Anne Boleyn: A Novel by Evelyn Anthony | eBook

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Anne Boleyn

A Novel

By Evelyn Anthony

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

CHAPTER 1

It was a still and lovely summer afternoon when the train of riders, headed by the King, turned into Hever Castle. He rode a head taller than the others and, after setting a gruelling pace from London, he was still fresh. At thirty-four Henry VIII was in his physical prime. He was tall and massively built; he still wrestled and maintained his reputation as the most formidable sportsman in the country.

He had called his gentlemen and ridden out of Greenwich Palace on an impulse to visit his new comptroller, see the Kentish countryside, and rest for a few hours at Hever before returning to London. The King had made the Lord of Hever a peer when he gave him the post of comptroller a short time before, and Sir Thomas Boleyn, grandson of a London merchant, had become Viscount Rochford. As the cavalcade trotted into the castle courtyard, two flustered servants ran inside with news of the King's arrival, which brought the new Lord Rochford hurrying to Henry's stirrup after a volley of orders to his wife to get everything prepared.

He kissed the King's hand; and Henry dismounted and smacked him on the shoulder, grinning at the comptroller's confusion and delight. It was pleasant to feel welcome, a relief to arrive like any private gentleman on a visit to a friend's house, and stop for wine and talk before returning to London and the problems he had ridden away from so abruptly that afternoon.

'Your Grace ... This is a great honour! I fear you find us unprepared ...'

Henry laughed; he had the gift of putting people at their ease. He had only to throw his arm around a man's neck and speak a few friendly words to him to make that man his servant for life. He liked Rochford. Even if the man was a parvenu and a place seeker, he was able and clever in his dealing with the King and that was all that mattered.

'No ceremony, Rochford, no ceremony this time. I've come to spend an hour or two in your fine house and take some simple hospitality from you.'

Rochford made a deep bow.

'I'm overwhelmed, Your Grace. My house and everything in it is yours.'

'Then take me inside, out of the heat. Come, gentlemen!'

Lady Rochford met him on the steps, curtsying to the ground; immediately he was surrounded and led away into Rochford's best apartments, while servants ran to take care of the horses and his suite split up in search of drink and shade.

Hever had very fine rooms, the King thought, noticing the magnificent tapestries on the walls and the gold plate set out on the sideboard. He had an eye that noticed everything. Rochford had certainly profited by his favour. ... The first hour passed pleasantly enough; they discussed the affairs of the Household and Rochford's duties as comptroller, while his wife sat nervously on the edge of her chair and moved only to offer the King more wine or some of the ripe fruit which, she explained, grew in their own walled gardens.

Elizabeth Rochford was a dull, rather plain woman, obviously afraid of her husband. Looking at her, Henry found it difficult to believe that she was the Duke of Norfolk's sister and one of that fierce breed of Howards who had been the scourge of so many Kings of England. Not his ancestors, he thought, and grinned to himself. His wily old father, Henry VII, was the descendant of Henry V's widow, Katherine of France, born of a liaison between her and a certain Owen Tudor, who had been clerk of her wardrobe. The Tudors were bastard stock but they married the right women, like the Boleyns. Their wives were of the blood royal, and the first Tudor laid claim to the throne of the ancient Plantagenet kings through the distaff side.

After a time he felt cool and rested, but the company began to jar and his thoughts were straying back to Greenwich and Catherine, his wife. Wolsey, his Cardinal Minister and closest friend, was urging him to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled, and cement the new alliance with France by marrying the French Princess Renée. Catherine's nephew the Emperor Charles was emerging as a great power in Europe, and Wolsey wanted to side with France and put a check on imperial ambitions. Politics were Wolsey's especial genius, the King thought moodily, and in the last twelve years the Cardinal had taught his young master a great deal.

But politics alone would never had made him agree to Wolsey's approaching the Pope over an annulment, an agreement which sent him hurrying out of the palace, shouting for horses to ride down to Hever and forget what he had done. Catherine was gentle and affectionate; her husband had an almost filial awe of her good qualities. But every child born to them had died and the rest had miscarried, all except the little Princess Mary. And now there would be no more children. As only Wolsey had dared point out, the world was saying that there wasn't a son in the loins of King Henry.

Rochford was talking about something; he had a rather foxy face with shrewd light eyes and usually displayed a keen wit, but now the conversation dragged, and Henry looked beyond him to the open windows. The sun was shining outside and the birds were singing noisily in the trees. The novelty of the visit was wearing off. Rochford at court, where he was quick and amusing, was one thing; Rochford in his own home, weightily playing host, was quite another.

Henry was bored. He stifled a yawn, which Rochford noticed, hastily changing the subject, but Henry stood up and stretched in the middle of his sentence, bowed to his hostess and asked permission to see the castle gardens.

