The Boleyn Inheritance Read online

  The door opens and I start up, expecting him; but it is not Cromwell, nor his man, but little Katherine Howard, her face wan and her eyes tragic. She has her traveling cape over her arm, and as soon as I see it I feel a wave of nausea from sheer terror. Little Kitty has been arrested; she, too, has been charged with some crime. Quickly I go to her and take her hands.

  “Kitty? What is it? What is the charge?”

  “I’m safe,” she gasps. “It’s all right. I am safe. I am just to go home to my grandmother, for a while.”

  “But why? What do they say you have done?”

  Her little face is twisted with distress. “I am not to be your maid-in-waiting anymore.”

  “You are not?”

  “No. I have come to say good-bye.”

  “What have you done?” I cry out. Surely this girl, not much more than a child, cannot have committed any crime? The worst thing that Katherine Howard is capable of is vanity and flirtation, and this is not a court that punishes such sins. “I will not let them take you away. I defend you. I know you are good girl. What do they say against you?”

  “I have done nothing,” she says. “But they tell me it is better for me to be away from court while all this is happening.”

  “All what? Oh, Kitty, tell me quickly, what you know?”

  She beckons me, and I bend down so that she can whisper in my ear. “Anne, Your Grace I mean, dearest queen. Thomas Cromwell has been arrested for treason.”

  “Treason? Cromwell?”

  “Ssh. Yes.”

  “What has he done?”

  “He conspired with Lord Lisle and the Papists to put the king under an enchantment.”

  My mind is spinning, and I don’t fully understand what she is saying. “A what? What is that?”

  “Thomas Cromwell made a spell,” she says.

  When she sees I still do not understand the word, she gently takes my face and draws it down so that she can whisper in my ear again. “Thomas Cromwell employed a witch,” she says softly, without any inflection. “Thomas Cromwell hired a witch to destroy His Majesty the king.”

  She leans back to see if I understand her now, and the horror in my face tells her that I do.

  “They know this for true?”

  She nods.

  “Who is the witch?” I breathe. “What has she done?”

  “She has put the king under a spell so he is unmanned,” she says. “She has cursed the king so that he shall not have a son by you.”

  “Who is the witch?” I demand. “Who is Thomas Cromwell’s witch? Who has unmanned the king? Who do they say she is?” Katherine’s little face is pinched with fear. “Anne, Your Grace, my dearest queen, what if they say it is you?”

  I live almost withdrawn from the world, emerging from my rooms only to dine before the court, where I try to appear serene, or, better still, innocent. They are questioning Thomas Cromwell, and the arrests go on; other men are accused of treason against the king, accused of employing a witch to blight his manhood. There is a network of plotters unfolding. Lord Lisle is said to have been the focus in Calais; he aided the Papists and the Pole family who have long wanted to recapture the throne from the Tudors. His second in command at the fortress has fled to Rome to serve under Cardinal Pole, which proves the guilt. They say that Lord Lisle and his party have worked with a witch to make sure that the king should not have a fruitful marriage with me, shall not make another heir to his reformed religion. But at the same time, it is said that Thomas Cromwell was aiding the Lutherans, the reformers, the evangelicals. It is said he brought me in to marry the king and ordered a witch to unman the king so that he could put his own line on the throne. But who is the witch? the court asks itself. Who is the witch who was friends with Lord Lisle, and was brought to England by Thomas Cromwell? Who is the witch? What woman is indicated by both of these nightmares of evil? Ask it again: what woman was brought to England by Thomas Cromwell, but is friends with Lord Lisle?

  Clearly, there is only one woman.

  Only one woman, brought to England by Thomas Cromwell, befriended by Lord Lisle, unmanning the king so that he was impotent on the night of his wedding and every night thereafter.

  No one has named the witch yet; they are gathering evidence.

  Princess Mary’s departure has been brought forward, and I have only a moment with her as we wait for them to bring the horses round from the stables.

  “You know I am innocent of any wrongdoing,” I say to her under cover of the noise of the servants running around and her guards calling for their horses. “Whatever you hear in the future about me, please believe me: I am innocent.”

  “Of course,” she says levelly. She does not look at me. She is Henry’s daughter; she has served a long apprenticeship in learning not to betray herself. “I shall pray for you every day. I shall pray that they all see your innocence as I do.”

  “I am certain that Lord Lisle is innocent, too,” I say.

  “Without doubt,” she replies in the same abrupt way.

  “Can I save him? Can you?”

  “No.”

  “Princess Mary, on your faith, can nothing be done?”

  She risks a sideways glance at me. “Dearest Anne, nothing. There is nothing to do but to keep our own counsel and pray for better times.”

  “Will you tell me something?”

  She looks around and sees that her horses have not yet come. She takes my arm and we walk a little way toward the stable yard as if we are looking to see how long they will be. “What is it?”

  “Who is this Pole family? And why does the king fear the Papists when he defeated them so long ago?”

