‘Sir Francis’ house?’ I repeat.
‘The king dines there every night. Goes by royal barge with the musicians playing.’
‘Does he?’
‘Yes. You can hear them from the pier.’
The muleteers, tired of waiting, turn and look at her.
‘Oh! I suppose I have to go. Well, goodbye,’ she says simply.
‘Good luck,’ I say, and I see the quick movement of her fingers, the thumb going between the index and the third finger, the old sign to ward off witchcraft – as if I am so unlucky, as if we Boleyns are so unlucky, that my blessing on her is a curse.
The Tower of London, May
1536
IT TAKES THEMthree days to make the scenery for the masque at the Tower of London which is to be Anne’s trial. They build a stand for spectators and bring in great tables and heavy chairs to make the court look more important than a bear-baiting, certain to end in death. There is no doubt about the outcome: just as one dog is thrown in after another until the bear goes down, they have added and added to the charges until a saint would break under the weight of them. It is not only my uncle the Duke of Norfolk who comes to say ‘guilty’: no one can claim Anne is innocent when the lower court has already found against her lovers. The judges go through the motions like old partners rehearsing a familiar dance;but the verdict is obvious. She cannot be innocent if four men have already been found guilty of adultery with her.
I don’t attend her trial; my fury at the Spanish party is greater than my scholar’s desire to know everything. I know that she is innocent of the charges, but I know she is guilty of worse. She did not plot the king’s death, but she did cause the deaths of Bishop Fisher and Thomas More, and the law she wrote would have killed the old queen and Lady Mary. Our enemies were driven to destroy Anne from the moment that they realised it was her or Lady Mary.
I fuelled their fears, so I am guilty, too. The Spanish party learned of Lady Mary’s danger from me. I asked my father to warn her. I told Lady Margaret Pole that she should escape. I was advised by Thomas Cromwell; I thought I was doing the right thing, but I did not foresee thishamartia, this tragedy blooming from one mistake. I never dreamed that a courtier’s word, which is always half-lie and half-truth, would bring us Boleyns to death.
They tell me that Anne is unyielding as they find her guilty. I can imagine her, listening to the verdict from the men who rode on the hem of her skirts to power and favour, her own father, her uncle, even the man who married her in secret, Henry Percy, who denies her now. I can imagine her dark gaze going from one face to another, her head tilted, listening to one Judas word after another, and her quick-witted nod when it is all over and they tell her she is to be beheaded or burned, at the king’s discretion. Even the judges murmur at the terrible sentence. A little murmur, painfully quiet.
GEORGE’S TRIAL COMESafter his sister’s condemnation, and the court is betting on his acquittal – they want a more cheerful afternoon after the monstrous tragedy played in the morning. The love of gambling is as strong as ever among courtiers, and there are no other entertainments for us but the trials. Facing his judges, his father and father-in-law among them, his uncle asthe lead judge, he becomes again the George that everyone has always adored: witty and cool under attack, charming in agreement, fiercely clever – no one doubts that he will argue himself out of the stand and get himself off. The odds rise to 10:1 in his favour, and someone offers me a share of a bet. I don’t take it. I tell them that I will not attend his trial, but I wear a thick veil to hide my lying eyes and my false face, and I slip into the back of the court.
The judges sit at a long table, facing George, who stands before them like a sword fighter, lightly on his feet, one hand resting on his belt where his sword should be. He looks at each one of them – every one a kinsman who has known him from childhood, or a friend at court. He responds confidently to every charge, proving easily that he was not where they say he was, that he was not even at court that night or this, that no one ever saw him in Anne’s bedroom, that no one has any evidence but hearsay, and no one is called to speak against him. He is the king’s favourite, a trusted diplomat, the king’s brother-in-law. He is certain to be proved innocent.
I nod at every well-made point, and I force myself to sit still, but the whole of the gallery is on his side. I am not the only woman leaning forward, watching through a veil, following every neat step he takes on the rising stair to his acquittal.
But then he is handed a note and warned that it is a report of his own speech. The chief presiding judge, the Duke of Norfolk – our uncle Thomas Howard – asks George if he said the words written on the piece of paper. They are such dangerous words, such treasonous words, that he warns George not to read them aloud.
George opens the paper, studies the words in silence, and raises his dark head. He looks scornfully around the court, his dark eyes bright with contempt, and he reads aloud, in his ringing, defiant voice: ‘This says: “The king is unmanned and cannot get a woman with child”.’ He crumples the paper in his hand, like a player enacting contempt. He tosses it to the floor.