'With pleasure, Sire.' Rochford moved to the door at once and opened it. 'If you'll allow me to show them to you ...'

The King smiled and shook his head.

'There'd be no novelty in it for you, my Lord. I have a mind to see them on my own. You offered me the freedom of your house – Madam your wife has been such a good hostess that I feel it's mine already – now I'll make free with your gardens and your fresh air, before I leave for London.'

He walked out alone and turned out of the courtyard, watched by two gaping stable boys, and opened a little wrought-iron gate in the side wall. A smooth lawn stretched out in front of him, leading to a sunken garden, a garden cut in a deep hollow out of the ground and paved with soft grey stones. A flight of shallow steps led down to it and he stood at the top of them, looking down. It was one of the loveliest gardens of its kind that he had ever seen, a rose garden, where the rich, sensual flowers bloomed in profusion in their beds of Kentish clay, and a little stone faun stood on a pedestal in the centre of the sea of pinks and reds and whites and yellows, piping a soundless tune into the scented air. And there, as she stood cutting a crimson rose, Henry saw Anne Boleyn again.

He had forgotten all about her till that moment. He had forgotten that he had ever seen a woman move so gracefully, or blend so well with her surroundings. She wore a plain dress of green, and her black hair was plaited simply around her head; it shone like polished ebony. In that moment when he saw her, he remembered instantly who she was and what had happened – why, it must be months ago that she'd been sent from court ... Months, and he'd forgotten her existence.

It was always the same with him where women were concerned. Out of sight, out of mind. He had slept with Boleyn's other daughter, Mary, a year or so before. She was plump and fair and very stupid, and Henry had sent her off with a nominal pension and a plain country squire for a husband, promptly forgetting about her, as he did with all the others. Like them, she had proved a disappointment....

Then one day he had seen this one, dancing in the great hall at Greenwich, as dark as a Spaniard among the English ladies, and her feline grace had caught his fancy. He was surprised to learn she was Thomas Boleyn's elder daughter, now returned to England after years at the French court. He had signalled his interest, but the minx ignored it. He mentioned the matter to Wolsey, to whom he confided everything, and his fancy turned to a burst of jealous pique when he discovered that the girl preferred another suitor to the King. An intrigue existed between her and Henry Percy, heir of the Earl of Northumberland. He had snapped at the Cardinal to make an end of the affair and see both participants properly punished. How dared Percy try to marry some little court nobody without the King's permission. How dared the nobody angle for a great noble and ignore that other beckoning finger.

Percy was sent home, he remembered, after a rating from Wolsey which took place in public, and his fierce old father had forced the unhappy young man into marriage with the Lady Mary Talbot. Boleyn's daughter – Anne, that was it – was banished and disgraced. And forgotten until now. He'd forgotten that a narrow, supple figure had voluptuous charm, but Henry was ready to acknowledge it again as he saw her straighten up, holding the long-stemmed rose in her hand. Slowly he came down the steps, swinging his feathered cap, and at the sound of his step on the flagged path, Anne turned.

It was more than a year since she had seen him; more than a year since she had left the court and lost her chance of marriage, parted from Henry Percy by the Cardinal's orders without the chance to say good-bye. Her father had smacked her face and cursed her for jeopardizing his favour with the King and bundled her down to Hever Castle, and threatened to beat her unconscious if he found her with child as a result of it all.

But she had not been Percy's mistress. That was the irony which lay like a stone at the bottom of her unhappiness. Dozens of men in France and England had pursued her dishonourably, but the scion of the mighty house of Northumberland had stammered his love and his wish to marry her before he asked to touch her lips. And whatever her furious father had said, Anne had loved him for that and not for the high position he had offered her. Gangling and awkward, Percy stuttered badly; he was as shy and graceless as she was poised, but she loved him and every instinct urged her towards the marriage. It was the first offer and the last, and she knew it. Whether her mother was a Howard or not, Anne was still the daughter of the parvenu Sir Thomas Boleyn whose grandfather had been a mercer, and the great families of England did not take such women for wives. The Norfolks had been under a cloud of treason, their dukedom suspended and estates forfeited, when they allowed Elizabeth Howard to marry so far beneath her.

All that was over. Percy was married, and the months of her exile dragged by without hope of recall. It was less than a year since she had let her persistent Cousin Tom Wyatt into her room and surrendered the virginity she had been keeping for a husband. More than a year and less than a year and her whole life had changed on account of that twice-damned priest and the man who now suddenly appeared in front of her, smiling and looking up and down at her as if nothing had happened. She had forgotten his height and his splendid build; forgotten too, or never noticed, that he carried himself so royally. The colour rushed up into her olive skin, and one hand flew to her breast like a startled bird.

