There were nine of us, as I remember, and we were a widely varied lot. First came Anne Cavecant, Lord Cavecant’s daughter and the oldest among us, ashamed of her looks (she was rather homely, with a long sharp nose and pockmarked skin and a shy, almost furtive expression) and even more ashamed that, at twenty-seven, she was still without a husband. It was said that she had once been chosen by an elderly knight to become his fourth wife, but he had died before the wedding ceremony could take place. Since then she had waited in vain for another man to choose her.
Lavinia Terling was sly and pretty with hair that fell in long blond waves and innocent-looking blue eyes, a well-behaved girl but with only one thought in her head: how soon would she marry, and how rich and highborn would her husband be? The Belgian among us, Jane Popyngcort, insisted upon dressing in the foreign style rather than wearing English gowns and hoods. She was said to have been King Henry’s mistress when both were young, and this gave her a certain air of mystery. (“Though she didn’t last,” the other maids said behind Jane’s back. “She couldn’t have mattered very much to him.”)
Of the remaining maids, the ones who stood out most were Bridget Wiltshire, small and feral and as lean as a greyhound, and with a sharp tongue and a quick wit, who had just become engaged to Lord Wingfield, and her close friend Anne Boleyn, the temperamental dark-haired, dark-eyed sister of the king’s mistress Mary Boleyn Carey whose name we were not allowed to mention in the queen’s presence. Anne, so it was said, was well beyond the age when a gentleman’s daughter (and the niece of the powerful Duke of Norfolk) ought to be married, and although she had had at least three chances for a match, none of them had resulted in a betrothal.
I was the youngest of the maids of honor, but—I am not being immodest, merely telling the truth—I believe that, among the English women in Queen Catherine’s household, I was the most favored by her. She liked having me near her, especially when upsetting events were challenging her usual calm and self-possession. There were many such challenges in those years, when I first came to court. Naturally her Spanish ladies resented the favoritism she showed me, believing that since they shared her native speech and customs, they should be the ones to be kept nearest her person. I was well aware of this resentment and did what I could to lower it. But I knew that Maria de Salinas and the others regarded me as a presumptuous intruder in their midst, and imagined that I had risen to favor with the queen through trickery or by slandering them, whereas in fact I had merely been myself.
The queen was preparing to speak. There was quiet in the room; even Bridget and Anne, whose giggles and titters were forever interrupting solemn occasions, were silent for the moment.
All eyes were on Catherine. Then, with a sweet and gracious smile, she addressed us.
“By now you all know that the Lord has not seen fit to bless this kingdom with a male heir to the throne. My son, Edward, did not live to take his first breath.”
Polite murmurs of consolation greeted these words. The queen acknowledged them with a small nod, then went on.
“Our prayers are not always answered as we would wish, as Fray Diego reminds me. The Lord’s purposes are not ours. But then, it is not our bodies, or their fruits, that matter, it is our eternal souls. As we read in the gospel, they should not be feared which have the power of the body, but Him only, that hath power over the soul.
“I have been shriven,” the queen went on, “and will be churched in due course. Until then I will keep my chamber, and will expect you all to say little of what has passed here in recent days. If you should be asked, ‘What news of the queen?’ you ought simply to say, ‘The Lord’s will has been done.’”
Maria de Salinas stepped forward to indicate that all present should take their leave, and we did so, each of us passing in front of Her Highness and bowing. “I am grateful for your loyal service,” she said to each of us, or “Thank you for your continual prayers.”
We had not gone far in this small ceremony when we heard heavy footfalls outside the queen’s apartments. Boots thundered along the corridor outside, and almost before we could react, or even draw back in alarm, the heavy double doors burst open with a loud crack of splintering wood and King Henry came into the room. I almost wrote that he exploded into the room, such was the force of his vital presence. His angry presence.
He wore his green hunting jerkin and a cap with a feather such as huntsmen wear. Leaves and twigs stuck to his jerkin and were caught in his long blond hair. He has ridden here in great haste, I thought. He has not taken the time to make himself presentable. His muddy boots left ugly dark tracks on the immaculate carpet, and the long knife that hung from his belt, its blade glinting in the firelit room, was still red with the gore of his kills.
He strode up to the seated Catherine.
