The Boleyn Inheritance Read online

  I thank God for sending me Lord Lisle to be my friend and advisor in these difficult days, for he is a kind man, with something of the look of my father. Without him, I would be speechless from terror as well as from my lack of English. He is dressed as fine as a king himself, and there are so very many English noblemen with him that they are like a sea of furs and velvet. But he takes my cold hand in his big warm grip, and he smiles at me and says, “Courage.” I may not know the word till I ask my interpreter, but I know a friend when I see one, and I find a small peaky smile and then he tucks my hand into the crook of his arm and leads me down the broad street to the harbor. The bells are pealing a welcome to me, and all the merchants’ wives and children are lining the streets to have a look at me, and the apprentice boys and servants all shout, “Anna of Cleves, hurrah!” as I go by.

  In the harbor there are two huge ships, the king’s own, one called the Sweepstake, which means something about gambling, and one named the Lion, both flying banners and sounding the trumpets as they see me approach. They have been sent from England to bring me to the king, and with them comes a huge fleet to escort me. The gunners fire off rounds, and the cannon roar, and the whole town is drenched in smoke and noise. But this is a great compliment, and so I smile and try not to flinch. We go on to the Staple Hall, where the mayor of the town and the merchants give me greetings in long speeches and two purses of gold, and Lady Lisle, who is here to greet me with her husband, presents my ladies-in-waiting to me.

  They all accompany me back to the king’s house, the Chequer, and I stand as one after another comes forward and says his or her name and presents compliments and makes his bow or her curtsy. I am so tired and so overwhelmed by the whole day that I feel my knees start to weaken underneath me, but still they come on, one after another. My lady Lisle stands beside me and says each name in my ear and tells me a little about them, but I cannot understand her words, and, besides, there are too many strangers to take it all in. It is a dizzying crowd of people; but they are all smiling kindly at me, and they all bow so respectfully. I ought to be glad of such attention and not overwhelmed by it, I know.

  As soon as the last lady, maid, servant, and page has made a bow, and I can decently leave, I say that I should like to go to my privy chamber before we dine, and my interpreter tells them; but still I cannot be at peace. As soon as we walk into my private rooms there are more strange faces waiting to be presented as servants and members of my privy chamber. I am so exhausted by all these introductions that I say I should like to go to my bedchamber, but even here I cannot be alone. In comes Lady Lisle and other ladies and the maids-in-waiting to make sure that I have everything I need. A full dozen of them come in and pat the bed and straighten the curtains and stand about, looking at me. In absolute desperation I say that I want to pray and I go into the little closet beside the bedchamber and close the door on their helpful faces.

  I can hear them waiting outside, like an audience waiting for a fool to come out and juggle or play tricks: a little puzzled at the delay, but good-humored enough. I lean back against the door and touch my forehead with the back of my hand. I am cold and yet I am sweating, as if I were ill with a fever. I must do this. I know I can do this; I know I can be Queen of England, and a good queen as well. I will learn their language; already I can understand most of what is said to me, though I stumble over speech. I will learn all these new names and their ranks and the proper way to address them so that I won’t always have to stand like a little doll with a puppetmaster beside me, telling me what to do. As soon as I get to England I shall see about ordering some new clothes. My ladies and I, in our German dress, look like fat little ducks beside these English swans. They go about half-naked with hardly a hood on their heads at all; they flit about in their light gowns, while we are strapped into fustian as if we were lumpy parcels. I shall learn to be elegant, I shall learn to be pleasing, I shall learn to be a queen. I shall certainly learn to meet a hundred people without sweating for fear.

  It strikes me now that they will be finding my behavior very odd. First, I say I want to dress for dinner, and then I step into a room that is little more than a cupboard, and make them wait outside. I will seem ridiculously devout, or, worse, they will know I am painfully shy. As soon as this occurs to me I freeze inside the little room. I feel such a country-born dolt. I hardly know how to find the courage to come out.

  I listen at the door. It has gone very quiet outside; perhaps they have become tired of waiting for me. Perhaps they have all gone off to change their clothes again. Hesitantly, I open the door a crack and look out.

  There is only one lady left in the room, seated at the window, calmly looking down into the yard below, watching. As she hears the betraying creak of the door she looks up, and her face is kind and interested.

  “Lady Anne?” she says, and she rises to her feet and curtsies to me.

  “I…”

  “I am Jane Boleyn,” she says, guessing rightly that I cannot remember a single name from the blur of this morning. “I am one of your ladies-in-waiting.”

  As she says her name I am utterly confused. She must be some relation to Anne Boleyn, but what is she doing in my chamber? Surely she cannot be here to wait on me? Surely she should be in exile, or in disgrace?

  I look around for someone to translate for us, and she smiles and shakes her head. She points to herself and says “Jane Boleyn,” and then she says, very slowly and steadily: “I will be your friend.”

  And I understand her. Her smile is warm and her face honest. I realize that she means that she will be a friend to me; and the thought of having a friend I can trust in this sea of new people and new faces brings a lump into my throat, and I blink back the tears and put out my hand to her to shake, as if I were a half-simple country-woman in the marketplace.

