Fatal Throne_The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All

by M. T. Anderson

  His bright, busy eyes look up at me from under his black brows. “Was Henry?”

  “At the time, no,” I say. “He played cards with Norfolk and Surrey a few days afterwards, and every time he was dealt a knave he called it a Cromwell.”

  “I’m sure Norfolk laughed the loudest,” Cromwell says.

  “But not longest. He lost favour, too. Henry changed after your death. He suffered bouts of melancholy. Once I brought him jam made with plums from my orchard. He ate it from the pot, then put his head in my lap and wept. He cursed Norfolk. Said the old rogue cost him the most loyal advisor he’d ever had.”

  “Did he?” Cromwell asks. His lips curve into a smile. “I am pleased to know it. Would that one could preserve the best moments of a life—the kindnesses, the laughter—as one does plums in a jam.”

  “Thomas…” I say. There is something I’ve always wanted to ask him.

  “Yes?”

  “How did you not see Death coming? You, who saw every move long before it was made.”

  He laughs. “But I did see it coming. Always. Everywhere. Death is never far from those whom the King favours. What I did not see coming was the Howard girl.”

  “You might have sidestepped your fate had you chosen someone other than me for Henry,” I tell him. “Someone beautiful. Christina of Denmark, perhaps. Or Mary of Guise.”

  “I tried, but they were unwilling. They’d seen how Henry’s first three wives had fared. Christina told my envoy that if she had two heads, she would place one at Henry’s disposal,” Cromwell recounts, chuckling. “That girl could afford to make cheeky statements. She had a powerful aunt, Mary of Hungary, who was determined to keep her from a bad match.”

  “And I had no such. Only a brother determined to sell me to the highest bidder,” I say ruefully.

  “Wilhelm was playing chess, as we all were, and you were the pawn,” Cromwell says. “The move to unite England and Cleves was a clever one, if I say so myself. Wilhelm was an appealing ally. He was a Reformist, but not a Lutheran—Henry loathed Lutherans—but he had strong ties to many of Germany’s powerful Lutheran nobles. They would come to Henry’s aid if France or Spain attacked him, and Henry would help Cleves if Wilhelm’s battle over Guelders turned into a war.”

  “People said that you could not have cared less about Henry or England, and that you pushed for the alliance with Cleves only to further the Protestant cause,” I tell him. “They said you were secretly a Lutheran yourself and kept heretical books.”

  He gives me a dark look. “People being Norfolk,” he retorts. “I doubt many would have listened to his nonsense, had my work not unravelled so quickly. France’s alliance with Spain soon soured, which meant that Cleves’s friendship was no longer as important to England. You were a disaster…”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “…and then there was Catherine Howard. Henry’s lust for her was the lever Norfolk needed to topple me and grab power for himself. He and his Catholic allies had me arrested on charges of treason and heresy for promoting your marriage and the new religion.”

  “What a shock it was when you were sent to the Tower,” I say. “We all thought Henry would release you. No one believed he would kill you.”

  “Least of all me,” he says, with a bitter laugh.

  There is another thing that has always puzzled me. “You had valuable currencies, Thomas—gold and secrets. Why did you not use them to fight harder for your life?”

  Cromwell gazes out of the window for some time. “I was tired,” he finally says.

  His words spark an image in my mind, of the bull-baiting at Rochester. I remember how the bull’s sides heaved from fending off his attackers, how blood ran down the animal’s torn face.

  I remember how a mastiff, powerful and vicious, sank its teeth into the bull’s haunch. The bull stumbled and went down. He was not beaten, not quite, yet he would not get up. He bellowed once, most piteously, then lowered his mighty head. An instant later, the dogs closed in.

  “For over a decade I served Henry,” Cromwell says. “No one was more devoted to him. From dawn to dusk, there were people in my chambers wanting favours, advancement, positions in the King’s household. And Henry himself…my God. He smashed the world apart, all to bed Anne Boleyn. Then he tossed the broken pieces at my feet and commanded me to glue them together again.”

