Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

Once again I have proved my loyalty; once again I am the confidante who will tell everything. Once again I can be put into the queen’s chamber, into her most secret heart; I can be put there and trusted to betray. I have been trusted friend to Queen Katherine, Queen Anne, Queen Jane, and then Queen Anne; and I have seen all of them fall from favor or die during my service. If I were a superstitious woman, I would think of myself as a plague wind that blows death warmly, with affection, like the breath of a whisper.

So I am not superstitious, and I don’t trouble myself to think of the part I have played in these deaths and shames and disgraces. I have done my duty by the king and by my family. I have done my duty even when it cost me everything: my own true love and my honor. Why, my own husband… but there is no point in thinking of George tonight. He would be pleased anyway: another Howard girl on the throne of England, a Boleyn in the most favored place. He was the most ambitious of us all. He would be the first to say that it was worth any lie to get a place at court, to join the king’s most favored circle. He would be the first to understand that there are times when the truth is a luxury that a courtier cannot afford.

I think he would be surprised how far the king has gone, how easily he steps from power, to great power, into absolute power. George was not a fool; I think if he were here now he would be warning that the king without any bridle on his will is not a great king (as we assure him) but a monster. I think when George died, he knew that the king had stretched to the limits of tyranny and would go further.

As seems to be the pattern for the king’s weddings, this one is followed by a round of executions. The king settles his scores with old enemies and those who favored the previous wife. The death of the Earl of Hungerford and his foolish soothsayer seems to put away the whisper of witchcraft. He was accused of all sorts of necromancy and wild sexual misdoings. A couple of Papists are to die for their part in the Lisle plot, the Princess Mary’s tutor among them. That will sadden her and serve as a warning for her, too. The friendship of Anne of Cleves has given her no protection; she is friendless again, and she is in danger again. All Papists and Papist sympathizers are in danger. She had better be warned. The Howards are back in power, and they support the king, who is making a clean sweep of his old enemies to mark his happiness with the new Howard girl. He also kills a handful of Lutherans: a warning to Anne of Cleves and those who thought that she would lead him to reform. When she kneels to pray at her bedside at Richmond Palace tonight, she will know that she has been spared by a hairsbreadth. He will want her to live the rest of her life in fear.

Katherine, I notice, kneels to pray but does not close her eyes; I would swear she does not say so much as a Hail Mary. She clasps her long white fingers together as she kneels and draws breath, but there is no thought of God in her mind. No thought of anything at all, would be my bet. There is never much in that pretty head. If she is praying for anything, it is for sables like Queen Anne had for her betrothal.

Of course she is too young to be a good queen. She is too young to be anything but a silly girl. She knows nothing of charity to the poor, nothing of the duties of her great position, nothing about running a great household, let alone running a country. When I think that Queen Katherine was named regent and commanded England, I could laugh out loud. This child could not command a pet dove. But she is pleasant and agreeable to the king. The duke her uncle has coached her pretty well in obedience and politeness, and it is my task to watch for the rest. She dances very prettily for the king, and she sits quietly beside him while he talks to men old enough to be her grandfather. She smiles when he addresses a remark to her, and she lets him pinch her cheek or hug her waist without grimace. At dinner the other night he could not keep his hands off her breasts, and she blushed but did not pull away when he pawed at her before all the company. She has been raised in a hard school; the duchess is known for a heavy hand with her girls. The duke will have threatened her with the axe if she does not obey the king in thought and word and deed. And, to do her justice, she is a sweet thing anyway; she is glad of the king’s presents, and glad to be queen. It is easy for her to be pretty and pleasing to him. He does not ask for much now. He does not want a wife of high intelligence and moral purpose like Queen Katherine. Nor one with a wit of fire like Anne. He just wants to enjoy her slim young body and get a baby on her.

It is as well the court is not here, in these early days of their marriage. Her family and those who profit from the marriage can look away from him pulling her about, her little hand lost in his grip, her determined smile when he stumbles on his bad leg, her rosy blush of embarrassment when his hand wanders to her crotch under the dinner table. Anyone who was not profiting from this mismatch wedding would find it disturbing to see such a pretty child dished up for such an old man. Anyone speaking honestly would call it a sort of rape.

