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

by Jean Plaidy

  He leaned forward in his saddle and said, his voice quivering with rage: “Norris, I know thee for what thou art, thou traitor!”

  Norris almost fell from the saddle, so great was his surprise.

  “Your Majesty . . . I know not . . .”

  “You know not! I’ll warrant you know well enough. Ha! You start, do you! Think you not that I am a fool, a man to stand aside and let his inferiors amuse themselves with his wife. I accuse you of adultery with the Queen!”

  “Sir . . . this is a joke . . .”

  “This is no joke, Norris, and well you know it!”

  “Then it is the biggest mistake that has ever been made.”

  “You would dare to deny it?” foamed the King.

  “I deny it utterly, Your Majesty.”

  “Your lies and evasions will carry little weight with me, Norris.”

  “I can only repeat, Sir, that I am guiltless of that of which you accuse me,” said Norris with dignity.

  All the rich blood had left the King’s usually florid face, showing a network of veins against a skin grown pallid.

  “’Twill be better if you do not lie to me, Norris. I am in no mood to brook such ways. You will confess to me here and now.”

  “There is naught I can confess, my lord. I am guiltless of this charge you bring against me.”

  “Come, come! You know, as all in the court know, how the Queen conducts herself.”

  “I assure Your Most Gracious Majesty that I know naught against the Queen.”

  “You have not heard rumors! Come, Norris, I warn you I am not in the mood for dalliance.”

  “I have heard no rumors, Sir.”

  “Norris, I offer you pardon, for you know that I have loved you well, if you will confess to your adultery.”

  “I would rather die a thousand deaths, my lord, than accuse the Queen of that which I believe her, in my conscience, innocent.”

  The King’s fury almost choked him. He said no more until they reached Westminster. Then, calling to him the burly bully Fitzwilliam, whom Cromwell had chosen to be his lieutenant, he bade the man arrest Norris and dispatch him to the Tower.

  Anne, sitting down to supper in Greenwich Palace, felt the first breath of uneasiness.

  She said to Madge Shelton: “Where is Mark? He does not seem to be in his accustomed place.”

  “I do not know what has happened to Mark, Your Majesty,” answered Madge.

  “If I remember aright, I did not notice him last night. I hope he is not sick.”

  “I do not know, Madam,” said Madge, and Anne noticed that her cousin’s eyes did not meet hers; it was as though the girl was afraid.

  Later she said: “I do not see Norris. Madge, is it not strange that they should both absent themselves? Where is Norris, Madge? You should know.”

  “’He has said nothing to me, Madam.”

  “What! He is indeed a neglectful lover; I should not allow it, Madge.”

  Her voice had an edge to it. She well knew, and Madge well knew that though Norris was supposed to be in love with Madge, it was the Queen who received his attention. Madge was charming; she could attract easily, but she could not hold men to her as her cousin did. Weston had been attracted to Madge once, until he had felt the deeper and irresistible attraction of the Queen.

  “I know not what is holding him,” said Madge.

  Anne said: “You know not who is holding him, you mean!” And when she laughed, her laughter was more than usually high-pitched.

  It was a strange evening; people whispered together in the corridors of the palace.

  “What means this?”

  “Did you see the way His Majesty left the tiltyard?”

  “They say Norris, Weston and Brereton are missing.”

  “Where is Mark Smeaton? Surely they would not arrest little Mark!”

  The Queen was aware of this strange stillness about her; she called for the musicians, and while they played to her, sat staring at Mark’s empty place. Where was Norris? Where was Weston? Why did Brereton continue to absent himself?

  She spent a sleepless night, and in the early morning fell into a heavy doze from which she awakened late. All during the morning the palace abounded in rumor. Anne heard the whispering voices, noted the compassionate glances directed at her, and was increasingly uneasy.

  She sat down to dinner, determined to hide the terrible apprehension that was stealing over her. When she did not dine with the King, His Majesty would send his waiter to her with the courteous message: “Much good may it do you!” On this day she waited in vain for the King’s messenger; and as soon as the meal was over and the surnap was removed, there came one to announce the arrival at Greenwich of certain members of the council, and with them, to her disgust, was her uncle the Duke of Norfolk.

