Chapter 40
Footsteps echoed up the stairs of the house they had rented in Cheapside and Elizabeth sent up a silent prayer.
Thomas stood with his back to her, staring out of the window, while Jane, Viscountess Rochford, was curled in a chair, snivelling into a linen handkerchief, her eyes red with weeping.
The door of the silent room opened and Agnes Howard, dowager Duchess of Norfolk entered.
‘Well?’
Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, father-in-law to the king of England and grandfather to Princess Elizabeth Tudor, a potential heir to the throne, turned.
‘Guilty,’ said Agnes, her voice breaking. ‘Both of them.’
From the corner, Jane wailed, hiding her face in her hands. Elizabeth felt all the air rush from her lungs. She could not catch her breath. Lights flashed before her eyes and for the briefest moment, her world turned black, then the horror returned as her stepmother continued to speak.
‘He made Younger pass the judgement,’ Agnes said, her voice thick with tears.
‘There was such cruelty in the proceedings. When the verdict was given, he made their uncle stand in front of the entire court and condemn them to death. Poor Younger, we know he can be pompous, difficult, but this was beyond usual punishment. Why would the king behave in such an evil manner?’
‘Henry wants to destroy us all,’ whispered Elizabeth and the memory of her premonition from many years earlier flooded her: the swish of the blade, the woman’s gasp.
‘But why?’ beseeched Agnes, her words bringing Elizabeth back to the present. ‘He turned the world upside down for Anne. He changed us all from Catholics to Protestants, he would have plucked the stars from the sky for her. What turned his love to hate?’
‘It was never love,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He doesn’t know how to love. He is consumed with anger, malevolence and violence.’
‘And now he plans to wed your cousin, Jane Seymour,’ said Agnes.
Elizabeth shook her head. When she had heard Henry’s passions had switched to Jane Seymour, she had wondered if this was his continued threat to destroy all those close to her.
Jane was a cousin, a blood relative, would he cut a swathe through every young woman connected to her?
He had already bedded another of her cousins, Madge Shelton. How many more would he destroy?
‘I have to go to him,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Go to whom?’ asked Thomas. ‘Your brother will not be able to sway the king’s decision.’
‘Not to Younger,’ said Elizabeth. ‘To the king. This is a message for me and only I can reply.’
Before her husband could comment, she gathered her skirts in her hand and left the room, calling for her ladies to accompany her as she hurried to her bedchamber to make herself presentable for her audience with the king.
‘You came,’ said the king several hours later as Elizabeth was shown into his chambers at the Tower of London.
In the passing years, the king had changed.
He was heavier, angrier, a broad, strong man.
His face had lost its chiselled handsomeness and was now fleshy, the once muscled body running to fat.
On his hat he wore a red jewel, a letter ‘H’ shaped from a fiery ruby.
Elizabeth felt bile rise in her throat. She had been correct, all Henry had done: seduce her eldest daughter, Mary, give her two children which he refused to claim, then left her in poverty when her husband Sir William Carey died; pursue and marry Anne, destroy her in the cruellest way; arrest her son for incest and treason; raise her husband to the Earldom of Wiltshire, the prize of the Ormond title long since given to Piers Butler, and dash Thomas down – all were to punish her.
She prostrated herself at his feet. ‘You win, sire,’ she said.
Henry snorted derisively. ‘Stand up, Elizabeth,’ he said. ‘Join me at the table and call me Henry.’
Elizabeth had a flashback to the last time he had made this demand at the Field of the Cloth of Gold but she did not comment, she had no wish to antagonise the king.
‘The years have changed us both. Although, you remain the most attractive woman at court.’
Elizabeth doubted his words. There were many beautiful young women vying for the king’s attention.
Despite her revulsion at being in the room with the man who was preparing to murder her children, she did as he requested and joined him at the table. He poured her a glass of wine.
‘Have you come to beg for Anne and George?’ he asked.
‘If that is what it takes,’ she said.
‘You wish me to give a last-minute reprieve?’
‘Any reprieve would gladden my heart.’
‘And what would you give me in return?’
‘My gratitude,’ she replied.
