by Karen Harper
“The Howards were never like the Boleyns have been, not in the old days at least. But soon I had the children here to love and raise—George first, then Mary, and baby Anne.” She dabbed at her wet cheeks and eyes and continued to sit erect and neither Mary nor Staff nor Semmonet dared to interrupt, even with attempted consolation. “All was golden in those years for me at Hever because my lord had only his own skills to barter and he was happy as he rose high and proud and tasted the possibilities of power. But then, he took Mary and used her far away in France and then back at the English court...and then Anne and George and...he, oh, dear God in heaven, he has ruined all his children’s joy and now will murder two of them, and I love him still!”
She sobbed gaspingly on Mary’s shoulder, and Mary’s own tears wet her mother’s head. Then, amazingly, Lady Elizabeth sat ramrod straight and said, as if to Staff alone, “You see, my lord, when Mary’s sister became the queen, I dreamed that perhaps, perhaps we would be safe now, for there was no higher place for my husband’s desires to climb. But I was wrong. Nothing stops this king—not love, not gratitude, not marriage—he just pulls them all down at his feet and tramples them.”
“A legal son is the only protection any woman or family shall have from him, lady,” Staff’s voice came almost breaking. “But I believe he may not be capable of a healthy son. If so, there stands your little namesake, the red-haired princess. Now, if you would listen, Mary has some things she wishes to tell you.” He nodded to Mary and she searched her mind for the words and phrases she had rehearsed on every jog of the road between Banstead and Hever.
“When I saw Anne the two days we were at Greenwich, mother, she was much changed, resigned, inwardly strong and not afraid. We must hold to that. And she was warm and kind to me, so kind. She has arranged for my oldest son to be my ward should...should the queen die...and that Staff and I may have him to Wivenhoe for visits, and I promise you he shall come here also if you would have him. And Catherine is to be raised with the Princess Elizabeth and to visit us whenever Elizabeth goes to court. Anne gave me some jewels for Catherine and Elizabeth to give to them...if...well, when they are old enough to understand. But, if the king takes his terrible revenge, who shall ever understand?”
“But that is what I was thinking, Mary,” Elizabeth Boleyn returned, her voice warm and strong. “If the king pulls them all down, and if he dares to imprison or harm Anne and George, if these false charges should be published, they will all poison little Elizabeth’s ears, over the years. But we—all of us, especially those of you who are younger than I—must tell the child the truth of the good things of her mother and family. That is what I have been thinking over and over all this long morning since the messenger came.”
“Yes, mother. And Harry and Catherine are old enough to be told the truth, and they will not forget. They will tell Elizabeth. Little Andrew will know someday too. Staff will ride to bring him here tomorrow, for we are staying at Hever a while if you will have us.”
“Have you? Yes, my dearest one, do not leave me. My pretense of strength is over. You must tell us truthfully, Staff, what will happen. You have always told the truth here, I think.”
Staff’s worried brown eyes sought Mary’s for comfort and returned to the steady blue-eyed gaze of his mother-in-law. “There will be a trial, Lady Elizabeth, and the king will try very hard to rid himself of the Boleyns so that he may marry elsewhere. At best, Anne and George may be exiled and...”
“Oh, do you think it a possibility, Staff?” Elizabeth’s thin hand gripped Mary’s wrist in excitement. “Anne would love to live in France if she escapes this. We could visit there someday.”
“It is a possibility. But I think, with Anne’s inner fire and backbone—and the fact that she will believe she has nothing else to lose but her life if she agrees to exile—she will cling to being queen and make him take it from her.”
“She is innocent of all his charges!”
“Yes, lady. Mary and I and most of the court know that, but His Grace wants to convince himself otherwise to clear his wretched conscience.” Staff continually gripped and wrung his hands. Mary had never seen him so distraught, though his face appeared quite calm.
