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

by Jean Plaidy

  She was a fool. Looking back over her married life, she could see how foolish she had been. Oh, for another chance! She was humble, she was repentant, blaming herself. If she went to Anne, confessed her folly, asked for forgiveness, it would be granted, she knew well. She resolved that if she came out of the Tower she would overcome her jealousy of her brilliant sister-in-law; who knew, by so doing might she not gain a little of George’s affection?

  She was soothed and calmed, and so remained for some time, until that day which marked the beginning of the celebrations. And then, gazing from her window, she saw the arrival at the Tower of Anne, dressed in cloth of gold and attended by many ladies; and at the sight of her, all Jane’s enmity returned, for the contrast between herself and her sister-in-law was too great to be endured stoically. She had arrived by way of the Traitor’s Gate, while Anne had come in triumph as the Queen. No! Jane could not endure it. Here in this very place was her sister-in-law, feted and honored, adored openly by that mighty and most feared man, Henry the Eighth. It was too much. Jane was overcome by fresh weeping.

  “She has many enemies,” said Jane aloud. “There is the true Queen and her daughter; there is Suffolk, Chapuys . . . to name but a few, and all of them powerful people. But Anne Boleyn, though there are many who hate you,” she sobbed bitterly, “none does so as wholeheartedly as your despised Jane Rochford!”

  The King was not happy. All through the hot month of June he had been aware of his dissatisfaction with life. He had thought that when Anne became his Queen he would know complete happiness; she had been that for five months, and instead of his happiness growing it had gradually diminished.

  The King still desired Anne, but he was no longer in love with her; which meant that he had lost that tenderness for her which had dominated him for six years, which had softened him and mellowed his nature. Never had the King loved any but himself, for even his love for Anne was based on his need of her. She had appeared on his horizon, a gay, laughing girl; to him she represented delightful youth; she was unique in her refusal to surrender; she appeared to be unimpressed by his kingship, and had talked of the need to love the man before the king. In his emotions Henry was as simple as a jungle lion; he stalked his quarry, and at these times stalking was his main preoccupation. The stalking of Anne was finished; she had managed to make it arduous; she had made him believe that the end of the hunt was not her surrender, but her place beside him on the throne; together they had stalked a crown for Anne; now it was hers, and they were both exhausted with the effort.

  The relationship of mistress and lover was more exciting to a man of Henry’s temperament than that of wife and husband; though his conscience would never allow him to admit this. The one was full of excitement, with clandestine meetings, with doubts and fears, and all the ingredients of romance; the other was prosaic, arranged, and—most objectionable of all—inescapable, or almost. Gradually the relationship had been changing ever since January. She could still arouse in him moments of wild passion; she would always do that, she would always be to him the most attractive woman in his life; but he was essentially polygamous, and he possessed a wonderful and elastic conscience to explain all his actions.

  Anne was clever; she could have held him; she could have kept him believing he had achieved happiness. But she had always been reckless, and the fight had tired her far more than it had Henry; she had more to gain and more to lose; now she felt she had reached her goal and needed to rest. Moreover she was able now to see this man she had married, from a different angle. She was no longer the humble subject climbing up to the dizzy heights on which he stood secure as King; she was level with him now, not a humble knight’s daughter, but a Queen looking at a King—and the closer view was less flattering to him. His youthful looks had gone. He was in his forties, and he had lived too well; he had done most things to excess, and this was apparent; stripped of his glittering clothes he was by no means wholesome; he had suffered the inevitable consequences of a promiscuous life. His oblique gaze at facts irritated Anne beyond endurance. She rebelled against his conscience; she looked at him too closely, and he knew she did. He had seen her lips curl at certain remarks of his; he had seen her face harden at some display of coarseness. This would enrage him, for he would remind himself that he was the son of a king, and that it was entirely due to him that she had gained her high eminence.

  They quarreled; they were both too easily roused to anger to avoid it; but so far the quarrels were little more than tiffs, for she could still enchant him, and moreover he did not forget that she carried the Tudor heir. Anne did not forget it either; in fact it absorbed her; she was experiencing the abandonment of the mother—all else was of small importance, set beside the life that moved within her. She was obsessed by it; she wished to be left alone that she might dream of this child, this son, for whom she must wait for three long dreary months.

  This was all very right, thought Henry; the child was all-important, but there was no need for her to change so completely. He rejoiced to see her larger; it was a goodly sight. The boy was well and happy inside her, and God speed his coming! But . . . she should not forget the baby’s father, as she appeared to do. She was languid, expressing no delight in the attentions he paid to her, preferring to talk of babies with her ladies than to have him with her. Henry was disappointed. He missed too their passionate lovemaking. He was in the forties; he could not expect to enjoy his manly vigor for many more years. Sometimes he felt quite old; then he would say to himself: “What I have endured these last years for her has done this to me; brought me a few years nearer the grave, I trow!” Then he would be indignant with her, indignant that she, while carrying his child, must deny him those blissful moments which he could enjoy with none as he could with her. He would think back over his faithfulness to her. This was astonishing; it amazed him. Ah, well, a man must be faithful to a mistress if he wishes to keep her, but a wife is a different matter altogether!

