by Norah Lofts
Glance met glance in the glass again.
“It was a good parable,” Anne said, “thank you. And for the dose.”
In the Presence Chamber Henry, gorgeously clad, seated himself in the chair of state. The two Dukes, the whole Privy Council, three ambassadors, most of the peers and all the courtiers ranged themselves on either side, forming a great half-circle. Trumpets sounded and Garter-King-At-Arms entered, carrying the parchments upon which were written the patents; and after him came the Lady Mary Howard carrying the sartorial symbols, the richly furred mantle and the golden coronet.
The scene was set.
Anne’s was not the only mind to entertain a suspicion as to the King’s motives in according her an honor never yet conferred upon a woman. Several in the company imagined that what they were about to witness marked the zenith of Anne Boleyn’s career. If Henry intended to make her Queen, why bother with this halfway stage? Even the people who took this view were puzzled, because if this were a gesture of dismissal it was also an admission that she had been his mistress; and that the King, and the Lady and all those nearest to them had always stoutly denied. It was unlike Henry to make so clumsy a move.
There were others who took the directly opposite view and thought that this elevation presaged marriage in the near future; the King, by this means, would avoid having it said that he had married a commoner.
There were a few who simply took the King’s word for it that he wished to honor the woman he loved.
And now, here she was, walking between the Countess of Rutland and the Countess of Sussex, and followed by a bevy of ladies. And her worst enemy could not deny that she looked not merely noble, but royal. Catherine at her most stately Spanish appearance, Elizabeth, Henry’s mother, at her Yorkish best—which some old men remembered—had never surpassed the calm, the air of being set apart, of being made of some more precious substance than mere human flesh which Emma’s dose, combined with Anne’s own dignity, now presented.
With perfect timing, she made, as she approached Henry, three curtsies, and when she reached him, she knelt. Garter handed the patent to Henry, who passed it to his secretary who began to read it in the formal half-chant customary on such occasions. When he reached the “mantle” he paused long enough to allow the King to take the garment from the Lady Mary Howard and place it on Anne’s shoulders; he paused again at the mention of the gold circlet, and the King took it and placed it on the shining, jeweled hair. The formal phrases rolled on and only those hearers with sharp ears and quick wits noted one significant omission. The title was hers in her own right, and would pass to her son. Ordinarily in such patents the words “lawfully begotten” were here included; in this case they were left out. Surely that was a clear indication that the King had changed his mind about marrying her, or doubted his power ever to do so with sufficient show of legality to make any child of their union fully legitimate.
Those who had been in contact with the King during the past few weeks had noticed a change in him. His temper had always been a little hasty; but his capacity to be pleased had been just as easily wakened. And on his visits to country manors he’d always been very tolerant of discomforts and shortcomings and delightedly conscious of any effort made to please or entertain him. This year a sourer mood had prevailed; more easily angered, less easily pleased. An endearing quality of boyishness, which he had carried with him into middle age, had vanished, so that in both looks and demeanor he seemed suddenly to have aged, and as though he himself were aware of this, he had taken a perverse, almost savage delight in doing things that wore down younger men. A sudden change of plan which meant another twenty miles riding at the end of a long day in the saddle; unnecessarily early starts; dinners missed altogether, to be made up for by gargantuan suppers—“I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people; I can eat you all under the table.” To some observers his behavior was consistent with his being upon the point of making a break with Anne.
It was therefore in an atmosphere of curiosity and speculation, of hopeful hostility, or of frustrated hope, that Anne rose to her feet, the only peeress in her own right in England, and in formal phrases thanked the King for the honor he had done her, and retired.
