The Boleyn Inheritance Read online

  It is strange, this journey in my own barge with the pennant of Cleves over my head. Traveling alone, without the court following behind in their barges, and without a great reception ahead of me, reminds me, as every day reminds me, that the king has indeed done what he wanted to do – and I can still hardly believe it is possible. I was his wife, and now I am his sister. Is there another king in Christendom who could perform such a transmutation as that? I was Queen of England, and now there is another queen; and she was my maid-in-waiting, and now I am to be hers. This is the philosopher’s stone, turning base metal to gold in the twinkling of an eye. The king has done what a thousand alchemists cannot do: turn base to gold. He has made that basest of maids, Katherine Howard, into a golden queen.

  We are coming ashore. The rowers ship their oars in one practiced motion and shoulder them, so the oars stand upright in rows like an avenue for me to walk through, down the barge from my warm seat, huddled in furs at the stern, to where the pages and servants are running out the gangplank and lining the sides.

  And here’s an honor! The Duke of Norfolk himself is on the bank to greet me, and two or three from the Privy Council, most of them, I see, kinsmen or allies of the Howards. I am favored by this reception, and I see by his ironic smile that he is as amused as me.

  Just as I foretold, the Howards are everywhere; the kingdom will be out of balance by the summer. The duke is not a man to let an opportunity slip by him; he will take advantage, as any battle-hardened veteran would do. Now he has occupied the heights, soon he will win the war. Then we shall see how long it is before tempers fray in the Seymour camp, in the Percy camp, among the Parrs and Culpeppers and Nevilles, among the reformist churchmen around Cranmer who were accustomed to power and influence and wealth and will not tolerate being excluded for long.

  I am handed ashore, and the duke bows to me and says, “Welcome to Hampton Court, Your Grace,” just as if I were still queen.

  “I thank you,” I say. “I am glad to be here.” Both of us will know that this is true, for, God knows, there was a day, several days, when I never expected to see Hampton Court again. The watergate of the Tower of London where they bring in traitors by night – yes. But Hampton Court for the Christmas feast? No.

  “You must have had a cold journey,” he remarks.

  I take his arm, and we walk together up the great path to the river frontage of the palace as if we were dear friends.

  “I don’t mind the cold,” I say.

  “Queen Katherine is expecting you in her rooms.”

  “Her Majesty is generous,” I say. There, the words are said. I have called the silliest of all my maids-in-waiting “Her Majesty” as if she were a goddess; and that to her uncle.

  “The queen is eager to see you,” he says. “We have all missed you.”

  I smile and look down. This is not modesty; it is to prevent me from laughing out loud. This man missed me so much that he was gathering evidence to prove that I had emasculated the king through witchcraft, an accusation that would have taken me to the scaffold before anyone could have saved me.

  I look up. “I am very grateful for your friendship,” I say dryly.

  We go in through the garden door, and there are half a dozen pages and young lords who used to be in my household loitering between the door and the queen’s rooms to bow and greet me. I am more moved than I dare to show, but when one young page dashes up to me, kneels, and kisses my hand, I have to swallow down the tears and keep my head up. I was their mistress for such a short time, just six months, it is touching to me to think that they care for me still, even though another girl lives in my rooms and takes their service.

  The duke grimaces but says nothing. I am far too cautious to comment, so the two of us behave as if all the people on the stairs and in the halls and the whispered blessings are absolutely normal. He leads the way to the queen’s rooms, and the soldiers at the double doors throw them open at his nod and bellow, “Her Grace, the Duchess of Cleves,” and I go in.

  The throne is empty. This is my first bemused impression, and I almost think, for one mad moment, that it has all been a joke, one of the famous English jokes, and the duke is about to turn to me and say, “Of course you are queen; take your place again!” and we will all laugh and everything will be as it was.

  But then I see that the throne is empty because the queen is on the floor playing with a ball of wool and a kitten, and her ladies are rising to their feet, very dignified and bowing, with immaculate care to the right depth for royalty, but only minor royalty, and at last that child Kitty Howard looks up and sees me and cries out, “Your Grace!” and dashes toward me.

  One glance from her uncle tells me how unwelcome would be any sign of intimacy or affection. Down I go into a curtsy as deep as I would show to the king himself.

  “Queen Katherine,” I say firmly.

  My tone steadies her, and my curtsy reminds her that we have to play this out before many spies, and she halts in her run and wavers into a small curtsy to me. “Duchess,” she says faintly.

  I rise up. I so want to tell her that it is all right, that we can be as we were, something like sisters, something like friends, but we have to wait until the chamber door is shut. It must be secret.

  “I am honored by your invitation, Your Grace,” I say solemnly. “And I am very glad to share the Christmas feast with you and your husband, His Majesty the king, God bless him.”

  She gives a little uncertain laugh and then, when I look promptingly at her, she glances at her uncle and replies: “We are delighted to have you at our court. My husband the king embraces you as his sister, and so do I.”

  Then she steps toward me, as clearly she has been told to do only it flew out of her head the moment she saw me, and offers me her royal cheek to kiss.

