The Queen of Subtleties

Anne Boleyn

We moved into 1527 and it seemed that the rain that’d started a year earlier still didn’t let up. Spring was slow off the ground. Our rooms were choked with woodsmoke, our clothes bitter-smelling with it. I remember my brother’s wife at a window, wondering, ‘When will this weather break?’ I remember the longing in her voice. The weather didn’t bother me greatly; I was happy and had so much to look forward to. Henry would be divorced, that year, and he’d marry me. I’d be queen, we’d have a baby prince, and there would be a long-overdue new beginning: a young, strong monarchy, busy and respected in Europe. There’d be reform, if I had my way, and of course I would have my way. I wasn’t interested in looking out of windows at monotonous, drenching rain.

Mid-May, when summer should have been peeking from the trees but was in fact still slithering in the mud, Henry asked for an ecclesiastical court to meet in secret to rule his marriage invalid. Wolsey, Warham—the old archbishop—and the other bishops, and a lot of church lawyers, they were all there: the great and the good, in most people’s view, although I can think of other ways to describe them. They informed Henry that he’d be called to give evidence. He did his homework. He was nervous, and asked me to listen to him rehearsing his case. As far as I could see, there was no case to answer; it was open and shut: she was no wife to him. And anyway, why answer to them? ‘Who’s king?’ I’d complain. It infuriated me that he had to go scraping and bowing to those old men in their dingy robes.

I was right not to have held them in any esteem. They heard him out (which was big of them), then met twice more (to avail themselves of Henry’s ample hospitality), before announcing on the very last day of May that they weren’t men enough to give a ruling without the blessing of the Pope. Well, there was one problem with that: three weeks earlier, Rome and the Pope had been taken by the Imperial Army. Catherine’s own nephew, the emperor, was holding the Pope captive. How likely was it that the Pope could rule unfavourably for his captor’s aunt?

Nevertheless, that was what Wolsey reckoned we had to have: the Pope’s permission. But then off he went to France—with boatloads of servants—on some vague, alliance-building, anti-Spanish mission. I can’t say I missed him, but I was annoyed by the delay he was causing us. Although Henry knew, by now, not to bother asking me to spend the nights with him, there were evenings now when I made a point of retiring early. You know the deal, my sour glance said; sort it out.

I didn’t have all that many opportunities for sweeping exits, though, because Henry insisted I spend much of my time back at Hever. Something I hadn’t foreseen was that Henry now had to look respectable. He was a king anxious about his sinful marriage; not an adulterer. No one should know about me; although of course everyone did. Or, they knew something; but perhaps, like Wolsey, they assumed I was a distraction for Henry before the next royal marriage. Nevertheless, they were to see no distractions. Just a distraught, godly king.

So, back to Hever for me while a lot of incompetent, Pope-obsessed old men mishandled Henry’s case for him. Although I love Hever, I’d have put up more of a fight if I’d known that I’d end up spending the best part of two years of the prime of my life holed up there. Back and forth to Hever, where I had only my mother and our maids for daily company. Visiting the parish sick and giving to the parish poor. Lacemaking and lute-playing. Looking at the view. Looking into the moat. Hoping hard for visitors—as long as they didn’t include Auntie Liz, who came regularly to treat us to complaints about her estranged husband—my Uncle Norfolk—and his new girlfriend. No matter that he was my mother’s brother and my uncle; we were a captive audience, so we’d do. She’d exhausted everyone else’s goodwill with her lies about Beth (a washerwoman? She’d worked in their household, yes, but as nanny, and the children adored her). Every visit, she pressed us for our support, and I suppose we let her think she had it—raising our eyebrows, sighing indignantly—just to get rid of her. The truth is that the one human move Uncle Norfolk has ever made, in his whole life, was to leave that thin-lipped, bile-sodden Stafford-daughter, to take his children with him away from their slap-happy mother, and set up home with Beth.

