by G Lawrence
Mary shrugged and blushed. “In truth,” she muttered, “I am unsure.”
“Unsure you are with child, or unsure who the father is?”
She laughed and blushed deeper. “I am with child,” she assured me. “But the King is not the only man I share a bed with.” I looked aghast and she hurried on. “I am married, Anne!” she laughed. “Or had you entirely forgotten my husband?!”
My eyes were larger now. “It is Carey’s?” I asked.
Mary shrugged again. “I know not… It could be either in truth.” She sighed. “I am wedded to Will, Anne, I promised on our wedding day to be bonny and buxom in bed and I have never refused him entry there unless I was visiting with the King that night. The King has been my lover for some years now, and at our father’s command I have never refused him. Now I am with child and I know not whether it be the King’s or my husband’s… But legally it will be Carey’s child.” She made a face. “It is a strange thing when a woman must justify sharing a bed with her own husband,” she said. I could not have agreed more.
“Do the King and Carey know?” I asked.
“Neither, as yet,” she said. “But they will soon.”
I looked at her carefully. I should have been able to tell the moment she walked in, but I had been too busy in my own thoughts of frustration and annoyance. There was a shine to her face but also pallor in her usually rosy cheeks. There was a sweat on her brow, delicate and almost unnoticeable and there was a slight tightening of her gown around her belly. Yes, I should have seen it before she told me. After all, I had waited on Claude of France who had been pregnant almost perpetually through the time I had known her. I had never missed the signals with my mistress, or with my friend Bridget, who also seemed to be continually carrying a babe within her… but I had with my own sister. I had been dwelling too deep in my own troubles to think on her. I felt a little ashamed suddenly, and moved to embrace her, as I could tell she was not displeased by this turn of events. “Mary,” I asked slowly. “What if the child is a boy and Henry was to acknowledge it as his own? Bessie Blount’s son Fitzroy lives now as a little prince; why should your babe not be the same?”
Mary shook her head a little. “No, I think not, Anne,” she said. “Bessie Blount was unmarried when she became great with the King’s child. He acknowledged Henry Fitzroy because there was no one else to take responsibility for the child. Although he loves the boy, and has heaped favours on him, the child is still a bastard and the King rarely acknowledges his sins so publicly. In my case, there is Carey, and he is the man whom the King and his Cardinal chose long ago to take responsibility for any children of this affair. Since I have a living husband, Henry’s sins are not made flesh for the world to see. They can make Will take responsibility as the father.” She stopped sewing and shook her head. “But, if the child turns out to be a boy, there is a chance that Wolsey and the King might think to alter their plan.”
She looked around her and ushered me in closer to her. “The Queen has finished her courses entirely,” she whispered. “There has been no blood now for almost a year, and although she prays each hour on her knees for the blood to return, it does not. There are other signs too: she cannot keep cool; she tries constantly to control her moods; she cannot sleep at night and has a racing heart even when she is resting. I think that she has passed from the time when she can naturally give a son to the King and is going through the change that all women must face when they cease to breed. And she is afraid, so very afraid that the King will find out and cease to come to her bed entirely.” Mary sat back, her face in a grimace. “And soon I shall be in front of her with a great belly,” she shook her head. “I do not feel good about that idea.”
I sighed. “If Katherine has ceased to be capable of breeding, it is not your fault.” I took her hand. “Think not on Katherine now,” I whispered. “Think on your child. Were it a boy he might rise as high as Fitzroy in the favour of the King.”
“Perhaps, but I think not,” Mary said. “The King can be no more sure than I of whether the child is his or not, and he is not one to be cuckolded with another man’s child.” She shook herself. “But I care not,” she smiled. “I shall tell the King it is his and Will that it may be his. Will is a practical man; he will be happy to have an heir, and pleased that the child might be honoured by the King. And I shall have a baby finally, after all this time, and it will be my baby. Both are fine men; I am not ashamed to call either the King or Carey my babe’s father.”
She paused and a worried look again crossed her face. “But I do wish I could keep it concealed from the Queen,” she said. “She is so desperate for a child, so sad… and now I am to parade a great belly before her in this time of her sorrow.” Mary shook her head and returned thoughtfully to her sewing.
Our mother was happy to feel Mary’s belly and to immediately order cloth with which to make baby clothes. I groaned inwardly at the thought of more months of sewing, even if it was for the arrival of my new nephew or niece. I was tired of the country and of my solitude. I missed my friends. I longed to dance and to play and to sing; to see the fine clothing, new styles, and walk the rushed halls of court. I longed both to gossip and to talk of serious matters; I longed for the flash and the bustle of moving from palace to palace and I longed most of all to have the court turn to hear me sing or quip or play as it had done before I had fallen for that oaf of a boy, Henry Percy.