“Why was this news kept from me, madam?” he barked. “Why was I not told at once?” His rich, resonant voice filled the room. We all stood still, in awe of his royal anger, of the sheer force of his presence. Would he blame us for withholding word of the stillborn prince? I felt myself shrink, as if, by making myself smaller, I could avoid his wrath.
He glared down at Catherine, who looked up at him with her usual mildness.
“I believe a messenger was sent to you, sire. Had I been able, I would have brought you the news myself. But I was quite ill, indeed very ill—”
“Ill! Ill! You are always ill! You are useless! The one thing I ask of you, the only thing I have ever asked of you, ever since I married you—out of pity—and you have not been able to do it!”
He fairly spat out the words, his sharp, assaultive tone far more bruising than the words themselves. Catherine continued to look at him mildly. He began to pace, scattering the women in the room as he neared them, swerving back and forth. I could see that he was sweating.
“I bring physicians to examine you,” he was saying, “apothecaries to give you drugs to make you fertile, we pray together, you go to every shrine in Christendom—and this is the result! Another dead boy! How many is it now? Ten? Twenty?”
The king paused in his diatribe, and seeing my opportunity, I slowly moved toward the door. The others too began filing slowly out of the room.
Catherine reached out toward me.
“Stay, Jane,” she said quietly.
“Go!” the king shouted. I knew I had to do as he asked, and I quickly and quietly exited. But once I was in the corridor beyond the queen’s bedchamber I stopped, and listened to the quarrel that erupted—a quarrel far more venomous than any I had ever heard, either in the palace or outside of it.
I was not the only one listening. The queen’s Spanish ladies lingered there in the corridor, as I did, as did Jane Popyngcort and Bridget Wiltshire and Anne Boleyn and a few of the ladies in waiting. The Spanish ladies crossed themselves from time to time, and exclaimed to one another in their own tongue. I was feeling worried. What would the king do to Catherine? Clearly she had foreseen how angry he would be, that was why she had asked Maria de Salinas to delay sending word to him of the stillborn child. How extreme could his anger become?
“Enough!” the king kept saying, this one word trumpeting out again and again amid the torrent of his harsh words.
“Enough indeed,” I heard Anne say to Bridget. “All this is just wearisome. What does he expect, married to an old woman like that, with a dried-up womb—” Only Anne didn’t say “womb,” she used a much more rude and disrespectful word.
“Hush!” I heard myself say. “Have you no sense of duty to your mistress? Surely the poor queen deserves civility, after all she has been through!”
Anne turned toward me and looked at me, a frosty look.
“And who are you, Mistress Seymour, to tell me how to act? Your father is a landed knight, I believe, while my uncle Norfolk is the greatest noble in England!”
I stood my ground. Anne might be among the most attractive of the maids of honor (though far less attractive than the beautiful Lavinia Terling), with an allure that was difficul
t to define but unmistakable—I could see the lust in the men’s eyes when they looked at her—but that did not excuse her rudeness.
“I have often heard the queen say that charity and kindness have no regard for birth or rank. Our Lord and exemplar was not a nobleman, if I remember my gospels correctly.” I knew my words sounded sanctimonious, yet I went on, keeping my voice low.
“I believe your father is no more exalted than my own, despite his wife’s family connections,” I began. “And how is it that you are not yet wed, though you must be at least twenty-five?”
I could tell that my question stung. Anne’s black eyes grew narrower, and before she turned away she said to Bridget, “Listen to the stunted little nobody! I’ve heard—” But what she had heard, and was confiding in Bridget’s ear, was drowned out by the king’s voice rising to a new level of vengeful accusation.
“Enough!” he was saying yet again. “There will be no more dead sons—or dead daughters either! You may enjoy your bed in peace—and solitude! I will announce this afternoon that my son Henry Fitzroy will be named Duke of Richmond. Once he receives that title he will be the highest-ranking noble in the land. Higher than your daughter, madam, higher even than the pompous Norfolk! Henry Fitzroy will be the next King of England, and there’s an end to it!”
And hearing the king’s footsteps approaching, those of us in the corridor scattered, like sheep before the wolf, and sought the shelter of less troubled quarters.
Sweeping,
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CAROLLY ERICKSON
The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette
The Last Wife of Henry VIII
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The Tsarina’s Daughter
The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots
Rival to the Queen
The Favored Queen
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