Two years ago George and Thomas would sit in the window seats and talk like men about the war with France. Simonette did not speak of it; greatly she had feared that she, for the sins of her country, might be turned from the castle. And the following year there had been more war, this time with the treacherous Scots; of this Anne loved to talk, for at the battle of Flodden Field it was her grandfather the Duke of Norfolk and her two uncles, Thomas and Edmund, who had saved England for the King. The two wars were now satisfactorily concluded, but wars have reverberating consequences; they shake even the lives of those who believe themselves remote. The echoes extended from Paris and Greenwich to the quiet of a Kentish castle.

“I am to go in the train of the King’s sister who is to marry the King of France, Simonette. They say he is very, very old and...” Anne shivered. “I should not care to marry a very old man.”

“Nonsense!” said Simonette, rising and throwing aside her tapestry. “If he is an old man, he is also a king. Think of that!”

Anne thought of it, her eyes glistening, her hands clasped behind her back. What a mistake it is, thought Simonette, if one is a governess, to love too well those who come within one’s care.

“Come now,” she said. “We must write a letter to your father. We must express our pleasure in this great honor.”

Anne was running towards the door in her eagerness to speed up events, to bring about more quickly the exciting journey. Then she thought sadly once more of Simonette...dear, good, kind, but so dull Simonette. So she halted and went back and slipped one hand into that of her governess.

In their apartments at Dover Castle the maids of honor giggled and whispered together. The youngest of them, whom they patronized shamefully—more because of her youth than because she lacked their noble lineage—listened eagerly to everything that was said.

How gorgeous they were, these young ladies, and how different in their own apartments from the sedate creatures they became when they attended state functions! Anne had thought them too lovely to be real, when she had stood with them at the formal solemnization of the royal marriage at Greenwich, where the Duke of Longueville had acted as proxy for the King of France. Then her feet had grown weary with so much standing, and her eyes had ached with the dazzle, and in spite of all the excitement she had thought longingly of Simonette’s strong arms picking her up and carrying her to bed. Here in the apartment the ladies threw aside their brilliant clothes and walked about without any, discussing each other and the lords and esquires with a frankness astonishing—but at the same time very interesting—to a little girl of seven.

The King was at Dover, for he had accompanied his favorite sister to the coast; and here in the castle they had tarried a whole month, for outside the waves rose high against the cliffs, and the wind shrieked about the castle walls, rattling its windows and doors and bellowing down the great chimneys as if it mocked the plans of kings. Challengingly the wind and the waves tossed up the broken parts of ships along that coast, to show what happened to those who would ignore the sea’s angry mood. There was nothing to be done but wait; and in the castle the time was whiled away with masques, balls and banquets, for the King must be amused.

Anne had had several glimpses of him—a mountain of a man with fair, glowing skin and bright hair; when he spoke, his voice, which matched his frame, bellowed forth, and his laughter shook him; his jewel-trimmed clothes were part of his dazzling personality; men went in fear of him, for his anger came sudden as his laughter; and his little mouth, ready enough to smile at a jest which pleased him, could as readily become the most cruel in the world.

Here in the apartment the ladies talked constantly of the King, of his Queen, and—to them all just now the most fascinating of the royal family group—of Mary Tudor, whom they were accompanying across the Channel to Louis of France.

“Would it not be strange,” said Lady Anne Grey, “if my lady ran off with Suffolk!”

“Strange indeed!” answered her sister Elizabeth. “I would not care to be in her shoes, nor in my Lord Suffolk’s, if she were to do that. Imagine the King’s anger!”

Little Anne shivered, imagining it. She might be young, but she was old enough to sense the uneasy atmosphere that filled the castle. The waiting had been too long, and Mary Tudor—the loveliest creature, thought Anne, she had ever set eyes on—was wild as the storm that raged outside, and about as dependable as the English climate. Eighteen she was, and greatly loved by the King; she possessed the same auburn-colored hair, fair skin, blue eyes; the same zest for living. The resemblance between them was remarkable, and the King, it was said, was moved to great tenderness by her. Willful and passionate, there were two ingredients in her nature which mixed together to make an inflammable brew; one was her ambition, which made her eager to share the throne of France; the other was her passionate love for handsome Charles Brandon; and as her moods were as inconstant as April weather, there was danger in the air. To be queen to a senile king, or duchess to a handsome duke? Mary could not make up her mind which she wanted, and with her maids she discussed her feelings with passion, fretful uncertainty and Tudor frankness.

