‘Viscount Rochford?’ Cromwell suddenly exclaims, as if my husband George were not standing right in front of him.
The king laughs. ‘Perfect! But can you spare him, Lady Rochford? Or are you with child, too, and won’t let him go?’
It is my hidden grief that we have been married ten years with no sign of a child. But I laugh as merrily as if I have never cried in George’s arms. ‘Ah, Sire, we can’t all have our first child in the first year of marriage and a second in the second year! We are not all as happy as you and the queen!’
‘“The Most Happy”,’ George confirms. We never allow anyone to forget Anne’s motto.
The king takes Anne’s hand and kisses it again. ‘She has done all that she promised me,’ he says dotingly. ‘And I have done more than anyone thought possible. I am making a new England, for a new royal family. And my newborn son will prove that God blesses me and my bride.’
Anne glows at him and spreads her hand on the slight curve of her belly to make it look bigger.
‘George shall go to France and tell them the meeting must be delayed until after the birth of my son,’ the king declares. ‘We’ll visit in the autumn.’
‘I’m honoured by your trust,’ George says, as if he was going out to kill dragons. ‘I’ll not fail you.’
The heroic note is exactly right. Henry takes George’s lower arm in a knight’s grip. ‘I know it, George. You are my brother.’
‘We would have confidence in no other.’ Anne smiles. She slides her hand on the king’s arm and invites him to walk in the cool of the garden before we go to breakfast, just the two of them. I know that she wants to be rid of her ladies, trailing behind to distract him; but he imagines a young handsome king with a beautiful queen leaningon his arm, walking on grass speckled with flowers as bright as a new-woven tapestry.
Master Cromwell bows and goes out. George and I are left alone with Francis Weston.
‘See how we rise!’ George exclaims. ‘Thank you, my love. You steered us right, as always – and now I can tell the King of France that I am to have a royal nephew!’
‘Just my duty,’ I say modestly.
He beams. ‘You know, there were times when I thought I’d always be here, running love notes between Anne and the king, a diplomat in the maids’ chamber, an ambassador in the sewing rooms, never getting to the source of power, always bobbing around in the froth.’
‘Lord, I wish I could come with you,’ Francis says, who has years of bobbing around ahead of him. ‘But I shall guard your lady while you are gone, if she will accept my service.’ He puts his hand on his heart and bows low to me.
‘Oh yes, yes.’ George waves away the game of courtly love as pointless without an audience. ‘Jane – send a message to the stables. I’ll need my horses reshod before we start. I’ll take two spare. I’m famous for how fast I make this journey.’ He kisses my outstretched hands. ‘I’ll come home quickly to you.’
I make sure I do not cling. ‘I shall miss you,’ I tell him.
‘I’ll be back inside a month,’ he promises.
THE QUEEN’S ROOMSare dull without George to suggest a theme for a masque, a new way to wear a French hood, or a round of games. We are visited by an old lady of the former royal family: Margaret Pole, kinswoman to the king. Years ago, she used to come to hear our lessons in the royal schoolroom and praised me for being the cleverest of the old queen’s little maids. She has never said one word against the tragedy of the divorce, or the humiliations that Anne heaped upon the old queen and her daughter. She begged for permission to serve Lady Mary or QueenKatherine, and even offered to serve for free, but Anne insists that she is always refused.
Lady Margaret Pole wears a serene mask over her heartache. Today, she is accompanied by another royal kinswoman, Gertrude Courtenay. They curtsey to Anne to exactly the right depth, but somehow, they look as if they are doing her a favour. We sense their unspoken opinion that we are too noisy, too playful and young. Gertrude learned her manners from a strictly raised Spanish queen; we learned ours from the fashionable French. They think us too flirtatious, too witty. We read theology; we question too much for these unswervingly faithful Papists. Lady Margaret Pole’s favourite son is a scholar at Rome, and has been writing a book about the errors of reform for all his life. It may be very fine – my father the scholar says it will be brilliant – but I think it would be better for Reginald Pole, and better for his old mother, if he were to accept that Anne has persuaded the king to become Protestant, and all of England must be Protestant, too.
Lady Margaret Pole and all her noble family are supporters of the old queen’s daughter, Lady Mary, and nobody knows how far they will go to get her returned to court, acknowledged as a princess and royal heir, and restored to her lands and titles. They hate our Princess Elizabeth who has replaced her, and our queen who has replaced theirs; but you would never know it from their fine courtly manners. From the sharp pinnacle of their old-fashioned gable hoods to their elegant plain leather shoes, these are noble ladies condescending to their inferiors. In return, we do everything we can to make them feel outdated and out of place in our fashion-mad court.
Lady Margaret Pole greets the king’s niece Margaret Douglas with affection and asks after her mother, who was Queen Regent of Scotland and still advises her son King James of Scotland. The old lady quietly remarks on Margaret’s French hood and the raised hem of her gown that shows the embroidery on her silk stockings. Margaret blushes at this mild rebuke from her former governess, and Anne laughs aloud and says this is what they are wearing inParis – and even the countess must surely remember what it was like to be a pretty young girl, however long ago it was?
Anne is reckless in her power. She won’t tolerate Lady Margaret Pole coming into her rooms and making her look like an upstart but Lady Margaret never wavers in her quiet dignity. No one but George could smooth Anne’s ruffled feathers. He’s so well read that he can argue like Martin Luther himself, and his love for Anne turns the vapid games of courtly love in her rooms into something tender and true.
Without him, the love-talk grinds on by rote; and more than one young man is reduced to stammering silence, strolling into the queen’s room in a new silk cape, with a spray of roses in his hand, signifying true love, but no witty words ready-prepared. The lute player Mark breaks off his song and does a little twang to draw everyone’s attention to his embarrassment, and we laugh unkindly at the young nobleman’s shyness.
Anne needs me and George for she has no friends of her own. A self-made queen relies on self-made courtiers; everyone wants the chance to ride on this new queen’s coattails. Anne’s sister Mary is little use: more rival than supporter, as she was once the king’s lover. She is at the Boleyn family home, Hever Castle, this summer, and Anne is in no hurry to bring her back to court. We are a court of upstarts, soaring without firm foundations, so, everyone is relieved when George comes home early, making the journey from the Queen of Navarre and her brother King Francis in three weeks, bringing gifts and messages of goodwill from the French court.
He has brought back a new tennis racquet from Paris and swears that he will challenge all comers. Anne promises a prize to the winner, and the master of revels draws up a tournament with all the noblemen of court on the list. They start in the early morning, and we ladies sit through the heat of the day on the queen’s balcony, under the wooden roof that gets hotter and hotter as the day goes on. We watch the players sweat and lunge for difficult shots, enduring the nagging bang of the ball against the back of the court and the loud rolling on the roof above our heads.
‘Shall I get you a tisane?’ I whisper to Anne.
‘You can tell your husband to hurry up and finish,’ she says sourly.
He is playing the final match against the king, who is flushed and strong, dressed in white linen. The king has played two matches before this one, and his red-gold hair is dark with sweat, his damp shirt clinging to his muscled chest. When he stretches to hit a high ball or races to the net, he is as graceful as a bounding dancer.
George loses by a few points; he misses the last shot with a desperate lunge and goes off court laughing to Francis Weston, who wraps him in a drying sheet. The king, beaming with triumph, comes to stand below the queen’s balcony, excited by his victory and laughing at George’s Parisian racquet – demanding it as his prize as well as the gift from the queen.