  “Boleyn?” I stammer.

  “Yes,” she says, taking my hand in her cool grip. “And I know all about how fearful it is to be Queen of England. Who would know better than me how hard it can be? I will be your friend,” she says again. “You can trust me.” And she shakes my hand with a warm grasp, and I believe her, and we both smile.

  Jane Boleyn, Calais,

  December 1539

  She will never please him, poor child, not in a lifetime, not in a thousand years. I am amazed that his ambassadors did not warn him; they have been thinking entirely of making a league against France and Spain, of a Protestant league against the Catholic kings, and thinking nothing of the tastes of King Henry.

  There is nothing she can do to become the sort of woman who pleases him. His preference runs to quick-witted, dainty, smiling women with an air that promises everything. Even Jane Seymour, though she was quiet and obedient, radiated a docile warmth that hinted at sensual pleasure. But this one is like a child, awkward like a child, with a child’s honest gaze and an open, friendly smile. She looks thrilled when someone bows low to her, and when she first saw the ships in the harbor she seemed about to applaud. When she is tired or overwhelmed, she goes pale like a sulky child and looks ready to weep. Her nose goes red when she is anxious, like a peasant in the cold. If it were not so tragic, this would be the highest of comedies: this gawky girl stepping into the diamond-heeled shoes of Anne Boleyn. What can they have been thinking of when they imagined she could ever rise to it?

  But her very awkwardness gives me a key to her. I can be her friend, her great friend and ally. She will need a friend, poor lost girl; she will need a friend who knows the way around a court such as ours. I can introduce her to all the things she will need to know, teach her the skills she must learn. And who should know better than I, who have been at the heart of the greatest court that England ever had, and seen it burn itself up? Who better than me to keep a queen safe, who watched one destroy herself and destroy her family with her? I have promised to be this new queen’s friend, and I can honor that promise. She is young, only twenty-four years old, but she will grow. She is ignorant, but she can be taught. She is inexperienced, b
ut life will correct that. I can do much for this quaint young woman, and it will be a real pleasure and an opportunity to be her guide and mentor.

  Katherine, Norfolk House, Lambeth,

  December 1539

  My uncle is coming to see my grandmother, and I must be ready in case he sends for me. We all know what is about to happen, but I am as excited as if I were waiting for a great surprise. I have practiced my walk toward him and my curtsy. I have practiced my look of astonishment and my delighted smile at the wonderful news. I like to be prepared, I like to be rehearsed, and I have had Agnes and Joan play the part of my uncle until I am step-perfect in my approach, my curtsy, and my genteel cry of joy.

  The maids’ room is sick of me, sick as if they had eaten a glut of green apples. But I tell them it is only to be expected: I am a Howard, of course I will be called to court, of course I will serve the queen, and, sadly, of course they will be left behind; what a pity.

  They say I will have to learn German, and there will be no dancing. I know this is a lie. She will live like a queen, and if she is dull, I shall shine only more brightly in contrast. They say it is well known that she will live in seclusion, and the Dutch eat no meat but only cheese and butter all day. I know this is a lie – why else would the queen’s apartments at Hampton Court have been repainted but for her to have a court and guests? They say that all her ladies have already been appointed and half of them have already left to meet her in Calais. My uncle is coming to tell me that I have missed my chance.

  This, finally, frightens me. I know that the king’s nieces, Lady Margaret Douglas and the Marchioness of Dorset, have agreed to be the chiefest of her ladies, and I fear it is too late for me. “No,” I say to Mary Lascelles, “he cannot be coming to tell me I must stay here. He cannot be coming to tell me that I am too late, that there will be no place left for me.”

  “And if he does then let it be a lesson to you,” she says firmly. “Let it be a lesson to you to mend your ways. You don’t deserve to go to the queen’s court as light as you have been with Francis Dereham. No true lady should have you in her chambers when you have played the slut with such a man.”

  This is so unkind that I give a little gasp and feel the tears coming.

  “Now don’t cry,” she says wearily. “Don’t cry, Katherine. You will only make your eyes red.”

  Instantly, I hold my nose to stop the tears coming. “But if he tells me I am to stay here and do nothing, I shall die!” I say thickly. “I will be fifteen next year, and then I will be eighteen, and then I will be nineteen and then I will be twenty and too old for marriage, and I will die here, serving my grandmother, never having been anywhere, and never seen anything, and never danced at court.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” she exclaims crossly. “Can you never think of anything but your vanity, Katherine? Besides, some would think you have done quite enough already for a maid of fourteen.”

  “Duthing,” I say, with my nose still pinched. I let it go and press my cool fingers against my cheeks. “I have done nothing.”

  “Of course, you will serve the queen,” she says scornfully. “Your uncle is not likely to miss such a place for one of his family, however badly you have behaved.”

  “The girls said-”

  “The girls are jealous of you because you are going, you ninny. If you were staying, they would be all over you with pretend sympathy.”

  This is so true that even I can see it. “Oh, yes.”

  “So wash your face again and come to my lady’s chamber. Your uncle will be here at any moment.”