I could not think of him now without disgust. How could I have loved such a weakling so? And my love for him had caused me to become estranged from the court, from the place where I was supposed to be! I could not see what on earth had possessed me to fall in love with such a whinging, weak, spineless fool! I had given up the court for him? I would have run away with him? Oh, I was a fool to have thought that such a cowardly witless worm could have been my husband! My mother was right; I needed to find a husband who was worthy of me. Should I find a husband, then this time, I swore that he should be a man in all he did. Or else I should never marry and content myself with Mary’s children or the rooms of a nunnery. I should take no more worms disguised as men into my confidence or arms; from now on I should look for strength in a husband. I would look for a man who had the courage to love the woman he chose, and to face all odds with valour to gain her.
Chapter Nineteen
Oxenheath
1523
During my time of disgrace, as I still languished, an exile, in the country, a messenger came to Hever to tell our mother of a dangerous illness that had befallen my aunt, Jocasta Howard, the wife of our mother’s brother, Edmund.
Jocasta had been brought to bed with her tenth child, but had fallen gravely ill with childbed fever and our uncle had sent word to our mother, as a near-by relative, to ask for help with the household. But mother was too weak at this time to attend to her brother’s needs and so I, with a volley of servants, rode out for Oxenheath where the aunt I had never met lay apparently close to death.
I arrived at the house late, and was shown in to see my uncle Edmund in the hall. He sat near to the fire with a large cup of wine. He looked up at me with hollow eyes and rose unsteadily to echo my bow to him. His mouth grimaced at me in a strange smile; the innards of his mouth looked entirely black, either stained by wine or due to rampant decay, I knew not which. Either way, the rank smell that came from his fetid mouth was deeply unpleasant. I had to muster all my self control to keep from recoiling from him as he greeted me.
“So, you are Elizabeth’s youngest?” he asked after a few moments, staring at me. “You must have been quite a child the last time I saw you.”
“I am her youngest daughter, uncle. My brother George is the youngest in the family.”
He snorted. “Only three children living!” His gaping grin showed blackened stumps of rotting teeth. “Your family is fortunate in that.”
I was silent for a moment; I knew not quite what to say to this extraordinary statement. “My mother regrets the death of her other children… She has love
d all her children, uncle.”
“Then she is a fool!” my uncle shouted and then laughed. He was clearly very drunk. He fell back into his chair and gulped more wine from the cup in his hands. “I have more children than I know what to do with or how to feed,” he spat bitterly. “Each one comes, and is only another mouth to feed, another body to clothe, and with what? I have nothing. I am reduced to the state of a pauper, but must still present myself to the King as a great lord when he calls on me. There is no fuel for the fires of this household, no relief from the incessant bills or taxes; no honour for a knight who fought for his King amongst his brothers and father at Flodden… No! I am undone and unable to do a thing to help myself. What am I to do, Elizabeth’s girl? Tell me. I cannot work for my bread like a poor man, and I cannot gain my coin from inheritance as my great brother Thomas has all of that. I am in debt everywhere, and all men refuse to offer me more credit… And I am a gentleman! My wife is dying and the child that has killed her cries in those chambers all day and all night. I have nothing to offer it, just like the others.” He took another deep swig of wine, spilling it down his already stained doublet as he guzzled.
“Is there no one that can take the child?” I asked gently.
“My step-mother, your step-grandmother, Agnes Tilney, Dowager of Norfolk will have to take her, and the others.” He muttered, his head was getting closer and closer to his cup, his words slurred and then, promptly and clumsily, he fell from his stool to the floor. His head bounced off the dirty rushes and his wine slopped all over his face and neck. It did not wake him. I looked at the pile of flesh and dirty clothing that was my uncle as he started to snore loudly on the cold floor. Then I sighed and rose.
“Take Sir Edmund to his chambers,” I said coolly to the servants standing nearby, one looking horrified and the other clearly trying to contain his laughter. “He will need tending during his time of grief,” I stared hard at the giggler, who looked immediately chagrined.
“Of course, Mistress,” they said and rushed to do my bidding. It took several more of the household servants to carry the dead weight of my uncle to his bed. It took more still to clean up the piles of vomit he left trickling down the stone stairs. I watched him taken away with a heavy heart, and then was brought to the pitiful form of my aunt in her bed. There were two women tending her, but no doctors. Perhaps my uncle could not afford them. I gave them coin, and bade them to send for a doctor from town in the morning light. Through the night I sat with my aunt, trying to keep the fever of her body contained. We washed her with water heated over the fire, and tried to get her to drink something. She muttered feebly in her sleep, a grey sheen of sweat over her skin. I feared greatly that we would lose her in the night, but she was still living when the dawn came. In the morning, a doctor arrived at the house, and was brought to me.
“I have seen worse,” he nodded grimly, putting a hand to her forehead, “but not many.” He looked up at me. “You did well to keep her cool, Mistress Boleyn. I shall see what can be done for her.”
