Judge The Best

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by G Lawrence


  In the gardens, we would sit in alcoves and bowers. We ladies would spread out our thick skirts and sit upon flowery meads, listening to Tom, George or Surrey recite poetry. Oftentimes, we women had to defend ourselves from charges of cruelty in love. If we were distant, or failed to surrender our virtue to gallants who came hunting, we were named cold and cruel. Of course there was no true way to win this game. If a maid submitted she would be used and discarded. The object was to walk the fine line between the two states; never giving in and never allowing the men to give up. To survive at court, a woman had to be simultaneously both virgin and whore.

  As I quipped and rebuffed the men who swore to love me, I felt an echo of my old self return. I remembered the bright young girl I had once been, before sorrow had come to live in my heart. For a time, lost in these games, I could forget. But when I entered my chambers again, saw the bed on which I had bled, that girl departed, leaving behind a sadder woman, a frailer soul… one who was not as sure of herself as that damsel had always been.

  We tarried at Hampton Court as preparations for the public executions of the Carthusians went ahead. On the 4th of May, the Carthusians and their allies were taken from the Tower. More and his daughter were brought out to watch their ungainly march towards death. Cromwell thought this might move More to swear the oath, but it had the opposite effect. He became more resolved. But if this horror did not frighten More, it did others, just as was intended. The execution of Elizabeth Barton and her followers had not produced the desired effect, but the spectacle of men of God being dragged to their deaths silenced many.

  Still in their habits, they were hauled on hurdles through London to Tyburn. Those awaiting death were forced to watch as each of the accused was half-hung, cut down before they lost consciousness, then castrated and disembowelled whilst still alive. Sometimes, mercy was offered by allowing a condemned man to drift into unconsciousness before starting to rip his innards out. Not so for the monks.

  After their entrails had been burnt in their faces, as they writhed and screamed upon the block, they were beheaded. Their bodies were cleaved into quarters, so they might be displayed in London, York, and other prominent cities. Feet and hands were strung up on gates; heads were stuck atop spikes on London Bridge; one chunk of a man was taken to the Charterhouse Monastery and hung upon the gate, to scare the monks into submission.

  My brother, father and uncle went to see the grisly task done. Henry wished to attend personally, but he was kept away by his Council who said that if he did it would incite trouble. My family were sent as his representatives. They had no choice. To refuse would be tantamount to treason.

  George told me that as clergymen watched their brothers die, they continued to preach, asking God to spare England from its fell and evil King. They told the crowds to defy Henry, and follow instead the truth and light of Rome. Their defiance only served to make Cromwell and Henry more resolved to act against monks still awaiting trial.

  Unlike my husband, I did not want to witness the bloody entrails, glistening purple and red in the sunlight. But it was not only for revulsion that I did not attend, but for worry that this path was not the right one.

  My kin were joined by Fitzroy and others. My brother said that if you glanced about, it was as though the whole court had come to Tyburn. “Although many people wore disguises,” he said as he sat on my bed later. “Most of them not very convincing.”

  “Why were some in disguises?” I asked, pressing a hand to my head. In the aftermath of my miscarriage, I was often weak and ill, but I also knew it was not this alone which assaulted me. Some part of me was full of guilt, shame and fear.

  George’s handsome face was flushed with wry disbelief. I laughed a little and cuffed him. My ladies sat sewing nearby. There was a gentle hush upon the rooms. If the conversation was less grisly, it would have been a lovely, calm evening.

  “They came in disguise because there are many in Europe who will speak out,” he said. “They will say England is a tyrant; that we execute not traitors, but men with powerful minds, to placate our ignorance. They will call us heretics and murderers. It is already being said, sister, and it will continue. Courtiers will turn up at executions to demonstrate loyalty, but they will wear disguises so that if any foreigners ask, they can pretend they were not there.”

  I raised myself upon my elbows. “But the monks are traitors. They speak against the King and the oath… against my daughter and me.”

  “Of course they are,” he said. “But you know as well as I that men in other countries with purposes and designs of their own will see it differently. They will say, ‘look at the King. He is become a tyrant. We have excuses to march into England’. That is what the King fears. He knows treasonous mouths must be stopped, and treasonous minds must be cut from their bodies. Truly Anne…” he paused and kissed my fingertips. “… This has to be done. They have had ample opportunity to swear the oath and they have refused. No matter if this causes problems abroad, it will protect England. This will lay the foundations of the new world we want to build. It must be done … besides…”

  He cut off and offered me a roguish smile “… if any man were to threaten my dearest sister, I should give them short quarter!” He jumped up and drew the short sword at his belt. My ladies giggled, glancing at my handsome brother with admiring eyes. He noted their interest and, elated by the opportunity to show off, continued. “Let them come!” he said, parrying an imaginary foe. “None shall take my sweet sister spirit from me!”

  “George,” I said, laughing. “Stop, you will scare my good ladies.”