Sir Thomas Wyatt, watching, remembered the lively, plain-faced little cousin with whom he had played in the gardens at Blickling and at Hever, a girl whose rather hoydenish ways had often earned her a rebuke from the strict French governess; he remembered, too, the charming sprightly girl who had come back from France and joined Catherine’s ladies; a girl ill-provided for, always making up for the scantiness of her wardrobe by some ingenious innovation, so stylish that it was immediately copied. Well, she was properly provided for now. But it was somehow sad to see something so lively, so almost wild, tamed and put into a collar, even if it were jeweled. On the other hand, what would you? he asked himself. Would you rather see her married, a mother four times over, growing stout, raking the stillroom shelves with an anxious or complacent eye? And remember, you yourself grow no younger, Wyatt. He wished suddenly that he might die young. Poets should die young…
Henry watched the new Marchioness retire and felt satisfaction mingled with a faint self-righteousness. He had just done the proper thing, and in a few minutes he would do another, when he would corner the French Ambassador and talk to him sternly about the arrangements to be made to receive Anne in France and the honors to be paid to her. He thought complacently of the presents he had made her to mark the occasion of her elevation, some exquisite miniatures painted by Holbein, in jeweled frames, to be worn as broaches and lockets, and a complete set of tableware, all in gold or silver or silver gilt. The latter alone had cost him over a thousand pounds.
He would have denied angrily—and honestly—that everything that he had done for her since that sultry night at Hampton Court was merely an attempt to rear a wall between himself and a truth too intolerable to be faced. He did not suspect that he was behaving like a man with some grave disease who imagines that by behaving like a sound man, by ignoring every symptom, above all by keeping his own secret, he can become sound again.
He was, in fact, so busy concealing from himself the fact that he was disappointed in her, that now and again, he forgot that he was; and as soon as she had left the Presence Chamber, honored as no woman had ever been honored before, he began to think, What next? And during his serious talk with the French Ambassador, he had a brilliant inspiration.
He was, as Anne had told Emma, worldly-wise; and he knew that the King of France, unfaithful husband as he was, would not bring his Queen to meet the King of England’s mistress; so he forestalled that possible snub by saying, “I have no wish to meet the Queen of France; in my present circumstance I would as soon see the Devil as a lady in Spanish dress.”
A lady in Spanish dress; that made him think of Catherine; and of his wish to give Anne yet another proof of love and respect…
XXII
Anne was appeased by being decked out in Catherine’s jewels.
Garrett Mattingley, The Life of Catherine of Aragon
THE MORE. SEPTEMBER 1532
CATHERINE WAS WRITING WHEN HARRY Norris arrived. She was always writing, rational, closely-argued letters, urgent and yet controlled, which were unanswered or answered evasively. This one was to the Emperor.
“Though I know that Your Majesty is engaged with gravely and important Turkish affairs, I cannot cease to opportune you about my own, in which almost equal offense is being offered to God. There are so many signs of wickedness being meditated here. New books are being printed daily, full of lies, obscenities, and blasphemies against our Holy Faith. What goes on here is so ugly and against God and touches so nearly the honor of my lord, the King, that I cannot bear to write it.”
She halted her pen and looked up, staring through the window at the gray autumn day. Here and there a bright leaf still clung to the ravaged trees, bravely defiant, but doomed. Even the one which held on longest must fall at last and join the sodden mass wh
ich lay upon the lawn and the flower beds alike. Was she, too, destined to know defeat in the end?
The untended garden was symbolic of her life now. When The More had belonged to Wolsey it had been a gay place, a pleasant summer residence to which to retire when summer baked the London streets, a pleasant place to visit in autumn or winter for a short while with a large retinue, a host of visitors, a crowd of servants. As a permanent dwelling for a few people, living in what was virtually a state of banishment, it was lonely, overquiet, dreary.
There was something eerie in the atmosphere, too. It had been taken, with all the Cardinal’s other properties, by Henry, but it had remained much as it had been. Upon York House and Hampton Court Henry had immediately began to stamp his personality, exorcising that of his fallen favorite, but here something of Wolsey remained. Catherine was free enough of the more vulgar superstitions; Wolsey’s body was coffined, his soul in Purgatory being cleansed of its sins, yet there were times when, along a passage, or on the stairs, she could almost believe that she heard a sound, that combination of the female rustle of silk and the heavy male footstep…All nonsense, and she regarded it as such. What was far more difficult to ignore was the thought that this had been Wolsey’s house, that Wolsey had enjoyed Henry’s trust and favor, displeased him, and died, disgraced and brokenhearted. Had Henry chosen The More as a dwelling place for her, with that in mind?
