The Favored Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Third Wife Read online

  Cardinal Wolsey, the wealthiest and most powerful of the dignitaries and certainly the largest in girth and bulk, stood near the king, his flowing crimson damask robes, heavy gold cross and jeweled rings gleaming. And not far from the cardinal I noticed Thomas Boleyn, Anne’s father, who was much whispered about because he was said to be rising in influence and wealth and getting above himself. He was only a gentleman, not a nobleman, but he was married to the Duke of Norfolk’s sister Elizabeth, and with the duke’s aid and influence behind him, was doing his best to make himself indispensable to the king.

  All this interested me, I confess. My brother Ned was always eager to hear from me what was being said—often in low tones—in the queen’s chamber and he in turn passed on to me what he was hearing and what he was told by his servants.

  Oh, the court was full of gossip just then! There was so much uncertainty about the future, and an unsettled feeling about the times we were living in. The court was a seething hive of rumor and talebearing, and the elevation of Henry Fitzroy only made the rumors and tales increase.

  Would the diminutive, unhealthy Henry Fitzroy live to become king? And if he did not, would the king contrive to set his queen aside and marry a woman who was fertile? What did the astrologers and fortunetellers have to say? What women did the king prefer to have near him, either in his apartments or in the Maidens’ Bower, that chamber of delights? Would Henry Fitzroy’s mother become the royal mistress once again?

  On and on, back and forth, the gossip flew, so much of it swirling around the small boy who was about to become Duke of Richmond and Somerset.

  Trumpets blew a fanfare, and the choir began to sing. I guessed that the king, who was a gifted composer, had written this anthem in celebration of his son’s creation as duke. As the voices rang out, the boy and his two supporters reached the platform where the king stood, and went up the few steps to reach it. Then the men moved aside, leaving only the boy and his father.

  The ducal coronet was produced, and King Henry placed it carefully on his son’s head. A mantle of purple velvet furred with ermine was placed around Henry Fitzroy’s slender shoulders, and fastened with a golden pin. Prayers were said, oaths repeated. Then came a shout of acclamation, and a final flourish of trumpets, the new Duke of Richmond and Somerset was hailed and reverenced by all present, and the king impulsively reached down and picked up his small son, swinging him up in his arms as if he had been no heavier than a puppy and striding down into the crowd to show him off. In the commotion, the boy’s coronet fell to the floor and Thomas Boleyn, alert to the emergency, dove down amid the mass of skirts and shoes and retrieved it. He handed it, smiling, to the king who snatched it and replaced it on little Fitzroy’s head.

  But the noise, the crowd, the king’s exuberant tossing and swinging of his son were upsetting the boy. I was near enough to see that his face was crumpling and he was starting to sniffle, then to cough.

  The king’s expression darkened. Abruptly he handed his son to the nearest woman—the boy’s hovering mother, Elizabeth Blount—and strode off toward the banqueting hall, where a feast had been prepared. As he walked he burst into song—one of his own songs, “To the greenwood go”—and soon the spacious hall was all but empty. Yet I saw that Elizabeth Blount still lingered, sitting quietly in a recessed window-seat with her son beside her, talking to him softly and wiping the tears from his face. As I went to join the other maids of honor at the banquet I could hear him coughing.

  * * *

  I had already ordered my wedding gown from Mr. Skut the queen’s dressmaker. It was to have been the loveliest gown I had ever worn, the bodice and sleeves of a pale watery blue—the blue of the spring sky—and the wide skirt and petticoats of cream satin. Mr. Skut had smiled when he held the blue cloth up to me and nodded approvingly.

  “Yes, this will suit,” he said in his usual understated way—but I could tell that he was very pleased with the effect.

  That had been a happy afternoon. Now, with a heavy heart, I had to tell Mr. Skut I would not be needing the gown after all.

  I had sent a message to him, asking him to come to the queen’s apartments. He arrived, bringing two assistants and a seamstress. They were loaded down with baskets of cloth and lace and trimmings.

