by Brandy Purdy
“Go! Now! I am Queen and I command you to leave my presence!” she screamed, shaking off her sister and Meg Lee as they tried to calm and quiet her, murmuring soothing shushing sounds, and imploring her to “Think of the child!”
Trembling and pale, with blood snaking down her face, Mary staggered towards the door.
“Halt!” Anne screamed. “Do not turn your back upon the Queen! You will not depart this chamber else you do it properly!” And Mary, blood now seeping into her collar, turned, bobbed a quick curtsy, and stumbled out the door.
Upstairs, she would find that her chamber was among the worst in the palace, a servant’s attic room so tiny she could scarcely take three steps in any direction; and the ceiling was so low she risked concussion every time she stood fully upright. The frame of her narrow bed bit through the wafer-thin mattress, and the bed linens bore ancient stains and were frayed at the seams and threadbare. Candles of tallow, not fine beeswax, proffered a paltry, smoky light. And there was no hearth or brazier to keep her warm, so Mary must sleep huddled in the folds of her own cloak, trembling with cold and misery as rats and black beetles scuttled behind the walls.
Anne showed her no mercy. She was assigned the most demeaning chores. Whenever Anne needed to avail herself of the chamber pot, it was the Lady Mary who must attend her, wiping her privy parts with a linen napkin, then afterwards empty the slops, and all the time Anne mocked and derided her: “the mistake,” “Catherine’s failure,” a royal princess no more unless she would be dubbed “princess of the piss pot.” How Mary endured it I shall never know.
At last on the seventh morning of September 1533, before the sun had yet to stretch its yellow fingers across the sky to push the darkness away, Anne went into a labor that can only be described as hellish. Lathered with sweat, she kicked the covers from the bed and ripped away her shift. Her naked body bucked and writhed upon the mattress as she screamed and moaned in unrelenting agony.
I stood there transfixed, riveted, as I watched Anne’s blood gush out in a red river from between her thighs, and I wished it would keep on flowing until she was bled dry. Every day women faced Death on the battlefield that was childbirth, fighting to bring a new life into the world and preserve their own, and many lost—hundreds, maybe even thousands, lost—so why not Anne?
The midwife shook her head and clucked her tongue over Anne’s narrow hips. And Dr. Butts, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow, had to agree.
“She’s really not built for bearing,” the midwife said.
But even through the hot red haze of pain, Anne was relentless in her torment of the Princess Mary. She ordered her to stand at the foot of the bed and watch; she must not move or hide her eyes.
“I want you to see my son enter the world!” she cried as her body bucked upon the crest of another giant wave of pain.
Mary watched, silent and pallid, as the slimy, bloody babe slithered from between Anne’s thighs. Slowly her lips spread in a wide smile as all about her silence reigned. No one dared move or speak, or meet Anne’s eyes.
“What is it?” Anne levered herself up onto her elbows. “Why are you all so still and silent? And you”—she thrust her chin at the Princess Mary—“why do you smile so, you insolent bitch? Well? What is it? Will someone please tell me what’s wrong? My son?” She gasped and panic filled her eyes. “Is he…”
The midwife and the doctor exchanged wary glances, then turned to the Queen’s mother and sister. Clearly no one wanted to be the one to tell her.
Elizabeth Boleyn turned her pale, patrician face away, suddenly absorbed in admiration of the tapestries.
At last, it was Mary Boleyn who took the infant, now swaddled loosely in a blanket, and approached the bed.
“You have borne a daughter, Nan,” she said gently as she bent to show her the baby, “a beautiful daughter!”
“God help me! I have failed!” Anne cried. And she rolled over onto her side, turning away from her newborn child.
From opposite sides of the bed the Princess Mary and I shared a smile. All Anne’s boasting and arrogance had come to nothing. She had failed in a manner more spectacular than all her gaudy triumphs combined!
But Mary Boleyn was the soul of compassion. Seating herself upon the bed, the mewling babe cradled against her breast, she leaned over and laid a hand upon Anne’s shoulder. “Nan, darling, sit up and look at her; look at your daughter, Nan! Take her in your arms, and I promise, you shall know such bliss as you have never known before!”