“That bitter-cruel Jane Rochford has helped to cause all this. She dares to swear false unholy charges against Anne and her husband! But then, it is the poisons of their forced marriage coming out at last. My lord must answer to that too. The only thing Anne and George were ever guilty of was love of power, and that they learned at their sire’s knee. Tell us, then, Staff, for Mary can bear it and I shall too—what is the worst that might befall?”
“The most ominous sign I see is that the king is so desperate that he is willing to let two of his closest friends, Norris and Weston, fall with the queen. And the crazy charges of witchcraft he allows his henchman Cromwell to drag out of the closet show his unbending attitude. The worse, lady, is that the innocent shall be declared guilty and shall pay the king’s price for his own sins. Thank God Mary and I are well rid of him!” Tears stood in Staff’s eyes, and Mary crossed the little space of carpet to touch him.
“Well, my children, spring is coming and spring always comes to Hever with beauty and consolation. I have seen that many times. You must rest now. You have not even been to your room. Semmonet and I shall await you here, and I shall order food and wine. I wish to talk some more to Semmonet.”
They stood awkwardly and Mary resisted the impulse to embrace her mother since she seemed suddenly so in control of herself. They went up the broad staircase to Mary’s old room. The doors to all three of the children’s childhood bedrooms stood ajar and Mary wondered irrationally if ghosts lurked there or ever would. The servants had been about and their clothes were on the bed and fresh water and linen towels waited on the massive bureau. Staff leaned on the ledge and gazed out the window toward the bare gardens while Mary quickly unpacked the purse of Anne’s jewelry and unfolded the legal parchment promising her control of her children.
“She did not ask you the next question, Staff.”
“No. She already knows the answer to that.”
“He cannot dare to behead his own queen!”
“That is why he will try to prove she is not his legal queen. He will use the witchcraft or the fact that you were once his concubine or whatever moral arguments he has to rid himself of a legal, God-given, and crowned queen.”
Mary walked slowly to him, the stiff parchment roll clasped to her breast. “He would never order me to come back to testify that we were lovers so that he can cite his own incest.”
“I have reasoned it out and I think you are right. He does not dare to do that since he has charged your brother with that same heinous crime. Oh, Mary, I do not know. I am so sick at heart and soul of it all!” He pulled her roughly against him and the parchment in her hands rustled against his shoulder. “I am so exhausted from trying to out-think him and protect you and keep us untouched and at Wivenhoe.”
His admission of weakness and fright terrified her, for she had never really thought that the confident, assured, and sometimes cynical man she loved could be truly tired or afraid. “But I am here and you may lean on me, my love, always,” she said low. “Whatever befalls the Boleyns, it is partly of their own making and it is a far different thing from our dreams.” Her arms went around his waist and she hugged him hard.
“I seem to have heard those words before, sweet Mary. You are my strength now, you and Andrew. So we shall help your mother and get through this somehow.”
“Our strength shall be that we are together,” she murmured against his chest, and they stood for a very long time at the window.
The messengers came and went from Lord Boleyn over the weeks of Anne and George’s imprisonment and the days of their trials. At Hever they despaired when the three commoners whom the king had raised so high and Anne’s little lutenist were declared guilty and condemned to die. And their hopes rose again when they heard of Anne’s fine defense of George and herself at her
trial. Both Jane Rochford and their cousin Sir Francis Bryan had successfully survived the dreadful storm of accusations by totally disassociating themselves from the Boleyn family, which had originally been their making at court. Their Uncle Norfolk sat, with continual tears in his eyes, it was reported, as judge of the proceedings, so his desertion of his blood relatives was complete. Mary had asked that Staff burn all of Cromwell’s letters to them from the past two years when Staff returned on one of his biweekly visits to Wivenhoe, for Cromwell was both artist and architect of the disgusting cruelty and despicable charges in Anne’s court of justice.
After Anne’s condemnation, they still dared to hope, for the king had called a special court to declare that Anne Boleyn had never been lawfully married to Henry Tudor since she herself had made a pre-contract with her long-lost love Harry Percy. But even the court’s assurance to the king that he had never been legally married to the witch queen was not to be Anne’s salvation. She was condemned to be beheaded for treason, incest and adultery in the Tower. Norris, Weston and her brother George would die the day before.
