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Authors: Olivia Longueville

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BOOK: Between Two Kings
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When Anne gave birth to Elizabeth, Henry was disappointed with the gender of the child. Anne would never forget how Henry came to her chambers, frustrated that Anne had given birth to a girl. Anne said that she was sorry, and Henry replied that they were young enough to have more children.

Then Henry left her suite, and all sad thoughts disappeared from Anne’s mind as soon as she looked down at the small bundle in her arms – her precious daughter Elizabeth. She had loved Elizabeth with all her heart from first sight. For Anne, her Elizabeth was the most precious girl in the whole country, and she wouldn’t have exchanged her daughter for anything else.

Later, Anne miscarried her second child, and Henry stopped caring for her. He couldn’t bear to look at her and avoided her as much as he could, not willing to be in her presence for longer than fifteen minutes during rare official dinners and receptions.

Anne became pregnant again, and Henry was overjoyed that there was another chance to have a healthy son. He didn’t dote on Anne, like he had during her previous pregnancies. But she lost her child after she saw Jane Seymour on Henry’s lap as they were sharing a kiss in January 1536; Henry didn’t even console her that time.

Henry started hating Anne and blaming her for everything that went wrong in his life and his kingdom. Finally, he was easily manipulated by Anne’s enemies, especially by Thomas Cromwell and probably by Charles Brandon, 1
st
Duke of Suffolk, who had always hated Anne and often sent numerous looks of loathing her way. When the Duke of Suffolk married Catherine Willoughby, 12
th
Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, his hatred for Anne deepened tenfold. It was not a secret at the court that the Duchess of Suffolk hated and despised Anne because her mother Maria de Salinas had been a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon and remained loyal to the late Queen.

Anne didn’t exclude the possibility that Charles Brandon’s wife had told her husband to destroy her and the Boleyns at the earliest opportunity. Anne knew that Charles Brandon had always been whispering something negative into Henry’s ear to anger him at Anne. She didn’t doubt that Suffolk had played a role in her downfall because when her influence over Henry declined, Suffolk’s increased. At last, the trumped-up charges were designed against Anne and other courtiers. The outcome was tragic: all accused and condemned men were murdered on the king’s orders.

If only the question about an annulment of their marriage had ever been raised by King Henry, everything would have been different, Anne thought. Why couldn’t Henry just tell Anne that he no longer wished to have her as his wife and his queen? She was an intelligent woman and would have gone from his life quickly and quietly, not risking her own life, the lives of so many innocent men, and without leaving her little Elizabeth motherless, if she had known that the king had truly wanted to get rid of her at any price. She would have agreed to an annulment if she had suspected that so many innocent people would have been condemned to death and murdered just because Henry wanted to be free of her. Anne would have never followed Catherine’s example, fighting with Henry that hard; she could have predicted the consequences if she had resisted an annulment.

Henry was a man obsessed with the idea of having a male heir and would surely do everything possible to set Anne aside and marry Jane. The way he treated Catherine proved how far he was willing to go in order to get what he wanted, regardless of the hurt his wife and even his own child went through in the process. Catherine died in poverty at the Kimbolton Castle and alone, while her bastardized daughter served at Hatfield on Henry’s orders.

Anne didn’t want Elizabeth labeled a bastard, but she would have stepped aside to save their daughter from a miserable life somewhere in exile, at a godforsaken manor in the English countryside, and from the humiliation Henry would surely put Elizabeth through if Anne hadn’t agreed to have their marriage declared null and void. Thus, Anne would have agreed to be discarded by herself, but she wasn’t even given this choice because Henry wanted her dead, to be murdered for the sake of his lust for the new, pretty, pale face of an undereducated English country girl.

At last, Anne was so exhausted that she was incapable of being angry with Henry for what he had done to her and their children. There was only pain, emptiness, and darkness surrounding her, and they were tearing her heart apart. She was emotionally dead inside her heart, drained of almost all positive or even negative feelings.

How cruel Henry was and how much he hated her for the fact she had promised him a son and, unfortunately, failed him. For other people, it sounded ridiculous to hate a woman just for giving birth to a healthy daughter, but Anne had become the recipient of Henry’s hatred in the aftermath of Elizabeth’s birth.