After a moment, she did. She sat up slowly, shook back her tangled, sweat-sodden hair, and held out her arms to receive her child.
The newborn princess reached up a blood-streaked fist to grip a hank of black hair. Anne raised a hand to gently free it, and the tiny infant fingers grasped hers. Her face, usually so guarded as befit the master card player that she was, was like an open book then, and I could see how she marveled at those tiny, exquisite fingers and the red fuzz that covered the tiny scalp.
“Henry’s hair,” she murmured. “She has Henry’s hair! My Elizabeth!” She smiled proudly as, for the first time, she spoke her daughter’s name. “You are a true Tudor rose!” She pressed a kiss onto the tiny, red-crinkled brow.
When the King was at last admitted, wading through a sea of courtiers and ladies, nervously nibbling sugar wafers and sipping spiced wine, the bed had been made anew with fresh linens, and the elaborate red-and-gold coverlet and curtains, removed for the birthing, had been replaced. Bathed and perfumed, and clad in a fresh shift with her hair combed sleek, Anne received her husband with all the majesty of a born and bred queen, propped up against a bank of plump pillows, with her newborn daughter in her arms.
But Henry did not wait for explanations and no one had the courage to tell him the truth before he entered the room. His ruddy face wreathed in smiles, he swooped down and plucked the startled infant from Anne’s arms.
“Ah, hear him bellow!” he enthused at the babe’s shrill, protesting shrieks. “That, my lords and ladies, is the voice of a King! Oh, Edward, Edward, my precious, precious boy! At last, at long last, I have a son!” He cradled the ermine and purple velvet–wrapped bundle against his heart.
“Your Majesty.” Anne’s voice rose like a sword to deliver the killing blow. “I have borne you a daughter.”
Shrugging off my restraining hand, George crossed the room and went to stand beside Anne’s bed. And, one by one, Weston, Brereton, and Norris joined him, clustering around Anne’s bed in a show of solidarity.
For a moment it seemed as if the King would drop the baby, and both Mary Boleyn and the midwife took a step forward with arms outstretched, poised to dive to catch her if she fell. He stood there, teetering and pale, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Then, as if he could not quite believe his ears, he laid the infant down upon the nearest table and unwound the layers of ermine, velvet, and lace-edged linen, until she lay completely bare before him, naked and pink, thrashing her limbs and screaming in outrage.
“I have named her Elizabeth,” Anne announced, “after your mother and mine.”
Behind the King, Elizabeth Boleyn shrunk back to distance herself from this unwished-for honor and Thomas Boleyn glared furiously at Anne.
Henry left the child where she lay and slowly approached the bed. His jaw was clenched so tight that as he passed me I heard his teeth grinding. Angry red blotches mottled his face. And briefly his hand brushed against the hilt of the dagger in his belt as if he longed to unsheathe it and smite Anne dead. Never before had I seen a man fighting so hard to suppress his rage.
“You promised me a son.” He spoke these accusing words so softly that only those standing nearest the bed could hear. “The soothsayers promised me a son, ‘a Tudor sun,’ they said, ‘that will shine over England in my image!’”
“It is not the prophecy that is mistaken, Sire, only the timing that is awry. A daughter this time, a son the next,” Anne answered, but it was all bluster and show. I know, I saw the fear in her eye
s.
Standing beside the bed, Henry breathed deeply. We all watched as that massive chest rose and fell.
“As you say.” Henry exhaled long and slowly, then nodded resignedly. “A girl this time, a boy the next.” He bent to brush a brisk kiss against Anne’s cheek. “You must do better next time, sweetheart,” he advised, his eyes boring deeply into hers to make sure she understood that he would not be so tolerant of another failure.
“Next time.” Anne nodded, smiling with a confidence I knew she did not feel, before, still weak and wan from the travails of childbirth, she fell back against her pillows and pressed a hand to her brow, shielding her eyes as if she could no longer bear to look upon those who had borne witness to her failure.
“Next time…” Henry repeated before he turned his back on her and strode quickly from the room, with most of the court trailing after him.