  “Ah, Mr. Skut,” I said when he arrived, “I’m afraid I must ask you not to go any further in making my lovely wedding dress. You see, there is not going to be a wedding after all.”

  He looked very surprised. “No wedding? But your plans were all made. I do hope there has not been a dreadful accident of some sort—”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “Not a death in the family I trust?”

  I shook my head. I did not want to have to account for my change in plans, even to think of it made me both sad and angry.

  He looked at me gravely.

  “But you, Mistress Seymour, such a fine young lady, of high breeding and pleasant in manner, entirely satisfactory—indeed superior—in every way?” He paused. “Ah, pardon me. It must be the gentleman who was unsatisfactory. Forgive me.”

  The conversation was proving to be more painful than I expected. I swallowed. I felt my face growing hot.

  “The gentleman is certainly not unsatisfactory. He is Will Dormer—”

  “Of the Maidens’ Bower?” Mr. Skut lifted one eyelid quizzically. I knew what he was thinking: Will had found another woman he liked better than me. And he had found her among the fallen women (as my late grandmother would have called them) in the Maidens’ Bower.

  “My Will is the best and most loving of men,” I said staunchly.

  “Then why—”

  “The cause is not important,” I said, rather too brusquely, wishing Mr. Skut would leave.

  But he lingered, looking uncomfortable.

  “I assure you, the gown will be paid for,” I added—and was immediately aware that I had said the wrong thing. For he was lingering, not because he was worried about his pay, but because he was concerned for me.

  “As you say, the cause is not important, only the wellbeing of the bride,” the dressmaker said gently. “We will put the gown away for now. It can always be completed at another time, when a happier betrothal is announced.”

  His kindliness affected me deeply. I thought I might start to cry. I shook my head, thinking there will be no other time, no happier betrothal. But before I could say what I was thinking, the assistants had lifted the elaborate blue bodice and pair of slashed sleeves and one silken petticoat out of their baskets and were shaking them out and displaying them to full advantage.

  Seeing them, I felt more forlorn than ever.

  Just then Bridget Wiltshire came into the room.

  “Mr. Skut! I thought I heard your voice.” She looked quickly from the dressmaker to me—in my distress—and then at the elaborate bodice and sleeves and petticoat.

  “How beautiful!” she exclaimed. “And I thought you were making your most pleasing gown for me!”

  Bridget’s wedding to Lord Wingfield was to take place in a month’s time, and Mr. Skut was making her gown.

  “Jane?” She looked at me once again, a quizzical expression on her narrow face. It was all I could do to remain self-possessed enough to say, somewhat haltingly, “Mr. Skut has been sewing this gown for me, and may complete it later on.” With that I took my leave, doing my best to keep my composure.

  But Bridget was too clever not to realize that something was wrong. She had a nose for trouble, the queen liked to say of her, partly in admiration, partly in distaste. I sensed that Queen Catherine had never found Bridget Wiltshire ladylike enough to satisfy her, or to be truly worthy of membership in her household.

  “Jane! Wait!” She followed me into another antechamber. “That beautiful gown—is it to be for your wedding? Are you secretly betrothed?”

  “I am not,” I answered irritably. “If I was, my family would announce it.” I had not spoken to any of the other maids of honor about Will, or of the plans we had
made together.

  Bridget looked fully into my eyes, and when I met her steady gaze I was surprised to see there, not only curiosity and interest, but a measure of friendly concern. I had always thought of Bridget as lightminded and frivolous, self-regarding and oblivious of the needs of others. Anne Boleyn had these qualities, and Bridget was her closest friend; I assumed Bridget had them too.

  “If it is a question of a payment to Mr. Skut,” she said now, “I will loan you what you need.”

  Her generosity unnerved me. I shook my head, unable to speak. Once again I was near tears.

  “Jane?” Bridget’s voice was soft. All of a sudden I felt something give way within me. I felt the full weight of my sorrow, bearing down with merciless force. I gave in. My tears flowed freely.