I’d sit there, across from Auntie Liz, thinking how there’d bound to be this kind of carry-on from Fat Cath once she knew about me. But at least I wouldn’t be the one to have to hear it. Indeed, as few people as possible should hear anything of it. To contain her protests, I decided, Henry should present their separation as a fait accompli.

Tell her nothing, I’d say.

And he’d look lily-livered.

‘Henry…’

And he’d smile, but look away.

Mid-June, while I was stuck at Hever and unable to stop him, he did it: he went to her, told her that their marriage seemed to be invalid and would have to be annulled. Imagine a female version of the Pope being told that she’d been living in sin for nearly twenty years. She reacted as you’d expect: cried. A lot. And he—stupid sod—did what you’d predict: got flustered. Giving her time to dry those tears and insist that what she’d said at the time was true: she’d never slept with his brother; so, that first marriage was no marriage at all. She seemed to be blaming it all on Wolsey; she couldn’t believe it of Henry.

Henry has never been any good at secrets. He’d told my father our plans back before those ineffectual meetings of the bishops in May.

‘I’ve told your father,’ he’d owned up, somehow both shamefaced and proud.

‘You’ve told my father?’

When I next saw my father, the next day, on our way into the council chamber to dine, I didn’t quite know what to say. ‘You’ve heard,’ was what I managed. My mother wouldn’t yet know: she was at Hever, and my father hadn’t been back there for a couple of weeks. And no way would he have trusted the news to a letter, to servants’ hands. I suppose I wasn’t quite sure what he’d think. He’s an intensely ambitious man, so of course he’d relish the prospect of his daughter as queen. But as befits the highest of achievers, he’s a formidable pragmatist. He requires everything to run smoothly. No unnecessary risks. He might have been anticipating trouble that I couldn’t foresee, and trouble would have been the last thing he’d want for the Boleyns. As it happened, though, he nodded appreciatively. Slightly incredulous, I thought. ‘Good move,’ was all he said.

He’d already told Uncle Norfolk, his brother-in-law: this I discovered when my uncle immediately left his place at his table and came over to say, ‘I’ve heard.’ That sharp-toothed smile on that pointed face. Admiration, avarice, and envy, all at once. No incredulity. ‘Congratulations,’ he whispered. ‘This really is something.’ For us, he meant; for our families. And then, ‘We’ll have Wolsey running for cover, won’t we,’ and there was that phlegmy laugh of his as he turned and was on his way.

They thought they were the first to know, those two, my father and my uncle, but of course I’d already told my brother, George. He’d been impatient at my previous reticence with Henry. He was as ambitious as my father and me; but he lacked, on the one hand, my father’s caution and, on the other, my desire to play for the highest stakes. He simply took whatever—or whomever—was available. He was good at seeing what might be available to him, and making sure that it—or he, or she—then was. He couldn’t appreciate what would be wrong with being Henry’s mistress. ‘Listen,’ I’d told him, often enough: ‘I want a proper marriage.’ We both knew what that meant: a marriage nothing like his. It had been regarded as a good marriage, the marriage between the Boleyn boy and the Parker girl, but it wasn’t good for them. Not that I cared about her. They’d married at parental instigation, back when I was heartsick over Harry Percy. Three years had passed and there was no pretence now that there was anything between them. At the time, George had tried to persuade me that she perhaps wasn’t all that bad, and, when I’d sceptically raised an eyebrow, admitted, ‘Well, what difference does it make, anyway.’ Sure enough, he’d continued womanizing and God knows what else. What he hadn’t bargained for was her open, much-voiced displeasure. I don’t know what she’d expected, marrying George.

Make no mistake, I had no sympathy for her and if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have wished her more than marital unhappiness. I might not have had the gift of foresight, but I did have sharp instincts and I knew from the beginning to mistrust her. She tried to be sisterly with me, at first. Well, I had one sister and I didn’t need another. More importantly, I had a brother, and my allegiance was to him. And I could sense that he’d need it before long. In those early days, she’d bring me things. Posies. Do I seem like someone who has any use for posies? There was a heaviness to it, this present-giving. Ceremony, bribery: Look, I’ve brought you something.

