Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn

by Nell Gavin

  In the early days I would have started to breathe harder in anticipation as I lay in bed waiting, just seeing him approach me from across the room. He still responded that way to me, even as I waddled toward him after a visit to the chamber pot with my swollen belly, thick ankles and bloated face. He did not care how I looked; I was his Anne. He patted the bed beside him, his organ at attention and in need of me while inwardly I groaned, but not from pleasure. I was so tired. I was always tired. Our lovemaking had become an activity I had to endure in order to be allowed to sleep.

  I did not love him any less. If anything, I felt more toward him, and continued to feel a stronger love each day, as his baby grew inside of me. I could not fathom why I should love him so intensely, and yet not want him to touch me.

  “Thou art pregnant, my dear,” Emma had laughed, rolling her eyes. “Thou art so formidably pregnant that I suffer pain just imagining thee spreading thy limbs for the old villain. He hath done his work. He might leave thee to thy rest.”

  There had been a soreness in my groin for a while, but it had passed. I had begun pulling away from Henry when the cancre appeared, for I felt a sharp pain when he touched me there. I attributed it to a particularly long lovemaking session, and begged him to allow me to heal. Emma had raised her eyebrows with concern, and questioned me about it when I once complained to her, laughing, that Henry, in his enthusiasm, had torn away the skin and left a sore. She kept pressing, asking if I had seen such a sore on Henry. Embarrassed and defensive, knowing what she implied, I ordered her away.

  “I am not diseased,” I snapped. “The king is not diseased. Now go.”

  Taken aback by my tone, Emma left the room without a word. She was too good a friend to take it to heart, or to dissolve into tears. She let the subject drop.

  I healed, but my thoughts had gone down strange paths in the interim. I could not consider that I may have the pox as Emma had intimated. Yet I dreamt of it on occasion, and awoke in a sweat. I told no one of this, and never expressed my fears even to Emma. Since the sore had gone away, I saw no reason to bother the court physician. I did not want a man to examine me down there, and he could do nothing to stop my worries anyway. I rather thought he might increase them with a diagnosis, and I preferred not knowing to being certain. I did not tell Henry about my dreams, but when he came to me, I thought of them, and wondered if indeed he was diseased. Even with the damage done, I saw him differently, and saw our lovemaking as a threat to me.

  There are many strange dreams and fears that come with pregnancy. The fears of the pox would pass and be replaced by other, more pressing fears. Would the child be male? Would he live? Would I survive the birth?

  I kept my rosary in a pouch at my waist—or rather, that area at the center of my torso that had once been a waist. I pulled it out, and slipped each day into the chapel to pray that my child might be a son. I found my favorites among the winged cherubs that peeked out from the walls, and fixed my eyes upon them. I asked, for at least an hour each day, that my child might look like one of those, praying to my very soul that I be carrying within me a strong male child with an angel’s face and fat soft curls. Most important was the gender of the child, but I had a strong desire to present Henry with something beautiful. I wanted to please him, and make him happy that he had chosen me. I wanted a child that would tell the world that God had blessed this union despite the way it had begun. I also wanted God’s reassurance for myself, for even now, I still had doubts.

  As sometimes happens, I felt that God had heard my prayers. I knew this from the warmth that spread throughout me each time I knelt and prayed.

  I told Henry that I had felt the glow one feels when prayers are about to be answered. He beamed at me and patted my belly. They were his prayers as well.

  I dreamt of a sweet little boy one night. He was about two years old and had bare feet, unkempt yellow hair and blue eyes. Oddly, he wore brightly colored old-fashioned peasant clothing yet, in the dream, it did not seem strange to me that he should be either barefoot, or dressed in peasant garb instead of gold and velvet. He was laughing, running in a field chasing butterflies. He turned and called me “Maman” then ran up to me and hugged my knees. I reached down and lifted him up and turned to Henry, who did not look like Henry at all, and said, “He looks just like you,” in French. A hoard of children followed him, boy after boy after boy, of all sizes, smiling, clamoring “Maman, come see!” Then the dream vanished with a kick from the baby. I awoke, still remembering the tiny voice that called me “Mama” in French, placed my hands on my belly thinking “I know now who thou art, little one. Thou art beautiful.”