  I go as fast as I can, pausing only to tell Agnes and Joan and Margaret that I know full well I am going to court and that I never believed their spite for a moment, and then I hear them shouting: “Katherine! Katherine! He is here!” and I dash down to my lady’s own parlor and there he is, my uncle, standing before the fire and warming his backside.

  It would take more than a fire to warm this man through. My grandmother says that he is the king’s hammer; whenever there is hard and dirty work to do, it is my uncle who leads the English army to batter the enemy into submission. When the North rose up to defend the old religion just two years ago when I was a little girl, it was my uncle who brought the rebels to their senses. He promised them a pardon and then cozened them to the gallows. He saved the king’s throne, and he saved the king the trouble of fighting his own battles and putting down a great rebellion. My grandmother says that he knows no other argument but the noose. She says he strung up thousands even though inwardly, he agreed with their cause. His own faith did not stop him. Nothing will stop him. I can see by his face that he is a hard man, a man not easily softened; but he has come to see me, and I will show him what sort of niece he has.

  I dip down into a deep curtsy, as we have practiced over and over again in the maids’ chamber, leaning a little forward so that my lord can see the tempting curve of my breasts pressed at the top of my gown. Slowly I look up at his face before I rise, so that he sees me almost on my knees before him, giving him a moment to think about the pleasure of what I could be doing down there, my little nose almost against his breeches. “My lord uncle,” I breathe as I rise, as if I were whispering it in his ear in bed. “Give you a very good day, sir.”

  “Good God,” he says bluntly, and my grandmother gives a little “Huh” of amusement.

  “She is a… a credit to you, ma’am,” he says as I rise without wobbling and stand before him. I clasp my hands behind my back to present my breasts to their full advantage, and I arch my back, too, so that he can admire the slimness of my waist. With my eyes modestly cast down I could be a schoolgirl except for the thrust of my body and the little half-hidden smile.

  “She is a Howard girl through and through,” says my grandmother, who has no great opinion of Howard girls, known as we are for beauty and forwardness.

  “I was expecting a child,” he says as if he is very pleased to find me grown.

  “A very knowing child.” She gives me a hard look to remind me that nobody wants to know what I have learned while in her care. I widen my eyes innocently. I was seven years old when I first saw a maid bedding a page boy, I was eleven when Henry Manox first got hold of me. How did she think I would turn out?

  “She will do very nicely,” he says, after he has taken a moment to recover. “Katherine, can you dance and sing and play the lute and so on?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Read, write, in English and French, and Latin?”

  I shoot an anguished look at my grandmother. I am tremendously stupid, and everyone knows it. I am so stupid that I don’t even know if I should lie about it or not.

  “Why would she need that?” she asks. “The queen speaks nothing but Dutch, doesn’t she?”

  He nods. “German. But the king likes an educated woman.”

  The duchess smiles. “He did once,” she says. “The Seymour girl was no great philosopher. I think he has lost his taste for argument from his wives. Do you like an educated woman?”

  He gives a little snort at this. The whole world knows that he and his wife have been parted for years, they hate each other so much.

  “Anyway, what matters most is that she pleases the queen and pleases the court,” my uncle rules. “Katherine, you are to go to court and be one of the new queen’s maids-in-waiting.”

  I beam at him.

  “You are glad to go?”

  “Yes, my lord uncle. I am very grateful,” I remember to add.

  “You have been placed in such a position of importance to be a credit to your family,” he says solemnly. “Your grandmother here tells me that you are a good girl and that you know how to behave. Make sure that you do, and don’t let us down.”

  I nod. I dare not look at my grandmother, who knew all about Henry Manox, and who caught me once in the upper hall with Francis, with my hand down the front of his breeches and the mark of his bite on my neck, and called me a whore in the making and a stupid slut, and gave me a cuff that made my
head ring, and warned me off him again at Christmas.

  “There will be young men who may pay attention to you,” my uncle warns, as if I have never met a young man before. I dart a look at my grandmother, but she is blandly smiling. “Remember that nothing is more important than your reputation. Your honor must be without stain. If I hear any unbecoming gossip about you – and I mean anything, and you can be sure that I hear everything – then I will remove you immediately from court and send you not even here, but back to your step-grandmother’s house in the country at Horsham. Where I will leave you forever. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, my lord uncle.” It comes out in a terrified whisper. “I promise.”

  “I will see you at court almost daily,” he says. I am almost beginning to wish that I was not going. “And from time to time I shall send for you to come to my rooms and tell me how you are getting on with the queen, and so on. You will be discreet, and you will not gossip. You will keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. You will take advice from your kinswoman Jane Boleyn, who is also in the queen’s rooms. You will endeavor to become close to the queen; you shall be her little friend. From the favor of princes comes wealth. Never forget it. This could be the making of you, Katherine.”

  “Yes, my lord uncle.”

  “And another thing,” he says warningly.

  “Yes, uncle?”

  “Modesty, Katherine. It is a woman’s greatest asset.”

  I sink into a curtsy, my head bowed, as modest as a nun. A laugh of derision from my grandmother tells me that she is not persuaded. But when I look up, my uncle is smiling.