Chapter 10
Greenwich Palace, Spring
WE LEARN A hard lesson: Anne’s power over parliament, church, and country, depends on her ruling the king.
And she can only rule him if she captures him and holds his whimsical attention, and she has to do this all over again, after disappointing him, and disgusting him.
All the Howards, all the Boleyns, all the placemen and women, all the supporters of reform, muster to return Anne to her throne as queen of the court of love, mistress of a hundred broken hearts, the most beautiful and desired woman, ‘The Most Happy’.
We have to persuade the king that she is the finest woman in the world, pre-eminent at his court; only then can she rule him, and the country.
As soon as she can stand without bleeding, we have her on her feet.
As soon as she can walk without fainting, we have her dancing.
The king goes away to Whitehall in London with a few friends – none of them our friends – but he will return, and we prepare dances and disguisings, jousts of poetry and masquing, tournaments of tennis, competitions of archery, balls, theatre, sports, games, every sort of distraction for when he comes.
Not one word does he send to Anne while he is gone; but a purse of gold coins is delivered to Jane Seymour – a prepayment for her maidenhead.
She returns it without opening it. This could mean that when she weighed it in her hand, she felt it was too light for a prize so long preserved, or she may really not be for sale.
At any rate, the king is making no progress with her, and we hope for a clear run to seduce him back into Anne’s bed.
When the royal barge is sighted coming downriver, it is a confident Anne in a phalanx of Howards who goes down to greet it on the pier, in front of the beautiful palace, wrapped in her finest Russian furs, in a blaze of torches against the cold spring dusk.
George confers with our uncle the Duke of Norfolk, and we all agree that no one will ever mention the miscarry again: our uncle was not the cause of it, and it did not happen.
It will be like the one before – quickly forgotten in the storm of amusements that only we can conjure.
We unite against the Seymours, who move into Thomas Cromwell’s old rooms adjoining the king’s privy chamber.
This is a great favour to the two Seymour brothers, and Anne says that it shows that Cromwell’s influence is waning, if this mediocre family is given his rooms. I think, silently, that it could equally prove to be our influence that is the thinning moon – and Cromwell is obliging the Seymours now, just as he used to oblige the Boleyns.
But if the Seymours thought they had a hiding place for secret assignations with the king, we spoil sport.
Anne takes Jane as her bedfellow on most nights, and the young woman remains the most virginal of maids-of-honour.
There is no challenge and chase about Jane, no hide and seeking for the king.
When he summons her to his side, she sits in dull silence beside him.
When he says something witty and flirtatious, she is smilingly blank.
The chattering court of gossip cannot see the attraction; but more than one girl tries on a new look of demure modesty, and the ugly English hood comes into fashion as a silent reproach to Anne’s French style.
Thomas Cromwell takes over new rooms, further from the royal bedroom but grander, with a private stair to a room on the ground floor below, where he transacts his business.
The ground-floor room has a grille on the window and a double door to prevent eavesdroppers.
All of the letters for the king are delivered first to Master Cromwell’s dark chamber for translating, decoding, and copying.
He comes to play cards with the king in Anne’s rooms one evening and chooses me as his partner. When we put our heads together to count our winnings, he says quietly: ‘I see you keep Mistress Seymour close.’
‘Not as close as I would like,’ I reply. ‘She talks to Sir Nicholas Carew, and he is no friend to the queen.’
‘Oh, does she?’ is all he says.
‘And Gertrude Courtenay,’ I add.
‘I knew you would find her of interest,’ he says, as if pleased with his own foresight. ‘Is she one of the Spanish party or just alongside them? D’you think she advises Gertrude Courtenay as to the mood of the king?’
I make a little face. ‘What would Jane Seymour know of royal moods? The sun always shines on her.’
His dark eyes crinkle with amusement at my irritability. ‘Indeed. D’you think she speaks to the king for Lady Mary?’
I think for a moment. ‘I suppose she might. She’s very tender-hearted.’ By the tone in my voice, he may take that I don’t think tender-heartedness a virtue in a courtier.
‘Someone helpfully warned the Spanish party that Lady Mary must swear the oath or face a charge of treason.’ He smiles at me. ‘Lady Mary’s friends are much dismayed. There’s much fluttering in the hen coop, messengers going one to another. I believe they will try to get her out of the country?’
‘How d’you know they are fluttering?’ I ask.
‘They write. They write constantly.’
‘Your room receives all letters? Like the dark chambers of Venice?’
‘I modelled my room on Venice. Information is the life blood of a powerful state. The Venetian Doge is a most successful tyrant.’
‘Don’t the Spanish party use code?’
He shrugs. ‘I have the code. I have the names of the ship, the plan for escape, and the names of those who warned that she should run away.’
‘You won’t have my name,’ I assert.
He nods. ‘You can be sure, I don’t. Lady Margaret Pole is a very discreet woman – unlike her son Sir Geoffrey: a blabbermouth.
She never puts anything in writing. You did good work, Jane.
They are desperate, and they will act desperately, and Lady Mary will be saved from sainthood despite herself, and they will talk themselves to the scaffold. ’