by Alison Weir

  It had been a long ride, so Anne dismissed her ladies and lay down on her bed to rest. Presently Henry joined her, and soon they were making love, feeling the warm September breeze drifting through the open window and caressing their entwined bodies.

  Afterward Henry poured some of the wine that Sir John had thoughtfully left for them.

  “He’s an old rogue,” he said. “A capable administrator, and something of a diplomat, but a scoundrel with the ladies.”

  “What? He must be at least sixty!” Anne sat up in the bed and took the goblet from Henry.

  “He’s an old Priapus! You met his son, Edward—the tall, serious one, not that buffoon, Thomas, or the rustic, Henry. Edward’s been at court for years, ever since he was my page. He was young when his father found him a bride. She bore him two sons, and then I heard that she’d been packed off to a convent. She died last year and Edward married again. When I gave my permission, he told me that his father had seduced his wife and had probably sired her sons too.”

  “My God!” Anne exclaimed.

  “He has disinherited them now, and do you blame him? Did you not notice the frostiness between Sir John and Edward Seymour?”

  “I didn’t. I was more interested to meet Lady Seymour, because my mother served with her in the Duchess of Norfolk’s household when they were girls. The poet Skelton dedicated verses to them both.”

  “My old tutor,” Henry said. “I know one of those poems: ‘To Mistress Margery Wentworth.’ The poor lady has had a lot to put up with.”

  “And yet she seems cheerful enough. How awful for her, having her husband dally with their son’s wife—and probably under her very roof.”

  “We will not mention it. It’s best forgotten.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” Anne pondered.

  “What doesn’t?” Henry stroked her hair.

  “If Lady Seymour had fornicated with her daughter’s husband, all hell would have been let loose. But let a man commit incest, and he gets away with it.”

  “There will be a greater reckoning, Anne. God, who knows all, will judge him.”

  “I rather think an earthly power would have judged Lady Margery—and harshly.”

  “That is because a wife must not compromise the issue she bears. Her husband must be sure it is his, or all the laws of inheritance will be in jeopardy.”

  Anne sat up. “True. But I think Sir John should have been called to account.”

  “No doubt he has—by his wife!”

  —

  Anne pointed to the great silver-bound ivory hunting horn resting on brackets on the wall of the Broad Chamber, where they were having an abundant and delicious dinner, all prepared under the supervision of Lady Seymour.

  “That’s an impressive horn,” she said.

  “It’s been in our family for generations, your Grace,” Sir John told her proudly. “We Seymours are hereditary rangers of Savernake Forest, and that is the symbol of our office.”

  “There’s good hunting to be had hereabouts,” Henry beamed, helping himself to another custard tart. “These are excellent, Lady Margery.”

  “We’re in for a good season, sir,” their host said. “We’ll ride out tomorrow and show your Grace some lively sport. But I fear that’s all that’s lively in these parts. This year’s harvest has been ruined due to the bad weather.”

  “So I heard,” Henry replied, his good mood wavering. Anne knew that the common people blamed him—and her, naturally—for the rains and the poor harvest, seeing them as a sign of God’s displeasure with them both. There were still murmurs of disapproval about the executions that had taken place earlier in the year.

  Sir John turned to Anne. “Your Grace, I trust that Jane is giving satisfaction.”

  Anne smiled at Jane, who was sitting demurely farther along the table and gave a faint smile in return. “I have no complaints,” she said. Except that she never says anything but what she has to for courtesy’s sake, and that I have a strong feeling that she doesn’t like me, and I don’t really like her much either.

  “She is a good girl,” Lady Margery said.

  “You have a fine family,” Henry told her, looking wistful.

  “Ten I’ve borne, sir, and buried four, God rest them. We count ourselves lucky.”

  “Oh, to be a country gentleman and have a houseful of children and a good table like this!” Henry mused. It pleased him to entertain such fancies.

  —

  When did she first notice that Henry was paying too much attention to Jane Seymour? Was it when she saw them standing together in the garden, Henry looking down at Jane as she pointed out the various plants in the herb bed she had made? Or was it when Henry leaned over Jane’s chair on the third evening of their visit and praised her needlework? She had looked up and given him a rare smile.

  These incidents could have meant nothing, but when they arrived in Winchester, Anne noticed that Henry seemed to be in Jane’s vicinity more and more—and that Jane seemed to have acquired a new confidence.

  She decided to ignore her suspicions, and made an effort to be merry and enjoy the daily hawking expeditions that had been arranged. She came to love Winchester, as Henry did. He was fascinated by King Arthur’s Round Table, which hung in the great hall of the castle. Sometimes Anne thought he fancied himself as the reincarnation of the hero King.

  In the evenings, they feasted, and afterward Anne’s ladies and some of the King’s gentlemen gathered in her chamber to play cards or make music. It hurt her to watch Madge flirting with Norris, yet she was pleased to see that Norris was not responding, possibly out of consideration for her presence, or that of Nan Saville, who was seated on his other side. One evening, she sent for Mark Smeaton, who was in Henry’s train, to play the virginals for them. George insisted on accompanying him on the lute, and Anne watched them covertly, relieved to detect no sign that they were anything other than friends. But Smeaton kept throwing her bold glances that made her feel uncomfortable. In the end she dismissed him, saying that it was late and the music would disturb the King in his chamber below. She would not call on Smeaton again, she resolved.

