Chapter 7 #3
He makes us sound like the dog-keepers in a bear pit, choosing one bitch after another to go into the bear. ‘It’s not like that,’ I say quickly. ‘Mary Shelton knows that a courtier’s task is to entertain the king and enhance the life of the court.’
‘The queen accepts this . . . cousinly entertainment?’
I cannot explain to this plainly dressed common-born man that Howard ladies are raised to be both poets and muses, to inspire love and perform it.
The youngest girl in the schoolroom at Norfolk House, Lambeth, knows that it is her task in life to win the favour of the king and get a good marriage.
The youngest boy knows the only route to fame and fortune is in the king’s service.
‘The queen is mistress of her rooms; her ladies are a reflection of her,’ I say. ‘Her rooms are rightly the heart of the court. A king should be royally served.’
He gives a short laugh. ‘Aye – I know you all do that. And Mistress Shelton herself? Did she seek this post?’
The rapid questions make me feel like one of his sheets of paper, slid quickly across a desk for signing.
‘She makes no objection. She has come to a court that everyone knows is the centre of courtly love and poetry. She writes poetry herself – love poetry.’
‘To the king?’
‘To the king and to other poets: Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard. To my husband George and to Henry Norris.’
‘In Venice, a woman with half a dozen men would be called a courtesan?’
I flush with irritation at his crassness. ‘It’s a game,’ I say. ‘As I think you know well enough, Master Cromwell. It’s the game of courtly love, and nobody takes it seriously. All the ladies are in love with the king, all the noblemen are in love with the queen.’
He shakes his head. ‘Far beyond a simple lawyer like me. Do you have a lover, Lady Rochford?’
I turn my head from his dark-eyed scrutiny. ‘I’ve been at court too long,’ I say quietly. ‘I came as a little girl, and I’ve seen too much.’ I resist the temptation to confess that I am tired of the constant play of courtly love and more and more afraid that there is no real love at all.
For a moment, his calculating gaze softens. ‘I should think you have seen too much, poor child. Does the queen favour anyone?’
‘Henry Norris, I suppose. And Francis. Thomas Wyatt has been devoted to her since she was a girl.’
‘Weston or Bryan?’
‘What?’
‘Her favourite: Francis Weston or Francis Bryan?’
I give my false courtier laugh to hide my discomfort. ‘Oh, both of them! That’s what I am saying. This is a court of flirtation!’
‘And do they advise her? These lovers? Do they talk of the dowager princess, of the alliance with France? Do they talk of the pope and the need for the reform of the Church? She reads forbidden books, doesn’t she?
Does she read with them? With her brother?
They’re both keen reformers? He is her chief advisor? What do they speak of?’
‘Of course, George has the full confidence of both the king and queen—’
He makes a noise, an irritated little tsk. ‘Lady Rochford, do you not trust me?’
‘Of course I do! I said I am so grateful—’
‘Please do trust me. Half of what you tell me, I know already. I know, for instance, that the queen has forbidden books in her private library and that half of them have been given her by her brother. That they are both so determined on the reform of the Church that they swear there will be no monastery standing in ten years—’
‘Only those that are corrupt—’
‘And who d’you think inspects them for corruption? Me! I’m on your side, Lady Rochford. We’re all on the same side. I’m for reform, and for the queen, and for her son and for a Tudor England at peace.’
‘George advises Anne,’ I volunteer. ‘And all of our inner circle are for reform, enemies of the Spanish party and of Spain, and the old queen.’
‘And what d’you think of Jane Seymour?’ he says casually. ‘Does she put herself forward?’
He changes the subject so quickly that he surprises me into honesty. ‘Jane Seymour? She’s a nothing! She has her place as a favour to her brothers. I’m surprised she came back to Anne’s court. She was so fond of the que . . . of the dowager princess.’
‘She, too, has a train of admirers?’
I smile at his shot in the dark. ‘You can’t know everything if you think that, Master Secretary. She is famously modest; she is notoriously modest; she’s embarrassingly modest. She doesn’t encourage anyone.’
He pats my hand. ‘Please notice her in future, Lady Rochford. And tell me what you think of her. She certainly has great friends at court – important friends, if not admirers.’
‘I’ve never seen her talking with anyone,’ I warn him. ‘But then, she rarely speaks. She’ll never attract the king that way.’
His smile widens. ‘Just as I thought! You are a scholar of the court, Lady Rochford. When we next meet, you must tell me: what is the meaning of Jane Seymour – and who has taught her silence?’
OUR HARVEST DANCE with Anne as Ceres turns into the sort of romp the king loves, which Anne used to stage for him every other night during their courtship, when her glittering rooms at Whitehall rivalled and outshone the dignified grace of the old queen at Westminster.
It is as if those times have come again when the master of ceremonies announces that the dance of the ladies bringing in the harvest must be interrupted because some strange country men have demanded the return of their wheat sheaves.
All the gentlemen come in, dressed in homespun like rustics.
The king, head and shoulders above everyone else, fatter than anyone else, and with a halting stride, is easily spotted; but the rest of them are hidden in baggy smocks, with hats pulled down over their eyes.
Mary Shelton screams in delicious alarm, and our dance breaks up in confusion.
The king’s choristers march in, dressed as peasants, singing harvest songs and leaping around us, and we all snatch up the sheaves of wheat and pile them around Anne’s throne like a little makeshift castle, and swear to defend the harvest against this raid.
