Mayflowers for November: The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn (28 page)

Chapter 33

May 1536

May Day was hot and dry. In the villages, peasant girls were bringing in the may and the boys were setting up the maypole. Later, in the fields, they would do what lovers do.

At Greenwich Palace, branches of may were brought to the Queen’s chambers and in the tiltyard knights and their grooms were preparing their steeds for the solemn jousting tournament. The yard was packed to bursting with spectators full of ale and holiday spirits. The Queen and her ladies paraded through the palace to watch the jousting from the royal stand between the twin tiltyard towers.

Queen Anne sat proudly, as she had for the miniature Master Hans had painted, except that she was wearing an English gable hood that hid her hair and made her face look thin and old. She rested her arm upon drapes of cloth of gold and chatted excitedly with her ladies about her brother who was leading the challengers against Sir Henry Norris, the leading defender. The King joined them with his gentlemen, those who would not joust that day. He was courteous, offered his wife, ‘good day, madam’, and sat beside her.

‘I trust I find you in good health, my lord,’ she enquired politely of her husband, as if he were a visiting ambassador who was her guest.

‘Were I in good health, madam, I would not be sitting here with you, but astride my steed,’ the King replied irritably, in his high pitched whine, loud enough for all to hear.

My mistress came to where I waited with the other maids at the rear of the gallery. She held her sleeve over her mouth to hide her giggles.

‘I thought the King was going to say … astride Mistress Seymour,’ she whispered to me.

Already, her hair was damp beneath her hood and I wiped her brow with a cloth dipped in cool rosewater. For once, I was glad that I was not a noblewoman. I was cool in my thin wool kirtle with my crisp linen shift beneath and my hair wound inside my coif. Even in her summer damask gown and thin cambric undershift my mistress was sweltering beneath heavy petticoats and big sleeves.

When Lord Rochford and Sir Henry Norris charged into the lists on their great armoured horses with their colours flying, the crowd roared and then groaned because Sir Henry’s horse shied and would not be calmed and it seemed he would be unable to compete.

‘Sir Henry will be embarrassed to have to retreat,’ Constantine said, and was ready to depart to assist his master to remove his armour when the King stood and commanded that one of his own horses be armoured and brought for his best friend to ride. How the spectators cheered and praised the King’s generosity.

Before the jousting was finished, Sir Henry joined the King and Queen in the gallery, and shortly afterwards a messenger came and a paper was passed to the King. King Henry left his seat and beckoned Norris to follow him. Constantine bid me a hasty goodbye and followed his master. The King had departed so suddenly that the Queen, engrossed in the jousting, was unaware that he had gone until she turned in his direction to make some comment and saw the empty chair. She watched King Henry riding away in the direction of London with only half a dozen attendants and Norris by his side.

‘He has left me,’ she told Mistress Madge, later in her chambers. ‘When did he ever go away and I did not know of it? When did he ever leave without a fond goodbye for his best beloved wife?’

*

No one dared to tell the Queen of what Smeaton had confessed to Cromwell’s men. She was surrounded by members of her family; her cousin, her aunts, her sister-in-law and her uncle’s mistress and no one would tell her. Mistress Madge fiddled with the pins at her cuffs. The aunts; Lady Shelton and Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, looked to each other, looked to the Queen and shook their heads. Mistress Holland rarely spoke to the Queen these days anyway. She sat at her embroidery a little apart from the others muttering ‘tut, tut, tut’ to herself to the annoyance of the Queen, who eventually bid her cease her prattling for she was beginning to sound just like Uncle Norfolk in one of his moods. Only Lady Rochford, sitting by the window, held her head high and I thought that something other than the sun made her screw up her eyes into little slits when she turned to glance at the Queen.

It was the Little Duchess who had to break the news.

‘My lord has charged me to tell you something, Your Grace,’ she said, trembling, after she had made her curtsey.

‘My lord of Norfolk must have dire news indeed if he durst not tell you himself for fear of your sharp tongue, Anne,’ Lady Rochford said.

‘It was Norfolk’s bringing of bad news that caused my boy to die inside my womb. Come, tell me gently, Mary. What trouble is afoot? Whatever it be, I am prepared for it.’

