Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

“It is the queen’s right to invite ladies to her household,” she says unsteadily.

“You won,” I say disbelievingly.

“I shall do my duty,” she says again.

“You won,” I repeat incredulously. “He said: ‘Invite her.’”

“It is the right thing,” she says. “I do my duty, for England. I shall do my duty to him.”

I am waiting in my rooms at Hampton Court for my new ambassador who arrived late last night and is to come to see me this morning. I had thought that the king would see him before I did, but there are no plans for a royal greeting yet.

“Is that right?” I ask Lady Rochford.

She looks a little uncertain. “Ambassadors usually have a special reception to introduce them to the court and all the king’s council,” she says. She spreads her hands as if to say she does not know why the ambassador from Cleves is to be treated differently. “It is Lent,” she suggests. “He should not have come during Lent but at Easter.”

I turn to the window so she cannot see the irritation in my face. He should have traveled with me and come to England when I did. Then I would have had a representative with the king from the moment that I set foot in England, and one who would have stayed with me. Counts Overstein and Olisleger were my escorts, but they knew they would leave me and go home, and they were not experienced in foreign courts. I should have had an ambassador at my side from the first day. If he had been with me at Rochester when I insulted the king at our first meeting… But this is pointless to regret. Perhaps now that he is here, he will find a way to help me.

There is a knock at the door, and the two guards swing it open. “Herr Doktor Carl Harst,” the guard announces, laboring over the title, and the Cleves ambassador comes into the room, looks around for me, and bows low. All the ladies-in-waiting curtsy while looking him over and noting, in a breeze of critical whispers, the worn shine on the collar of his velvet jacket and the scuffed heels on his boots. Even the feather in his bonnet looks as if it has had a hard journey overland from Cleves. I can feel myself flush with shame that this man should be representing my country to the wealthiest and most frivolous court in Christendom. He will make himself laughable, and me with him.

“Herr Doktor,” I say, and stretch out my hand for him to kiss.

I can see he is taken aback by my fashionable dress, my English hood set neatly on my hair, the rich rings on my fingers and the gold chains at my waist. He kisses my hand and says in German: “I am honored to present myself to you, Your Grace. I am your ambassador.”

Dear God, he looks more like a poor clerk. I nod.

“You have broken your fast?” I ask.

He makes a little embarrassed face. “I… er… I could not quite…”

“You have not eaten?”

“I could not find the hall, Your Grace. I am sorry. The palace is very large and my rooms are some way from the main building, and there was no one…”

They have put him somewhere halfway to the stables. “You did not ask someone? There are thousands of servants.”

“I don’t speak English.”

I am truly shocked. “You don’t speak English? How will you conduct the business of our country? Nobody here speaks German.”

“Your brother the duke thought that the councillors and the king would speak German.”

“He knows full well that they do not.”

“And he thought I would learn English. I already speak Latin,” he adds defensively.

I could cry, I am so disappointed. “You must certainly have some breakfast,” I say, trying to recover myself. I turn to Kitty Howard, who, as usual, is lingering at my side eavesdropping. She is welcome to our conversation so far. If she can speak German well enough to spy, then she can translate for this useless ambassador. “Mistress Howard, would you send one of the maids for some bread and cheese for the ambassador? He has not broken his fast. And some small ale.”

As she goes I turn back to him. “Do you have any letters for me from my home?”

“Yes,” he says. “I have instructions from your brother, and your mother sends her maternal love and hopes you are a credit to your home and have not forgotten her loving discipline.”

I nod. I would prefer it if she had sent me a competent ambassador who could also have been a credit to my home, rather than this chilly blessing, but I take the package of letters that he holds out to me, and he settles to his breakfast at one end of the table while I read my letters at the other end.

I read the letter from Amelia first. She starts with a list of the compliments that have been paid to her and how happy she is with her own court at Cleves. She likes to be in sole possession of our rooms. She tells me of her new gowns, and of dresses that were mine but have been adapted for her use. This is to form her trousseau, for she is to be married. I give a little gasp at this, and Lady Rochford says kindly: “Not bad news I hope, Your Grace?”

“My sister is to be married.”

“Oh, how lovely. A good match?”

It is nothing compared to my good fortune, of course. I should be laughing at the small scale of Amelia’s triumph. But I have to blink back tears before I can answer. “She is to marry my brother-in-law. My older sister, Sybilla, is already married to the Duke of Saxony, and she is to go to their court and marry his younger brother.” And so become a happy little neighboring family, I think bitterly. So they are all together: mother, brother, two sisters, and their two husbands, and only I am sent far away to wait for letters that bring me no joy but just continue the sense of exclusion and unkindness that my brother has dealt me all my life.

“Not a match like yours then.”

“There is no other match like mine,” I say. “But she will like to live with my sister, and my brother likes to keep the others close.”

“No sables for her,” Kitty Howard points out, and she makes me smile at her unending shameless greed.

“No, that is the main thing of course.” I smile at her. “Nothing matters more than sables.”

I put Amelia’s letter aside; I cannot bring myself to read her confident predictions of family Christmases and joining together for hunting in summer, of celebrating birthdays and bringing up their children, the Saxony cousins all together in the same happy nursery.

