Page 69 of Boleyn Traitor
Three thousand Londoners cheer their king as he welcomes his queen to her home at Greenwich, and Anne smiles and waves and then rides hand in hand with her husband up the new road that Cromwell has bored through the woods towards the riverside palace.
Lord Cromwell greets all of the queen’s ladies at the doorway as they dismount, and as he takes my hand, I pinch his fingers. I need do no more; he leaves the dinner table as they are putting out the voider course of fruit and sweetmeats, and I slip away from the ladies’ table and find him waiting for me in the gallery.
The happy buzz of the court talking, laughing, flirting in the great hall echoes through the stone arches to where we stand like lovers, half-hidden in a doorway.
‘What did she do?’ he demands tightly. He has already faced the rage of his royal master: horribly betrayed into a marriage he never wanted, with a woman too ugly for him to bear.
‘She offended him, but it was planned. I swear it,’ I say in a rush. ‘As I wrote you. Nobody prepared her, and the king strode in, greeting her like a knight errant in a masque. Unannounced – you know – unknown revellers – he could have been in Russian furs or Turkish turbans. They came in shouting; they frightened her, and he grabbed her. She pushed him off and spat out his kiss. Sheswore at him as if he were a common drunk. It was a disaster. The new Howard girl, Katheryn, saved the day. But it wasn’t her doing, I swear. Not her words. She’s too young and untrained to be that quick on her feet. But she jumped forward and flattered the king and smoothed it all over. She was brilliant – she was well-prepared.’
‘Howards?’ he muses. ‘A new Howard play?’
‘They wrote the script, I’d swear it. But the attack on the Cleves princess is an attack on you – the Spanish party’s revenge. I bet you that Honor Lisle wrote to her friends, the old lords, the moment that Anne of Cleves rode into Calais. I bet she told them: the duchess can’t speak English; she’s not pretty and witty and clever; she can be made to look a fool. The old lords and what’s left of the Spanish party don’t want a Lutheran queen supporting reform in the king’s ear. They don’t want an alliance with Germany against the Spanish. And they don’t want you as a successful royal marriage broker.’
He nods. ‘They want revenge on me for the deaths of the Poles.’
‘They couldn’t predict exactly, but they knew that if he burst in on her, disguised and drunk, she wouldn’t know what to do. They got hold of me so I couldn’t warn her, and now the king’s horribly shamed and he blames it all on her. The Howards knew there’d be a set-back and readied their girl to be his salvation – they’re playing their own game. The Howards and all the old lords jump forward, and the reformers of the Church – and you especially – are pushed back.’
His face, shadowed by his simple hat, is grim. His clothes, still clerkly black, are now made from silk and embroidered velvet. ‘Only a small step, I hope. If he likes her better now, after this grand reception with everyone cheering, he’ll overlook the first meeting. He’ll forget it – it’ll never have happened. If she gives him a son, all this will be forgotten. And whatever the old lords think, there is no future for England but an alliance with other Protestant countries. Charles of Spain is meeting Francis of France right now and swearing alliance against us.’
‘He’ll never desire her,’ I warn urgently. ‘Believe me, my lord. She cut him to the bone.’
He grimaces. ‘And she? Does she still find him disagreeable, now that she knows he’s king?’
I shrug. ‘She doesn’t confide in me, not even in her German ladies in her own language.’
‘You listen?’
‘Of course. She says nothing. Not even in her prayers.’
‘She’s discreet,’ he approves. ‘If I can get the two of them wedded and bedded, I’ll trust to that sturdy German nature to do the rest.’
‘She’s a duchess, not a Groningen cow,’ I say acidly.
He smiles again. ‘Don’t mince words like a Seymour. All we need from her is that she gets into calf.’
‘You won’t get him into the field – you won’t get him through the gate,’ I say, and he laughs at my bawdiness, kisses my hand, and goes back to the great hall, where the king sits scowling beside his blandly smiling bride.
