Page 83 of Boleyn Traitor
NEXT DAY, SHEkeeps to her chamber; she wants no company. When I tap on the door and go in, she says she is reading; but she’s staring out of the window with a closed book in her lap, and her cheeks are wet.
The day drags by with no amusement, and nobody visits. The weather is sunny, and the birds are singing and singing, but she does not want to walk in the garden, nor take a boat out on the river. We are waiting for something to happen, but nobody comes to Richmond Palace all day.
We undress her and put her to bed like a lonely child, and we have all gone to our own beds when there is a hammering on the door, and it is Ambassador Harst, who has rushed to us with the decision from the convocation.
We tumble out to wake her, but she is wide awake already, with her beautifully embroidered night robe over her gown, a white-worked nightcap on her fair head.
He tells her in German that the convocation has agreed unanimously that the marriage was illegal and shall be annulled. While he is speaking, messengers from the convocation are announced, with papers to be signed. They must have jumped in a barge and rowed as fast as the bargemen could go, to catch up with Herr Harst; they are only minutes behind him.
It is not enough for them to tell her the decision all over again, they want her to acknowledge that she will abide by it. She has tosign a letter of acceptance. As they watch eagerly, she signs herself the king’s sister and servant and five of the ladies-in-waiting sign as witnesses after me. We all want our names on this document that will give the king so much pleasure. He will see my name is first. The brief marriage and short reign of Queen Anne is over.
AT ONCE, RICHMONDis no longer a royal palace – now, it is the private home of Anne of Cleves, a German duchess – no longer the Queen of England. She is to be known as the king’s sister – and take precedence over all the ladies but the next queen – though with ponderous tact, they don’t say who this might be. She has a handsome income, of course, but not enough for her current household of one-hundred-and-thirty servants. As a private single lady, she will need a lady companion or two – not dozens of us.
The master of the royal wardrobe comes to collect furs and gowns; the master of the jewel house boxes up precious diamonds and rubies and the pearls that suited her so well. I sit with her in her closet and listen to the men and the ladies outside in her bedroom, packing up the queen’s treasures so neatly and prettily that they will be a pleasure for the new queen to open. Her other ladies are packing their own things and preparing to leave on the barges that are taking tapestries and carpets from the palace.
‘You stay with me?’ Anne of Cleves asks me in English, so calmly that it does not sound like a plea.
Of course, I could live with her as a private lady, withdraw from royal service and become a nobody. But I couldn’t do it – not now, while I have achieved something no one has done before – ended a royal marriage without a death. Nobody, not Wolsey, not Cromwell – no one has been able to do this before. If I were a man, I would be lord chancellor for this. I have invented a new sort of woman: neither wife nor maid nor widow, I am afemme soleof court life. I am only thirty-five years old, I would be mad to retire with adiscarded wife to a quiet house on the riverbank when my cousin is to be next Queen of England and only I have the skills to make her marriage possible.
‘I am commanded to return to Westminster with your jewels, Your Grace. I’m in the king’s service; I’m not free to choose where I live.’
‘You go now?’ She is startled. ‘No one stays with me?’
‘Your German ladies will stay with you,’ I say gently. ‘And your lord chamberlain will find new English ladies to keep you company. Many of your servants will stay.’ I smile. ‘You must keep your cook, now that you have taught him to makebirnentorte: pear tart! And you will keep your horses and your own barge. You’ve got a country house, too – Bletchingley Place. I believe it is very beautiful – quite near here, in Surrey.’
Bletchingley was Nicholas Carew’s house – seized by the crown after his execution for treason, now given to Anne of Cleves.
‘And they’re offering you Hever Castle as well! That was my family home in Kent – a proper little castle, very pretty. The king is generous to you. People will visit you, and you will visit court. The king has promised to be your friend and to treat you as his sister. You will be happy.’
‘I shall be an English lady,’ she says uncertainly.
‘An English noblewoman,’ I correct her. ‘A rich English noblewoman!’
‘You go back to the court at London?’ She twists the ring off her finger. ‘Take this,’ she says. ‘My wedding ring. It should go with all the other things.’ She drops it into my hand: a gold ring engraved with the motto:God send me well to keep. She is quite expressionless; her enemies would say she is too stupid to feel grief at being abandoned and despised. But then she says: ‘Tell the king that I said he might break it up and melt it down for the value of the gold. Tell him it has no other value, God knows.’
Oatlands Palace, Surrey, Summer
1540
‘MY DARLING, DARLINGJane!’ Kitty Howard flies down the long sunny presence chamber of Oatlands Palace, hands outstretched, her bronze hair streaming out from under a tiny cap. ‘At last you’ve come! I thought you’d never come! My uncle said that you shall be my chief lady-in-waiting and I said: of course! She knows everything!’
There is no time for me to curtsey; Kitty flings herself into my arms in a swirl of silks and a mist of expensive Turkish perfume: oil of roses. ‘Jane – I have the whole royal wardrobe to choose from. And you won’t believe the jewels! Oh, of course you will! You know them all! Well, anyway, they’re all mine now! And Jane, I have houses of my own. He has given me two dead men’s houses! I shall have rents! I will be wealthy! Just think what I will buy!’
I detach myself from her clinging hug and sink into a curtsey.
‘You don’t have to curtsey to me!’
‘Yes I do,’ I tell her. ‘All your ladies have to curtsey to you. You cannot be Kitty Howard any more. You’re going to be the Queen of England.’
She pouts. ‘But what’s the point of that, if I can’t do what I want?’
I see that a stay with her step-grandmother, Agnes Howard, the dowager duchess, has done nothing to prepare little Kitty Howard to be Queen Katheryn. The old lady is notoriously careless and trains all her daughters and nieces to be exquisitely mannered and completely thoughtless.
‘Your Grace, you can’t do just what you want. You know as well as I, that a queen is not free. You get all the jewels and all the clothes and all the money; but you have to play your part.’
‘He says I’m perfect as I am,’ she says, showing me a sulky face. ‘He says I’m never to change, not by a single inch.’
‘Please God, he always thinks so,’ I say carefully. ‘But you wouldn’t want to disappoint him? And you certainly wouldn’t want your uncle to think you’re not fitted for this great place to which God has called you?’
