Amenable Women

by Mavis Cheek

  Speaking out, she thinks, is like putting air into her lungs. For too long she has kept her counsel. That was how she survived those years in England when Henry remarried. But no longer. ‘If you had sensibly married your daughter to Henry’s son Edward all the bloodshed would have been avoided.’ Marie does not respond. ‘But no – not the Great Marie, putative Queen of Scotland – Edward was not good enough for your daughter and see where your ambition sent her. To a traitor’s scaffold.’

  Marie of Guise cannot stay silent. ‘Edward was the son of an excommunicant. And a Protestant. My daughter died a martyr.’

  ‘He was the heir to the throne of England. Your daughter plotted against the people’s choice of sovereign. Queens and meddlers never did know the art of perspicacity, the art of compromise. Too many deaths and you still hold on to the pride of it all.’

  ‘It is called Faith.’ The portrait movs irritably. ‘Faith – not opportunism.’

  ‘Much has been done in the name of Faith. Then and now. I witnessed horrors done in the name of worship. If my stepdaughter Elizabeth did one sensible thing it was to allow religion to be a private matter. How wise she was . . .’

  If there were no tear in Elizabeth’s eye there is now the gleam of righteousness. ‘Mary had to die,’ she says imperiously.

  Anna turns to her. ‘No, Elizabeth,’ she says, as if she is still her counselling step-aunt. ‘It is never justified to kill one of God’s anointed. And you feared her beauty, too.’

  A little mischief of a smile creeps around Anna’s lips as she says this last – for Elizabeth’s expression is no longer righteous it is highly indignant. No matter how the centuries have passed, Elizabeth still demands to be the greatest star in the firmament of masculine desire.

  The Duchess of Guise says piously, ‘Beauty . . . Oh the vanity of earthly beauty. Mary was a beauty. Elizabeth feared that.’

  Elizabeth looks as if she feared no such thing but Anna knew the stories. Mary Queen of Scots was said to enchant everyone she met, even her jailers, with her charms – and yes – even women.

  ‘If it had not been for vanity and they had met as cousins, they might have loved each other and my daughter’s neck would not have taken three ragged falls of the axe to end her life.’

  ‘Beauty,’ says Anna, ‘is a burdensome commodity. It was so much easier for me to negotiate with Henry’s advisers for my settlement while they considered me ugly. Whenever Henry sent his ministers to persuade me that the divorce he required was correct theologically, in law, and morally, I never objected. My way was not the way of your mother, Elizabeth, I never tried to find a piece of biblical text to counter Henry’s, nor persuade him that he was wrong in any way. I hung my undesirable head, was dumb, and waited for the settlement negotiations. The less I angered Henry, the better they would be, and they were.’ Anna cannot resist a little crow of triumph and Elizabeth blinks.

  ‘Everyone thought that I was ignorant and unable to understand, but I was neither. My silence and my acceptance earned me my rewards. Yes?’

  Elizabeth nods. There is a grudging look of admiration in her eyes. ‘You were a clever woman,’ she says.

  ‘Yes, Elizabeth, and so were you. And like you I was popular. The people of England wanted me for their Queen. I saw it in the cheering and blessing that the welcoming crowds poured over us as we made our way towards London. At the darkest moments it gave me courage – the knowledge that the people of England loved me – though I never boasted of it. I won many hearts on that long journey – the nobles who accompanied me also liked me very well. Until they were told to think differently.’

  Anna of Cleves places her pretty hands at her stomach, a pose that has become comfortable over the half-millennium, and raises her chin. ‘My settlement needed to be generous for I could not go home. The English were lucky that I was not the kind of woman to weep and wail or seek revenge. Had I demanded that my brother come and exact vengeance well . . .’

  Marie of Guise looks sceptical at this. ‘Hubris, Anna. Duke William was not renowned for his resourcefulness or courage,’ she says. And then stops herself. It is well-known that when Henry rejected Anna, the Duke did not rush in with his sword nor even wave it in the air – he was too protective of his own position – but Marie shrugs her beautiful bare French shoulders. This courageous German princess has suffered enough insult. Marie returns to her frame. The eyes of the two Queens, Marie and Elizabeth, sit within their frames in icy rivalry. Both were beauties in their own way, thinks Anna, and it brought them no comfort. But that is their business. She turns her back and moves away.

