Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

I understand that a senior Englishman, the Duke of Norfolk, has enjoyed a visit to the French court, and there is no doubt in my mind but that England is drawing closer to France. This is the very thing that you were sent to England to prevent. Already, you are failing your country of Cleves, failing your mother and me. The ambassador should advise you as to how you can do your duty and not forget it in the pleasures of the flesh.

I have provided him with transport to England and a servant to attend him, but you will have to pay him directly. I assume, from what I hear of your jewels and your new clothes and other ungodly extravagances, including, I am told, expensive sables, that you can well afford to do this. Certainly, you would do better to spend your newfound wealth on the future of your country than on items of personal vanity and adornment that can only attract contempt. Just because you have been raised to a high position does not mean that you can neglect your conscience as you have done in the past. I urge you most earnestly to mend your ways, Sister. As the head of your house I advise you to abjure vanity and wantonness.

Trusting that this letter finds you in good health as it leaves me, certainly I hope that it finds you in good spiritual health, Sister. Luxury is no substitute for a good conscience, as you will find if you are spared to grow old.

As prays your loving brother

William.

I put down the letter and I look at the ambassador. “Tell me, at least, that you have done this work before, that you have been an ambassador in another court.”

It is my fear that he is some Lutheran preacher that my brother has decided to employ.

“I served your father at the court of Toledo and Madrid,” Dr. Harst replies with some dignity. “But never before at my own expense.”

“My brother’s finances are a little difficult,” I say. “At least you can live for free at court here.”

He nods. “He indicated to me that you would pay my salary.”

I shake my head. “Not I. The king gives me my court and my ladies and my clothes, but no money as yet. That can be one of the questions that you raise with him.”

“But as the crowned Queen of England-”

“I am married to the king, but not crowned queen,” I say. “Instead of my coronation in February I had a formal welcome into London, and now I expect to be crowned after Easter. I have not yet been paid my allowance as queen. I have no money.”

He looks a little anxious. “I take it there is no difficulty? The coronation will go ahead?”

“Well, you will have brought the papers that the king requires?”

“What papers?”

I can feel my temper rising. “The papers that prove that my earlier betrothal was annulled. The king demanded them; Counts Overstein and Olisleger swore that they would send them. They swore on their honor. You must have them.”

His face is quite aghast. “I have nothing! Nobody said anything about these papers to me.”

I am stammering in my own language, I am so distraught. “But there could be nothing more important! My wedding was delayed because there was fear of a precontract. The emissaries from Cleves swore that they would send the evidence as soon as they got home. They had to offer themselves as hostages. They must have told you. You must have them! They offered themselves as security!”

“They said nothing to me,” he repeats. “And the duke your brother insisted that I delay my journey to meet with them. Can they have forgotten such a thing?”

At the mention of my brother the fight goes out of me. “No,” I say wearily. “My brother agreed to this marriage but does not assist me. He does not seem to care for my embarrassment. Sometimes I fear that he has sent me to this country just to humiliate me.”

He is shocked. “But why? How can such a thing be?”

I pull myself back from indiscretion. “Oh, who knows? Things occur between children in the nursery and are never forgotten or forgiven. You must write to him at once and tell him that I have to have the evidence that shows my earlier betrothal was annulled. You have to persuade him to send it. Tell him that without it, I can do nothing, I can have no influence on the king. Tell him that without it, we appear guilty of double dealing. The king could suspect us, and he would be right to suspect us. Ask my brother if he wants my very marriage to be questioned? If he wants me sent home in disgrace? If he wants this marriage annulled? If he wants me crowned queen? Because every day that we delay we give the king grounds for suspicion.”

“The king would never…” he begins. “Everybody must know…”

“The king will please himself,” I say fiercely. “That is the first thing that you learn in this court. The king is king, and head of the church; he is a tyrant who answers to nobody. He rules men’s bodies and their souls. He speaks for God in this country. He himself believes that he knows God’s will, that God speaks directly through him, that he is God on earth. He will do exactly what he wishes and he will decide if it is right or wrong, and then he will say that God wills it. Tell my brother that he puts me in very real danger and discomfort if he fails me in this one small thing. He has to send the documents or I fear for myself.”

Easter morning and a happy Easter for me. I so hate Lent – for whatever have I to do penance for, or regret? Next to nothing. But I hated Lent even worse this year when it meant no dancing at court and no music except the dreariest of hymns and psalms; and worst of all no masquing and no plays. But for Easter we shall at last be merry. The Princess Mary is to come to court, and we are all desperate to know how she likes her new stepmother. We are already laughing in anticipation of that greeting as the queen tries to be a mother to a child only one year her junior, tries to speak to her in German, tries to guide her to the reformed religion. It will be as good as a play. Princess Mary is said to be very grave and sad and pious; while the queen is lighthearted and merry in her rooms and born and bred a Lutheran or an Erasmian or one of those sorts of things, reformed, anyway. So we are all on the tips of our toes to get a good view from the window as the Princess Mary rides up to the front of the palace, and then we all scuttle like a flock of frantic hens to get into the queen’s rooms before the Princess Mary is shown up the stairs. We fling ourselves into the seats around the room and try to look as if we are quietly sewing and listening to a sermon, and the queen says, “Naughty girls,” with a smile, and then there is the knock on the door, and in comes the princess, and – such a surprise – she has the Lady Elizabeth with her, by the hand.

Up we all pop and drop into very careful curtsies; we have to curtsy to the Princess Mary low enough to indicate our respect to a Princess of the Blood Royal, and rise up before the Lady Elizabeth can take the credit since she is only a bastard of the king, and perhaps not his at all. But I give her a smile and poke out my tongue at her as she goes past me for she is only a little girl, poor little poppet, only six years old, and besides, she is my cousin, but with the most distressing hair you can imagine, red as a carrot. I should die if I had hair like that, but it is her father’s hair, and that must be worth having for a child whose parentage is in doubt.

The queen rises to greet her two stepdaughters, and she gives them each a kiss on both cheeks and then draws them into her privy chamber and closes the door on all of us, as if she would be alone with them. So we have to wait about outside with no music and no wine and no merriment at all and, worst of all, no idea what is going on behind the closed door. I take a little stroll toward the privy chamber; but Lady Rochford frowns me away and I raise my eyebrows and say, “What?” as if I have no idea that she is preventing me from eavesdropping.