  His voice is heavy, so full of heartbreak, that my own heart hurts for him.

  “I had little to live for,” he continued. “My wife and daughters were dead, taken by sweating sickness. My son was safe, protected by his marriage to Jane Seymour’s sister. There is peace in death, Anna, and I welcomed it.”

  I understand him well. “I would welcome Death, too, but he will not come. Why not, Thomas? Why does he send you instead?”

  “Because there is a thing left undone.”

  This thing undone that the ghosts speak of is the key to my release, I am sure of it. “What is it?” I ask, desperate to know. “Tell me!”

  He does not answer. Instead, he gazes at my chamber door. I know it is useless to resist. I rise from my bed, and he from his chair. We step through the doorway, one after the other, and find ourselves in Greenwich Palace.

  The Queen’s apartments, my apartments, are exactly as they were in the winter of 1540. My ladies are there, exactly as they were—sewing, laughing, gossiping. Even my chair is where it was, close by the fire. It is empty.

  “No. I do not wish to visit this place,” I say.

  But Cromwell isn’t listening.

  * * *

  —

  Snow is falling. It is bitterly cold. I enter the scene, stepping back into my past like an actor stepping onto a stage. Cromwell watches from the doorway.

  A shirt I was embroidering for Henry lies in a basket by my chair. I sit down and pick it up. As I start to stitch, the voices of my ladies carry to me. Jane Rochford’s. Eleanor Manners’s. Catherine Howard’s. Sound behaves strangely in this room. Though they whisper, I can hear some of what they say: She dances like an ox…cannot even play the lute…will never please the King…

  Oh, how I prefer the honest violence of men, who will bash in another man’s skull and be done, to the thousand shallow cuts of women’s malice.

  I am not only embarrassed by their words, but frightened. I am married three months now, and still a virgin. Henry comes to my bed, but only to keep tongues from wagging. We pass our nights chastely. I am supposed to provide him with sons. What will happen to me if I do not?

  “Give him sweet kisses. Tell him he is handsome. Say he is your heart’s desire,” Greta advised when I told her of my trials. I’d tried these things, but Henry had only winced and rolled over.

  My sewing is interrupted by a noise at the door. I hear male voices. Shouted greetings. Laughter. It is Henry, come to visit his Queen and her ladies. Like a great warship he surges into the room, with lesser vessels bobbing in his wake. He is dressed in green velvet. Pearls and diamonds decorate his hat.

  I curtsey as he approaches. He bids me stand, asks if I am well. He smiles at me, but his eyes dart about the room like flies, hovering over the faces of my ladies, until they light on Catherine Howard’s.

  I see how his gaze crawls over her body. So does everyone else.

  Greta glances at me as Henry walks over to Catherine. “He will quickly tire of the girl. She is naught but a prating fool,” she whispers. “Do not worry. There is not much to see in her.”

  But there is. And I see it.

  It is not her pert round breasts straining under her too-tight bodice that I see. It is not her tiny waist, her pretty face, or her fetching smile.

  In young Catherine Howard, I see my doom.

  * * *

  —

  The scene changes and I find myself standing at a window in Richmond Palace. Cromwell looks on from a dusky corner.

  It is still 1540, but summer now. I have been Henry’s wife for six months and things have only grown worse between us.


  We argue over much: my coronation, which never seems to happen; my household, which has too many Englishwomen in it for my liking and too many Germans for his; his children. I believe Edward should have the attentions of a stepmother; Henry does not. I believe that motherless Mary and Elizabeth should spend more time with their father; Henry does not. What Henry does believe is that I’ve grown wilful and stubborn. My new Queen has the disposition of a mule and the face to match, he muttered after one such disagreement.

  He has sent me away from Greenwich to Richmond. For my own good, my chamberlain told me. Plague has broken out in London, and the King, ever mindful of my safety, wants me far from contagion.

  But I know there is no plague.

