Love, Remember Me

by Bertrice Small

  The young page brought silver cups of wine for the king and the princess. He stood respectfully, translating the careful small talk between the two until finally the king arose stiffly and turned to him.

  “Tell the lady Anne I must now go. I thank her for her very gracious hospitality. I will see her soon.” But not too soon, I hope, he thought. Then he waited while the boy spoke in his own tongue to the princess.

  “He can scarce conceal his eagerness to go, can he,” Anne said wryly, but her face was devoid of emotion. “Tell His Grace my heart is full with his warm welcome, and if you laugh, Hans, I shall smack you. The situation is serious.”

  Hans von Grafsteen gravely told the king, “The princess says her heart is full with your warm and loving welcome, Your Grace.”

  “Humph,” the king grunted, and with a sketchy bow to his bride-to-be, he hurried from the room. Stamping out into the corridor, he found Sir Anthony Browne awaiting him. His temper overflowed at last, and he snarled, “I have been ill handled, my lord! There is nothing in this woman as has been reported to me. I like her not!” Then realizing that he was still clutching the sables he had brought with him, he thrust them at Sir Anthony. “Give them to the creature!”

  “You do not like the Princess of Cleves?” Sir Anthony’s voice quavered.

  “Have I not said it,” the king thundered. “I like her not! There is a story of a swan who came down the Rhine to impregnate two Princesses of Cleves. Her line is said to spring from those maidens. I expected the silver swan of Cleves. What I have been sent is a great Flanders mare! I like her not!”

  Nyssa, coming into hearing range, paled as she heard the king’s words, and gasped. Both men turned to her, and she shrank back frightened, somehow remembering her curtsey to the king. His face softened when he saw her, and he held out his hand to her.

  “Do not let my righteous anger make you afraid, my lady,” he told her. “Ahh, Nyssa, be glad you are but an earl’s child and not a king’s. Kings may not marry where they please, but rather they must please their people.” He sighed dramatically.

  “Ohh, my lord, she is a good lady, the Princess of Cleves,” Nyssa said earnestly. “I will soon teach her our tongue.”

  “Anthony! Anthony! Is she not sweet, the daughter of my little country girl? Her heart is a gentle and good one, as her mother’s heart has always been.” The king patted Nyssa’s slender hand, and then to her horror he drew her against his massive gold-embroidered velvet chest, stroking her hair as he did so. “Dearest little Nyssa, may you never know the anguish of being forced to the altar, but nay! That shall not be your fate, my child. You will marry for love. I, your king, command it!” Then gently he set her back from him, and turning away from her, walked slowly off down the corridor.

  “You will hold your tongue, girl,” Sir Anthony warned Nyssa grimly. “This is more than a disappointed bridegroom.”

  “I am aware of the political ramifications involved, my lord,” she replied seriously. “Though I be young, and new to the court, I have been educated, and understand that the marriage of a king is no simple thing. Besides, I would not hurt the lady Anne. I like her.”

  “So,” the seasoned courtier said slowly, “you are not quite the little country mouse the king believes you are.”

  “Nor was my mother, sir,” Nyssa said boldly. “She survived the court, and so I intend doing as well.” She curtsied and then hurried into the bishop’s presence chamber, where the princess still sat.

  “She knows he does not like her,” Hans von Grafsteen burst out as Nyssa closed the door behind her.

  “Hush!” she warned him. “Sir Anthony Browne is outside.”

  “What will happen?” the boy asked her. “Will he kill her?”

  “For what cause?” Nyssa demanded. “Because he is disappointed that she is not quite as Holbein portrayed her? ’Tis not her fault. She is a pawn on the political chessboard of Europe.”

  “Then what will happen to her?” Hans said, lowering his voice.

  “He is the king, so I do not know; but a simple man would try to find a way to void the betrothal. I suppose it will be the same for the king. He will want Cromwell and his council to give him a means of escape; but he will not want to appear at fault, you understand. Henry Tudor is not a man to easily admit a fault. My mother warned me of that lest I inadvertently offend him. Is there anything that could be used against the princess, Hans?”

