The Boleyn Bride Read online

  “Each time he brought me a gift,” she continued, hugging a pearl-embellished, golden wheat–embroidered gown of harvest gold velvet to her breast, “he would lean in close, so close I shivered and almost swooned at the warmth of his breath and the touch of his lips, and whisper in my ear, ‘When I am King, you will want for nothing, and no one will ever be unkind to you again or make you cry; I will forbid it. It will be like a law of the land that all must praise and adore and do aught that they can to ensure the happiness of good Queen Catherine.’

  “One day when he caught me weeping over the shabbiness of my best gown, a deep brown velvet, its square neckline edged with tiny gold scallop shells and now badly tarnished and frayed beyond repair golden braid, he took my hand and swore, ‘When I am King, you shall have a new dress every day, each one finer than the last, and all of them trimmed with gold and gems. I will give you a whole rainbow of jewels, my Catherine! A color does not exist that will not be found in your wardrobe or jewel coffer!’ ”

  As she quoted her beloved consort, she spun giddy as a young girl and flung out her arms to take in the expanse of splendid jewel-bedecked and gem-hued finery, enough to wear for many months to come without ever donning the same one twice.

  “He came to me in his gilded armor one day, ruddy-faced and sweat-streaked, fresh from a turn in the tiltyard, and raised his golden helm and brandished his lance high and cried: ‘Someday I will slay all your dragons, Catherine!’

  “He was my knight in shining armor, as powerful and compassionate as Saint Michael!” She clasped her hands to her breast and smiled fondly at the memory. “He was determined to rescue me, to save me from penury, humiliation, and distress. Whenever he could, he slipped coins into my hand. He would pause to kiss and bow over my hand and press a coin discreetly into my palm, and no one ever knew, even when we were in the midst of a crowded room; it was just between us two. He was my earthly savior, my champion, my knight, and I was the threadbare princess he would one day rescue and clothe in gold bright as the sun!

  “ ‘You are my golden princess,’ he used to say to me, boldly daring to reach out and caress my hair, to pluck the pins or net from it so he could twine the golden strands around his fingers. ‘You should shine and smile to rival the sun, my Catherine. My most heartfelt wish is that you will never be sad again. When you are mine, I shall see that you never weep or frown again, by my life and kingdom, this I swear!’ ”

  “Madame,” I smiled and curtsied low, “clearly he has fulfilled his promise. You are radiant, and love shines from your very soul; it lights you up and fills every part of you; even these gowns of silver and gold and all the jewels he has given you seem dim in comparison. None can rival the splendor of your love and happiness!”

  “Oh, yes, he has, Elizabeth! He has!” She smiled and reached out to clasp my hand before she spun away to enfold herself in a cloak of tawny brocade and red fox.

  “Even if I live a century, I shall never forget the day he came to me, straight from his father’s deathbed, and flung a cloak of cloth-of-gold and ermine about my shoulders, plucked the pins from my hair, for I was indeed a virgin about to become a bride again, and set a coronet of diamonds on what he called my ‘golden waves,’ and announced, ‘Your days of want and penury are past, my Queen!’ as all the courtiers about us knelt solemnly at my feet, pledging their eternal loyalty and devotion. It was like the happy ending of a fairy story, and I had risen from the ashes, like a servant girl who suddenly discovers that she is a princess. And now”—with a tender smile she reached down and cradled the little round belly that was only just beginning to show and could still be mistaken for her natural plumpness—“now . . . my cup runneth over with happiness, and I am well and truly blessed!”

  “Yes, indeed.” I smiled back at her. “It is the dream of love come true that every duty-bound little girl secretly keeps locked inside her heart, hoping the man her parents pick for her will indeed be a prince of passion and not a cold fish, a cruel brute, or a toothless old dotard. Madame, your love is an inspiration to us all!”

