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

Even Suffolk must squirm at those words; even Norfolk must turn his head away in shame.

But her voice broke suddenly when she mentioned her brother.

“As for my brother and those others who are unjustly accused, I would willingly suffer many deaths to deliver them.”

The Lord Mayor was very shaken, knowing now for certain what he had before suspected, that they had found nothing against her, only that they had resolved to make an occasion to get rid of her.

Back in her room, Anne relived it over and over again; she thanked God for the strength which had been hers; she prayed that she might have sustained courage.

Lady Kingston unbent a little now that she had been condemned to die and Mary Wyatt was allowed to come to her.

“You cannot know what comfort it is to me to see you here, Mary,” she said.

“You cannot know what comfort it gives me to come,” answered Mary.

“Weep not, Mary. This was inevitable. Do you not see it now? From the first moments in the garden of Hever. . . . But my thoughts run on. You know not of that occasion; nor do I wish to recall it. Ah, Mary, had I been good and sweet and humble as you ever were, this would never have befallen me. I was ambitious, Mary. I wanted a crown upon my head. Yet, looking back, I know not where I could have turned to tread another road. You must not weep, dear Mary, for soon I shall be past all pain. I should not talk of myself. What of George, Mary? Oh, what news of my sweet brother?”

Mary did not answer, but the tears, which she could not restrain, were answer enough.

“He defended himself most nobly, that I do not need to be told,” said Anne. Her eyes sparkled suddenly. “I wonder he did not confound them. Mary, dost remember old days at Blickling and Hever! When he had done aught that merited punishment, could he not always most convincingly defend himself? But this time . . . what had he done? He had loved his sister. May not a brother love his sister, but there must be those to say evil of him? Ah, George, this time when you were truly innocent, you could not save youself. This was not Blickling, George! This was not Hever! This was the wicked court of Henry, my husband, who now seeks to murder me as he will murder you!”

“Be calm,” said Mary. “Anne, Anne, you were so brave before those men. You must be brave now.”

“I would rather be the victim of a murderer, Mary, than be a murderer. Tell me of George.”

“He was right noble in his defense. Even Suffolk could scarce accuse him. There was much speculation in court. It was said: ‘None could name this man guilty!’”

“And what said they of . . . me and George?”

“They said what you would have expected them to say! Jane was there . . . a witness against him.”

“Jane!” Anne threw back her head and laughed. “I would not be in Jane’s shoes for years of life. Liar and perjurer that she is. She . . . out of jealousy, to bear false witness against her husband! But what could she say of him and me? What could she say?”

“She said that on one occasion he did come to your chamber while you were abed. He came to make some request and he kissed you. There seemed little else. It was shameful. They had naught against him. They could not call him guilty, but he . . .”

“Tell me all, Mary. Hold nothing back from me. Know you not what this means to me to have you here with me at last, after my dreary captivity with them that hate me? Be frank with me, Mary. Hold nothing back, for frankness is for friends.”

“They handed him a paper, Anne, for on it was a question they dared not ask and he . . .”

“Yes? What did he?”

“He, knowing how it would sorely discountenance them, should he read aloud what was written, read it aloud, in his reckless and impulsive way.”

“Ah! I know him well. For so would I have done in an unguarded moment. He had nothing but contempt for that group of selected peers—selected by the King whose one object is to destroy us—and he showed it by reading aloud that which was meant to be kept secret. It was of the King?”

Mary nodded. “That the King was not able to have children; that there was no virtue or potency in him. He was asked if he had ever said such things. And he read that aloud. No man could be allowed to live after that. But he meant to show his contempt for them all; he meant to show that he knew he had been condemned to die before the trial began. He asked then to plead guilty, solely that he might prevent his property passing into the hands of the King. The King could have his life but he should not have his goods.”

“Oh, George!” cried Anne. “And you to scold me for reckless folly! Mary, I cannot but weep, not for myself but for my brother. I led the way; he followed. I should go to the block for my careless ambition, for my foolish vanity. But that I should take him with me! Oh, Mary, I cannot bear that, so I weep and am most miserable. Oh, Mary, sit by me. Talk to me of our childhood. Thomas! What of Thomas? I cannot bear to think on those I have loved and brought to disaster.”

