by G Lawrence
The dance ended, and as we stood from our last bow to each other, all I could see were Henry’s blue eyes in the candlelight. Hunger, excitement, frustration, exhilaration… all those emotions strayed across his pupils as he watched me, flushed faced, his chest heaving. I felt consumed by his glance at times; as though I were one of the fine dishes on his table.
Talking of our Matter helped to cool the heat of our frustrated desire. Wolsey was due to return soon and Henry assured me the Cardinal would bring only good news. “Wolsey is my best man,” he boasted as we stood at the fire late that night. Bess was asleep in a chair near the door, and aside from that we were alone. My mother had made herself scarce as the presence of a maid was enough to demonstrate our respectability, should we ever have the need. “Soon Wolsey shall help us to procure an annulment,” Henry continued, “so that you and I can start making those sons of ours.”
“Something I am looking forward to, my lord.” I cast an impish look at him, my dusky lips sliding into a naughty smirk. Henry grinned, moving towards me, his hands eager and outstretched, but I moved away from him. “I think the first should be named Henry, my lord, and the second Edward,” I said as I danced from his hands and chuckled throatily at his efforts to catch me. “Each will have their father’s hair and build, and they will both be excellent in the joust and win every contest they enter.” I ducked as he tried to grab me and pranced away, smiling at him.
Henry was watching me intently now, his keen hunter’s eyes regarding the way that I teased him. He crept nearer, like a prowling cat after a mouse, and flashed forwards, trying to grab hold of me with his strong hands. But I was too quick for my hunter. I evaded his reach, my velvet slippers quick on the rushes on the floor. I turned and beckoned to him, earning a fierce grin as he stalked me.
“And we shall have a daughter or two, also, my lord,” I said softly, backing to the edge of the room. “They will be fine girls with red-blond hair and blue eyes like their father. All will speak of their grace, intelligence and modesty. They will marry the greatest princes in the world. They will be mighty and well-beloved queens.”
Finally he had me, cornered at the edge of the room with nowhere else to run. He pounced with a short cry of triumph. I smiled languidly and stretched my arms up and over his shoulders as I brushed his lips with mine. Henry’s voice was husky when he spoke after our kiss. “I would that these children of ours should have something of their mother in them too, my love…” He took his hand from my waist and ran it gently over my face. I could feel the hard skin and rough calluses on his fingers caused by of hours practising with the sword and riding his horse. I nuzzled against his hand, pulling him closer to me as I kissed his throat.
“After all, this face and this hair I am most fond of seeing.” He went on, running his fingers up through the silks which covered my long hair under my French hood. “I should like our children to have the deep dark eyes of their mother, these wise and lovely eyes.”
He pressed me against the hard boards of the wall. His hands slid up from my waist so that they cupped my breasts as his lips moved on mine. Bess did not stir. For a long time we were lost in each other, oblivious to any sound or sigh the house made, to the crackling of the fire, or the sound of the servants outside.
Henry kissed me tenderly one last time, and then reached around me, putting his head on my shoulder and his face against my breasts. He sighed slightly, a sound not so much of frustration as contentment, and it made me warm to his love even more. These times, these spare moments of privacy in a world where all eyes watched us… they were precious, and all the more so because they were rare.
“I will give you fine children, Henry of England,” I murmured into his ear.
He did not move his face from my breast. His words came out muffled, but strong. “You will,” he said, and there was an edge of something I barely understood in his voice; a sense of certainty and resolve. For some reason, I shivered.
Chapter Ten
Richmond Palace
Autumn 1527
The smell of wood smoke and wet leaves filled the chilly air as I rode from Hever towards London. Behind me, my guards chatted and japed, enjoying their excursion. My heart was not so light. I was returning to my post at court. Even though I was troubled that Katherine might discover our secret, I knew I had to go back. Wolsey was on his return journey to England and Henry had sent word that I was to join him and hear the Cardinal’s report for myself.
In the woodlands, as we rode, we heard men singing as they chopped at trees and hauled wood. The air was fresh with that frigid sharpness on the wind, letting you know summer has passed. Spider webs hung in the grasses at the edge of the forests, their silken strands glimmering with dew as they billowed like delicate sails in the breeze. Normally shy wood mice devoured the fallen, fermenting apples that lay under the branches of their wild mother-trees, growing drunk and bold on this hedgerow cider. Ivy shimmered in the dappled light, clinging fast to trees and wrapping their twisted, green-silver leaves about their trunks.
When the country roads ended, we went by barge into London. The waterways were packed with tiny boats as we reached the city. In the company of hundreds of white swans and mottled grey signets our barge sailed down the river. The young swans were now almost as large as their parents, almost ready to fly out for the winter. The wind was yet warm as I sat on the cushioned seat on deck, watching the packed streets of London from afar. The skyline was dominated by the churches of London; one hundred and twenty in all, as well as monasteries, nunneries, and abbeys. Each one displayed holy relics for those who had coin enough to see and touch them. Westminster Abbey, its spires grey against the light of the skies, possessed blood from Christ’s wounds, milk of the Virgin Mary, and hair of St Peter. Although I believed that some relics of the Church might well be genuine, there were many more I knew were fakes; brought to, or made by, the Church, in order to attract wealthy pilgrims, and gain coin from those who were sick, poor, or desperate, in the hope that touching such items might help them.
