Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

by Jean Plaidy

  “Methinks, Thomas,” said the King with tears in his eyes, “that I love thee well.”

  Wolsey fell on his knees and kissed the ruby on the forefinger of the fat hand. And I do love this man, thought the King; for he was one to whom it was not necessary to state crude facts. The lady would be brought to court, and it would appear that she came not through the King’s wish. That was what he wanted, and not a word had he said of it; yet Wolsey had known. And well knew the King that Wolsey would arrange this matter with expedience and tact.

  Life at the English court offered amusement in plenty, and the coming of one as vivacious and striking as Anne Boleyn could not pass unnoticed. The ladies received her with some interest and much envy, the gentlemen with marked appreciation. There were two ways of life at court; on the one hand there was the gay merry-making of the King’s faction, on the other the piety of the Queen. As Queen’s attendant, Anne’s actions were restricted; but at the jousts and balls, where the Queen’s side must mingle with the King’s, she attracted a good deal of attention for none excelled her at the dance, and whether it was harpsichord, virginals or flute she played there were always those to crowd about her; when she sang, men grew sentimental, for there was that in her rich young voice to move men to tears.

  The King was acutely aware of her while feigning not to notice her. He would have her believe that he had been not entirely pleased by her disrespectful manners at Hever, and that he still remembered the levity of her conversation with pained displeasure.

  Anne laughed to herself, thinking—Well he likes a masquerade, when he arranges it; well he likes a joke against others! Is he angry at my appointment to attend the Queen? How I hope he does not banish me to Hever!

  Life had become so interesting. As lady-in-waiting to the Queen, she was allowed a woman attendant and a spaniel of her own; she was pleased with the woman and delighted with the spaniel. The three of them shared a breakfast of beef and bread, which they washed down with a gallon of ale between them. Other meals were taken with the rest of the ladies in the great chamber, and at all these meals ale and wine were served in plenty; meat was usually the fare—beef, mutton, poultry, rabbits, peacocks, hares, pigeons—except on fast days when, in place of the meats, there would be a goodly supply of salmon or flounders, salted eels, whiting, or plaice and gurnet. But it was not the abundance of food that delighted Anne; it was the gaiety of the company. And if she had feared to be dismissed from the court in those first days, no sooner had she set eyes on Henry, Lord Percy, eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland, than she was terrified of that happening.

  These two young people met about the court, though not as often as they could have wished, for whilst Anne, as maid of honor to Queen Katharine, was attached to the court, Percy was a protg of the Cardinal. It pleased Wolsey to have in his retinue of attendants various high-born young men, and so great was his place in the kingdom that this honor was sought by the noblest families in the realm. Young Percy must therefore attend the Cardinal daily, accompany him to court, and consider himself greatly honored by the patronage of this low-born man.

  Lord Percy was a handsome young man of delicate features and of courteous manners; and as soon as he saw the Queen’s newest lady-in-waiting he was captivated by her personal charms. And Anne, seeing this handsome boy, was filled with such a tenderness towards him, which she had experienced for none hitherto, that whenever she knew the Cardinal to be in audience with the King she would look for the young nobleman. Whenever he came to the palace he was alert for a glimpse of her. They were both young; he was very shy; and so, oddly enough, was she, where he was concerned.

  One day she was sitting at a window overlooking a courtyard when into this courtyard there came my lord Cardinal and his attendants; and among these latter was Henry, Lord Percy. His eyes flew to the window, saw Anne, and emboldened by the distance which separated them, flashed her a message which she construed as “Wait there, and while the Cardinal is closeted with the King I will return. I have so long yearned to hold speech with you!”

  She waited, her heart beating fast as she pretended to stitch a piece of tapestry; waiting, waiting, feeling a sick fear within her lest the King might not wish to see the Cardinal, and the young man might thus be unable to escape.

  He came running across the courtyard, and she knew by his haste and his enraptured expression that his fear had been as hers.

