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

  I cursed God, I cursed the sweat, I cursed life itself, for I saw all too clearly that there was a darkness loosed in our time, and that we all had to fear that we might, in the end, fall under its unsparing hand.

  NINE

  The Cardinal of Santa Anastasia, Lorenzo Campeggio, arrived in England with the first frosts of that autumn in the year 1528, sent by the pope to hold a hearing on the vital issue of the king’s nullity suit.

  At last, a man of great authority, of the highest standing in the church next to the pope himself, was among us and the king’s increasingly grave doubts about his marriage to Queen Catherine could be confirmed. Then Queen Catherine would have to take her leave to make way for the woman King Henry preferred—Anne Boleyn.

  I was dismayed to think that the queen might be cast aside, but I knew that the decision Cardinal Campeggio made would not be a theological one, rather one arrived at through a trial of strength. The strength of King Henry and whatever allies he could muster pitted against the might of the Emperor Charles and his prisoner Pope Clement.

  We maids of honor saw the Cardinal of Santa Anastasia often, for he was the king’s guest at banquets and other official gatherings, his red satin robes magnificent, his sad-eyed, jowly, wrinkled old face conspicuous among the faces of the king’s advisers and those of the English clerics who deferred to him so pointedly. Cardinal Campeggio was, for a time, the most important man at court, even more important than his colleague Cardinal Wolsey, who in addition to his high clerical office was chancellor of the realm. Hundreds of horsemen made up Cardinal Campeggio’s immense retinue, huge gold crosses brought from Rome were carried before him wherever he went. English men and women knelt when he passed by, and crossed themselves, and asked his blessing, and he wearily complied—though it was evident to all that he was not only tired, he was in pain.

  Gout tormented the distinguished visitor from Rome (as it did my father), and several times while sitting at a feast or attending an official gathering we saw him suddenly clutch the arm of the man sitting next to him with a grimace of anguish on his face. At such times he had to be helped, limping, from the room.

  We knew that he suffered from fierce, excruciating pain in his toe, pain that often spread into his feet and legs and brought with it a burning fever. When his attacks came on he could do nothing but lie quietly in a darkened room—a room was always prepared and waiting for him, should he need it. After a few days he would be well enough to return to his honored place at court, but he never knew when the pain would return.

  “All I know is, this gout of his had better not cause any delay in the hearing he has come to preside over,” Anne announced, putting on the shooting glove the king had given her and holding it up to be admired. And it was admirable—it fitted her like a supple second skin.

  Ned laughed when I repeated Anne’s comment to him, scoffing at Anne for thinking only of immediate personal matters, as she so often did.

  “The cardinal will indeed proceed as slowly as he can,” my astute brother remarked. “And for far more important reasons than his own ill health. He must act with the greatest care lest he offend the Emperor Charles, above all, for the emperor is now master of the Holy City and the pope’s safety lies in the emperor’s hands. What is more, he must avoid giving offense to the French king—who has now become the emperor’s friend and ally. With these constraints, it is hard to see how the cardinal can placate our English king and give him the judgment he seeks.”

  Ned had explained to me that this signing of a peace agreement between the emperor and the French king was a blow to King Henry’s hopes, for it left England without an ally. Vulnerable to an imperial army’s attack. But it was a great boon to the cause of Queen Catherine—an answer to her many prayers.

  “You see, Jane, how all things work together for good to them that love the Lord,” the queen said to me, her plain face shining with hope and confidence. “First a great pestilence was sent to harry England, and punish us for the wickedness of our king and his adulteries.” (“And for all the Lutheran books the Boleyns and their kind are reading and circulating,” Ned added.) “Now the gout has come to afflict the cardinal, and arrest his work here on the pope’s behalf.”