  This storeroom is filled with portraits of hopeful, ambitious, doomed royal women. For a moment Anna allows herself a feeling of superiority. Hers was the happy life, what was left of it; so few of these women were happy like her, a single virgin of means and content to remain unmarried. She was well aware, after Henry’s marriage to Catherine Howard, that the eyes of the gossiping Tudor Court and the whispering watchful world were on her. Catherine. Now there was an ill-starred little thing. Poor Catherine, she thinks, looking about her. Not even represented here. Poor little giddy, ill-educated girl – too pretty for her own good, offered up to the ageing King and died for it; raised so high she was bound to fall. Such pawns we women were.

  As if to remind herself – and perhaps to let the others hear – she says aloud, ‘ . . . And in those first months of my divorce I behaved with such good breeding and with such good will that it banished any notion of boorishness in my upbringing. Indeed, my delicacy and the dignity of my manner was remarked upon. It won Henry’s heart, and later Catherine’s. Despite the French King, Francis, hoping I would create a drama, it was his own ambassador, Marillac, who wrote to his master of the “Great Moment When Anna of Cleves Met Catherine Howard”. The moment when I showed the watching world how a German princess could behave. As Marillac remarked, and with some approval, I was a different woman by then. So much for his once calling me old, of middling beauty and thin when I first arrived. My clothes were now of impeccable taste, the height of fashion, and I could match the young Queen in figure and gracefulness if not in jewels. No one could match Catherine for her jewels. Henry gave her more than he gave to any other wife.

  ‘Our meeting, on New Year’s Eve at Hampton Court, was a difficult occasion for Catherine – especially with Marillac standing by – as she was not bred to such events. But it was not at all difficult for me. Knowing how to be gracious and deferential is easy but knowing how to behave in the face of deference is not so easy. I was there as an honoured guest, to meet the Queen, I could hear the shufflings and whisperings as everyone wondered how to arrange the occasion. Henry, nervous or hopeful and, as always, reticent where there was something difficult to be done, hid. But I had planned exactly how to please and how to make the assembly squirm. I had no qualms and I abased myself. I curtsied, then fell to my knees and refused to rise when the young Queen implored me to (perhaps I felt a little fluttering of something close to revenge to see how anxious the young Queen was). When Henry showed himself from his hiding place he was very well pleased with it all, two women being deferential to each other in his name was the pleasure of such a prince. I rose up at last and we two women embraced and kissed – and then went in to dine.

  ‘At first they placed me in an inferior position. A test, of course, and I knew it was, and made nothing of it. Later, having won the right by my acquiescence, I was raised up and sat with the royal pair where I talked and laughed with the King and Queen as gaily and as warmly as a welcome old friend. Henry seemed charmed by my grace and ease. And even more charmed when I presented him and Catherine with a beautiful white horse each, caparisoned in mauve velvet. A Princess of Cleves, indeed.

  ‘Looking back on that New Year, I can say that it was a truly happy time, a moment of surrender that put me in command and secured my future elevated position and happiness. Later, after more friendly conversation, Henry went to bed and Catherine and I danced and talked and lau
ghed together very easily. She was a very simple girl – not artful or particularly clever – and it was remarked that we made a pretty pair together. The world watched us closely and we were aware of it, and the world was doubtless surprised at this most difficult of transitions being so easily accomplished. I chose to be gracious and amenable. The Queen and – more importantly – the King were grateful – as indeed they should be. And I think the example of my behaviour was both marked and taken to heart by Mary and Elizabeth with whom, now elevated, I sat.