  “There was talk of a betrothal with the son of the Duke of Lorraine when the princess was a child, but it came to nothing. No contracts were drawn, or signed. She was completely free to contract this marriage.”

  “What are you saying?” the princess asked Hans.

  He quickly told her, saying, “Lady Nyssa is sympathetic to your cause, my princess. She would help if she could, but has no power to do so.”

  “You must tell the princess to behave with dignity and composure,” Nyssa interrupted him. “She must behave as if everything is perfectly all right and she has not the least suspicion that the king is disappointed in her. She must go out of her way to please him both publicly and privately. The king is not a man to hide his feelings, and once the different factions that people the court learn of his dissatisfaction, your mistress will become a hunted animal. She must pretend she is unaware of her position, Hans. That will be the key to her survival.”

  The page translated her words to the princess, who nodded most vigorously. “Ya! Ya! She is right, my liebling. She may be unfamiliar with the court, but she is a clever little girl. Do you think the king will keep his pledge, and marry me?”

  Hans asked the question of Nyssa, who said, “Unless the council can find a legitimate reason to void the marriage contract, the king will have no other choice than to marry the princess. I do not think they will find such a reason, and that is why I advise her to do everything in her power to please the king. She must begin music lessons immediately. Mistress Howard is a very fine musician. Have the princess ask her to teach her to play the lute, and the virginals. And she must learn to dance, Hans. We can all teach her to dance. The king loves to dance.”

  Hans relayed Nyssa’s advice to his mistress.

  “That great hulk of a man dances?” Anne of Cleves said, astounded. “I cannot imagine it. Why, the very floor must shake when he prances about in his elegant finery.” She chuckled at the thought.

  “He is a fine dancer, and very graceful despite his size,” Nyssa said when Hans had told her the princess’s words.

  “Ya? So, I must learn to be as facile and as graceful, then. Ya! I shall be the very model of a wife for King Henry.”

  Nyssa giggled when Hans told her what the princess had said. Then she grew serious again. “The princess must defer to the king at all times, and in all things, but she must not be so weak-kneed as to be thought spineless, or taken advantage of by others. He is not afraid of women with intellect. He just prefers to be superior to them.”

  Anne of Cleves burst out laughing as Hans translated the girl’s words. “Ya! ’Tis true of all men. My brother and King Henry would get on most famously, I think. Still, cannot one consider that the Lord God, having created man first, possibly acknowledged an error, and created woman? It is something to ponder, eh, my friends?”

  The princess and her retinue moved on to Dartford while the court departed for Greenwich on the second day of January. I like her not! became a catch phrase among witty courtiers who quickly learned of the king’s unhappiness with the Princess of Cleves. As expected, however, the painter Holbein escaped the royal wrath. His New Year’s gift to his outraged master, a portrait of the two-year-old heir apparent in a red satin gown and bonnet, gained him instant pardon, particularly as the little boy’s resemblance to his father was most pronounced.

  To almost everyone’s delight, the king was furious with his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. Back in London’s Whitehall Palace, before the council, the king roared, “You deceived me, you wily devil, and I would know why! I might have had a Fr
ench or Danish wife, but no! Only the match with Cleves would suit you. Why? Her skin is sallow, and her features are sharp. She is tall, and though not fat, she is big. A Flanders mare! Well, ’tis one mare this royal stallion will not mount, sir!”

  The council snickered as Thomas Cromwell paled. Still, he was not yet beaten. He turned to the Lord Admiral and demanded angrily, “You saw her, my lord, and yet you did not warn the king of her unsuitability. I could but rely on the reports of her. You were the first Englishman to see her, and you did not tell us that she would not do.”

  “It was not my place to do so, my lord,” the admiral said indignantly. “The match was made. I assumed this woman was to be my queen. It was not my place to criticize her. Perhaps she is not quite the lady Master Holbein portrayed her as, but she is pleasant and good-hearted. It was not my place to find fault in her.”