  They were still making the most of the good hunting that Hampshire had to offer, and were following the beaters one day when Cromwell arrived, his clothes mud-stained, his horse lathered.

  “Your Grace, I must speak with you urgently. Tunis has fallen to the Emperor, and the Turks have lost a great naval base.” He looked unusually perturbed. “Effectively they’ve been crushed, for this will halt their encroachment upon the eastern reaches of the Empire.”

  The holiday mood melted away. Anne began to tremble. Henry’s face drained of color. “That leaves Charles free to make war on England, if he chooses,” he said hoarsely, after a long pause.

  “Indeed it does. Does your Grace want me to look into the state of the kingdom’s defenses?” Cromwell asked.

  Henry nodded. “I’ve inspected many myself, although Dover may need reinforcing. Yes, get surveyors out.”

  He could not sleep that night. He lay restlessly, turning this way and that.

  “Can’t you get comfortable?” Anne asked.

  “No. I have too much on my mind.” He got up, lit the candle, and used the stool chamber in the corner of the room. Then he sat down heavily on the bed, rubbing his leg. Of late, an old wound from a fall from his horse years before had started to give him pain. “I doubt that Charles would make war now on Katherine’s behalf, for he must know she is always ailing, but he might decide to enforce what he sees as Mary’s rights.”

  “If you had proceeded against them both when they defied you, you would not be suffering this anxiety,” Anne said.

  “If I had done as you urged me, I’d have had Charles and his army on my doorstep long ere this.” He sighed. “All we can do now is wait and see what he will do—and pray that the Turks find some means of fighting back, although, God knows, I never thought I’d hear myself saying that.”

  —

  By the time
they reached the Vyne, the fine residence of the King’s chamberlain, Lord Sandys, Anne had begun to fear that Henry had again distanced himself from her. Since receiving the news about Tunis, he had been preoccupied and sometimes abrupt, and for the last two nights he had not come to her. He must be distracted by the very real prospect of war, a war that might lose him his throne. God knew, it struck terror into her too. But could there be a reason closer to home, in the person of quiet Mistress Seymour?

  Soon, though, it might not matter! She was cherishing the secret hope that she was with child, waiting until she was absolutely sure before she told Henry. If only God would look kindly on her this time!

  She prayed alone in the Vyne’s chapel for the great blessing of a son. The room was gloomy, the windows above the altar shrouded in canvas sheeting. Lord Sandys, apologizing profusely, had said that they were being repaired, but the work had taken longer than promised. But if any glaziers had been working in the chapel, there was no trace of them now, no tools, nothing. Curious, Anne entered the sanctuary and lifted the canvas—and there, in all the glory of their jeweled colors, were exquisite stained-glass portraits of a young Henry and Katherine. No wonder Sandys had hidden them—and no wonder he had no intention of destroying them, for they were very fine indeed.

  Should she tell Henry? The possession of that glass could be seen as evidence of disloyalty, and yet she knew Sandys to be wholeheartedly the King’s man. No, she would hold her peace and let him keep this great treasure.

  —

  The next day, as they were preparing to mount their horses for the chase, Henry beckoned George over.

  “Lord Rochford,” he said, very stern, “you should look to your wife.”

  George grimaced. “What has she done now, sir?”

  “I’ve just been informed that, when the Lady Mary lately left Greenwich, a great crowd of women—unknown to their husbands, I have no doubt—were waiting for her, weeping and crying that she was their true Princess, notwithstanding my laws to the contrary. Some were poor women, some the wives of citizens and a few were of gentle birth. One, my lord, was your wife.”

  “God’s blood!” George swore, shaking his head. “She is a born troublemaker.”

  “Certainly she is in trouble now,” Henry told him. “She is among the chief offenders, for she persists in her opinions, and to teach her the error of her ways I have sent her to the Tower. Your aunt, Lady William Howard, is there too.”

  George winced. “I can only apologize for my wife’s conduct. Your Grace knows that ours has been a miserable marriage. We see as little of each other as we can; she has lived at Grimston since your Grace banished her. Had it been otherwise, I would have curbed her treacherous folly.”

  “She should have stayed there!” Henry’s eyes narrowed. “It seems strange to me that your wife should support the Lady Mary.”

  “It is not so strange when your Grace considers that her father, Lord Morley, loved the Lady Mary from her childhood, and that Jane herself was brought up at court in the household of the Princess Dowager. She always held the Lady Mary in great esteem.”

  “She hates our family,” Anne told Henry, “but she has never until now been disloyal.”

  “I think there is a reason for this protest,” George explained. “Lord Morley once served your Grace’s grandmother, the Lady Margaret Beaufort. He was a great friend of her confessor, the late Bishop Fisher. I think it must have been the Bishop’s execution that turned Jane.”

  “That may be so,” Henry said, severe, “but I am charging you to ensure me of her good behavior in future. Do that, my lord, and you shall see her released.”