I open the letter from my mother instead. If I had hoped for some comfort here, I would be disappointed. She has spoken with Count Olisleger, and she is filled with anxiety. He tells her that I have been dancing with men not my husband, that I wore a gown without a muslin filet up to my ears. She hears that I have put aside Cleves dress and am wearing an English hood. She reminds me that the king married me because he wanted a Protestant bride of impeccable behavior and that he is a man of jealous and difficult temperament. She asks me if I want to dance my way to Hell, and reminds me that there is no sin worse than wantonness in a young woman.

I put down the letter and go to the window to look out over the beautiful garden of Hampton Court, the ornate walkways near to the palace and the paths, running down to the river with the pier and the royal barges rocking at their moorings. There are courtiers walking with the king in the garden, dressed as richly as if they were going to a joust. The king, a head taller than any man in his train and broad as a bull, is wearing a cloak of cloth of gold, and a bonnet of velvet that sparkles, even at this distance, with diamonds. He is leaning on the shoulder of Thomas Culpepper, who is dressed in the most glorious dark green cloak, pinned with a diamond brooch. Cleves, with its uniform of fustian and broadcloth, seems a long way away. I will never be able to explain to my mother that I do not peacock in English fashions for the sake of vanity, but only so that I do not seem more despicable and more repellent than I already am. If the king puts me aside, God knows that it will not be for dressing too fine. It will be because I disgust him, and I seem to do that whether I wear my hood like my grandmother, or like pretty little Kitty Howard. Nothing I can do can please the king, but my mother could spare herself the trouble of cautioning me that my life depends upon pleasing him. I already know that. And it cannot be done. At any rate, I cannot do it.

The ambassador has finished eating. I return to the table and motion to him that he may stay seated while I read my last letter, from my brother.

Sister, he starts. I have been much troubled by the report of Counts Overstein and Olisleger as to your reception and behavior at the court of your new husband, King Henry of England. Your mother will deal with matters of clothing and decorum. I can only beg that you listen to her and do not allow yourself to be led into behavior that can only embarrass us and shame yourself. Your tendency to vanity and ill-conditioned behavior is known to us all, but we hoped that it would remain a family secret. We beg you to reform, especially now that the eyes of the world are upon you.

I skip the next two pages, which are nothing but a list of the times that I have disappointed him in the past and warnings that a false step at the English court could have the gravest consequences. Who would know this better than I?

Then I read on.

This letter is to introduce the ambassador who will represent our country to King Henry and his council. You will extend to him every assistance. I expect you to work closely with him to further our hopes for this alliance that has so far disappointed us. Indeed, the King of England seems to think that he has made a very vassal of Cleves, and now he is hoping for our alliance against the emperor, with whom we have no quarrel and are not likely to make one to oblige your husband or you. You should make this clear to him.

I understand that a senior Englishman, the Duke of Norfolk, has enjoyed a visit to the French court, and there is no doubt in my mind but that England is drawing closer to France. This is the very thing that you were sent to England to prevent. Already, you are failing your country of Cleves, failing your mother and me. The ambassador should advise you as to how you can do your duty and not forget it in the pleasures of the flesh.

I have provided him with transport to England and a servant to attend him, but you will have to pay him directly. I assume, from what I hear of your jewels and your new clothes and other ungodly extravagances, including, I am told, expensive sables, that you can well afford to do this. Certainly, you would do better to spend your newfound wealth on the future of your country than on items of personal vanity and adornment that can only attract contempt. Just because you have been raised to a high position does not mean that you can neglect your conscience as you have done in the past. I urge you most earnestly to mend your ways, Sister. As the head of your house I advise you to abjure vanity and wantonness.

Trusting that this letter finds you in good health as it leaves me, certainly I hope that it finds you in good spiritual health, Sister. Luxury is no substitute for a good conscience, as you will find if you are spared to grow old.

As prays your loving brother

William.

I put down the letter and I look at the ambassador. “Tell me, at least, that you have done this work before, that you have been an ambassador in another court.”

It is my fear that he is some Lutheran preacher that my brother has decided to employ.

“I served your father at the court of Toledo and Madrid,” Dr. Harst replies with some dignity. “But never before at my own expense.”

“My brother’s finances are a little difficult,” I say. “At least you can live for free at court here.”

He nods. “He indicated to me that you would pay my salary.”

I shake my head. “Not I. The king gives me my court and my ladies and my clothes, but no money as yet. That can be one of the questions that you raise with him.”

“But as the crowned Queen of England-”

“I am married to the king, but not crowned queen,” I say. “Instead of my coronation in February I had a formal welcome into London, and now I expect to be crowned after Easter. I have not yet been paid my allowance as queen. I have no money.”

He looks a little anxious. “I take it there is no difficulty? The coronation will go ahead?”

“Well, you will have brought the papers that the king requires?”

“What papers?”

I can feel my temper rising. “The papers that prove that my earlier betrothal was annulled. The king demanded them; Counts Overstein and Olisleger swore that they would send them. They swore on their honor. You must have them.”