  Bridget produced a handkerchief at once, and led me to a cushioned bench.

  “Tell me all,” she said, her voice as practical in tone as it was sympathetic. “And then I will tell you what has happened to me.”

  “To you?”

  “Go ahead. Tell me.” She did not say, “Hurry up and get on with it,” but she might as well have. Knowing that she was eager to share something with me—and that she had trouble too—lifted my sorrow a little.

  “Where to begin?” I mumbled.

  “Who is the man?”

  “How did you know—”

  She shrugged.

  “I—we—” I was rarely at a loss for words, but I was now. I cleared my throat and wiped my nose.

  “Will Dormer and I want to marry, and have wanted it for a long time,” I managed to say. “But Will’s parents want him to marry Mary Sidney instead. They have refused their permission.”

  “And you imagine that you could never love anyone but Will—and that you could not bring yourself to marry for any reason other than love, as Lavinia will probably do. All Lavinia cares about is having a rich husband.”

  “I love Will,” was all I said.

  “What if you marry him without his family’s blessing?”

  I shook my head. “The disgrace would be terrible.” Even as I said this I was thinking, there will be disgrace in any event, once my father’s behavior with Will’s sister becomes known. But at least Will won’t be harmed by it.

  “Tell me what has happened to you,” I said to Bridget, relieved to be shifting my thoughts from my own difficulties to hers.

  Hearing my words a hard, grim expression came over her face, her mouth firm and her eyes unsparing.

  “My friend Anne,” she said, “tried to take Richard—Lord Wingfield—from me. She laid her plans with care. She went to her brother George (George will do anything she asks, they say he has been that way since they were children) and told him she wanted him to take Richard hunting. Richard loves to hunt, of course he agreed. Then she said she wanted to go along, and she promised Richard she would bring me along as well. But of course that was a lie. She never invited me—never even told me the three of them were going.”

  Listening, I shook my head. “Deception,” I said, and Bridget nodded.

  “Well,” she resumed, “they got to the hunting lodge, a place deep in the forest, where there was no one to observe them, and no family to restrain them. Anne had her maidservant with her, but according to Richard she tripped the girl, injuring her but making it look like an accident, and then sent her back to London. For the next few days they were alone—except for the huntsmen and grooms.”

  “And you didn’t know anything of this?” I asked.

  Bridget shook her head.

  “Anne chose her time carefully. She knew I would be in the West Country with my uncle and aunt, preparing for my cousin’s wedding, during George’s hunting trip. She was clever—she is clever. And devious.” Bridget smiled. “It is her nature.”

  “What happened there in the forest?”

  “She went to Richard, and boldly offered herself to him—if he would promise to marry her. He refused.”

  “Yet you are still friends. You stood with her this morning, in the queen’s bedchamber, laughing and talking as always. How could you do that?”

  “I wasn’t completely surprised by what she did. I know her nature. She is wayward, and has been since we were young girls. We were in Brabant together, in the household of the Archduchess Margaret, and Anne tried to seduce our chaperone, Seigneur Bouton. She was barely fourteen then. She did it because she knew her sister had slept with him. She was always trying to outdo her sister, you know. When we moved on to France, a few years later, she and her sister Mary were always competing over men. They were quite notorious.”

  I had heard it said of Anne that she was a wanton girl, like her sister, whose liaison with the king we were forbidden to mention in Queen Catherine’s apartments. But until then I had never heard anyone confirm this gossip as true, or talk of any sisterly competition between them.

  “If anyone tried to take my Will from me, I’d kill her,” I said impetuously.

  “Not if you had seen her attempt to do the same thing many times before—with any number of men—and fail. I watched Anne once at a banquet in Paris. The entire French court was there, from King Francis and Queen Claude to the king’s very pious, very moral mother Louise of Savoy. The hour grew late, the guests began to be sodden with wine. We English girls were dressed in gowns of the newest Italian style, brought from Venice—the women in Venice are very bold, as you may know, and very sensual. The bodices of our gowns were daringly low. Anne and Mary both pulled theirs down as low as they could, flaunting themselves quite shamelessly. Watching them, I began to giggle. I couldn’t help it, they were so amusing. I wasn’t the only one to laugh.