  “I feared to find you gone!” he said breathlessly.

  “I feared you would not come,” she answered.

  “I look for you always.”

  “I for you.”

  They smiled, beautiful both of them in the joyful discovery of loving and being loved.

  Anne was thinking that were he to ask her, she, who had laughed at Mary for marrying Will Carey, would gladly marry him though he might be nothing more than the Cardinal’s Fool.

  “I know not your name,” said Percy, “but your face is the fairest I ever saw.”

  “It is Anne Boleyn.”

  “You are daughter to Sir Thomas?”

  She nodded, blushing, thinking Mary would be in his mind, and a fear came to her that her sister’s disgrace might discredit herself in his eyes. But he was too far gone in love to find her anything but perfect.

  “I am recently come to court,” she said.

  “That I know! You could not have been here a day but that I should have found you.”

  She said: “What would your master say an he found you lingering beneath this window?”

  “I know not, nor care I!”

  “Were you caught, might there not be those who would prevent you from coming again? Already you may have been missed.”

  He was alarmed. To be prevented from enjoying the further bliss of such meetings was intolerable.

  “I go now,” he said. “Tomorrow...you will be here at this hour?”

  “You will find me here.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said, and they smiled at each other.

  Next day she saw him, and the next. There were many meetings, and for each of those two young lovers the day was good when they met, and bad when they did not. She learned of his exalted rank, and she could say with honesty that this mattered to her not at all, except of course that her ambitious father could raise no objection to a match with the house of Northumberland.

  One day her lover came to her and pleasure was written large on his face.

  “The Cardinal is to give a ball at this house at Hampton. All the ladies of the court will be invited!”

  “You will be there?”

  “You too!” he replied.

  “We shall be masked.”

  “I shall find you.”

  “And then...?” she said.

  His eyes held the answer to that question.

  Anne had dreamed of such happiness, though of late her observation of those about her had led her to conclude that it was rarely known. But to her it had come; she would treasure it, preserve it, keep it forever. She could scarcely wait for that day when Thomas Wolsey would entertain the court at his great house at Hampton on the Thames.

  The King was uneasy. The Cardinal had thought to help him when he had had Anne appointed a maid of honor to the Queen; but had he? Never, for the sake of a woman, had the King been so perplexed. He must see her every day, for how could he deny his eyes a sight of the most charming creature they had ever rested on! Yet he dared not speak with her. And why? For this reason; no sooner had the girl set foot in the Queen’s apartments than that old enemy, his conscience, must rear its ugly head to leer at him.

  “Henry,” said the conscience, “this girl’s sister, Mary Boleyn, has shared your bed full many a night, and well you know the edict of the Pope. Well you know that association with one sister gives you an affinity with the other. Therein lies sin!”

  “That I know well,” answered Henry the King. “But as there was no marriage....”

  Such reasoning could not satisfy the conscience; it was the same—marriage ceremony
or no marriage ceremony—and well he knew it.

  “But there was never one like this girl; never was I so drawn to a woman; never before have I felt myself weak as I would be with her. Were she my mistress, I verily believe I should be willing to dispense with all others, and would not that be a good thing, for in the eyes of the Holy Church, is it not better for a man to have one mistress than many? Then, would not the Queen be happier? One mistress is forgivable; her distress comes from there being so many.”

  He was a man of many superstitions, of deep religious convictions. The God of his belief was a king like himself, though a more powerful being since, in place of the axe, he was able to wield a more terrifying weapon whose blade was supernatural phenomena. Vindictive was the King’s god, susceptible to flattery, violent in love, more violent in hate—a jealous god, a god who spied, who recorded slights and insults, and whose mind worked in the same simple way as that of Henry of England. Before this god Henry trembled as men trembled before Henry. Hence the conscience, the uneasiness, his jealous watchfulness of Anne Boleyn, and his reluctance to make his preference known.

