by G Lawrence
My sister had married a few months previous to the summit meeting, and was part of the party of the Queen of England, having become one of her ladies-in-waiting. Despite his threats, our father had taken his time to choose a match, and had married Mary well. Mary’s husband was no mean catch, but a man much in favour with the English King. His name was William Carey; he was young, fairly rich and titled, and a gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber. This was a good position to occupy, as the ear of the King was the route to power and influence. William was related to the King’s grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, as William’s grandmother had been her aunt, and so he was therefore a distant relative of the King of England himself.
Although distant connections to the King did not necessarily mean that favours were a given conclusion, it was still a useful connection. William Carey was handsome and well-built, and like all of the King’s friends he was a fine jouster and a cultured man. I liked him well, and found him good company. Despite all this, Carey was not as highly born as I would wish to marry, and I suspect not quite as highly born as our parents had wished for Mary. Her time in France had done some damage to her reputation and, once tarnished, her behaviour would always be under some suspicion. It was important to rich, noble households that the offspring of their marriages should carry their own blood and not that of any passing man who happened to take a daughter-in-law’s fancy. Blood was important to all families. This was another reason I did not wish to indulge in my sister’s pastimes. I wanted to marry well, and well above my own station.
On the whole though, Mary had not done badly in her husband and she seemed pleased with him. He was obviously happy in his match with her, but it was not just her charms and beauty that he was pleased with. As I learned soon enough, my sister had a profitable habit of attracting the attention of kings.
My mother was as lovely as I remembered; although her face was older now and there were lines appearing where once there had been but smooth skin, she was still a fine beauty. Her long tapering fingers grasped mine as we embraced for the first time in five years. I felt my heart quicken and tears spring to my eyes at the echo of her heat beating next to mine as we held each other close.
She held me at arm’s length and her eyes shone as she looked me up and down. I was overwhelmed to feel the love radiating from her.
“I am proud, Anne,” she whispered as her lips puckered with happy tears. “So proud… and so happy to see you again. You have indeed become a fine lady, as your father has often told me.”
I was overcome with tears and laughter at the same time. To think that my father had ever said something of such fulsome praise about me! And that it should take the reunion with my mother for me to hear of it! My father looked on our reunion with a little detached amusement, but I believe he, too, was happy to have our family together for once as well.
I was infused with joy to be once again with my family; after so long at foreign courts, I had forgotten the great contentment that one’s own family, the roots of life, can bring. I wanted to soak up as much of them as I could to store with me in whatever should come next in my life.
Mary and I walked out together a few days later to see the great castle that the English King had built, and it was she who showed me the careful paint-work which had gone on top of the wood of the castle, making it look like real stone. Swan feathers had been used to drape mottled brown over white paint to create the look of marble. As I stood admiring the clever arts of the English, she told me that in addition to a new husband, she had a new courtly admirer.
I was not totally taken aback by this news as after all, I knew the ways of courts well by now, and I knew Mary. But I was surprised to hear that our father knew and had encouraged Mary to hearten the attentions of this new admirer.
“How can this be so?” I asked, remembering when he had found out about François.
Mary gave me that naughty smile, unchanged since our childhood days, and she laughed. “Because, Anne, our father appreciates that my new admirer may do much good for our family,” she grinned. “Our father is somewhat like the Roman god Juno, Anne; he has two faces. What displeased him in my relationship with François pleases him in my liaison with another. It was not, as it seemed, the bedding that I took part in that was the problem, you see, it was the bed-partner!” She giggled again. “Come, can you not guess whom it might please our father that I bed at night, besides my husband?”
Mary laughed and cast her sparkling eyes up at the great palace, up to the Tudor roses which stood proudly over the gateway, and then looked back and smiled triumphantly at me. A sudden, and unexpected crushing blow of jealousy and pain hit my heart; I realised she meant she was the lover of King Henry of England.
Until that sharp and ghastly blast of jealousy hit me, I had almost forgotten those feelings I had once harboured for the King of England when I was just a girl. But upon hearing my sister’s gloating pleasure at her new lover, I suddenly felt all those feelings I had once felt for him, that paragon, that knight of my youth, return.
My heart ached with sadness and jealousy. I felt sick suddenly.
I must have turned pale as she was looking at me strangely when I looked at her again. She frowned and gave a twisted half-smile, mistaking my pale jealousy for general disapproval. “Come, Anne, it is not a bad thing,” she said. “The King admires me; he calls me sweetheart and offers me pretty gifts. He favours our father and brother and calls me to dance with him at the court. The King has me brought to his bedchamber often. His liaison with Bessie Blount is at an end; why should it not be Mary Boleyn who steps into her shoes, and her bed? If it continues, and if he likes me, I will have the ear of the King. I can help our family advance.”
