Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard - Jean Plaidy

He said: “Sweetheart, you talk with wildness!”

“Yes,” she said, “I talk with wildness; it is only your beloved Cardinal who talks with good sense. I can see that I must not stay here. I will go away. I have lost those assets which were dearer to me than aught else—my virtue, my honor. I shall leave you. This is the last night I shall lie in your arms, for I see that I am ruined, that you cannot love me.”

Henry could always be moved to terror when she talked of leaving him; before he had given her Suffolk House, she had so often gone back and forth to Hever. The thought of losing her was more than he could endure; he was ready to offer her Wolsey if that was the price she asked.

He said: “Dost think I should allow thee to leave me, Anne?”

She laughed softly. “You might force me to stay; you could force me to share your bed!” Again she laughed. “You are big and strong, and I am but weak. You are a king and I am a poor woman who from love of you has given you her honor and her virtue. . . . Yes, doubtless you could force me to stay, but though you should do this, you would but keep my body; my love, though it has destroyed me, would be lost to you.”

“You shall not talk thus! I have never known happiness such as I have enjoyed with you. Your virtue . . . your honor! My God, you talk foolishly, darling! Shall you not be my Queen?”

“You have said so these many years. I grow weary of waiting. You surround yourself with those who hinder you rather than help. I have proof that the Cardinal is one of these. “

“What proof?” he demanded.

“Did I not tell you of the physician? He knows that Wolsey wrote to the Pope, asking him to excommunicate you, an you did not dismiss me and take back Katharine.”

“By God! And I will not believe it.”

She put her arms about his neck, and with one hand stroked his hair.

“Darling, see the physician, discover for yourself . . .”

“That will I do!” he assured her.

Then she slept more peacefully, but in the morning her fears were as strong as ever. When the physician confirmed Wolsey’s perfidy, when her cousin, Francis Bryan, brought her papers which proved that Wolsey had been in communication with the Pope, had asked for the divorce to be delayed; when she took these in triumph to the King and saw the veins stand out on his forehead with anger against the Cardinal, still she found peace of mind elusive. She remembered the softness of the King towards this man; she remembered how, when he had lain ill at Esher, he had sent Butts, his physician—the man he had sent to her at Hever—to attend his old friend. She remembered how he had summoned Butts, recently returned from Esher, and had asked after Wolsey’s health; and when Butts had said he feared the old man would die unless he received some token of the King’s regard, then had the King sent him a ruby ring, and—greater humiliation—he had turned to her and bidden her send a token too. Such was the King’s regard for this man; such was his reluctance to destroy him.

But she would not let her enemy live; and in this she had behind her many noblemen, at whose head were the powerful Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, men such as would let the grass grow under their feet in the matter. George had talked with her of Wolsey. “There will be no peace for us, Anne, while that man lives. For, if ever you had an enemy, that man is he!” She trusted George completely. He had said: “You can do this, Anne. You have but to command the King. Hesitate not, for well you know that had Wolsey the power to destroy you, he would not hesitate.”

“That I do know,” she answered, and was suddenly sad. “George,” she went on, “would it not be wonderful if we could go home and live quietly, hated by none!”

“I would not wish to live quietly, sister,” said George. “Nor would you. Come! Could you turn back now, would you?” She searched her mind and knew that he was right. “You were meant to be Queen of England, Anne. You have all the attributes.”

“I feel that, but I could wish there were not so much hating to be done!”

But she went on hating furiously; this was a battle between herself and Wolsey, and it was one she was determined to win. Norfolk watched; Suffolk watched; they were waiting for their opportunity.

There was a new charge against the Cardinal. He had been guilty of asserting and maintaining papal jurisdiction in England. Henry must accept the evidence; he must appease Anne; he must satisfy his ministers. Wolsey was to be arrested at Cawood Castle in York, whither he had retired these last months.

“The Earl of Northumberland should be sent to arrest him,” said Anne, her eyes gleaming, This was to be. She went to her apartment, dismissed her ladies, and flung herself upon her bed overcome by paroxysms of laughter and tears. She felt herself to be, not the woman who aspired to the throne of England, but a girl in love who through this man had lost her lover.

Now he would see! Now he should know! “That foolish girl!” he had said. “Her father but a knight, and yours one of the noblest houses in the land . . .”

Her father was an earl now; and she all but Queen of England.

