Emily Purdy - The Tudor Wife

‘Aye, my sweet brother, have no fear.’ She reached up to kiss his cheek. ‘Perseverance will outpace Ardent Desire. I will give Henry Tudor the run of his life!’

‘I know you will, Nan.’ He smiled. ‘There’s none who can match you, Nan, none!’

Seeing them standing there, so close, so lost in one another, made my blood boil. By now I was well accustomed to these displays of tenderness and intimacy. I used to watch them, as vigilant as a hawk. The way they walked together, talked together, danced, sat with their heads together whispering confidences, composing songs and sonnets with their pens scratching over parchment, or bent over their lutes; the way they touched hands, embraced, and kissed; the way George’s hands would linger at her waist when he lifted Anne down from her horse; and the way sometimes of an evening or a rainy day by the hearthside he would lay his head in her lap and she would lean down with her hair forming an ebony curtain around him…they looked like lovers. It was as if they were made to be together and, as blasphemous as it sounds, God had made a mistake when He made them brother and sister so that full passionate love between them was forbidden. I never saw, either before or since, such a strong devotion between two people. It was as if they were bonded together, fused, with a chain of unbendable, unbreakable links; nothing could divide them. Together they were whole and complete, but apart something vital was lacking. Was everyone else blind? Why was I the only one who could see it?

‘If I did not know better, I would swear you two were lovers!’ I shouted at them. But even as the words were upon my lips I wondered, did I really know better? Did I? Then I ran out of the room, slamming the door behind me just as hard as I could.

George followed me and caught hold of my wrist. ‘What are you about?’ he demanded angrily.

‘You seem overeager to defy your father’s wishes, George. You dislike the thought of Anne in the King’s bed!’ I charged with eyes blazing.

‘She will find little happiness there,’ he answered.

‘And her happiness is very important to you.’ I nodded knowingly. ‘Or should I say that it is everything to you? Tell me, George, would that not be more apt?’

He frowned at me. ‘Do not quibble words with me, Jane. You know well that Anne’s happiness is of the utmost importance to me. We are alone against the world, I often think, and though I lost my battle, I will do everything I can to help Anne win hers. I have been a pawn to my father’s ambition, and you see what it has wrought me—and you with me. Together in this bitter parody of a marriage we are bound.’

I reeled back as if he had slapped me. My voice failed me, and I could do nothing but gape at him as hot, angry tears poured down my face.

‘I know, Jane,’ he said softly as he took my hand in his and held it oh, so tenderly. ‘You yearn for what I can never give. For reasons I will never understand, you claim to love me, though you find fault with nearly all of me and heap scorn and jealousy upon everyone and everything that pleases me. You harp and badger, weep and shriek, jeer and cling, until it is all I can do not to strike you. And that displeases me; that I should be roused to the brink of such an ugly thing!’

‘Would that I could be the only one who pleases you!’ I sobbed, snatching my hand away. ‘Would that I came first before your sister, your dissolute, foppish friends, and all your foolish and unsavory pursuits—the gambling, wine, and whores, and the music and poetry upon which you squander so much of your time! Your will is weak, George, and I would be the one to make you strong. Banish them all, George. You need none of them—only me!’

‘Oh, but I do,’ he insisted. ‘I need them all. And I do not want to be your everything, Jane. Verily, I find your love as stifling and oppressive as a tomb. When I am with you I feel as if I am boxed inside a coffin. It is a sad truth that we are mismatched, and not one common interest do we share. You married for love—or, if you want to quibble words, you married your ideal of love—while I married as my father dictated. Let us be friendly, Jane, but let us abandon all pretense and go our separate ways, and perhaps we will both find happiness after a fashion. I wish you well, Jane, and would you did the same for me.’

‘I’ve no doubt that you will go your own way, as you have always done!’ I cried, and I would have slapped his face had he not divined my intentions and caught hold of my wrist. ‘Would that I could be like Anne; perhaps then you would love me!’ Stumbling, blind with tears, I fled back to my chamber and threw myself weeping upon the bed. If only, if only, if only I could be like Anne! How very different my life would be, and George would love me!

With her sumptuous new finery, Anne returned to court and resumed her duties in Queen Catherine’s household, though it was the King who most often availed himself of her services.

He summoned her to his chamber to play her lute and sing for him, or read aloud when his eyes were wearied, or to walk with him by the river or in the pleasure gardens. Dutifully, she hunted and hawked and danced with him. She diced and risked fortunes at cards with him, and applauded his performance at the tennis court, bowling green, tiltyard, and archery butts. Yet through it all she remained aloof, toying with him like a cat plays with dead things. At Henry’s side she seemed more a wax figure than a flesh-and-blood woman.

It was only with George and their merry band of friends that she truly came alive. With them her spirits soared and her laughter rang like a bell. Henry noticed this too, and I think it was then that his heart first began to harden against these men who had long been his most loyal servants and friends, the gentlemen of his privy chamber who attended him at all his most private functions—his baths and bowel movements, robings and disrobings—and who each took turns sleeping on a pallet at the foot of his great bed whenever he retired alone. Herein, I believe, is the answer to why, years later, it was so easy for him to condemn George, Weston, Brereton, and Norris—they had Anne in a way that he never could.

But Anne continued to turn her lips away from his and to shun and evade his embrace. She steadfastly refused to become his mistress, though Henry avowed, ‘It is not just your body I covet, Anne, but you, Anne, you! Your vivacity and bold, daring, untamed spirit! I can talk to you of books and ideas, for you are no docile, simpering sycophant; you have a mind of your own and are not afraid to speak it, and I want to possess and know all of you. I want to stir your soul as well as your body and heart!’

‘Your wife I cannot be; your mistress I will not be.’ Those were her words, cold and to the point, like a dagger in the heart.

‘But if I were free of Catherine…’ he persisted.

‘But you are not.’ Anne shrugged and continued along the rose-bordered path, pausing to inhale the perfume of a lush pink rose.

They were in the rose garden at Hever once again, and I was secreted behind the shrubbery, just like before.

Anne had all of a sudden quit the court without the King’s consent and, summoning George to be her escort, returned to Hever, leaving Henry to come scurrying after, the moment that he missed her.

‘But if I were…’

‘But you are not and cannot be,’ Anne said crisply, snapping the rose’s stem and holding it against the skirt of her pink satin gown. ‘Her Majesty strikes me as being a woman in excellent health, nor have I heard her express the desire to renounce the world and retire to a convent.’

‘For the third and last time’—Henry seized her arm and spun her round to face him—‘if I were free of Catherine, would you marry me and give me sons?’