The Concubine

by Norah Lofts

  It was only when they were alone together; when jokes which had once amused Henry fell flat; when his eye wandered while she was speaking; when he did not notice a new gown or a fresh arrangement of the hair that she knew. And the knowledge dealt her a two-handed blow; on the one side a feeling of failure, of having gambled everything on one throw and lost; and on the other a feeling even more painful. She’d never loved Henry, because she loved Harry Percy, but Henry’s love for her had saved her pride, flattered her, bolstered her, given her her opportunity to take revenge upon Wolsey who had ruined her life, justified everything she had done. Take that away, and what’s left, what am I?

  That, until lately, had been a question to which the answer had been unbearable. She’d known herself to be desperate, had mistrusted her own avid welcoming of every hopeful sign, said anxiety, the cold weather, something I ate…

  “Well, for once, I’ve won,” Henry said. “You owe me two shillings.”

  The old geniality was lacking, and he did not look at her, his eyes were on the cards which he was gathering together.

  “It’s early yet,” he said. “We’ll play another game.”

  She said, “I wanted to talk to you.”

  He looked up and said sharply,

  “If it concerns Cranmer, there is nothing to be said. I’ve urged, begged, pleaded for speed in the acknowledging of his appointment, but in this, as in everything else, Clement is determined to keep me waiting. If I were drowning,” he said violently, “going down for the last time and Clement stood there with a rope in his hand, he’d call a consistory to give him permission to throw it. And you know that as well as I do.”

  The last sentence held the note of impatient rebuke with which she was becoming familiar. And, by angering her, it solved the problem which she had been pondering all day—in what words exactly should she break the news.

  She said, “That is a great pity, because I am with child.”

  Once, years before, tilting with the Duke of Suffolk, Henry had taken a blow which had shattered his helmet and knocked him unconscious, and ever since he had been prone to headaches whose onset was heralded by a numbness across the front of his skull. He felt it now, and sat without moving or speaking just long enough for Anne to wonder whether, after all, she had fatally miscalculated and instead of pleasure he felt the dismay that such news might bring to any ordinary unmarried man. Then he said, and his voice shook,

  “You are sure?”

  “As far as one can be of such things.” He rose, overturning the card table, came to her, put his arms about her body and his head in her lap and burst into tears.

  She felt more tenderly toward him at that moment than ever before, and pressing her hands against the crisp russet hair, thought of the child, not as the long awaited prince, not as her foothold on security, but as a little boy, like Henry to look at, with all his good qualities, and none of his bad.

  Presently he asked, “When, sweetheart?”

  “In September.”

  “Then we must be married at once. The day after tomorrow. St. Paul’s day. God in Glory! If only Clement…If only we could do it as it should be done! It’ll have to be a hole-and-corner affair, my love, but I’ll make up by giving you the finest Coronation ever seen.” He gave her a great hug and a hearty kiss and stood up. “Cranmer’s first act, once he’s installed, shall be to declare my marriage to Catherine invalid. In an English Court. I’ve done with Popes. God is my witness that I have tried to keep in with the bungling fool, tried to do everything legally. I’ve been patient, humble, when all I asked was justice. And now, at the greatest moment of my life, instead of being able to cry the good news, I must…” Rage came up and choked him; he beat his fists together. “That’s the end of the Pope in England,” he said again. “But it’ll be legal, sweetheart, never fear. Private, that’s all, and kept secret for a little while. Half a dozen of our most trusted people. And your father and mother, if that would please you.”

  So the end of the tightrope was in sight at last; no farther away then the day after tomorrow. Married, safe, justified. Only now dare she look back and truly face the horror of fear that had gnawed at her all autumn, the fear that she had played her last card and still not won.

  She said, “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!”

  “You must be calm,” said Henry, the experienced father. “No excitement, no exertion. And I tell you this now, whatever you fancy, however fantastic, strawberries in February or green peas in April, just tell me and you shall have them, if I have to send to Turkey!”

  His love had revived, as a rose, worn all day as a nosegay, will revive overnight in water. She was no longer the woman, who, after seeming to promise so much, had disappointed him so sorely and in such a mysterious way. She was the casket wherein lay that one jewel without which all his possessions were valueless. In September, God willing, she would justify him in the sight of all the world, by bearing his son, Henry the Ninth.

  In the heart of the night Anne woke abruptly. She’d been dreaming, but the dream was already beyond recall. It was an unhappy dream, that was all she knew. She’d been alone, frightened and unhappy, which was perverse, for surely tonight, of all nights, she should have slept easy. She lay for a while, remembering Henry’s pleasure and thinking about the day after tomorrow—no, it was after midnight now—tomorrow, her wedding day. And a thought came, unbidden, unwelcome into her mind. Why, if a marriage, a legal marriage, could take place tomorrow, had it been delayed so long? Nothing in the general situation had changed since last August. Had Henry waited, deliberately, until he was sure that she was capable of bearing a child? Whatever the answer to that, one thing was certain: for this child’s sake Henry was at last willing to cast off all Papal authority. Not for his own convenience, not for love of her, but for something which had as yet no life, no name, nor would have until September, he had said, “That’s the end of the Pope in England.”

