The Boleyn Inheritance Read online

  “Because you are so handsome,” I say, looking directly at him, taking the risk and seeing what will happen. “You are the handsomest man at court, Your Grace.”

  He stands quite still, almost like a man who suddenly hears beautiful music. Like a man enchanted. “You think I am the handsomest man at court?” he asks incredulously. “Sweet child, I am old enough to be your father.”

  Closer to my grandfather if truth be told, but I gaze up at him. “Are you?” I pipe, as if I don’t know that he is near to fifty and I am not yet fifteen. “But I don’t like boys. They always seem so silly.”

  “They trouble you?” he demands instantly.

  “Oh, no,” I say. “I have nothing at all to do with them. But I would rather walk and talk with a man who knows something of the world. Who can advise me. Someone I can trust.”

  “You shall walk and talk with me this very afternoon,” he promises. “And you shall tell me all your little troubles. And if anyone has troubled you, anyone, no matter how great: he shall answer to me for it.”

  I sink into a curtsy. I am so close to him that I almost brush his breeches with my bent head. If that doesn’t cause a little stirring, then I shall be very surprised. I look up at him and I smile up at him and I give a tiny little shake of my head as if in wonderment. I think to myself that this really is awfully good. “Such an honor,” I whisper.

  Anne, Whitehall Palace,

  January 11, 1540

  This is a most wonderful day, I feel that I am queen indeed. I am seated in the royal box, my own box, the queen’s box, in the newly built gatehouse at Whitehall, and in the jousting ground below me is half the nobility of England, with some great gentlemen from France and Spain come also to show their courage and to seek my favor.

  Yes, my favor, for though I am inside still Anne of Cleves, not much regarded and neither the prettiest nor the sweetest of the Cleves girls, on the outside I am now Queen of England, and it is amazing how much taller and more beautiful I turn out to be once I have a crown on my head.

  The new gown does much to help with my confidence. It is made in the English style, and, although I feel dangerously naked with a low-cut gown and no neckpiece of muslin to come up to my chin, at last I am looking more like the other ladies and less like a newcomer to court. I am even wearing a hood in the French style, though I have it pulled forward to hide my hair. It feels very light, and I have to remember not to toss my head about and laugh at the sense of freedom. I do not want to seem too changed, too loose in my behavior. My mother would be terribly shocked by my appearance. I don’t want to let her down, nor my country.

  Already, I have young men asking for my favor to ride in the lists, bowing low and smiling up at me with a special warmth in their eyes. With meticulous care, I keep my dignity and I award my favor only to those who already carry the king’s regard, or those who carry his wagers. Lady Rochford is a safe advisor in these matters; she will keep me away from the danger of causing offense, and the far greater danger of causing scandal. I never forget that a Queen of England must be above any whisper of flirtation. I never forget that it was at a joust, such as this one, when one young man and then another carried the queen’s handkerchief, and that day was ended with their arrest for adultery, and her merry day was ended on the block.

  This court has no memory of that; though the men who gave evidence and handed down the sentence of her death are here today in the bright sunshine, smiling and shouting orders into the jousting ring, and those who survived, like Thomas Wyatt, smile at me as if they have not seen three other women in the place where I sit now.

  The arena is lined with painted boards and marked out with poles painted in the Tudor green-and-white stripes, standards fluttering at every flagpole. There are thousands of people here, all dressed in their best and looking for entertainment. The place is noisy with people shouting their wares, the flower girls singing out their prices, and the chink of coins as bets change hands. The citizens cheer me whenever I glance in their direction, and their wives and their daughters wave their handkerchiefs and call, “Good Queen Anne!” to me when I raise my hand to acknowledge their attention. The men throw their hats in the air and bellow my name, and there is a constant stream of noblemen and gentry to the royal box to bow over my hand and introduce their ladies, come to London especially for the tournament.

  The arena is sweet with the smell of a thousand nosegays and freshly dampened clean sand, and when the horses enter at a gallop, skid to a standstill, and rear, they kick up a golden spray. The knights are glorious in their armor, each piece burnished to shine like silver and most of them gorgeously engraved and inlaid with rich metals. Their standard-bearers carry flags of brilliant silks embroidered with special mottoes. There are many who come as mystery knights, with their visors down and strange and romantic names bellowed out as their challenge; some of them are accompanied by a bard who tells their tragic story in poetry, or sings their song before the joust. I was afraid that it would be a day of fighting and that I wouldn’t understand what was going on, but it is as good as the most beautiful pageant to see the fine horses come into the lists, the handsome men in their pride, and the crowds of thousands cheering them on.

  They promenade before they start and there is a tableau to welcome them to the arena. The king himself is the center of the scene, dressed as a knight from Jerusalem, and the ladies of my court are in his train, dressed in costume and sitting on a great wagon that comes in towed by horses that are draped in yards of blue silk. They represent the sea, I can tell, but what the ladies are supposed to be is beyond me. Given the brilliant smile of little Katherine Howard as she stands at the front, her hand raised to shield her bright eyes, I think she is supposed to be lookout mermaid, or something of that nature, perhaps a siren. Certainly she is swathed in white muslin drapery, which might represent sea foam, and she has accidentally let it fall so that one lovely shoulder is showing, as if she is emerging naked from the sea.