Anne’s death day dawned clear and fair that May. Mary rose to watch from her bedroom window as the sun sifted its earliest rays upon the spring gardens at Hever. She was not certain she had slept at all and knew Staff had dozed fitfully. They had both paced the room or gone next door to watch Andrew sleep. Once Mary had met her mother at the nursery door and hugged her wordlessly.
Staff rolled out of bed and padded barefoot to stand behind her at the window. “I was wondering,” she said, “if it makes it easier or harder to die on such a beautiful day.”
He stood warm against her back and pushed the window wide ajar and inhaled the sweet, fresh air. “I think it would make it easier, like something special to take with you,” he said quietly. “She takes your love with her, Mary. She knows that. Were you trying to send your thoughts and strength to her again?”
“Oh, yes, my love, yes!” she cried and turned to bury her face against him as she had in weaker moments these last two months.
His arms went strong and sure around her. “I love you, my golden Mary. I have always loved you.” His voice faltered. “Yet I am not certain saying ‘love’ is strong enough to tell it all—all of how deeply I have felt for you over the years. The dear Lord in heaven knows I would have killed the king if he had touched you that last time we were at court—when Anne sent for you.” He paused again, then his voice came rough and hard, “As well as I could have broken Francois’s damned royal neck with my bare hands for his brutal treatment of you.”
Mary’s hands darted to her throat involuntarily and her thoughts jumped from Francois to Anne again. Anne’s slender neck would be broken by a sharp headsman’s sword, and on such a sunny day!
“Sweetheart.” Staff’s hands were warm on her waist. “Come away from the window. I did not mean to speak such violence. There has been enough killing,” he said against her hair. He lifted her in his arms as sure and strong as he had that first time in the vast reaches of Greenwich when she had been Will Carey’s wife and had thought that her life ahead would be all darkness. He laid her carefully on the sheets in the morning sunlight which streamed through the window. He lay beside her and pulled her against his body. She sighed and clung to him desperately, trembling, but no tears came as they had over the long weeks of Anne’s trial, the long weeks of waiting for George’s and Anne’s deaths.
She pressed her face into his shoulder to stop the thoughts of Anne and George on the scaffold. But her eyes shot open as she pictured the poor girl, Meg Roper, receiving from the cruel pike her father’s terrible head and cherishing it tenderly in her arms. Sir Thomas More had been beheaded at the king’s cold command as Anne had today. And now, surely, Mary’s own father was somewhere on the road to Hever.
They lay there, unspeaking, and the bird warbling from outside washed in with the sun and mingled with their quiet breathing. She stared at the white plaster ceiling that had watched her as a girl and it all came flooding back. Father was taking her to Brussels, but she was afraid and only eight years old. Then he took her away to France, and after she went, George and Anne still laughed together in the summer gardens and it was not fair. Had any of the Bullens loved each other enough along the way, knowing that they loved and cherished each other? But it was different with her and Staff. And for her children, it would be even better. She would spend the rest of her life making sure of that.
Rapid knocks rained on their door and they both shot upright as Nancy’s voice came to them from the other side. “Your lord father has ridden in, my lady. He is in the solar. Little Andrew is with your mother. Shall I come in to help you dress?”
They were up and Staff had his breeks on and his shirt half tucked in when she finished talking. Mary dashed to retrieve her chemise and to brush her hair. “Yes, yes, Nance, and hurry.”
Nancy dressed her and would have set her hair had not Staff stood ready and had not her heart pounded so to see her father. He was here at last, come home to Hever, but he had come too early to have stayed for Anne’s beheading. He had failed to save his world, but he had come home to them at Hever.
Nancy helplessly left her mistress’s hair long and loose and gave it a last quick brush. Mary descended the stairs on Staff’s arm. She began to tremble uncontrollably. She was terrified to hear the news he would bring and terrified she would see no understanding in his eyes even now. And the cold, hard stare from the king’s portrait at the bottom of the steps.