  The duke observes this and announces: “His Majesty the king tells me that he will dine here with you two ladies this evening.”

  “Then we must make him welcome,” Katherine says. She turns to Lady Rochford and says: “The duchess and I will sit in my privy chamber while the room is being readied for dinner. We will sit alone,” and then she sails toward my – her – privy chamber as if she had owned it all her life, and I find myself following in her wake.

  As soon as the door is shut behind us she rounds on me. “I think that was all right, wasn’t it?” she demands. “Your curtsy was lovely, thank you.”

  I smile. “I think it was all right.”

  “Sit down, sit down,” she urges me. “You can sit in your chair, you’ll feel more at home.”

  I hesitate. “No,” I say. “It is not right so. You sit in the chair, and I will sit beside you. In case someone comes in.”

  “What if they do?”

  “We will always be watched,” I say, finding the words. “You will always be watched. You have to take care. All the time.”

  She shakes her head. “You don’t know what he is like with me,” she assures me. “You have never seen him like this. I can ask for anything; I can have anything I want. Anything in the world I think I could ask for and have. He will allow me anything; he will forgive me anything.”

  “Good,” I say, smiling at her.

  But her little face is not radiant as it was when she was playing with the kitten.

  “I know it is good,” she says hesitantly. “I should be the happiest woman in the world. Like Jane Seymour, you know? Her motto was: ‘the most happy.’”

  “You will have to become accustomed to life as a wife and Queen of England,” I say firmly. I really do not want to hear Katherine Howard’s regrets.

  “I will,” she says earnestly. She is such a child, she still tries to please anyone who scolds her. “I really do try, Your Gr – er, Anne.”

  Jane Boleyn, Hampton Court,

  New Year’s Eve 1540

  This is the court with two queens: nothing like it has ever been seen before. Those who had served Queen Anne, the now duchess, were glad to see her again, and glad to serve her. The wa
rmth of her welcome surprised everyone, even me. But she always had a charm about her that made her servants glad to do any little thing for her; she was ready with her thanks and quick to reward. Madame Kitty, on the other hand, is quick to order and quick to complain, and she has an endless number of demands. In short, we have put a child in charge of the nursery, and she is making enemies of her little playmates as fast as she dishes out her favors.

  The court was glad to see Queen Anne in her old place, and scandalized but fascinated that she should dance so merrily with Queen Katherine, that they should walk arm in arm, that they should ride out to hunt together, and that they should dine with their husband in common. The king smiled on them as if they were two favorite daughters, his pleasure was so indulgent, his satisfaction in this happy resolution so apparent. The duchess who had been queen had prepared her own way with some skill. She had brought great gifts for the new husband and wife, beautiful matching horses dressed in purple velvet: a kingly gift. She has, as it turns out now, exquisite manners: queenly manners. Under the strain of being the former wife at the first Christmas of the new wife’s court, Anne of Cleves is a model of tact and elegance. There is not a woman in the world who could have played the part with more discretion. And she is more remarkable for being the only woman, in the history of mankind, ever to do such a thing. Other women in the past may have stepped aside, or been forced out, the first queen of this very court for one – but no one has ever stepped graciously to one side as if it were a choreographed move in a masque, and gone on to dance her part in another place.

  There was more than one man who said that if the king were not utterly besotted by a precocious child, he would be regretting his choice to put a silly girl in the place of this thoughtful, charming woman. And there was more than one prediction that said she would be well married before the year was out; for who could resist a woman who could fall from being queen to commoner and yet still carry herself as if greatness was within?

  I was not one of those, because I think ahead. She has signed an agreement that says she was legally contracted to marry another man. Her marriage to the king was invalid, so would be her marriage to anyone else. He has tied her to spinsterhood for as long as the son of the Duke of Lorraine shall live. The king has cursed her with spinsterhood and infertility, and I doubt he has even considered this. But she is no fool. She will have considered this. She must have considered it a bargain worth making. In which case she is a stranger woman than any we have ever seen at court. She is a charming and graceful woman of only twenty-five years old, in possession of a large personal fortune, of unstained reputation, in her fertile years, and she has determined never to marry again. What a curious queen this one from Cleves has turned out to be!

  She is in good looks. We now see that the plainness in her face and the pallor in her cheeks when she was queen were caused by the draining anxiety of being the fourth wife. Now that the fifth has taken her place we can see the young woman bloom, freed of the danger of privilege. She has used the time of her exile to improve herself. Her command of the language is much greater, and her voice, now that she is not struggling with the words, is mellow and clear. She is merrier, now that she can understand a witty remark, and now that she is lighter of heart. She has learned to play cards and to dance. She has outgrown her Cleves Lutheran strictness both in behavior and appearance. Her dress is beyond recognition! When I think how she came to this country dressed like a German peasant girl in layer after layer of heavy cloth, with a hood squashing her head and her body wrapped like a barrel of gunpowder, and now I see this fashionable beauty, I see a woman who has taken the freedom to remake herself. She rides with the king and talks seriously and interestingly with him about the courts of Europe and what the future holds for England, and she laughs with Katherine like another silly girl. She plays cards with the courtiers and dances with the queen. She is Princess Mary’s only true friend at court, and they read and pray together for a private hour every morning. She is the Lady Elizabeth’s only advocate, and she keeps a touching correspondence with her former stepdaughter and has been promised the role of guardian and beloved aunt. She is a regular visitor to Prince Edward’s nursery, and his little face lights up to see her. In short, Anne of Cleves behaves in every way as a beautiful and highly regarded royal sister should do, and everyone has to say that she is fit for the part. Indeed, many people say that she is most fit to be queen – but that is so much empty regret. At any rate, we are all now very glad that our evidence did not send her to the scaffold; though everyone praising her now would have sworn king’s evidence against her just as eagerly, had they been asked, as I was asked.