Beside the table where the newborn Princess Elizabeth still lay, watched over by Mary Boleyn and the midwife, Thomas Boleyn and his brother-in-law Norfolk lingered.
“What a waste!” Norfolk growled, grimacing with distaste. “A shrieking cunt born of a shrieking cunt!”
“Aye,” Thomas Boleyn agreed, glancing first at his newborn granddaughter then back at Anne, “what a waste!”
Together they hastened out after the King to condole with him and apologize profusely for Anne’s failure, lest any of the blame touch them.
While King, court, and country unenthusiastically celebrated the birth of the new little princess, Anne remained in bed, stricken with an excruciating attack of “White Leg,” that dreaded ailment that often strikes women after they have given birth, causing their limbs to swell to the point where one fears the skin will split. For nearly a month she kept to her bed, lying still and waiting to either recover or die as is every woman’s lot, and weeping because Henry refused to let her suckle her own child.
I was there, standing by the bed in a pose of ready assistance, when her breasts were bound. I saw the tears raining down her face beneath Henry’s stern, unrelenting stare as the midwife silently wound tight bands of linen around Anne’s heavy, leaking breasts.
“You are the Queen, Madame, as you are so fond of reminding everyone, not some peasant woman squatting in a field to give suck to her child! For our son I engaged the finest wet nurse in England, but since we have no son…” He paused and glared meaningfully at Anne, letting his words sink in, reminding her yet again that the fault was hers entirely. “For our daughter she shall suffice.”
It was only when she held Elizabeth that Anne seemed truly happy. Once I walked into her bedchamber with the aged Lady Wingfield and found my husband sitting on her bed with an arm draped around Anne’s shoulders, smiling down at the cooing red-haired infant on her lap.
Once again, Anne was marveling over those tiny hands.
“Five fingers!” she breathed, counting them for what must have been the thousandth time, as if she needed to constantly reassure herself that her daughter had not inherited her deformity. “Five fingers, George!” Joy lit up her face. “Only five!”
“Yes”—George nodded indulgently—“she has five fingers now just as she did when last you counted them, only a moment ago, darling Nan. Look, she has our hands!” He extended one of his own graceful, long-fingered hands and compared it with Anne’s and Elizabeth’s. “Musician’s hands—her fingers will be long and slender, just like ours. Aye, Nan, this little one is one of us!”
“Indeed she is. When she is old enough I think I shall appoint Smeaton to be her music master.”
“A fine idea,” George agreed.
“She has Henry’s hair,” Anne said, toying with the tufts of red, trying vainly to shape them into ringlets.
“But she has your face, and your eyes, and”—George chuckled as Elizabeth emitted a hearty cry and began to flail her fists about until the wet nurse came running—“methinks she has inherited both her parents’ tempers!”
“I think so too. Heaven help her and anyone who dares cross her!” Anne laughed as she sadly relinquished her babe to another woman’s breasts.
Rage bubbled and boiled inside me and a silent scream filled my lungs. How I hated her! And, at that moment, I hated my husband! Would the day ever come when George would sit upon my bed, with love overflowing from his eyes, and his face wearing a doting smile while our babe curled a fist around his finger? But we had no child, nor any real hope of having one. I considered myself fortunate if he came to my bed even once a month. No matter how hard I tried, I could not coax him to couple with me more often. Despite what the physician had told me, I had not shared this knowledge with George. I knew, if I did, he would cease to come to me at all. When he did come he did not bother to hide his boredom and distaste; he was more like a man who must submit to the tooth-puller than carnally know his wife. The look of love in my eyes and on my face only made things worse. When he mounted me our expressions were so different, and so distressing to us both, that I was glad when he finally lost all patience and roughly turned me away from him, grasped my hips and pulled to make me kneel on all fours upon the bed, then proceeded to take me as if we were a pair of dogs. And when he was finished, before I could even turn around to face him, he was gone, and the door leading to his chamber was already closing, and locking, behind him.
“Ah, Lady Wingfield,” I said loudly, as one must since the poor old thing was as deaf as a post and nearly as dumb as one, “do you not hate to intrude upon a scene of such domestic bliss?”
