by G Lawrence
I am sure Henry thinks he hates me. I am sure he believes in his lies. Hatred feels simple. People think of it as red, like rage, but it is not. The purest hatred glows white; the brightest of flames. Burning, blazing, glorious beauty… the beauty of clarity, of pure and undiluted odium… A beauty that is too pure, too perfect, not to be dangerous. That is hatred. It feels pure, it seems simple and exquisite, but it is not.
And once revenge is won, white fire turns to ash. So will the same be true of Henry’s heart, his life, and his soul. Dust will I become as I die, but dust will he be as he lives. He will see the glory of the world, and know no joy in it; he will witness beauty and feel none of its majesty. This is a worse fate than death, and it is Henry’s.
The night draws close and cold. The stars are sharp in the chilled blackness. Their lights are darts in the clear, dark skies. I stare into the darkness and it stares right back. It is made of eyes, but I fear to be watched no more.
I should rest. I should eat and sleep, but I will do neither. Little sleep have I had since first I was brought by water to this place. Little slumber do I require. Soon I will rest for all the days of existence, held tight in the embrace of God.
The swordsman from France will be here soon; they have prepared a stage upon which my life will end with the sudden sweep of a sword. It stands on the ground north of the White Tower, fulfilling the Abbot of Garadon’s prophecy that a queen would meet her doom “where one tower is white and another green”. I will not die in flames, as he predicted, not in physical ones at least. But the flames of my heart are enough to make me think this prophecy has been brought to life.
To the people, I will become a myth; vilified and tainted. I will become a story used to make children behave, eat their dinner, or go to bed. I will become a demon; Evil Queen Anne, the betrayer, the traitor, the whore, the witch. They will not remember my charity, my loyalty, my zeal for reform. They will not recall my desire to protect the Church, from Rome, from Henry, from Cromwell. They will not remember my love for my family, for my daughter, or my love for my husband.
I will be painted in shades of shadow and gloom; in blackened night and the green-blue of black raven wing. I will become the portrait of a woman who risked much and lost all. People will shiver to look upon me. No light will illuminate my portrait. I will be lost in mists of lies and the fog of falsehood. My virtues will be forgotten, and my false vices will be lauded in the notes of history.
But there are those who will mourn me. They will mourn my death in secret, but there will be some in this world to sorrow at my passing.
My mother… will she walk through the chamber that Mary and I once shared as girls, hear the floorboards creak under her soft footfall, and remember us dancing there as children, welcoming in Midsummer as we pranced about a silken scarf of crimson, pretending we were at the village bonfires? Will Mary, safe in Calais with her husband, think on me as she hears I have died? Will her little girl, named for me, grow up in the knowledge of my true character, or the false one they have granted me?
And what of our child… my poor Elizabeth? Will Henry truly be kind? When I think of my child I fear I shall lose my mind. I cannot run to her, cannot protect her. I cannot hold her. She will be made a bastard, no more a princess… stigmatised as my daughter. But she is still the daughter of the King, and he cannot deny her that. No, he cannot deny that she was the true fruit of our love. She is the image of him…
But the eyes in that little face are mine, those dark, deep, black pools. When I am gone, my eyes will still look on the world from within her face.
In Elizabeth, at least, something good of me will continue to live in this world. I pray to God that she will lead a quieter, happier life than mine.
The dust from the scaffold’s construction scatters gently in the night’s wind. The fire burns and the winds whisper around the Tower. The skies are ominous, but there will be some sun to light the heavens tomorrow.
I will not die as my enemies wish me to. I will not let all that is Anne Boleyn slip away from me. I will not walk out as only the broken one, with my head hanging or scream and struggle in fear at the face of Death. I will die well and gracefully, just as I have lived. I go to death as myself, the three women in me joined as one, in the knowledge of my power, in acceptance of the light and dark within me… The power that Henry will never know.
Katherine is with me. Enemies and rivals we were in life, yet sisters of fate we are, united in death. She is ash as I am yet ember. Come the morrow, I shall be ash too. Floating into forgetfulness, in the realm where those lost to life linger.
The brittle grass upon the sandy plain will blow. Its leaves will mark out another circle. Particles of sand will tumble away, reaching new places, forming new circles, new stories, new tales… new beginnings and new ends.
All is one. As I scatter from the place my story began, so a new circle will form. And another, and another… going on through time, dancing in the light of destiny.
I wrote a poem, and left it on my desk.
Oh Death, rock me asleep,
Bring on my quiet rest,
Let pass my very guiltless ghost
Out of my careful breast.
Toll on thou passing bell,
Ring out my doleful knell,
Let thy sound my death tell,
Death doth draw nigh,
There is no remedy.
My pains who can express?
Alas, they are so strong.
My dolour will not suffer strength
My life for to prolong.
Toll on thou passing bell,
Ring out my doleful knell,
Let thy sound my death tell,
Death doth draw nigh,
There is no remedy.