  The king rounded on Cromwell. “He is correct, Crum! You did not investigate this woman thoroughly enough, and now I am left to be wed and bedded with her. I like her not! I like her not!”

  “It is an advantageous match for Your Grace,” Cromwell took another tack. “This marriage you have so widely contracted to balances the alliance between France and the Holy Roman Empire.”

  “Surely there must be another remedy for Your Grace,” the Duke of Norfolk said softly.

  “There is no remedy,” Cromwell said bluntly. “There is absolutely no excuse the king can offer for crying off of this match. There is no precontract with any other. There is no consanguinity. She is not a Lutheran, but rather, like Your Grace, follows the doctrine whereby the Church yields its authority to the state.”

  “I have not been well-handled,” muttered the king dourly. “She is nothing as was reported to me; and had I known it, she would not have come to England, my lords. Now I must needs put my neck in this noose you have fashioned for me. Nay, I have not been well-handled!” He glared around the table at them, but his hardest look was reserved for Thomas Cromwell, and the Lord Chancellor’s enemies knew then and there that his days were numbered. The butcher’s son had finally made a mistake.

  Cromwell arose and said, “On what day will you be pleased to have the queen crowned, Your Grace? Will it still be Candlemas as we discussed?”

  The king glowered at him. “We will talk on it when I have made her my queen,” he said grimly.

  Cromwell winced, but continued. “We will have to leave soon to welcome the princess to London, Your Grace.”

  Without another word Henry Tudor arose and departed the room.

  “Your time grows short, Crum,” the Duke of Norfolk said boldly.

  “I am a more loyal servant of the king’s majesty than you are, Duke Thomas,” Cromwell replied. “I am not gone yet.”

  The king left London for Greenwich with a great party of nobles in his retinue. They would meet Anne of Cleves and her escort at Shooter’s Hill near Blackheath, and the king would accompany his bride into London. Henry Tudor came down the Thames from London by barge. All the vessels accompanying him were decorated gaily with bright silk streamers that fluttered in the cold light breeze. The Lord Mayor of London and his aldermen had their own barge, and they traveled behind the king’s royal barge.

  Anne rode from Dartford, where she had been resting for the past few days. Only a hundred of her people from Cleves remained with her for the present. Two of her native maids of honor spoke English. They were Hans’s elder sister, Helga von Grafsteen, who was thirteen, and her cousin, Maria von Hesseldorf, who was twelve. Although ignored by the Bassetts, they were welcomed into the group of younger English maids. Both girls easily picked up the lute, which delighted Cat Howard. She had been most discouraged in her efforts to teach her new mistress.

  “She has no ear for music,” Cat said, shaking her auburn curls. “If the king hears her efforts, he will be even more displeased with her than he already is, I fear.”

  “But she is quickly learning to dance,” Nyssa said with a smile. “She is very graceful. And her English has been improving in just these past few days. I think the king will be pleased with her.”

  “She tries so hard,” Kate Carey said. “It should not matter that she is not quite what her portrait made her seem.”

  “God’s blood!” Cat Howard swore softly. “What kind of a ninny are you, Kate, that you have not realized that men will be taken by a woman’s looks before all? For many of them nothing else matters.”

  “Surely all men are not like that,” Nyssa said.

  “You will not have to worry about it,” Cat replied. “You are the most beautiful of us all. Do you look like your mother?”

  “I have her eyes,” Nyssa answered.

  “They say the king was mad for her in her day,” Cat continued.

  “You know more than I do,” Nyssa said quietly. “I was but an infant, and not even at court then.”

  They had brought their finest gowns with them for the official reception of Anne of Cleves into London. Nyssa had chosen to wear her burgundy velvet. The underskirt was a brocade of gold on wine velvet. Her gown was trimmed with rich marten at its hem and sleeves. Her cape matched her gown, and both the hood and the hem were richly furred, but she did not wear the hood. Her long dark chestnut-colored hair was neatly gathered in a gold caul. Her hands, sheathed in soft kid riding gloves, rested lightly on the reins of her gray mare. The other girls were as richly garbed, remembering the late Queen Jane, who had once sent Anne Bassett home until her bodice had more pearls sewn upon it. A queen’s maid of honor must reflect her royal mistress’s station. She could not appear shabby.