Oh, you wise Cardinal! How I should love to see your face when Percy comes for you! You will know then that you were not so wise in seeking to destroy Anne Boleyn.

As the Cardinal sat at dinner in the dining-hall at Cawood Castle, his gentleman usher came to him and said: “My lord, His Grace, the Earl of Northumberland is in the castle!”

Wolsey was astounded.

“This cannot be. Were I to have the honor of a visit from such a nobleman, he would surely have warned me. Show him in to me that I may greet him.”

The Earl was brought into the dining-hall. He had changed a good deal since Wolsey had last seen him, and Wolsey scarcely recognized him as the delicate, handsome boy whom he had had occasion to reprimand at the King’s command because he had dared to fall in love with the King’s favorite.

Wolsey reproached Northumberland: “My lord Earl, you should have let me know, that I might have done you the honor due to you!”

Northumberland was quiet; he had come to receive no honor, he said. His eyes burned oddly in his pallid face. Wolsey remembered stories he had heard of his unhappy marriage with Shrewsbury’s daughter. A man should not allow a marriage to affect him so strongly; there were other things in life. A man in Northumberland’s position had much; was he not reigning lord of one of the noblest houses in the land! Bah! thought Wolsey enviously, an I were earl . . .

He had an affection for this young man, remembering him well when he had served under him. A docile boy, a charming boy. He had been grieved when he had to send him away.

“It is well to meet again,” said Wolsey. “For old times’ sake.”

“For old times’ sake!” said Northumberland, and he spoke as a man speaks in his sleep.

“I mind thee well,” said Wolsey. “Thou wert a bright, impetuous boy.”

“I mind thee well,” said Northumberland.

With malice in his heart, he surveyed the broken old man. So were the mighty fallen from their high places! This man had done that for which he would never forgive him, for he had taken from him Anne Boleyn whom in six long years of wretched marriage he had never forgotten; nor had he any intention of forgiving Wolsey. Anne should have been his, and he Anne’s. They had loved; they had made vows; and this man, who dared now to remind him of the old times, had been the cause of all his misery. And now that he was old and broken, now that his ambition had destroyed him, Wolsey would be kind and full of tender reminiscence. But Percy also remembered!

“I have often thought of you,” he said, and that was true. When he had quarreled with Mary, his wife, whom he hated and who hated him, he thought of the Cardinal’s face and the stern words that he had used. “Thou foolish boy . . .” Would he never forget the bitter humiliation? No, he never would; and because he would never cease to reproach himself for his own misery, knowing full well that had he shown sufficient courage he might have made a fight for his happiness, he hated this man with a violent hatred. He stood before him, trembling with rage, for well he knew that she had contrived this, and that she would expect him to show now that courage he had failed to show seven years ago.

Northumberland laid his hand on Wolsey’s arm. “My lord, I arrest you of High Treason!”

The Earl was smiling courteously, but with malice; the Cardinal began to tremble.

Revenge was a satisfying emotion, thought the Earl. He who had made others to suffer, must now himself suffer.

“We shall travel towards London at the earliest possible moment,” he said.

This they did; and, trembling with his desire for vengeance, the Earl caused the Cardinal’s legs to be bound to the stirrups of his mule; thus did he proclaim to the world: “This man, who was once great, is now naught but a common malefactor!”

About Cawood the people saw the Cardinal go; they wept; they called curses on his enemies. He left Cawood with their cries ringing in his ears. “God save Your Grace! The foul evil take them that have taken you from us! We pray God that a very vengeance may light upon them!”

The Cardinal smiled sadly. Of late weeks, here in York, he had led that life which it would have become him as a churchman to have led before. Alms had he given to the people at his gates; his table had been over-flowing with food and wine, and at Cawood Castle had he entertained the beggars and the needy to whom he had given scarcely a thought at Hampton Court and York House; for Wolsey, who had once sought to placate his sense of inferiority, to establish his social standing, now sought a place in Heaven by his good deeds. He smiled at himself as he rode down to Leicester; his body was sick, and he doubted whether it would—indeed be prayed that it would not—last the journey to London. But he smiled, for he saw himself a man who has climbed high and has fallen low. Pride was my enemy, he said, as bitter an enemy as ever was the Lady Anne.

