The Boleyn Inheritance Read online

  August 6, 1540

  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.

  “I have some news.” He looks around at my small court of companions, his gentlemen standing about. “Leave us.”

  They go out as slowly as they dare. They are all longing to know what will happen next. I am certain that it will not be an invitation to me to return to him. I am certain that it will not be; and yet I am breathless to know.

  “Some news that may distress you,” he says to prepare me. At once I think that my mother has died, far away, and without a chance for me to explain how I failed her.

  “No need to cry,” he says quickly.

  I put my hand to my mouth and nip my knuckles. “I am not crying,” I say steadily.

  “That’s good,” he says. “And besides, you must have known it would happen.”

  “I didn’t expect it,” I say foolishly. “I didn’t expect it so soon.” Surely they should have sent for me if they knew she was gravely ill?

  “Well, it is my duty.”

  “Your duty?” I want so much to know if my mother spoke of me in her last days that I hardly hear him.

  “I am married,” he says. “Married. I thought I should tell you first, before you hear it from some gossip.”

  “I thought it was about my mother.”

  “Your mother? No. Why would it be about your mother? Why would I trouble myself about your mother? It is about me.”

  “You said bad news.”

  “What could be worse for you than to know that I have married another woman?”

  Oh, a thousand things, a thousand things, I think, but I don’t say the thought aloud. The relief that my mother is alive rushes through me, and I have to grip the arms of my chair to steady myself and to look as grave and as bereft as I know he will want me to look. “Married,” I say flatly.

  “Yes,” he says. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  So it is indeed done. He will not return to me. I will never again be Queen of England. I cannot care for little Elizabeth; I cannot love Prince Edward; I cannot please my mother. It is indeed over. I have failed in what I was sent to do, and I am sorry for it. But, dear God, I am safe from him; I shall never be in his bed again. It is indeed utterly finished and over. I have to keep my eyes down and my face still so that he does not see my beam of joy at this freedom.

  “To a lady of a most noble house,” he continues. “Of the Norfolk house.”

  “Katherine Howard?” I ask, before his boasting makes him look more ridiculous than I already think him.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “I wish you much happiness,” I say steadily. “She is…” At that precise and dreadful moment I cannot find the English word. I want to say “charming,” but I cannot think of the word. “Young,” I finish lamely.

  He shoots me a quick, hard look. “That is no objection to me.”

  “None at all,” I say quickly. “I meant to say, charming.”

  He thaws. “She is charming,” he agrees, smiling at me. “I know you liked her when she was in your rooms.”

  “I did,” I say. “She was always pleasant company. She is a lovely girl.” I nearly say “child” but catch myself in time.

  He nods. “She is my rose,” he says. To my horror, his eyes fill with the sentimental tears of an old bully. “She is my rose without a thorn,” he says thickly. “I feel that I have found her at last, the woman I have waited for all my life.”

  I sit in silence. This is an idea so bizarre that I cannot find any words, English or German, to reply. He has been waiting all his life? Well, he has not been waiting very patiently. During the time of his long vigil he has seen off three, no, four wives, me among them. An
d Katherine Howard is very far from a rose without a thorn. She is, if anything, a little daisy: delightful, sweet-faced, but ordinary. She must be the most common commoner ever to sit on a better woman’s throne.

  “I hope you will be very happy,” I say again.

  He leans toward me. “And I think we will have a child,” he whispers. “Hush. It’s early days yet. But she is so very young, and she comes from fertile stock. She says she thinks it is so.”

  I nod. His smug confiding to me, who was bought and put in his bed to endure him laboring hopelessly above me, pushing himself against me, patting my stomach and pulling at my breasts, repels me so much I can hardly congratulate him on achieving with a girl what he failed to do with me.

  “So let us dine,” he says, releasing me from my embarrassment, and we rise. He takes my hand as if we were still married and leads me into the great hall of Richmond Palace, which was his father’s favorite new-built palace and is now mine. He seats himself alone, on a throne raised higher than any other, and I am seated not at his side – as I was when I was queen – but down the hall at a little distance, as if to remind the world that everything has changed and that I will never sit at his side as queen again.

