Between Two Kings (2 page)

Anne didn’t hear them. She sank back against the pillows and shut her eyes. Nausea crashed her down, and she was trembling in her whole body. She glanced down at the blood on her nightgown and then stared at the ladies. Then her eyes closed, and complete darkness enveloped her as she passed out.

“I think she is with child,” Lady Margaret Coffin said.

“It looks like a miscarriage,” Lady Mary Kingston asserted. “I will report to Master Kingston what happened here.”

“I understand nothing.” Lady Elizabeth Boleyn shrugged, her eyes wide in astonishment. “How is it possible that she is having a miscarriage? Wasn’t she examined by a midwife when she was imprisoned?”

“There was no word said about Lady Anne’s delicate condition. I think nobody knew about her pregnancy,” Lady Margaret Coffin concluded.

“Ladies, we will discuss everything later. Now we must find a physician and a midwife who will help Lady Anne,” Lady Eleanor Hampton interrupted.

Lady Anne Shelton looked at the other ladies. “Take care of her. I will fetch a physician.” Then she quickly walked in the direction of the door.

May 19, 1536, the Palace of Whitehall, London, England

The bleak rays of the spring sun broke through the clouds and warmed the white ashlar stone walls of the Palace of Whitehall, the main residence of King Henry VIII who had been in London since 1530. The hands of the clock had recently gonged seven in the morning, several hours before Anne Boleyn’s scheduled execution. The court was quite lively even at that early hour as everybody anticipated the fateful events anticipated to happen that day.

King Henry wasn’t asleep. His servant had urgently woken him less than thirty minutes ago. The king had intended to sleep at least till nine in the morning and awake only when Anne was already dead. However, his plans were broken by Cromwell’s urgent visit.

Henry felt anger began to simmer in his veins when the servants told him that Thomas Cromwell, Secretary of State, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Master of the Rolls, who was soon to be raised to the peerage as Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon, had come here to visit the king and had been waiting for him.

Reluctantly, with a great deal of effort, Henry climbed out of his large bed and called his servant. He told the young boy that he wanted to wear vibrant colors on the day of Anne’s execution as he wasn’t going to be in mourning for the Boleyn whore.

He chose a white silk shirt with a stand up collar, an attached small ruff, and a crimson brocade doublet with leopard slashings laced in the front and trimmed with rubies and diamonds on the sleeves. Then Henry pulled on his crimson brocade straight pants, and a servant gave him a black flat cap adorned with a white ostrich. There was a long golden and ruby chain around Henry’s neck. Then the servant clasped near the collar of the king’s doublet a beautiful, intricately designed Tudor rose badge.

King Henry left his bedchamber and marched to the presence chamber, accompanied by his guards. Henry passed many courtiers, and each of them bowed to the king who only acknowledged a couple of them by the slight nod of his head. Henry was absorbed in his thoughts from everything at the court. He didn’t understand why Cromwell had visited so early. It had to be something extraordinarily urgent if Cromwell decided to ignore the official royal protocol strictly regulating the rules and the hours of gaining reception with the king.

King Henry stormed into the presence chamber and noted Cromwell sitting on the sofa near the window. Cromwell leapt to his feet and bowed. Henry nodded and began nervously pacing the room like a caged animal. Finally he stopped near the fireplace and turned to Cromwell and stared at the Secretary of State. “What happened, Master Cromwell? Why did you come here so early on this day? Don’t you have to be on the Tower Green?”

Cromwell sighed heavily. “Your Majesty, I beg my pardon, but we have a great problem.”

Henry blinked in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Lady Anne Boleyn is with child,” Cromwell replied in a neutral voice.

“What? What?” Henry raised his voice. His eyes widening.

“Lady Anne seems to be with child,” Cromwell repeated in a sonorous voice. “The Tower physician confirmed it late last night. She nearly miscarried, but the child was saved by miracle. Now she is fine and resting.”

Henry wasn’t listening to Cromwell. He felt a lethal mixture of emotions – anger, pain, bewilderment and disappointment. He silently cursed the newly discovered circumstances as it was now likely he would have to postpone his wedding to Lady Jane Seymour, the English rose of his heart. How could it be that Anne carried a child? How was it possible that it became known only on the night before her execution? Was it a cruel joke of fate or a dark irony? Was Heaven laughing at him? Why did it happen? Why now? Why would he have to wait several months more to marry Jane?