“Then do not intrude,” Anne said simply. “Go away.”
“Yes, Jane, do,” George echoed tersely. “Go away.”
“Come, Lady Wingfield!” I shouted in her ear. “The Queen desires to be alone with my husband!”
Seizing the bewildered old beldame by the arm, I guided her back out even as I struggled to hold back the hot, angry tears. I will not let them see me cry, I kept repeating to myself, I will not let them see me cry. But someday I hope by God to make them cry.
And then I will laugh at them!
The entire court was awestruck by Anne’s devotion to her daughter. It seemed there were not hours enough in the day for her to hold and admire Elizabeth. She wanted to have the baby beside her all the time; she wanted to bathe and dress her and change her soiled napkins, instead of entrusting such duties to the nursemaids. And while Elizabeth slept, she busied herself with examining the fabrics the London mercers sent, selecting vivid shades of green, orange, yellow, red, purple, and amber to fashion exquisite little gowns and caps, which Anne lovingly embroidered herself.
And when in December Elizabeth was, at Henry’s command, sent away to Hatfield House to set up her own establishment as befits a royal princess, Anne wept an ocean of tears.
“Can she not stay until after the New Year?” she pleaded.
“No!” Henry replied, firm and unyielding.
“Just until after Christmas then?” Anne begged.
Again the answer was a curt and emphatic “No!” and Anne was advised to cease thinking so much about her daughter and turn her mind instead to getting a son.
“I fulfilled my end of the bargain,” Henry reminded her darkly. “I married you and made you Queen, but you have failed to uphold yours! You promised me a son!”
In the end, on a cold, wintry day, with the wind pulling and whipping wildly at her purple and crimson skirts, sleeves, and long black hair, Anne stood in the courtyard and watched the litter bearing her baby away from her until it was completely out of sight.
I watched from a window above as George went out to her and lovingly draped a fur-lined velvet cloak about her shoulders and leaned down so that his chin rested against her shoulder and their cheeks touched.
When Elizabeth’s litter was no longer even the tiniest speck on the horizon, Anne turned, threw her arms around George’s neck, and wept.
I wept too, but not for Anne or Elizabeth. I cried for myself because no one else would, and because I knew there was naught that I could do to e
licit such a display of tenderness and affection from my husband, the man I loved with all my soul and heart. Sometimes I thought I was mad to love a man so much when he was so callous and cruelly indifferent to me, but I could not help myself; I could no more stop myself from loving George Boleyn than I could stop myself from breathing.
18
It soon became apparent to everyone at court that the lady in the storm-tossed ship called Love was floundering. Like the little lady in the brooch Anne had given Henry as a New Year’s gift to seal their bargain, she was in dire peril and all around bets were being laid on whether she would sink or swim. Henry’s attentions were no longer centered solely upon Anne. His caresses had grown casual, and his visits to her bed less frequent. His eyes and thoughts often wandered, straying most often to a king’s favorite hunting ground—the queen’s ladies-in-waiting.
Yet luck was with her, and on Christmas Day Anne announced that she was again with child.
Henry was ecstatic. He swept her up in his arms and spun her round and round. “I knew you would not disappoint me, Anne!” he cried as he covered her face with kisses, then dropped to his knees and lavished yet more kisses upon her belly.
But she did disappoint him. A fortnight later, Anne awoke and found herself lying in blood. Perhaps it was too soon after the birth of Elizabeth, or else despair had delayed her courses, but Anne certainly was not pregnant.
She was terrified to tell the King, and with good reason.
From behind a tapestry I watched through a moth hole as his jaw tightened and twitched and his eyes narrowed to slits.
Anne tried desperately to explain and excuse her error. “I so wanted it to be true; perhaps I deceived myself, but I never meant to deceive you!”
“But you did, Anne, you did!” He pulled her close to him, his fingers digging deep into the soft flesh of her arm, as his eyes bored—as hard as marble and cold as ice—into hers, steady and unwavering, and devoid of sympathy or mercy. “Henceforth, be more careful in your calculations, sweetheart,” he said, with a jovial veneer to mask the warning, and then he kissed her cheek and released her.