  Flattering words, yes, they rolled off my tongue with the most fluid ease. I was well trained in courtly speech, tact, diplomacy, and the ways of the world. I could hold my own with the suavest of diplomats, and lie without a flicker of an eye to betray me. But this time I meant every word.

  5

  In those early days, the marriage of Henry and Catherine seemed a golden and happy union—a true love match. I could not count the times I saw them look at each other with fond and loving glances or sit with their fingers entwined in a true lovers’ knot of flesh and blood, or the many mornings when I attended my discreetly smiling mistress after a night of love and saw proofs of the King’s passion upon her fair body and the bed they had shared.

  They were a beautiful couple. King Henry, strong, powerful, and ruddy gold, fun-loving and vivacious, yet a man born to command, one who knew how to inspire loyalty, and to hold and capture love in the palm of his hand. And Queen Catherine, tiny and plump and golden-haired, a serenely smiling little round Madonna, a motherly partridge with as yet no chicks of her own, radiating love and kindness, with a beautiful nimbus of tranquility and quiet strength about her that won her an assured place in the hearts of the English people.

  Many years later, when I looked back and recalled that moment of privileged intimacy with the now sad and gray Queen Catherine in the presence of my cynical black swan daughter, Anne would lift one finely arched black brow, shrug her slim shoulders, and coolly pronounce over the rim of her wine cup, “The sun always sets, Mother.”

  But in those happy golden days there was only one blot, one blemish, upon their perfect happiness—every babe Queen Catherine bore died either in her womb or soon after birthing.

  I was there each time to dry her tears and discreetly carry out the bloody linens, to tell her, “Let go, you cannot stop or save it,” when she clutched her thighs tight together against the blood that seeped out like red tears her womb was weeping and gritted her teeth as though through sheer force of will she could prevent the precious life within from leaving her before its time. I sat by her side, held her hand, and whispered encouraging words, urging her to take heart, reminding her that she was still young and there was still time, telling her of the many miscarriages I had suffered, and yet God had, in His own time, blessed me with three healthy children. Faithfully, I nursed her until she was well enough for her golden King to come back and fill her womb again even though the ending was always the same.

  And I was there when she almost succeeded, through every stage of the pregnancy that seemed destined to go the natural, happiest course and end in joy and fulfillment for all. Per English custom, Queen Catherine, her female servants, and the noble ladies who attended her, of which I was an honored and privileged one, withdrew from the eyes of the court a month before her child was due to make his—we all hoped and prayed for a prince—debut.

  In the soft, quiet, solitude of the lying-in chamber, where her musicians softly played the comforting, dear, and familiar Spanish songs of her youth, Queen Catherine lay resting, hands lovingly cradling her immense, swollen belly as she whispered loving words to the child within, ensconced in a splendid, immense, gold-pillared bed, covered, curtained, and canopied in sumptuous bloodred velvet embroidered with golden crowns above the entwined initials of H & C—Henry and Catherine. Sometimes, I remember, sitting bored over my embroidery, I would pass the time by trying to count that vast multitude of golden crowns. I got as high as eight hundred and eight before I wearied of that tedious little game and turned my mind to something completely different.

  Dutifully, yet from my heart as well, I knelt daily with the Queen’s other ladies and, led by the Queen’s confessor, prayed that God would see fit to send Queen Catherine “a good hour,” as labor was then commonly called, though every woman knows this is a very cruel jest, most likely thought of by men, as we all know a birthing can go on for a great many agonizing hours and be akin to Hell on ear
th.

  The Queen’s son, Prince Henry, was born in triumph after many hours of red, ripping pain. The whole time, she grasped the silver crucifix her mother had given her before she left Spain, in which was set, in a little bubble of glass, a precious sliver of wood from the true cross upon which our savior Jesus Christ had suffered and died; she held it so tight that it left a deep red impression in the palm of her hand. Before the doors were thrown wide to welcome the King and court in to greet their newborn prince, we bathed our weary but smiling, triumphant mistress with rosewater, combed the tangles from her golden hair, and I was the one privileged to drape a mantle of ermine-edged crimson velvet over her shoulders to modestly cover the near nakedness of her fine linen birthing shift.