  I don’t need reminding. I know this.

  Katherine, Hampton Court,

  August 1540

  Now let me see, what do I have?

  I have eight new gowns ready made and another forty (forty! I can’t believe it myself!) in the making, and I am very displeased the dressmakers are so late with them, for it is my intention to wear a different gown to dinner every day of my life from now until the day I die, and to change my gown three times a day. That would be three new gowns a day, which would be hundreds a year, and since I may live till fifty years old that will be… well, I can’t work it out, but it is very many indeed. Thousands.

  I have a collar of diamonds with matching cuffs of diamonds and gold and a matching set of earrings.

  I have sables, like she had for her present, and they are better than hers, thicker and of a glossier pelt. I asked Lady Rochford, and she definitely confirmed that they are better than hers. So that is one worry gone from my mind.

  I have my own barge (think of it!), my own barge with my own motto engraved on it. Yes, I have a motto, too, and it is “No other will but his,” which my uncle devised and my grandmother said was laying it on by the bucket; but the king likes it and says it was just what he was thinking. I didn’t quite understand it at first, but it means that I have no other will than his – that is, the king’s will. Once I understood that, I saw at once why any man would like it, if he were fool enough to believe that anyone would devote her entire body and soul to another.

  I have my own rooms here at Hampton Court, and these are the queen’s rooms! Unbelievable! The very rooms where I used to be a maid-in-waiting are now my rooms, and now there are people waiting on me. The very bed where I used to put the queen to sleep and wake her in the morning is now my big bed. And when the court is jousting, the very same curtains that were her curtains around the royal box are now mine, and now they are embroidered with H and K, just as they were once embroidered for her with H and A. Anyway, I have ordered new. It feels like dead men’s shoes to me, and I don’t see why I should put up with it. Henry says I am an extravagant little kitten and that these curtains have been used in the queen’s box since his first wife, and I say that is exactly why I might want a change. So, voilà! I will have new curtains, too.

  I have a court of ladies of my choosing; well, some of them I chose. At any rate, I have a court of ladies of my family. My greatest lady is the king’s ward, Lady Margaret Douglas, practically a princess, to wait on me! Not that she does much waiting, I must say. Anybody would think I wasn’t queen the way she looks down her nose. Then I have a handful of duchesses, and my stepmother and my two sisters are my ladies-in-waiting, as well as dozens of other Howard women whom my uncle has placed about me. I never knew I had so many cousins. The rest are my old roommates and girlfriends from Norfolk House days who have popped up to sup from my bowl now that my portion is very rich, and who have to mind me now, though they did not mind me then. But I tell them that they can be my friends but they have to remember I am queen and I have to be on my dignity.

  I have two lapdogs that I have called, for a private joke, Henry and Francis – by which I mean my two lapdog lovers from the old days, Henry Manox and Francis Dereham. When I named them, Agnes and Joan screamed with laughter; they were with me at Norfolk House, and they knew exactly who I was thinking of. Even now, every time I call the two dogs to my side, the three of us laugh out loud to think of those two lads chasing me and now I am queen of England. What those men must think, when they remember they had their hands up my skirt and down my stomacher! It is too scandalous to dare to remember. I should think they laugh and laugh; I do at the very memory.

  I have a stable full of my own horses and my own favorite mare, who is called Bessy. She is very sweet and steady, and the most adorable boy in the stable keeps her exercised for me so that she doesn’t get fat or naughty. He is called Johnny, and he flushes like a little poppy when he sees me, and when I let him help me down from riding, I rest my hands on his shoulders and watch his face burn.

