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

“The King, my dear, was mightily affected by the lady in scarlet. Did you not see?”

“And who was she?”

Lady Elizabeth put her fingers to her lips and laughed cunningly.

“What of the Queen?” asked little Anne Boleyn; which set the ladies laughing.

“The Queen, my child, is an old woman. She is twenty-nine years old.”

“Twenty-nine!” cried Anne, and tried to picture herself at that great age, but she found this impossible. “She is indeed an old woman.”

“And looks older than she is.”

“The King—he too is old,” said Anne.

“You are very young, Anne Boleyn, and you know nothing...nothing at all. The King is twenty-three years old, and that is a very good age for a man to be.”

“It seems a very great age,” said little Anne, and set them mocking her. She hated to be mocked, and reproved herself for not holding her tongue; she must be silent and listen; that was the way to learn. The ladies twittered together, whispering secrets which Anne must not hear. “Hush! She is but a child! She knows nothing...” But after awhile they grew tired of whispering.

“They say he has long since grown tired of her...”

“No son yet...no child of the marriage!”

“I have heard it whispered that she, having been the wife of his brother...”

“Hush! Do you want your head off your shoulders?”

It was interesting, every minute of it. The little girl was silent, missing nothing.

As she lay in her bed, sleeping quietly, a figure bent over her, shaking her roughly. She opened startled eyes to find Lady Elizabeth Grey bending over her.

“Wake up, Anne Boleyn! Wake up!”

Anne fought away sleep which was reluctant to leave her.

“The weather has changed,” said Lady Elizabeth, her teeth chattering with cold and excitement. “The weather has changed; we are leaving for France at once.”

It had been comforting to know her father was with her. Her grandfather was there also—her mother’s father, that was, the Duke of Norfolk—and with them sailed too her uncle, Surrey.

It was just getting light when they set off, being not quite four o’clock in the morning. The sea was calmer than Anne had seen it since her arrival at Dover. Mary was gay, fresh from the fond farewell kiss of her brother.

“I will have the little Boleyn to sit near me,” she had said. “Her quaintness amuses me.”

The boat rocked, and Anne shivered and thought, my father is sailing with us...and my uncle and my grandfather. But she was glad she was with Mary Tudor and not with any of these men, for she knew them little, and what time would such important people have to bestow on a seven-year-old girl, the least important in the entire retinue!

“How would you feel, Anne,” asked Mary, “if you were setting out to a husband you had never seen in the flesh?”

“I think I should be very frightened,” said Anne, “but I should like to be a queen.”

“Marry and you would! You are a bright little girl, are you not? You would like to be a queen! Do you think the old man will dote on me?”

“I think he will not be able to help himself.”

Mary kissed her.

“They say the French ladies are very beautiful. We shall see. Oh, Charles, Charles, if you were only King of France! But what am I, little Anne? Nothing but a clause in a treaty, a pawn in the game which His Grace, my brother, and the French King, my husband, play together....How the boat rocks!”

“The wind is rising again,” said Anne.

“My faith! You are right, and I like it not.”

Anne was frightened. Never had she known the like of this. The ship rocked and rolled as though it was out of control; the waves broke over it and crashed down on it. Anne lay below, wrapped in a cloak, fearing death and longing for it.

But when the sickness passed a little, and the sea still roared and it seemed that this inadequate craft would be overturned and all its crew and passengers sucked down to the bottom of the ocean, Anne began to cry because she now no longer wished to die. It is sad to die when one is but seven and the world is proving to be a colourful pageant in which one is destined to play a part, however insignificant. She thought longingly of the quiet of Hever, of the great avenues at Blickling, murmuring: “I shall never see them again. My poor mother will be filled with sorrow...George too; my father perhaps...if he survives, and Mary will hear of this and cry for me. Poor Simonette will weep for me and be even more unhappy than she was when she said goodbye.” Then Anne was afraid for her wickedness. “I lied to Simonette about the piece of tapestry. It did not hurt anyone that I should lie? But it was a lie, and I did not confess it. It was wrong to pull up the trap-door in the ballroom and show Margaret the dungeons, for Margaret was frightened; it was wrong to take her there and pretend to leave her....Oh, dear, if I need not die now, I will be so good. I fear I have been very wicked and shall burn in hell.”

Death was certain; she heard voices whispering that they had lost the rest of the convoy. Oh, to be so young, to be so full of sin, and to die!

But later, when the sickness had passed completely, her spirits revived, for she was by nature adventurous. It was something to have lived through this; even when the boat was run aground in Boulogne harbor, and Anne and the ladies were taken off into small waiting boats, her exhilaration persisted. The wind caught at her long black hair and flung it round her face, as though it were angry that the sea had not taken her and kept her forever; the salt spray dashed against her cheeks. She was exhausted and weary.

But a few days later, dressed in crimson velvet, she rode in the procession, on a white palfrey, towards Abbeville.

“How crimson becomes the little Boleyn!” whispered the ladies one to another; and were faintly jealous even though she were but a child.

When Anne came to the French court, it had not yet become the most scintillating and the gayest court in Europe; which reputation it was to acquire under Francois. Louis, the reigning king, was noted for his meanness; he would rather be called mean, he had said, than burden his people with taxes. He indulged in few excesses; he drank in moderation; he ate in moderation; he had a quiet and unimaginative mind; there was nothing brilliant about Louis; he was the essence of mediocrity. His motto was France first and France above all. His court still retained a good deal of that austerity, so alien to the temperament of its people, which had been forced on it during the life of his late queen; and his daughters, the little crippled Claude and young Renee were like their mother. It was small wonder that the court was all eagerness to fall under the spell of gorgeous Francois, the heir apparent. Francois traced his descent to the Duke of Orleans as did Louis, and though Francois was in the direct line of succession, he would only attain the throne if Louis had no son to follow him; and with his mother and sister, Francois impatiently and with exasperation awaited the death of the King who, in their opinion, had lived too long. Imagine their consternation at this marriage with a young girl! Their impatience turned to anger, their exasperation to fear.

Louise of Savoy, the mother of Francois, was a dark, swarthy woman, energetic in her ambition for her son—her Caesar, as she called him—passionate in her devotion to his interests. They were a strange family, this mother and her son and daughter; their devotion to each other had something of a frenzy in it; they stood together, a trinity of passionate devotion. Louise consulted the stars, seeking good omens for her son; Marguerite, Duchess of Alencon, one of the most intellectual women of her day, trembled at the threat to her brother’s accession to the throne; Francois himself, the youngest of the trio, twenty years old, swarthy of skin with his hooked nose and sensuous mouth, already a rake, taking, as it was said, his sex as he took his meals, was as devoted a member of the trinity as the other two. At fifteen years of age he had begun his amorous adventures; he was lavishly generous, of ready wit, a poet of some ability, an intellectual, and never a hypocrite. With him one love affair followed another, and he liked to see those around him indulging in similar pleasures. “Toujours l’amour!” cried Francois. “Hands off love!” Only fools were not happy, and what happiness was there to compare with the delight of satisfied love? Only the foolish did not use this gift which the kindliest gods had bestowed on mankind. Only blockheads prided themselves on their virtue. Another name for virginity was stupidity!