To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn

by Byrd, Sandra

  “I have not let you down, lady mother,” I said afore returning it to its wraps.

  I took Anne’s prayer book in my hand and closed my eyes. “You will always be a part of me, my dearest friend. You wished this for me, I know. Be at peace.”

  After the short service all took their leave. It was just Edithe and I in Will’s chamber.

  “I have never had a more joyful occasion in serving you, lady.” She helped me into a loose, lovely white dressing gown. She brushed my long hair, which hung halfway down my back and around my shoulders.

  “And I am ever thankful to have you here,” I said. She curtseyed politely, made sure the wafers and cheese and wine were set, and took her leave. Shortly thereafter Will came in. He stood looking at me, and I at him, for a full minute. The years of our lives, the many years I thought all was lost, and indeed it was, had been reclaimed and returned to us.

  “You are beautiful, My Lady,” he said quietly. He drew me to him and then drew us both to the foot of the bed, where we sat side by side. He opened my palm and in it put a small silk bag which I recognized as having once been my own.

  “I had this made long ago. Open it,” he urged me.

  I undid the strings and poured the contents into my open hand. A hammered gold necklace, a daisy chain. “There is no gift that could mean more,” I said softly.

  “May I?”

  I nodded and he took the chain into his hand and then fastened it about my neck. When he was finished, he leaned in to kiss me once, twice more, the sweet and then urgent kisses I’d waited for all my life. The kisses of my husband.

  “Te amo,” he whispered to me later as we lay together and watched the moon rise outside the window.

  “Te amo,” I whispered back.

  It was good to speak Latin again.

  Five months hence, before the Christmas celebrations began, Will’s father recalled him. Will insisted that I accompany him. “Do not worry,” he said. “My father cannot abide Rose’s husband, and though he should like young Philip, he does not, and does not care to suffer him to be the heir to two fortunes. Including his own.” He squeezed my hand for comfort.

  I was shown to my rooms, and later that night, after dinner, his father called me forward in his study. “Well, Mistress Wyatt,” he said. “We meet again.”

  I held my tongue and did not correct my title. “Yes, sir. Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “I understand that my son has married you, rather than the great heiress I had chosen for him. You have no remaining dowry and no fortune. Do you bring anything at all to this union, My Lady?”

  I stood fast and said nothing, but smoothed my hands over the sides and front of my thin gown, chosen specially for this reason and worn without stays. As I did, his eyes were drawn to the growing swell of my stomach. His heir.

  He said nothing at all but, for the first time ever, I saw the smallest of smiles twitch on Baron Asquith’s stern face. I allowed myself a small smile in return. We had come to an understanding.

  What I had once so easily dismissed, a simple life as a wife and a mother, had now become my greatest pleasure. I mourned Anne, who had not had the mighty love of a good man, but rather the uncertain affections of a mighty man.

  She will never be forgotten, for certes.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I stood in front of Anne Boleyn on Easter Sunday, or I should say, I stood in front of her portrait at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Because I wanted to reflect on her life but not inhibit others from viewing the painting, I stood a few feet back and let others pass in front of me. Two women of a certain age did just that.

  “Floozy!” one sputtered.

  “Schemer!” her friend hissed as she moved quickly past Anne, who stared, calmly, back.

  I felt as though someone had just spat on a friend.

  Throughout the ages Anne has been portrayed as a man-eater, the woman who used her feminine wiles to woo Henry away from his faithful, aging wife. And while it’s true that Henry sought to divorce Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, the woman, and her story, is much deeper, purer, and more complicated than that. Historian Dr. Eric Ives, perhaps the world’s most respected biographer of Anne Boleyn, says, “Historians see through a glass darkly; they know in part and they pronounce in part.” Maybe there has been more pronouncing than knowing where Anne has been concerned.

  While this is a work of historical fiction, I’ve sought to remain as true to the history as to the fiction. Ives says that Anne “would remain a remarkable woman in a century that produced many of great note. There were few others who rose from such beginnings to a crown and none contributed to a revolution as far reaching as the English Reformation.”

