Jean Plaidy - Murder Most Royal - The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

The King shook his great head in melancholy fashion, seeing her bending over the pond, seeing her proud young head on the small neck, hearing her sweet voice: “I would never be a king’s mistress!”

“Your Majesty has been saddened by this lady,” said Wolsey solicitously.

“I fear so, Wolsey.”

“This must not be!” Wolsey’s heart was merry. There was nothing he desired so much at this time as to see his master immersed in a passionate love affair. It was necessary at this moment to keep the fat, jeweled finger out of the French pie.

“Nay, my master, my dear lord, your chancellor forbids such sadness.” He put his head closer to the flushed face. “Could we not bring the lady to court, and find a place for her among the Queen’s ladies?”

The King placed an affectionate arm about Wolsey’s shoulders.

“If Your Majesty will but whisper the name of the lady...”

“It is Boleyn’s daughter...Anne.”

Now Wolsey had great difficulty in restraining his mirth. Boleyn’s daughter! Anne! Off with the elder daughter! On with the younger!

“My lord King, she shall come to the court. I shall give a banquet at Hampton Court—a masque it shall be! I shall ask my Gracious Liege to honor me with his mighty presence. The lady shall be there!”

The King smiled, well pleased. A prince, had said this wise man, has that power to mollify a heart of steel. Good Wolsey! Dear Thomas! Dear friend and most able statesman!

“Methinks, Thomas,” said the King with tears in his eyes, “that I love thee well.”

Wolsey fell on his knees and kissed the ruby on the forefinger of the fat hand. And I do love this man, thought the King; for he was one to whom it was not necessary to state crude facts. The lady would be brought to court, and it would appear that she came not through the King’s wish. That was what he wanted, and not a word had he said of it; yet Wolsey had known. And well knew the King that Wolsey would arrange this matter with expedience and tact.

Life at the English court offered amusement in plenty, and the coming of one as vivacious and striking as Anne Boleyn could not pass unnoticed. The ladies received her with some interest and much envy, the gentlemen with marked appreciation. There were two ways of life at court; on the one hand there was the gay merry-making of the King’s faction, on the other the piety of the Queen. As Queen’s attendant, Anne’s actions were restricted; but at the jousts and balls, where the Queen’s side must mingle with the King’s, she attracted a good deal of attention for none excelled her at the dance, and whether it was harpsichord, virginals or flute she played there were always those to crowd about her; when she sang, men grew sentimental, for there was that in her rich young voice to move men to tears.

The King was acutely aware of her while feigning not to notice her. He would have her believe that he had been not entirely pleased by her disrespectful manners at Hever, and that he still remembered the levity of her conversation with pained displeasure.

Anne laughed to herself, thinking—Well he likes a masquerade, when he arranges it; well he likes a joke against others! Is he angry at my appointment to attend the Queen? How I hope he does not banish me to Hever!

Life had become so interesting. As lady-in-waiting to the Queen, she was allowed a woman attendant and a spaniel of her own; she was pleased with the woman and delighted with the spaniel. The three of them shared a breakfast of beef and bread, which they washed down with a gallon of ale between them. Other meals were taken with the rest of the ladies in the great chamber, and at all these meals ale and wine were served in plenty; meat was usually the fare—beef, mutton, poultry, rabbits, peacocks, hares, pigeons—except on fast days when, in place of the meats, there would be a goodly supply of salmon or flounders, salted eels, whiting, or plaice and gurnet. But it was not the abundance of food that delighted Anne; it was the gaiety of the company. And if she had feared to be dismissed from the court in those first days, no sooner had she set eyes on Henry, Lord Percy, eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland, than she was terrified of that happening.

These two young people met about the court, though not as often as they could have wished, for whilst Anne, as maid of honor to Queen Katharine, was attached to the court, Percy was a protg of the Cardinal. It pleased Wolsey to have in his retinue of attendants various high-born young men, and so great was his place in the kingdom that this honor was sought by the noblest families in the realm. Young Percy must therefore attend the Cardinal daily, accompany him to court, and consider himself greatly honored by the patronage of this low-born man.

Lord Percy was a handsome young man of delicate features and of courteous manners; and as soon as he saw the Queen’s newest lady-in-waiting he was captivated by her personal charms. And Anne, seeing this handsome boy, was filled with such a tenderness towards him, which she had experienced for none hitherto, that whenever she knew the Cardinal to be in audience with the King she would look for the young nobleman. Whenever he came to the palace he was alert for a glimpse of her. They were both young; he was very shy; and so, oddly enough, was she, where he was concerned.

One day she was sitting at a window overlooking a courtyard when into this courtyard there came my lord Cardinal and his attendants; and among these latter was Henry, Lord Percy. His eyes flew to the window, saw Anne, and emboldened by the distance which separated them, flashed her a message which she construed as “Wait there, and while the Cardinal is closeted with the King I will return. I have so long yearned to hold speech with you!”

She waited, her heart beating fast as she pretended to stitch a piece of tapestry; waiting, waiting, feeling a sick fear within her lest the King might not wish to see the Cardinal, and the young man might thus be unable to escape.

He came running across the courtyard, and she knew by his haste and his enraptured expression that his fear had been as hers.

“I feared to find you gone!” he said breathlessly.

“I feared you would not come,” she answered.

“I look for you always.”

“I for you.”

They smiled, beautiful both of them in the joyful discovery of loving and being loved.

Anne was thinking that were he to ask her, she, who had laughed at Mary for marrying Will Carey, would gladly marry him though he might be nothing more than the Cardinal’s Fool.

“I know not your name,” said Percy, “but your face is the fairest I ever saw.”

“It is Anne Boleyn.”

“You are daughter to Sir Thomas?”

She nodded, blushing, thinking Mary would be in his mind, and a fear came to her that her sister’s disgrace might discredit herself in his eyes. But he was too far gone in love to find her anything but perfect.

“I am recently come to court,” she said.

“That I know! You could not have been here a day but that I should have found you.”

She said: “What would your master say an he found you lingering beneath this window?”

“I know not, nor care I!”

“Were you caught, might there not be those who would prevent you from coming again? Already you may have been missed.”

He was alarmed. To be prevented from enjoying the further bliss of such meetings was intolerable.

“I go now,” he said. “Tomorrow...you will be here at this hour?”

“You will find me here.”

“Tomorrow,” he said, and they smiled at each other.

Next day she saw him, and the next. There were many meetings, and for each of those two young lovers the day was good when they met, and bad when they did not. She learned of his exalted rank, and she could say with honesty that this mattered to her not at all, except of course that her ambitious father could raise no objection to a match with the house of Northumberland.