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

Percy, threatened by his father, dreading the wrath of the King, greatly fearing the mighty Cardinal, and not being possessed of the same reckless courage as his partner in romance, was overpowered by this storm he and Anne had aroused. He could not stand out against them. Wretchedly, brokenheartedly he gave in, and left the court with his father.

He was, however, able to leave a message for Anne with a kinsman of hers, in which he begged that she would remember her promise from which none but God could loose her.

And the Cardinal, passing through the palace courtyard with his retinue, saw a dark-eyed girl with a pale, tragic face at one of the windows.

Ah! thought the Cardinal, turning his mind from matters of state. The cause of all the trouble!

The black eyes blazed into sudden hatred as they rested on him, for there had been those who had overheard Wolsey’s slighting remarks about herself and hastened to inform her. Wolsey she blamed, and Wolsey only, for the ruin of her life.

Insolently she stared at him, her lips moving as though she cursed him.

The Cardinal smiled. Does she think to frighten me? A foolish girl! And I the first man in the kingdom! I would reprove her, but for the indignity of noting one so lacking in significance!

The next time he passed through the courtyard, he did not see Anne Boleyn. She had been banished to Hever.

At home in Hever Castle, a fierce anger took possession of her. She had waited for a further message from her lover. There was no message. He will come, she had told herself. They would ride away together, mayhap disguised as country folk, and they would care nothing for the anger of the Cardinal.

She would awake in the night, thinking she heard a tap on her window; walking in the grounds, she would feel her heart hammering at the sound of crackling bracken. She longed for him, thinking constantly of that night in the little chamber at Hampton Court, which they had said should be a perfect night and which by promising each other marriage they had made so; she thought of how sorry they had been for those who were dancing below, knowing nothing of the enchantment they were experiencing.

She would be ready when he came for her. Where would they go? Anywhere! For what did place matter! Life should be a glorious adventure. Taking her own courage for granted, why should she doubt his?

He did not come, and she brooded. She grew bitter, wondering why he did not come. She thought angrily of the wicked Cardinal whose spite had ruined her chances of happiness. Fiercely she hated him. “This foolish girl...” he had said. “This Anne Boleyn, who is but the daughter of a knight, to wed with one of the noblest families in the kingdom!”

She would show my lord Cardinal whether she was a foolish girl or not! Oh, the hypocrite! The man of God! He who kept house as a king and was vindictive as a devil and hated by the people!

When she and Percy went off together, the Cardinal should see whether she was a foolish girl!

And still her lover did not come.

“I cannot bear this long separation!” cried the passionate girl. “Perhaps he thinks to wait awhile until his father is dead, for they say he is a sick man. But I do not wish to wait!”

She was melancholy, for the summer was passing and it was sad to see the leaves fluttering down.

The King rode out to Hever. In her room she heard the bustle his presence in the castle must inevitably cause. She locked her door and refused to go down. If Wolsey had ruined her happiness, the King—doubtless at the wicked man’s instigation—had humiliated her by banishing her from the court. Unhappy as she was, she cared for nothing—neither her father’s anger nor the King’s.

Her mother came and stood outside the door to plead with her.

“The King has asked for you, Anne. You must come...quickly.”

“I will not! I will not!” cried Anne. “I was banished, was I not? Had he wished to see me, he should not have sent me from the court.”

“I dare not go back and say you refuse to come.”

“I care not!” sobbed Anne, throwing herself on her bed and laughing and weeping simultaneously, for she was beside herself with a grief that she found herself unable to control.

Her father came to her door, but his threats were as vain as her mother’s pleas.

“Would you bring disgrace on us!” stormed Sir Thomas. “Have you not done enough!”

“Disgrace!” she cried furiously. “Yes, if it is a disgrace to love and wish to marry, I have disgraced you. It is an honor to be mistress of the King. Mary has brought you honor! An I would not come for my mother, assuredly I will not come for you!”

“The King commands your presence!”

“You may do what you will,” she said stubbornly. “He may do what he will. I care for nothing...now.” And she burst into fresh weeping.

Sir Thomas—diplomatic over a family crisis as on a foreign mission—explained that his daughter was sadly indisposed; and the King, marveling at his feelings for this willful girl, replied, “Disturb her not then.”

The King left Hever, and Anne returned to that life which had no meaning—waiting, longing, hoping, fearing.

One cold day, when the first touch of winter was in the air and a fresh wind was bringing down the last of the leaves from the trees in the park, Sir Thomas brought home the news.

He looked at Anne expressionlessly and said: “Lord Percy has married the Lady Mary Talbot. This is an end of your affair.”

She went to her room and stayed there all that day. She did not eat; she did not sleep; she spoke to none; and on the second day she fell into a fit of weeping, upbraiding the Cardinal, and with him her lover. “They could have done what they would with me,” she told herself bitterly. “I would never have given in!”

Drearily the days passed. She grew pale and listless, so that her mother feared for her life and communicated her fears to her husband.

Sir Thomas hinted that if she would return to court, such action would not be frowned on.

“That assuredly I will not do!” she said, and so ill was she that none dared reason with her.

She called to mind then the happiness of her life in France, and it seemed to her that her only hope of tearing her misery from her heart lay in getting away from England. She thought of one whom she would ever admire—the witty, sparkling, Duchess of Alencon; was there some hope, with that spritely lady, of renewing her interest in life?

Love she had experienced, and found it bitter; she wanted no more such experience.

“With Marguerite I could forget,” she said; and, fearing for her health, Sir Thomas decided to humor her wishes; so once more Anne left Hever for the court of France.

The King’s Secret Matter

THE HOUSE AT LAMBETH was wrapped in deepest gloom. In the great bed which Jocosa had shared with Lord Edmund Howard since the night of her marriage, she now lay dying. She was very tired, poor lady, for her married life had been a wearying business. It seemed that no sooner had one small Howard left her womb than another was growing there; and poverty, in such circumstances, had been humiliating.

Death softened bitter feelings. What did it matter now, that her distinguished husband had been so neglected! Why, she wondered vaguely, were people afraid of death? It was so easy to die, so difficult to live.

“Hush! Hush!” said a voice. “You must not disturb your mother now. Do you not see she is sleeping peacefully?”

Then came to Jocosa’s ears the sound of a little girl’s sobbing. Jocosa tried to move the coverlet to attract attention. That was little Catherine crying, because, young as she was, she was old enough to understand the meaning of hushed voices, the air of gloom, old enough to smell the odor of death.