The kings pleasure, p.44
The King's Pleasure, page 44
“No,” Harry replied, hardening his heart and angry at Chapuys’s use of Mary’s forbidden title. “If I let the Lady Mary visit her mother, they will plot against me.”
“I think not, Sir,” Chapuys bridled. “The Queen is too ill.”
“The Queen is in excellent health,” Harry corrected him, bristling. “The Princess Dowager is ailing. May God grant her rest.”
“Allow me to go to her!” the ambassador begged.
“No!” Harry bit his tongue, remembering that he was supposed to be courting Chapuys. “Understand my position, my friend.” He placed an arm around the other man’s shoulders and steered him toward the privy chamber. “Those two have defied me. They have broken my laws and resisted my commands.”
“But the poor lady is dying!”
“It is God’s will, and we must not question His wisdom. While she lives, I fear there will always be an obstacle to my friendship with your master.”
“The Queen is not the obstacle!” Chapuys protested. “Your Majesty knows very well who is!”
Always it came back to Anne. Pregnant or not, she was a liability.
Harry relented. There remained in him some small core of affection for Kate, for all that had once been between them. “Go to her if you want. You are right, she is no threat to me, and she can’t live long.”
Chapter 27
1536
The letter danced before his eyes, the words blurred by his tears.
Kate was dead. And among her pathetically few possessions, which had been forwarded to Harry, was her last letter to him.
Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. It was that which had made him weep. Then he read on, and his sorrow turned to rage when he saw that she had signed the letter, defiant to the last, Katherine the Queen.
Pity died in him. He was glad that she was dead. Now the way was clear to an alliance with the Emperor. “God be praised,” he muttered. “We are free from the threat of war.”
Anne was exultant. She insisted that she and Harry hold court wearing yellow to demonstrate their joy at being rid of their great adversary. As the trumpets sounded a fanfare, Harry triumphantly carried the Princess Elizabeth into the chapel for a solemn Mass. Afterward, he took great pleasure in showing her off to his courtiers. At two, she was an intelligent child with a sharp wit, and charmed them all. She sat on a cushion at the banquet, wearing one of the pretty satin gowns Anne had chosen for her, and clapped her little hands as the dancing began. It took a lot of persuading to get her to go to bed.
* * *
—
Harry was in a good mood. Kate was with God, Anne was with child, and the Emperor was free to offer his friendship. The world had not rocked on its axis because of the break with Rome, and England was poised once more to play a leading role in Europe.
There was just one thing troubling him. Mary was ill, having taken the news of her mother’s death grievously. Harry’s instincts told him he ought to go to her, but he was still angry with her—and he feared to arouse Anne’s volatile temper, especially when her pregnancy was progressing so well. So he sent privily for reports and was relieved to hear that, although devastated by grief, Mary was out of danger.
It had been some time since Harry had jousted, but he had kept himself fit with other sports and was almost as trim-waisted and broad-shouldered as he had been twenty years ago. It was time to enter the lists again. The weather was fine for January, and he intended to take full advantage of it.
The stands at Greenwich were packed. As he cantered, fully armored, down the tiltyard, lance couched, the spectators were on their feet, roaring their encouragement. The speed was exhilarating; there was nothing like it. His opponent was charging toward him at a similar rate. He braced himself for the impact. And then, all of a sudden, he was flying through the air, unable to save himself, and crashing to the ground. As his mighty steed fell on top of him, crushing the breath out of him, he heard cries from the onlookers and the thud of running feet. They got the horse up, then hands were lifting his visor, scrabbling at his armor.
“Your Grace? Are you hurt?”
“Your Grace, speak to us!”
“I am all right,” he muttered, somewhat dazed with shock.
“You fell so heavily that it is a miracle you were not killed.” That was Suffolk. “In fact, Norfolk thought you were dead and hurried off to tell the Queen.”
“Send someone after him,” Harry croaked, as he was helped to his feet. It seemed that his whole body was a mass of aches and pains, but he was able to limp back to his tent and raise a hand to reassure the anxious, staring spectators that he was himself again—although he was feeling anything but.
His physicians were summoned and examined him thoroughly. “Your Grace has taken no hurt,” they pronounced. “We thank God that you did not sustain an injury to your head. Truly, He has you in His keeping.”
* * *
—
“You have to face it, Harry, your jousting days are over,” Suffolk said later. “I’ve had to give it up. You should try riding or walking instead.”
Resting on his cushioned chair, nursing his pains, Harry glowered at him. “I suppose I must admit it: I am growing older. We both are.” He bent and rubbed his calf. “This damned leg is more painful than anything.”
“It will get better,” Charles soothed.
“Aye, I suppose so. And now Crum is plaguing me about Kate’s funeral. She’s to be buried at Peterborough with all the honors due to the Princess Dowager of Wales, but your pestilential mother-in-law, Lady Willoughby, is complaining about that. She wants to attend with your wife.”
“My wife will do as I command.”
“Then let her go, but I want no demonstrations on the day.”