  ‘As the King’s Sister and I owned sixty-three manors, twenty-three farms, thirty-eight combined manors and advowsons, a handful of rectories – The Palace of Richmond, the Castle of Hever, Bletchingley – and many other places. I had an income of six hundred pounds a year. Which you will credit was a noble result. As for poor Catherine? Was she happy? The question is rhetorical. She was happy until she was unhappy. While she had the love of the King, and the secret love of his gentleman of the bedchamber, Thomas Culpeper, she was probably happier than she had ever been in her life. But she died on the scaffold without a head, without her jewels, and without a sign of parental kindness. Silly little foolish thing, starved of love and dead by the executioner’s axe after less than two years. Buried by the side of her beheaded cousin Boleyn – victims of a dangerous husband who would have beauty and youth at any cost – and who happened to be a king. So whose was the triumph? Beauty’s? Or cordial content?

  ‘By putting myself beneath Henry’s heel he had raised me up. You will scarcely find a breath of scandal adhering to my name, nor bad words said about me in the years that followed the divorce. There are not many of rank from those days who can say the same, nor now either. The French might hint that I liked my wine too well, but it was not taken seriously. I liked wine, of course I did, and I came to know a little about what was good and what was not, and I bought it in quantities. But I kept a good table for my guests. Cookery amused me, too. But mainly I was happy and contented and that is the heart of it, wine or not. I think none of these ladies here in these frames can say that.’ She looks about her, that determined chin raised, the eyes resolute. ‘In the end,’ says Anna, ‘it was my fate to be called Not Fair and to live. When Catherine, Henry’s rose without a thorn, fell, I held my breath like the rest of the watching world. I knew that interest would light on me again. I could do nothing to avoid it and so I returned to Richmond Palace (I was staying at one of my other estates when Catherine was pronounced guilty of treason) and I continued with the pattern of my days and I waited.

  ‘Gossips and mischief makers suggested that I returned to Richmond to be near the court because I expected Henry to annul our divorce and take me back. Well – perhaps that was a reasonable assumption. But I tell you – despite a fleeting sense of pride in the matter – I hoped he would not. He and I were warmer by then. Henry visited me after Catherine went to the tower and this set tongues wagging for we were reported as making cheerful company together – as much as Henry could after such unhappiness. But he very properly brought others from his court with him so that there was no possibility of scandal. Elizabeth and Mary were shocked, too, by the events and my only role, if I had any role at all, was my usual one of aunt, sister and friend.

  ‘Well, the King could be very, very charming when he chose, delightful company, with a good mind and a capacity for amiability. But he could also be the darkness and the devil. Would I want to be a Queen renewed? Consider the question rationally. Would any woman – once so humiliated and now wealthy in her own right in those times – wish to become the wife of such a man? I was rich, I took domestic orders from no man or woman, I had no involvement with the day-to-day dangers of the court and I dictated my pleasurable days. I could cook all day if I chose, and I sometimes did. I was particularly interested in good ways to present fish, for we had any number of fish days, and I enjoyed my experiments (so did the visiting King). This was hardly a situation that I would give away for the possibility of wearing a crown and sharing a bed with a gross, half-rotting husband who showed a penchant for cutting off his wives’ heads. I enjoyed a life of interesting days and merry company. I was liked by many, loved by some and accorded a great dignity by my association with the King. Third in rank when I did attend court was quite good enough for me. I had been victim once to the perversities of the Tudor Court – and that was more than enough. Besides, after Catherine, Henry was truly broken. He spoke of himself as one who has been young and is now old . . . A very terrible admission for Henry. And when he took up with his sixth and last wife, Katherine Parr, the Widow Latimer, he was marrying a nurse, not a wife. Of the two of us, I am reported as saying that I was the more beautiful – and it is true that I said it. Others said it too – but I think – by then – Henry had learned the folly of falling for a pair of tempting eyes. Had Henry chosen to marry me again after Catherine Howard I would not have been able to deny him – therefore it was best to seem to be willing – but I did not want it and I could never care for him after such foolishness and cruelty . . . In the end he married wisely. ‘Of necessity he married the Widow Parr’ says Bishop Burnet in his history. Though I would scarcely trust everything that historiographer says since in the same volume he coins the name for me of the Flanders Mare.

  ‘I missed my own family but now I had my step-nieces, those intelligent, neglected Tudor girls, and Henry from time to time. I was a trusted part of the family. It was all quite remarkably perfect . . .’

