Read The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn Online
Authors: Robin Maxwell
The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn (5 page)
One of Elizabeth’s childish mementos was a fine linen kerchief embroidered with her mother’s
A
and her father’s
H
entwined like embracing lovers. Later, when Anne was gone and forgotten, supplanted by Jane Seymour, all linens, carvings, paintings, and crests with that bold symbol of Anne’s success were destroyed or discarded, replaced by the new queen’s J entwined with Henry’s
H
. All through her lonely and miserable childhood Elizabeth kept the kerchief, an illicit treasure, in a tiny chest that contained what poor jewels she’d been given, and other trinkets of little value. As she grew older the box of trinkets was pushed to the bottom of a wooden chest, and her mother’s memory faded like a painted fan.
“Tell me about the diary.”
“I knew nothing of the diary until the day your mother went to her unhappy death. She was agitated on that day, as workmen had been outside her prison window sawing and hammering the platform upon which she was to die. Her last pleas to your father for clemency had come to naught, and she was out of hope. It seemed for a time that all grace had left her. She was clumsy, tripping on her skirt and wringing her hands. She would rake her fingers across her face and through her hair, muttering, ‘God forgive me. God forgive me.’
“I felt sick at my stomach and light-headed. She was pitiful and not the queen I knew she’d want to appear before the audience of her execution. So I rallied myself and went kindly to her, asking if she did not want me to brush her hair. She looked at me then and it appeared something inside of her settled. She grew very calm and said, ‘Yes please, Lady Sommerville, I would very much like that.’
“I did the long slow strokes she so enjoyed, patting the hair down gently behind the brush, and then she asked if I would put it up and fasten it off her neck. It was when she said that I began to cry, for I knew her reasoning.” The old woman unconsciously touched the back of her own neck. “They’d imported a fine French executioner, but she was afraid of pain and wanted no hindrances to the sword’s clean cut.”
Elizabeth found her eyes were wet, but she made no move to hide the tears from this woman, her mother’s friend in life and death.
“When her hair was done and I’d helped her into a soft grey gown, she came to me holding that book. She was very calm by then and the terror had gone from her eyes. ‘Take this,’ she said. It is my life. Give it to my daughter, Elizabeth. Give it to her when she is grown, when she is queen. She will have need of it.’
“I’m ashamed to admit, Majesty, I thought then that Henry’s daughter from a wife he so despised would never rule England. But I loved your mother, who was going to her death, and I said it would be my honor. And so it is my honor, these years hence, to give you this diary.”
Lady Sommerville rose painfully from the chair. Elizabeth put out a hand to steady her and their eyes met and held.
“Your mother died with grace, Your Majesty. She died a queen.” Lady Sommerville curtsied low and, taking Elizabeth’s white be jeweled hand, kissed her ring.
“Thank you, kind lady,” whispered Elizabeth. “You should be proud that you have fulfilled the promise you made to my mother so long ago.”
The old woman smiled and gazed at the Queen’s pale face.
“You have your father’s eyes, Elizabeth, but it is your mother’s spirit shining through them.”
Lady Sommerville turned and hobbled out the door, not bothering to close it behind her. Kat and several younger waiting ladies were poised there and came fluttering into the chamber. Elizabeth, as if in a sweet dream she wished undisturbed, raised a hand and bade them depart.
The Queen, who throughout Lady Sommerville’s entire story had clutched the diary in her hands, now studied it carefully. It was old. The claret leather was fading to pink and the binding was fragile. There was little left of a gold leaf border, but once, she could see, it had been a very pretty book indeed. As though she were handling the wings of butterflies, Elizabeth opened the front cover. There in stylish penmanship in large black letters on yellowing parchment was the inscription
The Diary
of
Anne Boyeln
Elizabeth turned the page.