“It is well,” she had said to little Anne, for the child’s grace and precocity amused her, “that I do not have to make up my mind myself, for I trow I should not know which way to turn.” And she would deck herself with a gift of jewels from the King of France and demand that Anne should admire her radiant beauty. “Shall I not make a beautiful Queen of France, little Boleyn?” Then she would wipe her eyes. “You cannot know...how could you, how handsome he is, my Charles! You are but a child; you know nothing of the love of men. Oh, that I had him here beside me! I swear I would force him to take me here and now, and then perhaps the old King of France would not be so eager for me, eh, Anne?” She wept and laughed alternately; a difficult mistress.

How different the castle of Dover from that of Hever! How one realized, listening to this talk, of which one understood but half, that one was a child in worldly matters. What matter if one did speak French as well as the Ladies Anne and Elizabeth Grey! What was a knowledge of French when one was in almost complete ignorance of the ways of the world? One must learn by listening.

“The King, my dear, was mightily affected by the lady in scarlet. Did you not see?”

“And who was she?”

Lady Elizabeth put her fingers to her lips and laughed cunningly.

“What of the Queen?” asked little Anne Boleyn; which set the ladies laughing.

“The Queen, my child, is an old woman. She is twenty-nine years old.”

“Twenty-nine!” cried Anne, and tried to picture herself at that great age, but she found this impossible. “She is indeed an old woman.”

“And looks older than she is.”

“The King—he too is old,” said Anne.

“You are very young, Anne Boleyn, and you know nothing...nothing at all. The King is twenty-three years old, and that is a very good age for a man to be.”

“It seems a very great age,” said little Anne, and set them mocking her. She hated to be mocked, and reproved herself for not holding her tongue; she must be silent and listen; that was the way to learn. The ladies twittered together, whispering secrets which Anne must not hear. “Hush! She is but a child! She knows nothing...” But after awhile they grew tired of whispering.

“They say he has long since grown tired of her...”

“No son yet...no child of the marriage!”

“I have heard it whispered that she, having been the wife of his brother...”

“Hush! Do you want your head off your shoulders?”

It was interesting, every minute of it. The little girl was silent, missing nothing.

As she lay in her bed, sleeping quietly, a figure bent over her, shaking her roughly. She opened startled eyes to find Lady Elizabeth Grey bending over her.

“Wake up, Anne Boleyn! Wake up!”

Anne fought away sleep which was reluctant to leave her.

“The weather has changed,” said Lady Elizabeth, her teeth chattering with cold and excitement. “The weather has changed; we are leaving for France at once.”

It had been comforting to know her father was with her. Her grandfather was there also—her mother’s father, that was, the Duke of Norfolk—and with them sailed too her uncle, Surrey.

It was just getting light when they set off, being not quite four o’clock in the morning. The sea was calmer than Anne had seen it since her arrival at Dover. Mary was gay, fresh from the fond farewell kiss of her brother.

“I will have the little Boleyn to sit near me,” she had said. “Her quaintness amuses me.”

The boat rocked, and Anne shivered and thought, my father is sailing with us...and my uncle and my grandfather. But she was glad she was with Mary Tudor and not with any of these men, for she knew them little, and what time would such important people have to bestow on a seven-year-old girl, the least important in the entire retinue!

“How would you feel, Anne,” asked Mary, “if you were setting out to a husband you had never seen in the flesh?”

“I think I should be very frightened,” said Anne, “but I should like to be a queen.”

“Marry and you would! You are a bright little girl, are you not? You would like to be a queen! Do you think the old man will dote on me?”

“I think he will not be able to help himself.”

Mary kissed her.

“They say the French ladies are very beautiful. We shall see. Oh, Charles, Charles, if you were only King of France! But what am I, little Anne? Nothing but a clause in a treaty, a pawn in the game which His Grace, my brother, and the French King, my husband, play together....How the boat rocks!”