  She knew she should be glad: for the Pope had been no friend to her.

  XXIV

  The time and place of Anne Boleyn’s marriage with Henry VIII is one of the most disputed points in history.

  Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England

  The King’s marriage was celebrated, it is reported, on the day of the conversion of St. Paul, and because at that time Dr. Bonner had returned from Rome some suspect that the Pope had given a tacit consent, which I cannot believe.

  The Spanish Ambassador in a letter to Charles V

  WHITEHALL. JANUARY 25TH, 1533

  LADY BO SAID BREATHLESSLY, “TOM, put your hand at the back of my waist and push me a little, please. Such steep stairs! And I don’t want to arrive all of a fluster.”

  Wolsey, when he built what he had called York House which was now called Whitehall Palace, had built as he always did, proud and high. From the outside the turrets were impressive, inside they were full of attic rooms, reached by stairs intended for the active legs of young squires and pages, not for the ascent of middle-aged ladies, roused untimely from bed, dressed in their finery, and flustered anyhow.

  Thomas Boleyn had tried to explain to her overnight. The King, he told her, and Anne, were to be married, secretly, very early in the morning.

  “Married? Properly married?”

  “My dear, did you ever hear of anyone being improperly married?”

  “Yes, indeed I did. The King himself, all these years.”

  He laughed. “An apt retort; but untrue. His Grace has been unmarried all these years. Tomorrow he will marry Anne and that will be his first legal marriage.”

  “Then why does it have to be secret? Oh, I know all about the Pope, Tom, it took a bit of understanding, but I did get it clear in my head at last. What I mean is, if as soon as the Pope says that Dr. Cranmer is Archbishop, Cranmer and the King will go against the Pope over the divorce, why does it matter whether the Pope agrees to Cramner being Archbishop or not?”

  “Now that is female logic and quite unanswerable in a
ny terms that would have meaning for you. Look at it this way; suppose you and I fell out and to spite me you thought you’d sell Hever. The sale would be illegal. But suppose I fell ill and gave you something known as power of attorney; then you could act for me and it would be legal, whatever you chose to do. If Cranmer said the King was a free man, before he was confirmed by Papal Bull, it’d mean nothing. When he does it, after he is properly installed, it will have some authority.”

  “Then why don’t they wait?”

  “I imagine that they are tired of waiting. Wouldn’t you be? If you want a more definite answer,” he said teasingly, “I suggest that you ask His Majesty that question, tomorrow morning.

  “You know I would not dare. But I still think, Tom, that it’s all a curious muddle; and if the Pope is to be thrown aside it might as well be done first as last.”

  “That is heresy, my dear. Now. In six months it won’t be. The King clings to the Papacy as a man clings to an aching tooth. A clove will ease it, he says; I’ll bite on the other side, he says. But the end is certain. Tomorrow morning will see the end of the Pope in England.”

  Lady Bo’s mind abandoned its brief concern with great matters.

  “Tomorrow,” she said, “Anne will be married. And now I can confess that all along I’ve had grave doubts, and fears. I thought it all too likely that she had sold her good name for a mess of pottage.”

  “Your terms of exchange are wrong, my dear. It is one’s birthright that one gives for that unappetizing dish.”

  Now here they were, having been admitted by a side door, little used, to judge by the way its hinges squealed. There was no page, no squire in attendance, just that very pleasant young man, Harry Norris, who had indicated the stairs to be climbed. The stairs ascended in a spiral, and for a good part of the way there was a thick woolen rope, fixed by brass rings to the wall, and Lady Bo had hauled herself upward by clutching at it; but at the last turn there was nothing save a stone wall worn shiny and dark by the touch of hands. Faced with that she had asked her husband’s help.

  At the top another of the King’s gentlemen was posted, Thomas greeted him, calling him Heneage. He opened the door for them and they entered the plain whitewashed room on the far side of which an altar had been placed. Nothing else had been done to cheer or beautify the attic and only the candles, burning bravely, mitigated the murky chill of the winter’s dawn.

  The King arrived, attended by Norris and Heneage. He was wearing dull tawny, heavily embroidered in gold. He looked nervous and Lady Bo’s heart went out to him; such a great King, yet so human; so steadily faithful to Anne, and about to take a step which would not only restore her good name—sadly blown upon—but make her Queen of England.

  Then Anne came in, with one of her ladies, Nan Savile, and her woman, Emma. Anne looked magnificent, but alarmingly pale, though that, Lady Bo tried to comfort herself, might in part be due to her dress, a dark cinnamon color, furred with black.

  Last of all the priest entered through a little low doorway behind the altar. He was a stranger, and at the sight of him Lady Bo remembered her own wedding where the priest had been an old familiar friend, part of her ordinary life. Later on, she was to hear a good deal of argument as to who, exactly, had performed the ceremony in this attic; some people said it was Dr. Rowland Lee, one of the King’s chaplains, others said he was an Augustinian Friar named George Browne, Nobody seemed to know for sure; though the King must have chosen him. And not too well, Lady Bo thought, her sense of this being a very odd wedding increased as she realized that the priest seemed not to know exactly what he was there for. He appeared to think that he had been asked to celebrate Mass; but before he could begin the King whispered to Norris, who stepped forward and spoke into the priest’s ear; whereupon he folded his hands with a helpless, puzzled gesture and looked at the King almost piteously.