I drew myself up and looked at her stiffly. I felt as though my heart had been torn from my body and trampled upon.
“We advance then… not through ability.” I said, chewing on my jealousy.
Mary laughed naughtily again and raised a questioning, saucy, eyebrow at me. “I wouldn’t say that,” she said with a throaty, alluring laugh.
I blushed, feeling suddenly young and foolish about this subject of which my sister appeared to be a master; I spoke again, my jealousy of her overwhelming me.
“You know what I mean; we advance as a family because you please the King in bed, nothing more. Kings are fickle creatures; what shall we do when you please the King no longer?”
“Bah!” she said dismissively, waving her hand. “Then we shall advance as we did before, slower and with less pleasant types of tasks!” She smiled and the sun beat down over her beautiful jewelled hood making her pretty eyes shine like gems.
We stood, we sisters, in the shade of that great palace, and I fought to reconcile my emotions. I had always felt… superior, to Mary, in so many ways. It was not a nice thing to admit about one’s self, but it was the truth. I had always been the cleverer of the two of us, and I thought my morals above hers. But now, although I should never tell her this, I suddenly wished nothing more than to be in her place.
I had all but forgotten my childish infatuation with King Henry, forgotten the nights I had lain in my bed at Margaret’s court wishing myself in his arms. But like so many things tainted by the brush of jealousy, this did not matter now to my heart. Mary had the admiration and desire of this great King who had once captured my foolish heart… Mary had attained the desire of the one man I had ever felt true desire for. She was the one who was better than I, for she was in a happier place than I could ever hope to be. Adored by a great king… desired by a great man… perhaps the best of men.
My thoughts were as rapid as they were foolish. My mind swam with images of the King; of his golden hair and his easy laugh, of his handsome face and blue eyes, of his poetry and his feats of strength in the jousting lists. I felt my heart beat no more with blood, but with the sickening, fast-pulsing slime of envy. It was all I could do not to strike my sister about her face, simply for having attracted the notice of a man I had once desired. I tri
ed to fight the resentment within me, for how often had I said I wanted not the place of a mistress, and yet here I was, wishing I was in Mary’s rich velvet shoes? A fine test for all my high morals and beliefs; that I should fall at the first obstacle, and wish to become the mistress of a king so quickly!
”Come, sister,” she said, linking her arm with mine. “Let us think not of what will happen if I fall from favour, but what we can enjoy now whilst I am rising in favour. Our family can do well from my position. Both our father and my husband are happy that I please the King. I am discreet in my affair with the King, as he likes to think of himself as a moral man. This, too, pleases the Queen, who would prefer that if her husband must take a mistress it should not be one that flaunts herself about the court; and this will allow me to keep my position and my honour. You see? I have thought about these matters!”
She looked at me for approval and I could not help but give it, grudgingly. It did appear that for once Mary had given some thought to something she was doing. She could not know that I spoke not from real disapproval of her choices, but from the mouth of jealousy. Nor did I want to admit it to myself; we are all of us happy to make plain our talents and accomplishments; we are less happy to make our faults known to others. Brewing in my heart were dark and mean emotions. I liked not the feel of them sliding inside my skin.
“I am happy, Anne,” said Mary. “I mean to make sure our family does well from this. I know that you have scruples about this type of thing, some do, but this is the great prize; this is the King of England. You will marry well, better than I most likely, because of your accomplishments, your wit and your looks; but perhaps my position with the King could help you also. If I please the King and become his long-term mistress, I may be able to advance you to a greater marriage than our station would normally allow. And all this from doing something that is of great, great pleasure to my own self!”
She laughed and broke free from my arms to prance on the grass before me in a well-executed twirl of one of the popular dances of the English Court. Some gallants near us looked on appreciatively at her boldness.
“All is goodness, Anne!” she exclaimed, and she was so happy I could not help but laugh with her too. Mary was infectious in her happiness. I took her arm again to stop her prancing more in public, and tried to quell the feelings this conversation had stirred in my heart as we continued to walk and talk.
Mary was right; her position as the mistress of the King of England could mean great things for our family and that was what I should be thinking of. After all, what was the King of England to me? What was King Henry to the course of my life? I would marry a noble man and hopefully live a happy life at court, in France, perhaps, or in England. I would serve Queen Claude or Queen Katherine, have children and raise them to become courtiers. I should be happy that my sister was in favour with the King of England; Françoise was powerful in France because she had the ear and other parts of the French King at her command. Why should Mary not enjoy the same position in England, and why should the Boleyns not benefit from that?