She had accepted her banishment without protest. Long ago she had declared herself willing to obey him, her husband and her King, in all matters not affecting her conscience and her conscience was not concerned with the site of her dwelling place. Also, the break with the life of the Court had been, in a way, welcome. Anne Boleyn was now supreme there, giddy, witty, pleasure-loving; and although her position was anomalous, inch by inch Catherine’s had been made almost the same. There had actually been a time when Henry and Anne had taken supper together and then watched an entertainment, while Catherine, in her own apartments, had stitched away mending his shirts. A ridiculous situation, rendered all the more freakish by the fact that she and the Concubine, as Chapuys has named her, had never once come into open conflict. Catherine, fundamentally an honest woman, admitted to herself that here the credit was not solely hers. Anne had never openly flaunted her triumph over Catherine, and on more than one occasion had shown surprising tact—as though she knew what was due to an anointed Queen, because she aimed…
Don’t think of it, Catherine now admonished herself, and took up her pen and wrote two lines, and then Sir Harry Norris was announced.
She had always held him in the highest esteem, faithful, discreet, resourceful, handsome and charming; and when, having greeted her, he said, “Madame, I have brought the written order,” she heard the diffident, somewhat regretful note in his voice and hastened to put him at his ease.
“I was expecting it,” she said. “Everything is ready.”
On the previous day the Duke of Norfolk had come to her and asked her to hand over all the jewels which belonged to the Queen of England. His Grace, he said, wished to give them to the Marchioness of Pembroke so that she might be properly equipped for her visit to France.
Catherine had brought into play the subtlety for which her father, Ferdinand of Aragon, had been famous.
“But,” she had said, “His Grace has expressly forbidden me to send him anything.”
“And that, Madam, as you well know, meant no gifts at Christmas or New Year,” Norfolk had replied with his usual bluntness.
She said, “Also, it would be against my conscience to assist in the adorning of a person who is the scandal of Christendom.”
Norfolk had thought, irritably, that he was sick in the belly at all this talk about conscience. He never mentioned his own, though it gave him trouble enough. He was a firm, orthodox Catholic, and he was also his King’s faithful subject and with every passing day, every hour almost, the two things became more difficult to reconcile.
He was also—but this was incidental—the uncle of the person who was the scandal of Christendom, so he said shortly,
“Madam, you refuse to hand over the stuff?”
“Without the King’s written permission, yes, my lord. After all, I hold them in trust and should not relinquish them upon a mere verbal request. Would you?”
Norfolk had looked at Catherine for a moment with envy and respect. With her no half-measures, no compromise; she was a Catholic and the Head of the Catholic Church had given her leave to marry Henry and she’d go to her grave believing herself his lawful wedded wife. Nor was she alone in her belief…And he had thought—If Darcy and Dacre and Fisher and More, if the Emperor, and the Pope…if they all came out openly in her defense, why then I…And so he had gone away bearing a heavier burden than the jewels of the Queen.
Catherine had known that Henry would try again. Not of his own will. Anne would never accept defeat.
And there, by some fantastic quirk of circumstance, was the similarity between the Princess of Aragon and the granddaughter of a London merchant.
Now, saying “Everything is ready,” Catherine indicated a casket of sandalwood, the size of a small coffin, which stood on a table.
“May I see the order?”
It was written in a clerk’s hand and signed with the King’s unmistakable H R. The sight of the signature hurt her; but it was not Henry’s doing. He’d been nagged, cajoled, persuaded. And because she could cajole and persuade and nag and sulk, Anne would go to France loaded with the jewels of the Queen of England—the diamond and sapphire necklace given to Anne of Bohemia by Richard II; the diamond and emerald necklace hung about the neck of Catherine of France by Henry V on the day of their son’s christening—these Catherine had valued especially because they had been given to Queens whose husbands had loved them. There was a great mass of ornaments for which she had no particular feeling, and also one set, most magnificent, a headdress, earrings, necklace, bracelets, broach and rings of emeralds, rubies, and diamonds which she had never worn because they had been given by Edward II to Isabella, the She-wolf of France who had proved to be a bad, false wife to him. There were some curious, almost worthless trinkets of great antiquity, dating back to the time when England was a poor country, a rosary of carved coral, a belt clasp of silver set with onyx and mother-of-pearl, a little fernleaf broach of jade. She had valued them all for the sake of their history.