What she wanted from me was Thank you, thank you, thank you, although I doubt there’d ever have been enough thanks. And she’d have liked, Here in return is just a little something I’ve picked for you, cooked for you, sewn for you, grown for you.

What she was after was attention. Conspiracy, even.

Well, no. No way.

We’re friends, you and I, she’d say, aren’t we. Desperate, pushing it, ready for the spurning which she’d wanted all along so that she could say, That Boleyn bitch…which was what she’d always thought. And with that, she could claim herself some more attention, build herself some more conspiracy. In her view, George and I were in league against her and she was keen to out-do us.

When Henry agreed to go for a divorce, George was who I told. I tracked him down to Francis’s room; he was playing poker with Francis, Billy and Harry Norris. The room stank of ale and I’d have liked to open the window, but I circled the table—only Harry glancing up at me, a half-smile—to whisper in my brother’s ear, ‘It’s on.’

‘Hmm?’

‘The wedding,’ I breathed, so that no one else could hear. ‘Mine and Henry’s.’

Is it possible that someone sitting completely still can turn even more so? Because that’s what he did. All except the eyes—those big, dark Boleyn-eyes—which swooped up to mine.

‘Anne,’ this was Francis, for once oblivious, merely irritated at the interruption; he spoke without raising his one uncovered eye, ‘fuck off

It was George who was waiting to greet me at the gatehouse at Beaulieu, that August, after Henry had finally relented and allowed me out of confinement at Hever to join him and the select few of his household spending the month there. George came up the avenue to meet us, calling, ‘Well, look who it is!’

‘Yes,’ I said, as he helped me down, ‘your future queen—’ which made him laugh—‘and, would you believe, her chaperone.’ I nodded towards Mum, who bridled. Poor Mum, she had been Henry’s one condition, and I doubt the prospect was all that enticing for her. George kissed her, reassured her, ‘You’ll love it; it’s lovely, here.’

She did; it was. Despite the dank weather—cloud-stuffed skies, splashy summer rain—it was an idyll. The garden’s resilient lavender borders puffed scent when brushed by our skirts, and we grew as sleepy on it as if we were sitting in sunshine. Henry went hunting all day, every day. Sometimes I joined him, sometimes I chose to stay. I was among friends. One afternoon in particular I remember: cherry-picking with Harry Norris, who’d earlier had one of his headaches and missed the hunt. Also there in the orchard—also cherry-picking—was the confectioner’s boy; or that’s who he said he was, when we asked him. Funny little kid. All eyes. All ears, no doubt, while Harry and I gossiped. But then, quite abruptly, he seemed self-absorbed, up to something. When we challenged him, he reluctantly opened his cupped hands to reveal a scrawny fledgling.

‘Something’s wrong with it,’ he confided, hushed, pained. ‘It can’t fly.’

Harry took a closer look. ‘It’s scared,’ he said, gently. ‘It’s a baby. That’s all. We have to let it go.’

The boy looked panic-stricken. ‘But it can’t fly.’

‘It will,’ Harry reassured him. ‘Chances are, it will.’

Dear Harry, he was a favourite of my mother’s, a feeling which was reciprocated. She was the oldest person at Beaulieu, a distinction which she learned to play up to and was amply rewarded for, all the boys being fond of her. Gone were the likes of Uncle Norfolk—to Beth, in his case, at Kenning Hall—and of course Wolsey was a million miles away, in France. We could be ourselves. Our meals were gloriously informal—no separate chambers—and we all dined on whatever Henry hauled home with him. Henry could eat uninterrupted by Wolsey’s usual end-of-day missives: no dictating a response, his meal going cold while he did so. We ate so well; it was impossible to give credence to the occasional reports we had from London of people crushed to death around bread carts. Impossible, too, out there in the calm, empty countryside, to worry about the reportedly rampaging sweating sickness. We were safe. Henry had brought his confectioner with him and her stunning, glinting work was brought into us every evening after dinner. Silly on sugar, with specks of goldleaf between our teeth and under our fingernails, we all danced and talked for hours, laughing at Henry’s fool’s dry, witty commentary on us.