  My mood was calmer after the dream. I told Henry about it in the morning, and he listened as if the dream was prophetic. We both preferred to believe it was, and so we did. We believed it would come true.

  The calmness did not stay for long.

  I had mood swings. I whipped from hysterical laughter to tears in an instant. I grew ever more petulant in my demands, and found fault with everything. I slipped into bouts of self-pity, for my sleep was fitful and, as badly as I needed to sleep, I could not seem to do it successfully. I was up frequently in the night to visit the chamber pot, or else found myself in a restful doze only to be kicked awake again. I twisted through the night, and stared at the darkness, then dragged myself out of bed in the morning when the baby would finally settle down to rest.

  “Why couldst thou not have slept during the night?” I often muttered to my belly in irritation. The weariness made me ill tempered and short. Everyone stepped quietly around me, for there was no way of predicting how I might react to anything.

  I complained to Henry incessantly, tossing reproaches that he accepted with a mixture of patience and exasperation. He would leave and attempt to right these imagined wrongs with a touching sincerity, yet still I would find fault with his efforts. He often shouted with frustration as I nagged and listed my grievances, then would see me shifting in my chair to get comfortable, or note my reddened eyes, and soften toward me.

  I shot blame at everyone around me, amplified minor things and shouted. Servants were at fault because there was not enough of something, or there was too much. Tasks were performed too late, or before I was ready for them to be done. Visitors were ill-timed, no matter when they came. Nothing was scheduled properly, or rescheduled, or scheduled again so that it suited me. Food made me ill, and I blamed the cook. Smells turned me queasy and I demanded the source of them be removed—next time before the odor reached my nose. I sometimes wept because I was so miserable, and because no one read my mind to remove irritants before I was aware of them. In the absence of actual sufferings, I invented some so that I might have a means through which to vent my general discomfort.

  Pregnancy did not suit my temperament.

  Emma drew Henry aside and begged for him to be patient. It was not her place to do this and, while Henry took her pleadings to heart, I was furious when I heard of them. How dare she view me as a demanding child? How dare she imply my complaints were ill-founded, and that my mood was off? I had good reason to complain, I thought. Everyone was conspiring to see that these months were a misery for me. None of them understood. And now Emma was whispering to my husband about me as if I were something to be endured, rather than a woman who truly required special attentions she did not receive.

  Another part of me was ashamed of my behavior, but this part I hid, even from myself.

  In an effort to improve my outlook, I hosted gatherings on an almost daily basis. Wine flowed, cards were dealt, dice was thrown, laughter was loud and shrill, and often ladies and gentlemen indulged in behavior never allowed in front of the former queen. They downed the wine until they were tipsy, vulgar and coarse in their actions and their speech. I did not mind, as Katherine would have. I saw no harm or insult in bawdiness and found it rather amusing.

  These gatherings created a diversion, but I could not stomach wine in my condition, and could only wistfully watch while the others carr
ied on. Often my outlook was more soured than improved, particularly since the behavior of the attendees, while essentially harmless, brought scandal to my name. But on some occasions, the laughter allowed me to take leave of my misery, and at such times, I could even laugh with the others.

  Sometimes I had a good night’s sleep. Not often, but sometimes. On the days following a real rest, my mood rose and I was far easier to live with.

  During those months I made enemies among the people who surrounded me, for I could instantly become a churlish, demanding witch, as trying as a spoiled child, but less appealing. A part of me knew this. Another part of me took advantage of my position, and screamed its dissatisfaction with the people whose misfortune it was to serve me. That part of me could not stop—I could not stop it though I tried. With each effort at being more amenable, I would find in the midst of it some small trifle that seemed to me to warrant an exception: “In this case I must be churlish for anyone of good reasoning could see . . . ” And so I passed the long months, accumulating ill-feelings from everyone, at every level within the court.