“Please do all that you can, and I shall see you are paid well for your efforts,” I replied, and went with a sigh down the stairs to see if my uncle had risen. He had not.
Edmund appeared in the later afternoon looking pale and ill, shaking with the left-over illness caused by his indulgence in wine. I showed him the arrangements that I had made with the servants for his wife’s care, and told him that a doctor was now attending on her and I would ensure he was paid. Edmund looked at me with a glance that was at once hopeful and desperate. I asked to see the new child, and he merely indicated up to the chamber and called a maid over to guide me, as he called for a pot of ale to settle his stomach.
In the nursery there were several children, all my cousins, I thought, as I took in their ragged garb with dismay and disapproval. Their clothes were passable from a distance, but close up I could see how old they truly were. My trained eyes could see where sleeves and hems had been let out, where clothes on one back had been made for another, where thread had grown dull. I could see places, carefully concealed by their maid’s work, where stitching was loose and tears had appeared, all hidden under cloaks and under arms where only a careful observer would note them. Despite the rather desperate appearance of my noble cousins, they were sweet children. They bowed to me in the manner of gentle-born children and took me to see the baby, Catherine.
“Our mother wished her named for the Queen,” the eldest, Henry, told me. The baby was plump and hale; my aunt had given her good health, it seemed. Catherine was sleeping, and certainly not crying constantly as my uncle had said. I sighed. I was becoming increasingly attracted to the idea of having children. Bridget had a full flock of children. Mary was also now having one, and watching her belly swell made me envious of my sister. I would not have minded holding a babe of my own in my arms, although my prospects of making a marriage that I wanted were looking slim these days. All my ventures into the state of love seemed doomed. The men I had thought to marry were either too cowardly, or already attached, or undesirably placed, in the case of James Butler. When was I to find happiness, to find a suitable match… to find a man whose spirit could equal my own?
“Our mother is dying,” Henry said, springing me from my thoughts, and the faces of the other children puckered as they looked at me.
“And our father is not well,” said Margaret.
“I have seen your father this day and he is well enough,” I said. “Who has told you he is unwell?”
“May we beg forgiveness, Mistress,” a maid rushed in, with a cautious look on her face. “Their father is not well enough… to see them today.”
I looked at her expression and sighed a little, understanding. The maids did not want the children to see their father in a state of intoxication. This Howard uncle, it seemed, wanted nothing more than to drown in self-pity and wine whilst his children ran around in rags and his wife lay close to death. I nodded to the maid and she looked relived I had understood her.
“Never mind your father for now,” I said. “I am sure that when he is well enough he shall come to you. And your mother has a doctor with her even now. Although we must trust in God, we can trust too in the knowledge of such men. If he can make your mother well, then he will.”
They all nodded at me.
“And you will all pray for her, and all be good children?”
They all nodded at me again and I smiled. “Then you are good children and your mother will be proud of you. Now, your father tells me that you are to be placed in the households of relatives to learn to be gentlemen and ladies. One day, you will all grace the court of the King and serve your family well.”
They all looked at me expectantly. Despite their fears about their parents, I believe the opportunity to go somewhere other than here was still interesting. “I know not which houses each of you will go to, but you must make the most of all opportunities that are given to you. You must make your father and mother proud. Your father is my uncle, you know, and he is a great war hero; he defended this country against the Scots. You must strive to make him proud of you.”
They all nodded at me. I was beginning to think that they must all think as one to have their heads nod in such unison. I left the nursery and turned to the maid who had spoken to me. I put a bag of coins in her hand and spoke through gritted teeth. “Buy those children some clothes. They are the grandchildren of the Duke of Norfolk. They should not be left so, to roam in rags about this place. I shall check to see that those coins have been spent on them and not on anything else.”
I was suspicious that the servants might be stealing from Lord Edmund, which was why I included the warning at the end, but she dropped to her knees and held on to my rich skirt. “Thank you, Mistress Boleyn,” the maid said in a rough voice, gruff with emotion. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and I was quite moved to see how much she appreciated this small gift to the children in her care. “It’s been so hard to try and keep them going with what little we had,”
she said, starting to cry.
I put my hands down to her and picked her up, regretting my dark suspicions. “Your loyalty to my family does not go un-noticed,” I reassured her. “Look after my cousins and I will see what I can do with my family to send help. This situation cannot go on. These children are Howards; we shall get them into better situations than this.” I looked at her and nodded. “Remain as loyal as you are and God will reward you for it,” I said, “as will I.”
The maid nodded and went to show the children the money I had left them. I blinked away tears, both of sympathy and frustration. I went to the doctor, who seemed more hopeful than I had thought about Jocasta’s recovery. I stayed for another few days, until the lady herself was well enough to sit up in bed and take some broth. Then, leaving what I could for her care, and asking the doctor who still attended her to send his bills to my father, I rode back to Hever to see what help there was for my uncle Edmund and his children.