4 January 1522
Diary,
So strange, a book of empty pages. I have never seen in all my life a thing so very odd or very wonderful as this parchment diary. For different from a book that I might read whose author offers up to me like some rich meal, his thoughts and words and deeds, this empty volume defies and mocks me, begs of me to make its pages full. But full of what?
Thomas Wyatt, giver of this gift, insists that I am able, offering as proof that I’ve acquired, he says, the habit of writing in several languages, that I’m adept at conversation, full of witty anecdotes, delightful stories of the French Court. These are compliments, to be sure, from a gentleman to a lady but they hold a draught of Truth. In deed Wyatt, gift in hand, had found me in the tiny day room set aside for Queen Katherine’s waiting women, quite alone and sitting at the writing table quill in hand, a letter to my Mother almost done.
I turned to see him, smiled an honest smile. For Wyatt is a great man among men. A writer, in deed the finest poet in Henrys English Court, handsome in the extreme, very tall and vital. He is said to be, save royal blood, Henrys equal and is in fact the Tudor King’s good and constant companion. Since my cold and miserable homecoming from the French King’s Court this gentleman has singled me from other ladies, showering me with more favors even than my fair Sister Mary. He flatters me boldly in his poems which are the cause of much admiration and some jealousy. But even this had not prepared me for so unusual a gift.
“Few men and fewer ladies still, commit their words in such a way,” said he. “But in my mind there is none I know whose thoughts and dreams, whose wit and history should better grace these pages.” He said he found this courtly life too close and gregarious for easy fostering of solitary thoughts, but bade me remember that we are always alone, even in the midst of others. And then he said, “If you find a way to write with open heart to Diary, a friend with Truth, no detail spared, your tome like Petrarch’s works will contain the scattered fragments of your soul.”
I was clean amazed. Thomas Wyatt, clever man, had offered up like some Yuletide walnut pressed within the soft sweet flesh of a date, an arch challenge hid within the kindest compliment. I knew then that despite small opportunity in a waiting ladies life for such work, that /
must write
and coupled with a careful plan, conceal my act of privacy. The carven chest I carried home from France has lock and key and there my journal intime shall find its safe repose.
Wait! I hear the laughter of approaching Queen and ladies echoing down the passage. They come returning from some amusement, so I must end and join amongst them. Till then I shall remain
Yours faithfully,
Anne
15 January 1522
Diary,
I’ve feigned a head ache and stayed behind, the others gone to see the bear baiting in the castle yard. I sit just near the window in my tiny room with quill in hand and think upon my daily life to find that Time has little changed my gloomy mood. Since my return from France to Henry’s dull provincial Court I wait upon his pious Queen, carrying her woollen sleeves or soiled linen thro dark and narrow passages, the grey damp rock walls chilled by English mists that rise up from the Thames. They chill my heart as well and I find my self adrift in longing.
Had Father not been called home from France, all cordial diplomacy with them in ruins, then I should be, as in my dreams still am, dancing nightly in Francis’ glittering Court.
There
was glamour, brilliance, beauty and there was wild and wicked amour. That devilish King (though to be fair Henry’s person compares in size and majesty and virile handsomeness) has a thing of which our Sovereign never dreamt or wished to have — bawdy, splendid love of lust which he does grant to each and every member of his elegant entourage.
‘Twas in France I spent my youth and education from early nursery days, close companion to the little lame Princess Renee. High arched windows of the royal palace welcomed in a kind of crystal light that made blaze each color to most extreme brightness. Every wall was hung, every nook was stuffed, every floor inlaid with priceless treasures — tapestries, paintings, statues and metalwork to tease and please the senses. Great philosophers, writers, scholars flocked there from every port. We would dine in the company of the great poet Marot, gaze for hours at da Vinci’s Mona Lisa brought by that fine Italian gentleman to grace the King’s own hall. Ah, the time, the place, they linger in my mind. I have a memory — a moment in a perfect day within a life a world away. I will tell it full and let you see, my Diary, what life had been not long ago for Mistress Anne Boleyn.
