Chapter 2
In the morning, the four maids-of-honor donned the black gowns and hoods deemed suitable by Lady Kingston for the solemnity of a trial. They found Anne in the great chamber, elegantly dressed in a black velvet gown and a small cap sporting a black-and-white feather. Kate thought she seemed calm.
“Remember, I am innocent!” she declared.
When Sir William Kingston came to tell them that it was time, Kate and her companions, with Lady Kingston and Lady Boleyn, walked behind the Queen as Sir William escorted her across the Inmost Ward of the Tower to the lofty King’s Hall opposite.
Beside Anne walked the Gentleman Jailer, with his ceremonial axe turned away from her.
A crowd had gathered, standing silently to watch the extraordinary spectacle of a queen being put on trial.
They waited in the porch until an usher summoned Anne into the court. No one spoke, but she held herself as tense as a bowstring.
When Kate entered the ancient hall, she drew in her breath.
It was packed almost to the rafters with people, most of them crammed onto the tiered benches on either side.
In the center, there was a raised platform, on which had been placed a velvet-upholstered chair behind a bar.
Facing it, on the dais at the far end, sat Kate’s great-uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, beneath a rich cloth of estate bearing the royal arms, for as Lord High Steward, he was representing the King.
Beside him sat the peers who were to judge the Queen.
Anne made an entry as if she were going to a great triumph, carrying herself with calm dignity as she was led to the bar.
She curtseyed to her judges, resting her gaze on them all, without any sign of fear.
Even when she spied Grandfather among them, Kate didn’t see her flinch.
Kate was appalled to see him there and thought her aunt’s composure wonderful.
There was no hint of the nervousness she had shown earlier.
By contrast, the man whom Mary Norris whispered was Master Cromwell looked tense, as well he might, for if the Queen went free, there might be dire consequences for him.
Anne seated herself on the chair on the platform.
She seemed unmoved by the thousands of eyes staring at her.
Kate and the other young ladies were shown to a bench at the side, where they had a good view of the proceedings.
Kate watched as a yeoman warder carried in the Queen’s crown on a cushion and placed it on a small table next to her.
The indictment was read out. The Queen was accused of procuring Uncle George, her own brother, and four other men to defile her and have carnal knowledge of her, which they had done often; furthermore, she and these men were supposed to have conspired the death of the King, for she had said to them that she had never loved the King in her heart, and had told every one of them that she loved them more than the others.
“And this,” thundered the Attorney General, “was to the slander of the issue that was born to the King and her—and it is treason under the law.”
Kate had worked out what “defile” and “carnal knowledge” meant.
The Attorney General had made them sound shameful.
Looking around at the faces of those in court, she could see flushed cheeks or outrage.
Yet Anne’s face betrayed no embarrassment.
Her expression said more than words; no one looking at her could have thought her guilty.
As each charge was put to her, she raised her hand and pleaded, “Not guilty.”
The Attorney General was having none of it. “Admit it—you cohabited with your brother and the other accused.”
“I did not,” Anne said firmly.
“There was a promise between you and Sir Henry Norris to marry after the King’s death, which you hoped for.” Kate turned to look at Norris’s daughter, Mary, who was silently shaking her head.
“He is too loyal to the King to have stooped so low,” she whispered, earning herself a thunderous look from Master Cromwell.
On and on went the charges, most of them petty and quite ridiculous, Kate thought.
Whoever had drawn them up didn’t know Aunt Anne very well or had a short memory.
It was part of Boleyn family lore that Anne had refused to become the King’s mistress before he proposed marriage to her, and that she had kept herself chaste for him for the best part of seven years—Kate now understood what that meant.
Was she therefore likely to have taken a succession of lovers after her marriage?
It was noticeable that little was being made of the more serious charge, that of plotting the King’s death.
Kate wondered if that had been made up, because the other girls were whispering that the proofs seemed unbelievably shaky.
In promising to marry Sir Henry Norris (which Anne denied), it did not necessarily follow that she wanted the King assassinated.
She could have been talking about what might happen if she was widowed.
But Kate was beginning to understand that it was treason even to imagine the King’s death, which was a rather scary thought.
Anne answered all the charges calmly, counteracting them firmly and rationally.
She was adamant that she had never been false to the King.
It surely seemed obvious to everyone present that she was innocent.
Kate prayed that the lords would see sense and declare her not guilty.
When they were asked for their verdict, she watched them conferring with each other, murmuring, frowning, and nodding.
But what if they were too frightened of the King and Master Cromwell to give the right judgment? Kate felt a tremor of fear. Her heart burned with anger at the King for putting his poor wife through this terrible ordeal. Yet Anne was sitting there, impassive, watching the lords’ faces.
Next to Kate, Lady Boleyn was trembling. “If she falls, we all fall,” she muttered. “The Boleyns will be finished.”
Kate shuddered. She had not thought of that.
She had expected that, when this was over, she would go back to Elizabeth’s household.
But what if she was not allowed? What if she had to go back to Hever and Grandfather, who was looking decidedly grim-faced.
How must it feel to have to pass judgment on your own child? Surely he could have refused to do so?
It seemed that the lords had finished their discussions. Norfolk’s heir, the Earl of Surrey, Kate’s cousin, stood up.
“Have you reached a verdict?” his father asked.
Kate held her breath.
“Guilty!” Surrey replied, as Kate felt horror and disbelief flood through her. Beside her, Lady Boleyn burst into tears.
One by one, the peers rose. All, to a man, said, “Guilty,” even Grandfather; Kate watched aghast as he cast his vote, his face taut. Excited murmurs rippled along the spectator benches.
“Prisoner at the bar, stand,” called an usher.
Anne got to her feet, as unmoved as a stone.
“Anne, Queen of England, you must now resign your crown into the hands of the lords.”
Choking back tears, Kate saw her aunt pick it up reverently and give it to the Duke of Suffolk.
“I am innocent of having offended against the King,” she said in a loud voice.
A hush descended on the court as Norfolk stood to pronounce sentence. Tears were running down his cheeks as he addressed Anne; they were running down Kate’s, too, and she was seized with such a horrible sense of dread that she wanted to cover her ears.
The Duke cleared his throat. His expression was grave.
“Because you have offended against our sovereign the King’s Grace in committing treason against his person, the law of the realm is this, that you have deserved death, and your judgment is this: that you shall be burned here within the Tower of London on the green, or have your head cut off, according to the King’s pleasure. ”
A woman screamed from the gallery.
Kate was so horror-struck at Norfolk’s sentence that she thought she would faint.
She had had no idea that it would come to this, for no one had discussed what might happen to Anne, who had been adamant that she’d be safe because she was innocent.
But the thought of her being burned to death was dreadful, while having her head cut off was almost as bad.
Kate felt hot fury against the King, in whose name this travesty of justice was being handed down.
How could a man allow such tortures to be meted out to a lady he had loved, the mother of his child?
And what of that child? How was this to be explained to Elizabeth, that her father had had her mother killed?