  Her uncle looked truculent and self-righteous, pleased with himself, as though that which he had prophesied had come to pass. He behaved, not as a courtier to a queen, but as a judge to a prisoner.

  “What means this?” demanded Anne.

  “Pray be seated,” said Norfolk.

  She hesitated, wanting to demand of him why he thought he might give her orders when to sit and when to stand; but something in his eyes restrained her. She sat down, her head held high, her eyes imperious.

  “I would know why you think fit to come to me at this hour and disturb me with your presence. I would know . . .”

  “You shall know,” said Norfolk grimly. “Smeaton is in the Tower. He had confessed to having committed adultery with you.”

  She grew very pale, and stood up, her eyes flashing.

  “How dare you come to me with such vile accusations!”

  “Tut, tut, tut!” said Norfolk, and shook his head at her. “Norris is also in the Tower.” He lied: “He also admits to adultery with you.”

  “I will not believe that he could be guilty of such falsehood! I will not believe it of either. Please leave me at once. I declare you shall suffer for your insolence.”

  “Forget not,” said Norfolk, “that we come by the King’s command to conduct you to the Tower, there to abide His Highness’s pleasure.”

  “I must see the King,” said Anne. “My enemies have done this. These stories you would tell me would be tragic, were they not ridiculous. . . .”

  “It is not possible for you to see the King.”

  “It is not possible for me to see the King. You forget who I am, do you not? I declare you will wish . . .”

  “You must await the King’s pleasure, and he has said he does not wish to see you.”

  She was really frightened now. The King had sent these men to arrest her and take her to the Tower; he had said he did not wish to see her. Lies were being told about her. Norris? Smeaton? Oh, no! Not those two! They had been her friends, and she would have sworn to their loyalty. What did this mean. . . . George, where was George? She needed his advice now as never before.

  “If it be His Majesty’s pleasure,” she said calmly, “I am ready to obey.”

  In the barge she felt very frightened. She was reminded of another journey to the Tower, of a white falcon which had been crowned by an angel, of the King, waiting to receive her there . . . eager that all the honor be could give her should be hers.

  She turned to her uncle. “I am innocent of these foul charges. I swear it! I swear it! If you will but take me to the King, I know I can convince him of my innocence.”

  She knew she could, if she could but see him . . . if she could but take his hands. . . . She had ever been able to do with him what she would . . . but she had been careless of late. She had never loved him; she had not much cared that he had strayed; she had thought that she had but to flatter him and amuse him, and he would be hers. She had never thought that this could happen to her, that she would be removed from him, not allowed to see him, a prisoner in the Tower.

  Norfolk folded his arms and looked at her coldly. One would have thought he was her bitterest enemy rather than her kinsman.

 
; “Your paramours have confessed,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “’Twould be better if you did likewise.”

  “I have naught to confess. Have I not told you! What should I confess? I do not believe that these men have made confessions; you say so to trap me. You are my enemy; you always have been.”

  “Calm yourself!” said Norfolk. “Such outbursts can avail you nothing.”

  They made fast the barge; they led her up the steps; the great gate opened to admit her.

  “Oh, Lord, help me,” she murmured, “as I am guiltless of that whereof I am accused.” Sir William Kingston came out to receive her, as he had on that other occasion. “Mr. Kingston,” she asked, “do I go into a dungeon?”

  “No, Madam,” answered the constable, “to your own lodgings where you lay at your coronation.”

  She burst into passionate weeping, and then she began to laugh hysterically; and her sobs, mingling with her laughter, were pitiful to hear. She was thinking of then and now—and that in but three short years. A queen coming to her coronation; a queen coming to her doom.

  “It is too good for me!” she cried, laughing as the sobs shook her. “Jesus have mercy on me!”

  Kingston watched her until her hysteria passed. He was a hard man but he could not but be moved to pity. He had seen some terrible sights in these gray, grim buildings, but he thought that this girl, laughing and crying before him, presented one of the most pathetic he had ever witnessed. He had received her on her first coming to the Tower, thought her very beautiful in her coronation robes with her hair flowing about her; he could not but compare her then with this poor weeping girl, and so was moved in spite of himself.