As well as the churches, prisons were numerous; both those of the King, and those of the Church. At Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, there was the looming Lollard’s Tower; the place where suspected heretics were held, questioned, and tortured before being condemned. The Lollard movement had started several hundred years before our time. Led by John Wycliffe, they had attacked the privileged status of the clergy, and their wealth, advocated for translation of the Bible to become legal, and believed that all spiritual authority should come from the Scriptures rather than the Pope. Although widely thought of as heretics, I had much sympathy with hidden Lollards in England and beyond. They had been persecuted for years, and executed by the Church and state for heresy, but many of their thoughts had led to men like Luther, and Tyndale producing theories I now held dear. The Lollard’s Tower now took in all suspected heretics. It was rumoured that within the Lollard’s Tower, great walls of strong oak held iron rings, so heretics could be suspended above the floor by their arms or legs to make them talk, or to punish them for their supposed sins. I turned my eyes from the sight of that distant Tower. There were many who would call me a heretic, for some of my beliefs.
We drifted past noisy markets in which everything was sold, from bolts of cloth, to gold, to ribbons and pins for dresses made by the skilled hands of Moorish craftsmen. Men stood inside their boats along the river’s slippery banks, loudly negotiating with customers for passage to the other side.
London Bridge was hectic with noise and movement. Its piled buildings frowzy and rich by turns. We sailed past whipping posts and stocks, where those condemned by the King or clergy were sent for public punishment. At Smithfield, to the north of the priory of St Bartholomew, was the meat market of London, and, perhaps fittingly, it was also the place where convicted heretics were taken to be burned. Chained to the stake, those who dared to question the Church had faggots of dry kindling and reeds put under their feet and sta
cked up to their waists. Crowds would gather, and men would sell hot pies and ale, as the executioner put torch to wood, and purified the condemned men’s souls with bodily torment and agony. It was rare for a victim to die quickly. Sometimes it took as long as an hour for a heretic to suffer enough burns or fear to die from them. Fortunately, under Wolsey, no matter what else I might think of him, such spectacles were rare. But the threat remained for all who would question Church practises, or read banned texts, as I did. Do you wonder that I was quiet about my passion for reform? Even noble title cannot protect one the Church decides to move against.
I reached Richmond Palace and peered up at her vast towers, built by Henry’s father, with satisfaction. I was never more at home anywhere than I was at court. Even with my gnawing worries about Wolsey and Katherine, I was still glad to be back.
Officially, I had returned to Katherine’s service. She did not ask me where I had been, or what I had been doing, but welcomed me formally, and with a great deal of coldness. I barely cared for her displeasure. What was Katherine to me anymore? Let her manner be cold! Let her hands slap and pinch! I would ignore all such slights, and face her with the same coldness she showed to me. I felt but little pity for her anymore, for her behaviour had altered, and she was showing her true face. Margaret and Bridget were pleased to see me return, as was George, and I sought solace in the companionship of my friends. The Queen could treat me as ill as she dared. I would steadfastly refuse to rise to her. Henry was overjoyed to see me, after even such a slight break in our companionship, and he immediately took me out hunting with Margaret and some of his men. Katherine could hardly refuse. In intimate company, Henry saw no danger in showing his love for me. I rode pillion on his horse, and when the party paused to eat in the cold air of the afternoon, we sat and talked together, with barely a whisker of space between us. When I was with Henry, the shadow of Katherine’s dislike could not touch me.
On a bright cold day soon after my return to court, I was seated, reading to Henry from the Le Morte d’Arthur, when a messenger from Cardinal Wolsey arrived. Wolsey was at last returned. The messenger requested a private audience for his master and, to my great surprise, asked where the King should receive the Cardinal. Anger shot through me. This upstart Cardinal! The man had been nothing but a hindrance to my family, and now here he was demanding where he should be received? Who was the King in England? Henry or Wolsey? It was not to be borne.
Before Henry could open his mouth, I rose suddenly, making the messenger and Henry jump with surprise. “Where else is the Cardinal to come?” I cried haughtily. “Tell him he may come here… where the King chooses to be!”
The messenger backed out of the room and left me fuming, with a baffled Henry looking on. “It is too much!” I exclaimed. “The arrogance of that man! The Cardinal asks where he should be received? As though you are equals? He is your servant, my lord! How dare he act in such a disrespectful manner?”
I glared at Henry, my fury growing, as he seemed puzzled by my behaviour. I went to a window seat and flung myself down upon it. “I do not believe that he will wish to see me married to Your Majesty…” I admitted, looking down at the floor. “I believe Wolsey would wish you married to some French princess, or to another Spanish lump, rather than to me!”
