Виктория Холт - The Lady in the Tower

The nights seemed endless. I would lie staring into the darkness.

He would be rid of me so that he could marry Jane Seymour, just as once he had wished to be rid of Katharine that he might marry me. Silly little Jane Seymour. How long did she think she would last? He would cast off wives as he did a garment he was tired of.

There were two counts on which I had thought he might be rid of me. One was of course his relationship with my sister Mary which would have made a close bond between us. He had thought of this before for there had been a time when he had sent to Rome for a dispensation. He would not have had to send to the Pope for that now. Obliging Cranmer would have done what was necessary. But he did not wish to stir up old scandals from which he would not emerge too well. I had dismissed Mary as a possible method. There was one other—my pre-contract with Northumberland. That I had thought was very possible. It could be said that I had been pre-contracted to Henry Percy and therefore my marriage to the King was no true one.

That would have been the most likely method if it had not been raised before and he had most definitely quashed it. Then he had wanted me passionately—now he wanted to be rid of me with equal passion.

I would not have believed he would have considered… death.

And yet why should he not? That would have been Katharine's fate but for her royal relations. I had no such assets. My relations held the power they did through me… and some from Mary, too, of course.

So, if it was not to be Mary or Northumberland, there was only one alternative.

I had sometimes wondered how people felt when Death looked them in the face. Sir Thomas More? Fisher? Those monks who had refused to take the Oath of Supremacy? “She will spurn our heads off like footballs, but 'twill not be long ere her head will dance the like dance.” More had said that. He was prophetic.

He had known the King as well as I knew him. He knew that mean, selfish nature, that determination to have his way, that ruthless destruction of all those who stood to prevent it. He knew of the conscience which worried Henry when he wished to be worried. It was worrying him now. He had been bewitched by a sorceress; he had discarded his first wife—he could safely regard her with affection now as there was no fear of having to take her back—and all because he had been the victim of a witch…as any man might be through no fault of his own. But God had opened his eyes now. He saw the way clear ahead. God had put Jane Sey-mour in his path to tell him that, if he escaped from the spell which had been put upon him and married this gentle, simple girl, Heaven would smile. He would have a succession of boys. God was showing him the way, and, as once before, God's instrument was Cromwell, who had prised the truth from the boy musician, and now it was known that the Queen had sinned against him with those whom he had called his friends.

I could well imagine how he would prepare his defense with God. What amazed me was that he thought he could deceive the Almighty as he thought he did his courtiers. They had to feign belief; God did not.

When I arose, I wrote him a letter, signing myself “The Lady in the Tower.”

“… if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death but an infamous slander must bring you to the joy of your desired happiness, then I desire of God that He will pardon your great sin…”

How I laughed. I could imagine his pallor as he read that. I hoped it would make him shiver. I hoped I would see that despised conscience of his on a course independent of its owner's control.

How did he think of me? I was sure he thought of me often. Did he think of the garden at Hever; that night when I had come to him in my black satin nightdress; of my coronation?

Or did he think of me as “The Lady in the Tower?”

It was 10 May—only eight days after I had been arrested. It seemed like years.

The Grand Jury at Westminster had issued an indictment against “Lady Anne, Queen of England, George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, Sir Henry Norris, Groom of the Stole, and Sir Francis Weston and William Brereton, Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, and Mark Smeaton, a performer on musical instruments, a person of low degree, promoted on account of his skill to be a Groom of the Chamber.”

George and I were to be tried on the 16th of May; the others on the 12th.

I waited for the verdict…I knew that Henry wanted to be rid of me, but surely he must have some compassion for his friends. He must know they were innocent. Or was he so determined to be rid of me that he would take any life which helped him to achieve that end?

The result of that trial was horrifying, although it was what I had expected. They had tried hard to make them all admit their guilt. None of them would, except Mark. In spite of the fact that he had lied to save himself and to destroy me, I could forgive him. I knew of his delicacy, his weakness. I could imagine how he had collapsed under extreme torture. His body had been broken and his mind distracted and when they told him that, if he signed a confession he would be free, the boy signed. Poor foolish Mark! He had bartered his honor, his pride, for the hope of saving his life. He was not wise enough to know that he would never have been allowed to live; he had perjured his soul for nothing. He was condemned to be hanged. What a sad end for a young man who had music in his soul and because of it believed that he had escaped from poverty to a pleasant life—when all he had escaped to was Death.

I wanted to see him, to comfort him, to make him look at me and see if then he would persist in his lies. Of course that would not be allowed. Mark would have broken down and told the truth when confronted by me—and they knew it.

What a sad end for a young man.

Norris, Weston and Brereton, though urged to confess, stoutly maintained their innocence. Henry had been very attached to Norris, and he sent word to him that if he would confess to adultery with me, he would be granted his life.

Norris's reply was that he would rather die a thousand deaths than accuse the Queen of that which he believed, in his conscience, she was innocent.

Mary Wyatt told me that when the King heard this he was so angry that his great friend had turned away from the hand stretched out to rescue him, he cried out in rage: “Hang him up then. Hang him up.”

Poor Mary Wyatt was in a state of anxiety. Thomas had remained in the background. He was expecting at any moment to join Norris and the rest in the Tower. His name had not been mentioned in connection with the charge—but it was in everyone's mind.

On the 16th George and I were brought to trial, and for this purpose a court had been set up in the great hall of the Tower.

George was the first to appear. I waited in trepidation, but after the result of the previous trial I was prepared for the worst.

George defended himself so well that, for a time, those who sat in judgment on him must have feared it was going to be difficult for them to bring in the sentence the King wished for.

I think even our greatest enemies must have been shocked when Jane Rochford came forward to give evidence against her husband. How she must have hated me! I knew she had loved George passionately, but his indifference to her had turned that love to hatred; and her hatred was especially for me because she knew of the close and loving relationship between my brother and me.

Her accusation of incest was so ridiculous that she could not in any reasonable way substantiate it…except to say that we were over-affectionate toward each other, and my brother sought every opportunity to be in my company. She had found him in my bedroom on one occasion. I was at the time in bed. He had leaned over the bed and kissed me—which she had seen as he came into the room.