  “I will stand surety for her,” George promised, his tone implying that it would be the most unwelcome task in the world.

  —

  At last! At last! The thing she had prayed for, which might save her and render her invincible, had come about.

  “I am with child,” Anne murmured to Henry as they came from Mass on the first Sunday of December.

  “Truly? God be praised! It is the answer to all our prayers.” He seized her hand and raised it to his lips in full view of the courtiers. Anne smiled at them in triumph, ignoring the thinly veiled hostility in many faces. Soon they would have cause to regret their enmity.

  She was horribly sick with this pregnancy. Henry was all solicitude in public, sending for delicacies to tempt her, urging her to rest, concocting remedies to soothe her nausea. Outwardly he did everything a concerned husband should do, but she had a strong sense that he shrank from her in private.

  Looking out of her window one day, she saw Jane Seymour surrounded by a small crowd of people. Sir Francis Bryan and Sir Nicholas Carew were there, talking animatedly with Jane’s brothers, Edward and Thomas, who seemed rapidly to have risen high in the King’s favor of late. And with them, to her surprise, was Chapuys.

  The sight filled her with a sense of foreboding. It was disconcerting to see these men making so much of plain little Jane.

  And now Henry came into view, wrapped in furs against the cold, his entourage at a respectful distance. As if on cue, Jane’s admirers bowed and dispersed. Anne watched as she curtseyed and Henry raised her, took her hand, and kissed it fervently. And then, to her surprise, Jane drew it away, said something, curtseyed again, and hastened back toward the palace, leaving him standing there looking utterly discountenanced.

  It was true: he was chasing Jane. And she, the sly bitch, was playing a clever game, one that Anne herself had played in her time. For, once denied something he wanted, Henry would move Heaven and earth to have it.

  Anne had to sit down, she felt so faint. She must think of the child. She would not reproach Henry. Jane was powerless while she, Anne, carried the heir to England in her womb. By the time this babe arrived, Jane Seymour would probably be a distant memory, a passing irritation, no more.

  What was more worrying was the possibility of the Emperor bearing down vengefully on England.

  “I cannot tell you how it terrifies me to think that, if we are invaded, our children might be excluded from the throne for the sake of the Lady Mary,” she told Henry when he came to pay the daily duty visit he felt due to his gravid wife. “Because, if the Emperor has his way, that is what will happen.”

  “You must stop worrying, Anne,” Henry comforted her. “If he invades these shores, we will be ready for him.” His bravado sounded a little forced.

  “Sir!”—and she was vehement, desperate—“The Lady Mary will never cease to trouble us. Her defiance of your just laws has only given courage to our enemies. I pray you, let the law take its course with her! It’s the only way to avert war. What profit can Charles gain when there is no one to fight for? He needs our trade and our friendship.”

  Henry’s solicitous expression had turned into a scowl. “You are asking me to send my own daughter to the scaffold.”

  “She is a traitor, and a danger to you. While she lives, our son will never be safe!”

  He was looking at her with distaste. “Maybe my threatening to have her executed would serve as a sufficiently effective warning to the Emperor.”

  She said nothing. It was enough for now, and as a strategy it might work. She would bide her time until her son was born.

  But then Henry spoke again. “You’re right. I am resolved. It shall be done.”

  —

  The next day, he visited her before dinner.

  “I have just come from the Privy Council,” he told her. “I declared to them that I would no longer remain in the trouble, fear, and suspicion that Katherine and Mary are causing. I said the next Parliament must release me by passing Acts of Attainder against them or, by God, I will not wait any longer to make an end of them myself!”

  “What did they say?”

  “They looked shocked, but I told them it was nothing to cry or make wry faces about. I said that, even if I lose my crown for it, I would do what I have set out to do.”

  Would he? Still she wondered.

&n
bsp; “It was well done, Henry,” she congratulated him. “It is the only way to secure the future of our children.”

  “Yes, but, by God, at what a price!” he cried. Already he was wavering.

  —

  Later she sent for George and told him what Henry had threatened.

  “Even if he weakens now, when I have a son, he will not deny me. But it is now that I worry about. I fear that my enemies are poised to destroy me. Already they pay court to that wench Seymour.”

  “They cannot touch you if you bear the King a son,” George reassured her.

  “No, but what if God denies me that blessing?”

  “Pray that He will grant it.”

  Anne bit her lip. “I cannot help fearing that while Katherine lives, I will never bear a living son. And even if I did, there would always be those to call it bastard. If only I could be the true and undisputed Queen!”

  George said nothing. He just sat there, pensive.

  “Katherine is my death and I am hers,” she said. “I will take good care that she shall not laugh at me after I die.”

  “And how do you mean to do that?” he asked.

  “I will think of something.”

  He looked at her skeptically. He knew her too well. Of all the things people called her, they were unjust in naming her “murderess.” She did not have it in her.

  —

  And then it seemed that God Himself intervened. Katherine, Henry was informed, had fallen seriously ill. It seemed like the answer to all Anne’s prayers. Her son might be indisputably legitimate.

  But the next report informed them that Katherine had rallied.

  “I beg of you,” Anne said to Henry, desperate, “put an end to her and her daughter! For our child’s sake!”