  I tried to recover my sense of duty and my restraint, but with such discipline comes the need for release. I did not even have the release of my music as my belly grew. I had no place to set my lute with the mountain of infant resting upon my thighs as I sat, and attempts had just led to frustration. There were still my harp and the virginals, but in my peevishness I wanted only the lute. On top of this, I was locked in the present and could not see past the irritations of the moment. I would always be this uncomfortable. The baby would never be born. I could not abide the suspense of not knowing its sex. I would never sleep well again.

  Then suddenly, pretending to me that he did not want to disturb my rest, Henry took to sleeping in other chambers. It was clear to me that he did not sleep alone. It was known to all that he had found someone else to comfort him, and it was evident this was a source of spiteful amusement to everyone.

  I challenged Henry about his mistress and he snapped at me, drawing comparisons between Katherine and myself. For the first time, I was found wanting. It was my duty to avert my eyes, he said irritably. It was his right to bed whomever he chose. Katherine had never mentioned his transgressions, nor complained of them, and he suggested I follow her lead and be a “modest goodly wife.”

  “Katherine never loved thee as I do!” I sobbed.

  Henry did not respond to that. He turned his back to me.

  Then I recovered and snapped, “Did God give thee the right to bed other than thy wife? Didst thou speak it in thy wedding vows?” To which vows did I refer, I wondered, suddenly hearing the words? His vows to Katherine, or his vows to me?

  He turned on me in fury, demanding me to tell him how I dared speak to him in that manner, after all he had done to make me his wife. And for what? For this? I burst into tears. It took me quite some time to compose myself. Once I did, I erupted into tears again.

  “I love thee so much,” I sobbed. “My heart is breaking over thee.” The knowledge that he had come to be my husband through a lack of concern for previous wedding vows did not console me. I was learning and understanding too late that a man who leaves his wife for another woman is just as apt to leave the other woman for yet another. I had believed it could not happen to me.

  After the first of these conversations, Henry comforted me and paid me more heed than he had as of late, but did not discard his mistress. Nor could I think of other than her. She was always in my thoughts.

  I could not endure Henry’s betrayal. I howled like a wolf caught in a trap and turned on my servants. Not only was I by nature excitable, but I was living in a constant state of defensiveness and Henry, my only safe haven, was slipping away. It all came out in words like: “Look at what you have done! You are a stupid fool. Leave my sight at once!” Bad words. Ill-chosen words aimed toward underlings who did the best they could for me. I cringe upon hearing them. I writhe with discomfort and shame.

  Only Emma took my side when others would whisper complaints of me. It was a hard chore to place upon her. It did not earn her love among the others, but she had mine. She always will.

  And suddenly Emma was gone, married and moved away.

  “Do not leave,” I had told her in a small voice. “I beg thee.”

  “I shall not be far, and I shall be a wife. ‘Tis certainly past time for me to be a wife, dost thou not agree? My teeth are longer than my fingers, I am so old.”

  I was now alone to face these people with no one as intermediary. I had three attacks of nerves on my first day without her, and even feared leaving my room.

  Chapter 2

  •~۞~•

  I had been secretly married to Henry almost the instant my pregnancy was known to us. As soon as it was feasible, I was crowned Queen of England. I was in a position no safer, and was no more loved by the people surrounding me, than I had been when I was still Henry’s whore.

  I could see, and Henry could see, that respect for me was a pretense. The crowds still shouted and spat. Henry could no more stop them than I could. Immediately following my coronation, as we moved down the Thames in splendid ceremony, I saw that masses of people did not even remove their hats as I passed. It seemed to me that they lined the river for no reason other than to show me they would not remove their hats.