“Grieve not for Thomas. He would not have it so. He would not have you shed one tear for him, for well you know he ever loved you dearly. We hope for Thomas. He was not tried with the rest. Perhaps he will just be a prisoner awhile, for it is strange that he should not be tried with the others.”

“Pray for him, Mary. Pray that this awful fate may not befall him. Mayhap they have forgotten Thomas. Oh, pray that they have forgotten Thomas.”

When Mary left her she lay on her bed. She felt happier. Rather my lot, she thought, than the King’s. Rather my lot, than Jane Rochford’s. I would rather mine were the hapless head that rolled in the straw, than mine the murderous hand that signs the death warrant.

She was preparing herself for a journey. A summons had been brought to her that she was to make ready to go to the Archbishop at Lambeth. She was to go quietly; this was the King’s order. He wanted no hysterical crowds on the river’s bank to cheer her barge. He himself had received a copy of the summons, but he would not go; he would send his old proctor, Doctor Sampson, to represent him. Come face to face with Anne Boleyn! Never! There were too many memories between them. What if she tried her witcheries on him once more!

He felt shaken and ill at ease. He was sleeping badly; he would wake startled from bad dreams, calling her name and, with the daze of sleep still on him, think she was there beside him. He had dispatched Jane Seymour to her father’s house, since that was the most seemly place for her to be in. He did not wish to have her with him during the critical days, as he had announced that he was deeply grieved at the falseness of his wife and would not take another unless his people wished it. Jane should therefore not attract much attention. Her condition—early in pregnancy though she was—must be considered. So Henry sat alone, awaiting news from Lambeth; whilst Anne, who would have liked to refuse to answer the summons, left the Tower and went quietly up the river.

She was conducted to the crypt of the Archbishop’s residence and awaiting her there were Cranmer, looking troubled but determined to do his duty; Cromwell, looking more sly and ugly than ever; Doctor Sampson, to represent the King; and two doctors, Wotton and Barbour, who, most farcically, were supposed to represent her.

She had not been there for more than a few moments when she realized their cunning purpose.

Cranmer’s voice was silky. There was no man who could present a case as he could. His voice almost caressed her, expressing sympathy for her most unhappy state.

She was under the sentence of death, he said, by beheading . . . or burning.

Did he mean to stress that last word, or did she imagine this? The way in which he said it made her hot with fear; she felt as though the flames were already scorching her flesh.

The King’s conscience, went on Cranmer, troubled him sorely. She had been pre-contracted to Northumberland! That, she would understand, would make her marriage with the King illegal.

She cried: “Northumberland was brought before you. You yourself accepted . . .”

Cranmer was quiet and calm, so capable of adjusting his opinion, so clever, so intellectual, so impossible to confound.

The King himself had been indiscreet. Yes, His Majesty was ready to admit it. An association with Anne’s sister. An affinity created.

Cranmer spread his hands as though to say, Now, you see how it is. You were never really married to the King!

She could hold her head high in the crypt at Lambeth as she had in that other court where they had condemned her. They would need her acknowledgment of this, would they not? Well, they should never get it.

Cranmer was pained and sad. He had loved her well, he said.

She thought, How I hate all hypocrites! Fool I may be but I am no hypocrite. How I hate you, Cranmer! I helped you to your present position. You too, Cromwell. But neither of you would think of helping me! But Cranmer I hate more than Cromwell for Cranmer is a hypocrite, and perhaps I hate this in men because I am married to the most shameless one that ever lived.

Cranmer was talking in his deep sonorous voice. He had a gift for making suggestions without expressing actual statements. She was thinking, I have my little daughter to consider. She shall never be called bastard.

Cranmer’s voice went droning on. He was hinting at her release. There was a pleasant convent at Antwerp. What of the young men whose fate she deplored and whose innocence she proclaimed? All the country knew how she esteemed her brother, and he her. Was he to go to the block? What of her daughter? The King would be more inclined to favor a child whose mother had impressed him with her good sense.