Henry wanted Anne dead, and there was nothing that could have changed his decision, not even if the child she carried was a healthy boy. Convinced that she had betrayed him with various men, the king didn’t wish to see Anne or even to hear her name. It would be natural if the king had the same attitude to Anne’s unborn child, his own child. The king would assume that Anne’s child wasn’t sired by Henry, and that was the most painful thing for Anne.

November 21, 1536, the Tower of London, London, England

Anne’s labor started around the expected date. It wasn’t a premature labor as more than nine months passed since her last intimate encounter with King Henry, which meant that she had conceived the child not during their last night at the beginning of April, but rather in the second half of March when Henry still visited her bed from time to time, whoring with other mistresses on other nights and pursuing Lady Jane Seymour in the daytime.

Her pains started in the late evening, around midnight. The queen’s chambers were bathed in semidarkness; only the blaze of several candles illuminated the room. Anne’s ladies lit many new candles and placed them at the bedside table, near the bed.

Anne made an attempt to sit on the edge of her bed, but collapsed on top of the covers. She had tried to ignore it, but the pain increased with each hour that passed. At times, the pain subsided, only to have it resume a few minutes later. At times, the image of Henry Tudor, the father of her child, took hold like a flame in her mind and then it disappeared, as a new wave of pain attacked her.

“Find a midwife,” Anne instructed one of her ladies. Her voice was very weak.

“Yes, my lady, I will,” Lady Anne Shelton confirmed as she rushed toward Anne’s bed. “I will also notify the physician just in case we need him.”

“Yes, please,” Anne moaned. She rolled onto her back on the bed, taking in deep, agonizing breaths to try and stop the pain. After a moment, she recanted. “Please, do it more quickly. It is hurting so much,” she pleaded and then pushed herself up onto the pillows.

Lady Anne Shelton pulled the covers up around her. Anne was shivering yet her skin was moist and warm. She was deathly pale. Her blue eyes were clouded, dark circles beneath them.

“I am afraid I will die today,” Anne said weakly. “I faced it once before, but it wasn’t so painful.”

Lady Shelton covered her mouth with her hands to hide her horror. “Oh, my lady, don’t say this.” Her hands fell away from her face.

Lady Eleanor Hampton approached Anne’s bed. “Lady Anne, you must believe that everything will be fine.”

Anne put her head back on the pillows. “I don’t know,” Anne whispered so quietly that her voice vibrated inside her chest. “Lord, please save my child,” she prayed.

It was nearly five in the evening of the next day. The delivery process was very difficult and painful. It was time-consuming and complicated; besides Anne lost much blood. She was very weak and lost consciousness for a prolonged time twice during the labor. It was completely different from her past labor with Elizabeth. It was painful not only due to Anne’s sickly pregnancy, but also because she was emotionally devastated and physically exhausted.

She was lonely in her unblessed solitude. Henry wasn’t with her to console her and to take away all her fears. Henry had betrayed her and she was sure that while she was fighting for the life of their child, he was spending time with his mistress Jane Seymour. Anne desperately prayed to God to let her child live.

Anne was very weak. She was dying from pain. The child nearly sucked the last ounce of strength from her body, and it still didn’t come. Her face was ashen, her eyes closed. She murmured something to herself, then groaned in pain, and then lay quiet for a time. The midwife was shaking her head as the old woman didn’t know how to help Anne who seemed to have lost all her strength. Numerous bloodstained cotton sheets were lying in disorder around her bed. She had lost much blood, and now her life was in danger.

She often screamed aloud when the pain returned, as though she had been transfixed by a sword or a javelin in many parts of her body. It was the pain that tore her body apart and left her sweat-drenched and pleading for her own death and for the life of her child. Sometimes, Anne called loudly for Henry in despair, sobbing uncontrollably in pain. At times, crushed with a new strong wave of pain overcoming her body, Anne repeated multiple times that she wanted to die as she could no longer endure that terrible pain.

The midwife advanced from the foot of the bed and examined Anne. She placed her hands onto Anne’s swollen belly to feel the placement of the child. Anne’s ladies stood close to the bed. They looked back at the midwife who muttered something unclear to herself as she continued to move her hands. Anne heard many whispers around herself as the ladies discussed the progress of her labor and her pains. Their whisperings and lamentations sounded as though a hollow echo marking her death.