  When I have a little more command of the language I shall talk to her about taking care with her reputation and modesty. She does not have her mother, who died when she was a little child, and her father is a careless spendthrift who lives abroad in Calais. She was brought up by a step-grandmother, Jane tells me, so perhaps she has not had anyone to warn her that the king is most alert to any sort of improper behavior. Her dress today is perhaps allowed, since it is part of a tableau, but the way it is sliding down to show her slim white back is, I know, very wrong.

  The ladies dance in the arena and then curtsy and escort the king to my box, and he comes to sit beside me. I smile and give him my hand – it is as if we are part of the pageant – and the crowd roars their pleasure to see him kiss my hand. It is my part to smile very sweetly and curtsy to him and welcome him to his great reinforced seat, which towers over mine. Lady Jane sees that he is served with a cup of wine and some sweetmeats, and she nods to me that I am to take my seat beside him.

  The ladies retreat as half a dozen knights, all in dark armor and flying a sea blue flag, ride in, so I imagine that they are the tide or Neptune or something. I feel very ignorant not understanding all the meaning of this, but it hardly matters for once they ride around the ring and the heralds bawl out their titles and the crowds roar their approval the jousting will start.

  The crowds are packed into the tiered seating, and the poorer people are crammed into the spaces between. Every time a knight comes to present his arms to me there is a great bellow of approval from the crowd, and they shout “Anna! Anna Cleves!” over and over again. I stand and smile and wave my thanks, I cannot imagine what I have done to earn such public acclaim, but it is so wonderful to know that the people of England have taken to me, just as naturally and easily as I have taken to them. The king stands up beside me and takes my hand before them all.

  “Well done,” he says shortly to me, and then he goes from the box. I look to Lady Jane Boleyn, in case I should go with him. She shakes her head. “He will have gone to tal
k with the knights,” she says. “And the girls of course. You stay here.”

  I take my seat and see that the king has appeared in his own royal box opposite to mine. He waves at me, and I wave at him. He sits, and I sit a few moments after him.

  “You are already beloved,” Lord Lisle says quietly to me in English, and I grasp what he means.

  “Why?”

  He smiles. “Because you are young.” He pauses for my nod of comprehension. “They want you to have a son. Because you are pretty, and because you smile and wave at them. They want a pretty, happy queen who will give them a son.”

  I shrug a little at the simple ways of these most complicated people. If all they want is for me to be happy, that is easy. I have never been so happy in my life. I have never been so far from my mother’s disapproval and my brother’s rages. I am a woman in my own right, with my own place, with my own friends. I am queen of a great country that I think will grow yet more prosperous and more ambitious. The king is a whimsical master of a nervous court, even I can see that; but here, too, I might be able to make a difference. I might give this court the steadiness that it needs; I might even be able to advise the king to have more patience. I can see my life here; I can imagine myself as queen. I know I can do this. I smile at Lord Lisle, who has been distant from me over these last few days and who has not been his usual kindly self.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I hope.”

  He nods.

  “You are well?” I ask awkwardly. “Happy?”

  He looks surprised at my question. “Er, yes. Yes, Your Grace.”

  I think for the word I need. “No trouble?”

  For a moment I see it, the fear that crosses his face, the momentary thought of confiding in me. Then it is gone. “No trouble, Your Grace.”

  I see his eyes drift across the jousting arena to the opposite side where the king is sitting. Lord Thomas Cromwell is at his side, whispering in his ear. I know that in a court there are always factions, a king’s favor comes and goes. Perhaps Lord Lisle has offended the king in some way.

  “I know you good friend to me,” I say.

  He nods. “God keep Your Grace, whatever comes next,” he says, and steps away from my chair to stand at the back of the box.

  I watch the king stand and go to the front of his box. A pageboy keeps him steady on his lame leg. He takes his great gauntlet and holds it above his head. The people in the crowd fall silent, their eyes on this, their greatest king, the man who has made himself king, emperor, and pope. Then, cleverly, when all the attention is on him, he bows to me and gestures with his gauntlet. The crowd roars its approval. It is for me to start the joust.

  I rise from my great chair with the gold canopy over my head. On either side of the box the curtains billow in the Tudor colors of green and white, my initials are everywhere, my crest is everywhere. The other initials of all the other queens are on the underside of the curtains only and they don’t show. To judge from today, there has only ever been one queen: myself. The court, the people, the king, all conspire to forget the others, and I am not going to remind them. This joust is for me as if I were the very first of Henry’s queens.

  I raise my hand, and the whole arena goes silent. I drop my glove, and at either end of the jousting line the horses dive forward as the spurs strike their sides. The two riders thunder toward each other; the one on the left, Lord Richman, lowers his lance a little later, and his aim is good. With a tremendous thud like an axe going into a tree, the lance catches his opponent in the very center of his breast-plate and the man bellows out and is thrown violently backward off his horse. Lord Richman rides to the end of the line, and his squire catches the horse as his lordship pushes back his dark visor and looks at his opponent, thrown down into the sand.