Anne’s mind was working quickly. It was painfully clear. She must make a choice. If her marriage to the King were proved null and void then that was all he need ask for. He could marry Jane Seymour immediately if his marriage with Anne Boleyn had been no marriage at all. The child Jane carried would be born in wedlock. And for this, Anne was offered a convent in Antwerp, the lives of her brother and those innocent men who were to die with him. And if not . . . Once more she was hot with the imaginary fire that licked her limbs. And what would her refusal mean in any case? If the King had decided to disinherit Elizabeth, he would surely do so. He had ever found excuses for what he wished to do.

She had something to gain and nothing to lose, for if she had not been married to the King, how could she have committed adultery? The affairs of Lady Anne Rochford and the Marchioness of Pembroke could not be called treason to the King.

Her hopes were soaring. She thought, Oh, George, my darling, I have saved you! You shall not die. Gladly I will throw away my crown to save you!

Cromwell went back to his master rubbing his ugly hands with pleasure. Once more he had succeeded. The King was free to take a new wife whenever he wished, for he had never been married to Anne Boleyn. She herself had agreed upon it.

It was over. They had tricked her. At the King’s command she had stood and watched them as they passed by her window on their way to Tower Hill. She had sacrificed her own and her daughter’s rights in vain. Although she was no queen, these men had died. It was not reasonable; it was not logical; it was simply murder.

She herself had yet another day to live through. Mary Wyatt came to tell her how nobly these men had died, following the example of George, how they had made their speeches, which etiquette demanded, on the scaffold, how they had met their deaths bravely.

“What of Smeaton?” she asked. She thought of him still as a soft-eyed boy, and she could not believe that he would not tell the truth on the scaffold. Mary was silent and Anne cried out: “Has he not cleared me of the public shame he hath done me!” She surveyed Mary’s silent face in horror. “Alas,” she said at length and in great sorrow, “I fear his soul will suffer from the false witness he hath borne.”

Her face lightened suddenly.

“Oh, Mary,” she cried, “It will not be long now. My brother and the rest are now, I doubt not, before the face of the greater King, and I shall follow tomorrow.”

When Mary left her her sadness returned. She wished they had not given her fresh hope in the Lambeth Crypt. She had resigned herself to death, and then they had promised her she should live, and life was so sweet. She was twenty-nine and beautiful; and though she had thought herself weary of living, when they had given her that peep into a possible future, how eagerly she had grasped at it!

She thought of her daughter, and trembled. Three is so very young. She would not understand what had happened to her mother. Oh, let them be kind to Elizabeth.

She asked that Lady Kingston might come to her, and when the woman came she locked the door and with tears running down her cheeks, asked that Lady Kingston would sit in her chair of state.

Lady Kingston herself was moved in face of such distress.

“It is my duty to stand in the presence of the Queen, Madam,” she said.

“That title is gone,” was the answer. “I am a condemned person, and, I have no estate left me in this life, but for the clearing of my conscience, I pray you sit down.”

She began to weep, and her talk was incoherent, and humbly she fell upon her knees and begged that Lady Kingston would go to Mary, the daughter of Katharine, and kneel before her and beg that she would forgive Anne Boleyn for the wrong she had done her.

“For, my Lady Kingston,” she said, “till this be accomplished, my conscience cannot be quiet.”

After that she was more at peace and did not need to thrust the thought of her daughter from her mind.

The news was brought to her that her death should not take place at the appointed hour; there had been a postponement. She had been most gay, and to learn that she was to have a few more hours on Earth was a disappointment to her.

“Mr. Kingston,” she said, “I hear I shall not die afore noon, and I am very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time and past my pain.”

“The pain will be little,” he told her gently, “it is so subtle.”

She answered; “I have heard say the executioner is very good, and I have a little neck.”

She embraced it with her hands and laughed; and when her laughter had subsided, a great peace came to her. She had another day to live and she had heard that the King wished the hour of her execution to be kept secret, and that it was not to take place on Tower Hill where any idle spectator might see her die, but on the enclosed green; for the King feared the reactions of the people.

The evening passed; she was gay and melancholy in turns; she joked about her end. “I shall be easily nicknamed—‘Queen Anne . . . sans tete.’”

She occupied herself in writing her own dirge.

“Oh death, rock me asleep,

Bring on my quiet rest,

Let pass my very guiltless ghost

Out of my careful breast.

Ring out the doleful knell

Let its sound my death tell;

For I must die,