by Deryn Lake
Genuine tears sprang into Henry’s eyes. ‘Oh Nicholas, Nicholas,’ he gulped. ‘What a storm that wicked hack has led me into. Thank God that at last I can sail into peaceful harbour.’
‘Amen, amen,’ intoned Carew, bowing his head to hide his triumphant smile.
‘Now stand, my friend. You who have been so good to both Jane and myself has no need to kneel.’
Carew took his time before rising. ‘Your Grace, would it be permissible to inform my wife of your betrothal? I thought perhaps a small celebration later …’
‘My betrothal,’ beamed Henry. ‘How good that sounds. Why I truly believe that this will be my first marriage, for the union with my brother’s widow was illegal and this one will be proved null and void. I am a lover, bound for his mistress to win her hand. In a sense I am reborn.’
The sovereign’s earlier pensive mood had vanished altogether for now he tapped his foot with impatience.
‘Tell those men to row faster, Nick. I long to be with my sweetheart.’
Slightly sickened, the hypocrisy smarting in his mouth, Carew said, ‘Will you marry soon, Your Grace? Because of the succession,’ he added hastily as Henry frowned.
‘The Queen has yet to be tried by her peers, Sir Nicholas,’ the King answered pompously, with one of those strange changes of tack that was so typical of him. ‘As you know it is high treason for the monarch’s spouse to have unlawful intercourse. And it is for treason that she will eventually be arraigned. But, it is the law that she is innocent until proved guilty. I am not yet free.’
‘Of course,’ murmured Carew and said no more, realising that he had made a false move. Henry, however, rumbled on.
‘If the Queen is found guilty then it is a capital offence and justice must take its course. In that eventuality I will wait for Parliament’s request that I marry again, then I shall, of course, obey the wish of the country.’
Nicholas again murmured, ‘Of course,’ and wished the words did not stick quite so hard in his throat. With a mighty effort he cleared his mind and thought only of Princess Mary.
‘Then may I tell my wife, Sir?’
‘I would not have it otherwise. Cut off from Court as she is, Jane must have another woman with whom to share her joy.’
‘But her cousin attends her here, Your Grace’. Henry wrinkled his brow and Nicholas went on, ‘A funny little thing with an impossible name. She has apparently lived with the Seymours for years, and came to Court with Anne and Edward.’
‘A tiny gypsy creature, quite dark?’
‘Yes, Your Grace.’
Henry smiled tolerantly. ‘A touch of something odd there. Born with a baton sinister in her coat of arms, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Indeed, I believe that is true.’
‘Ah well,’ said Henry, ‘if her presence makes Jane happy then I am delighted.’
‘Indeed,’ answered Nicholas, and relapsed into silence, watching the oarsmen.
The evening was mellow, not fiercely bright as in the height of summer but full of a warm peach-coloured glimmer. As the King’s barge rounded the river’s serpentine bends it could be seen that the water was sprinkled with gold-dust, while over to the west the sun resembled an orange as it gracefully sank amidst bands of rainbowed clouds. In the gardens of Carew’s house, now clearly visible as the craft approached his territory, dusk was already gathering, the host of spring flowers standing out pale as ghosts in the dimness, while the sundial — ever present to remind man of his mortality — pointed a thin white finger at the sky.
In the gloaming people could be seen making their way towards the landing stage and Carew, peering, made out the figure of his wife, tall and stately of movement, her dark face, as always, secretive and shuttered, and that of Jane, gloriously informal, her hair which streamed flaxen and long, about her shoulders. Behind them at a respectful distance walked the wisp of a girl, Cloverella.
As the King’s oarsmen slid the barge easily alongside the mooring ring, Henry stood up, his face lit by a smile, his small mouth at full stretch. Looking at him, Lady Carew, who had sported in Katharine of Aragon’s chamber and mopped the Queen’s brow when she had been brought to bed of a boy who died as he saw first light, felt once again the familiar swell of hatred. She had loved Katharine deeply, been her friend and associate. They had laughed together as young women when, playing the part of a lady from Savoy, Lady Carew had danced for Katharine in her bedchamber, dressed in blue velvet, a bonnet of burnished gold upon her head. The Queen had been pregnant and had not dared risk cavorting, so the King had been partnered by Elizabeth Blount, fifteen and holding her slut’s mouth provocatively close to that of Henry. Even now the memory of that night and of the Queen’s distress when Elizabeth had later presented the King with a bastard boy, made the loyal woman shiver. Sir Nicholas had nicknamed her Eve, for he said her looks reminded him of dusk, and now, indeed, she grew dark.