  Among my ladies, Lady Lisle gives a little scream and rises to her feet.

  Unsteadily, the young man rises, his legs tottering.

  “He is hurt?” I ask in a quiet undertone to Lady Rochford.

  She is avidly watching. “He may be,” she says, a delighted exultant tone in her voice. “It is a violent sport. He knows the risks.”

  “Is there a…” I do not know the English word for doctor.

  “He is walking.” She points. “He is unhurt.”

  They have his helmet off; he is white as a sheet, poor young man. His brown curly hair is dark with sweat and sticking to his pale face.

  “Thomas Culpepper,” Lady Rochford tells me. “A distant kinsman of mine. Such a handsome boy.” She gives me a sly smile. “Lady Lisle had given him her favor; he has a desperate reputation with the ladies.”

  I smile down at him as he takes a few shaky strides to come before the queen’s box and bows low to me. His squire has a hand on his elbow to help him up from his bow.

  “Poor boy,” I say. “Poor boy.”

  “I am honored to fall in your service,” he says. His words are obscured by the bruise on his mouth. He is a devastatingly handsome young man; even I, raised by the strictest of mothers, have a sudden desire to take him away from the arena and bathe him.

  “With your permission, I shall ride for you again,” he says. “Perhaps tomorrow, if I can mount.”

  “Yes, but take care,” I say.

  He gives me the most rueful sweet smile, bows, and steps to one side.

  He limps from the arena, and the victor of this first joust takes a slow canter around the outside circle, his lance held upright, acknowledging the shouts from the crowd who have won their bets on him. I look back at my ladies, and Lady Lisle is gazing after the young man as if she adores him; Katherine Howard, with a cape thrown around her costume, is watching him from the back of the box.

  “Enough,” I say. I have to learn to command my ladies. They have to behave as my mother would approve. The Queen of England and her ladies must be above question. Certainly the three of us should not be gawping after a handsome young man. “Katherine, get dressed at once. Lady Lisle, where your husband his lordship?”

  They both nod, and Katherine whisks away. I sit back on my throne while another champion and his challenger ride into the ring. This time the poem is very long and in Latin, and my hand creeps to my pocket where a letter rustles. It is from Elizabeth, the six-year-old princess. I have read it and reread it so often that I know I have her meaning, indeed, I almost have every word by heart. She promises me her respect as a queen and her entire obedience to me as her mother. I could almost weep for her, dear little girl, creating these great solemn phrases and then copying them over and over until the handwriting is as regular as any royal clerk. Clearly, she hopes to come to court, and, indeed, I do think that she might be allowed to enter my household. I have maids-in-waiting who are not very much older than her, and it would be such a pleasure to have her with me. Besides, she lives all but alone, in her own household with her governess and nurse. Surely the king would prefer her to be near us, to be supervised by me?

  There is a fanfare of trumpets, and I look up to see the riders drawn to one side and saluting as the king limps across the arena to the front of my box. The pages spring to open the doors so that he can mount the steps. He has to be heaved up by a young man on either side. I know enough about him by now to know that this, before a watching crowd, will make him bad-tempered. He feels humiliated and self-conscious, and his first desire will be to humiliate someone else. I stand and curtsy to greet him; I never know whether I should put out my hand or reach forward in case he wants to kiss me. Today, before the crowd that likes me, he draws me to him and kisses me on the mouth, and everyone cheers. He is clever at this; he always does something to please the crowd.

  He sits on his chair, and I stand beside him.

  “Culpepper took a hard knock,” he says.

  I don’t quite understand this, so I say nothing to it. There is an awkward silence, and clearly it is my turn to speak. I have to think hard to find something to say and the correct English words. Finally I have it: “You like to joust?” I ask.

  T
he scowl he turns on me is quite terrifying; his eyebrows are drawn down so hard that they almost cover his furious little eyes. I have clearly said utterly the wrong thing and offended him very deeply. I gasp. I don’t know what I have said that is so very bad.

  “Excuse me, forgive…” I stammer.

  “I like to joust?” he repeats bitterly. “Indeed, yes, I would like to joust, but for being crippled with pain with a wound that never heals, that is poisoning me every day, that will be the death of me. Probably in a matter of months. That makes it agony to walk and agony to stand and agony to ride, but no fool thinks of it.”

  Lady Lisle steps forward. “Sire, Your Grace, what the queen means to say is, do you like to watch the joust?” she says quickly. “She did not mean to offend you, Your Grace. She is learning our language with remarkable speed, but she cannot help small errors.”

  “She cannot help being as dull as a block,” he shouts at her. Spittle from his pursed mouth sprays her face, but she does not flinch. Steadily she sinks into a curtsy and stays down low.

  He looks her over but does not tell her to rise. He leaves her in her discomfort and turns to me. “I like to watch it because it is all that is left for me,” he says bitterly. “You know nothing, but I was the greatest champion. I took on all comers. Not once, but every time. I jousted in disguise so that no one did me any favors, and even when they rode as hard as they could I still defeated them. I was the greatest champion in England. Nobody could defeat me, I would ride all day, I would break dozens of lances. Do you understand that, you dullard?”