The rejoicing of the Boleyn faction at the death of Wolsey was shameless. None would have believed a year before that the greatest man in England could be brought so low. Wolsey, it was said, had died of a flux, but all knew he had died of a broken heart, for melancholy was as sure a disease as any other; and having lost all that he cared to live for, why should the Cardinal live? He to be taken to the Tower! He, who had loved his master, to be tried for High Treason!

Here was triumph for Anne. People sought her more than ever, flattered her, feted her. To be favored by Anne was to be favored by the King. She enjoyed her triumph and gave special revels to commemorate the defeat of her enemy. She was led into the bad taste of having a play enacted which treated the great Cardinal as a figure of fun.

George was as recklessly glad about Wolsey’s fall as she was. “While that man lived, I trembled for you,” he said. He laughed shortly. “I hear that near his end he told Kingston that had he served God as diligently as he had served the King, he would not have been given over in his gray hairs. I would say that had he served his God as diligently as he served himself, he would have gone to the scaffold long ere this!” People hearing this remark took it up and laughed over it.

The King did not attend these revels of the Boleyns. Having given the order for the arrest of Wolsey, he wished to shut the matter from his mind. He was torn between remorse and gladness. Wolsey had left much wealth, and into whose hands should this fall but the King’s!

Henry prayed: “O Lord, thou knowest I loved that man. I would I had seen him. I would I had not let his enemies keep him from me. Did I not send him tokens of my regard? Did I not say I would not lose the fellow for twenty thousand pounds?”

But he could not stop his thoughts straying to the Cardinal’s possessions. There was more yet that he must get his hands upon. Hampton Court was his; York House was his, for he had never given it back after Anne went to Suffolk House, liking it too well.

But he wept for the old days of friendship; he wept for Wolsey; and he was able to deplore his death whilst considering how much more there was in gold to come to him.

Soon after this there were two matters which caused Anne some misgiving. The first came in the form of a letter which the Countess of Northumberland had written to her father, the Earl of Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury had thought it wise to show this letter to the Duke of Norfolk, who had brought it to his niece with all speed.

Anne read the letter. There was no doubt of its meaning. Mary of Northumberland was leaving her husband; she told her father that in one of their more violent quarrels her husband had told her that he was not really married to her, being previously contracted to Anne Boleyn.

Anne’s heart beat fast. Here was yet another plot to discredit her in the eyes of the King. She had been his mistress for nearly two years, and it seemed to her that she was no nearer becoming Queen than she had been on that first night in Suffolk House. She was becoming anxious, wondering how long she could expect to keep the King her obedient slave. For a long time she had watched for some lessening of his affection; she had found none; she studied herself carefully for some deterioration of her beauty; if she were older, a little drawn, there were many more gorgeous clothes and priceless jewels to set against that. But she was worried, and though she told herself that she longed for a peaceful life and would have been happy had she married Percy or Wyatt she knew that the spark of ambition inside her had been fanned into a great consuming fire; and when she had said to Anne Saville that she would marry the King, no matter what happened to herself, she meant that. She was quite sure that, once she was Queen, she would give the King sons, that not only could she delight him as his mistress, but as mother of the future Tudor King of England. Having tasted power, how could she ever relinquish it! And this was at the root of her fear. The delay of the divorce, the awareness of powerful enemies all about her—this was what had made her nervous, imperious, hysterical, haughty, frightened.

Therefore she trembled when she read this letter.

“Give it to me,” she commanded.

“What will you do with it?” asked her uncle. She was unsure. He said: “You should show it to the King.”

She studied him curiously. Cold, hard, completely without sentiment, he despised these families which had sprung up, allied to his own house simply because the Norfolk fortunes were in decline at Henry the Seventh’s accession on account of the mistake his family had made in backing Richard the Third. She weighed his words. He was no friend of hers; yet was he an enemy? It would be more advantageous to see his niece on the throne of England than another’s niece.

She went to the King.

He was sitting in a window seat, playing a harp and singing a song he had written.

“Ah! Sweetheart, I was thinking of you. Sit with me, and I will sing to you my song . . . Why, what ails you? You are pale and trembling.”

She said: “I am afraid. There are those who would poison your mind against me.”

“Bah!” he said, feeling in a merry mood, for Wolsey had left riches such as even Henry had not dreamed of, and he had convinced himself that the Cardinal’s death was none of his doing. He had died of a flux, and a flux will attack a man, be he chancellor or beggar. “What now, Anne? Have I not told you that naught could ever poison my mind against you!”