  The Princess of Cleves was conveyed down Shooter’s Hill to the cloth-of-gold pavilion that had been set up to receive her. About it several smaller pavilions were clustered. She arrived at the foot of the hill at precisely noon, and was received by her Lord Chamberlain, her chancellor, her almoner, and the other officials of her household. Dr. Kaye addressed the assemblage in Latin. He then formally presented Anne to all those who had been sworn to serve her. The ambassador from Cleves replied to Dr. Kaye’s speech on behalf of the princess.

  The ladies of the new queen’s household were now officially presented. Each stepped forward to appear before the princess, curtsied, and then moved on. The maids were last, and Anne smiled warmly at them all. She was greatly appreciative of their efforts to help her adjust to her new life. It was cold, and the princess was frankly relieved when she was able to alight from her decorated chariot and retire to the pavilion with her ladies, where they might warm themselves by the braziers with their scented fires.

  “Ach du lieber, mein girls,” the good lady exclaimed, pulling off her gloves and handing them to Elizabeth FitzGerald, “is it cold!”

  “It is cold, Your Grace,” Nyssa gently corrected her mistress.

  “Ya, Lady Nyssa,” Anne replied with a smile, nodding. “It is cold, ya? Is better?”

  “Much better, madame,” Nyssa said, smiling back.

  “Bring a chair for the princess,” Cat Howard said aloud, and it was instantly done.

  Anne of Cleves sat down before the brazier, holding out her hands and sighing gustily. “Hans! Vhere are you?”

  The page hurried forward and bowed. “I am here, madame,” he answered her in their native tongue.

  “Stay close by me, Hans. Nyssa is willing, bless the girl, but she is not as facile in our language as she desires to be. I will need you. Where is the king?”

  “He is on his way from Greenwich now, madame,” the boy said.

  Young Viscount Wyndham slipped next to his sister. “You’re getting on well with her, aren’t you?” he said. “She’s not really quite like her portrait, is she? The king is furious, I hear.”

  “More the fool he, then, little brother,” Nyssa said sharply. “The lady Anne has both charm and dignity. She will make a good queen if our sovereign liege lord will but remember he is nearing fifty and is no prize catch himself. He must give her a chance. He will find she is a good companion, and will make a good
mother.”

  “For God’s sweet sake, sister, do not say such as you have said to me to others,” Viscount Wyndham murmured low. “If it is not treason, it is near treason; although,” he amended with a mischievous smile, “you should probably not lose your head, but just be sent home in deep disgrace. Then who should want to marry you, my lady Nyssa?”

  “I shall not marry but for love, Philip,” she told him.

  “I am much too young for love,” he said, “and I thank God for it. Master Culpeper, who is Mistress Howard’s cousin, is most smitten with her. When the king was being fitted for his wedding clothes, he offered Culpeper some velvet for a doublet, and he begged another piece for Mistress Howard, I am told. She had the very gown she wears today made from it. The fool has next to nothing, and would have done better to keep the extra material for himself for another doublet. Love. Pah!”

  “I think it most romantic of him,” Nyssa said with a smile, and then turned at the sound of the princess calling her younger brother’s name. Giles came forward with a goblet of hot spiced wine for his mistress. “She is very fond of Giles,” Nyssa noted.

  “Aye,” Philip concurred. “The little turniphead seems to have a knack for being a courtier without being arrogant.”

  Brother and sister both watched amused as the princess fondly pinched their little brother’s rosy cheeks. Giles was the only one of their siblings who was a blond, and with his light blue eyes he looked like a cherub. It was obvious that the Princess of Cleves doted on him, much to his embarrassment, but Giles was far too clever a boy to show anything but his good side to his mistress. Still he squirmed under the lady Anne’s fingers, murmuring, “Madame!”

  It needed no translation, and she laughed, saying to Hans in her own tongue, “He is a little angel, and I cannot resist him.”