Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

Mary Stafford

I am shaking after I have read this note and I read it again as if it might be different the second time. The respect I deserve? The respect I deserve? What did I do but lie and deceive to save the two of them till the very last moment, and then what did I do but protect the family from the disaster that they brought down on us? What could I do more? What should I have done differently? I obeyed the duke my uncle as I was bound to do, I did as he commanded me, and my deserts are these: that I am his faithful kinswoman and honored as such.

Who is she to call me a woman who might have been a good wife? I loved my husband with every inch of my soul and being, and I would have been everything to him if it were not for her and her sister and the net they made for him that he could not break, and that I could not break for him. Would he not be alive today if he had not gone down with his sister’s disgrace? Would he not be my husband and the father of our son today, if he had not been named with Anne and beheaded with Anne? And what did Mary do to save him? What did she ever do but suit herself?

I could scream with sheer rage and despair that she should set these thoughts running again in my head. That she should doubt my love of George, that she should reproach me! I am lost for words at the malice of her letter, at the veiled accusation. What else could I have done? I want to shout into her face. You were there; you were hardly the savior of George and Anne. What else could any of us have done?

But she was always like this, she and her sister; they always had a way to make me feel that they saw better, understood better, considered better. From the moment that I married George I was aware that his sisters were supposed to be finer young women than I: one the king’s lover and then the other. One, in the end, the king’s wife and Queen of England. They were born for greatness! The Boleyn sisters! And I was only ever a sister-in-law. Well, so be it. I have not got where I am today, I have not borne witness and sworn oaths to be reprimanded by a woman who ran away at the first sign of danger and married a man to hide in the country and pray Protestant prayers that good times would come.

Catherine, her daughter, looks at me curiously. “Did she show you this?” I ask, my voice shaking. Lady Browne looks at me, avidly inquisitive.

“No,” Catherine says.

I put it into the fire, as if it were evidence against me. The three of us watch it burn to gray ash. “I will reply later,” I say. “It was not at all important. For now, I will go and see that they have prepared your room.”

It is an excuse to get away from the two of them and the soft ash from the notepaper in the fire. I go quickly out and I call the maids and scold them for inattention, and then I go quietly to my own room and lean my hot forehead against the cool, thick glass. I shall ignore this slander, I shall ignore this insult, I shall ignore this enmity. Whatever its cause. I live in the heart of the court. I serve my king and my family. In time they shall all acknowledge me as the finest of the family, the Boleyn girl who served king and family to the end, never shrinking, never faltering, even if the king has grown fat and dangerous, and the family are all dead but me.

Now let me see, what do I have? What do I have now I am practically a grown-up lady at court?

I have three new gowns, which is good, but it is hardly a vast wardrobe for a girl who expects to be much observed and much commented on. I have three new hoods to match, which are very pretty, but none of them are trimmed with anything more than gold lace, and I see that many of the ladies of court have pearls and even precious stones on their hoods. I have some good gloves and a new cloak and a muff and a couple of lace collars, but I cannot say that I am overly indulged in my choice or quantity of clothes. And what is the point of being at court if I do not have a great deal of pretty things to wear?

For all my great hopes of court life, it is not proving to be very merry. We came down by boat from Gravesend in the worst weather I have ever seen, driving rain and terrible wind so my hood was all blown about and my hair a mess, and my new velvet cape got wet and I am sure it will be water-marked. The queen-to-be greeted us with a face as blank as a fish. They may say she is tired, but she seems just amazed by everything; like some peasant come to town for the first time, she stares astounded at the commonest of sights. When people cheer for her, she smiles and waves like a child at a traveling fair, but when she is called upon to greet a lord come to her court, she forever looks around for one of her Cleves companions and mutters to them in their stupid language, puts out her hand as if she was serving a joint of meat, and says nothing in English at all.

When I was presented to her, she barely looked at me. She looked at all of us new girls as if she did not know what we were doing in her chamber, nor what she should do with us. I thought she might at least ask for music, and I have a song note-perfect and ready to sing, but, absurdly, she said that she must pray and she went off and shut herself in her closet. My cousin Jane Boleyn says that she does that when she wants to be alone, and that it is a sign not of piety, but of her shyness, and that we must be kind to her and merry with her and she will soon learn our language and be less simple.

I can’t see it myself. She has a shift under her gown that comes up nearly to her chin. She has a hood that must be a ton in weight crammed on her head, she is broad in the shoulders and she could be any size in the hips under that pudding bowl of a gown. Lord Southampton seems very taken with her, but perhaps he is just relieved that the journey will soon be over and his job done. The English ambassadors who were at Cleves with her chat to her in her language, and then she is all smiles and chatters back at them like a quacking duckling. Lady Lisle seems to like her. Jane Boleyn is often at her side. But I am afraid that this is not going to be a very merry court for me, and what is the point of a court at all if it is not merry with dancing and flirtation? Indeed, what is the point of anyone being a young queen at all if she is not going to be merry and vain and silly?