  Anna turns and looks up at the Ditchley portrait again. She wonders where Mary’s portrait is but tactfully does not voice the thought out loud. Elizabeth is calm and dignified now and it is best kept that way – she has a temper – and matched her father for it – and there has been quite enough upset between the sisters over the years.

  ‘When Henry died and Edward came to the throne, with Protector Seymour, my fortunes were less happy but I continued to live well (to the despair of my comptroller who considered me a spendthrift and capricious) – and beyond my means and my religious practices were pragmatic. Tudor England suffered a terrible economic plague in the years immediately after Henry but I had no pleasure in making economies. Why should I? As if I had not paid for my frivolities, and handsomely. I liked dresses, I liked sport and I liked all merriments. The world was always keen to keep a single, rich woman in check. I loved my life, and lived it to the full, and was remarked for it. Well, good.’

  Suddenly and much louder, Anna says with amusement to the pictures all around her, ‘Save me, oh save me from curtsying to ageing powerful men who choose youthful gee-gaws to strut and hobble about with. What fools they are.’ From further down the storeroom comes another voice which is vaguely familiar to Anna. ‘Amen to that,’ it says, with extraordinary fervour. And there is the gentle rustling as if someone is settling the folds of a silk gown. This, thinks Anna, will be Christina of Denmark. Brighter by far than Catherine Howard, though just as young, who refused Henry because she only had one neck. Had she two, it seemed she might accept. Her wit would not have lasted her long in the Tudor bedroom.

  Anna follows the sound of the rustling along the dusty footway through storage space – and there she is. The Duchess of Milan, fresh as when she was painted five hundred years ago. Holbein’s works, such as still exist, have survived well and this has been cleaned to show it in all its lusciousness. No wonder Henry desired her. Anna feels something of a frump with her dulled paintwork and her sludgy background. If only Henry had wooed this smiling, dimpled girl properly then she, like Marie of Guise, could have saved Anna from leaving Cleves and she would never have known either such great pain or such great happiness. Impossible to know how she feels about this now.

  From behind Christina’s portrait peeps Jane Seymour, Queen of England. Anna hides a smile. This is not the usual way for Jane Seymour to be displayed. Anna saw this portrait often enough when she was at the English court, for Henry worshipped it and deified its subject. Jane’s picture is, perhaps, Hans Holbein’s best portrait
lesson in how to be Henry’s Queen. She shows quiet humility, the paleness of a medieval icon, the fabulous jewels designed for her by Holbein and a chaste mouth worthy of the mother of Henry’s only surviving son. Yes, thinks Anna, peeping is the right word for Jane Seymour. She was that kind of woman. Why take a good full look when a little eye-lashed peep would do?

  But Anna thought privately that Jane was no Madonna. Surely there is something quite sinister in the way she colluded in her cousin Boleyn’s death? Jane was willing to marry Henry as soon as the gun was fired at the tower to say that her head was cut from her neck. So far as Anna was aware, no one who dared speak of Queen Jane in anything but glowing terms could find a reason for Henry’s choosing her. The French Ambassador Marillac, acknowledged that she was a pale, unrobust, un-beautiful little thing. How Henry ever fell for her really was a mystery unless it was that she differed exactly and in every particular from the coal-eyed, white-skinned, widemouthed, brilliant-minded Boleyn. That little pursed mouth of Jane’s, the semi-praying hands, the small body and fair skin – English to her marrow. Holbein gave her to the world as he saw her, as she no doubt truly behaved, and Henry loved the picture. It was the pair to Holbein’s majestic portrait of the King. Her small presence made Henry’s all the more dramatic.

  Anna considers the differences between her and Jane. Light to dark colouring, of course, but in temperament, at least originally, they were much the same. The docility that Henry was said to love is there, so different from the flashing eyes and fireworks of the Boleyn woman. Why, she wonders, do husbands want fire in a woman’s belly until they are wed and then damp embers ever after? And what is the virtue of docility, what did that say about Henry’s true confidence in himself, what does it ever say when docility is required in a marriage? And what came of all this sweet docility? Henry’s best Queen dead in childbed little more than a year after her marriage and the son dead long before manhood, the country torn apart.