  And indeed it did seem, just at that time, as though King Henry was less sure of the outcome of his nullity suit. Too many forces were arrayed against him. There was much talk of change—radical change—from highest to lowest in the way people regarded one another. Monks such as Martin Luther defied the pope, and were busy organizing an entirely new church, so it was said. Peasants in the German-speaking lands were overturning the social order and rebelling against their masters. Holy writings, always in Latin and outside the understanding of all but a few learned men and a tiny handful of learned women, were being translated into the common tongue so that all might read and understand them. (“And debate their meaning,” was Ned’s sardonic comment.)

  Where would it lead? No one could say, but all in authority were troubled by the changes we were sensing. And in the light of these changes, King Henry seemed less eager than before to separate himself once and for all from his wife. To be sure, he kissed and fondled Anne in the cardinal’s presence, showing her a degree of tenderness and affection in public as if they were already married. But at the same time he allowed Catherine to continue her life at court—having given up on attempting to bully her into entering a convent—and gave her a place of honor at banquets and treated her with respect. I had not heard him shout at her since the outbreak of the sweating sickness, though I could not help remembering that when the king rode off from the courtyard of Greenwich Palace his only concern was for his son Henry Fitzroy’s safety, and not his wife’s, and throughout the duration of the epidemic he did not send a single letter to Catherine—only to Anne.

  Like Cardinal Campeggio, the king was troubled with a painful ailment that fall, and on into the winter. We heard that his new chief apothecary was treating him for a severe inflammation of the bladder, and there were rumors of a worse ailment as well. The gossip among his chamber gentlemen, who were certainly in a position to know the truth, was that the king might be suffering from a tumor in his testicles, for he was known to be mixing herbs and experimenting with new compounds, searching for a remedy and had even sent a messenger to the great university of Bologna to seek the best medical knowledge.

  As always, worries arose over the succession. If the king should indeed be suffering from a tumor, a tumor which might make it impossible for him to father more children, then the nullity suit would lose its importance. There would be no need for him to part from Queen Catherine, Anne could simply become his mistress and the throne would pass in time to the prince, Henry Fitzroy. The weak, perpetually unwell Henry Fitzroy, who was noticeably absent from the banquets and other public events to which Cardinal Campeggio was invited.

  Months went by, and no progress was made toward the holding of the hearing on the nullity suit.

  “You see, Jane, it is just as I have always said,” Catherine commented to me one evening after meeting with Cardinal Wolsey and some of her other prominent supporters. “All things work together for good to them that love the Lord.”

  “And to them who have the imperial armies at their back,” brother Ned put in. Ned was always to be found at the cardinal’s right hand, it was said he would soon be in line for a prominent position in the royal household. He was not as important a figure as Thomas Cromwell, Cardinal Wolsey’s lawyer at Gray’s Inn; Cromwell, master of argument and debate, ever cool and unemotional, surveyed the royal court like an eagle waiting to swoop down on his prey. He watched, missing nothing, for his chance to strike—and when he struck, it was said, his victims struggled in vain. I was revulsed by Wolsey, but Cromwell I feared, for his mind was quick and his words clever, and his heart, I felt, was a rock of ice in his thick chest.

  * * *

  When after nearly nine wearisome months the solemn legatine court was at last convened, with the Cardinal of San
ta Anastasia presiding and all the bishops and archbishops, the court officials, the legal advisers and attorneys in attendance, all eyes were not on the king and queen, but on Anne Boleyn.

  To be more precise, they were on Anne Boleyn’s belly. Was she pregnant or wasn’t she? The French ambassador started a rumor that she was, the Spanish ambassador denied it, the Bishop of Rochester indicated that his thoughts were above such sordid things, and Anne herself, who enjoyed being the center of attention, smiled to herself and said nothing.

  I could not bear to look at her, and I could tell that the other maids of honor—we had some new ones among us just then—were uncomfortable at best to be in her company. Because Anne was believed to be the king’s mistress, we were all under suspicion. I had heard mutterings among the courtiers about the “maids of dishonor” and I was offended. I hoped no one could imagine that I might betray the queen.