But she now said, calmly, “The inventory is there. And here is the key.” Then she touched the massive gold collar which she was wearing. “This, Sir Harry, is my own, given me by my mother when we parted. His Grace will not mind, I think, if I retain it; it was never owned by any other English Queen.”
Norris said, “Of course, Madam, His Grace would never dream…”
Something in his voice encouraged Catherine to mention a piece of gossip that had been handed on yesterday by one of the Duke’s attendants to one of hers.
“There is a rumor that the King intends to go through a form of marriage with Lady Pembroke when they reach Calais. Has it any foundation?”
“I have heard nothing of it, Madam.” He wished it might be true.
“I have heard it, even here. Sir Harry, I wish you would carry, a message from me to His Grace. Tell him I speak from love of him and from concern for his immortal soul. Tell him that I am his wife until His Holiness decrees otherwise, and if, before that time, he stands before God’s altar and makes a mockery of the sacrament of marriage he must answer for his sin on the Day of Judgment. Tell him, too, that he may be called to account for the imperiling of her soul. Every time he accedes to her, as in this matter,” she glanced at the jewel casket, “he is encouraging her to demand more and more as the wage of sin.”
Norris said, “Madam, to my certain knowledge, the Lady has never asked anything of His Grace, except marriage. People lie about her. They’ll say now that she asked for your…for the Queen’s jewels, and I know she—” He broke off in confusion, not wishing to say, point-blank, to this woman who still reckone
d herself the King’s wife, that the King himself had had the idea of demanding back the Queen’s jewels. He began again. “They malign her. There is no woman alive who cares less for trappings and trivialities. Whatever His Grace gives her, he gives. I assure you, she would die sooner than ask for anything.”
Catherine was utterly unable to believe or accept that; it was in direct opposition to her view of Henry, the good, kind husband who had been seduced and was being exploited. She seized upon the obvious explanation; Harry Norris was another man who had fallen under the spell.
She said gravely, “If you can believe that you can believe anything, and I pity your credulity. Take what you came for, and go.”
XXIII
The favourite diversion of Anne Boleyn and the King seems to have been cards and dice. Henry’s losses at games of chance were enormous; but Anne…appears to have been a fortunate gamester.
Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England
WHITEHALL. JANUARY 1533.
HENRY AND ANNE WERE PLAYING cards as they so often did nowadays when they were alone together and no entertainment was taking place. Concentration upon the game served to hide the fact that they no longer had much to say to one another, that it was no longer enough for Henry simply to be in her company. Of all the words ever spoken by a human tongue none were truer than Mary’s when she said, “And then…then suddenly it is all over. The things you did and said, that used to please so much, no longer please.” Ever since August she had pleased him less and less, and her awareness of the change had made her nervous, and thus less likely to please.
She had one consolation; he had, so far, given no outward sign of lessened esteem; indeed the reverse was true. Her measuring stick was, oddly enough, Chapuys, the Spanish Ambassador: he was often at Court, he was Catherine’s friend and therefore her enemy, and he was independent. He had christened her “the Concubine,” and though compelled to treat her with seeming courtesy, there was always in his eye an expression of enmity, tinged with contempt, and caution. Contempt for her as a person, caution for what she represented. Ever since August she’d watched him most carefully. He was supremely well-informed; if Henry had ever, by word or look, by the flicker of an eyelid, a movement of the lip, intimated that her reign was over, Chapuys would be the first to know, and the first to show that he knew. She had watched, taut, wary, to see that look of contempt flavored with caution change to one of contempt flavored with triumph. And the change had never come.