  The thought took hold of Henry, haunting his mind. He thought of the days before Anne had come to Suffolk House; they had a piquancy, a charm, since the excitement of adventure is in its unexpectedness. “It is more pleasing to pluck an apple from the branch which you have seized, than to take one up from a graven dish.” There was truth enough in that, he assured himself, thinking of sudden amorous adventures.

  There came a day in July when the rain was teeming down and there was little to do. One played the harp, one sang . . . but the day flagged, for he was uneasy in his mind. Affairs of state weighed heavily upon him. In spite of his separation from Rome, he was eager that the Pope should sanction his marriage; he was disappointed of this, for instead of the sanction there came an announcement that Cranmer’s sentence on Henry’s former marriage was to be annulled; unless, he was threatened, he left Anne before September and returned to Katharine, both he and she he called his new Queen would be excommunicated.

  This was disquieting news which set Henry trembling; Anne’s defiance of Rome, her lack of superstitious dread, angered him against her, for he did not care that she should show more courage than he; although his conscience explained that his feeling was not fear but eagerness to assure himself that he had acted with the will of God. Some priests, particularly in the North, were preaching against the new marriage. At Greenwich, Friar Peyto had even had the temerity to preach before Henry and Anne, hinting at the awful judgment that awaited them. Cardinal Pole, who had decided it would be well to live on the Continent owing to his close relationship to the King, wrote reproachful letters abusing Anne. Henry did not trust the Spanish ambassador; the man was sly and insolent and over-bold; he had dared to ask Henry if he could be sure of having children, making a reference to the state of the kingly body which was outwardly manifested by a malignant sore on the leg, which refused to heal.

  Henry had reason to believe that Chapuys had reported to his master on the state of English defenses; and if this were so, might he not advise the Emperor to make an attack?

  Would a
conquest of England be difficult for such a skilled general as Charles? Henry knew that most of his nobles—with perhaps the exception of Norfolk—would be ready to support Katharine’s side; the Scots were ever eager to be troublesome. Why should not Charles, on the pretext of avenging an ill-treated aunt, do that which would be of inestimable advantage to himself—subdue England? There was one gleam of hope in this prospect; Charles was fully occupied in his scattered possessions, and he was too cautious to stretch his already overstrained resources in another cause. Henry raged and fumed and said he would send Chapuys home, but that was senseless, he knew well; better to have the spy whose evil ways were known to him than another sent in his place who might be possessed of even greater cunning. Henry bottled up his indignation temporarily, holding in his anger, but storing it, nourishing it. The only brightness on the political horizon was that Francis had sent congratulations to both himself and Anne; Henry had invited the French King to sponsor his son, which Francis had cordially agreed to do. Henry felt that, once his son was born, the mass of the people—the element he feared most—would be so overjoyed that it would be forgotten that various unorthodox methods had been followed in order to bring about such a joyous event. Astrologers and physicians had assured him that there could be no doubt of the sex of the child, so all Henry needed to do was to wait for September; but never had a month seemed so long in coming, and it was but July, and wet. The King therefore felt himself in need of diversion.

  It came in the voluptuous form of one of the ladies attending Anne. This girl was in complete contrast to her mistress, round-faced, possessed of large baby blue eyes, plump and inviting. No haughtiness there; no dignity; Henry was ever attracted by change.

  She glanced at him as she flitted about the chamber, and Anne, absorbed in maternity, did not at first notice what was going on. The girl curtseyed to him, glanced sideways at him; he smiled at her, forgetting Chapuys and astute Charles, and all those who preached against him.

  He came upon her suddenly in the quiet of a corridor. She curtseyed, throwing at him that bold glance of admiration which he remembered so well from the days before his thoughts had been given entirely to Anne. He kissed the girl; she caught her breath; he remembered that too; as though they were overwhelmed by him! He felt a king again; pleasant indeed to bestow favors like a king, instead of having to beg for them like a dog.

  He left her though, for Anne still largely occupied his thoughts. There was none to be compared with Anne, and he was afraid of her still, afraid of her reactions should she discover any infidelity. He could not forget how she had gone back to Hever; moreover she was to bear him a son. He felt sentimental towards her still; but a kiss was nothing.

  The weather cleared, and he felt better. August came. Invitations to the christening of the prince were made ready. Anne, languid on her couch, watched the King obliquely, wondering what gave him that secret look, noting the sly glances of her attendant, noting a certain covert boldness in the girl’s manner towards herself. Anne could not believe that he who had been faithful for so many years in the most difficult circumstances had so quickly lapsed, and at such a time, when she was to give him a son. But the secretiveness of him, that irritability towards herself which a man of his type would feel towards someone he had wronged or was about to wrong made her feel sure of what was afoot.

  Anne was no patient Griselda, no Katharine of Aragon. She was furious, and the more so because her fury must be tinged with fear. What if history were to repeat itself! What if that which had happened to Queen Katharine was about to happen to Queen Anne! Would she be asked to admit that her marriage was illegal? Would she be invited to go into a nunnery? She must remember that she had no powerful Emperor Charles behind her.