It was foolish to feel such jealousy and resentment of my sister’s position because, after all, it was not one that I really wanted. Although I would have been happy to hold the desire of a King such as Henry of England, I did not wish for the fragile and precarious position of the mistress. Long had I known this truth, as I strove to remind myself. Mary’s fate was different to mine, and however much I envied her such a lover as the man who had once stolen my heart, I did not wish to be a temporary distraction for him. If I was to belong to a man, then I wanted to be his only woman.
I realised then, with clarity, what it was that I wanted. I wanted stability and respect in a marriage. I wanted to be a cherished wife. I wanted to be loved, and to love my husband.
This was rarer than becoming a mistress, for happiness and love in marriage were a matter of Fate, not a rule of life. My sister was conventional in many ways; marrying for position and seeking love and pleasure outside her wedded bed. I should be different; I should be no man’s lover but my husband’s.
But yet, my heart still ached, as I thought of the man I had adored from afar. Whilst I wanted not Mary’s position, I still envied her for her lover. Dual thoughts and beliefs can often exist side by side in one mind. I was torn between jealousy of my sister and my understanding that I wanted not her fate. My heart and my head were in conflict against each other, and neither had won outright by the time we finished conversing on that sunny day.
But now was not the time to dwell on such things. My head tried to talk to my heart to calm it; Mary was right and, once the jealous fires subsided in my heart, I would begin to think well of this match, I was sure. Henry was a discreet man in his affairs and he was hardly prolific in them. François was a lover first, and then a king, and he cared not who knew it. Henry was different as he really believed himself to be a morally upstanding man. He conducted his affairs quietly and carefully. He had, before this time, a mistress named Elizabeth Blount who had borne him a male child in 1519. She had done well for herself and the child, who was officially recognised by Henry, a rare thing for a bastard of Henry VIII. All knew that the King of England longed for a legitimate male heir. So far his marriage to Katherine of Aragon had produced but one living child, their daughter Mary, and countless dead babies. When Bessie Blount gave birth to a male child, who was hale and hearty, it proved that whatever the fault of fertility was in this royal marriage, it did not lie with the King. He was capable of getting sons on women other than his wife, so therefore the fault must lie with Katherine. Whatever happiness a living son gave the King, it could not be complete however, for the boy was, and always would be, a bastard. Without a legitimate male heir to his throne, the country of England would never be secure. With only the Princess Mary living of his lawful union to Katherine, there were questions about the future of the country which none dared speak aloud. If the Princess Mary became Queen, then her husband would most likely be a foreign king; would England become annexed by another power if she came to the throne? Would the people of England and the nobles ever even accept the rule of a woman over them? Would the country once more face the peril of civil war? No one knew, but all thought of the future with troubles in their hearts.
Henry VII had not failed in his duty to give England a prince to continue the line of the Tudors.; he had had two sons! It seemed inconceivable, perhaps especially to Henry VIII, that he could fail where his suspicious, miserly father had triumphed.
But whilst it seemed, indeed, that Katherine was the party within the marriage who brought its fertility into question, Henry had not yet given up on his marriage to Katherine. She was still his honoured wife and her connection to the royal house of Spain and the Hapsburgs was at times a valuable one. She was also a wise and learned woman, pious and God-fearing. She was well-respected in England and beyond and she was loved by the common people.
But we all knew that there was a problem when a king had no true male heir, and Henry was not the type of man to take defeat in any area lightly. There had only been one time in English history where a woman had sought to rule on her own; that woman was the Empress Matilda, granddaughter to the Conqueror, and her rule had been contested by her cousin Stephen, plunging the country into civil war for years. That period was known to history as “the anarchy” for the unrest it had caused in England. Since that time, although the laws of the English did not prevent a woman taking the throne as French Salic law did, no one had been eager to see the throne left to a female. Until this time, it had hardly been a possibility, for there had always been, it seemed, male heirs brought to the throne, either by right of birth or by conquest. Men ruled the world, and many of them feared that a queen would have neither the strength nor the intelligence to rule alone. And so, England required a male heir; for the peace and the security of her future. And the King, who seemed in all ways a paragon of knightly virtue and worldly strength, could not understand why God should withhold such a gift from hi
s hands.
Henry’s affair with my sister was just starting at The Field of the Cloth of Gold, and many, including my ambitious father, were monitoring it closely to see what they could gain from it. Mary was right; our father was a man of many faces. Her affair with François had angered him, but I realised now it was mostly because Mary had sold herself so cheaply and so easily to the French King that our father had become so enraged. He was not above bartering his daughters to kings, but they had to be the right kings, and they had to offer the right price. Under his guidance, Mary would not sell herself so easily this time.