Anne had never loved him. She had played with him, like with a toy, and made him fall in love with her only to please herself and her family and to raise the Boleyn status at court. Anne had lied to him that she had been a virgin when he had been going crazy from love and passion and when she had said she would lose her innocence only with her husband. Her father and brother, Thomas Boleyn and George Boleyn, had arranged for Henry to fall under Anne’s spell both in her bed and in the marriage. Anne’s a witch and a whore, the harlot, just as the common people referred to her, Henry said to himself.

To marry Anne, Henry had had to dispose of Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. He did it in a cruel manner, and he knew that. He declared his daughter with Catherine, Lady Mary Tudor, a bastard, and his relationship with his daughter was destroyed only because he wanted to possess Anne Boleyn. To divorce Catherine, Henry had to tear the whole country apart because Pope Clement VII wouldn’t grant the much desired marriage annulment. Henry’s battles with Rome led to the eventual separation of the Church of England from the Papal authority and to Henry’s own establishment as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Anne Boleyn was the driving force of everything that had happened in England in the past several years.

Henry had genuinely loved Anne. At least he thought that he had loved her. He also believed that Anne had also loved him with all her heart. He married her, but it would have been better if he had never met her. Thanks to Anne, the King of England was made a laughing stock of Europe as Anne gave birth to Elizabeth in September 7, 1533, and not to a boy as she promised Henry. The girl was useless for Henry who had dreamed of having a son for so many years. Only a boy could guarantee the successful succession and the continuation of the Tudor royal dynasty, but Anne had betrayed him and given him a daughter.

Later Anne had two miscarriages, which infuriated Henry. The miscarriage of a male child, which happened in January 1536, enraged Henry even more because Anne had told him that her miscarriage was mainly his fault as she had seen him with Jane Seymour on his knees and later lost their son in deep distress. After the second miscarriage, love evolved into hatred as Henry saw Anne’s failure to give him a son as a betrayal.

Later Henry was informed that Anne entertained men in her private chambers, and the investigation showed that she had betrayed him with at least four different men, including her own brother. The thought that she had committed incest was abominable. Henry was sick of Anne; he wanted her to die and pay for her crimes.

Anger simmered in Henry’s bloodstream as he spoke. “I want Anne Boleyn to die. She betrayed me. She is a traitor.” Henry clenched his fists and then looked at Cromwell. “I want her to die,” he repeated. “She must pay for her crimes.”

“Your Majesty, under the laws of England and in accordance with the principles of humanism, we cannot execute a pregnant woman,” Cromwell asserted. “What are we going to do now?”

It was a dark irony to hear about humanism from Thomas Cromwell, but even he was unable to execute a woman with child, especially a child who, he was sure, was a child of royal blood, fathered by King Henry. Cromwell had realized the absurdity of all the charges the chief minister himself had brought against Anne. Now he could only hope that Anne would miscarry at the Tower, or that she would deliver a stillborn child.

“Anne Boleyn has always been a good actress. Are you sure that she is with child?”

Cromwell nodded. “Yes, I am. The physician and the midwife confirmed her condition.”

King Henry blinked. “Very well then,” he hissed. He was still dumbfounded and shocked.

Cromwell was a man of action and didn’t want to admit the hesitation with the king’s verdict. He spoke in a steady, resolute voice. “Your Majesty, we will have to wait until the birth of Lady Anne’s child. Then she might be executed as a high traitor.”

“This child could be the product of incest.” Henry’s face screwed up in disgust. He remembered he had spent several nights with Anne in March and April but he quickly put those thoughts aside. It wasn’t possible, and it didn’t matter. He would have a bunch of legitimate children with his beloved Jane who was beautiful and obedient, an ideal wife for him.

“It could also be a child fathered by Sir Henry Norris, Mark Smeaton, or Sir William Brereton,” Cromwell added. He needed to support the king in his anger towards Anne.

“Anne is a witch and a whore,” the king roared. Then he lowered his voice. “I was seduced by witchcraft when she attracted me and I married her.” He trailed off and rubbed his temples. “And now this child… isn’t it the result of witchcraft?”

