The Kiss of the Concubine: A story of Anne Boleyn

by Arnopp, Judith

  The thought of apple trees and summer time always brings a fleeting memory of youth and the days when Tom would to ride over with a few bushels of apples. I sigh momentarily for those easier times.

  “What?” Henry raises his head. “Did you say something?”

  I push memory away and let my hands trickle down Henry’s cheeks, playfully I pull at his nose. “I said, bid them be quick about it for we have little time.”

  25th May 1533 – Greenwich

  My coronation, to be held on Whit Sunday, is but a few days away and the preparations are almost complete. The streets are scrubbed and adorned with arras, velvet and tissue of gold. There will be flowers everywhere, and my white falcon badge will be prominent above every arch and doorway. At the palace, new clothes and jewels, for both me and my ladies, begin to fill my apartments, and the guests begin to arrive.

  The royal palace becomes crammed with dignitaries so rapidly that the lower orders are forced to look elsewhere for lodgings. Of course, there are those who refuse to attend, those who hate me and refute my role as Henry’s queen. Although they decline in the prettiest manner, it is plain to see their loyalty to Catherine and Mary lurking behind their sorry excuses. Even Henry’s sister refuses to come, pleading sickness, just as she did on our trip to Calais. “You should insist she comes, Henry,” I hiss through tight lips. “Her excuses are an insult to both of us. She pays more loyalty to Catherine than to you, her monarch. She is your subject and should be reminded of that.”

  He lifts his shoulders, opens his eyes wide. “She is sick! What would you have me do, have her dragged from her bed to attend you?”

  “It is an excuse, Henry. Plain and simple. Your sister despises me for a commoner and her pride will not give me the precedence I deserve.”

  “Oh, you women. Why must you always bicker? Come here, sweetheart, sit beside me and tell me how our son is faring today.”

  At the mention of our prince, my temper softens a little and I move toward him, allow him to caress my belly. “He grows apace.”

  Henry kisses the velvet bulge of my womb. “With our prince so much in evidence, there will be no refuting your fitness to be our queen. You are beautiful, virtuous and fertile, Anne, and you have my undying love. Remember that should your fears get the better of you.”

  He stands up and pulls me close, so that I am cradled in the softness of his doublet. Being in his arms is like floating on a fragrant cloud; I feel cherished, safe. He senses my fears even if he cannot understand them. Henry is used to being in the public eye, but I am less so and nervous about the forthcoming events.

  The celebrations are to cover several days, beginning with a vast river pageant. All of London will be there. From the nobility down to the lowest whore, they will be watching … and judging, and it is hard to forget that not all of those eyes will look kindly upon me.

  Urien, who has been asleep at the hearth, lifts his head. Hearing a scuffling outside the door, we draw apart as Brandon and Norris are announced. Henry Norris has some business with the king so, to give them some peace, I join my ladies in the antechamber. They are gathered at the window and I mingle with them, taking a place beside my sister-in-law.

  Jane smiles her brittle smile. “How are my sister and her little prince today?”

  “I am very well, if a little fraught with nerves.” We both lean across the sill, admiring the green gardens, the courtiers moving slowly along honey-coloured avenues. Nan, soon to be wed to Lord Berkeley, hears my words and sets out to soothe me.

  “You have no call to be nervous, My Lady. Everything is arranged down the smallest detail. Even the palace mice have been issued with tiny tables and napkins.”

  I nudge her with my shoulder, giggling in spite of my fermenting anxiety. Looking down I recognise Mary, who is wearing one of my discarded French hoods to replace her own that was growing shabby. As my sister, we cannot allow her poverty to show. Jane follows my eye. “Who is Mary flirting with now?”

  The angle from which we are looking foreshortens the figures, making them appear stouter. “I’m not sure.” I crane my neck, leaning to the right. “Oh, I recognise him now. He was at Calais, part of the garrison. I saw her with him when we were there, he must have come across for the coronation.”

  “Hmm, her laughter is too loud. You must find her a worthy husband soon, before her reputation is damaged for good.”