  If I was not safe beside Henry within the palace walls, if I went alone to visit friends, I was perilously close to danger. On one occasion, crowds of women had chased and accosted me, surrounding a house I was visiting, forcing me to flee out the back. I was no further from danger within the palace, for enemies constantly surrounded me. And Henry’s love was slipping from me, if he could bring himself to take another woman to his bed.

  ۞

  The pregnancy ended, finally, as all pregnancies must. The birth was in September.

  When I felt the pains, Henry and I grew frantic with anticipation. “He is coming,” he whispered to me, and I giggled nervously awaiting our son’s arrival. The midwife forced Henry out of the room, and he waited elsewhere while I groaned through the labor, giggling and babbling with excitement between pains until they grew so intense I could only barely endure them, and could no longer speak. I screamed.

  There was a head with no hair, but the scalp had a fine red down. This was reported to me while I panted and pushed. “His father’s hair,” someone said. I pushed again and heard him cry.

  “Yes?” I asked weakly. Women pressed around the midwife blocking the child from my view.

  “Push!” A woman ordered, pressing down on my belly. Another woman ran to my side to wipe my brow. I pushed again to expel the afterbirth, still not seeing or knowing. I could hear him cry, but in the bustle to help me finish the birth, no one stopped to say, “It is a prince.”

  “Tell the King,” someone whispered, and a servant raced out of the room. The mood had turned somber, and the babe was silently held out to me.

  It was a girl. They wiped her clean, and wrapped her in a warmed cloth while I lay there and watched, unspeaking.

  “A wee lass,” the midwife said with false brightness. “A fine, healthy, bonny lass for Your Majesty.” I still said nothing. She moved toward me with the infant and placed it at my breast. “A fine little princess,” she continued coaxingly, placatingly. “A fine one.”

  After handing me the baby, she stepped backwards quickly with a tightness around her lips and a glimmer of fear in her eyes, as if she felt I might blame her.

  I stared at the infant, uncomprehending and stunned. I had never seen such an ugly, shriveled little babe. I spread her legs apart, and looked again to be certain there was no mistake. I held her for a moment and touched her cheek, waiting to feel love and tenderness, but there was none. I felt instead that my child, the one I had been so certain was within me, had been stolen, and this changeling left in his place. Instead of a beautiful gift from God, there she lay: a punishment and a reproach.

  “Let me sleep now,” I said, and allowed a woman take the b
aby to her wet nurse. I rolled over and closed my eyes while the servants gathered up the linen and whisked away the bloody mess I had made.

  I heard the bells toll in the tower. The tolling was a signal indicating the birth and sex of the child. All of London would be stopping to listen now, and would hear from the number of chimes that it was a girl, not a boy, and that Henry’s whore had failed him. Many would be most gladdened by the knowledge. My moment of triumph had now become theirs.

  Henry swept into the room and sat at the edge of my bed. I looked at him, frightened, and waited for the judgment.

  “She is a fine one,” he said, patting my leg. “Soon we will try again and have our son.”

  Did I imagine it? Or were his eyes disappointed and distant?

  I did not know what I was to do. I reached out my arms to him, and he held me. I did not cry until he left, and then I sobbed myself to sleep.

  Throughout the pregnancy Henry had reassured me that, if it were a girl, we would simply have baby after baby until our son was born. Throughout the pregnancy I had believed any child was good enough, for he loved me and took pains to reassure me.

  Those reassurances were given with the unspoken expectation that I succeed the first time. It was only now that I realized he had been fooling himself, as well as me. The sex of the child was of critical importance, and Henry’s patience had boundaries. He had already spent that patience on Katherine, who had reached the end of her childbearing years without a son, and for this he had set her aside. Henry was seeing a repeat of this in me, after just one birth. The question foremost in my mind was: How many more chances would he give me?

  Before her birth, I had intended to feed my child at my own breast, even though Henry had, on more than one occasion, strictly forbidden me to do it. I now no longer had the will to defy him, and was grateful for his objections. My breasts filled with milk, to bursting. They were sore and inflamed and grown hard as rocks, dribbling milk until my gown was saturated.