  “Finally, at about midnight, when many of the older people, including Louise of Savoy, had left the table and gone to bed, Mary and Anne began displaying themselves more suggestively, walking among the men and bending down so that the youngest and most handsome of the diners could feed them morsels of sweet cakes and lumps of sugar. They put on quite a spectacle, bending ever lower, taking down their hair and sweeping it from side to side, then tossing it back. When the last of the courses had been served and removed both Anne and Mary began to dance. Anne is a very graceful dancer, and she outshone her sister.”

  I had often witnessed Anne’s skill at dancing, not only in the English courtly dances but the French ones, with their intricate steps and difficult hops and leaps. Anne’s dancing put my own leaden-footed efforts to shame.

  “By this time it was very, very late,” Bridget was saying, “getting on towards morning, and many of the banqueters had gone off to bed or were asleep, snoring, with their heads on the tables. Mary and Anne both began whispering in the ears of the men who were still awake. Mary left the room with one of the men right away, but Anne went from one groggy man to another, whispering in each one’s ear, without success.

  “I had seen it happen before,” she went on. “Mary, being the prettier of the two, was quickly chosen, while her dark, less attractive sister was passed over. I knew that this infuriated Anne, who was very competitive and determined to win, at all costs.”

  “And did she eventually find a partner for the night?”

  “I don’t know. I fell asleep myself. But I do know that she went up to Richard, knowing that Richard and I were betrothed, and that I loved him, and whispered in his ear. He was amused. I saw him smile, then shake his head in a friendly way. She soon gave up.”

  I thought over what I had been hearing.

  “All I know is, she’d better stay away from my Will.”

  “I thought you said he wasn’t going to be your Will.”

  I frowned at Bridget then. She was too abrupt, too blunt.

  “In any case,” she was saying, “you needn’t worry. Your Will is far from rich enough or highly placed enough for Anne to want him.”

  Now I was really offended. I drew myself up to my full height (which is not very high, I am a rather small person) and said, “If Anne Boleyn doesn’t know that a loving heart and a true nature
are worth far more than wealth and status, then she is foolish and does not deserve to be happy.”

  Bridget smiled indulgently.

  “A pretty speech, and a loyal one. You are young, you do not yet know how harsh a place the world can be.”

  “I’m learning,” was all I said. And I was. I was being taught, just then, about betrayal. How a lecherous, wanton man of fifty could betray his daughter by wrecking her hopes for marriage. How a loose, reckless girl could betray her closest friend by trying to steal her fiancé. And how a pitiless, tyrannical king could betray the loyalty of his suffering wife by berating and blaming her for a tragedy that was not her fault.

  Harsh lessons, I thought, unsought and repugnant. I had no desire to learn any more.

  FOUR

  Will came to me after matins, putting his fingers to his lips and quietly taking my arm and leading me into the privy garden, our accustomed meeting place. I could see the excitement in his eyes even before he spoke.

  There had been a heavy dew the night before and the skirt of my gown was wet as Will drew me across the lawn. Several gardeners were at work but they did not appear to be taking any notice of us.

  “Jane! I’ve done it! It’s all arranged!”

  I caught his excitement at once. My heart began to pound in my chest. Had he somehow convinced his parents to change their minds and allow us to marry after all? Was it possible? I took his hands in mine.

  “Are we to be married then?”

  “No—better than that. I have arranged our escape!”

  “What?”

  “Our escape—from the court, from my parents, from everything!” Gleefully he went on. “Your friend Bridget has a cousin who is sailing to the Spice Islands and will let us go with him! From there we can go where we like, do what we like. We’ll find some far place—so far and so rare it has no name. We’ll find a deserted island and name it after you!”