  Anne really was lifelong friends with the sisters of Thomas Wyatt, and they are believed to have accompanied her to the scaffold. The son of the eldest Wyatt sister did have a son named John Rogers who became a priest, and then a Reformer, and was commonly believed to be the first Protestant martyred under Bloody Mary, Henry’s eldest daughter. In my story and genealogy chart, I have switched the names of Meg and her mother and Henry Wyatt’s eldest daughter and her mother for this story so that two “Annes” wouldn’t confuse the reader. Many believe Margaret, Lady Lee, to have been the Margaret in my story, but the birth dates of Henry Wyatt’s children, as well as his first marriage and the birth date of Lady Lee, suggested something else to me, as seen on my genealogy charts and in the story within. Many of the things said and done in the book are actual recorded history, and some, like making Henry and Katherine Carey the illegitimate offspring of Henry VIII and Mary Boleyn, are theories I have adopted based on what I feel is good history. This is true, too, of the private commitment of Anne and Henry in November 1532, espousals de praesenti, formalized by intercourse, which, according to Eric Ives in his biography The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn is a plausible alternative scenario put forth not only by Anne’s and Elizabeth’s supporters but also by those who had no personal stake, and even by soem who had potential motivation to undermine.

  In 1540, just five years after the king made Thomas Cromwell the highest civil and religious authority in the land, after himself, he had him beheaded because he did not like Anne of Cleves, procured for the king by Cromwell. And, perhaps, Henry felt that Cromwell had risen too high, always a danger in Henry’s courts. Henry married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, that very same day. The king seems to have made a practice of tying together murder and marriage.

  Jane Rochford, George’s wife, did die by the sword just six years after Meg had said she might. Jane was found guilty of assisting in arranging clandestine meetings between Henry’s fifth wife, Anne’s cousin Catherine Howard, and Queen Catherine’s lover. Jane was imprisoned in the Tower, declared insane, and finally executed by a single blow of the ax in 1542.

  Meg’s fuller story, of course, is mainly fictional but drawn from the time. Many women, then as now, give their lives to the call of service that goes unrecorded except by the One who notes all and never forgets.

  To learn more about the Tudors and Sandra’s books, please visit www.sandrabyrd.com.

  HISTORICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Over the course of my life I have eagerly devoured hundreds of books, fiction and nonfiction, set in Tudor times and all have influenced and delighted me, but there are several books I hold in highest esteem and referred to time and again while writing this book. I’ve listed them below. In addition I was blessed with the resource of living historians. Principal among them was Lauren Mackay, Tudor researcher, scholar, and master of history/ Ph.D. candidate in Sydney, Australia. Lauren, you are a stealth weapon and I can’t express the fullness of my gratitude. Thanks to Professor Matt Panciera, Latinist at Gustavus Adolphus College, for his critical assistance with Latin. I would also like to thank the aptly named Memory Gargiulo for her Tudor historical insight and ready knowledge and Maureen Benfer, Tudor seamstress extraordinaire.

  PRINCIPAL WORKS OF REFERENCE

  Ives
, Eric. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. 2005.

  Starkey, David. Six Wives: The Queens of Henry the Eighth. 2004.

  Tyndale’s New Testament. Translated by William Tyndale. A modern-spelling edition of the 1534 translation with an introduction by David Daniell. 1989.

  Hamer, Colin. Anne Boleyn: One Short Life That Changed the English-Speaking World. 2007.

  The Love Letters of Henry the Eighth, To Anne Boleyn: And Two Letters from Anne Boleyn to Cardinal Wolsey: With her last letter to Henry the Eighth, and the king’s love-letter to Jane Seymour. Re-printed from the Harleian Miscellany, with an introduction by Ladbroke Black. London: 1933.

  Somerset, Anne. Ladies in Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day. 2004.

  Thompson, Patricia. Sir Thomas Wyatt and His Background. 1964.

  Zahl, Paul F. M. Five Women of the English Reformation. 2001.