Cromwell shrugged. “I don’t know, Your Majesty.”

“It seems to me that I need to postpone my marriage to Lady Jane Seymour.”

“Your Majesty, it seems to be the best option. It will be better if you marry Lady Jane after Lady Anne’s execution. In this case, nobody will ever doubt the legitimacy of all your future children born in this matrimony,” Cromwell assured him.

Henry cast an appreciating gaze at Cromwell. He has always liked him for his clear and logical reasoning. “Then we will need to wait and then execute her,” he said.

The decision was finally made up, and the clock began counting minutes.

CHAPTER 2

October 1536, the Tower of London, London, England

The execution of Anne Boleyn was delayed until the birth of the child.

Anne spent many months at the Tower. Her life was utter hell. Although she stayed in the Queen’s Chambers, where queens usually lived before the official coronation, it was not very convenient to live at the Tower in her delicate condition. She had to spend all the time inside the same room and although she wanted to breathe fresh air she was never allowed to have a short stroll outside the Tower. She was a prisoner waiting for her death.

Naked, uncontrollable, harrowing pain slashed through her heart as Anne remembered how Anthony Kingston had visited her chamber several months ago and told her that her execution would only be delayed until the birth of her child. He spoke in a cold tone, his face blank, but his eyes were sympathetic, and then he left her alone. Henry was very cruel if he truly wanted both her children – Elizabeth and the child in her womb – to be motherless. She realized that the king didn’t believe he was the child’s father and thought the poor innocent baby was a product of Anne’s alleged, sinful and shameful relationships with the executed men.

Two months ago, Kingston told Anne that Thomas Boleyn had rejected the opportunity to become the child’s legal guardian. The king also said that he wouldn’t be responsible for the child who was the bastard of two traitors. Unexpectedly, Lady Mary Boleyn Stafford, Anne’s elder sister, had asked Henry to be the child’s guardian, and the king accepted.

As Anne learnt about Mary’s desire to take her unborn child into her household, she sobbed for an hour, as she felt so guilty she had betrayed Mary by banishing her from the court after her sister had married William Stafford, a commoner and a soldier without money and social standing. Now Anne felt some relief that Mary and her husband would take care of her child. At least the child would still have family after her death, Anne thought.

Master Kingston confided in Anne that Mary Stafford had begged King Henry on her knees to spare Anne’s life after the birth of the child. But Mary was surrounded by the guards and taken outside the palace; she wasn’t imprisoned only on condition that she would never return to the court under the threat of arrest and death. One of her ladies informed her that, even after her banishment, Lady Mary Stafford had sent several petitions to Cromwell and King Henry, imploring them at least to send Anne to a nunnery, but not to execute her. However, everything was in vain.

It was a normal practice that all female prisoners were examined by a midwife before supposed execution. It was necessary to know whether a woman was with child because she couldn’t be executed under English law if she were pregnant. However, in Anne’s case that simple principle was ignored by her captors. Anne surmised that Cromwell had deliberately disregarded standard practice as he feverishly wished to execute the former queen.

It also made Anne very angry with King Henry. She wondered whether it had ever occurred to him that she could have been carrying his child after he had bedded her in March and at the very beginning of April, which were the last nights they had spent together. Had Henry become such a monster he was willingly ready to execute a pregnant woman? Or was it Cromwell’s idea, without the king’s knowledge? The single thought that Henry wished to execute a woman carrying his child, filled her heart with festering hatred for Henry.

The pregnancy was extremely difficult for Anne. Anne was afraid that she would be unable to carry the child to full term, but no miscarriage happened despite all the difficulties and heartache. She constantly felt weak, and nausea often bothered her even at the late stages of her pregnancy. She explained the difficulties by the poor conditions at the Tower and her deep emotional stress. She desperately craved for green apples as it had happened to her during all her previous pregnancies, but Master Kingston said that she couldn’t be given her apples at the Tower. Anne only sighed in response, unable to say or do anything else.

When she learned about her pregnancy, Anne protested that she must be given special food rich in vitamins and easy to digest, which was necessary to make the child stronger. Yet, they refused her pleas as Cromwell didn’t give any instructions to improve her conditions.