Even though our time at Beaulieu was almost unimaginably private, Henry and I knew that this was it: we’d gone public. And sure enough, Señor Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, wasted no time in reporting back on us. I doubt his letter arrived in Spain long after we arrived home at Greenwich in September. Suspiciously absent from Greenwich when we returned was Henry’s own sister, Mary. And, pointedly, she stayed absent. Well, she could talk!—what had she done, if not make an enormous fuss about marrying for love? Done her duty first time around, by marrying the old French king, but only on the understanding that she could marry Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, when it was all over. Wasn’t that what her brother was doing, marrying for love? True, he wasn’t widowed as she’d been, but otherwise it was exactly what she’d done. Secretly, it irked me that she wasn’t a supporter of mine. Like any girl, I’d been quite besotted with her when I was younger: all that flaming hair, and the fire in her eyes. But Charlie Brandon? Well, I know he was supposed to have been a heartthrob, in his day, but I just couldn’t see it, couldn’t imagine it. A wet fish, was my view. A close friend of my Uncle Norfolk’s, which, for me, just about says it all.

Henry’s attitude to some people being scandalized by us was that we should take advantage of our intentions now being known. He sent Sir William Knight to Rome for permission for him to marry again: an English girl, this time. Which, incidentally, he was granted, although he was required to be free of Catherine. En route to Rome, Sir William had dropped in to see Wolsey; and it was then that Wolsey finally, belatedly knew Henry’s plans. The wording on Sir William’s document didn’t name me but there couldn’t have been any mistaking who it meant. And Sir William would have told him that we’d been at Beaulieu. I bet it turned Wolsey cold, the thought of it: all of that lot, there; and me, a million miles away. When he arrived back—hurriedly, I bet—from France, we were at Greenwich. We were at dinner. He sent one of his staff to inform Henry of his arrival, expecting his usual private audience. Conceited bastard. I leaned across to the servant before Henry could say a word. ‘Tell him,’ I said, ‘that he can come here like anyone else.’

Our cordiality was waning, mine and Wolsey’s, but Wolsey put on a brave face. Two-faced, you might say.

Well, I could play him at that game. I was as nice as pie. And in the letter he sent with his envoys to the Pope, the following February, he made me out to be a paragon. It must have pained him to sing the praises of the upstart he loathed. Just as it pained me to appear interested in, and grateful for, his various, useless schemes. But I needed him, for the while, because Henry wasn’t yet ready to listen to anyone else’s advice. And Wolsey needed me, now, because I was the centre of Henry’s world. He wasn’t invited to Windsor with us in March: another idyllic month for Henry and me, nowhere near Catherine, albeit with my mother again as chaperone. A month in springtime in the country, while our two trusted envoys, bearing a letter of extravagant praise, were granted an audience with the Pope: I think I can be forgiven for thinking that everything was going very well. And for a while longer, it did.

Our two envoys, Eddie Fox and Stephen Gardiner, came ashore at Sandwich one morning in May. Still sea-legged, they managed to ride through the afternoon to Greenwich, desperate to tell Henry their news. Having heard the gist, he immediately turned them around and sent them across the courtyard to my rooms. They arrived dusty and sweaty at my door, Eddie Fox’s eyes bloodshot. The news was that they’d got what they’d gone for: the Pope would do as Wolsey had requested and send a legate to try our case in England. I laughed, and they laughed: the three of us, half-delirious. Annie, my maid, was suddenly there, her hand on my shoulder, her own laughter a hum. My mother put down her sewing. My brother appeared from my bedroom, where he’d been teaching French to Franky Weston.

‘What?’ he demanded.