  Nan and I exchange faces behind Jane’s back. She is renowned for giving vent to her opinion unasked, but I am not in the mood for discord today.

  “Henry and I have discussed it, since Father is not prepared to do anything for her.”

  “Well, for goodness sake, make sure you find her someone virile and firm enough to keep her in hand.”

  The door opens and the king and his gentleman enter. Norris is laughing at something the king said, his head thrown back, earning Henry’s approving smile. They come toward us and, as soon as I am within his reach, Henry slips his arm around my waist.

  “All is set for the celebration, my love. Norris here was just telling me that the barge is ready and is looking splendid after the re-fit.”

  I clap my hands. “Oh, good, I was worried it wouldn’t be ready in time.”

  The barge, which is the best in the land, used to belong to Catherine, but I refused to use it until every sign of her ownership was removed. Now, at great cost, it has been re-gilded and her arms replaced with mine and when I am rowed upriver to the Tower, it shall be in the finest royal barge to ever grace the Thames.

  29th May 1533

  I will always love the river in May, just because of this day when the whole world is twittering with joy. A little after noon, I am escorted to the waiting barge and settled upon soft downy cushions. My ladies spread the skirts of my cloth-of-gold gown around me and smooth my hair, which is left to hang loose. Mary is with me, and Nan and Madge sit to my left, but the rest of my women follow behind on another barge.

  The craft bobs and dips on the water as the twenty-four rowers take their places at the oars. Beside me, Mary is pink with excitement, for once forgetting to begrudge my good fortune.

  “Oh, Anne. Did you see that? Look!” She points across the river, and following the line of her finger I peer through the seething river-traffic. Flags and bunting flutter in the light breeze, the sun glaring on gold foil hangings and drapes. Across the crowded water, the most extraordinary thing that I have ever seen is gliding toward us. I draw in my breath, opening my eyes in surprise.

  “Good Lord, whatever is that?” I crane my neck and squint into the sun, focusing upon the dragon moving majestically toward us. Surrounded by beasts and wild men as it goes on its way, the dragon slowly turns its head from side to side, every so often belching forth a blast of flame.

  The first time it does so, Mary gives a little yelp. “How do they make it do that? Isn’t it marvellous?” She turns to look at me, her eyes bright with pleasure, and it makes me glad to glimpse her old self. This is how she used to be. She could almost be sixteen again. I reach out and squeeze her hand.

  “I don’t know how they do it, but it is wonderful. Oh, if only George were here to share it instead of stuck in France on the king’s business.”

  “We must just look forward to telling him all about it when he gets back. Oh look, Anne, look at that one, the launch coming along behind the Mayor.”

  This time I see a wherry bearing an enormous crowned white falcon, proudly roosting on a nest of red and white roses. All around the green cloth hill on which he rests are a group of virgins, whose sweet songs float across the river. Leaning forward in my seat I raise my hand and smile, and one little girl, forgetting her instruction, waves back.

  Bolstered by her friendliness, I relax into the cushions a little, swallow my emotion and try not to think of the exhausting hours that still lay ahead.

  For two hours we move through the joyous commotion, and I begin to think that whether the people like me or not, they all love a revel and an excuse for cele
bration. As my nerves recede I begin to enjoy myself. I sit up straight so that the crowd can see the proud curve of my belly, and share with them the comfort that our prince is soon to be born to England.

  When the first of the gun salutes tears through the air, shattering my calm, the child leaps in my womb and I comfort him with gentle strokes. As we approach the bend in the river and the Tower looms in the distance, the guns continue, round after round of fire. Then the big guns sound, putting the previous din in the shade as a final crescendo of devastating blasts greets me as the barge glides toward the landing steps at Tower Wharf

  Before Henry and I can be alone, there are official receptions to be borne. I nod and smile and try to be as gracious as I can, although sometimes it is difficult to remember who I am being introduced to. But at last we are ushered from the crowd and led along corridors, up twisted stairways to the newly-refurbished royal apartments. I sink gratefully onto the bed, kick off my shoes and roll into the pillows. A chair creaks and I open my eyes to see Henry settled at the hearth. He takes off his hat and tosses it onto the seat beside him. “You must be tired, Anne. How is our boy, has he endured the proceedings well?”