As a result, Anne started hating King Henry even more than she had ever hated him before. She despised and loathed Henry; a combination of feelings she had never had for him. Anne was a miserable prisoner; a former queen stripped of all her titles, disgraced and sentenced to death. She was the harlot and the whore who was hated by the common people of England and had enemies everywhere in England. Of course, such an evil and notorious woman didn’t deserve better living conditions even during pregnancy, she thought ironically.

Anne spent the majority of time in bed, thinking of Henry and reading the books sent to her by Archbishop Cranmer. At times, she talked to her ladies about her past life at the French court and at Archduchess Margaret’s court in the Low Countries. The ladies liked talking to Anne as she was an intelligent female companion. They deeply sympathized with Anne, understanding that she was most likely innocent, as she had confessed to Cranmer.

During those dreadful months at the Tower, as she waited for her death, Anne often remembered her love story with King Henry. Her great romance with Henry was always on her mind; their story began in heaven and ended in tatters as she had been thrown to hell, without any chance of going back. When she thought of Henry, which she did every hour, every second of her waking day, it was with a curious feeling of emptiness and hatred, like a painful, insatiable hunger for Henry’s blood, which she tried to satisfy by letting her mind dwell constantly on many moments when he had been cold, indifferent, and cruel to her and their daughter.

Amazingly, Anne still couldn’t understand how Henry could have been so tender one moment and so cruel the next. Had cruelty always been hidden in his heart? Was it absolute power that had corrupted Henry and changed his character so much? Was it Anne’s fault that Henry became a heartless and cruel man even to the people who truly loved him?

She knew that she had pushed Henry, directly and indirectly, to change England and their lives for her and her family; those innovations gave Henry a sweet taste of absolute power no King of England had ever had before. Absolute power transformed Henry from a caring, tender, and loving man to a cool-blooded, empty-hearted, and cruel tyrant. Undoubtedly, Anne was guilty of many horrible things and played a considerable role in her own demise; she’d brought her tragic demise on herself.

Anne had many bright and dark memories of Henry. Her eyes filled with tears as the images of her happy moments with Henry flashed in her mind; the time of Henry’s love for her counted amongst her most cherished memories, although it seemed to her now to belong to another life. All the happy moments she had with Henry were taunted by his indifference and cruelty. Their recent past was tragic and tantalizing; it was too much to bear.

At first, Anne hadn’t loved Henry. When her father, Thomas Boleyn, told her to attract the king’s attention, she set herself in the king’s path. It was a game of passion and seduction for Anne, whose French nature was tied to being a beautiful, enigmatic, passionate, and alluring seductress. Anne was astounded how quickly Henry fell for her and began to make clear hints that he had wanted her to become a royal mistress.

But she wasn’t stupid; she didn’t want to be just his lover, understanding that she would surely be supplanted by another mistress as soon as the king was tired of her. Anne denied Henry what he wanted, and she fiercely repudiated his proposal to become his official 
maîtresse en titre
, the only woman in the king’s bed. While Anne denied him, she also hinted at what he could have, but never giving it to him. She played in her own game, but it was so only in the beginning.

Her feelings for Henry started changing when he began to court her without trying to put her in his bed. He treated her like a woman he loved, not like a new mistress who only warmed his bed. They had a beautiful courtship; sensitive, romantic, and long. It was fair to say that their fairy-tale love story began not at the court, but rather at the Hever Castle, in Kent, where Anne was raised and spent her childhood with Mary and George. Hever was a romantic shrine for Anne and her love affair with Henry. Anne still remembered how many times the royal page came to Hever and brought to her numerous love letters in which Henry expressed his feelings for her nobly and chivalrously, writing numerous sensitive words and love poems.

Furthermore, Henry often left the court for the seclusion at the Hever Castle where he and Anne, surrounded by nature, talked about art, literature, politics, and the problems of England. The more time they spent together, the more interested Anne became in Henry.

Henry was so persistent and so passionate for so long that Anne didn’t notice that she had fallen in love with him. She ignored her father and her uncle’s warnings that she shouldn’t have fallen in love with Henry. She didn’t think about her sister Mary who had also once fallen in love with the king and was later discarded, along with many other women who once were the king’s mistresses.