  Starkey, David, and Susan Doran. Henry the Eighth: Man and Monarch. 2009.

  Worcester, Sir Robert, KBE DL, Chancellor, University of Kent, History of Allington Castle. 2007.

  Check out the next book in Sandra Byrd's Ladies in Waiting Trilogy

  The Secret Keeper

  and meet Juliana St. John, a member of Kateryn Parr's royal household who holds secrets at perilously high stakes.

  Available June 2012

  Read an excerpt in the following pages.

  PROLOGUE

  Her voice sounded by turns pleased and then pleading, her laughter scaled from bass enjoyment to treble fear. A highborn woman held fast the girl’s arms while the rougher hands of a man ran over the young woman’s jawline, her hairline, her hemline. I could not see his face, but on his left small finger he bore a costly gold and black onyx signet ring. With the other hand he took his dagger and began to slash.

  Pieces of her black gown fell to the ground, one by one, like the locks of a condemned woman shorn before execution, though he stayed himself from touching her bright red hair before sheathing his dagger again. Her woeful face betrayed that she knew this would be her utter undoing. The gown was ruined and the black clumps, which had plummeted to the ground, received the breath of life of a sudden and became a flock of beady-eyed ravens that took wing toward the Tower of London, whilst we watched in horror and dread.

  ONE

  Spring: Year of Our Lord 1542

  St. Peter’s Church, Marlborough

  Hungerford House, Marlborough

  Brighton Manor, Marlborough

  I entered the church on a May morn and allowed my eyes to adjust to the dim light and my body to the chill of the stone-cooled air. I sought Father Gregory, who caught my glance and smiled. I tried to return it in kind but my lips quivered. I waited in the back till he finished lighting the candles before the morning service.

  Once he joined me, he immediately asked, “Daughter, what ails you?”

  My face had betrayed my qualms. No others were around us so I answered him frankly as was my habit. “My mother believes I am a witch. And I fear that she is right.”

  Father Gregory reflexively drew back a little and for the first time I tasted dread. If this man, who knew me well and trusted me to read aloud in his church, might consider the possibility that I was a sorceress, all was lost. All would be lost, whether it were true or not, if my mother had whispered her accusation to any but myself.

  “’Tis not so,” he said soothingly, and then as he was about to say more the rough townsfolk began to pool in the church’s nave like motes on a ray of light. Father Gregory’s face registered surprise, and then humility, and then perhaps a tint of fear. I turned toward the door to look upon whom he’d fixed his gaze: a well-dressed man, the most finely dressed man I had ever seen. The man nodded and approached us.

  Who was he? Was I to curtsey? Cast down my gaze? Take my leave? Before I could decide, the man was upon us and introductions begun.

  Father Gregory bowed. “Sir Thomas Seymour, please allow me to present Mistress Juliana St. John.”

  I decided, quickly, on a short curtsey and a brief, modest dip of the head. This pleased Seymour, who held out his right hand toward me. I took it and he did not wait afore softly kissing my slightly bent knuckles before speaking.

  “I am well pleased to meet you, Mistress Juliana.” His deep brown eyes held my gaze with immoderate affection and I turned away from it. All knew that the Seymour family was the highest, richest, and most powerful family perhaps in the entire realm. Prince Edward, the long-awaited heir to King Henry, was also the son of their sister Jane, the lamented queen who had not lived long enough to enjoy the rewards of her greatest achievement. They flew high and we dared not offend.

  “Mistress Juliana is one of our lectors. Her father, Sir Hugh St. John, God rest his soul, was a great benefactor of the church and also ensured that his children were well educated.” Father Gregory turned toward me. “Sir Thomas was an occasional associate and, er, friend, of your father.” He pointed toward the front of the church. “You’d best prepare for this morning’s reading, Mistress Juliana.”

  I nodded toward Sir Thomas. “I am greatly pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir Thomas.”