“Will she be alright?” Lady Eleanor asked anxiously.

The midwife placed the covers back over Anne and shook her head. “If the child doesn’t come soon, neither of them has a chance,” she replied sorrowfully.

Lady Eleanor sat on the edge of Anne’s bed and squeezed her right hand. “My lady, you must be brave. Gather all your strength now,” she said softly.

“I am dying,” Anne cried out. “Henry… Henry…” she called out.

As Anne called King Henry, the other ladies shared worried, sorrowful glances.

“Lady Anne, please don’t say that you will die,” Lady Eleanor said. She ran her right hand across Anne’s forehead, brushing back the wet curls of her dark hair from her face.

Anne closed her eyes. She was tired. She could barely breathe. She was bathed in perspiration, and her skin was white, the white of death. “I can go no further,” she groaned.

“You can and you will,” Lady Eleanor said firmly. “You must live.”

“Why should I live? Soon he will have me executed anyway,” Anne whispered in a low voice, so that only Eleanor heard her.

“My lady, you must cope. You are a strong woman.” Lady Eleanor forced herself to smile to mask her worried expression. “You must go on for your own sake and for the sake of your child.”

“Lord, save my child,” Anne muttered under her breath. She gritted her teeth as the pain returned.

Finally, everything finished well near midnight of November 21. The labor had taken around twenty-four hours in total. Anne heard the loud cry of her child and managed to smile with a vague, yet happy smile. Then she shut her eyes as she lost consciousness in exhaustion.

Master Cromwell was standing near Anne’s chamber, waiting for the news about the labor of the former Queen of England. He spent half of the day at the Tower of London. Someone of Anne’s ladies periodically went out and notified him about the progress of the labor, which was rather slow. When Lady Anne Shelton and Lady Mary Kingston told him that the midwife was concerned with the survival of both Anne and the child, he hoped that Anne would probably die in childbirth. It would have helped the kingdom, the king, and Cromwell himself. As he heard the cry of the newborn baby, Cromwell silently cursed several times. He strained his ears and continued to listen.

Anne regained consciousness in around half an hour. She looked down at herself and saw that she had already been dressed by her ladies in a clean, white cotton nightgown. She raised her head and looked around, her eyes fixing at the bundle in the midwife’s arms; her newborn child. Anne glared at the midwife. “What is it?” she asked. Her voice was barely a whisper.

The midwife examined the child, searching for any possible deformations and abnormalities and estimating the health of the baby.

The midwife turned to face Anne. “Lady Anne, it is a boy, healthy boy,” she replied.

Anne smiled through her tears. Her cheeks were pale and tear-stained. Her round eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. “My boy,” she murmured. “Is he healthy?” She had to ask about the health of her child. She had to be sure that her son was fine and would survive after everything she and her baby had gone through.

The midwife swaddled the child. “Yes, Lady Anne,” she replied. “I will give the child to you soon.”

“Dear Lord, thank you,” Anne whispered.

Lady Mary Kingston went outside to tell Master Kingston that Anne had given birth to a boy. However, she stumbled into Master Cromwell surrounded by the sword-bearing guards.

Cromwell gripped the lady’s hand to stop her. “Who was born?” he questioned sternly.

Lady Kingston paused and stared at him. “A healthy boy,” she answered embarrassed.

Cromwell flinched inwardly at those words. He desperately hoped that even if Anne Boleyn survived, she would give birth to a stillborn child or to a daughter, but not to a healthy boy. It fell short of his expectations, and it was too dangerous for him and for the king, who wanted to marry as soon as possible and who was impatiently waiting for the birth of Anne’s child.

Cromwell said to Lady Anne Shelton that he would tell the king about the events of that day. Then he left the Tower and hurried home. Tomorrow, early in the morning, Cromwell had to go to the Palace of Whitehall to report the case to the king. Inside he was trembling in fear and uncertainty.

At the same time, Anne was holding her child in her hands. She was quietly cradling him. She brought the child to her lips and kissed the soft down on the top of his head. A sincere, happy smile illuminated her tired, pale face. Her son was a small perfect copy of Henry, except his eyes and his hair. The child’s hair was black, and he had Anne’s strikingly blue eyes.

BOOK: Between Two Kings
6.51Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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