  Dignified and gracious as always, Queen Catherine entered the court on the arm of Griffith Richards and made an eloquent plea to her husband, swearing that no taint of incest blemished their marriage since she and Henry’s brother Arthur had never slept together as man and wife.

  Her sincerity was overwhelming, her arguments convincing. But the attention of the onlookers in the great hall was elsewhere. Was the next king of England a growing mound under Anne’s skirt? Did she look bilious, as pregnant women often were? Was she blushing? Was she wearing a new jewel, one the king might have given her when she told him she was going to have a child?

  Day after day the court was reconvened, and the gossip continued to flow, until a month and more had passed and still there was no resolution of the central issue. News arriving from Italy was dire. The emperor’s power was growing, he dominated all. And he, through the pope, had given the ultimate command: there must be no decision made in England about the nullity suit. Only the pope could judge the King’s Great Matter. And he would do so—at a time of the emperor’s choosing.

  His voice cracking with strain, a look of defeat in his rheumy eyes, the Cardinal of Santa Anastasia adjourned the legatine court without having made any decision and limped out of the great hall, his red satin robes trailing behind him. Few among the shocked spectators knelt to honor him, or crossed themselves, or called out to him to bless them. Instead there were audible hisses and curses, and among the Boleyns and the king’s supporters, cries of dismay.

  But I was smiling. I smiled all that day and the next, and when Anne glowered at me I smiled all the more. It seemed to me that right had triumphed, at least for now, and the gossipers and the belly-watchers would have to wait for another time to have their day.

  * * *

  Jane Popyngcort was dead.

  She was dead in Flanders, hundreds of miles away.

  Word reached us just as the court was leaving to go on progress. It was said that Jane had been riding with others in the household of a Flemish nobleman when they had been set upon by thieves. In the resulting mayhem, few of the women had survived.

  “Do you suppose she was ravished?” Bridget asked in hushed tones.

  Anne Boleyn turned her head away, as if unwilling to consider something so dreadful. The other maids of honor, most of whom had not known Jane, were wide-eyed with surprise and fear, though Anne Cavecant merely shrugged.

  “I’m sorry if she suffered, of course,” Anne Cavecant said, “but you must admit she was never really one of us. She was too aloof, always wearing those odd clothes, always keeping to herself—”

  “Perhaps she was shy,” someone offered. “Her English was so poor.”

  “No,” Anne Cavecant insisted. “She was not shy. She was proud. She looked down on us. She looked down on all the English.”

  “Was that why she went back to to Mechelen?”

  “No,” Bridget said smugly. “She went back—”

  “Because she had to, that’s all,” Anne Boleyn interrupted brusquely. “It was her own business, why she left—not ours.” Anne gave Bridget a sharp look.

  “We must pray that her end came mercifully quickly,” was Queen Catherine’s pious response to the startling news of Jane’s death. “She was my friend for twenty years and more. She joined my household long ago, when I married King Henry. She was always loyal to me, staunchly loyal. I will honor her memory. We must all honor it, by remaining silent about things that are now forever beyond remedy.”

  I heard nothing more about Jane’s death, but I pondered the very strange circumstance and wondered whether there was more to it than a random attack by thieves. The king, I noticed, said nothing at all about Jane’s passing, even though at one time—if the stories were to be believed—he and Jane had been lovers. She had once meant a great deal to him. And she had known his secrets, including the secret of his intimacy with Anne Boleyn’s mother. The secret, Bridget had said, that had led to Jane’s leaving the court, with a heavy chest full of coins.

  Clearly the news of Jane’s death made the king very uncomfortable, but whether it was because he had once loved her or for another reason I could not discern. He never liked to think or speak of death, or to hear about it. He had not gotten over his fear of the deadly sweating sickness; he shuddered when reminded of it, and dreaded its return. Queen Catherine confided to me that he wore a pouch of live spiders around his neck to ward off the illness.