  All London celebrated. The church bells seemed to never stop ringing or the wine to stop flowing. How many pairs of shoes did we all wear out dancing? Bonfires were lit and fireworks exploded in a myriad of jewel-colored sparks in the nighttime sky above the Thames. There were tournaments, balls, masques, pageants, and banquets galore, and though she remained abed, Queen Catherine basked in her triumph, glowing with pride; she had finally done it—she had given her husband, and England, an heir.

  On New Year’s Day, King Henry ordered the palace gates thrown wide to let the common people in so that they too might dance and rejoice in the birth of England’s newborn prince.

  I was one of many who danced in an elaborate masque, arrayed in a fantastical shimmering tinsel gown of the Tudor colors, green and white; towering jewel and silk flower festooned headdress; and mask, ablaze with ruby red and diamond white paste-gem-petaled roses. Our costumes were sewn all over with large silver and gold Hs and Cs stitched but loosely and bulging with little gilded trinkets and toys, whistles and pendants shaped like birds and gilt little boys with proud phalluses, Tudor roses with red and white enameled petals, or medallion portraits of the King and Queen and such, so that we might toss these dainty baubles to the crowd, to give them a special remembrance to take home with them.

  Amidst us stood King Henry himself, towering, larger than life, above us all, dressed like the other dancers, his whole great, handsome, robust, and virile body covered with gilt initials bulging with tiny trinkets.

  The common people became overexcited at finding themselves so near, within touching distance, of their robust young King. They stretched out their loving fingers to be warmed by his majestic presence as though he were the sun. They stripped the favors from his form, taking the gilt letters and the trinkets they harbored home in remembrance of this glorious day when they had been close enough to touch their King.

  Henry threw back his head and laughed, planted his feet wide, and flung out his arms, welcoming them all, trusting himself to his people’s goodwill. But there were not enough gilt letters and favors upon the King’s person to satisfy the crowd, though we dancers were well stuffed with them; the people wanted something from the King, not us. When his person had been entirely stripped of these, their eager hands didn’t stop; they tore his costume to bits, seizing greedily on every scrap and ribbon, until he fled laughing with his hands cupped modestly over where his codpiece had been as the guards moved in to—“Gently!” as the laughing King insisted—herd the people from the palace.

  As he passed me, King Henry paused, pulled me into his arms, and grasped me tight. I was startled when he kissed me as he spun me around, using my full shimmering skirts to shield his nakedness, maneuvering me backward until he could reach up and snatch down a gold-fringed banner. He wrapped it around his loins, flopped back against the purple velvet cushions of his throne—the picture of a man at home and completely relaxed in his favorite fireside chair—and called for wine. I laughed and curtsied low, flattered to have been embraced and kissed by a king, then I let myself be swallowed up by the merry crowd, whirled and spun about, and pawed by many manly hands, and thought no more about it. It was merely the joyful madness of the moment, I supposed. When the wine came, King Henry raised his cup high and toasted his “good and loving people” and thanked them all most heartily for their prayers and good wishes on the behalf of himself, his beloved Queen, and the baby boy who would, God willing, be their next King—Henry IX!

  With my mask tilted awry, blocking one eye, I was halfheartedly fending off a randy straggler, a great, big, strapping red-haired fellow, who had just ripped a golden H from my breast, spilling party favors all over the floor to be crushed or snatched up by the retreating crowd. He wanted to go further, to let his avid, roving fingers explore and find the flesh within, and I was willing, but it was then that word came from the nursery, throwing a black pall over the celebrations. All ended instantly, like a sudden downpour on a picnic, and all dispersed, all the guests going home or to churches to light candles and pray.