He donned mourning, out of respect. After all, Kate had been his sister-in-law and they had lived as man and wife for many years. He ordered a requiem Mass to be said at Greenwich. Beforehand, he sat brooding restlessly in his closet, grief and guilt warring in him.
He needed a diversion.
He went to the window to see if there was anyone in the Queen’s privy garden below—and there she was, Jane, the person he most wanted to see, the one good soul who could ease his tortuous thoughts. He hastened downstairs and, before Anne could spy them from her window, hastily bade Jane come up to his privy chamber.
At the sight of her, standing in the doorway, her sweet face and sympathetic expression, he knew she understood how he was feeling. He pulled her down on his lap and buried his face in her shoulder, just as, years ago, he had gone to his beloved mother seeking comfort.
The nearness of her was irresistible, and soon he found himself stirring. He sought her lips and she let him kiss her, but when his hand strayed to her breast, she caught her breath.
“Sir, you should not…” She giggled nervously.
The door opened, and there stood Anne, her face a mask of shock.
“How could you?” she wailed.
Harry set Jane aside and leaped up.
“Go!” he commanded, and she scuttled away. “Darling, I am sorry.” He tried to look contrite.
Anne was weeping hysterically. “You have no idea how you have hurt me!” she sobbed. “The love I bear you is greater than Katherine’s ever was, and my heart breaks when I see that you love another.”
“It meant nothing,” he said.
“Nothing? I saw you with my own eyes.” Suddenly, her hands flew to her belly. She looked panicked.
He was alarmed. “What is it?”
“It is the distress you have caused me!” she cried.
“Just be at peace, sweetheart, and all will go well with you,” he soothed. “Think of our son!”
“It’s a pity you didn’t!” she flung back, and left him standing there, openmouthed.
* * *
—
Later that day, his son was born dead. A stillborn fetus of fifteen weeks’ growth, they told him.
He was in too much agony of mind to spare Anne. “A boy!” he wept. “There could be no greater discomfort to me or my realm.”
“I was in peril of my life,” she protested. “And you have no one to blame but yourself, for it was caused by my distress of mind over that wench Seymour.”
Fury gripped Harry. “I will have no more boys by you,” he said icily.
“What do you mean?” she cried.
He glared at her. “I see clearly that God does not wish to give me male children. I do not want to discuss it now. I will speak to you when you are up.” With that, he left her to her tears.
Back in his privy chamber, he received the condolences of his gentlemen, noticing that Rochford looked stricken. Harry was so distraught at his loss, and so angry with Anne, that he could barely respond. Now he could see what had been staring him in the face for a long time. God was again displeased with him.
“I was seduced by sorcery into this marriage,” he moaned, “and for this reason I consider it null. I believe I might take another wife.”
They stared at him in amazement, for it was rare for him to declare his inmost thoughts to them, especially on such a subject. It was a measure of how distressed he was.
Will Somers was regarding him sadly. “There’s plenty more fish in the sea, Harry.”
“Go away, fool,” he growled.
Bryan rested his one eye on him. “I’ve long feared, Sir, that the Queen has a defective constitution that prevents her from bearing healthy children.”
“Was she even pregnant at all?” Carew asked.
“How dare you say such things!” Rochford flared.
“Enough!” Harry snapped.
* * *
—
He sent for Jane late that night. She came to him in the dimness of the deserted Chapel Royal as he sat weeping in his pew, unable to control his distress. He felt her arms go around him.
“She lost my boy!” he sobbed against her shoulder. “I know I will have no sons with her. I see clearly that God does not wish to give me male children. Jane, help me! I am in great fear that I have again incurred His wrath. Those miscarriages did not occur without good reason: they were manifestations of His displeasure. I fear my marriage with the Queen is as displeasing to him as my unlawful union with Katherine.”
“Alas, Sir, I wish that I could help you,” she murmured, resting her head on his, “but I am not learned in these matters.” She hesitated. “Would putting away the Queen restore your credit with God? It would leave you free to make another marriage, to a wife who could bear you sons.”
Harry nodded. She had gone straight to the heart of the matter. “I am aware of that, darling.” He gripped her hand. “I’m no longer young, Jane. I can’t afford to wait much longer for God to send me a son. I must talk to Cranmer urgently.” He drew her tightly into his arms and kissed her. “I do love you, Jane. You give me sound advice. Look, I have a gift for you.” He reached into his pocket, drew out a roll of velvet and placed it in her hands. She unraveled it to find an emerald pendant and a matching ring with a great stone. She drew in her breath. “Emeralds stand for purity and faith,” he said.
“I do not know how to thank your Grace. They are gorgeous. You are so good to me. I have not the words to show my appreciation.”
He bent forward and kissed her gently. “I would give you the world. And when we are alone together like this, Jane, you should not be calling me ‘your Grace’ or ‘Sir.’ I am Harry, your humble servant.”
She wound her arms around his neck. “Yes, Sir…I mean, Harry.” They laughed, but he still felt sad.
“What can I do to make you feel better?” she asked.
He gazed at her with yearning. “Comfort me,” he said. “Help me to blot out the pain I feel.”
She tightened her arms around him. “How can I do that?” For answer, his mouth closed on hers needily. “Come to bed,” he murmured.