When she said ‘gently’ like that, the aunts raised their eyebrows and looked at each other as if to say, does the Queen believe herself to be with child again? How can that be? The King has not been near her bedchamber for weeks. If he had, surely we should have known of it.

‘Oh, Madam, the worst trouble,’ the Little Duchess cried and blurted everything out: that Norris was arrested and taken at dawn to the Tower where Smeaton had also been imprisoned the previous evening.

‘What, Norris, arrested? Norris in the Tower? And Mark too?’ The Queen spoke calmly but there was a tremor in her voice. ‘What have these two gentle souls done to offend?’

The Little Duchess burst into tears. ‘My husband will not have me speak of such vile deeds as they have done.’

‘Let someone fetch my lord of Norfolk and have him relate this vile tale.’ Lady Rochford stared in the direction of Norfolk’s mistress.

Mistress Holland gave her kerchief to the weeping duchess and went to find the duke. Norfolk did not bow when he strode into the Queen’s chamber.

‘Norris is arrested for treason and adultery with yourself, Anne.’

He waited to see the impact his words had on his niece. She said nothing, just sat there holding her head high inside her jewelled hood, as she always did.

‘What of the musician?’ Lady Rochford asked. It was more of a prompt than a question. Norfolk turned away from the Queen and spoke to her ladies.

‘Smeaton has confessed to Cromwell of adultery with Anne upon three occasions. I understand that Norris has made a confession, of sorts.’

Still the Queen said nothing.

‘Come, Bessie, Mary,’ Norfolk said. ‘This is no place for you. It is all bawdy and lechery.’ He put his arm around his mistress and led her away.

‘I think I had better find my husband,’ the Little Duchess mumbled and hurried away after her father.

My mistress might have been told that her betrothed was going on a short progress with the King for a day or two’s hunting instead of being arrested for a vile and treasonable offence, the way she sat so calmly, pretending to read her psalter.

The two aunts turned to each other and raised their eyebrows in wordless conversation. Twice I saw Lady Rochford open her mouth as if to say something and then shut it quickly.

‘Madge, look to the Queen,’ Lady Shelton cried out, for Queen Anne had begun to shiver violently, like a rabbit caught in a trap.

‘Avis, fetch wine and with haste,’ my mistress called to me.

When I returned, Mistress Madge was standing beside the Queen holding her about her shoulders. Her whole body had gone into an ague. Mistress Madge held the goblet to her lips but she gagged on the wine and retched it up on to her skirt. And then she started to vomit a torrent of words that came in little spurts.

‘Why do you all … stare at me so … I see how my aunts look to me … as if I were a whore. Oh, Mark, Mark, how could that sweet voice … that sweet voice … become so harsh in its betrayal? Whatever did I do but raise you up beyond your station … and that at the King’s request … and now … and now … you are my undoing.’

She stretched out her arms to plead with her aunts. ‘He has done this for spite. Don’t you see that he lies for only on Saturday I had need to bring him down for he would have me speak to him as a gentleman and he be only a … a mean person … and … this … this I told him. And he sulked and went his way saying “a look suffices” … by which I took him to mean that he is … he is in love with me. But, of course, he cannot have me. And not two days since … he has spoken evil to Cromwell … for spite.’

‘It is treason for the King’s wife to commit adultery,’ Lady Rochford said.

‘The penalty for a queen who commits treason is burning,’ Lady Boleyn said in a low voice to Lady Shelton, but the queen heard and collapsed into her chair with her chin on her chest as if her head had bowed beneath the weight of her hood.

‘I never thought that it should come to this,’ Lady Shelton moaned. ‘Surely, surely, the King would never be so cruel. Oh sweet Jesus, never this, never this. You were never my favourite niece, Anne, with your sharp tongue and your proud ways but I would not have wished this grisly punishment upon my brother’s daughter, whatever the crime.’

‘Hush, Lady Mother, hush,’ Mistress Madge said, running to her mother and putting her arms around her. ‘You are distraught.’

She ran back to the Queen and knelt at her side.