  In vain he tried to soothe his senses. All women are much alike in darkness. Mary is very like her sister. Mary is sweet and willing; and there are others as willing.

  He tried to placate his conscience. “I shall not look at the girl; I will remember there is an affinity between us.”

  So those days, which were a blissful heaven to Anne and another Henry, were purgatory to Henry the King, racked alternately by conscience and desire.

  She was clad in scarlet, and her vest was cloth of gold. She wore what had become known at court as the Boleyn sleeves, but they did not divulge her identity, for many wore the Boleyn sleeves since she had shown the charm of this particular fashion. Her hair was hidden by her gold cap, and only the beautiful eyes showing through her mask might proclaim her as Anne Boleyn.

  He found her effortlessly, because she had described to him in detail the costume she would wear.

  “I should have known you though you had not told me. I should always know you.”

  “Then, sir,” she answered pertly, “I would I had put you to the test!”

  “I heard the music on the barges as they came along the river,” he said, “and I do not think I have ever been so happy in my life.”

  He was a slender figure in a coat of purple velvet embroidered in gold thread and pearls. Anne thought there was no one more handsome in this great ballroom, though the King, in his scarlet coat on which emeralds flashed, and in his bonnet dazzling rich with rubies and diamonds, was a truly magnificent sight.

  The lovers clasped hands, and from a recess watched the gay company.

  “There goes the King!”

  “Who thinks,” said Anne, laughing, “to disguise himself with a mask!”

  “None dare disillusion him, or ’twould spoil the fun. It seems as though he searches for someone.”

  “His latest sweetheart, doubtless!” said Anne scornfully.

  Percy laid his hand on her lips.

  “You speak too freely, Anne.”

  “That was ever a fault of mine. But do you doubt that is the case?”

  “I doubt it not—and you have no faults! Let us steal away from these crowds. I know a room where we can be alone. There is much I would say to you.”

  “Take me there then. Though I should be most severely reprimanded if the Queen should hear that one of her ladies hides herself in lonely apartments in the house.”

  “You can trust me. I would die rather than allow any hurt to come to you.”

  “That I know well. I like not these crowds, and would hear what it is that you have to say to me.”

  They went up a staircase and along a corridor. There were three small steps leading into a little antechamber; its one window showed the river glistening in moonlight.

  Anne went to that window and looked across the gardens to the water.

  “There was surely never such a perfect night!” she exclaimed.

  He put his arms about her, and they looked at each other, marveling at what they saw.

  “Anne! Make it the most perfect night there ever was, by promising to marry me.”

  “If it takes that to make this night perfect,” she answered softly, “then now it is so.”

  He took her hands and kissed them, too young and mild of nature to trust entirely the violence of his emotion.

  “You are the most beautiful of all the court ladies, Anne.”

  “You think that because you love me.”

  “I think it because it is so.”

  “Then I am happy to be so for you.”

  “Did you ever dream of such happiness, Anne?”

  “Yes, often...but scarce dared hope it would be mine.”

  “Think of those people below us, Anne. How one pities them! For what can they know of happiness like this!”

  She laughed suddenly, thinking of the King, pacing the floor, trying to disguise the fact that he was the King, looking about him for his newest sweetheart. Her thoughts went swiftly to Mary.

  “My sister...” she began.

  “What of your sister! Of what moment could she be to us!”

  “None!” she cried, and taking his hand, kissed it. “None, do we but refuse to let her.”

  “Then we refuse, Anne.”

  “How I love you!” she told him. “And to think I might have let them marry me to my cousin of Ormond!”

  “They would marry me to Shrewsbury’s daughter!”

  A faint fear stirred her then. She remembered that he was the heir of the Earl of Northumberland; it was meet that he should marry into the Shrewsbury family, not humble Anne Boleyn.

  “Oh, Henry,” she said, “what if they should try to marry you to the Lady Mary?”

  “They shall marry me to none but Anne Boleyn!”