  “As am I,” he said, and then bowed toward me, a maiden not yet eighteen, who was well beneath his standing. I gathered my skirts and my courage and made my way to the front, where the chained Great Bible, which had been secured to the altar to forestall its being stolen, was already open.

  Once I began to read out the Acts of the Apostles, I quit, for the moment, of my fears and lost myself in the resonant words of Saint Paul and the upturned faces of the crofters, the millers, and the goodwives, breathing heavily in their mean woolen garb. Sir Thomas remained for the reading but left before the townsfolk did. Afterward, Father Gregory called me back to a quiet closet shut off from hungry eyes and thirsty ears.

  “And now, Juliana. Unburden yourself.”

  I spoke immediately. “You know of my dream.”

  He nodded. “I know a little. Would you like to share its entirety?”

  “About a year ago, shortly after my father died, I began to have a dream. ’Twas not an ordinary dream, but it was powerful and left me in a sweat and fever with my senses vexed,” I said. “My maid, Lucy, would calm me afterward, though she was frightened too.” I forced my hands from twisting ropes of my fine skirts and continued.

  “I saw a barn, a large barn, filled with wheat and livestock of all kinds. And of course the husbandmen and others who tended the flocks and fields. At night, something kindled within the barn and within minutes it was aflame. The livestock and grains were all burnt and the building was too.”

  “Yes?” His voice was gentle but prodded me to continue.

  “At first I had the dream only once, and then six months later it came back. Then after a month, and then a week. Each time the dream would grow more fervent. The heat peeled my skin like parchment and my ears could not refuse the desperate bleating of the animals and the screams of men. One night, I noticed that the doors to the barn looked exactly like the doors to my father’s warehouses. And then, ’twas pressed upon my heart, For this reason you have been shown the fire. After some nights I knew I must tell my mother. It was not a choice but a compulsion.”

  He grimaced, as though swallowing bitter ale. “And she …”

  “Disbelieved me at first. But I was insistent. As you know I am wont to be.”

  We smiled together at that.

  “At some point she said she would approach Sir Matthias about having the warehouses cleaned and sorted and the goods removed to temporary holdings for inventory. She did so. And then I came and told you that was her plan. Within weeks the goods in my father’s warehouses had been moved, and shortly thereafter those warehouses burnt down but the goods were saved.” I met his gaze. “She has had little to say to me since.”

  “She had little to say to you before,” Father Gregory pointed out kindly, but bluntly. “The townsfolk said the inventory came at the right time because your blessed father had been a good
man and this was our Lord’s way of taking care of his family.” He cleared his throat. “Sir Matthias said what of it?”

  “He said nothing at all, which was disturbing. My lady mother has said no more. But lately, I … dreamt. And I know she heard me call out, though my maid sought to wake and still me as soon as she heard my unrest.”

  “Is this another of the same kind of dream?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you told your mother?”

  “I have told no one.” My voice made it clear that I would not be forthcoming, even to him, with the contents of this dream. “But she came to my chamber and saw my countenance. After my maid had left us she declared me a witch.” I swallowed roughly. “Is it true? Am I a witch?”

  I looked at my hands, not wanting to see his face, nor how he might now view me, afore I heard his answer. I desperately wanted to keep his good opinion of me.

  “No,” he said gently. “You are not a witch. Do not let that trouble you again.”

  I sighed with relief, perhaps too soon, and looked up as he spoke. “But others could claim that you are one if they hear of your dreams or do not like the content of them. The penalty for witchcraft is death and forfeiture of all material wealth, no matter how highly born. Wait here.” He rose and left the room, his long black clerical robes sweeping the fine dust beneath them whilst I tried to quiet the worries that beset me.

  When he returned, he handed me a book. “Tyndale,” I said, tracing my finger over the lettering.

  He nodded. “’Twas in the warehouse afore it burnt. Your father was a good, honest man, importing cloth and rugs and tapestries from the Orient and transporting them to England. He also smuggled books.”

  I looked agog at Father Gregory, as though he had suddenly started speaking a strange tongue. “My father? A smuggler?”