  “Very well,” I reply, rolling onto my back again so that my belly juts into the air. “He wasn’t too sure about the cannon but he is quiet now, and I can enjoy some rest.”

  “Yes, you sleep, my dear. You will need to be fresh for the evening banquet.” He picks up a lute and begins to quietly strum, every so often raising his voice in song, the high-pitched tone lulling me to sleep.

  We are to spend the next few days here at the Tower, and tomorrow there will be further ceremony when the king invests knighthoods and honours on our favourites, as well as our not so favourite. Henry says it is his way of ensuring that even our dissenters give an outward show of support.

  “They are greedy,” he sneers. “I will wave the honours beneath their noses like a giant carrot before a donkey, and they will not be able to resist.”

  He is right. They do come, dressed in their finest. Hiding their dislike of me, their pity for Catherine, and their loyalty to Rome beneath false smiles of bonhomie, they come to watch as I am crowned.

  Yet there are still those few who stay away, and I mentally make note of their names. The Earl of Shrewsbury pleads a sick stomach and sends his son in his stead. Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, is present but his wife, Henry’s sister, Mary, and their half-grown daughter both stay away – surely they can’t both be sick. But to our great chagrin, the most blatant missing person, and pleading no excuse for it, is the former Chancellor, Thomas More. This snub wounds Henry deeply for he is Henry’s oldest and dearest friend.

  31st May 1533 – The Tower of London

  The filmy white cloth slithers over my head, moulding to my body to proudly reveal the contours of my blessed womb. My hair, left loose, cascades past my waist in a cloud of gleaming darkness, contrasting perfectly with the golden coronet they will place upon it.

  “Oh, you are lovely, My Lady, quite lovely.” Her hushed voice reassures me this is no idle compliment and I can see for myself that Nan’s assessment is correct. The looking-glass reveals a woman quite unlike myself. Pregnancy has plumped not just my body but also my face, and excitement, together with a little fear, gleams in my eye as my cheeks are warmed by the heat of the day. My bosom is high, my belly replete with a royal prince, and the future stretches before me like a red carpet of opportunity.

  Today marks the final step on my journey. By this evening I will be queen, and then my proper work can begin. With Henry’s support I can make England a better place. I can aid George in his bid to redeem those whose philosophies have made them outcasts. I shall create a haven of new learning and theology, and lead the way in the reformation of our Holy Church. When the time comes, although I hope it will be long away, my son will rule a peaceful realm and head a Church scrubbed free of corruption and blasphemy. As from tomorrow, my battles will be over.

  The litter in which I travel is swathed in white cloth-of-gold, the palfreys that draw it clothed in white damask. Over my head a canopy of gold flutters and snaps in the breeze, and behind me six of my ladies follow, my brother’s wife among them, each one in a crimson velvet gown.

  Mary is further back, with our aunts and cousins and other women of rank. Along the crowd-lined route the streets are alive with pageants and music, so many I cannot look at them all, and all the while the fickle crowd cries out a blessing. As we pass beneath a gilded triumphal arch bearing the entwined initials H and A, the words ring out again. “God save Your Grace!”

  Although by the time we reach Westminster Hall I am almost dropping with fatigue, I am led by the hand to the high dais where my health is drunk with hippocras before I am allowed to retire. I am exhausted, my body aching, my mind so alive with images of the day that even when my head is on my pillow and the shutters are fastened across the windows, I cannot rest. I lie awake, watching the flickering shadows of the night’s candle on the walls and relive the day over and over in my mind.

  1st June 1533 - Westminster

  The stone floor where I lie prostrate is cold, the child in my womb squirming beneath me, kicking at my bladder, making me want to pee. How George will laugh to learn that the most important moment of my life so far is spent longing for the close-stool.