  The duke summons me to his rooms on New Year’s Eve as if we should toast the past and make new resolutions together. He talks first of Queen Anne and how pleasantly she behaves herself at court. He asks me how Catherine Carey, my niece, Mary’s child, is serving as a maid-in-waiting to her cousin.

  “She does her duty,” I say shortly. “Her mother has taught her well, I have very little to do with her.”

  He allows himself a smirk. “And you and Mary Boleyn were never the best of friends.”

  “We know each other well enough,” I say of my self-regarding sister-in-law.

  “Of course she has the Boleyn inheritance,” he says, as if to remind me, as if I ever forget. “We could not save everything.”

  I nod. Rochford Hall, my house, went to George’s parents at his death and from them to Mary. They should have left it to me, he should have left it to me; but no. I faced all the danger and the horror of what had to be done and ended up saving only my title and earning only my pension.

  “And little Catherine Carey? Is she another queen in the making?” he asks, just to tease me. “Shall we have her schooled to please Prince Edward? Do you think we can put her in a king’s bed?”

  “I think you will find her mother has already forbidden it,” I say coldly. “She will want a good marriage and a quiet life for her daughter. She has had enough of courts.”

  The duke laughs and lets it go. “So what of our present passport to greatness: our queen, Katherine?”

  “She is happy enough.”

  “I don’t really care if she is happy or not. Does she show any sign of being with child?”

  “No, none,” I say.

  “How did she mistake before, in the first month of marriage? She had us all in hopes.”

  “She can barely count,” I say irritably. “And she has no sense of how important it is. I watch her courses now; there will be no mistake again.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me. “Is the king even capable?” he asks very quietly.

  I do not need to glance toward the door; I know it must be secure or we would not be having this most dangerous conversation. “He can do the act in the end, though he labors overlong on it, and it exhausts him.”

  “Then is she fertile?” he demands.

  “She has regular courses. And she seems healthy and strong.”

  “If she does not get with child, then he will look for a reason,” he warns me, as if there is anything I can do about the whims of a king. “If she is not with child by Easter at the latest, he will be asking why.”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Sometimes these things take time.”

  “The last wife who took time died on the scaffold,” he says sharply.

  “You need not remind me.” I am fired into defiance. “I do remember all of that, and what she did, and what she attempted, and the price she paid. And then the price we paid. And the price I had to pay.”

  My outburst shocks him. I have shocked myself. I had promised myself I would never complain. I did my best. And so, in their terms, did they.

  “All I am saying is that we should prevent the question coming into his mind,” he soothes me. “Clearly, it would be better for us all, for the family, Jane, for us Howards, if Katherine were to conceive a child before he has to wonder. Before a question even enters his head. This would be the safest course
for us.”

  “Bricks without straw,” I say coldly. I am still irritated. “If the king has no power to give her a child, then what can we do? He is an old man; he is a sick man. He has never been a fertile man, and what potency he has must be soured by his rotting leg and his locked-up bowels. What can any of us do?”

  “We can assist him,” he suggests.

  “How can we do more?” I demand. “Our girl already does every trick that a Smithfield whore might do. She works him as if he were a drunken captain in a brothel. She does everything a woman can do, and all he can do is lie on his back and moan: “Oh, Katherine, oh my rose!” There is no vigor left in him. I am not surprised there is no baby coming from him. What are we to do?”

  “We could hire some,” he says, as sly as any pander.

  “What?”

  “We could hire some vigor,” he suggests.

  “You mean?”

  “I mean that if there were a young man, perhaps someone we know that we can trust, who would be glad of a discreet affair, we might allow him to meet her, we might encourage her to treat him kindly, they might give each other a little pleasure, and we might have a child to put into the Tudor cradle and no man any the wiser.”

  I am horrified. “You would never do this again,” I say flatly.

  His look is as cold as winter. “I have never done it before,” he specifies carefully. “Not I.”

  “It is to put her head on the block.”

  “Not if it is carefully done.”

  “She would never be safe.”

  “If she were carefully guided, and chaperoned. If you were to be with her, every step of the way, if you were ready to swear to her honor. Who would disbelieve you, who have been such a reliable witness for the king so many times?”

  “Exactly. I have always borne witness for the king,” I say, my throat dry with fear. “I give evidence for the hangman. I am always on the winning side. I have never offered evidence for the defense.”