The Queen's Governess (10 page)

It was at a joust in the tiltyard at Hampton Court in late March, a sunny but windy day after much rain. In the third pass at the tilt rail, His Majesty had bested his challenger but dropped his lance, a new one that had replaced the one he’d splintered. Apparently winded, he was immediately helped off his horse. At age forty-one, he had waited for Anne for eight years. During their honeymoon period, he had seemed like a youth again, dancing and gaming till all hours. But lately his jowls had widened, and his girth even more. His appetite had increased. He sweated harder and breathed heavier.

People in the stands and higher in the painted and beflagged observation towers murmured as he was helped off toward the tiring tents with his armor clanking. “Kat,” the queen called to me—most called me Kat now—“take my handkerchief to His Grace so that his squire may wipe his brow. And pass on the message that, if his queen were not so heavy with his son, I would run down to care for him myself and hope to see him privily soon.”

I took the heavily embroidered square of linen and made my way out of the stands. Before I descended the stairs toward the tents, I noted that a man I did not know, big shouldered with finely muscled legs, rode out onto the tiltyard on a beautiful chestnut horse. At quite a gallop, without reining in to dismount, he snatched off his hat so he wouldn’t lose it, leaned down from his saddle and retrieved His Majesty’s dropped lance in one smooth grasp. As he put his hat back on, many in the stands applauded. I yearned to, but not wanting to muss the queen’s handkerchief, holding up my skirts to pick my way along the boards laid over the mud, I hurried toward the tiring tent where the jousters’ pieces of armor were strapped on or taken off.

The man who had retrieved the lance rode up beside me. Still holding it, he dismounted. I must admit I had never seen anyone—titled, noble, even royal—handle or sit a horse like he.

“Mistress Champernowne,” he said, and swept off his hat again, “it is muddy back here, and there are horse droppings. May I be of service?”

“You know my name, so you have me at a disadvantage, I’m afraid. I’m to take this token to His Majesty from the queen.”

“Best I put you up on my mount to save your slippers and skirts—with your permission,” he said, with a nod toward his horse.

“This is Brill, short for Brilliant, for he is that in the sheen of his coat and his loyalty and obedience, aren’t you, my boy?” He patted Brill’s flank.

I swear, that animal nodded as if he agreed. I had never been introduced to a horse, especially before hearing its master’s name. It was as if the steed were a person—a friend of its rider. But this intriguing man was speaking to me again.

“I know the tent where you will find His Majesty. I am John Ashley, new come to court as senior gentleman to the queen. I am distantly related to her and now find myself assigned to work with her Master of the Horse, William Coffin. I love horses and hope to write a book about riding someday,” he added, reaching up to stroke Brill’s sturdy neck. “I miss my home but am honored to serve. May I lift you up, then?”

I had to tilt my head to look up at him, for he was a bit taller than Tom. For some reason, suddenly shy at his smooth speech and fine face and form, I nodded. He leaned the lance against the side of the stands. Then, by my waist, as if I weighed naught, he lifted me up on Brill’s saddle and, as I held to the pommel with one hand, he led the steed back through the mud and mess toward the tents.

My thoughts were jumbled. Master Ashley had left the king’s lance behind. He was obviously literate, bright and ambitious to speak of writing a book. And had not the queen realized it was mud and mire back here? It seemed either her new lofty position or her pregnancy had made her so sure of herself that she had become less thoughtful of others.

“If I may ask, Master Ashley, in what way are you related to Her Grace?”

“Ah, yes, connections are the keys to the kingdom here at court. My mother, Anne Wood, was a niece of the queen’s mother, Elizabeth Boleyn, who was born a Howard. I grew up in East Burnham in Norfolk.”

“Yes, the Howards, headed by the Duke of Norfolk. He and the queen’s father are the king’s closest advisers with Secretary Cromwell.”

“Exactly. Then, on my father’s side, I am descended from Lord Ashley, Baron of Ashley Castle in Warwickshire. But I won’t inherit as my mother was my father’s second wife, and he has a son by his first marriage, so I am here to make my own way. And you, Mistress Champernowne?”

“I was the ward of Sir Philip Champernowne of Modbury in Devon, cousins of my father. I have been at court in the queen’s household for four and a half years now.”