Anne laughs with apparent delight as the king lunges for Mary Shelton, who screams and ducks, holding tight to her sheaf of wheat.
Jane Seymour runs away altogether, as if it is too rowdy for her, but her brother Edward, a handsome, fair-haired man of about thirty-five, sweeps me off my feet by lifting me bodily from the ground, and as I gasp, his brother, Thomas, snatches the sheaf of wheat from me and throws it across the room.
It’s caught in a high leap by the king’s fool – who gives me a merry wave and runs towards Anne to return it to her, the queen of the harvest.
Edward Seymour yells at the fool for betraying the cause of the peasant men, and the fool pretends to be confused by the shouting, flees towards the king, and flings himself under his feet.
The king nearly falls over him and snatches up a sheaf and gives it back to me as a gesture of chivalry.
I run with it to Anne and am greeted by her most insincere peal of laughter.
We are all tumbled and tousled and breathless and laughing; Elizabeth Somerset is holding a torn sleeve that shows her naked shoulder, Margaret Shelton has disappeared altogether with someone; Anne Parr is tussling over a sheaf with William Herbert, when the master of ceremonies announces that the harvest has made it home and the lady harvesters have won.
Anne, as Ceres, holds out the crown for the harvester who was first to get her sheaf of wheat home, and her gracious smile never wavers as Mary Shelton emerges, rumpled, from a dark corner, curtseys and bows her dark head for the crown of woven corn.
A harvest supper is laid out in the great hall, and we eat country style – no French forks, no elegant napkins, no silver salters, just great loaves of bread on the table, whole roasted hams and chickens, and the servers bring in great mugs of ale and cider.
Anne is queen of the feast at the foot of the table; but Mary Shelton as queen of the harvest is seated beside the king at the head.
The king has captured Jane Seymour and forced her to sit, blushing, on his left.
Her brother Edward sits beside her to monitor any word she might dare to whisper.
Lady-harvesters and pretend-peasants sit side by side at the same table, without precedence in a celebration of misrule: the world turned upside-down.
The old lords and their wives are nowhere to be seen – they knew it would be the sort of romp that they despise but cannot condemn while the king is in the heart of the fun, fooling like a man half his age.
It could not be more successful in creating light-hearted laughter in the queen’s court and showing the old guard that they are out of time and out of place and that the king is like us – young and daring and merry.
Anne has George on one side of her, making her laugh and drawing all eyes away from the king and Mary Shelton, and Henry Norris is on her left, whispering in her ear and giving her the best cuts of meat.
I see her toss her head at some impertinent whisper and she glances down the table to see if the king is watching her.
Margaret Douglas is beside the baby-faced Lord Thom and Anne Parr beside William Herbert.
Thomas Cromwell should make a map of this table like his maps of church lands, showing the family connections and the secrets that join one place to another.
He would have a carte of the courtly loves that he pretends to find so bemusing, and he could judge if they, like the church houses, are also corrupt.
‘You’re new,’ says a voice at my elbow, and the king’s fool, still dressed in a white smock like a harvester, shows me his empty hands, palms and then the backs of his hands.
‘I’ve been at court since I was a little girl,’ I tell him. ‘It’s you who are new.’
‘No, I’ve been a fool since I was born,’ he replies. ‘I was a fool in my cradle.’
‘I think everyone is a fool in the cradle,’ I say.
‘D’you think we are fools to be born?’ he asks, as if he is interested in my opinion. He turns both his palms upwards, and now he has a cherry in each hand.
I clap my hands at the trick. ‘Are the cherries for me?’
‘Can you make them disappear?’
I take them from his hand, and I put them in my mouth.
He claps his hands just as I did, with the same insincere smile. ‘See? You can be a fool like me.’
‘I’m the king’s sister-in-law, a Boleyn,’ I tell him, thinking he does not know me. ‘I’m no fool.’
‘Bless you!’ he says with his friendly grin. ‘The Boleyns are the greatest fools of all.’
The king’s eyes are on us; he nods to me to come towards him. My belly sinks with fear as I rise to my feet, step away from my stool, and curtsey to him. ‘Your Majesty,’ I say – using the new title, knowing he prefers it.
‘Majesty’ suits him: he is no longer the informal prince that they called the handsomest in Christendom; he has aged in the year I have been away, thickened, lost his hair.
His neck, his shoulders, his chest have grown bullish, the skin on his face coarsened by weather and hard drinking.
His thick neck and chin are hidden by the beard, his forehead broadened by the new hair cut.
But he is still the greatest man in England, one of the richest men in the world, the brightest star in my childhood skies.
I think I will die of shame if he says one word against me or refuses my return in front of everyone.
He has become majestic, to suit his new title.
His smile is like sunshine breaking through thunderclouds. He beckons me towards him. ‘Why it’s pretty Jane come back to us!’ he exclaims. ‘Why have you been so long away, Jane, my sweetheart?’
There’s no time to glance at Anne for a prompt; George is blandly smiling.
I give my courtier laugh and declare: ‘Madness, Your Majesty. I must have been mad to be away from you for so long!’
And he gives a great bellow of laughter, throws open his arms, and wraps me in a hug like a bear, like a baited bear in a pit will crush a silly little bitch in his great arms.