Fortunate, then, that there is no one here who would ever speak honestly.

He is to visit me for dinner. Why, I cannot think. The royal groom of the household came yesterday and told my steward that the king would have the pleasure of dining with me today. I asked those ladies who are still with me if anyone had any news from the court, and one of them said that she had heard that the king was at Oatlands Palace, all but alone, hunting to take his mind off the terrible betrayal of Thomas Cromwell.

One of them asked me if I thought the king was coming to beg my pardon and to ask me to come back to him.

“Is it possible?” I ask her.

“If he was mistaken? If the inquiry was mistaken?” she asks. “Why else would he come and see you, so soon after the end of the marriage? If he still wants to end the marriage, why would he dine with you?”

I go outside to the beautiful gardens and walk a little way, my head buzzing with thoughts. It does not seem possible that he should want to take me back, but there is no doubt that if he has changed his mind he can take me back, just as easily as he could put me aside.

I wonder if it would be possible for me to refuse to go back to him. I would want to return to the court and to be restored to my position, of course. But there is a freedom to being a single woman that I might learn to enjoy. I have never in my life before been Anne of Cleves, Anne by myself, not a sister, not a daughter, not a wife, but Anne: pleasing myself. I swore if I was spared death, then I would live my life, my own life, not a life commanded by others. I order dresses in colors that I think suit me; I don’t have to observe my brother’s code of modesty, nor the court fashions. I order dinner at the time and with the food that I like; I don’t have to sit down in front of two hundred people who watch every single thing I do. When I want to ride out, I can go as far and as fast as I like; I don’t have to consider my brother’s fears or my husband’s competitive spirit. If I call for musicians in the evening, I can dance with my ladies or hear them sing; we don’t always have to follow the king’s tastes. We don’t have to marvel at his compositions. I can pray to a god of my own faith in the words that I choose. I can become myself, I can be: me.

I had thought that my heart would leap at the chance to be queen again. My chance to do my duty by this country, by its people, by the children whom I have come to love, and perhaps even to win my mother’s approval and to fulfill my brother’s ambitions. But I find, to my own amusement, as I examine my thoughts – and at last I have the privacy and peace to examine my thoughts – that it may be a better thing to be a single woman with a good income in one of the finest palaces in England than to be one of Henry’s frightened queens.

The royal guards come first, and then his companions, handsome and overdressed as always. Then he comes in with a touch of awkwardness, limping slightly on his sore leg. I sink down in a low curtsy, and I can smell the familiar stink of his wound as I come up. Never again will I have to wake with that smell on my sheets, I think, as I step forward and he kisses me on the forehead.

He looks me up and down, frankly, as a man appraising a horse. I remember that he told the court that I smell and that my breasts are slack, and I can feel my color rising. “You look well,” he says begrudgingly. I can hear the pique behind his praise. He was hoping I would pine with unrequited love, I am sure.

“I am well,” I say calmly. “Glad to see you.”

He smiles at that. “You must have known I would never treat you unfairly,” he says, happy at the thought of his own generosity. “If you are a good sister to me, then you will see I shall be kind to you.”

I nod and bow.

“Something’s different about you.” He takes a chair and gestures that I may sit on the lower chair beside him. I sit and smooth the embroidered skirt of the blue gown over my knees. “Tell me. I can judge a woman just by the look of her; I know that there is something different about you. What is it?”

“A new hood?” I suggest.

He nods. “It becomes you. It becomes you very well.”

I say nothing. It is French-cut. If the Howard girl has returned to court, he will be accustomed to the very height and folly of fashion. In any case, now that I no longer wear the crown, I can wear what I please. It’s funny, if I was of a mind to laugh, that he should prefer me dressed to my own taste over when I tried to please his. But what he likes in a woman he would not like in a wife. Katherine Howard may discover this.