Chapter 5
Anna of Cleves, the future Queen of England, huddled in a corner of the room, her pale, bewildered face a stark white against the dark wainscoting.
‘My God,’ she said, ‘why did no one warn me that the King would come here? Why was I not prepared?’
As the heavy door slammed shut, footsteps faded and the sound of masculine voices receded, she shrank in on herself, raising a hand angrily to rub the tears from her cheeks.
‘The King,’ she repeated. Her voice fell to a whisper. ‘My God, this is a disaster…’
Marris was forced to agree. She was not sure whether the princess had been more horrified by the sight of her bloated bridegroom or by the fact that she had failed to recognise him when he had sprung a surprise visit upon her, but whatever the reason, the outcome was a full-scale calamity.
Anna of Cleves had undergone an arduous journey to England during the past six weeks.
She had been delayed in Calais, tossed on stormy seas, then obliged to smile at the endless parade of dignitaries wishing to make her acquaintance as soon as she set foot in England.
She had been entertained with dinners and feasts when she wanted nothing more than to rest, and now she had come face to face with her future husband when she was utterly unprepared for it.
The fact that he had been in the inappropriate disguise of an ardent swain who had tried to kiss her had been the final straw.
It was no wonder that she had ignored him completely and that the King, rejected and offended, had stormed off in a huff of regal proportions.
The princess’s dozen ladies were all fluttering about her like huge ungainly moths in their foreign gowns, all talking at once in German. One woman was praying to heaven whilst another was wringing her hands and the youngest in the group was crying, like the princess.
‘Will we all have to go home to Cleves, Highness?’ She sobbed. ‘Now that the King is displeased with you?’
‘What nonsense this is!’ Marris cut across the noise, clapping her hands.
As the chief English maid of honour to the princess, the only one who could converse with her in German, it was her responsibility to see that matters ran as smoothly as possible on this introduction of Anna to her new country.
It seemed they had both failed, for no one had warned her of the King’s visit either.
She clapped her hands again when the first intervention did not stop the furore.
‘Ladies! That is enough!’
They might not have understood the English, but they did understand her tone.
There was a lull in the cacophony just sufficient for Marris to gain their attention.
‘There is no suggestion that the King is displeased with anyone,’ Marris stated, switching to German.
‘On the contrary, His Majesty wishes to dine with the princess in an hour, so I suggest that you go and choose one of her finest gowns and start preparing her. At once!’ she added, making shooing motions with her hands.
Anything to stop them wailing and get them moving.
Twelve blank faces gaped at her. Marris knew that her German was no more than passable, so she hoped that she had not inadvertently said the wrong thing and made the situation much worse. But then Lady Kessler, one of Anna’s older ladies in waiting, nodded.
‘Thank you, Mistress North,’ she said in her halting English. ‘We shall do as you suggest.’ She started to shepherd the other women from the room. ‘Come, come! Let us show these Englishmen we are not to be sniggered at!’
Princess Anna’s gaze sought Marris’s imploringly and Marris went swiftly across to her.
‘Madam—’ Marris curtsied, but Anna grabbed her hands, pulling her close.
‘How bad is it?’ she whispered. ‘Tell me truly. Does he despise me?’ Then, without waiting for a reply, she burst out: ‘How was I to know it was the King himself? I have met so many people my head spins with it! And then a strange man bursts into the room and tries to embrace me? Ach, do you wonder that I recoiled from him?’
‘Not at all, madam,’ Marris said soothingly.
‘I would have done precisely the same thing.’ Not least, she thought, because the King was not an attractive man, with his bulk, his odour and his misplaced ardour.
He was no Prince Arthur arriving to sweep Guinevere off her feet.
He was a middle-aged man with a foolish and undignified penchant for pretending he was still a handsome knight.
‘All is not lost,’ she said, giving Anna’s hands an encouraging squeeze. ‘It is time to dress in your finest gown and show your true mettle at the banquet. The King will quickly see how worthy you are to be Queen of England.’
Anna stared at her. She was beautiful, Marris thought, with her tall, slim figure, pale skin and tranquil expression.