There is to be a bullbaiting after dinner, and Lady Anne is shown to the window that overlooks the courtyard so that she can have the best view. As soon as she appears at the window a cheer goes up from the men in the yard below, even though they are bringing out the dogs and it is rare for common men to break off from gambling at such a moment. She smiles and waves to them. She is always easy with the ordinary people, and they like her for it. Everywhere we have been on the road she has a smile for the people who come out to see her, and she will blow a kiss to little children who throw posies of flowers in her litter. Everyone is surprised at this. Not since Katherine of Aragon have we had a queen who is so smiling and pleasant to the common people, and not since Aragon has England relished the novelty of a foreign princess. No doubt this one will learn to be easy with the court, too, in time.

I stand beside her on one side and one of her German friends is on the other so that he can tell her what is being said. Lord Lisle is there, of course, and Archbishop Cranmer. He is devoting himself to being pleasing, of course. She may be Cromwell’s candidate, and thus an asset for his rival; but his worst fear must have been that the king would bring in a Papist princess, and this reforming archbishop would see his church turned back to the old ways once more.

Some of the court are at the windows to see the baiting; some are gossiping quietly at the back of the room. I cannot hear exactly what is being said, but I think there are more than Lady Browne who think that the Lady Anne is not well suited to the great position that she has been called on to fill. They judge her harshly for her shyness and her lack of speech. They blame her for her clothes, and they laugh at her for not being able to dance or sing or play a lute. This is a cruel court, devoted to frivolity, and she is a girl easy to use as a butt for sarcasm. If this goes on, what will happen? She and the king are all but married. Nothing can stop the wedding. He can hardly send her home in disgrace, can he? For the crime of wearing a heavy hood? Not even the king can do that, surely? Not even this king can do it? It would bring Cromwell’s treaty down about his ears, it would bring down Cromwell himself, it would leave England friendless facing France and Spain without any Protestant alliance at our back. The king will never risk it, I am sure. But I cannot imagine what will happen.

Down in the yard below they are getting ready to release the bull; his handler unclips the rope from the ring in his nose, skips out of the way, vaults over the boards, and the men who have been sitting on the wooden benches rise to their feet and start to shout bets. The bull is a great animal with heavy shoulders and a thick, ugly head. He turns this way and that, spotting the dogs from one little eye and then the other. The dogs are none too eager to be the first to run in; they are afraid of him in his power and his strength.

I feel a little breathless. I have not seen a bullbaiting since I was last at court; I had forgotten what a savage excitement it is to see the yapping dogs and the great beast that they will pull down. It is rare to see a bull as big as this one, his muzzle scarred from earlier fights, his horns barely blunted. The dogs hang back and bark, sharp, persistent barks with the thrilling sound of fear behind them. He turns from one to another, threatening them with the sweep of his horns, and they fall back into a circle around him.

One rushes in, and at once the bull spins; you would not think such a great animal could move so quickly. His head plows low, and there is a scream like a human cry from the dog as the horns buffet his body; his bones are broken for sure. He is down and cannot crawl away, he is yelping like a baby; the bull stands over him, his head down, and grinds the side of his great horn into the screaming dog.

I find I am crying out, though whether for the dog or for the bull I couldn’t say. There is blood on the cobbles, but the bull’s attack has left him unguarded to the other dogs, and another darts in and takes a bite at his ear. He turns, but at once another fastens on his throat and hangs there for a moment, his white teeth bared and gleaming in the torchlight, while the bull bellows for the first time and the roar of it makes all the maids scream and me among them, and everyone is now crowding to the windows to see as the bull rakes his head round and the dogs fall back and one of them howls with rage.

I find I am trembling, crying out for the dogs to go on! Go on! I want to see more, I want to see all of it, and Lady Anne beside me is laughing, she is excited, too, she points to the bull where his ear is bleeding, and I nod and say, “He will be so angry! He will kill them for sure!” And then suddenly, a bulky man I don’t know, a stranger smelling of sweat and wine and horses, pushes in front of us, into the window bay where we are standing, pushes rudely by me, and says to the Lady Anne, “I bring you greetings from the King of England,” and he kisses her, full on the mouth.

At once I turn to shout for the guards. This is an old man of nearly fifty, a fat man, old enough to be her father. She thinks at once that he is some drunk fool who has managed to push his way into her chamber. She has greeted a hundred men, a thousand men, with a smile and an extended hand and now this man, wearing a marbled cape and a hood pulled over his head, comes up to her and pushes his face into hers and puts his slobbery mouth on hers.

Then I bite off my shout of alarm; I see his height, and I see the men who have come in with him in matching capes, and I know him at once for the king. At the same moment, like a miracle, at once he does not seem old and fat and distasteful. As soon as I know he is the king I see the prince that I have always seen, the one they called the handsomest prince in Christendom, the one whom I was in love with myself. This is Henry, King of England, one of the most powerful men in the entire world, the dancer, the musician, the sportsman, the courtly knight, the lover. This is the idol of the English court, as big as the bull in the yard below us, as dangerous as a bull when wounded, as likely to turn on any challenger and kill.