  I also know that Henry sent Katharine of Aragon to Richmond when he wished to divorce her. I know that Catherine Howard has left my household to live with her ailing grandmother, and that Henry, who loathes sick people, visits the old woman to enquire after her health. Wearing satin, perfume, and a fancy hat.

  I look out of the window. Below me, Henry’s men are crossing the courtyard, their heads bowed against the summer rain.

  “The vultures are on the wing,” I whisper.

  Stephen Gardiner leads them. He is Bishop of Winchester, and a lawyer—one who worked to obtain Henry’s divorce from Katharine.

  Richard Rich is with him. He is a lawyer, too, but one who does not so much follow the law as invent it. It was he who declared it lawful for Henry to confiscate Katharine’s possessions.

  Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, is amongst them. He is Henry’s close friend, and the man who humiliated Katharine by dismissing her household after Henry married Anne Boleyn.

  These men will do anything Henry asks. They have turned on cardinals, chancellors, nobles, and queens. Their presence here fills me with dread. They come when I am alone, when my ambassador and protector, Karl Harst, is at court. Why? What do they want?

  The men are ushered into my presence. Their greeting is courteous, their bearing sombre.

  Gardiner talks. Rich translates his words into German for me. He explains that there is to be an official enquiry into my and Henry’s marriage. Troubling questions have arisen. Parliament wishes them to be addressed.

  For a few seconds, I cannot breathe. This is not Parliament’s doing; it is Henry’s, I know it. He wishes to put me aside and needs justification, however flimsy, to do it. Greta was wrong. He has not tired of Catherine Howard. On the contrary, he means to marry her.

  Dread blossoms into fear and threatens to overwhelm me. I strangle the dark bloom. No matter what, I must keep my head. For if I do not, I will surely lose it.

  “You say questions have arisen. What questions?” I ask calmly.

  Rich clears his throat. “Questions regarding your betrothal contract with Francis of Lorraine,” he replies. “A certain document, recently obtained from Germany, casts doubt upon its dissolution.”

  “The King and I were wedded months ago, according to the laws of God and man. And now you come to tell me that the paperwork is not in order?”

  Gardiner’s eyes narrow. He was not expecting questions, only compliance. He and Rich confer, then Rich speaks again. “We understand, Your Grace, that you are a woman and as such not able to comprehend the thorny complexities of the law. I shall attempt to clarify the issues.”

  “They are perfectly clear,” I counter. “I was betrothed to Francis when I was a child, but the contract was revoked. You know this. Everyone does. I signed a document before the wedding attesting to the fact.”

  “Yes, Your Grace, but a new document has come to light.”

  “Where is this document?” I demand. “It is my right to see it.”

  Rich feigns regret. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. It must be examined by the court.”

  “When does the court convene? Surely there is time for me to see it beforehand?”

  I expect him to say next month.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “T-tomorrow?” I stammer, stunned by the speed with which they’ve struck. “But I must send a messenger to my brother. He will not be pleased by these events. And I—I require time to obtain lawyers of my own.”

  “I’m afraid there will be no messengers. The King has barred all travel out of England until this matter is concluded.”

  I am terrified now. It’s all I can do to keep my composure.

  “Your Grace,” Rich continues, “surely you see the necessity of the enquiry. If the King’s marriage is not legitimate, neither are any children it might produce. The King, eager to comply with God’s will and the dictates of his conscience, has granted his consent to the enquiry. He will accept the findings of the court, whatever they may be, and wishes you to do the same.”

  “And if I do not?”

  Rich smiles tightly. “The King has admitted that he himself, from the start of your marriage, was troubled by the very same issue that now worries Parliament. So worried was he that he refrained from consummating the marriage.” He pauses. “The court will hear statements from the King and various witnesses. Other examinations could be conducted, too…if need be.”

  He does not make plain his ugly meaning, but he doesn’t need to. I understand it. I will be examined to confirm that I am still a virgin.