  “The Poles are the Plantagenet family, of the House of York, some would say the true heirs to the throne of England,” she says. “Lady Margaret Pole was my mother’s truest friend; she was as a mother to me, she is utterly loyal to the throne. The king has her in the Tower now, with all of her family that he could capture. They are accused of treason, but everyone knows they have committed no offense but being of Plantagenet blood. The king is so fearful for his throne that I think he will not allow this family to live. Lady Margaret’s two grandsons, two little boys, are in the Tower also, God help them. She, my dearest Lady Margaret, she will not be allowed to live. Others of the family are in exile; they can never come home.”

  “They are Papists?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says quietly. “They are. One of them, Reginald, is a cardinal. Some would say they are the true kings of the true faith of England. But that would be treason, and you would be put to death for saying it.”

  “And why does the king fear the Papists so much? I thought England was converted to the reformed faith? I thought the Papists were defeated?”

  Princess Mary shakes her head. “No. I should think fewer than half the people welcome the changes, and many wish for the old ways back again. When the king denied the authority of the Pope and destroyed the monasteries, there was a great rising of men in the north of the country, determined to defend the church and the holy houses. They called it the Pilgrimage of Grace, and they marched under the banner of the five wounds of Jesus Christ. The king sent the hardest man in the kingdom against them at the head of the army, and he feared them so badly that he called for a parley, spoke with sweet words, and promised them a pardon and a parliament.”

  “Who was that?” Already I know.

  “Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk.”

  “And the pardon?”

  “As soon as the army had disbanded, he beheaded the leaders and hanged the followers.” She speaks with as little inflection as if she is complaining that the luggage wagon is badly packed. “He promised a parliament and a pardon on the king’s sacred word. He gave his own word, too, on his honor. It meant nothing.”

  “They are defeated?”

  “Well, he hanged seventy monks from the roof timbers of their own abbey,” she says bitterly. “So they won’t defy him again. But no, I believe the true faith will never be defeated.”


  She turns us so that we are strolling back to the door again. She smiles and nods at someone who calls “Safe journey” to her, but I cannot smile, too.

  “The king fears his own people,” she says. “He fears rivals. He even fears me. He is my father, and yet sometimes I think he has gone half mad with mistrust. Any fear he has, however foolish, is real to him. If he so much as dreams that Lord Lisle has betrayed him, then Lord Lisle is a dead man. If someone suggests that his troubles with you are part of a plot, then you are in the gravest of danger. If you can get away, you should do. He cannot tell fear from truth. He cannot tell nightmares from reality.”

  “I am Queen of England,” I say. “They cannot accuse me of witchcraft.”

  She turns to face me for the first time. “That won’t save you,” she says. “It didn’t save Anne Boleyn. They accused her of witchcraft and they found the evidence and they found her guilty. She was as much queen as you.” She suddenly laughs as if I have said something funny, and I see that some of my ladies have come out of the hall and are watching us. I laugh, too, but I am sure anyone could hear the fear in my voice. She takes my arm. “If anyone asks me what we were talking about when we walked out and back to the steps again, I shall say that I was complaining that I would be late, and I was afraid of being tired.”

  “Yes,” I agree, but I am so frightened that I am shaking as if I were chilled with cold. “I shall say you were looking to see when they would be ready.”

  Princess Mary presses my arm. “My father has changed the laws of this land,” she says. “It is now a crime of treason, punishable by death, even to think ill of the king. You don’t have to say anything; you don’t have to do anything. Your own secret thoughts are treason now.”

  “I am queen,” I maintain stubbornly.

  “Listen,” she says bluntly. “He has changed the process of justice, too. You don’t have to be condemned by a court. You can be condemned to death on a Bill of Attainder. That is nothing more than the king’s order, supported by his parliament. And they never refuse to support him. Queen or beggar, if the king wants you dead, he just has to order it now. He does not even have to sign the warrant for an execution, he only has to use a seal.”

  I find I am clenching my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering. “What do you think I should do?”

  “Get away,” she says. “Get away before he comes for you.”

  After she has gone I feel as if my last friend has left court. I go back to my rooms and my ladies set up a table of cards. I let them start to play, and then I summon my ambassador and take him into the window bay, where we cannot be overheard, to ask him if anyone has questioned him about me. He says they have not; he is ignored by everyone, isolated as if he were carrying the plague. I ask him if he could hire or buy two fast horses and keep them outside the castle walls in case of my sudden need. He says he has no money to hire or buy horses, and in any case the king has guards on my doors night and day. The men who I thought were there to keep me safe, to open the doors to my presence chamber, to announce my guests, are now my jailers.

  I am very afraid. I try to pray, but even the words of the prayers are a trap. I cannot appear as if I am becoming a Papist, a Papist like Lord Lisle is now said to be; and yet I must not appear to have held to my brother’s religion; the Lutherans are suspected of being part of Cromwell’s plot to ruin the king.

  When I see the king, I try to behave pleasantly and calmly before him. I dare not challenge him, nor even protest my innocence. Most frightening of all is his manner to me, which is now warm and friendly, as if we were acquaintances about to part after a short journey together. He behaves as if our time together has been an enjoyable interlude that is now naturally drawing to a close.