Alone in prison strange,
I wail my destiny;
Well worth this cruel hap that I
Should taste this misery.
Toll on thou passing bell,
Ring out my doleful knell,
Let thy sound my death tell,
Death doth draw nigh,
There is no remedy.
Farewell my pleasures past,
Welcome, my present pain,
I feel my torments so increase
That life cannot remain.
Cease now, thou passing bell,
Rung is my death knell,
For its sound my death doth tell.
Death doth draw nigh;
Sound the knell dolefully, for now I die.
“George, you are in Heaven,” I whisper. “And soon will I join you there.”
I place a hand on the window. “So let us go,” I whisper. “Let us go, you and I, to where the greenwood grows. To where the new buds burst and blossom sings. Let us take hands and walk, the warmth of the setting sun upon our backs. Let our feet trip over soft moss and fresh grass. Let us leave the world behind.”
A vision of Heaven comes to me. It is a perfect field, strewn with flowers bobbing in a gentle wind. It will always be the hour before sunset there. The warmth of the day will not have left, and the chill of night not yet come. There will be poppies, their crimson blooms dusky in the falling light. Honeysuckle will bring light to the shade, daisies will sparkle in the grass like stars. Celandine will bring hope, and the scent of flowers and rough bark will fill the air. There will be a crystal stream, burbling at the edge of the field, flowing over rocks smoothed by the passage of time.
Beyond, there will be a forest, spun with spindles of soft, dappled light. There will be hillsides and groves, sweet blossom and hidden glens. We will hear my children in the distance, laughing as they play, as they tease, as they live. Purkoy will chase them, barking at their heels. Over the field and the stream and the forest the sound of their mirth will wander, breaking through the musical chatter of birds; a tender sound, as one with the warmth of the sun.
And there we will find our friends. Brereton will tell us stories of adventure, brash deeds and bold times. Weston will play for us to danc
e. I will take Norris’ hand, and offer him my heart. George and I will read to each other, our backs against rocks heated by the warmth of the day, as we listen to the words of those wiser than us, and hear the sound of my three sons tearing through the still woods.
And if I see Smeaton there, I will try to forgive.
There will be our kingdom. There will we live as the world continues on without us. We will be united and reunited, brought together, never to lose each other again.
There will be peace, there will be love, there will be life, everlasting.
“Take my hand,” I whisper to George. “Take my hand, brother mine, and together we will run as once we did as children. Let our laughter rock the gentle trees and race through the grass. There we will rejoice, as innocent as children, as pure as the fresh, new leaves, our souls as free as the soft wind, and our hearts at liberty.”
I close my eyes. “Take my hand,” I whisper to my brother. “Let us go, George, let us go. There we will go, and there we will stay, as this cruel, cold world ebbs, and flows away.”
Chapter Eighty-One
The Tower of London
The Morning of the 19th of May 1536
I have not slept. There is no need. What rest does a soul about to depart for Heaven require?
I went to Mass. I heard the words of the Lord for the last time in this feeble life. This fragile, mortal world. They brought food for me to eat, but I could do no more than pick at it.
I am scared. My soul is prepared. I want death. I want release. But there is a part of me that is terrified of death. The broken one wants to run… to flee this place upon the wings of a falcon sent by God to save me. Yet I know there is no such creature. I will die and I must prepare myself to face death and show courage. The broken one will die with me. I will bring her to courage with my strength.
Will it hurt? This thought plagues me… that the pain that will come will terrify me into quaking before the crowds already gathering outside. I have been granted the honour of facing death inside the Tower confines. Not for me a death on Tower Hill, as my brother and friends endured. No screaming crowds of commoners, no… but I will see familiar faces, the faces of my enemies, as I walk into the arms of Death.
I will not cower before them. I will not falter. I will die as Anne Boleyn.
Eight o’clock rings in the Tower chapel, and Kingston comes to the door. I have been waiting for the sound of his footsteps, and now they are here, I do not want to hear them…. the deathly knell that announces my time has come.
I had dressed with care. My gown of dark, heavy grey silk strikes bold against the kirtle of crimson underneath. I wear red for it is the colour of Catholic martyrs. But there is another reason. I feared red for a long time; feared to remember my children and their deaths through it; feared to unleash the broken one, feared to lose myself to her. Today I need to fear it no more. My blood will rush from my neck, and it will join theirs in the soil. Today, I will see my dead children again.
My robe resembles the one I wore in Calais, on the first night Henry and I were together. He will not miss this when they tell him of it. Yet I wear it not for him, but for Elizabeth. I wear it to remember the moment when this glorious gift was granted to me. For the love, which then existed, which brought her to life.