  They watch for my reaction to their threat. They are enjoying this. The idea of me on my back, the King’s doctors poking and prodding. I am scalded by embarrassment and cannot speak.

  Gardiner leans in close to Rich. “The King said she would be difficult,” he murmurs.

  I understand those English words, for they are simple ones. I hear frustration in Gardiner’s voice—and something under it: fear. It puzzles me. Why would he be afraid? I watch him trade worried glances with the others, and in that moment, I know.

  It took Henry nine long years to bring about a divorce from Katharine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. He wants his pretty Catherine Howard and he wants her now. He is old and failing and has but one son. He cannot wait. He cannot afford another rebellious woman.

  Gardiner talks on. Rich translates in his bad German. Suffolk casts black looks at me. The dreary English rain drums against the windowpanes.

  But I hear none of it. I am listening to another voice. One inside my head. Inside my heart. My mother’s voice.

  Life deals the cards, but it is up to us how we play them.

  I lift my chin. For the moment, I am still their Queen and they must heed me. “Go back to Henry,” I say, “and tell him…”

  “Yes, Your Grace?” Rich says, hoping he has scared me into submission, hoping he has won.

  But he has not, not yet. I hold some cards of value: resistance, defiance, courage. Will they be enough?

  I take a deep breath. “Tell him I do not consent.”

  * * *

  —

  A servant closes the door behind the men and I collapse into a chair, my bravery gone.

  What have I done?

  I imagine my head cut off and lying on the scaffold floor.

  If it lands this way, I will see my own body. Slumped sideways like a sack of meal.

  If it lands that way, I will see the crowd, or the sky, or the executioner’s shoes.

  Some say the head lives for several seconds. The eyes blink. The lips move.

  Still, it is a better death than hanging. It can take several long minutes to die from the rope, all the while swinging and kicking and shitting your skirts.

  Henry is known to burn people, too. Or have them drawn and quartered, the executioner carving out their innards while kitchen girls gawp and picknose boys jeer.

  These images fill my brain.

  Henry hounded Katharine of Aragon to death. He murdered Anne Boleyn.

  These things he did to women he loved.

  What will he do to one he does not?

  * * *

  —

  “The hardest thing about a bluff is not making it, but waiting it out. Wondering what cards your opponent
holds,” Cromwell muses. He circles the chair in which I sit, his long robes rustling. “And wait you did, Anna. What will the court decide? What will Henry do? Riders could come at any moment, ordering you back to Cleves or to the Tower. You didn’t know which, did you?”

  “You did,” I say. “You were in the Tower when the hearing was held. You gave a written account stating that Henry believed I was not his lawful wife. You wrote that it grieved him to think he would never give his realm more heirs.”

  “Henry wanted support for his case. I thought by giving it I might save my life. And yours. I was half right,” he says wryly.

  Fury flares in me now, as it did then. “Even my own ladies testified on Henry’s behalf,” I say hotly. “Lady Rochford stated that after I was married, they’d told me they hoped I’d soon be with child, and I’d replied that I was not. Lady Manners had wondered how this could be and had asked me if I was still a virgin. I’d said of course not, because the King kissed me good night and slept next to me in bed. ‘Madam, there must be more than this, or it will be long ere we have a Duke of York!’ she’d exclaimed. From this exchange the court concluded that I was innocent of how children were made, which proved that Henry had not consummated our marriage.”

  Cromwell chuckles. “Lady Rochford was seen wearing a new ruby ring after the hearing. Norfolk paid her well for that story,” he observes.

  “Story indeed,” I fume. “In the early days of my marriage I could hardly string together three words of English, much less describe my nightly relations with Henry. The hearing was a farce. Why was I not allowed to testify? To speak for myself?”

  “These were delicate matters. I’m sure the King didn’t want to discomfort you,” Cromwell replies, his tongue firmly in his cheek.

  I roll my eyes. “What Henry didn’t want was for me to tell the court that I’d shattered his illusions. That I made him feel broken and old.”