In the Shadow of the Crown - Plaidy Jean - Страница 27

There were others more powerful than Friars Peto and Elstowe. Bishop Fisher was one, and he had set himself against the divorce and had no compunction in letting it be known. The Countess said she trembled for him. She thought he would be arrested and sent to the Tower. This was not the case as yet. My father must have been very disturbed by the attitude of the people.

All that came out of this was that my mother was moved from the Moor and out to Bishop's Hatfield, which belonged to the Bishop of Ely. I worried a good deal about her. It hindered my convalescence. I had become pale and thin and I looked like a ghost. If only I could have been with my mother, I should have been more at peace; anything would have been preferable to this anxiety about her. I looked back with deep nostalgia to those days when we had all been together—my mother and I, Reginald and the Countess. And now there were just the Countess and myself. Reginald was in Padua, my mother at Bishop's Hatfield. Was it warm there I wondered? She suffered cruelly from rheumatism, and the dampness of some of the houses in which she had been forced to live aggravated this. I wondered if she had enough warm clothing. It was unbearable that she, a Princess of Spain, a Queen of England, could be treated so.

But I knew that we were moving toward a climax when I heard that the King was going to France and was taking Anne Boleyn with him.

“This cannot be true,” I cried to the Countess. “How could he take her with him? She cannot go as the Queen.”

“The King of France is now his friend, remember. If he receives Anne Boleyn, it is tantamount to giving his approval.”

“He will do what is expedient to him.”

“Yes, and Francois needs your father's support and he will go a long way to get that.”

“But how could Anne Boleyn be received at the Court of France!”

“We shall hear, no doubt.”

“But my mother… what will she think when she hears of this?”

The Countess shook her head. “These things cannot go on. But I can't really believe he will take her to France. It is just one of those rumors, and Heaven knows there have been many of them.”

But it was no rumor. My father showered more honors on Anne Boleyn. He created her Marchioness of Pembroke. That was significant. She was no longer merely the Lady Anne.

So he really did intend to take her to France. He was telling the world that she was his Queen in truth and that the marriage was imminent.

I think my hopes died at that time. I was sunk in gloom; my mother was ill and we were parted by a cruel father and his wicked mistress. If we could have been together, what a difference that would have made! How could they be so cruel to us? Our love for each other was well known, and in addition to the trials we were forced to endure was the anxiety we felt for each other.

As we had feared, events moved quickly after that. They went to France; they were received by Francois, though not by the ladies of the Court, who, I was glad to hear, rather pointedly absented themselves.

But when they returned, the result was inevitable. There was a rumor that Anne was pregnant with the King's child, and they were secretly married.

I COULD NOT BELIEVE this. It was a false rumor, I insisted to the Countess. Nobody seemed to know where the marriage had taken place. Some said it was in the chapel of Sopewell Nunnery, others at Blickling Hall.

What did it matter where?

Of course it was kept a secret. It was a highly controversial step, for there would be many to ask how the King could marry Anne Boleyn when he was the husband of the Queen.

The ceremony had to take place though and without delay, for Anne was pregnant and it was imperative that the child should be born legitimate.

I often wondered later which was the greater—my father's longing for a son or his passion for Anne Boleyn. Knowing him so well, I believe he considered it a slur on his manhood that a son should be denied to him; and as he wished the world to see him as the perfect being, that irked him considerably.

They must have been in a state of some anxiety, for the marriage had to be legal and it was clear that they were getting no help from Rome. How could they pretend that she was his wife when the people knew he was still married to the Queen? I exulted in their difficulties.

It was May of that year 1533, after my seventeenth birthday, when Cranmer, now Archbishop of Canterbury, presided over a tribunal at Dunstable. There was no need for a divorce between the King and Katharine of Aragon, he stated, for their so-called marriage had been no marriage. The ceremony through which they had gone had been contracted against the Divine Law.

After this declaration they felt free to go along with Anne's coronation.

It was incredible that such a thing could be. But my father was determined on it.

My mother had been moved once more and was at Ampthill. I think my father feared to leave her too long in one place. I constantly asked myself why he would not let us be together, but if he would not allow us to see each other during my illness—when he really did fear what effect my death would have had on public opinion—he surely would not now. I was very, very worried for I knew that my mother suffered from constant ill health and I feared the worst was kept from me.

Events were moving fast. We heard, of course, about the splendid coronation, how Anne Boleyn left Greenwich dressed in cloth of gold, looking splendid, they said, with her elegance and her long black hair and great glittering eyes—witch's eyes, I called them. Many believed that she was a witch and that only her supernatural powers had been able to lure the King to act as he had.

I could imagine the guns booming out and my father's waiting to greet her when she reached the Tower. There she stayed for several days in accordance with the custom of monarchs coming to their coronations. How it sickened me to think of this woman, this upstart Boleyn, whose family by astute trading and noble marriages had climbed to a position where Anne might be noticed by the King. All this honor for her while my mother lay cold and ill, neglected, and while everything possible was done to degrade her.

How I hated that woman! How I wished her ill! I remembered my mother once said, “Hatred is not good for the soul, my child. Pray for this woman rather. It may well be that one day she will be in need of our prayers.” But I could not. I was not the saint my mother was.

So I gave vent to my hatred. I prayed that the child she was about to bear would be misshapen, a monster, a girl! I prayed that she might die in childbirth—that they both should die and I might never have to consider them again.

I could picture her making her procession through the streets of London. She would look magnificent in her evil way. Even her greatest enemies could not deny that she had something more than beauty. It was the spell of witchery. I could see her in silver tissue and her ermine-decorated cloak. I could picture the litter of cloth of gold and the two white palfreys which drew it.

Would the people cheer her? They would be overwhelmed by the pageantry for they loved a spectacle. They would forget temporarily, perhaps, the wrongs against the true Queen. They would remember only that this was a holiday and the conduits ran with wine.

All through the day of the coronation, I brooded, nursing my hatred, thinking of my mother, wondering what would be in her mind on this tragic day. I thought of that woman, crowned Queen, in purple velvet and ermine; I could imagine the King's eyes glazed with desire for this witch who had seduced him from his duty and was leading him along the path to Hell.

What was the use of praying for a miracle?

There was no miracle, and Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England which she could never be to me—and to many, I hoped—while my mother lived.