The Boleyn Inheritance

Anne, Richmond Palace,
November 1541

They have moved Kitty Howard to Syon Abbey, and she is kept as a prisoner, with only a few of her ladies. They have arrested two young men from her grandmother’s household, and they will be tortured until they confess what they know; then they will be tortured until they confess what they are required to say. Her ladies who were in her confidence are taken to the Tower for questioning, too. His Grace the king has returned from his private musing at Oatlands Palace and has come back to Hampton Court. He is said to be very quiet, very grieved, but not angry. We must thank God that he is not angry. If he does not fly into one of his vindictive rages, then he might sink into self-pity and banish her. He is going to annul his marriage to the queen on the grounds of her abominable behavior – those are the very words he has put to parliament. Please God that they will agree with him that she is not fit to be queen, and the poor child can be released, and her friends go home.

She could go to France; she would be a delight to that court, who would find her vanity and her prettiness a pleasure to watch. Or perhaps she could be persuaded to live in the country as I do, and call herself another sister to the king. She might even come to live with me, and we could be friends as we used to be in the old days when I was the queen he did not want, and she was the maid he did. She could be sent away to a thousand different places where she could do the king no harm and where her folly might make people laugh, and where she might grow into a sensible woman. Surely, everyone agrees that she cannot be executed. She is simply too young to be executed. This is not an Anne Boleyn, who schemed and contrived her way to the throne over six years of striving, and was then thrown down by her own ambition. This is a girl with no more judgment than one of her kittens. Nobody could be so harsh as to send a child like this to the block. Thank God, the king is sad and not angry. Please God, the parliament will advise him that the marriage can be annulled, and pray heaven that Archbishop Cranmer is satisfied with the disgrace of the queen on the basis of her childhood amours, and does not start to investigate her follies since her marriage.

I don’t know what goes on at court these days, but I saw her at Christmas and the New Year, and I thought then that she was ready for a lover, and hoping for love. And how could she stop herself? She is a girl coming into womanhood with a man old enough to be her father as her husband, a sickly man, an impotent man, perhaps even a madman. Even a sensible young woman in those circumstances would turn for friendship and comfort to one of the young men who gather round her. And Katherine is a flirt.

Dr. Harst comes riding out from London to see me, and the moment that he arrives, he sends my ladies away so that we can talk alone. I know from this that it is grave news from the court.

“What news of the queen?” I ask him as soon as they have gone from the room and we are seated, side by side, like conspirators before the fire.

“She is still being questioned,” he says. “If there is any more to be had, they will get it out of her. She is kept close in her apartments at Syon; she is allowed to see no one. She is not even allowed out to walk in the garden. Her uncle has abandoned her, and she has no friends. Four of her ladies are locked up with her; they would leave if they could. Her closest friends are under arrest and being questioned in the Tower. They say she cries all the time and begs them to forgive her. She is too distressed to eat or sleep. She is said to be starving herself to death.”

“God help her, poor little Kitty,” I say. “God help her. But surely they have evidence for the annulment of her marriage to the king? He has enough to divorce her and let her go?”

“No, now they are seeking evidence for worse,” he says shortly.

We are both silent. We both know what he means by that, and we both fear that there may be worse to discover.

“I have come to see you for something even more grave than this,” he says.

“Good God, what worse could there be?”

“I hear that the king is thinking of taking you back as his wife.”

For a moment I am so stunned that I cannot say anything, then I grip the carved arms of my chair and watch my fingertips go white. “You cannot mean this.”

“I do. King Francis of France is keen that the two of you shall remarry and that your brother and the king join with him in a war against Spain.”

“The king wants another alliance with my brother?”

“Against Spain.”

“They can do that without me! They can make an alliance without me!”

“The King of France and your brother want you restored, and the king wants to rid himself of the memory of Katherine. It is to be just as it was. It is to be as if she never existed. As if you have just arrived in England, and everything can go as planned.”

“He is Henry of England, but not even he can turn back the clock!” I cry out, and I push myself up from my chair and stride across the room. “I won’t do it. I daren’t do it. He will have me killed within a year. He is a wife killer. He takes a woman and destroys her. It has become his habit. This will be my death!”

“If he were to deal with you honorably-”

“Dr. Harst, I have escaped him once; I am the only wife of his to come out from the marriage alive! I can’t go back to put my head on the block.”

“I am advised that he would offer you guarantees-”

“This is Henry of England!” I round on the ambassador. “This is a man who has been the death of three wives and is now building the scaffold for a fourth! There are no guarantees. He is a murderer. If you put me in his bed, I am a dead woman.”

“He will divorce Queen Katherine, I am certain of it. He has laid it before parliament. They know that she was no virgin when she married him. The news of her scandalous behavior has been released to the ambassadors at the European courts for them to announce. She is publicly named as a whore. He will put her aside. He will not kill her.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“There is no reason for him to kill her,” he says gently. “You are overwrought; you are not thinking clearly. She married him under false pretenses; that is a sin, and she is wrong. He has announced that. But since they were not married, she has not cuckolded him; he has no reason to do anything other than let her go.”

“Then why is he seeking more evidence against her?” I ask. “Since he has enough against her to name her as a whore, since he has enough against her to bring her into shame and divorce her? Why does he need more evidence?”

“To punish the men,” he replies.

Our eyes meet; neither of us knows what we dare to believe.

“I fear him,” I say miserably.

“And so you should; he is a fearsome king. But he divorced you, and he kept his word to you. He made a fair settlement on you, and he has kept you in peace and prosperity. Perhaps he will divorce her and make a settlement on her; perhaps this is his way now. Then he may want to marry you again.”

“I cannot,” I say quietly. “Believe me, Dr. Harst, even if you are right and he treats Katherine with forgiveness, even with generosity, I would not dare to marry him. I cannot bear to be married to him again. I still thank God on my knees every morning for my good fortune in escaping last time. When the councillors ask you, or my brother asks you, or the French ambassador asks you, then you must tell them that I am settled to the single state – I believe myself to be precontracted as the king himself said. Just as he said: I am not free to marry. Persuade them that it cannot be done. I swear I cannot do it. I will not put my head back on the block and wait to hear the whistle of the falling axe.”