The Boleyn Inheritance

Anne, Richmond Palace,
July 1540

I think the waiting is the worst, and now waiting is all I do. Waiting to hear what charge they will frame against me, waiting for my arrest, and racking my brains for what defense I can make. Dr. Harst and I are agreed that I must leave the country, even if it means losing my claim to the throne, breaking the contract of marriage, and wrecking the alliance with Cleves. Even if it means that England will join with France in a war against Spain. To my horror, my failure to succeed in this country may mean that England is free to go to war in Europe. The one thing I hoped to bring to this country was peace and safety, but my failure with the king may send them to war. And I cannot prevent it.

Dr. Harst believes that my friend Lord Lisle and my sponsor Thomas Cromwell are certain to die, and that I will be next. There is nothing now I can do to save England from this outbreak of tyranny. All I can do for myself is try to save my own skin. There is no predicting the charge and no guarding against it. There will be no formal accusation in a courtroom; there will be no judges and no jury. There will be no chance to defend myself from whatever charge they have invented. Lord Lisle and Lord Cromwell will die under a Bill of Attainder; all it requires is the signature of the king. The king, who believes he is guided by God, has become a god with the full power of life and death. There can be no doubt that he is planning my death, too.

I hesitate; like a fool I wait for a few days, hoping that it is not as bad as it seems. I think that the king might be well advised by men who can see reason. I pray that God might speak to him in words of common sense and not reassure him that his own desires should be paramount. I hope that I might hear from my mother, to tell me what I should do. I even hope against hope for a message from my brother saying that he will not let them try me, that he will prevent my execution, that he is sending an escort to bring me home. Then, on the very day that Dr. Harst said he would come with six horses and I should be ready to leave, he comes to me, without horses, his face very grave, and says that the ports are closed. The king is letting no one in or out of the country. No ships are allowed to sail at all. Even if we could get to the coast – and to run away would be a confession of guilt – we would not be able to sail. I am imprisoned in my new country. There is no way of getting home.

Like a fool I had thought that my difficulty would be getting past the guards at my door, getting horses, getting away from the palace without someone raising a hue and cry and coming after us. But no, the king is all-seeing, like the god he thinks he is. Getting away from the palace would have been hard enough, but now we cannot take a ship for home. I am marooned on this island. The king holds me captive.

Dr. Harst thinks this means that they will come for me at once. The king has closed the whole country so that he can have me tried, found guilty, and beheaded before my own family can even hear of my arrest. No one in Europe can protest or cry shame! No one in Europe will even know until it is over and I am dead. I believe this to be true. It must be within a few days, perhaps even tomorrow.

I cannot sleep. I spend the night at the window watching for the first light of dawn. I think this will be my last night on earth, and I regret more than anything else that I have wasted my life. I spent all my time obeying my father and then my brother; I squandered these last months in trying to please the king; I did not treasure the little spark that is me, uniquely me. Instead, I put my will and my thoughts beneath the will of the men who command me. If I had been the gyrfalcon that my father called me, I would have flown high, and nested in lonely, cold places, and ridden the free wind. Instead, I have been like a bird in a mews, always tied and sometimes hooded. Never free and sometimes blind.

As God is my witness, if I live through this night, through this week, I shall try to be true to myself in the future. If God spares me I shall try to honor him by being me, myself; not by being a sister or a daughter or a wife. This is an easy promise to make for I don’t think I will be held to it. I don’t think God will save me, I don’t think Henry will spare me. I don’t think I will have any life beyond next week.

As it grows light and then golden with the morning sun of summertime, I stay at my seat at the window, and they bring me a cup of small ale and a slice of bread and butter as I watch the river for the flutter of the standard and the steady dip and sweep of oars, for the coming of the royal barge to take me to the Tower. Any beat of a drum, drifting over the water to keep the rowers in time, and I can hear my heart echoing its thudding in my ears, thinking that it is them, come for me today. Funny then that when they finally come, not until midafternoon, it is not a troop but only a single man, Richard Beard, who arrives without warning in a little wherry, when I am walking in the garden, my hands cold in my pockets and my feet clumsy with fear. He finds me in the privy garden when I am walking among the roses, bending my head down to the blooms but unable to smell the perfume of the full-blown flowers. From a distance I must look to him like a happy woman, a young queen in a garden of roses. Only as he comes close does he see the whiteness of my blank face.

“Your Grace,” he says, and bows low, as if to a queen.

I nod.

“I have brought a letter from the king.” He offers me the letter.

I take it, but I do not break the seal. “What does it say?” I ask.

He does not pretend that it is a private matter. “It is to tell you that after months of doubt the king has decided to examine his marriage to you. He fears that it is not valid because you were already contracted to marry. There is to be an inquiry.”

“He says we are not married?” I ask.

“He fears that you were not married,” he corrects me gently.

I shake my head. “I don’t understand,” I say stupidly. “I don’t understand.”

They all come then: half the Privy Council arrive with their entourage and servants; they all come to tell me that I must agree to an inquiry. I don’t agree. I won’t agree. They are all to stay the night here with me at Richmond Palace. I won’t dine with them; I shall not agree. I shall never agree.

In the morning they tell me that three of my ladies are to be summoned to appear before the inquiry. They refuse to tell me what they will be asked; they will not even tell me who will be made to go and testify against me. I ask them for copies of the documents that are to be the evidence laid before the inquiry, and they refuse to let me see anything. Dr. Harst complains of this treatment and writes to my brother, but we know that the letters will never get through until it is too late; the ports are sealed and there is no news leaving England at all. We are alone. I am alone. Dr. Harst tells me that before her trial, there was an inquiry into Anne Boleyn’s conduct. An inquiry: just as they will make into my conduct. The ladies of her chamber were questioned as to what she had said and done, just as mine will be. The evidence from that inquiry was used at her trial. The sentence was passed against her, and the king married Jane Seymour, her maid-in-waiting, within the month. They will not even hold a trial for me, it will be done on the king’s signature: nothing more. Am I really going to die so that the king can marry little Kitty Howard? Can it really be possible that I am to die so that this old man can marry a girl whom he could bed for little more than the price of a gown?