* * *
—
It happened just twice. Twice only, and it was not enough. But, early in February, he had to leave Greenwich and go to York Place for the Shrovetide celebrations and the new session of Parliament. He left Anne behind, which meant that he had to leave Jane, too, but he frequently took his barge along the river of an evening to visit her. His love for her was flowering, a beautiful bud opening out toward the sunshine. It was a good thing, a fine thing, nothing like his dark, obsessive passion for Anne. Already, there was gossip about them.
In late February, when the daffodils bloomed, he sent Jane a letter with the gift of a purse of gold sovereigns.
“Your Grace, Mistress Seymour would not accept it,” the messenger told him. “She knelt, she kissed the letter, then she returned both to me, declaring that she could accept a dowry from your Grace only when she found a husband.”
Harry was again impressed by Jane’s virtue.
“Pray return to her,” he commanded. “Tell her I will not visit or speak to her except in the presence of one of her relatives.”
To please Jane, he decided to appoint her brother Edward a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. He had no doubt that Edward and Thomas Seymour, ambitious young men, striving for advancement, were urging their sister to please him. Their friends, Carew, Bryan, the Exeters, and the Poles—conservatives all—were encouraging the affair and continually criticizing Anne in Harry’s hearing. The days were gone when he would angrily have reprimanded them. When they were reunited at York Place, even Jane spoke out against Anne, about her unkindness, her shrewishness, her scorn toward him. Anne had torn a locket bearing his picture from Jane’s neck, with some violence. He recoiled when Jane showed him the weal on her throat. Clearly, Anne was realizing that her day was done—and was fighting back.
Harry longed to have Jane in his bed again, her loving arms around him, but she had kept him at a distance since those two glorious nights, and now would not even let him kiss her. He liked that in her, even as he ached with desire and frustration.
He spoke to Cromwell, perplexed as to how he was going to conduct his courtship, and how it would progress if he could not even see Jane in private.
“I can help your Grace.” Cromwell smiled, ever resourceful. “I can vacate my rooms at Greenwich, which afford that secret access to your privy lodgings, and Sir Edward and Lady Seymour can stay there and act as chaperones when you visit the lady. You will be able to enter through the gallery without being perceived.”
“Crum, you’re a marvel!” Harry exclaimed.
* * *
—
The arrangement worked well. The Seymours kept to the inner chamber when Harry came to pay his chaste addresses to Jane. At first, it was enough just to see and talk with her, and he restrained himself from importuning her for more than she cared to give. What Anne made of her absence he did not know—and did not care. Yet even this degree of privacy did not prevent gossip.
“Messire Chapuys has heard rumors,” Cromwell reported, after a council meeting late in March. “I told him that I believed your Grace has decided henceforth to live more chastely, and not change wives again.” He grinned.
Harry paused. Change wives again? The thought kept occurring to him, an insidious worm burrowing into his brain. But how? Cromwell had warned that divorcing Anne would be seen as an admission that he had been wrong to put away Kate—and it could compromise the legitimacy of Elizabeth, his sole heir.
“It is clear,” Cromwell was saying, “that Chapuys has no great opinion of Mistress Seymour’s virtue, just as he takes a dim view of the morals of most Englishwomen. But I set him right on that.” Harry was mightily relieved to hear it.
* * *
—
There seemed to be no way out of his marriage, and the rift with Anne could not be allowed to go on. True, she might be a barrier to an Imperial alliance, but he had no option but to fight for Charles’s recognition of her as queen. It would be the ultimate vindication of all he had done.
He was gratified to see Anne confining her energies to the domestic sphere, spending lavishly on new attire for herself and Elizabeth. He entered her bedchamber one evening to find the bed heaped with bolts of purple cloth of gold, black, and tawny velvet, carnation and white satin, pieces of lambskin and miniver, kirtles of white satin and black damask, nightgowns, cloaks, and slippers.
“You’ll have me bankrupt,” he observed, whereat she flashed a smile at him. It was the old Anne, the one who could tease and charm him, and suddenly he felt a surge of lust. Maybe they could make a son again! He ended up tumbling her amid the velvets and satins, caring not that he might spoil them. Afterward, she lay looking up jubilantly at him, clearly believing he was hers again. Well, let her enjoy her fantasy, if it kept her sweet toward him.
* * *
—
“The Emperor,” Cromwell said, as Harry walked with him along the graveled paths of the privy garden, out of earshot of the other courtiers, “is now so eager to conclude an alliance with your Grace that he is prepared to be conciliatory. It is reported from Italy that he has prevented the Bishop of Rome from excommunicating you.”
Harry was relieved to hear that. The sentence of excommunication drawn up by Clement had never been promulgated, although the threat had remained, and his councillors had feared that Clement’s successor, Pope Paul—who was showing evidence of being a far stouter opponent to Harry—would do just that. Harry was grateful, therefore, for Charles’s intervention. It was an encouraging sign.
“The Emperor has indicated through Chapuys that he is willing to support the continuation of your Grace’s marriage to Queen Anne, if you will have the Lady Mary declared legitimate.”