‘Heed not what Aunt Boleyn says. My lady mother is right. Our gracious King would never be so cruel. Cromwell’s men will surely have tortured Smeaton to get such a wicked confession, and when the King knows of this, he will be kind, you will see.’

This was the king who had not allowed his daughter say goodbye to her dying mother, who had sent his friend, Sir Thomas More, to the block while he went hunting. I found no comfort in my mistress’s words. I knew our King could be so cruel, if he wanted to be.

‘Who was it prophesied that a queen will burn?’ Queen Anne asked weakly. ‘Pray tell me who it was for, in my fear, I cannot remember.’

‘I think it was the wife of the King’s master of the horse, if I am not mistaken, or maybe the Nun of Kent,’ Lady Rochford promptly answered.

With great effort, Queen Anne raised her head and looked to her aunts and her sister-in-law.

‘The King loved me once, how come he does not love me now? He could not bear to be apart from me for one hour. He wrote letters, he sent gifts. I have them still.’

The aunts said nothing.

‘Katherine bemoaned Henry’s treatment of her but she was merely divorced and allowed to live as a dowager. Shall I burn for the spite of a trumped up lute boy?’

‘Let me take you to your bedchamber,’ Mistress Madge said. ‘I will have your doctor bring you medicine and when you are calm, you will see that the King will be kind.’

‘No, Madge, I want no doctor. I must speak with my brother; he will tell me what to do.’

‘George is with the King, at York Place, so you cannot have him,’ Lady Rochford said.

‘Have him brought here to me, Jane,’ the Queen ordered. ‘Come Madge, you shall help me to change my gown and we shall watch the tennis this morning as we planned while I wait for George.’

The Queen held on to Mistress Madge’s arm and walked unsteadily towards the door without a glance at her aunts or her sister-in-law so she could not see that they did not curtsey as she left. While she watched the tennis, a messenger came and commanded the Queen, by order of the King, to present herself to the King’s Privy Council where the Duke of Norfolk awaited her.

‘I am to be arrested for treason by my own uncle,’ she said.

*

The Queen ate her dinner in her privy chamber and waited for the tide that would take her to the Tower.

‘I was cruelly handled by the Privy Council,’ she complained to Mistress Madge. ‘My Uncle Norfolk never ceased his tut-tutting and Master Treasurer looked at his shoes and would not speak to me at all. Only Master Comptroller, good Sir William Paulet, was a very gentleman.’ She paused and considered the food before her. ‘Why does the King’s waiter not come to say, “and much good may it do you” as he usually does when I eat my dinner?’ she asked.

Mistress Madge said nothing. What was there to say?

‘I see now, only too clearly, that Henry has abandoned me.’

And that is when I saw him, in my mind’s eye. The babe, the son she had prayed for. A chubby baby boy with hair like fire, born full term, bonny and strong. Her bright haired, Tudor boy. The boy who could save her.

‘I have something for you, Your Grace,’ I whispered as I helped the server clear the table. I reached inside my sleeve. The Queen held the little bonnet and her lip quivered. I thought she was going to cry, but she took a deep breath to calm herself.

‘No, no, it cannot be. It could not have happened,’ she whispered. ‘Only maybe at Easter when he was kind to me.’

She pushed the bonnet into my sleeve.’

‘It is too late, Avis. Let Elizabeth keep it for her sons, in remembrance of me.’

‘You can be saved,’ I whispered. ‘Plead your belly. Ask for a panel of midwives to confirm that you are with child.’

‘A boy child will not save me now. It is too late. A pregnancy will compound my guilt. They will tell the King that it is Smeaton’s or Norris’s child and he will believe them, my enemies, Cromwell, Carew, the Seymours, and God knows who else, Bryan? They who whisper evil of me into the King’s ear.’

I stood by the river with Mistress Madge and the boy and many other servants and courtiers who watched Cromwell and Norfolk escort Anne Boleyn down the privy steps to the great watergate, where King Henry’s guards waited by his barge with their halberds shining in the sunlight. She wore crimson velvet and cloth of gold and held her head proudly, as a queen should, with her dark hair falling down her back below the veil of her hood.