  Prince Henry was in peril. A fever had come on very suddenly. Already the little prince baked in his gilded cradle, as hot as a piglet turning on a spit above a roaring fire. His breath came in rattling gasps, and the way his chest struggled to rise it was clear that he was fighting for each breath. Doctors, apothecaries, and wise women all came and went, and in the end, so did the prince, and the land was again without an heir.

  Inconsolable, Queen Catherine closeted herself in her private chapel, kneeling amidst a hundred glowing candles; she prayed fervently to the Holy Virgin with all her heart. King Henry tried to drown his sorrows with wine, women, and song. But a day finally came when, all his grief spent, he strode boldly into the quiet, candlelit chapel. Queen Catherine peered up at him through her black mourning veils. Gently, he raised her, lifted her veil, put his hands upon her frail black-clad shoulders, and stared deep into her tired, sad, tear-swollen gray eyes.

  “We are still young and life must go on,” he said. “The time to mourn has passed, and we must try again.” And with those words he led her to her bed to do just that.

  She was smiling the next morning when I brought her her breakfast tray, and when the time came to dress her, she chose a gown of glowing silk the color of the sunrise instead of black.

  Two months later, she felt certain that a seed had again been planted, but the coming of her monthly courses soon dispelled that hope. Wilting beneath this fresh disappointment, she returned to her chapel to pray all the harder, leaving the King to find other, more cheerfully disposed, ladies to dance with. “Look more to your husband, and less to your womb,” I wanted to tell her, but I dared not, and a queen’s primary function is to provide heirs, not weep and castigate her husband over his infidelities.

  It would be Her Majesty’s wily and ruthless father, King Ferdinand, who would proffer the best distraction for this bereft young couple. He urged King Henry to join him in a campaign against England and Spain’s shared enemy—France.

  Like every young man eager to go to war and blood his sword, King Henry zealously embraced his father-in-law’s scheme, spending long hours poring over his maps and being fitted for new armor, while Queen Catherine, aided by her ladies, supervised the sewing of banners and badges of silk, and the business of the realm was left to the man they called “the King’s right hand,” the Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, a man whose star was always rising higher, to the extreme dismay of the old nobility, especially my father and brother, and newer men like my husband who resented anyone getting above them.

  Wolsey was an ambitious fellow, rather like my husband, the son of an Ipswich butcher who, lacking any true vocation, and having a mistress and two sons on the side, had used the Church as a path to worldly power. But he was a useful fellow who got the tedious business of the realm done, leaving King Henry free to play and make merry. The King relied on him implicitly and would not hear a word spoken against him, and, at that time, Queen Catherine still held pride of place in his trust, so all seemed well in our world. Her compassion tempered wisdom—neither all heart nor all head—was much respected, and the King was always pleased to have her beside him and often asked her opinion before he rendered a final decision. Whenever anyone had a petitio
n, especially one pertaining to mercy, to lay before the King, they always tried first to reach the ear of Queen Catherine.

  When King Henry came to show Queen Catherine his new armor, smiling and preening beneath the oohs and ahhs of us adoring ladies, he caught her close against his steel-clad chest, letting her feel the metal codpiece poking through her full skirts, and asked her to be his warrior queen and safeguard the realm against the Scots while he was away making war upon the French. They would most assuredly take advantage of his absence to make mischief, he said, for such had always been their way.

  “Sire, I am my mother’s daughter,” Queen Catherine declared, standing stiff-backed as a soldier herself in her gown of pewter satin with a bodice of silver that reminded us all at that moment of a gleaming breastplate, and the stirring and inspiring tales of how her mother, Queen Isabella, had donned armor and ridden out to defeat the Moors. “Never fear, if the Scots dare cross England’s borders they will find me waiting for them.”

  We watched delightedly over our sewing as Queen Catherine, more playful than we had in such a long time seen her, consented to play his squire and unbuckled and unstrapped his armor and giggled delightedly when he scooped her up in his strong arms and carried her to bed, calling back over his shoulder that we ladies were dismissed and might go and enjoy some pleasurable disport with our own husbands if we so pleased before they were called off to war.