‘Lady Carew,’ said the King gustily, stepping ashore and giving her a cursory greeting, whilst his eyes immediately sought Jane’s and then misted with sentiment when she smiled.
‘Your Grace,’ answered Eve and felt herself grow astonished. Mistress Seymour, far better known to her husband than Lady Carew, and whom Eve had rather suspected of being nothing more than a little opportunist, was alight with love, her eyes fervently staring into those of the King, her cheeks paling and blooming with every breath.
‘Your Grace,’ tried Eve again, ‘welcome to our home. Would you care for refreshment immediately?’
He turned on her a strange look and Lady Carew remembered how she had been ostracised, frozen out, when she had refused to come to Court after Henry’s love for Anne had been made public. Now he loved another and by Fate’s sweet jest it was one who had also loved Katharine. Eve hooded her eyes to hide the thoughts within them as she waited for his reply.
‘First, Lady Carew, I would take a turn about the gardens with Mistress Seymour. I have something of great import to impart to her.’ The play on words obviously echoed his mood, for he laughed feverishly.
Eve curtsied her acquiescence and at that moment her husband came to stand beside her, having nimbly jumped ashore from the barge. Without his even touching her, Eve felt a current of excitement pass between them and knew, as couples of many years standing often do, that he was telling her something important. She swept him a brief glance and in it read that they were about to triumph, that this night would see an irrevocable change in events, that there was now no doubt left that Henry would marry Jane.
‘Then all will await Your Grace’s pleasure,’ Eve said pleasantly. ‘Come, husband, let us go within.’
She turned and laid her hand on Nicholas’s arm, noticing that the oarsmen had already alighted and were making their way towards her kitchens. With a silent sigh of relief, Eve realised that the King and his lady would be private together for this great occasion, then remembered Cloverella and looked round for her. But the girl had gone, slipping into the dusk as silently as one of the deepening shadows.
‘So,’ said Henry, watching the departing figures, ‘now we are truly alone. Oh my sweet mistress, you will never know how I have longed for you.’
‘And I for you,’ answered Jane. ‘Will this separation ever come to an end?’
Knowing from Carew how things were turning against Anne Boleyn this was said as a test of her lover’s affection, a bait to draw him out.
‘Very soon now,’ he answered huskily and snatched her into his arm, crushing her against him. Where another woman might have struggled, Jane only pressed closer and her sensuality drove Henry to frenzy. Barely able to control his passion, he now knew quite certainly that he had found his soulmate at last, that Jane was the wife he had always sought.
‘I vowed I would not touch you again until I could honestly make you my betrothed,’ he breathed.
He felt the girl tremble. ‘Are you saying that the moment has come at last?’
‘It has, sweetheart, it has. For reasons that I cannot
yet tell you my marriage has finally ended.’
She broke free of him and ran towards the river, now gleaming crimson with the sun’s last defiant rays. Already the moon was up, soaring in triumph as the sun died, and it was in her beams that Jane now bent her head and sobbed.
Catching her up, Henry wiped her eyes. ‘Why do you weep, sweetheart, on such an occasion?’
‘Because,’ she said, half crying, half laughing, ‘If you truly want me as your lady it finally proves to me ugliness is unimportant and my ordeal has ended.’
He looked at her through the eyes of love, and saw that in the moonlight her hair was spun silver, her eyes diamonds sparkling in ice, while her skin was as fresh and clear as a snow-covered rose.
‘May I have the honour,’ said Henry Tudor very slowly but very true, ‘of asking the most beautiful woman in the world to become my wife?’
There was no sound other than that of a swan opening its wings on the riverbank. Jane Seymour quietly answered, ‘Yes.’