'Your Grace ...'

She sank down in a low curtsy, her green skirts spreading around her.

He came close to her and held out his hand. It was a heavy hand, with coarse red hairs on the back and a big gold ring set with a diamond on the index finger.

She kissed it, and he caught her fingers and drew her to her feet. The top of her head only reached his shoulder. Henry smiled, and his pale eyes were quite warm. Then to her surprise he bent and picked up the long, freshly cut rose which she had let fall in her confusion.

'Mistress, your flower.'

'I thank you, Sire.' He noted with pleasure that her voice was rather low-pitched; she was still suitably flushed; feminine confusion always pleased his vanity, but her brilliant dark eyes were smiling back at him.

'Were you avoiding the King, that I find you here?' he asked.

She laughed then; she had recovered her composure. Years of living in the sophisticated French court had taught her that a King was still a man. And this was the King who stood and ogled and picked up her flower. The King, but still a man.

'I'd no idea we were to be honoured by a visit from you, Sire. My father said nothing about it.'

'It was a surprise,' Henry said genially.

'And a noisy one,' she retorted mischievously. 'I'll swear my father strutted like a cock with apoplexy, and my mother banged her nose on the floor like any kitchen maid making a curtsy!'

The description was so apt that he roared with laughter.

'You're a disrespectful baggage,' he reproved, grinning. 'A cock with apoplexy ... God's death, I've a mind to tell him!'

'Your Grace is too kind to do that; think of my poor head aching from a box on the ear.'

'That would be a pity,' Henry admitted. 'It's a pretty head, and a prettier ear. We'll say nothing to Thomas, then. Come, show me the rose garden, if you want me to be silent.'

Together they turned down the path, and Anne laid her flowers on a little seat set into the wall. They walked through the massed beds, pausing, as she pointed out some special bloom; he found her very knowledgeable about flowers, and at last she led him to the statue of the faun.

'I've often wondered what tune he plays,' Anne said.

The King looked at her; she had a trick of calling attention to her breasts by placing one hand on the neck of her dress. It was cut low and straight across, and the shape of her bosom was firm and perfect.

'Do you like music, Mistress?'

'Very much, Sire. I pass much of my time here playing. And my lute is well acquainted with Your Grace's melodies.'

He was immediately pleased.

'You like them, then?'

She turned to him smiling. 'If you hadn't been King, you'd surely have been the first musician at your own court. I think, "Come Love, sweet Love," is my favourite.'

'It's mine too,' he said eagerly. 'But "In Winter Mine Heart," do you play that too?'

She shook her head. 'It's too sad, Sire. The words make me weep.' They often had the same effect on Henry; he had composed the tune and the verses one afternoon when it was too wet to go hunting and his spirits were low.

'You have a fine perception,' he remarked. 'If your musicianship is good, then you must play for me.'

'It's no match for yours,' Anne answered. 'But for a woman, I play quite well.'

They were walking side by side, nearing the end of the garden, where more steps led up to the main lawns; the King touched her elbow.

'There's a pleasant seat there in the wall. Come, sit with me.'

She obeyed, drawing her skirts aside to make room for him; she had a curious feeling of suspension. The King, the sunny garden, their conversation, the whole scene was almost unreal. And running through it was a sensation of racing excitement.

She glanced quickly at him; he had a noble head. He was more kingly in bearing as he sat beside her like any country squire, dallying on a lovely afternoon, than when he walked among his court at Greenwich. Their silence was natural as their talk. Henry leaned back against the wall. The odd strain of informality that loved to serve himself from his own sideboard and to relax in genial company was more satisfied in those moments than he had ever known it. His experience with women, certainly with his Queen, had convinced him that silence and women equalled boredom; worse still, their chatter was the end of peace. But this woman had the art of tranquillity; yet she had made him laugh, and laughed herself with sparkling vivacity. He wondered if she really played well, for his Welsh heritage rejoiced in music. How pleasant it would be sometimes to sit and listen to her, and to watch her. While Wolsey wrested his divorce from the Pope, he could revert to his old whim and make this one his mistress. He congratulated himself on the soundness of his first impression. The whim, so quickly forgotten once she left the court, reasserted itself as a positive wish.

He turned and smiled at her, considering the beautiful face framed in glistening black hair, the delicate neck, and again her breasts; the narrow waist and the line of her thighs under the folds of her skirt. Suddenly his whole body heated with the idea of pressing upon her until she cried out under his weight.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Anne Boleyn by Evelyn Anthony. Copyright © 1957 Anthony Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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Anne Boleyn: A Novel

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