‘I think it’s starting to go our way,’ I told him. ‘I think we’re winning. Some papal lackey is coming all the way to rainy England to rule Henry’s marriage over.’ I shooed the two men away: ‘Go and tell Wolsey, at York Place.’ To be honest, they were reeking, and I reckoned Wolsey should have to see to them.

That summer, I nearly died. What would have happened if I had? Would Henry have stayed with the ridiculous Spaniard? I do think he might have done, more fool him; I doubt he’d have seen the divorce through. I suspect he’d have seen my death as God’s judgement; he’d have been scared out of his wits, chastened. In his own way he’s a very God-fearing man—he has good reason, doesn’t he—but nothing terrifies him as much as illness. For a brave man, he’s easily scared. He’d have sacrificed me—the dream of me, the memory of me—to keep himself free from sickness, I suspect. He’d have been the model husband again and no one would have ever spoken of me. That’s what I think. But of course I’m cynical, these days.

That summer’s awful bout of ‘the sweat’ started with Wolsey’s report of a couple of deaths one day in his household. Immediately, Henry was on the move from Greenwich, with both Catherine and me, in pursuit of fresh air. We took few staff, for speed; the most important member of our little travelling household being Henry’s apothecary, Mr Blackden. Our first stop, Waltham Abbey, was no refuge: there was a death on the evening we arrived. The next morning, Henry revised his plans and sent me home to Hever. Hever’s a good place, he insisted: you’re lucky. He—and Catherine—moved on to Hunsdon, that day; and kept moving, every day, chased by the disease—a death here, three deaths there—until they arrived at Wolsey’s vacant manor in the back of beyond at Tittenhanger. There, Franky Weston later informed me, Henry had the walls and floors washed with vinegar, and fires burned in every room to burn up any bad air. For fresher air, he wanted his bedroom window enlarged. So, local workmen arrived, and made a lot of mess and dust. Henry’s mind had turned to higher matters, though: he was busy trying to appease his disgruntled God by saying confession daily and hearing Mass—with Catherine—more than he usually would.

‘Yes, yes,’ I said impatiently to Franky, ‘but did they…?’

‘Did they…?’

‘Him and the queen: you know.’

‘Oh. No.’

‘You sure?’

Franky assured me that he’d had the job, nightly, of sleeping in Henry’s room, on hand in case of an emergency. ‘And he smelt vile,’ he added, ‘from Mr Blackden’s potions.’

Hever, in contrast, was entirely as normal—until Dad and I became ill. People say of sweating sickness, Fine at lunch, dead by supper. On the day concerned, Dad and I were fine at lunch, but by mid-afternoon it was clear that we wouldn’t be showing up for supper. Not that I knew anything about Dad; I knew nothing but the ball in my throat and the fire in my joints. I now know that Mum sent one of our servants at speed to Henry, but all I knew at the time was the momentary relief of water-soaked linen strips to my forehead. She’d sent Annie from my room and was nursing me—and Dad. She’d learned from her stepmother, who had a reputation for being able to beat ‘the sweat’ (and indeed everything and everyone else that didn’t meet with her approval; not for nothing was she the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk). Bed, my grandmother reckoned, for a day and a night; no food for a day, a night and a day; no visitors for a week; and as many spoonfuls of some herbal, treacly concoction of hers that a delirious person could be tricked into taking.

By the time that Henry’s trusted Dr Butts arrived on our drawbridge, both Dad and I had survived into the ‘no visitors’ stage. An exception was made for one of the king’s doctors, of course, and I made the most of it. He and I ended up talking about the new ideas, the changes in what we believed and how we believed. No morbid priest-lover, Dr Butts; instead, a gently sensible man with a sense of humour. It’s not that I was starved of like-minded company when I was home. Quite the opposite. Nor back at court, where my brother’s radical friends had become mine and I was no longer in Catherine’s service. But after those few days of wild sickness and my mother’s ministrations, I felt stunningly isolated. Dr Butts did me the favour of staying for I don’t know how long on a stool by my bed, talking about the future while the June rain sloshed into the moat and the day’s light thinned.