Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

There is a knock at the door, and the two guards swing it open. “Herr Doktor Carl Harst,” the guard announces, laboring over the title, and the Cleves ambassador comes into the room, looks around for me, and bows low. All the ladies-in-waiting curtsy while looking him over and noting, in a breeze of critical whispers, the worn shine on the collar of his velvet jacket and the scuffed heels on his boots. Even the feather in his bonnet looks as if it has had a hard journey overland from Cleves. I can feel myself flush with shame that this man should be representing my country to the wealthiest and most frivolous court in Christendom. He will make himself laughable, and me with him.

“Herr Doktor,” I say, and stretch out my hand for him to kiss.

I can see he is taken aback by my fashionable dress, my English hood set neatly on my hair, the rich rings on my fingers and the gold chains at my waist. He kisses my hand and says in German: “I am honored to present myself to you, Your Grace. I am your ambassador.”

Dear God, he looks more like a poor clerk. I nod.

“You have broken your fast?” I ask.

He makes a little embarrassed face. “I… er… I could not quite…”

“You have not eaten?”

“I could not find the hall, Your Grace. I am sorry. The palace is very large and my rooms are some way from the main building, and there was no one…”

They have put him somewhere halfway to the stables. “You did not ask someone? There are thousands of servants.”

“I don’t speak English.”

I am truly shocked. “You don’t speak English? How will you conduct the business of our country? Nobody here speaks German.”

“Your brother the duke thought that the councillors and the king would speak German.”

“He knows full well that they do not.”

“And he thought I would learn English. I already speak Latin,” he adds defensively.

I could cry, I am so disappointed. “You must certainly have some breakfast,” I say, trying to recover myself. I turn to Kitty Howard, who, as usual, is lingering at my side eavesdropping. She is welcome to our conversation so far. If she can speak German well enough to spy, then she can translate for this useless ambassador. “Mistress Howard, would you send one of the maids for some bread and cheese for the ambassador? He has not broken his fast. And some small ale.”

As she goes I turn back to him. “Do you have any letters for me from my home?”

“Yes,” he says. “I have instructions from your brother, and your mother sends her maternal love and hopes you are a credit to your home and have not forgotten her loving discipline.”

I nod. I would prefer it if she had sent me a competent ambassador who could also have been a credit to my home, rather than this chilly blessing, but I take the package of letters that he holds out to me, and he settles to his breakfast at one end of the table while I read my letters at the other end.

I read the letter from Amelia first. She starts with a list of the compliments that have been paid to her and how happy she is with her own court at Cleves. She likes to be in sole possession of our rooms. She tells me of her new gowns, and of dresses that were mine but have been adapted for her use. This is to form her trousseau, for she is to be married. I give a little gasp at this, and Lady Rochford says kindly: “Not bad news I hope, Your Grace?”

“My sister is to be married.”

“Oh, how lovely. A good match?”

It is nothing compared to my good fortune, of course. I should be laughing at the small scale of Amelia’s triumph. But I have to blink back tears before I can answer. “She is to marry my brother-in-law. My older sister, Sybilla, is already married to the Duke of Saxony, and she is to go to their court and marry his younger brother.” And so become a happy little neighboring family, I think bitterly. So they are all together: mother, brother, two sisters, and their two husbands, and only I am sent far away to wait for letters that bring me no joy but just continue the sense of exclusion and unkindness that my brother has dealt me all my life.

“Not a match like yours then.”

“There is no other match like mine,” I say. “But she will like to live with my sister, and my brother likes to keep the others close.”

“No sables for her,” Kitty Howard points out, and she makes me smile at her unending shameless greed.

“No, that is the main thing of course.” I smile at her. “Nothing matters more than sables.”

I put Amelia’s letter aside; I cannot bring myself to read her confident predictions of family Christmases and joining together for hunting in summer, of celebrating birthdays and bringing up their children, the Saxony cousins all together in the same happy nursery.

I open the letter from my mother instead. If I had hoped for some comfort here, I would be disappointed. She has spoken with Count Olisleger, and she is filled with anxiety. He tells her that I have been dancing with men not my husband, that I wore a gown without a muslin filet up to my ears. She hears that I have put aside Cleves dress and am wearing an English hood. She reminds me that the king married me because he wanted a Protestant bride of impeccable behavior and that he is a man of jealous and difficult temperament. She asks me if I want to dance my way to Hell, and reminds me that there is no sin worse than wantonness in a young woman.

I put down the letter and go to the window to look out over the beautiful garden of Hampton Court, the ornate walkways near to the palace and the paths, running down to the river with the pier and the royal barges rocking at their moorings. There are courtiers walking with the king in the garden, dressed as richly as if they were going to a joust. The king, a head taller than any man in his train and broad as a bull, is wearing a cloak of cloth of gold, and a bonnet of velvet that sparkles, even at this distance, with diamonds. He is leaning on the shoulder of Thomas Culpepper, who is dressed in the most glorious dark green cloak, pinned with a diamond brooch. Cleves, with its uniform of fustian and broadcloth, seems a long way away. I will never be able to explain to my mother that I do not peacock in English fashions for the sake of vanity, but only so that I do not seem more despicable and more repellent than I already am. If the king puts me aside, God knows that it will not be for dressing too fine. It will be because I disgust him, and I seem to do that whether I wear my hood like my grandmother, or like pretty little Kitty Howard. Nothing I can do can please the king, but my mother could spare herself the trouble of cautioning me that my life depends upon pleasing him. I already know that. And it cannot be done. At any rate, I cannot do it.

The ambassador has finished eating. I return to the table and motion to him that he may stay seated while I read my last letter, from my brother.

Sister , he starts. I have been much troubled by the report of Counts Overstein and Olisleger as to your reception and behavior at the court of your new husband, King Henry of England. Your mother will deal with matters of clothing and decorum. I can only beg that you listen to her and do not allow yourself to be led into behavior that can only embarrass us and shame yourself. Your tendency to vanity and ill-conditioned behavior is known to us all, but we hoped that it would remain a family secret. We beg you to reform, especially now that the eyes of the world are upon you.

I skip the next two pages, which are nothing but a list of the times that I have disappointed him in the past and warnings that a false step at the English court could have the gravest consequences. Who would know this better than I?

Then I read on.

This letter is to introduce the ambassador who will represent our country to King Henry and his council. You will extend to him every assistance. I expect you to work closely with him to further our hopes for this alliance that has so far disappointed us. Indeed, the King of England seems to think that he has made a very vassal of Cleves, and now he is hoping for our alliance against the emperor, with whom we have no quarrel and are not likely to make one to oblige your husband or you. You should make this clear to him.