  She wiped her eyes, controlled her laughter, and her dignity returned to her. She listened to a clock strike five, and such a familiar, homely sound reminded her of ordinary matters. Her family—what of them?

  She turned to the members of the council, who were about to leave her in Kingston’s care.

  “I entreat you to beseech the King in my behalf that he will be a good lord unto me,” she said; and when they had taken their leave, Kingston conducted her to her apartments.

  She said: “I am the King’s true wedded wife.” Anne added: “Mr. Kingston, do you know wherefore I am here?”

  “Nay!” he answered.

  “When saw you the King?”

  “I saw him not since I saw him in the tiltyard,” he said.

  “Then Mr. Kingston, I pray you tell me where my lord father is.”

  “I saw him in the court before dinner,” said Kingston.

  She was silent awhile, but the question she had longed to ask, now refused to be kept back longer. “Oh, where is my sweet brother?”

  He could not look at her; hard as he was he could not face the passionate entreaty in her eyes which pleaded with him to tell her that her brother was safe.

  Kingston said evasively that he had last seen him at York Place.

  She began to pace up and down, and as though talking to herself, she murmured: “I hear say that I shall be accused with three men, and I can say no more than ‘Nay!’” She began to weep softly, as if all the wildness had been drained out of her, and there was only sadness left. “Oh, Norris, hast thou accused me? Thou art in the Tower, and thou and I shall die together; and Mark, thou art here too? Oh, my mother, thou wilt die for sorrow.”

  She sat brooding awhile, and then turning to him asked: “Mr. Kingston, shall I die without justice?”

  He tried to comfort her. “The poorest subject the King hath, has that,” he assured her.

  She looked at him a moment before she fell into prolonged and bitter laughter.

  Silence hung over the palace; in the courtyards men and women stood about whispering together, glancing furtively over their shoulders, fearful of what would happen next. Wyatt was in the Tower; who next? No man in the Queen’s set felt safe. In the streets the people talked together; they knew that the Queen was a prisoner in the Tower; they knew she was to be tried on a charge of adultery. They remembered how the King had sought to rid himself of Katharine; did he seek to rid himself of Anne? Those who had shouted “Down with Nan Bullen!” now murmured “Poor lady! What will become of her?”

  Jane Rochford, looking from her window, watched the courtiers and the ladies crossing the courtyard. She had expected trouble, but not such trouble. Anne in the Tower, where she herself had spent many an uneasy hour! George in the Tower! It was Jane’s turn to laugh now, for might it not be that her whispered slander had put Cromwell on the scent? Had she not seen grave Norris and gay Weston cast their longing glances at the Queen? Yes, and she had not hesitated to laugh at these matters, to point them out to others. “Ah! The Queen was born gay, and my husband tells me that the King . . . no matter, but what is a woman to do when she cannot got children. . . .” Poor George was in the Tower now, though it was whispered that no harm could come to him. It was others, who had been her lovers, who would die.

  Jane threw back her head, and for some moments she was weak with hysterical laughter. Poor little Jane! they had said. Silly little Jane! They had not bothered to explain their clever remarks to her; they had cut her out, considering her too stupid to understand. And yet she had had quite a big part to play in bringing about this event. Ah, Anne! she thought, when I was in the Tower you came thither in your cloth of silver and ermine, did you not! Anne the Queen, and Jane the fool whose folly had got her accused of treason. Now, who is the fool, eh, Anne? You, you and your lovers . . . dear sister! Not Jane, for Jane is free, free of you all . . . yes, even free of George, for now she does not cry and fret for him; she can laugh at him and say “I hate you, George!”

  And he will be freed, for what has he done to deserve death! And he was ever a favorite with the King. It is only her lovers who will die the deaths of traitors . . . But he loved her as well as any.

  Her eyes narrowed; her heart began to pound against her side, but her mind was very calm. She could see his face clearer in her mind’s eye—calm and cynical, ever courageous. If he could stand before her, his eyes would despise her, would say “Very well, Jane, do your worst! You were always a vindictive, cruel woman.” Vindictive! He had used that word to describe her. “I think you are the most vindictive woman in the world!” He had laughed at her fondness for listening at doors.