Chapter Twelve
When the indictments against the Queen were made public there were those, even amongst her enemies, who found some of the charges difficult to believe. That any woman, short of a Roman empress, could have had so many lovers simultaneously for over three and a half years and kept the fact from her husband was barely credible, but that the Queen could do so, surrounded by her ladies, in the very heart of a Court where rumour and whisper were matters of every day, seemed almost impossible.
The gathering storm had broken swiftly after the arrest of Mark Smeaton. On May 1st, with every courtier present at Greenwich for the May Day tournament, Henry and Anne had appeared together in public for what was to be the last time. Apparently angered by the Queen’s dropping of her handkerchief for Sir Henry Norris to carry on his lance, the King had left early and on the journey back to the Palace of Whitehall Norris had been arrested. On the next day the Queen’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, had come by water to escort Anne Boleyn to the Tower, and her brother Lord Rochford had been arrested a few hours later from Whitehall. As if this were not enough, within twenty-four hours the prisoners were joined by Sir Francis Weston, Sir Thomas Wyatt, William Brereton and Sir Richard Page.
It had all been so quick and, to the ordinary people, very unexpected. And when the charges of adultery and incest were given out, many a solid citizen shook his head; for the Queen to have lovers was one thing, but for her to have had intimate relations with her own brother, was a different matter entirely.
And it was not just the common folk of England who were incredulous. Doubt, like a slow poison, struck everywhere and would not go away, consuming the one person in the kingdom who should have been at her happiest. Yet, like a canker, the thought that Anne Boleyn might be innocent of the charges laid against her and merely being put to death to make way for her, Jane Seymour, began to torture the girl to the point where she could no longer carry the burden alone and asked her brother Edward, also removed from Court to stay with the Carews until the tempest was over, if she might speak with him both privately and urgently.
‘What about?’ he had asked. But Jane would not answer him, merely laying a finger to her lips, and putting a note into his hand which read, ‘I cannot speak here. Take me rowing this afternoon, as once you used to do on the Kennet.’ And so, avoiding Anne Seymour and Cloverella, and politely excusing themselves to their hosts, Edward and Jane had clambered into a small craft moored at Sir Nicholas’s landing stage, and he, removing his doublet, had sculled out into the middle of the river.
‘Well, now,’ Edward said, smiling, his dark eyes twinkling very slightly at the sight of Jane’s anguished face, ‘what can be the matter, child? There you sit, the future Queen of England, looking as if you’re on your way to a funeral.’
He wasn’t prepared for the answer at all. He personally had given little thought to the question of Anne’s guilt or innocence. He was a King’s man, through and through, and would serve the crown and his own advancement at one and the same time. But here sat his younger sister, her funny face crumpled and slightly streaked, daring to put into words thoughts that could only be described as treasonable.
Edward heard her in silence but as soon as she had finished speaking burst out with, ‘For God’s sake watch your tongue, girl. What if His Grace should learn of your fears? Why, you could ruin your entire future.’
She looked at him miserably. ‘But what if what I think is true? What if the entire charges are a concoction? A tissue of lies invented by Secretary Cromwell.’
Edward was silent for a second or two, pulling slowly at the oars and staring beyond Jane to where the river bent gracefully.
‘A fine time to start thinking such thoughts. What can be possessing you?’ he said, then knew a brief pity, wondering how he would feel in Jane’s shoes if so great and weighty a matter hung over him.
‘Smeaton confessed,’ Edward added after a moment’s silence, ‘don’t forget that.’
‘But they say he was tortured.’
‘Who says? You’ve not been anywhere to listen to rumours.’
Jane picked at her nails. ‘I heard Sir Nicholas whisper it to Eve. They did not know I was eavesdropping.’
Edward stroked his small black beard. ‘What else have you overheard?’
‘Nothing.’ His sister suddenly looked defiant. ‘But I have a brain, Edward. I can actually think. I have been at Court for longer than you, remember, and I know all the people involved.’
‘So?’
‘So I have opinions and it is mine that none of those men are likely.’
A furious expression crossed Edward’s face. ‘By God’s Holy Blood am I brother to an idiot? You’ll finish us all if you go on like this.’