“Do not fear, my love,” Staff said and pushed the door open.
Her father paced in broken lines before the unlit hearth and her mother sat slumped back in a chair near him. The morning sun made the room strangely bright and cheerful and stained patches of the carpet and walls red or blue through the windows.
Thomas Boleyn stopped, and his narrow eyes took them in. It seemed to Mary he had shrunk inward and his gaze seemed to come from deep inside some dark space. “You cry not, Mary. How often I have seen you cry, but not for Anne?”
“I have cried and prayed for my dear sister and brother for two long months, father, when you were not here to see. Now the only tears I have left are inside.”
His eyes focused hard on her and he began his rehearsed words. “The queen is dead by now—murdered by the king—as was your brother yesterday. George died bravely, they told me, and I know the queen must have too. I could not stay to hear of that. Anne was quite magnificent at her trial. Be that as it may, they both wished to be remembered to you, Mary, and Anne to your husband also. I had a note from Anne to you somewhere, but in my departure, I seem to have misplaced it. It will arrive packed in with my things somewhere. Anne bid me tell you to relate her love—and the truth of her unjust death—to the Princess Elizabeth when she is old enough to understand. She wanted both you and little Catherine to be sure to look to that.”
Mary left Staff standing behind her mother’s chair with his hands on her shoulders and took two steps closer to her father. “I shall see to it as a solemn trust, father. Anne gave Henry Carey into my keeping also, though there are other monies for his education.”
“Yes, she told me so.” He said nothing else and continued to regard her awkwardly as though she were a person he did not know.
“And you, father?” She reached out carefully and rested her fingers on his tense arm.
“I, Mary?” He pulled away and began to pace again. “I have failed, failed completely.”
“But mother and I still love you, father,” she ventured shakily. “You have Hever.”
“Hever? Love? I spoke of all our plans. That black reptile Cromwell has been elevated to my vacant office of Lord Privy Seal. Traitors, traitors all! Norfolk her judge, the whining bitch Rochford their condemner—no wonder George could never love her or get her with child! And your dear cousin Francis Bryan was only too happy to ride to Jane Seymour and tell her that the queen had been condemned! Damn them all! Rats always leave a sinking ship no matter how grand or
important the ship or the fact it might have yet been saved.”
“My lord was telling me that we are not to have their bodies to bury,” came Elizabeth Boleyn’s rasping voice as she looked vacantly at Mary. “The guards were to bury them under the floor of the little church within The Tower where the jailers worship. At least it is a consecrated church though no place for a Howard and a queen. What did you call that church, my lord?”
“Saint Peters-in-Chains, Elizabeth.”
“Yes. At least it sounds somehow appropriate. I pray they will bury their heads with their bodies, so that on resurrection day they will be raised guiltless in His eyes.”
“Guiltless, maybe not, my dear, but innocent of the dreadful crimes of which the king sought to brand them. Kingston promised he would see to that as you asked, madam.”
“Thank you, Thomas. That mattered greatly to me. And the king will not harm Elizabeth?”
“I told you, no. Elizabeth is declared bastard now, but she is his and he knows it. Tudor is written all over her face.”
“But she has her mother’s skin and eyes and slender hands, father,” Mary put in, and he turned to her again.
Thomas Boleyn refused to sit, but he leaned heavily on the carved mantel and put one still-booted foot on the andiron. “The sandy-haired boy by the gate is your new son,” he said suddenly.
“Not so new, father. He will be three this autumn.”
“Yes. Well, he looks to be quite a Howard.”
“He is a Stafford, father. Not a Boleyn, not a Howard, a Stafford.”
He turned his head to one side and looked at her over his arms folded along the mantelpiece. He pivoted his head farther and stared at her husband. “My wife has told me repeatedly over the years, I assure you, Stafford, of your loyalty and kindnesses to her and your care of her these last two months. For that I am grateful.”