Upon my head is not the French hood that I wore so often in life, but an English gable one. It was the first hood I wore, so perhaps it makes sense that it will be the last covering upon my raven hair. But it also proclaims my link to England, the country that gave birth to me, the place where I rose to glory and where I fell due to the machinations of wicked men.
My cloak is lined with ermine, the fur of royalty, for I am still the Queen. Under the Act of Succession, which has not been rescinded, I was made Queen by statutory right, not by virtue of my marriage to Henry. This has not been repealed, therefore I go to my death a queen. I meet Death as a woman accused of adultery, even though I never had a husband, as a queen who was never married to her King. Perhaps it is fitting. I was ever a creature of contradictions. And I will die as such.
But I am the Queen.
They cannot take that from me, just as they cannot take my power, my dignity, or my honour. Now, at the close, I finally understand. I have found the balance between the women within me. I have balanced the light and the dark.
They are twins of the same mother. For in the blackest, deepest night there shine the brightest stars. I defy you to look upon their blazing brilliance and tell me that darkness has more power than light. It seems that way at times, but it is not true. They own equal power and equal weakness. For every night ends with a dawn, and every day dies with dusk. They cannot live without each other, nor we without them. They are within us. We must see them, accept their influence, and use both to strive to do the best we can with all we are granted.
I am free although I am a prisoner. I am more alive at the moment of my death than I was in life. Henry will have my head, but my heart is his no more. My soul, my heart, myself, they are mine alone.
Finally, I am free of him.
I have prepared my speech. I will speak not of innocence, but I will admit no guilt. I will protect my daughter. To decry Henry in the last moments of my life would bring danger to Elizabeth. I will not allow that. But I will not admit guilt. Those who attend my execution, conditioned to prisoners proclaiming their guilt, whether they were or not, will understand.
Kingston comes for me. “Acquit yourself of your charge,” I say. “I have been long prepared.”
He hands me a purse with twenty pounds in it, so I might give alms before my death. It is usual for a condemned person to pay their own executioner, but I have already been informed his fee has been taken care of by Henry. How sweet of him.
As we make to leave, I turn to Lady Kingston. “Commend me to His Majesty,” I say. “Tell him that he hath ever been constant in his career of advancing me. From a private gentlewoman, he made me a Marquess and from Marquess to a queen. And now he hath left no higher degree of honour, for he gives my innocency the crown of martyrdom as a saint in Heaven.”
“I dare not carry such a message to the King,” she breathes.
I merely smile. I knew that would be her answer, but we are surrounded by guards, my ladies and Kingston’s men. By the fall of night, most of London will hear my last declaration.
Escorted by two hundred Yeomen, Kingston takes me from my lodgings and we walk past the Great Hall, through Cole Harbour Gate, to the western side of the White Tower. We wait in an alcove. There are crowds ahead, I can see them, hungry faces lit up in the morning light. The wind blows soft and the clouds part, illuminating the scaffold where the executioner stands. I cannot see his famous sword, and that worries me. I wish to know when death is coming.
I turn to Margaret Lee, handing her a book of hours. “This is for you,” I murmur, trying to still my reckless heart.
She opens it at the page I have marked. Remember me when you do pray, That hope doth lead from day to day.
Her eyes fill with tears.
“Feel no pity for me,” I say to Margaret as her face pales. She turns, her eyes wild and wide. “Pity me not,” I say again, taking her hand. “I have lived and I have loved. I have done all that I could with my time. I opened my heart and I risked all. I do not fear the eyes of God upon me.”
I smile. “Pity Henry. Pity all those at court. Pity creatures that live without love, for all they know is the aching darkness of agony. Some say a man can be measured by his friends. What will men say of one who has killed all his friends?” I stroke her pale hand, “of a man who murdered the woman he loved?”
“You should take care, my lady,” says Kingston’s gruff voice at my back.
“For what purpose, my lord?” I turn, a ghost of a smile on my face. “What more could be done against me now?”
He has no answer for me. He knows no more could be done to me. My name is spoken now in a whisper, my daughter is stolen from me, my friends are dead, my family d
isgraced and in a moment I will die. Nothing more can Henry take from me in life. But nothing that is me is left to him. I am free.
But he is not. Never will he be able to forget what we once were… all that we once had. The power and the glory that between us changed England… perhaps the world. He will try to forget me, try to lose memories of me in the arms of another woman. He will listen to all his sycophantic courtiers tell him, and he will think himself content.
But I know Henry.
So often does he cry out about his conscience that many think it is another of his fantasies, but it is not. In the dark of night, in the realm between dreaming and waking, he will remember me. When he gazes on our daughter, I will stare back at him from behind Elizabeth’s black eyes. As he moves about his court, with that pale wisp of a woman at his side, he will remember me dancing, singing, laughing… The clothes I made will be upon his skin, my cushions and bed hangings about his chamber. He will pick up a goblet that once I used and I will come to him, as my sons did to me, a flash of memory striking through his carefully constructed fantasy.