  I remembered that Jane had been vague about her plans when she left England. “I am going home,” was all she had said. She had no definite plans. She had spent her last hour in England with Queen Catherine. Just the two of them alone. Were they reminiscing, or were they, possibly, discussing the future?

  Somehow I felt certain that what happened to Jane was linked to the king’s nullity suit, and the abrupt departure of Cardinal Campeggio.

  How nervous and unsettled we all felt that summer! Some said the sweat would return for sure, others that the emperor’s soldiers would descend on England, to defend Queen Catherine. Our local militias were drilling, armed with rusty knives and short swords and some with nothing more than pitchforks, as the peasant rebels were said to use. There were all sorts of stories and rumors swirling about, and we could not escape the everpresent feeling that change was in the air, and that the old ways and the time-honored authorities were under assault.

  I went to visit my family at Wulf Hall and found there nothing but awkwardness and tension. I sensed that I did not dare to mention Cat or young Henry, or poor John, dead and in the common grave for the children at Woldringham. My very presence seemed unwelcome—in contrast to the noisy, enthusiastic welcome Ned received when he arrived at the manor. My parents could not say enough about Ned, how rich he was becoming (and indeed he was wearing finer and finer clothes, the higher he rose in the cardinal’s service and the more the king noticed him and gave him tasks to perform), how handsome he was getting to be, what an important man at court and so on. I nodded and smiled but said little.

  “When are we going to have a wedding, Ned?” my mother asked with a broad smile. “I hear you have been making inquiries about noblemen’s daughters.”

  “He’s in no hurry, woman,” my father put in. “He has his duties at court to think of. Let him marry when he has fine houses and lands of his own, and a stable of splendid horses, and chests of gold under his bed.”

  I could hardly believe that they were talking this way, as if Cat and her sons had never existed. I knew that Ned had lost no time in having his marriage to Cat annulled, but that did not cancel out the years of Cat’s presence within the family, or the years of loving and nurturing the children. My mother had been especially happy to be grandmother to Henry and John. I knew she had been very fond of them both.

  Hearing what I did, I wanted to shout that my relatives were unfeeling, and that Ned was cruel beyond imagining. I felt cut off from my family, cut off by my ongoing ties to Cat at St. Agnes’s and to my surviving nephew Henry, by my concern for them, and by my bitter feelings toward my father.

  But I held my peace. I sensed that no one in my fam
ily would tolerate any outbursts or accusations from me.

  I saw how my relatives looked at me, and I knew what they were thinking: she is too old to be still unmarried. (In that summer of 1529 I was twenty-three.) They pitied me. I overheard my father remark, unkindly, that it was no wonder I had no husband, for I had little to offer a man, not a very pretty face or a very fine figure.

  “Lavinia Terling,” I heard him remark to the owner of a neighboring estate, as they were walking out into the fields. “Now there was a prize. The face of an angel, and the body of Eve in the Garden of Eden.” I heard the men laughing, and thought to myself, how would they feel if they heard women talking about them like that?

  There was little warmth or comfort to be found with my relatives, and when I returned to court I was once again in the thick of the tense undercurrents of feeling between Queen Catherine and Anne. The sharp jabs, the accidental shoves and prods that made our days unpleasant were unleashed in full force. The queen’s supporters in her household sneezed when they saw Anne, and found more and more ways to show her disrespect without actually doing anything overt. The Boleyns and their supporters—and I could not help but notice that their numbers were growing—fought back with cruel remarks and flashes of malice.

  We had heard King Henry refer to Anne as “my little puffball,” and now we all called her that, mockingly, along with other names: gypsy, vixen, she-wolf, hellhag. We snickered at her moles. We pointed out “the mark of the devil”—her double fingertip—when she put on her shooting glove or drew attention to her hands to show off her costly jeweled rings. We stared at her belly. She lashed out at us and called us worse names, to be sure—but we had the best of the ongoing battles. Or so we thought.