  “They shall not take you!” he cried, thrusting his sword out, the blade shimmering in the last light of day which fell through the windows. I watched him with great affection, knowing he was trying to draw me from dark thoughts.

  “Come,” I said and patted the bed. “Tell me, have you heard from Mary?”

  “She and William are well in Calais,” he said. “Do you want me to send word to her?”

  “Tell no one. But I have sent her a letter, and some money.”

  George whistled, his lips a pert little rosebud. “Does the King know?”

  “No one knows but you.” I put a hand to the linen coif on my head, adjusting it. “I cannot call her back to court, but I will name her my sister if any ask it of me. I owe her that much.”

  “You have forgiven her?”

  “Her... but not myself.” I smoothed the coif, tying its ribbon tighter about my chin. “I was too hard on her,” I said. “Too harsh.”

  “She disgraced our family.”

  “She did, I do not deny it. But she only wished to find happiness, and that is a quest I understand more and more. Perhaps it was selfish of her to not think of our family. But perhaps it was selfish of us to never have realised the hardships she bore as a widow.”

  “Her duty was to her family, not to her own desires.”

  “If that is true,” I said. “Is not our duty to her? She is a part of our family, is she not? We lapsed in our obligations, George. We left her on the fringes and expected her to simply wait. We are as much to blame for this as she was.”

  My brother’s face was sceptical. He did not agree. It was strange to speak of honour and duty, and include woman in such talk, for many would say that all duty and honour are due from the lower members of a household to the higher, and women are usually kept at the bottom of any hierarchy. As such, Mary was to blame for not giving consideration to my father or me. But what are duty and honour in a family if they extend not to the whole?

  We were bound to each other, we Boleyns, in chains of love, affection and duty. And if Mary had failed us, we had failed her.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hampton Court

  May 1535

  May is the most beautiful of all spring months; the time of birth, renewal and new life. Blossom erupts upon trees in a dizzying display of white and pink, and hawthorn leaves mist hedgerows with glorious green. Sudden storms burst from
sultry, sticky skies, causing flashes of dazzling blue and streaking silver to rupture the midnight heavens, swathed in gowns of cobalt and black. Rain comes in deluges, making scents of the parched earth and hot cobblestones rise, as perfume, into the nostrils. And sometimes the rains stay away for days, weeks at a time, causing farmers to watch the skies with a prayer upon their lips.

  On good days, maids take their spinning and sewing outside, sitting by their doorsteps, chattering to neighbours. Bluebells flood the forests, a miasma of blue and purple bobbing gently in the soft wind. Butterflies flutter, alighting on jack-by-the-hedge and heartsease. Lovers gather forget-me-nots to give in the hope they will always be remembered. Children are sent to collect garlands of branches and blooms, singing at the doors of neighbours on the way, and carrying the garlands into their church. Primroses crowd hillsides like spectators at a royal joust, and horse chestnuts become a mass of fresh leaves as their blossoms grow in steeples, granting them their common name of the candle tree. Horses are decorated with flowers, and young maids divine their future husbands by making sweet-scented balls of cowslips and wool, chanting the names of the boys they think to marry as the ball is tossed between them.

  Honey-bees flirt with flowers, as white spiders hide inside fresh, sweet blooms, waiting to trap them. Swallows swoop in the skies and cuckoos sing from amongst the confusion of heather upon moor lands. Crops and hayfields spring into life, and orchids, delicate in their frail beauty, emerge, nestled in the shady places, bringing light and colour to the gloom. Buzzards wing, shimmering gold against clear blue skies, and hawkers go out in search of herons.

  A beautiful month… when the most bloody deeds in living memory had occurred…

  As the enormity of what Henry had done erupted about Europe, I was blamed. How could it be otherwise? To many, I was a creature of black and white, but never grey. Those who did not love me, hated me, and believed I was a witch who had stolen Henry from Katherine, and England from Rome. If there was bad weather, I was accountable. If there was plague, it was my fault. And now these monks had died, in such bloody and graceless ways, I was the one to blame.

  I was their Salome, their Judas… their Devil. It was assumed I had asked for their executions, and thirsted for the blood of Fisher and More. It was not so. They died for Henry’s pride, and for his fears.

  Hoping that the deaths of the Carthusians might have tempted Fisher and More away from their obstinacy, Henry sent his Council to them, with Cromwell leading, urging surrender. He did not get the result he desired.

  Cromwell did not want either man to die. It would be much more valuable, he said, to get them to conform, for then they could lead the way for other doubters of the supremacy. Fisher and More were not about to grant his wish. They would die for the faith just as they had lived for it.

  Fisher declared Henry was not the Head of the Church, all but signing his own death warrant, and More refused to be moved. Both were willing to swear allegiance to Henry and to me as his wife, but they would not accept the royal supremacy. They believed the Pope was the only leader of the Church. They would not say it, but to them, Henry was nothing more than a pretender.