  He will not say good-bye to me, I know that. Princess Mary has warned me of that. There is no point waiting for the moment when he tells me that I am to face an accusation. I know that one of these evenings when I rise from the dinner table and curtsy to him and he kisses my hand so courteously will be the last time I ever see him. I may walk from the hall with my ladies following me to find my rooms filled with soldiers and my clothes already packed, my jewels returned to the treasury. It is a short journey from the palace of Westminster to the Tower; they will take me by river in the darkness and I will go in by the watergate, and I will leave by the block on Tower Green.

  The ambassador has written to my brother to say that I am desperately frightened, but I do not hope for a reply. William will not mind my being sick with fear, and by the time they learn of the charges against me it will be too late to save me. And perhaps William would not even choose to save me. He has allowed this peril to come about. He must have hated me more than I ever knew.

  If anyone is to save me, it will have to be me, myself. But how can a woman save herself against the charge of witchcraft? If Henry tells the world that he is impotent because I have unmanned him, how can I prove differently? If he tells the world that he can lie with Katherine Howard but not with me, then his case is proved and my denial is just another instance of satanic cunning. A woman cannot prove her innocence when a man bears witness against her. If Henry wants me strangled as a witch, then nothing can save me. He claimed that Lady Anne Boleyn was a witch, and she died for it. He never said good-bye to her, and he had loved her with a passion. They just came for her one day and took her away.

  I am waiting now, for them to come for me.

  Jane Boleyn, Westminster Palace,

  June 1540

  A note, dropped into my lap by one of the servers at dinner as he leans over to clear the meat platter, bids me go to my lord at once, and as soon as dinner is over, I do as I am told. These days, the queen goes into her bedroom straight after dinner; she will not miss me from the nervous huddle of those of us who are left in her depleted rooms. Katherine Howard is missing from court, gone back to her grandmother’s house at Lambeth. Lady Lisle is under house arrest for her husband’s grave crimes; they say she is quite frantic with distress and fear. She knows he will die. Lady Rutland is quiet and goes to her own rooms at night. She must be fearful, too, but I don’t know what accusation she might face. Anne Bassett has gone to stay with her cousin under the pretense of illness; Catherine Carey has been sent for by her mother, Mary. She asks permission for Catherine to come home as she is unwell. I could laugh at the transparent excuse. Mary Boleyn was always skilled at keeping herself and hers far from trouble. A pity she never exerted herself for her brother. Mary Norris has to help her mother in the country with some special tasks. Henry Norris’s widow saw the scaffold last time the king plotted against his wife. She won’t want to see her daughter climb the steps that her husband trod.

  We are all of us guarded in our speech and retiring in our behavior. The bad times have come to King Henry’s court once more, and everyone is afraid, everyone is under suspicion. It is like living in a nightmare: every man, every woman knows that every word they say, every gesture they make, might be used in evidence against them. An enemy might work up an indiscretion into a crime; a friend might trade a confidence for a guarantee of safety. We are a court of cowards and tale bearers. Nobody walks anymore; we all tiptoe. Nobody even breathes; we are all holding our breath. The king has turned suspicious of his friends, and nobody can be sure that they are safe.

  I creep to my lord duke’s rooms, walking in the shadows, and I open the door and slip in, in silence. My lord duke is standing by the window, the shutters open to the warm night air, the candles on his desk bobbing their flames in the draft. He looks up and smiles when I enter the room; I could almost think that he is fond of me.

  “Ah, Jane, my niece. The queen is to go to Richmond with a much-reduced court. I want you to go with her.”

  “Richmond?” I hear the quaver of fear in my own voice, and I take a breath. This means house arrest while they inquire into the allegations against her. But why are they sending me in with her? Am I to be charged, too?

  “Yes. You will stay with her and ke
ep a careful note of who comes and goes, and anything she says. In particular, you are to be alert for Ambassador Harst. We think he can do nothing, but you would oblige me by seeing that she has no plans to escape, sends no messages, that sort of thing.”

  “Please…” I stop myself, my voice has come out weak. I know this is not the way to deal with him.

  “What?” He is still smiling, but his dark eyes are intent.

  “I cannot prevent her escaping. I am one woman, alone.”

  He shakes his head. “The ports are closed from tonight. Her ambassador has discovered that there is not a horse to buy or hire in the whole of England. Her own stables are barred. Her rooms closed. She won’t be able to escape or send for help. Everyone in her service is her jailer. You just have to watch her.”

  “Please let me go and serve Katherine,” I take a breath to say. “She will need advice if she is to be a good queen.”

  The duke pauses for thought. “She will,” he says. “She is an idiot, that girl. But she can come to no harm with her grandmother.”

  He taps his thumbnail against his tooth, considering.

  “She will need to learn to be a queen,” I say.

  He hesitates. We two have known Queens of England who were queens indeed. Little Katherine is not fit to touch their shoes, let alone walk in them; years of training would not make her regal. “No, she won’t,” he says. “The king doesn’t want a great queen beside him anymore. He wants a girl to pet, a little filly, a young broodmare for his seed. Katherine need be nothing more than obedient.”