Greenwich Palace, May Day. 1536 #6
‘Worse! They say they bedded. Brother-and-sister lovers! Incestuous lovers!’
He has knocked the breath out of me.
‘You think you’re so clever,’ he says, with lightning malice. ‘The three of you. So clever and young and sinful. Were you in the bed, too?’
‘Nobody can say it! Nobody will have witnessed it! There’s no evidence for it!’
‘Everyone’s given evidence of it,’ he jeers. ‘Everyone witnessed it.’
‘Lies! And such a thing to say? Such a wicked . . .’ I break off.
Actually, it’s clever; everyone knows their intimacy.
I, myself, said to Cromwell that George is always with his sister.
Impossible to deny what happens behind a closed door.
But it is the worst of accusations, made by the worst of imaginations.
And why attack George? And why add incest to the accusations of adultery?
I can feel my uncle’s hard scrutiny of my white face, and I look up, hoping for help.
‘But – why?’ I ask simply. ‘If this is an attack on Anne by her enemies – the Poles, and the Seymours and the rest of the Spanish party, all working together – why so gross an accusation? Why incest as well as witchcraft?’
‘Something so ungodly that it drives the king mad,’ he tells me.
‘Nobody’s going to ask “but was she married before?” when they hear about this.
Nobody will care. It’s such a vile sin that everyone will call for her death.
The king loudest of all. They’ll frighten him half to death about the lust he felt for her.
By the time they’ve finished, he’ll think of her as a witch who tempted him and destroyed his life, made him impotent, dropped a horse on him, killed his first wife and sickened his daughter.
Nothing will satisfy him but her death.’
‘Wait!’ I say. ‘I can vouch for George. At least I can save him. There was no treason. There was no incest. There was no plotting the death of the king. I was there at every meeting.’
He grips me by the arm and draws me close.
‘If you were at every meeting, then you are a traitor and part of the queen’s adulterous murderous witchcraft,’ he growls in my ear.
‘If you were there at every meeting, then you were in bed with the two of them, hanging on each other, kissing with tongues, hiding dead babies, cursing the king into impotence, taking potions. You choose! Go to your spymaster Cromwell: his book is open at the page for confessions.’
His grip is tight, but I hardly feel it; I sway with sickness. He pauses and looks into my ashen face. ‘D’you want to die? D’you want to die as an incestuous witch-traitor with George and Anne?’
‘They’re not going to die.’
‘D’you want to die with them?’
I know that I don’t. ‘No.’
‘Then do as I do: condemn them.’
‘You can’t condemn them – your own niece and nephew. You can’t send them to their deaths without a word?’
He grins, showing his yellow teeth. ‘Oh, I’m going to speak a word,’ he says mirthlessly. ‘I’ll speak a word all right. I’m going to say: “Guilty”.’
NO ONE TELLS the ladies to leave; but there is nothing for us to do here without a queen.
Those of us who have families in rooms at court can go to them, and the others – like Anne Basset whose mother is in Calais – stays with friends in London.
Sir Nicholas Carew does not open his grand house at Croydon for any other maid-of-honour but Jane Seymour, who does not reappear to help as we pack up our things.
‘Where will you go?’ I ask Margery Horsman.
‘Home,’ she says shortly. ‘I’ve told them everything they asked. I don’t have to stay.’
‘What d’you mean, everything they asked? Who asked you?’
‘Master Cromwell asked me; his clerk wrote down my answers. “Who spoke to who? Who danced with the queen? Who did she favour?” I told them that I saw what everyone saw – the king himself saw everything. Master Holbein could’ve painted it!
There’s no news to be made from it. Masquing, dancing, plays, courtly love, everything as normal. Will you go to Beaulieu?’
I shake my head. ‘I’ll wait for George in our rooms. He’ll come back here as soon as he’s given his evidence.’
She lowers her voice. ‘Did you hear? They’ve arrested Thomas Wyatt?’
I think of Cromwell saying: Two Francises, a Thomas, and a Mark, and a Richard and a Henry. So many! William Brereton?
I shake my head. ‘I’ve heard nothing,’ I lie. ‘I’ve seen nobody all day. But it can’t be an arrest: Wyatt is a great favourite of the king, as is Henry Norris. They’ll have called him in to give evidence, like George and Francis. Nobody would believe anything against Francis.’
I go to our rooms, and I write a letter to George.
Dearest Husband,
I send you these clothes and some writing paper and new pens and ink. I will see the king and speak for you, if I can.
Your faithful wife,
Jane
I take the letter to the stables and find our groom. I offer him another sixpence, but he hesitates.