  Their spoken affirmations, however, somehow sneaked from the Tower and were being talked of in London. In response, Henry sent his men out to preach. Both men were denounced as traitors. Their sins, of pride, malice, traitorous thought and even suggestions they were thinking of rebelling, were proclaimed far and wide. It was Henry’s mission to defame Fisher and More in the eyes of his people. He convinced some, but not all… never all.

  Henry played the merry, confident monarch about court, but he was unnerved. In doubt, he clung to me. Each evening he would go over and over the reasons for More and Fisher being detained, and I consoled him. The distance that had grown between us upon my miscarriage evaporated like May’s morning dew as the hot sun rose, bloody and glaring, in the skies. Henry could not do without me. Every day I was at his side, holding at bay the wraiths of men not yet dead, and the ghosts of those he had sent into Death’s arms. I was his shield, but I wondered how often he thought on the fact that his people always blamed me? Sometimes, I believed he understood and was grateful. At other times, when the monster within him was in control, he thought that was my rightful place.

  Henry sent fresh deputies to France. It was a sign of favour towards me. France had hardly been friendly of late, but Henry understood I wanted alliance with them. As another token of esteem, my brother and Norfolk led the mission. George was to persuade François to make a public commitment to me as Queen, and accept Elizabeth as a bride for one of his sons. Henry wanted François to send whichever son he chose to court, so he might be raised according to English custom. The implication, never spoken, was that Elizabeth and her husband might one day rule England as King and Queen; a safeguard in case I never bore a son. Cromwell told Norfolk and George before they left there was to be no compromise. Elizabeth and I would be recognised.

  With More and Fisher remaining unmoved, Henry made plans for their trials. But others had heard of this. On the 22nd of May, Fisher was made a Cardinal by the papacy.

  “I will cut off Fisher’s head and send it to Rome!” Henry shouted. “There can it go to be anointed with his Cardinal’s hat!”

  Henry repeated this threat, hoping his fright would be seen as resolve. He forbade Fisher’s hat to be sent to England and stormed about court, telling anyone who would listen of all the woes Rome had inflicted upon him. The Pope asked men to intercede for Fisher and More, sending du Bellay and pleading with the King of France to speak for them, but nothing would sway Henry, not even the thought that he was sending François into the arms of the Emperor, by distancing himself from the morals of other kings.

  A deadline was set. More and Fisher must swear the oath by St John’s Day, the 24th of June, or they would die.

  In the meantime, more monks were sent to trial. Cromwell put on pressure to convict, just as he had before. Henry’s supremacy meant that he possessed the power to be rid of his enemies.

  He meant to do just that.

  *

  George arrived home from France on the 25th, and rather than going to Henry first, he came straight to me. “François will not be moved,” he said, taking his cape from his shoulders and cracking his tired back with his hands. “They want Mary, or nothing. They will not send one of François’ sons to England to be educated by the King, and they will not speak about a meeting until their terms are accepted.”

  “François said this?”

  “François would not deign to meet me in person,” said my brother, throwing himself into a chair of green silk, trimmed with Venice gold. “He allowed me to converse with Brion and the Cardinal of Lorraine.”

  “He insults us,” I hissed, fury gathering as a storm in my soul. “Over and over, he slights us, and we are supposed to just sit here and take it?” I got up. Anger brought me energy where grief had sapped it from me. “The King of France is a false friend,” I declared. “And I despise him!”

  “I have grown none too fond of him either,” said my brother. “But where do we turn for support in Europe if not to France? The Schmalkalden League is not strong enough, and Spain will never accept us.”

  “Will not accept me, you mean,” I said. “Even if France is our most likely ally, I will turn to them no more. They have rejected my daughter and imperilled my position. We will have to find a way to reach Spain or encourage the King to make friends with the Emperor’s rebellious subjects in Germany.”

  By the time George had left to report to Henry, I had let loose many unguarded words about François. I was furious, insulted and frightened. Once he had told me there would be times when policy and politics would get in the way of our friendship, but to demean my daughter was a step too far, and François should have known that. The only possibility left to make England secure was to make peace with Charles of Spain, but how could that ever happen? With me on the throne, I did not see how we could come to terms with S
pain.

  Unless I die, murmured Katherine.

  “Unless you die,” I whispered, putting my hand to a diamond at my throat that once had been hers.

  *

  George told us more about the meetings in France. Upon his return, Brion had apparently failed to inform his master that Mary was out of the question, and François, upon hearing this from George instead, refused to give up the notion. This had meant the talks went badly from the very beginning. But we could not allow others to know this. In an effort to fool Spain into thinking all had gone well, Cromwell met with Chapuys and showed him a document which said that France supported me as Queen. It had been sent with George for François to sign, but the French King had refused. No one was about to tell Chapuys that, of course. Cromwell, therefore, decided to try to dupe him.

 

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