  “The Pope,” Henry said in a loud, firm voice, “has declared my former marriage invalid. I have that in writing, Sir Priest. I have also permission for this marriage. So, if it please you, proceed with the Nuptial Mass.”

  After a second’s hesitation, during which a strange tension filled the attic room, and Lady Bo, despite the chill, felt sweat break out on her forehead and on her neck, the priest bowed his head; stood for a moment in a subservient attitude and then donned dignity and authority as though they were vestments and proceeded to speak the words that bound Henry and Anne together for life.

  Lady Bo found herself inclining to melancholy. No choir, no bells, no hilarious guests, no presents. She belonged to a class where wedding presents mattered. And though Anne would not be setting up house and had no need for such practical tokens of goodwill as linen, blankets, pewter dishes and candlesticks, churns and milk skimmers, still her stepmother wished to give her something, and last evening, going through her own possessions, had chosen a necklace of onyx and crystal beads which she herself considered very handsome. Tom had said, bless her soft heart and her softer head, what use did she think Anne would have for such a trinket; when she had accompanied the King to France she had been so plastered with gems of incalculable worth that one could not look at her without blinking. Lady Bo had made the answer that came into her head—that it was the spirit of the gift which counted, because she had learned that her Tom, except where she herself was concerned, was completely without sentiment, just as some people were colorblind or tone-deaf. But she had not put the beads away; she had them in her pocket and if an opportunity occurred she intended to slip them into Anne’s hand.

  And then it was over; and suddenly cheerfulness blossomed in the cheerless little room. Henry’s taut, fidgety manner gave way to geniality, and Anne, though still pale looked radiant. Lady Bo curtsied to Henry and would have curtsied to Anne, but before she could Anne put her arms around her and kissed her.

  “I wish you well, dear,” Lady Bo said, and made her little gift. “And I pray God send you happy all the days of your life.”

  “And no good wish for me, Lady Wiltshire?” Henry asked. “Oh indeed, your Grace, yes. Every good wish in the world.”

  He thanked her and said he could never regard her as a mother-in-law, she was too young and too comely; and he slapped Thomas on the shoulder, and cracked jokes and hugged Anne, and gave for a little while such an impression of being young, transported with delight on the greatest day of his life that Lady Bo found herself thinking of country weddings she had known, and all the trappings, the worn old shoe thrown to represent the abandoned past, the herring, symbol of fertility, the expressions of goodwill, coarse maybe, but hearty and apt. She might even so far have forgotten her shyness as to have voiced one traditional wedding wish, had Henry not said,

  “Come, sweetheart. You have been standing long enough. We must take good care of you now.”

  Oh dear, oh dear, Lady Bo said to herself; so that’s the way it is! That is why there was so much haste that we mustn’t wait for the Archbishop and a proper wedding.

  Still, Anne had managed well; and this morning’s ceremony constituted in Lady Bo’s eyes the wished-for happy ending. And there was another thing, too. Children conceived out of wedlock did tend to be boys. It was as though God knew that there was a risk of bastardy and thought the handicap of illegitimacy enough, without the added one of being female. So perhaps Anne had managed even better than she realized.

  Going, with less effort, but with care, down the twisting stairs Lady Bo thought of one of the things country people, full of good meat and ale, said to bridegrooms, “Go to it, bor, and remember, God made Adam afore Eve.”

  XXV

  He sent yesterday the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to the Queen to tell her that she must not trouble herself any more nor attempt to return to him seeing that he is married and that henceforth she is to abstain from the title of Queen.

  The Queen’s Chamberlain came to notify her that the King would not allow her henceforth to call herself Queen and that at the close of one month after Easter he would not defray her expenses n
or the wages of her servants…She replied that as long as she lived she would call herself Queen…Failing for food for herself and her servants she would go out and beg for the love of God. Although the King himself is not ill-natured, it is this Anne who has put him in this perverse and wicked temper.

  The Spanish Ambassador in letters to Charles V

  AMPTHILL. APRIL 1533

  “…AND IT IS HIS MAJESTY’S express wish and command, that you should henceforth refrain from using the title of Queen and be known as the Dowager Princess of Wales.” That was the end of a longish speech which the Duke of Norfolk had, with some effort, committed to memory, and having delivered it he drew a long breath of relief.

  Catherine said, “The King’s wish has always been, and will always be, a command to me.”

  That was capitulation at last. Norfolk and those who had come to support him congratulated themselves upon the ease with which their mission had been accomplished.

  “Subject always,” Catherine said, “to two overriding authorities.”

  “And they are, Madam?”

  Now let her mention the Pope and the Emperor and she was speaking treason; and if she were a traitor Chapuys, the busybody Imperial Ambassador, could cease his whining about how a helpless, inoffensive woman was being persecuted.