“Ah, a lifetime for surviving in favor here, but please tell no one I said that.”

He had slowed Brill, perhaps to give us more time to talk. Mud stuck to his highly polished boots. He was my own knight errant, I fancied, for I loved the old stories of chivalrous days, especially the tales of long-lost Camelot. Perhaps, like Sir Lancelot himself, John Ashley was dressed all in rich-smelling black leather; his skin was sunstruck, a bit darker than most pale Englishmen in springtime. He was rugged-looking with a straight nose, thick eyebrows framing sky blue eyes and a closely clipped beard. His eyelashes were sinfully thick for a man’s. Strangely, his deep voice sent shivers through me. I guessed he was about my age or slightly older, and I longed to know if he was wed.

“Have you left behind a family in Norfolk?” I asked as he halted the horse before a large tent where squires and pages darted in and out. In faith, I had nearly forgotten my mission and saw I had wadded the queen’s handkerchief in my sweating palm.

“Only my stepmother, father and elder half brother, both horse breeders,” he said, making me for the first time in months think about my family. Unlike Tom or other courtiers I knew, something wise and serious about this man made one think and feel deeply. “Here,” he said, “you can hardly go inside, and I warrant His Grace is resting. May I take that for you and then I’ll walk Brill back to the stands for you. Was there a message?”

Staring down into his intent gaze, I nodded as if I had suddenly gone speechless, then blurted a nervous, jumpy rendition of what the queen had said: “With love from his love, and she hopes to see him privily soon.”

He smiled up at me, and our fingers touched when he took it. Tom would have made some tease or double entendre over what I had said, but John told me only, “A lovely thought for the most fortunate of men.”

“Oh, look at those wild men!” Madge Shelton shrieked next to me, jolting me from my reverie. She pointed at the barge with the dragon, which was being rowed directly beside us with the Tower and London Bridge in view. All around the dragon had suddenly emerged men dressed as monsters with long hair, wearing ragged animal skins and cavorting with screams and cries while people lining the riverbanks clapped and huzzahed. Anne and her ladies shouted and laughed to see such a display.

I stood there among them, joining in the fun but thinking again of John Ashley, imagining not only that he or I were mounted on his beautiful steed but that both of us were in his saddle together.

 

 

 

Some whispered
that the king was giving Anne such a glorious flotilla, parade, coronation and banquet to make up for the ignominy of a secret wedding. Others said he’d worked so hard to have her that only a splendid effort would be appropriate. Yet some whispered he needed such pomp to establish her as queen with his subjects, many of whom were still loyal to Queen Catherine. The cast-off wife was now stripped of most of her staff and living in backwater, rural manors such as Buckden and Kimbolton. The Princess Mary, who also refused to recognize the new queen—Anne Boleyn was lately obsessed with humbling Mary—likewise lived exiled from court and her father.

The day of Anne’s grand entry into London, I was thrilled to be in the coronation parade that made its way from the palace within the Tower to Westminster Palace. From there Anne would set out to be crowned in the Abbey on the morrow.

Madge Shelton and I shared a chariot driven by one of His Majesty’s squires. We were so proud of our new red and gold velvet coronation gowns, for which we’d been allotted the exact yardage of material. Best of all, just ahead, I could not only see the queen’s ornate litter but had a fine view of John Ashley’s broad back and bouncing buttocks on his prancing steed.

It was Anne Boleyn’s triumphant day, but I felt it was also mine. Without having to do Cromwell’s bidding lately, I was still among the queen’s ladies and privy to all the benefits that brought. I had escaped a life with a stepmother I could not abide and had—thanks to Cromwell—managed to obtain a good education, which I sought to further when I could. With the queen’s permission, I tutored women at court who did not write or read well. She was a champion of women’s educations, including religious ones. I read the Bible myself instead of having priests interpret it for me. Queen Anne was one of the first to promote Tyndale’s Bible in English, rather than reading in Latin. I was honored to discuss religion with the queen and even with Archbishop Cramner, Anne’s spiritual adviser. He was steeped in the new learning, which the Catholics who detested it called Lutheranism.