  It was not difficult, up here in the little moonlight chamber, to defy the world; but they dare not tarry too long. All the company must be present when the masks were removed, or absent themselves on pain of the King’s displeasure.

  In the ballroom the festive air was tinged with melancholy. The Cardinal was perturbed, for the King clearly showed his annoyance. A masked ball was not such a good idea as it had at first seemed, for the King had been unable to find her whom he sought.

  The masks were removed; the ball over, and the royal party lodged in the two hundred and forty gorgeous bedrooms which it was the Cardinal’s delight to keep ready for his guests.

  The news might seem a rumor just at first, but before many days had passed the fact was established that Henry, Lord Percy, eldest son and heir to the noble Earl of Northumberland, was so far gone in love with sparkling Anne Boleyn that he had determined to marry her.

  And so the news came to the ear of the King.

  The King was purple with fury. He sent for him to whom he always turned in time of trouble. The Cardinal came hastily, knowing that to rely on the favor of a king is to build one’s hopes on a quiet but not extinct volcano. Over the Cardinal flowed the molten lava of Henry’s anger.

  “By Christ!” cried the King. “Here is a merry state of affairs! I would take the fool and burn him at the stake, were he not such a young fool. How dare he think to contract himself without our consent!”

  “Your Majesty, I fear I am in ignorance...”

  “Young Percy!” roared His Majesty. “Fool! Dolt that he is! He has, an it please you, decided he will marry Anne Boleyn!”

  Inwardly the Cardinal could smile. This was a mere outbreak of royal jealousy. I will deal with this, thought the Cardinal, and deplored that his wit, his diplomacy must be squandered to mend a lover’s troubles.

  “Impertinent young fool!” soothed the Cardinal. “As he is one of my young men, Your Majesty must allow me to deal with him. I will castigate him. I will make him aware of his youthful...nay, criminal folly, since he has offended Your Majesty. He is indeed a dolt to think Northumberland can mate with the daughter of a knight!”


  Through the King’s anger beamed his gratitude to Wolsey. Dear Thomas, who made the way easy! That was the reason, he told his conscience—Northumberland cannot mate with a mere knight’s daughter!

  “’Twere an affront to us!” growled mollified Henry. “We gave our consent to the match with Shrewsbury’s girl.”

  “And a fitting match indeed!” murmured the Cardinal.

  “A deal more fitting than that he should marry Boleyn’s girl. My dear Wolsey, I should hold myself responsible to Shrewsbury and his poor child if anything went amiss....”

  “Your Grace was ever full of conscience. You must not blame your royal self for the follies of your subjects.”

  “I do, Thomas...I do! After all, ’twas I who brought the wench to court.”

  Wolsey murmured: “Your Majesty...? Why, I thought ’twas I who talked to Boleyn of his younger daughter....”

  “No matter!” said the King, his eyes beaming with affection. “I thought I mentioned the girl to you. No matter!”

  “I spoke to Boleyn, Your Grace, I remember well.”

  The King’s hand patted the red-clad shoulder.

  “I know this matter can be trusted to you.”

  “Your Majesty knows well that I shall settle it most expeditiously.”

  “They shall both be banished from the court. I will not be flouted by these young people!”

  Wolsey bowed.

  “The Shrewsbury marriage can be hastened,” said the King.

  Greatly daring, Wolsey asked: “And the girl, Your Majesty? There was talk of a marriage...the Ormond estates were the issue...Perhaps Your Majesty does not remember.”

  The brows contracted; the little eyes seemed swallowed up in puffy flesh. The King’s voice cracked out impatiently: “That matter is not settled. I like not these Irish. Suffice it that we banish the girl.”

  “Your Majesty may trust me to deal with the matter in accordance with your royal wishes.”

  “And, Thomas...let the rebuke come from you. I would not have these young people know that I have their welfare so much at heart; methinks they already have too high a conceit of themselves.”