Philippa Carr - The Miracle at St. Bruno's

At this time conversation seemed to center about the King’s marriage with Anne Boleyn. He had put away Queen Katharine who had gone to Ampthill. Bruno used to tell us a great deal more than we learned elsewhere because visiting friars brought news to the Abbey.

One day as we sat on the grass keeping within the shelter of the bushes lest we should be seen, we talked about the poor sad Queen and he and Kate were once more in conflict.

“Queen Katharine was a saint,” said Bruno; and he went on to describe her sufferings. I loved to watch him as he talked. His face seemed to me so beautiful; his profile was clear-cut, proud and yet innocent in a way; and the manner in which his hair curled about his head reminded me of the pictures I had seen of Greek heroes. He was tall and slender; and I believe now that what I found so attractive was that blending of saintliness and paganism and the manner in which he changed from being a boy, fallible and quarrelsome, into a superior being who looked down on Kate and me from heights which we could never hope to reach. I believe Kate felt this too although she would not admit it and fought against it. To be with Bruno was so different from being with Rupert. My cousin was so gentle, so careful of me that sometimes I thought he regarded me as one of his newborn foals or lambs. I enjoyed being cherished, I always had; but when I was in the presence of Bruno an exultation took possession of me; and I was excited as I could never be in the company of any other person. I knew that Kate shared this feeling with me, because she never lost an opportunity of trying to score over him, as though she must convince herself, as well as us, of her superiority.

Now because Bruno talked so sympathetically of Queen Katharine she retorted that the Queen was old and plain. It was said that she had no right to be Queen and that Anne Boleyn with her Frenchified ways and her beautiful clothes was as fascinating as a siren.

“She is a siren who has lured the King to dishonor with her singing,” said Bruno.

Kate had no use for metaphor and she was bored with old legends. Whenever she talked of Anne Boleyn her eyes danced and I knew she imagined herself in her place. How she would have enjoyed it! To have had the eyes of everyone upon her; she would have reveled in the admiration and the envy. The jewels and the flattery would have delighted her and she would have snapped her fingers at those who showed their hatred of her.

“And the true Queen,” insisted Bruno, “reproves her women when they curse Anne Boleyn. ‘Pray for her,’ she says. ‘Lament her case for the time is coming when she will need your prayers.’ ”

“ She’ll not need their prayers,” cried Kate. “She is Queen in truth though there are many to say she is not.”

“How can she be Queen when we have a Queen already?”

“You speak treason, Holy Child,” said Kate with a sneer. “Take care I do not inform on you.”

“Would you do that?” he asked intently.

She smiled at him slyly. “You don’t believe I would? Well, I shan’t tell you. I shall keep you guessing.”

“Then since we are unsure we should not speak of these things to you,” I ventured.

“Hold your tongue, Silly Child.” She had made that my title when she was angry with me, just as he was Holy Child. The terms expressed her exasperation or her desire to mock. “You will hide nothing from me.”

“We do not want to be informed against,” I said.

“He is safe,” she said pointing a finger at Bruno. “If anyone tried to harm him the whole countryside would be in arms. Besides he only has to work a miracle.”

“The Holy Innocents were murdered,” I said.

“This is child’s talk,” said Bruno loftily. “And if Kate wants to inform, let her. She will not go free because she talked with us and informers rarely go free.”

Kate was silent and he went on: “The Queen spends her life in prayer and she does needlework. She is making a magnificent altar cloth for the glory of God.”

“You may like saints,” said Kate, “but I don’t. They are all old and plain and that’s why they’re saints.”

“It’s not true,” I said.

“Don’t try to be clever, Silly Child.” But she was piqued, and said we must get back or they might come to look for us, and what if they found us? Then they would find the door too, it would no longer be a secret and our meetings would be discontinued.

This was a thought which horrified us all.

It was May and proclamations were sent out that a coronation was to take place. Queen Anne Boleyn would set out from Greenwich to the Tower and after a sojourn there go to Westminster Abbey. It would be a spectacle such as had rarely been seen before.

Kate was impatient with what she called our unfashionable household. This was a coronation—even better than a wedding, she said. Crowds would be gathered in the streets and on the banks of the river to see the Queen pass by. And yet according to some it might be a funeral!

I pointed out that there had been some funerals because of this coronation.

“Never mind that now,” said Kate. “ I am going to see the coronation.”

“My father would not wish us to,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes. “It’s treason not to go to the coronation of the King’s chosen Queen.”

Treason! It was a word of which people were becoming increasingly fearful.

On that lovely May day when Anne Boleyn was to start on the first stage of her coronation Kate came to the nuttery where I was seated in my favorite spot under a tree, reading. Her eyes were alight with excitement.

“Get up at once,” she said, “and come with me.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“Never mind why. Just come.”

I followed her, as I always did, and she led me by a devious route through the orchards down to the privy steps and there was a barge in which sat Tom Skillen, looking somewhat sheepish.

“Tom is going to row us down to Greenwich,” said Kate.

“Has my father given his permission?”

Tom was about to speak when Kate silenced him and said: “There’s no need to worry. Everything is all right. No one can manage a boat better than Tom.”

She pushed me into the boat and Tom grinned at me, still sheepish. I supposed it was all right because Tom would not take us anywhere without my father’s permission.

He began to row us rapidly up the river and very soon I knew the reason for Kate’s excitement. We were going toward Greenwich and the river was becoming more and more crowded with craft. I was as excited as she was to see so much activity. There was the great city state barge in which sat the Lord Mayor in scarlet with a heavy gold chain about his neck; and all the companies and guilds were there in all their different barges. The sound of music filled the air and there was laughter and chatter from the smaller craft. Salutes from guns could be heard in the distance.

“We shall soon see the Queen,” Kate whispered. “This is the start of the coronation festivities.”

“Shall we see her?”

“That is why we are here,” answered Kate with exaggerated patience.

And we did see her. Tom’s skillful oar work brought us close to the palace itself so we saw the new Queen with her retinue of pretty girls board her barge. She was dressed in cloth of gold and she looked strangely attractive…not beautiful perhaps but more elegant than anyone I had ever seen; and her enormous dark eyes were as bright as her flashing jewels.

Kate could not take her eyes from her.

“They say she is a witch,” she whispered.

“Perhaps she is,” I answered.

“She’s the most fascinating woman I ever saw! If I were in her place….”

Kate held her head high; I knew that she was imagining herself in that barge sailing down the river to the Tower where the King would be waiting for her.