Though six months pregnant, today Anne Boleyn was gloriously arrayed in a cloth-of-gold gown and jewels that glittered in the sun. The cavalcade wound its way through the narrow streets, newly graveled for this day. All around and above us, Londoners hung from windows, cheering—or, I noted, jeering.

Occasionally we heard sporadic cries of “God Save Queen Catherine!” or the rumbling of muted boos. More than once, we stopped so that Anne could enjoy a street-side tableau or masque prepared for her. One was a costly pageant sponsored by the merchants of the steelyard, with a backdrop full of classical gods and goddesses designed by the German artist Hans Holbein, who was becoming a favorite for portraits of courtiers.

But over the music in her honor, I heard from deep within the crowd: “King’s wench! Concubine!” And once, so clearly, “Whore!” John Ashley and some others rode over to push such naysayers back from the queen’s hearing.

Then too, more than once along the way, I noted people laughing. At first, I thought they dared mock Anne herself. Though she was obviously pregnant, her garments were draped to obscure her growing belly. But I soon saw some folk in the crowd pointed at the painted, linked initials of Henry and Anne adorning her litter, pennants and even our chariot:
HA, HA, HA
.

 

 

 

At Anne’s banquet
in old Westminster Hall in London, the king had given orders to elevate her above all others. The same had been done in the coronation ceremony itself in the Abbey earlier today. She had been crowned—unlike Queen Catherine—in St. Edward’s Chair, which heretofore had been used only for monarchs. Nor had King Henry’s first queen been crowned with St. Edward’s Crown, worn only by rulers but not their wives. At least that part of the grand events went better than the parade, for no one inside dared to make a peep against their queen. Now, at the banquet, special favors for her abounded again.

Nary a soul was permitted near Anne, unless to serve her food or drink. The king, everyone knew, was watching events from a side room, for this was Anne’s day, Anne’s banquet. She sat on her husband’s marble throne with her fringed and gilded cloth of estate on poles over her like a lofty second crown. Archbishop Cramner was at her table, but at a goodly distance. Two countesses stood beside her, and two gentlewomen—I was glad I had not been selected—crouched under her table in an old rite. She sent them on errands from time to time, or spit food she did not care for into the linen cloths they held. And all this was on a dais, twelve stairs elevated and railed off from us mere mortals.

That was fine with me. The food was plentiful and excellent, and imported wine—not diluted or sweetened for once—flowed like water with no small beer or ale in sight. Then too, without turning my head, at other tables I could see both Tom Seymour and John Ashley. That warmed me even more than the malmsey and Rhenish I alternated in my crystal Venetian goblet. Tom was sitting with Sir Francis and Lady Elizabeth Bryan; John was with William Coffin, Master of the Horse, at a more distant table. Tom’s elder brother Edward he did not trust or like—though in all his fussing he never quite said why—sat at a more forward table, probably because he served Archbishop Cramner in those days. Secretary Cromwell, who nodded briefly to me in passing, seemed to be everywhere, trailed by a train of secretaries or lackeys of some sort.

I soon lost count of the kinds of delicacies that came in great waves and seemed to go so well with the delicious wine. Why, before tonight, had I never noticed that wine tasted better in glass goblets than pewter cups? As at all royal meals, we had three courses: first, cold food; second course, hot; and third, sweets, though we had never seen such selections or abundance as this day. The parade of food brought in silver tureens or on platters almost made me dizzy.

The cold course consisted of artichokes, cabbage and cowcumbers, perch in jelly, cream of almonds, Colchester oysters, lovely cheese tarts and much more. The hot dishes included swan, capon, baked venison, porpoise in mustard sauce, larded pheasants and peacocks with lighted tapers in their beaks. Finally, the dulcets, or sweet dishes, arrived, and how beautifully they went down with sips of wine. Though I had been careful not to stuff myself should there be dancing back at Whitehall later—how I hoped John Ashley knew how to dance—I did taste one or two of these selections: almond tarts, jelly fritters, cinnamon custard, bread puddings, currant cake, quince pie and suckets, those delicious oranges hollowed out, chopped and put back in their rinds with wine and sugar. And my favorite, which I concentrated on, wardens, that is, imported pears served with cinnamon and mace and colored blue with mulberries.