“A gift from the king,” she answered my silent inquiry.
The Duke of Suffolk, the king’s closest friend and brother-in-law, rode out first, the challenger. His wife, often ill, was not at court, and it was unknown whose favor he wore tied to his lance, though it was certainly not hers. I, the daughter of a dedicated horseman, recognized the appropriateness of each of their steeds. Suffolk’s mount was a warm-blooded charger, bred for agility and speed. The king rode out onto the tilt field next to the roar of the men and the polite clapping of the assembled women. His horse was a cold-blooded destrier, a war horse, really, slower than a charger but twice as heavy and able to slam into an enemy with devastating force. The king cantered toward the crowd and all expected him to stop in front of the queen, as was his custom, in order for her to tie her favor onto his lance. He did stop in front of her and nod respectfully but he already had a favor tied to his lance. It was a knitted jewel string.
One night in April Anne and I dined together in her chambers, as we often did. Food that was served in private dining chambers was warm, while that brought from the kitchens to the hall often arrived stone cold due to the long distance it had to travel. After we were served, she dismissed the servants and then we closed the door to her chamber. The firelight burnished the carved wood panels in her apartments to a rich glow. She handed me a silver tray of sweetmeats that her maid had left out and then took one for herself.
“Henry’s asked me to share his bed,” she said simply.
“But you’re not married,” I said after she told me of their conversation.
“Your ability to state the obvious is noted, Baroness,” she replied dryly.
“And just as important, he is married,” I said. Well, if I was going to be chided for stating the obvious I might as well press forward.
She surprised me then. “No, he’s not.”
“No, he’s not? The queen is a phantom, then?”
She laughed her singular feline laugh. “No, dearest Meg, she’s not a phantom. First of all, I told him no, that I would not be his mistress.” She reached for another date. “But be patient, and I shall explain it all to you as the king has explained it to me. Henry has long held the conclusion that our Lord is angry with him. Why else should he have withheld sons from Henry, sons that are necessary for Henry to fulfill the oath, the sacred oath, he made before God at his coronation to uphold the realm? This cannot be achieved by a woman, as we well know, and the king has but one daughter and no legitimate son.”
I nodded. So far, she was correct.
“Henry had studied Scriptures in great detail as a young man, afore Arthur’s death, and he felt compelled to go back and look at them anon to see from whence he might have turned from our Lord’s affections. With some help, he settled upon a passage in Leviticus. Come.” She stood and beckoned to me and we went to a further corner of her chamber where a great upright chest stood. She lifted the lid and I peeked in with her.
“Books. And…. a Bible. In French. And other books by the reformers,” I said. I had spoken of the reformers with my sister, Alice, who counted herself among them. I, thus far, had remained politely disinterested. I glanced at a book by Lefevre. “This is dangerous, Anne. Should someone uncover these…. Where did you get them?”
Anne nodded but smiled, unworried, content in the hidey-hole of the king’s protection. “Some I brought back with me from France, gifts from Marguerite, King Francis’s sister, after we’d read them together. Some are from my father. And of course, George.”
I’d heard rumors that George was a notorious religious book smuggler. It fit with his sense of charm and daring—not to mention his faith.
Anne lifted one of the French Bibles out and opened it to Leviticus and read aloud. “Si un homme prend la femme de son frère, c’est une impureté; il a découvert la nudité de son frère: ils seront sans enfant.”
“‘And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless,’” I said. “But—the pope gave Henry a dispensation to marry Katherine.”
Anne nodded. “But who is the pope, Meg, or any man, no matter how good he may be, to overrule Holy Scriptures, God’s own word, to declare what God has said is impermissible, permissible? Why else would there need to be a dispensation, except to claim that something that was wrong wasn’t?”
I opened my mouth, shocked at her heresy and boldness. And then I closed it again. Because what she said might well be true. I well remembered my father saying that the good people of England had been aghast at the near-incest when Henry chose to marry Katherine against his late father’s desires. Henry the Seventh had loudly bemoaned that he’d sent his first son to his death by encouraging marriage, with its physical demands, upon a young man of ill health and never forgave Katherine for it, though it be upon his own head, for what could Katherine have done? It was not in her power to refuse, as I well knew.
“How long have you thought this way?” I asked. “About Scriptures being the highest authority?”
“Not Scripture, Meg, God, as he speaks through Scripture. A long while, since my last return from France,” she said. “I hadn’t voiced them before, but the convictions grew. And when God led Henry to me, I saw how it all fit together.”
I opened my mouth to question whether or not God had led Henry to her, but that seemed beside the point at the moment. And then I felt betrayed in our friendship. “Why haven’t you spoken of this with me? I rather thought that, well, that we had no secrets.”
“I did not think that conversations about faith were welcome after the situation with Will. So you’d said.”
So I’d said. I held my hand out and ran it over the delicate leather that bound the French translation of Scripture.
“Do you want to take it?” she asked.
I hesitated. Then I returned to my seat and shook my head.
She put the books back into the chest and rejoined me by the fire.
“So what will happen next?” I asked.
“The king has been speaking quietly and kindly to the queen for months. Years, actually, since he began considering the addition of the Duke of Richmond to the line of succession long ago, well afore he’d met me. He has asked her to have their marriage quietly annulled. He promised her a fine house and privileges for herself and Mary. Or to go to a highborn abbey, as she prefers to spend most of her time in prayer. She has rudely refused any and every suggestion.” As there was no servant present, Anne poked the fire a bit to stir up some quiet embers.
“Which is understandable.”
“On one level, yes. But we, as women, are always aware that our lives are not our own. The queen, even more, must realize that her own desires must be set aside for the good of the realm. If she is as devout as she professes to be, she will see the truth in the matter. But she will not. She is Spanish—now and always—and has not a care for England. She will marry her daughter to some Spaniard and England will be gobbled whole”—she snapped her fingers—“like that!”
“And now?”
“And now the king has asked Cardinal Wolsey to solve the matter.”
I laughed softly. “Wolsey is no friend to you.”
“You are right. But he is a friend to the king. And he has in mind for the king to marry a French princess and beget a son, so he is likely to be overeager to get the king’s marriage annulled.”
We sat for a while and then I asked, “Does the king have it in mind to marry a French princess?”
Anne smiled but admitted little. “The king has not yet shared his mind on that matter with me.”