  If I were a vain silly girl (as my uncle persists in thinking), which, thank God, I am not, I should have my head turned by the flattery of the court from everyone from Johnny in the yard to Archbishop Gardiner. Everyone tells me that I am the best wife that the king ever had, and the wonder of it all is that this is almost certainly true. Everyone tells me I am the most beautiful queen in the world – and this is probably true, too – though no great claim when I cast my eye around Christendom. Everyone tells me that the king has never loved anyone as much as he loves me; and this is true, for he tells me so himself. Everyone tells me that all the court is in love with me, and this is certainly true, for I walk everywhere in a small hail of love notes and requests, and promises. The young noblemen whom I used to eye when I was just a maid-in-waiting, and hoped for assignations and flirtation, are now my own court; they have to adore me from a distance, which is really the most delicious thing. Thomas Culpepper is sent to me by the king himself in the morning and the evening to exchange greetings, and I know, I just know that he has fallen completely in love with me. I tease him and laugh at him and see his eyes follow me, and it is all utterly delightful. Everywhere I go, I am attended by the finest young men in the land; they joust for my amusement, they dance with me, they dress up and entertain me, they hunt with me, they sail with me, they walk with me, they play games and sports for my praise. They do everything but sit up on their hind legs and beg for my favor. And the king, bless him, says to me, “Run along, pretty girl, go and dance!” and then sits back and watches me as one handsome – oh, so handsome – young man after another dances with me and the king smiles and smiles like a kindly old uncle, and when I come back and sit at his side, he whispers: “Pretty girl, the fairest girl of the court; they all want you, but you are mine.”

  It is like my dreams. I have never been happier in my life. I did not know I could be so happy. It is like the childhood I never had, to be surrounded by handsome playmates, my old friends from the days at Lambeth, with all the money in the world to spend, a circle of young men all desperate for my attention, and watched overall by a tender, loving man like a kindly father who never lets anyone say an unkind word to me and plans amusements and gifts for me every day of my life. I must be the happiest girl in England. I tell the king this, and he smiles and chucks me under the chin and tells me that I deserve it, for without doubt, I am the best girl in England.

  And it is true: I earn this pleasure, I am not idle; I have my duties to do, and I do them as well as I can. All the work of the queen’s rooms I leave to others of course, my lord Chamberlain deals with all the requests for help and justice and petitions – I should not be bothered with such things, and anyway, I never know what I am supposed to do with all the paupers and homeless
nuns and distressed priests. Lady Rochford takes care of the running of my rooms and making sure that everything is done as well as Queen Anne had it done; but the servicing of the king falls to me alone. He is old, and his appetite in the bedroom is strong, but the execution is not easy for him because of his great age and because he is so very fat. I have to use all my little tricks to help him along, poor old soul. I let him watch me slip off my nightgown. I make sure the candles stay lit. I sigh in his ear as if I am swooning with desire, a thing that all men love to believe. I whisper to him that all the young men of the court are nothing compared to him, that I despise their silly, youthful faces and light desires, that I want a man, a real man. When he has taken too much to drink or is too weary to get himself above me, I even do a trick that my dearest Francis taught me, and sit astride him. He loves that; he has had only whores do that for him before; it is a forbidden pleasure that God doesn’t allow for some reason. So it thrills him that a pretty wife with her hair let down over her shoulders should rear above him and torment him like a Smithfield harlot. I don’t complain of having to do this; actually it is far nicer for me than being crushed beneath him with the smell of his breath and the stench of his rotting leg making me sick as I moan with pretend pleasure.

  This is not easy. Being the wife of a king is not all dancing and parties in the rose garden. I work as hard as any dairymaid, but I work at night in secret, and nobody must ever know what it costs me. Nobody must ever know that I am so disgusted that I could vomit; nobody must ever know that it almost breaks my heart that the things I learned to do for love are now done to excite a man who would be better off saying his prayers and going to sleep. Nobody knows how hard I earn my sables and my pearls. And I can never tell them. It can never be said. It is a deep, deep secret.

  When he has finished at last, and is snoring, that is oddly the only time of the day that I feel dissatisfied with my great good fortune. Often then I get up, feeling restless and stirred up. Am I going to spend every night of my womanhood seducing a man old enough to be my father? Almost my grandfather? I am just fifteen years old; am I never going to taste a sweet kiss again from a clean mouth, or feel the smoothness of young skin, or have a hard, muscled chest bearing down on me? Shall I spend the rest of my life jigging up and down on something helpless and limp and then crying out with pretended delight when it slowly, flaccidly stirs beneath me? When he farts in his sleep, a great royal trumpet that adds to the miasma under the bedclothes, I get up in a bad temper and go out to my private chamber.