Jane looked undecided as to whether to hit him or cry. ‘Why do you think I asked you to bring me here? I have expressed these views to no one, not even Cloverella, and I have no intention of doing so. I begged you to give me help yet you do nothing but upbraid me. I see that I must carry this burden alone.’
The diplomat in Edward Seymour rose to the surface instantly. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said soothingly, ‘tell me your fears and let me allay them.’
‘Sir Henry Norris, Ned, is the King’s Principal Gentleman, the only person in the kingdom allowed into his bedchamber. Would he betray His Grace? Sir Francis Weston has a beautiful and lively wife; why should he be unfaithful? But the worst, Ned, oh the worst …’ Jane stopped short, pressing her fists hard against her mouth. ‘… is George Rochford. It would be like you and I …’ Her voice faltered and died away while her face went the colour of blood.
Edward nodded slowly. ‘I know, dear heart, I know.’ He leaned forward and took her hands from her mouth, patting them gently. ‘Why don’t you take a very private decision, never to be repeated to His Grace, that you don’t believe that charge. That it is too unspeakable for you even to credit.’
Jane looked at him attentively for the first time and he went on, ‘As for the rest, why I think that can be easily explained.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes. She was not up to the position, Jane. She flirted and played with men and that is not fitting behaviour for a Queen.’
‘Yes but playing and flirting are one thing, adultery is another.’
‘But how easy to step over the limits. I have no doubt that she had liaisons with them all just to flatter her ridiculous vanity.’
‘But not George?’
It was a question not a statement and Edward paused, mulling over what he actually thought and putting aside his feelings of indifference as to whether the Queen was guilty or not. Eventually, having come to no firm conclusion about the wretched woman, he said what Jane wanted to hear.
‘Certainly not. But never repeat that, Jane.’
‘Then do you think Lord Rochford will be found not guilty?’
‘Quite likely he will.’
For the first time a semblance of cheerfulness came over Jane’s face.
‘Then you do
not believe that all this has been done in order that His Grace might marry me?’
‘Would Smeaton confess to please you? Now stop it. You have said enough. A wicked woman is to be brought to justice and the law must take its course. I’ll hear no more.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jane, ‘thank you, dearest Edward. I could not have lived with those thoughts much longer.’
‘Well now they are gone, dead and buried. You have shared them with me and I have taken them away.’
And with that, Edward closed his mouth determinedly and began to row for the shore.
*
In the hearts of everyone concerned, the outcome of the state trials was already known. On 12th May, the four commoners — Norris, Weston, Brereton and Smeaton — were marched from the Tower to Westminster Hall to be tried, and the specially chosen grand juries of Middlesex and Kent did what was expected of them and found the prisoners guilty. Wyatt and Page, released for want of evidence against them, heaved sighs of relief, and the Queen and her brother — to be tried three days later by the peers of the realm — on hearing the verdict from their gaolers, knew that all was up with them. Secretary Cromwell’s timing of the trials was masterly; with Anne Boleyn’s putative lovers found guilty what hope could there be for her? It was generally agreed that only George Rochford had a chance of escape.
Sir Nicholas Carew, who had taken his place in Westminster Hall to hear the trial, rather wished he had not gone. To the last, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston and William Brereton protested their innocence, though offered mercy if they would but confess. Only Smeaton, who many believed had been racked, confessed to adultery. A strange thought had gone through Carew’s mind at this: had Anne allowed the musician the honour of her bed in order to try and breed a healthy son?
Yet even more disturbing had been the presence of Francis Weston’s wife and mother in court, listening to all the filth being poured out about their dear one. Carew had shuddered seeing their ravaged faces, wishing he was not involved, and believing if it were not for his secret pledge to Katharine of Aragon that he would always protect her daughter, he would have got up and walked out, not waiting to hear the verdicts. But he, like all his fellow courtiers, was always caught up in intrigue of some kind or other and there was no escape from it. Unhappily, he had sat there throughout and drawn the only comfort from the verdicts of guilty; that this day would finally doom Anne Boleyn and clear Jane’s path to the throne for once and for all.