  Above me on the high altar, Cranmer prays, calling down God’s blessing upon my reign. Forgetting to beg for my own salvation, I pray instead that he will make haste so that I can get up from the floor. My cheek is pressed to the icy stone and all I can see are his feet and the skirts of his robes, specks of dust and dirt from the procession still clinging to the hem. His voice drones on, the congregation murmuring a response where required.

  The rise and fall of his voice is making me drowsy and I close my eyes, my mind slipping away. I think of George far away in France, and know he will be thinking of me, cursing the fact he cannot be here. Henry is here in the abbey, watching the proceedings from behind a screen, and I know how proud he will be, how emotional to be at last making me his queen. Yet at the same time his beady eye will be vigilant for any dissention in the congregation. In a few moments I will be his queen, and there will be nothing any of them can do about it; not Catherine, nor Bishop Fisher, nor Thomas More, not even the Pope in Rome, for God has put me here.

  At last, Cranmer’s voice calls for my praise to be sung and the notes of the choir fill the vast space of the abbey. As I am assisted to my feet for the anointing, he murmurs the blessing, marks the sign of the cross upon me before leading me, slowly and reverently, to St Edward’s chair.

  I am tired, my limbs numb from the cold floor, but I try not to stumble. Any mishap will be seen by my enemies as an ill-omen, and it is imperative that I tread carefully. Yet as we move on I step on my skirts and almost falter, but I hang on tight to Cranmer’s arm. He pauses and allows me to regain my balance before moving on and I flash him a grateful smile. Then, with my spine threatening to snap in two, I lower myself thankfully into the seat upon which somebody has thoughtfully placed a cushion.

  Now I can look about me, at the vaulted ceiling, the towering windows, heraldic flags swaying high above our heads. I see the abbey crammed with the noblest in the land, from Earls and Dukes to knights of the garter. They have all assembled to see me crowned and do me honour. I can ask for little more.

  When Cranmer lifts the crown of St Edward high above my head, the congregation draw in their breath, slowly exhaling as he places the diadem on my brow. Then, with great solemnity, he offers me the sceptre and the orb, and I take them from him. In a sort of daze I look about the hall, the heaviness of the crown forcing me to keep my chin high and still. I look down on the gathering, upon those who love me and those who don’t. I see triumph in the eyes of my father and mother, a kind of affectionate awe in the eyes of my sister, but only shadows in the eyes of Jane.

  And then the Te Deum begins as my vision skims across the faces of those with little cause to love me.
My joy begins to falter, but the voices of the choir soar so high that shivers of ice rush up and down my spine. My eyes prickle with unshed tears and I am comforted.

  I am Henry’s wife, Queen of England, and only death can take that from me.

  25 June 1533

  “Henry, what is it?” As soon as I enter his chamber I know something is wrong, for he has dismissed his attendants and the fire is sulky in the grate. I hurry to his side, kneel at his feet and press his cold fingers to my face. He looks up, his cheeks grey and drooping, and offers me a letter.

  Rising ungainly to my feet, I carry it to the window where there is still just enough light to read by. My eyes scan the page and see from the thick rushed scrawl that the letter is from Westhorpe Hall, the home of Suffolk and his wife. ‘It is with a heavy heart …’ I skip the first few lines.

  ‘…She was sicker than we realised, Your Grace, and on my return from the coronation I discovered her life to have all but dwindled away. Although we did all we could, by the third day she was gone and there was nothing left to do but weep.’

  My heart thumps loud and heavy, regret twisting my innards. I glance up at Henry, who remains seated by the fire. I had thought her to be dissembling. I had accused her of pretending sickness to avoid doing me honour as queen. It seems I was wrong. Clasping the letter to my bosom, I take a step closer to him.

  “I am so sorry, Henry.”

  When he doesn’t reply, I move closer still and put the crumpled missive on the table beside him. “The fire is dying, my love. I shall call a servant …”

  “No.”

  “No? But it is growing chilly.”

  He sighs, tugs at his lower lip. “I want to be alone, to think, to remember …”

  “You want me to go?”

  “No, no, stay but be quiet with me, that is all I ask.”