FOUR DAYS LATER,I am standing behind the bride in the queen’s rooms at Greenwich Palace, straightening the train of her gown. I keep my expression as pleasant and smiling as those of the other ladies, who tighten the gold chains at her slim waist and comb her hair over her shoulders. Her round face is pretty and flushed; she wears a jewelled coronet on her beautiful golden-brown hair. Her wedding gown is made from cloth of gold encrusted with flowers made from huge pearls, as if she were turning to stone before our eyes. She carries a little posy of rosemary for love and fertility, and I see it tremble until she grips both hands before her and sets her jaw square. She is determined to show no weakness to this court of unfriendly strangers.
She knows – we all know – that the king has demanded the wedding is delayed until her earlier contract of marriage is shown tobe properly cancelled. As a little girl of eleven years old, she was promised in marriage to a neighbouring duke. The contract was revoked, the duke married someone else, and the cancelled contract was tossed into some vault at Cleves – who cares?
But now the King of England cares, and he is saying that his marriage cannot go ahead until the cancelled contract is in his hand. She knows he is hoping to get out of marrying her on this slender excuse. Of course, this is nonsense. Not even Henry can bring a royal duchess across Europe in the worst weather for a midwinter wedding and then cancel the ceremony for a piece of paper that he never wanted before.
Meanwhile, France and Spain have sworn to a ten-year alliance not to make war without the other’s agreement – so our enemies are united against us; we must find new friends. If Paris or Toledo want war, our only safety is the German bride: she is our defence, as essential as the castles that the king is building at all the southern ports. The wedding has to go ahead for the safety of England.
It must take every ounce of courage for her to hold up her head, to smooth back the fall of beautiful hair over her shoulders and greet Henry Bourchier Earl of Essex, late as usual, who leads her down the long gallery to the king. His Majesty is magnificently dressed in a crimson satin coat with diamond buttons and a gown of cloth of gold. He manages a sulky little bow in reply to her three deep curtseys. She looks magnificent, gowned and crowned, gleaming with pearls matching her pearly skin. Beside her, the king looks old and sulky, his dazzling clothes contrasting with his pouting mouth and his strawberry moon face.
Count Overstein from Cleves steps forward and takes the duchess by the hand to lead her into the queen’s close for a private ceremony with our old friend, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, officiating, his smiling round face showing no glimmer of self-doubt.
As we wait outside in a reverent silence, one maid is not standing still, eyes downcast as she should be. Katheryn Howard, newmaid-of-honour and evening star of the dreadful night in Rochester, is lifting the hem of her sage-green gown to examine the rosettes on her satin shoes. She is expensively dressed for a poor relation: someone is betting good money that Kitty will take the eye. She looks like a little doll beside the older women; she is so small and dainty. Her hair is a wonderful bronze, her eyes hazel, as green as her gown in the candlelight. Trained by the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, she is as graceful as a dancer; she walks as if to music. Her manners are beautiful, her education completely neglected. She senses me watching her, and when I frown at her to stand still, she gives me an apologetic smile and continues to fidget.
Once again, I put a queen to bed and wait at her side as the great double doors are thrown open and her husband the king and his drunken friends enter. Once again, Henry passes me in the royal bedchamber, his gaze on the bed. This time, he doesn’t smile at me, nor at anyone. He limps towards the bed like an unwilling old man on his way to an arduous chore.
She looks up at him as he stands by her bed. She says carefully: ‘Goot evening!’ Her smile does not waver at his dark scowl; her expression of courteous welcome does not alter, not even when he sits down heavily on the side of the bed and his grooms of the chamber heave his bandaged leg up and bodily push him in beside her.
The queen’s ladies trail out of the wedding chamber and take a glass of wedding ale in the presence chamber with a pretence of goodwill, before I send them to their beds. Kitty Howard, her face bright with mischief, says: ‘Goot evening!’ as she leaves, and the younger maids snigger.
The noblemen leave in a hurry to drink in their own rooms, as if there is nothing here to celebrate. My uncle gives me a satisfied nod; he knows the king’s vanity will never allow him to forgive his bride her first, fatal misstep. ‘Going well,’ he remarks to me with a sly smile.