Henry knelt beside me. “You react thus because you fear his disapproval, sweetheart?” he asked gently, and I nodded. “Wolsey is my man,” he protested. “He works for my interests and whatever he may think is governed by me. You and he must meet more often, for he works in our interests, my love… I would that you were good friends with those who serve me well and who are dear to my heart.”
I looked at him coldly. “I do not believe he will work with both of our best intentions at heart, Henry.” I turned my face from him as he sought to kiss me and heard his sigh of exasperation as he walked away, but I knew that he would be back, just as soon as I would let him return. We awaited the Cardinal in silence. Henry did not ask me to leave, and I did not seek to. It was time that the Cardinal knew what I was to the King. Fear made me defiant. My worries brought courage growling into my breast. Those who know no fear know no courage. The reckless are often thought of as brave, but they are not. Courage lies in knowing fear, and rising to face it despite its power.
Wolsey came to Henry, of course. What else was he to do after that message? The Cardinal could not quite hide his surprise as he saw me, seated, in the presence of the standing King. It was as though I were the King and Henry my subject. Before Wolsey had left for France he had assumed I was a passing fancy of no great importance. Now, however, the great Cardinal viewed me as the bear regards the dogs in the baiting pits. There was suspicion beneath the façade of politeness and amiability that this politician wore as he greeted us. He was quick enough to see that had I been just another mistress, I would have vacated the chamber upon his arrival. The fact that I remained, and was so informal with Henry, caused him great concern. He covered it well, but I saw those heavy eyes blink once with surprise as his eyes travelled swiftly over the chamber. The Cardinal was not used to surprises. He did not like them.
“How now, Thomas,” Henry greeted him, throwing his arms about the Cardinal’s velvet-covered shoulders with affection. “What news do you bring of France and of our Matter?”
Wolsey looked questioningly at Henry, and then at me. Henry gestured for him to speak, and the Cardinal decided it was obvious his King wanted me there. He ran a finger over the three chins layered beneath his first, and breathed in, making his huge belly bulge under its red robes. Wolsey started to speak of the splendour of the French Court; of his gracious welcome there, and of the never-ending love the French King had for Henry, but Henry waved a restless hand and enquired more directly.
“Will François show support for the annulment, Thomas?”
Wolsey hesitated. “The King of France loves Your Majesty like his own brother,” he breathed, his fat face wobbling. “He says he is closer to no other man in the world, and would gladly welcome an alliance with Your Majesty against his enemy Charles of Spain, of course…”
“It sounds to me as though there is a ‘but’ missing at the end of that sentence, Your Eminence,” I said softly from my seat in the corner. Wolsey glanced at me with his bushy eyebrow raised. “I am sure that His Majesty would know all that François of France had to say on this most important matter,” I went on.
Henry glanced at me with warning in his eyes, but there was, too, a sparkle there. Women were not supposed to be outspoken, bold, forward… I was all of those things. Henry found it exciting, challenging, interesting… I was so very different from all the other women at court… and I was his.
Wolsey tried to hide his astonishment, but I could see his mind flopping about in horror… What is this Boleyn girl doing here? he was asking himself… and why does the King allow her to speak so to me?
Wolsey cleared his throat. “François admits he cannot risk showing public support for Your Majesty’s Great Matter at this time,” he went on, glancing at Henry with sad eyes. It was like the expression of a puppy caught stealing sausages, trying to escape punishment. “But he supports you in private, as one monarch and father to another. He understands your keen desire to have sons to whom you will pass your throne … but he asks that you consider his own position as a father as well. Charles of Spain has François’ two eldest sons in his hands. François fears that to support you openly may bring the Emperor’s wrath upon them.”
Henry heaved a sigh. “Of course I understand that,” he murmured. “Had I a son, even one legitimate heir, I would protect him with all that I had… even as my father did for me.”
The Cardinal was nodding furiously. He thought he had the King where he wanted him. If Henry was sympathetic to François’ position, then Wolsey had not failed… But I saw this rather differently.
“François believes that in this matter, the Pope must be the leader, Your Majesty,” Wolsey hurried on, sweat beads on his brow growing larger. �
��François believes, since the Pope is so in need of allies at this dangerous time, that Clement will be more than happy to receive Your Majesty’s envoys. François continues his war against Spain and he believes victory in Italy will be his by the end of the year. François suggests sending a delegate to Rome to petition Clement for his decision. If the Pope rules in Your Majesty’s favour, which of course, all men will see is the only true and honest choice, Charles and Katherine will have no choice but to agree to the annulment. Your Majesty will then be free to marry, and…” Wolsey stumbled at the end of this platitudinous speech and glanced at me, suddenly unsure of himself. “And François would, of course, welcome a match between Your Majesty and une princesse de sang royal français.”
Henry ignored the last comment. “What did François say about the idea of a trial headed by you, Thomas, overseen by the cardinals of France and England?”
Wolsey puckered his thick lips, that puppy-dog sorrow flowing into his eyes again. “None of the French cardinals would agree to the idea, Majesty,” he confessed, looking uneasy. “And their King knows he has not the power to force them to do so.”