  Her cheeks flamed; she ran down the staircase and out into the warm May sunshine.

  People looked at her in a shamefaced way, as they looked at those whose loved ones were in danger. They should know that George Boleyn meant nothing to her; she could almost scream at the thought of him. “Nothing! Nothing! He means nothing to me, for if I loved him once, he taught me to hate him!” She was a partisan of the true Queen Katharine. Princess Mary was the rightful heir to the throne, not the bastard Elizabeth!

  She joined a little group by a fountain.

  “Has aught else happened?”

  “You have heard about Wyatt. . . .” said one.

  “Poor Wyatt!” added another.

  “Poor Wyatt!” Jane’s eyes flashed in anger. “He was guilty if ever one was!”

  The man who had spoken moved away; he had been a fool to say “Poor Wyatt!” Such talk was folly.

  “Ah! I fear they will all die,” said Jane. “Oh, do not look to be sorry for me. She was my sister-in-law, but I always knew. My husband is in the Tower, and he will be released because . . . because . . .” And she burst into wild laughter.

  “It is the strain,” said one. “It is because George is in the Tower.”

  “It is funny,” said Jane. “He will be released . . . and he . . . he is as guilty as any . . .”

  They stared at her. She saw a man on the edge of that group, whom she knew to be Thomas Cromwell’s spy.

  “What mean you?” he asked lightly, as though what she meant were of but little importance to him.

  “He was her lover as well as any!” cried Jane. “He adored her. He could not keep his hands from her . . . he would kiss and fondle her
. . .”

  “George . . . ?” said one, looking oddly at her. “But he is her brother. . . .”

  Jane’s eyes flashed. “What mattered that . . . to such . . . monsters! He was her lover. Dost think I, his wife, did not know these things? Dost think I never saw? Dost think I could shut my eyes to such obvious evidence? He was forever with her, forever shut away with her. Often I have surprised them . . . together. I have seen their lovers’ embrace. I have seen . . .”

  Her voice was shrill as the jealousy of years conjured up pictures for her.

  She closed her eyes, and went on shouting. “They were lovers I tell you, lovers! I, his wife, meant nothing to him; he loved his sister. They laughed together at the folly of those around them. I tell you I know. I have seen . . . I have seen . . .”

  Someone said in a tone of disgust: “You had better go to your apartment, Lady Rochford. I fear recent happenings have been too much for you; you are overwrought.”

  She was trembling from head to foot. She opened her eyes and saw that Cromwell’s spy had left the group.

  The King could not stop thinking of Anne Boleyn. Cromwell had talked to him of her; Cromwell applied enthusiasm to this matter as to all others; he had closed his eyes, pressed his ugly lips together, had begged to be excused from telling the King of all the abominations and unmentionable things that his diligent probing had brought to light. The King dwelt on these matters which Cromwell had laid before him, because they were balm to his conscience. He hated Anne, for she had deceived him; if she had given him the happiest moments of his life, she had given him the most wretched also. He had, before Cromwell had forced the confession from Smeaton, thought of displacing Anne by Jane Seymour; and Jane was with child, so action must take place promptly. He knew what this meant; it could mean but one thing; he was embarking on no more divorces. There were two counts which he could bring forward to make his marriage with Anne null and void; the first was that pre-contract of hers with Northumberland; the second was his own affinity with Anne through his association with her sister Mary. Both of these were very delicate matters, since Northumberland had already sworn before the Archbishop of Canterbury that there had been no pre-contract, and this before he himself had married Anne; moreover he was in full knowledge of the matter. Could he now say that he believed her to have been pre-contracted to Northumberland when he had accepted her freedom and married her? Not very easily. And this affair with Mary; it would mean he must make public his association with Anne’s sister; and there was of course the ugly fact that he had chosen to forget about this when he had married Anne. It seemed to him that two opportunities of divorcing Anne were rendered useless by these very awkward circumstances; how could a man, who was setting himself up as a champion of chastity, use either? On the other hand how—unless he could prove his marriage to Anne illegal—could he marry Jane in time to make her issue legitimate?