‘There is no need for this to passed around like a disgraceful riddle,’ he says. ‘It is a lie and should not be elevated to evidence. Idid not say it. I would not say it. I know it to be untrue. The allegation of impotence throws doubt over the fathering of all the king’s children, and – even worse – over any royal heirs that may bless the king in future – as we all loyally pray. This should never have been written down, never have been submitted in evidence. These are not my words, and I deny them.’
There is a horrified gasp. Of course, everyone knows that the king is now and then impotent – actually, those of us who serve in the queen’s bedroom know that he is impotent often. But such an allegation recorded in the court reports puts a question over our Boleyn heir – over Elizabeth’s fathering. Four men were found guilty of adultery with Anne – any one of them could be named as Elizabeth’s father if the piece of paper is entered as evidence. Even if George had only looked at it and denied it – it would have gone into the court records. By throwing it to the ground, he has discredited it.
He knows this. He read the words aloud and denied them for the sake of his sister Anne and her daughter, Elizabeth. If he had remained silent, they would have let him off. But his defiance of the court – his contempt for their plan – is enough to condemn him. He lies on his oath, to say the king is not impotent, has never been impotent, to insist that Elizabeth is the king’s own daughter. He has put his own head on the block to leave no question over his little niece’s fathering.
I should remember him as a hero for this. But I am so furious that his last act is to save the rights of his sister’s daughter that I am numb with rage. I cannot feel anything. He has defied the court – and for what? For love of Anne and her little daughter, Elizabeth. Now, I cannot save him; no one can save him. He has condemned himself. He has chosen to die so that his niece may keep the title of princess. The Boleyn ambition and his love of Anne means more to him than life.
I push my way past the people straining to see his smiling face, the defiant cock of his head as he steps into a guilty verdict and strolls towards his own death. I get out into the cold east wind and theglaring sunlight blinds me. I will never forgive him for this. It is the final betrayal of me. It is his final act of love towards his sister and her daughter. I stalk across Tower Green to the dark gateway and think I will never come here again. I will never see George again.
I am completely ruined. The queen I served will die named as a witch, a creature of perverse lusts, an adulterous wife, a treasonous queen. My husband is named for terrible crimes with her and has chosen to die with her rather than live with me. At his death, I will lose my fortune and my home. At her death, I will lose my place at court and royal favour. I will be poor; I will be homeless; I will be out of favour. I don’t know what will become of me. As a Boleyn, I will be reviled as the wife of an adulterous, incestuous brother, and the sister-in-law of a lust-crazed witch. History will name me as a bawd, a procuress, lust-mad myself.
GEORGE DIES ONTower Hill; Henry Norris and his friend Francis Weston and William Brereton follow him to the scaffold keeping the order of courtly precedence, even when going to their deaths. The commoner, Mark Smeaton, is last on the scaffold drenched in other men’s blood, and he makes a poor end.
This is all incredible to me. I cannot understand it. I cannot even think it. I feel like it is a concept too difficult for study, even for a scholar. I live in a state of burning fury with Anne, with George, and with all Boleyns: my mother- and father-in-law, who have made no effort for their own son and daughter, with all the Howards, who have distanced themselves from their kinsmen so far that they have been practically Seymours this season. Mary Boleyn is nowhere to be seen, shunning, disaster as she shunned success.
Anne has to wait, hoping for a pardon, in pleasant rooms overlooking Tower Green for a swordsman to come from France for her death. She is to be beheaded with a sword, not burned. And so her final scene is delayed, waiting for a unique prop for this special masque. The court does not know the etiquette for beheading aqueen. There is no agreed ritual in the king’s grandmother’s book of the court. No one has ever killed a queen on a scaffold in England. Actually, I don’t believe anyone has ever executed a queen anywhere. There isClytemnestraandPenthesileain the Greek legends, but neither of them were legally beheaded before a select crowd of a thousand family and friends on Tower Green – the grass scythed especially short for the occasion. I cannot understand this either. I could almost laugh at the thought of Anne, who always preferred French fashions, getting a swordsman from France.
People don’t know whether to wear mourning or not. They decide on best clothes in bright colours for a queen’s beheading. I don’t pick out a gown. I won’t attend. I can’t bear to see it. But I know when it is done because, as I am sitting in the empty bleakness of Greenwich Palace hall, the cannon of the Tower shoots off a roar, as for a great celebration. The king has ordered a full cannon salute loud enough for him to hear upriver at Chelsea, where he has timed the dance so that he should lead out his new bride at the very moment that the great love of his life was beheaded.
The next day, his betrothal is announced. He is going to marry Jane Seymour.
Greenwich Palace, Summer