‘Your gratitude,’ he repeated. Henry laughed, an unpleasant, sardonic sound. He sipped his wine. ‘You’re a wise woman, Lizzie. Those with duller wits than you would have offered their bodies.’
‘My father taught me well,’ she returned.
‘The old Duke was shrewd, I miss his counsel every day. His negotiating skills were the toughest I have ever encountered,’ said Henry.
‘Your brother is a shadow of his father. Younger is too eaten up with his own ambitions and petty schemes to realise they are but smoke in the air in comparison with my own desires.’
‘If my father were here, what do you think he would advise?’ asked Elizabeth, holding the king’s gaze.
‘To annul my marriage to Anne, then send her to a convent and to exile George abroad.’
‘He would,’ she agreed. ‘What did Younger advise?’
‘He told me what he thought I wanted to hear,’ said Henry dismissively. ‘He suggested we allow the furore to die down before I marry your cousin, Jane Seymour.’
Elizabeth’s hopes faded with these words.
‘Have you chosen her because of her connection to me?’ she asked, hoping he would admonish her, accuse her of arrogance and vanity, but the smile on his face told her the worst.
‘Who shall I turn to after her?’ he said. ‘How old are your brother Edmund’s girls? A bit young, but perhaps in a few years, one might be suitable. The eldest is Catherine, isn’t it? Perhaps she will follow you, her aunt, in looks, Lizzie. A Howard queen by my side at last.’
‘Henry, please, no,’ said Elizabeth in anguish. ‘What do you want from me? What would you have me do to right the wrong I caused between us all those years ago?’
‘I would have your heart, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘Your love, I would make you queen.’
‘You would execute my daughter and put me in her place?’ she said, disgusted by his words.
‘Whenever I looked at her, I saw you,’ he said, leaning over and running a finger down her cheek. Elizabeth schooled herself not to flinch. ‘My daughter is named for you, not for my mother. For you, my true love.’
‘Can you not see what you desire is impossible?’ she said, her voice low, the emotion pulsing through it, desperation rather than passion.
‘But, my dearest Lizzie, why?’ he whispered.
He’s insane, she thought and realised she would have to accommodate his delusion when she replied.
‘The law would never allow it.’
‘I am above the law,’ he said with a hearty laugh.
‘You have bedded both my daughters and have heirs with them,’ she said. ‘The closeness of our relationship would be considered incestuous.’
‘And you are married,’ he said. ‘Would you abandon Thomas to gain a crown?’
‘Not to gain a crown, no,’ she said. ‘To save my children and to save you from yourself.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your mother loved you,’ said Elizabeth. ‘She raised you to love in return. How would she react to your actions towards the mother of your child, Princess Elizabeth?’
Henry’s face twisted in fury. ‘You dare to mention my mother?’ he howled.
‘She who left me when I was a child? She, who, like you, spurned me when all I wanted was comfort at her breast; your breast, your love, her love, to hold me and protect me from my cold father. You women are all the same: wicked, heartless, abandoning your sons to favour your husbands. Did you think if you were to bed me, I would release your children?’
‘No, I hoped to reason with the man I knew before the Field of the Cloth of Gold,’ said Elizabeth. ‘The man who loved with his heart, who created a merry Camelot in his court, the man who could forgive.’
Henry threw the remaining wine down his throat and stood.
‘You may visit your children, but there will be no reprieve,’ he said. ‘When you refused me, you chose your path. This is your doing, not mine.’
He rang a bell and the door opened to reveal two guards, who stood either side of Elizabeth.
‘Take Lady Boleyn to see the former queen,’ he said, ‘then take her to see Viscount Rochford.’
Elizabeth stared at the king, his eyes were narrowed and there was defiance on his face.
She blinked back her tears, refusing to allow him to see her cry, then she reached into her pocket and withdrew the golden hawking whistle, she held it up so he would see it was the gift he had given her all those years ago.
‘Whenever you hear a hawking whistle,’ she said in a low voice.
‘You shall think of me. You will remember your behaviour, and it will haunt you to your grave. I curse you, Henry Tudor, I curse your blood, even though it mingles with mine in Princess Elizabeth. She will be the last of your line, but mine shall flourish.’
She held the whistle to her lips and gave two short blasts, then she turned and walked away.