All Anne knew was that she loved Henry and only him. Everything seemed to be perfect because their amorous feelings were reciprocal. When Anne realized she loved Henry with all her heart, she thought that their love was deep, sincere, passionate, and even obsessive at times. She was sure that they owned each others’ bodies, hearts, and souls. She dreamt that their love had been a feeling of a lifetime; an eternal love such as the celebrated troubadours of Languedoc had glorified throughout the ages.

The idea of an annulment of the marriage to Catherine of Aragon was suggested to King Henry by the supporters of the Boleyns and the Howards, and motivated by the king’s desire for a male heir to secure the future of the Tudors as a ruling royal dynasty in England. Before Henry’s father, King Henry VII of England, ascended the throne, there was complete chaos in England for many years; a civil war over the claims to the throne from the House of York and the House of Lancaster.

Henry desperately wanted to avoid the similar uncertainty over succession after his death, and the Boleyns played on that. Anne used that moment as well because she loved Henry and wanted to be the Queen of England. She was an ambitious and cunning woman, but she also loved the king and didn’t just fake her feelings for Henry. Anne and Henry assumed that an annulment could be obtained within several months, but they were mistaken.

Once Henry suggested to Catherine that she should have quietly retired to a nunnery, but she opposed him, saying that she was the king’s only true and legitimate wife and that her place was at his side. The matter of an annulment was put into the hands of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who did all he could to secure a decision in Henry’s favor. However, the Pope had no intention of allowing a decision to be made in England and recalled his legate back to Rome.

Months and years were passing, but no annulment or divorce happened. Catherine also had great support from her nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who advised the Pope against an annulment. Not hoping to receive an annulment officially from the Pope, Henry finally broke with the Catholic Church and was promulgated the Supreme Head of the Church of England. When the old Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, died, Thomas Cranmer, the supporter of the Boleyn family and the Reformation in England, was appointed to the vacant position. Cranmer later annulled Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and the king was finally free to marry Anne. The deal of an annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine became euphemistically known as the
“The King’s Great Matter.”

When King Henry and Anne met King François I of France in Calais in October 1532, they fell into temptation and made love. When they returned to England, Anne soon discovered that she had become pregnant by Henry. They were happy and hoped that she carried Henry’s son. After an annulment of his marriage to Catherine, Henry secretly married Anne. She was crowned the Queen of England but there was a silence in the streets because people hated her and pitied Catherine whom they considered the only true Queen of England.

Anne didn’t care that she was hated by the common people because she finally had what she wanted after seven years of anticipation. Henry loved her and she loved him. What could have been better than what she had managed to achieve? At that time, Anne didn’t think that she had done anything wrong; rather she believed Henry’s marriage to Catherine was null and void.

Catherine had strong support for her cause. Her supporters included Thomas More, Emperor Charles V, Pope Paul III, Mary Tudor, Queen Dowager of France, Henry’s own sister, and others. The majority of the English courtiers had always supported Catherine of Aragon whom King Henry wished to toss aside in favor of a younger woman whom he had courted for many years, parading her right in front of Queen Catherine and humiliating the true Queen of England, as the courtiers thought. The courtiers started to feel contempt for Anne and blame her for everything, even going so far as to suggest that she had bewitched Henry.

Anne didn’t understand how people could have been so naive to think that she could have ordered the King of England to annul his marriage if he hadn’t wanted to do that by himself. They thought that she was an evil woman and the only reason that the saint Queen Catherine had been discarded and Mary Tudor bastardized; they didn’t understand that it was Henry’s choice to declare Lady Mary Tudor illegitimate. If Henry hadn’t wanted to punish Mary for her disobedience and unwillingness to accept her illegitimate status and sign the Oath of Supremacy, he would have never demanded from Mary to serve Elizabeth at Hatfield. It looked like the courtiers and the common people of England hated Anne for the things she couldn’t have done because she didn’t have control over Henry’s mind and his decisions.

Henry transformed England and abandoned Catherine only because he himself wanted to do that and believed his marriage to Catherine had never been valid in the eyes of God and the law. The Boleyns pushed him to set Catherine aside, but Henry was the King of England and the final decision was his; it was not the decision of Anne, her father, or anybody else. Yet, it was Anne who was hated by the courtiers and by the common people and they blamed her rather than look into the core of the matter. But none of that mattered to Anne because she loved Henry, had the king’s love, and carried his child after the visit to Calais.