… I hurried down the sunny palace corridor to meet Josette where at our fitting she had promised me to tell a tasty bit of gossip. But then I saw King Francis approaching like a torch carried thro the black night, his own loud and bawdy presence outshining his many jewels. The men of his French Court glittered in his reflected brilliance, strutted with certainty and impudent grace embracing his every word, flattering his every elegant move, quenching his every whim.
They drew nearer. I boldly met the French King’s eye and held his blatant gaze before dropping the lowest of seductive bows. I arose and knew that all the courtiers were admiring me, caressing me, undressing me. The’ King, his men and I exchanged some words —a compliment on His Majesty’s latest Italian plunder, a jest at another lady’s expense, a greeting to my Father the Ambassador, an invitation to play at cards. I tilted my head, flashed my eyes, smiled a teasing smile. Years of cultured coquettry worked a spell, for I knew that they were thinking, “This is Anna de Boullans, sister to Marie the infamous English mare. This one is young, still unsullied. Here stands a pretty world of possibilities and potential seductions. Let me smile the most handsomely, pose the most brazenly, cause with my wit the brightest laugh. Let me be her lover first and win from my King, if indeed he does not bed her before, his deep and salacious admiration. Let me be the one to share with His Majesty — for it is his greatest pleasure — the titillating details of our passionate liaison, the very words spoken in heated embrace.”
So with sly innuendo before I took my leave I pretended to yield to thoughts of lasciviousness and goad them on to fantasy, with me at its delicious center. They knew not as they sauntered on to their next small amusement that I was whole as ever in body and maidenly resolve. Virginity was mine for I was well taught in this matter.
I saw my sister and the names she was called. Mary was a true beauty, but she was dull minded, led only by the reins of desire and that day’s aggrandizement. She thought of nothing past the one night’s conquest.
I learned, too, from the Queen we served, Claude — dowdy and chaste. All Claude’s ladies scorned her ways and flaunted her husband’s escapades. To most she was of no account. But not to me. For what I saw was that she was
Queen
. She wore the Crown, held the King of France between her thighs and passed thro them Royal Princes who bore his name. The gilt and witty ladies of Court in silken gowns, ablaze with jewels and hotly pursued … had nothing. Neither love nor name nor lasting glory. I played their game. Laughed and flirted, pretended to debauchery, drank from a goblet etched inside with salacious scenes… and did not blush. I kept my counsel. I was but fifteen.
The sunny French corridor filled with sparkling music and a scent of rich parfum drifted to me and by. I touched the colored marble of a naked god upon a pedestal. I gazed upon his stony sheath of maleness, and thought of flesh. His thigh was cool, my hand upon it warm, nay burning hot. I deep inhaled.
Rude shouts and the scream of a dying dog in the courtyard. My sweet reverie shattered, brittle ice upon the window glass. I am in England. But I am sick in my heart and lonely for that golden life. I wish I were in France.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
E
LIZABETH SAT MOTIONLESS
, stunned by the revelations of the diary. What strange and singular fortune had placed this document in her hands, that she should now be made privy to her mother’s most intimate thoughts, and a world almost forty years past.
Elizabeth felt as though she had suddenly found entrance into a secret chamber long sealed — as a tomb — in which hidden were mysteries dreadful as they were fascinating, dangerous as they were important. She searched her heart, but found nothing that might be called love for the shadowy personage who had been her father’s mistress for six years, his wife and queen for three. Elizabeth had, since childhood, built up around her heart thick walls to protect it against Anne’s shameful memory. Her bitterness at the traitoress’s death and its tainting of her own life was the mortar.
The crown had been Elizabeth’s for so short a time. And she was beset by the gravest of decisions every day which affected not simply her life but all of England, all of her subjects. If indeed the fates had chosen to bestow the diary upon her at this crucial moment, she thought, she would be foolish to accord it anything less than the utmost attention.