  She watched the King; she watched the girl. Henry was over-wrought; he drank freely; the days seemed endless to him; he was nervous and irritable sometimes, at others over-exuberant. But this was understandable, for the birth of a son was of the utmost importance since not only would it ensure the Tudor dynasty, but to Henry it would come like a sign from heaven that he had been right to displace Katharine.

  Anne lived uncomfortably through the hot days, longing for the birth of her child. She felt upon her the eyes of all; she felt them to be waiting for that all-deciding factor, the birth of a male child. Her friends prayed for a son; her enemies hoped for a daughter or a still-born child.

  One day at the end of August it seemed to her that the girl whom she watched with such suspicion was looking more sly and a trifle arrogant. She saw Henry give her a look of smoldering desire.

  “Shall I endure this before my very eyes?” Anne asked herself. “Am I not Queen?”

  She waited until Henry was alone in the chamber with her; then she said, her eyes blazing: “If you must amuse yourself, I would prefer you did not do it under my eyes and with one of my own women!”

  Henry’s eyes bulged with fury. He hated being caught; he had had this matter out with his conscience; it was nothing, this light little affair with a wench who had doubtless lost her virginity long ago; it was hardly worth confessing. It was a light and airy nothing, entered into after the drinking of too much wine, little more than a dream.

  “Am I to be defied by one wife,” he asked himself, “dictated to by another?”

  He had had enough of this; he was the King, he would have her know. It was not for her to keep up her arrogance to him now.

  As he struggled for words to express his indignation, one of Anne’s attendants entered; that did not deter him. It should be known throughout the court that he was absolute King, and that the Queen enjoyed her power through him.

  He shouted: “You close your eyes, as your betters did before you!”

  Her cheeks flushed scarlet; she lifted herself in the bed; angry retorts rose to her lips, but something in the face of the King subdued her suddenly, so that her anger left her; she had no room for any other emotion than deadly fear. His face had lost its flushed appearance too; his eyes peered out from his quivering flesh, suddenly cold and very cruel.

  Then he continued to speak, slowly and deliberately: “You ought to know that it is in my power in a single instant to lower you further than I raised you up.”

  He went from the room; she sank back, almost fainting. The attendant came to her hastily, ministering to her anxiously, knowing the deep humiliation that must have wounded one so proud. Had Anne been alone she would have retorted hotly; she would have flayed him with her tongue; but they were not alone—yet he had not cared for that! In the court her enemies would hear of this; they would talk of the beginning of the end of Anne Boleyn.

  Her hands were cold and wet; she overcame a desire to burst into passionate tears. Then the child began to move inside her, reassuring her. Her son. Once he was born, she was safe, for Henry would never displace the mother of his son whatever the provocation.

  Henry did not go near her again for several days. He found a fresh and feverish excitement in the knowledge that to be in lust was satisfying and more congenial to his nature than to be in love. The girl was a saucy wench, God knew, but ready enough, over-ready, to obey her King. To love was to beg and plead; to lust was but to demand satisfaction.

  He thought of Anne often, sometimes when he was with the girl. His thoughts were so mixed he could not define them. Sometimes he thought, When the confinement’s over, she’ll be herself again. Then he thought of a lithesome girl leaning over a pond at Hever, a lovely woman entertaining him at Suffolk House. Anne, Anne . . . there is none on Earth as delightful as Anne! This is naught, Anne; this is forgotten once you are with me again.

  Then at mass or confession his thoughts would be tinged with fear. Suppose the Almighty should show his displeasure by a daughter or a still-born child! Marriage with Katharine had been a succession of still-born children, because his marriage with Katharine had been no marriage. He himself had said that. What if his marriage with Anne should be no marriage either?

  But God would show him, for God
would always be ready to guide one who followed His laws and praised Him, as did Henry the Eighth of England.

  Throughout the city the news was awaited. People in the barges that floated down the Thames called one to the other.

  “Is the prince come yet then?”

  There was scarcely a whisper against the new Queen; those who had been her most violent enemies thought of her now, not as the Queen, but as a mother.

  “I heard her pains had started, poor lady . . .”

  “They say his name will be Henry or Edward . . .”

  Mothers remembered occasions when they had suffered as the Queen suffered now, and even those who cared nothing for motherhood were fond of pageantry. They remembered the coronation, when wine had flowed free from fountains. Pageants, feasting, rejoicing would mark the birth of a son to a king who had waited twenty-four years for it; it would be a greater event than a coronation.

  “God save the little prince!” cried the people.

  The Dowager Duchess of Norfolk scarcely slept at all, so eager was she for the event. She was full of pride and misgivings, assuring herself that Anne was a healthy girl, that the delivery must be effected efficiently, pushing to the back of her mind those fears which came from her knowledge of the King. Poor Katharine had had miscarriage after miscarriage; they said she was diseased, and whence did she come by such diseases? Might it not have been through close contact with His Majesty? One did not speak such thoughts, for it were treason to do so, but how could the most loyal subjects help their coming to mind! But Anne was a healthy girl; this was her first child. She had come safely through the nine months of pregnancy, and everything must be well.