It was not, unfortunately, the sort of beauty admired at the English court, but her apparent serenity masked a stubborn and intelligent mind.
Such qualities might well stand her in good stead for the future.
Lady Kessler re-entered the room and said something to Anna in German that Marris did not catch. The princess nodded and raised her chin, giving Marris her sudden, startlingly pretty smile. If only she had smiled on King Henry like that, Marris thought.
‘I am a daughter of Cleves,’ Anna said. ‘I am more than the equal of this Henry, the Welsh pretender’s son.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Marris said, checking surreptitiously over her shoulder to make sure that no one had overheard Anna’s aspersions on King Henry’s lineage.
The princess had been a constant surprise to her in the eight weeks that she had known her, but fortunately years of dealing with Rose’s and Bridget’s unpredictable behaviour had given her the experience to handle most matters.
Between them, she and Lady Kessler could make this Cleves match work, despite the many who wished it to fail.
This was simply another hurdle to be overcome.
Marris’s gaze fell on Isabel Legh, one of the English ladies newly appointed to Anna’s household, who was making a pretence of tidying up the room, with her ears out on stalks at the same time.
Isabel was quick and shrewd and Marris suspected that she spied for the Duke of Norfolk.
She was a sort-of cousin on the Howard side and had made no secret of the fact that the arrival of Marris and her sisters at court was unwelcome; Marris had quickly learned that they were seen as rivals for royal favour.
The murky politics of the court would challenge that of any nunnery, she thought.
The door banged open again and Lady Kessler made haste to hurry Anna away, whilst Marris turned to see what new crisis was about to arrive.
It was Sir William Sharington, who dismissed Isabel with an arrogant tilt of the head.
She scurried away whilst he threw himself down into a chair and viewed Marris with a moody stare.
‘Well, that was a catastrophe,’ he said without preamble. ‘The King is storming around saying he likes her not and he will not wed her.’
Marris gave a sharp sigh. She had not seen Sir William for several months, not since she had left court in the autumn with the contingent of nobles who were heading to the continent to meet the new Queen and escort her to England. This was not how she would have wanted their reunion to be.
‘Why did no one warn us that the King was on his way to see her?’ she demanded. ‘Why did you not warn me?’
Sir William reached for the wine. ‘Because I did not know. It was a surprise to us all when we left Whitehall.’ He gulped down several mouthfuls.
‘Damnation, this has undone all of Cromwell’s good work.
It was hard enough to encourage His Majesty to look to a foreign match in the first place.
Then he suddenly developed a passion for the princess’s picture and we all rejoiced, no matter how foolish it seemed.
’ He scrubbed a hand through his hair. ‘This ill-fated meeting has turned his desire into distaste—’ He raised both hands in appeal.
‘What man would relish being rejected so blatantly – and the King least of all! He says she is ugly and that she smells strange and if we force him to wed her, he will not lie with her.’
‘He sounds like a spoiled child,’ Marris said, remembering to keep her voice low. ‘Poor Anna! He has no thought for how she may feel! She was miserable and homesick enough – and now this!’
‘We have to mend this, and swiftly—’ Sir William stood up ‘—or Cromwell will have both our heads.’
‘Or perhaps the King will have his,’ Marris said.
Sir William put down his glass so swiftly that the wine splashed. ‘Do you think so? Until now I would have said that Cromwell was untouchable.’
Marris shook her head. ‘No one is, Will. Look at More, look at Wolsey.’
‘But they were churchmen,’ Sir William said. ‘Cromwell is a politician; he breathes the art of government.’
‘Even so,’ Marris said. She let the words sink in.
It was gratifying that Sir William was always prepared to consider her opinion, she thought.
It made him unusual amongst men, and it was one of the reasons she liked him so much.
When she had refused his offer of marriage he had taken it well; suspiciously so.
Before long, she had realised it was because he saw her as a challenge he relished.
He had spent months wooing her like the most ardent of suitors, with flowers and choice gifts, and most temptingly with books.
She knew he was enjoying the process, absolutely confident that she would eventually agree to become his wife.
And he was right, she thought with rueful amusement.
She was all too ready to be seduced into marriage.
She had realised that these last two months, whilst they had been apart.