‘Beg pardon, Lady Rochford, but I can’t go for less than a shilling. By the time I go there and back, I’m likely to be turned off.’
‘You work for me,’ I tell him. ‘No one can turn you off.’
He twists his cap in his big hands. ‘They say there’ll be no Boleyn money to pay my wages, and already, there’s no place for me at the royal groom’s dinner table. I used to get my keep – I used to eat in. Now there’s nowhere for me to sit and no dinner for me.’
I am not going to protest our family’s innocence to my husband’s groom. I give him a shilling. ‘Take the message and bring me back an answer,’ is all I say.
I could have saved my money. George’s answer is so short and formal that he must know his letters are being read and trusts me to do whatever I can.
But I am glad of a letter that says nothing – it means he is thinking of his safety, not raging in defence of Anne.
The accusation of adultery and treason will fall of its own overweight – it will crash down on those who raised it.
The worse they try to paint us, the worse will be their defeat. All we have to do is say nothing.
THE SPANISH PARTY’S accusation of the four commoners accused of adultery with Anne opens – in all its ridiculous illogicality – at Westminster Hall in front of a thrilled audience of Londoners.
Ridiculous – because everyone knows that the charges are false.
Illogical – because if the four men are found guilty of adultery with Anne, she will come to trial with a verdict already cast against her.
Is the Queen of England to be condemned for adultery because a lute player admitted under torture that he swived her?
With no witnesses? With no evidence? It’s so far-fetched that I am reassured that no one can take it seriously.
It’s only at the end of the day, when I meet that fool Elizabeth Somerset, that I realise that the collapse of the Spanish party plot is coming dangerously late.
Broad-bellied, she is climbing awkwardly into a litter in the stable-yard, and tries to make a grimace at me, as if to laugh at her predicament. Her face is gaunt and strained. The pretty flush of pregnancy is a livid stamp on her pale nose and cheeks.
‘I’m going home for my confinement,’ she calls out as I come through the archway. ‘My husband ordered me home the minute they went to trial! So sad! Who’d have thought anyone would have taken it all so seriously!’
‘What?’ I ask tightly. ‘Taken what so seriously?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’
‘No.’
‘Oh! I don’t like to be the one to tell you!’ she pauses.
I come close to the litter. ‘Tell me, Elizabeth. I’ve heard nothing, and nobody talks to me but you.’
‘Well, they wouldn’t,’ she exclaims. ‘Oh! My dear! So sorry! So awful! Well! Anyway . . . poor Smeaton confessed, though he looked awful – terribly bruised around the head. The noblemen denied everything, of course. But the lords found against their own! Think of that? Guilty.’ She looks ready to cry.
‘Of course there’ll be a pardon. But it’s such a scandal, and it looks badly on all of us. My own reputation . . .’
‘Guilty?’ I repeat.
‘Yes! All our darling friends. Thank God, George wasn’t there.
He and Anne will be tried by the lords, not in a common court.
And darling Norris and Francis Weston will be pardoned for sure.
And nobody could think anything against William, though he is so disagreeable.
Smeaton confessed; but of course, nobody believes him.
But even so, my husband says I have to go straight home!
’ She leans towards me to whisper. ‘He’s trying to deny the baby is his!
Says we’re all as bad as each other. Which is what I said in the very beginning! Meaning innocent, of course!’
I recoil from her, but she goes on.
‘Think of me! The only good thing about it is that I won’t see my husband for nearly two months . . .’ Her voice dies away as she realises that I have not seen my husband since May Day. She beckons me closer to whisper: ‘Did you hear about Jane Seymour?’
I shake my head.
‘Moved from Nicholas Carew’s house. Too far from Whitehall for convenience!
She’s at Sir Francis Bryan’s house on the Strand.
So Francis Bryan is released to play host – he was just called in for questioning, nothing against him – though he’s the worst man at court.
Now the king dines there nightly! Not bad for a half-wit from Wiltshire. ’
‘Sir Francis’ house?’ I repeat.
‘The king dines there every night. Goes by royal barge with the musicians playing.’
‘Does he?’
‘Yes. You can hear them from the pier.’
The muleteers, tired of waiting, turn and look at her.
‘Oh! I suppose I have to go. Well, goodbye,’ she says simply.
‘Good luck,’ I say, and I see the quick movement of her fingers, the thumb going between the index and the third finger, the old sign to ward off witchcraft – as if I am so unlucky, as if we Boleyns are so unlucky, that my blessing on her is a curse.