I lifted my head and looked in his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t heard? The Earl of Blenheim’s ward, Mistress Charlotte, the one that Edmund was keen to marry, is now betrothed to Simon instead. His title, and fortune, are both greater than Edmund’s. Marriage negotiations are already under way.”
“Which is why Rose was so interested in ensuring I did not marry the baron,” I said.
“I’d wager,” Thomas said. “Edmund was in a murderous rage for weeks. He avoided court so as not to see them together. I hear from Master Cromwell, though, that he may have found another bride.”
“I pity her,” I said. “And Charlotte. Rose was no friend to her to hand her over to Simon.”
Thomas nodded and then replied, “I leave for Essex tomorrow but will be back, along with my wife and son, for Anne’s coronation in May. I am to serve as her ewer, in Father’s place, as he is too unwell to attend. The king has not forgotten Father’s friendship with his own father.” He looked at the mated swans, now slipping past us. “Will Ogilvy will be here too. I hear from our nephew John Rogers that Ogilvy does not do well.”
On the twenty-ninth of May, Anne was sumptuously conveyed from Greenwich Palace to her quarters at the Tower of London, which Master Cromwell had refurbished in advance. I and many of her other ladies would be quartered nearby, of course, to provide comfort and amusement and assistance. It was the zenith of her life and she shimmered like a mirage on a hot summer day. There was much merriment in the ladies’ chamber for two days, with minstrels and mimes and jugglers, and then, on Saturday, the procession to Westminster, climaxing on Whitsunday, when Anne was to be crowned.
I found it poignant that her coronation would be held on Whitsunday, celebrating the Day of Pentecost, when our Lord sent the Holy Ghost to give us wisdom to learn how to live in this world afore we joined Him, to lend comfort in the distress we oft found in the walls in which we lived. I stood next to the archbishop of Canterbury as Anne alighted into her litter. She had on a brilliant gown made of white cloth of gold, which were, for the moment, hidden by her thick royal coronation robes of purple velvet furred with ermine. The gold coronet on her head signaled her royalty while her bare feet signaled her humility to serve—Christ first, and then husband, and then subjects. As mistress of her robes I had acquired that material specially for this day, bartering like a furious fishwife with the royal cloth merchants to make it affordable within her Pembroke moneys and promising harsh retaliations should they foresell the same fabric to anyone else.
It was worth it, to see her on that day. Twelve ladies dressed in crimson cloth of gold would ride beside her, followed by carriage after carriage of serving nobility and visiting dignitaries.
“She is magnificent,” Cranmer said, staring at her admiringly, as did all along the way who serenaded her and read aloud poems and scriptures lauding her.
Not all brought praise. On the way to Westminster Abbey, there had lined some women who stood back far enough not to be seen but certainly within range to be heard, and to throw evil-smelling things.
“Bawd!” one shouted, and threw a ball of muck at her carriage.
“Schemer!” another cried. Several more orbs of refuse were lobbed at the carriage afore the king’s men put a stop to it. I, in a carriage several behind the queen, saw the hate in their faces. And, mayhap, fear. They had not the time, nor the ability, nor the inclination to reason with the legal omniscience that was Cromwell’s Collectanea, nor consider the future of the realm. They did not know, as I did, that Anne had saved herself for her marriage, a marriage the king had assured her was moral and just as his first one was not. These lowly women simply saw that if ’twas legal for the king to set aside his aging wife and marry again, what would stop their husbands from doing the same?
I took my seat at the abbey along with my niece, Alice’s daughter Margaret, nicknamed Margery, who had recently married Sir Anthony Lee. “Dowager Baroness,” the knight who showed us to our seats said, calling me by my proper title.
There, next to my young, newlywed niece, waiting for my beautiful, fertile friend to be crowned, I felt the weight of the age that the word “dowager” implied, though I was but a few clock dials past thirty. Margery must have caught my cheerless look.
“Do you ever wish ’twas you?” she whispered to me, feeling safe, I suspect, because of the cover of the music.
“As queen?” I answered. “No, never.”
“And yet,” she pressed on in curiosity, “you who were her friend and equal now must serve her instead and have no family nor husband of your own. ’Tis not so beguiling.”
I did not chide her. I rather recognized myself in her, as a younger woman, asking impertinent questions of my sister, her mother, the lady Alice.
“A lady-in-waiting is a noble post,” I said. “A lady’s value is not vested in the work that she is called to do, but rather in the rank and position of the one she is called to serve.”
Margery nodded and returned to ogling the fine gowns and crowns around her.
I, though, was drawn to look at the crucifix with our Lord upon it, vaunted near the flying buttresses that quietly held up the abbey. As the trumpeters and minstrels came forth I knew I had an answer to the question I’d pressed upon our Lord again and again since coming to the passage in Master Tyndale’s translation of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans, chapter 8. Had I been called of purpose?
In a moment as quick as lightning striking a stump I understood that my call was to serve them both. Margery was right. It was not so beguiling. For that flashing moment, I abided the pain of ever going unheralded. Always the setting, I’d said of myself as a child. Never the stone. And yet a stone wanted for a setting to vaunt its purpose and beauty, did it not? ’Twas the call of the setting not to draw attention to itself but to the stone. My eyes drew back to that stone.
Anne walked forward, majestically, regally, along the railed route of seven hundred yards between the dais of the hall and the high altar of the abbey. Over her head was carried a gold canopy and she was preceded by a scepter of gold and rod of ivory topped with the dove. After High Mass was sung Cranmer prayed over her and Anne prostrated herself before the altar, where he anointed her and then led her to St. Edward’s chair, where she was crowned.
I looked up as my dearest friend was crowned queen of England by the archbishop of Canterbury. Her years of patience, of obedience, of political savvy and personal achievement, her enduring affection, yea, even true love for the king had all been invested for this moment. And the fruit of it was the prince who grew within her.
Henry had planned days of celebration. I admit to it: I hadn’t bargained with the cloth merchant only on Anne’s behalf. I had purchased some fine materials for myself, my favorite a vibrant green taffeta to put all in mind of spring and new life with tiny pears embroidered with gold thread around the slightly daring neckline. I’d have gowns sewn which I hoped would entirely dismiss the “dowager” in my title from all who set eyes upon me.
EIGHTEEN
Year of Our Lord 1533
The Palace at Whitehall
The king had ordered jousts for June 2 that were full of shouting and sweat and spectacle, to be followed by a grand ball for the evening. Every person of consequence from the Welsh marches to the border with Scotland and even far-flung Calais arrived at the court, which gasped for air, it was so overburdened, to celebrate Anne’s coronation and the forthcoming birth of the Prince of Wales. I took care to ready Anne first and then stopped back at her apartments to check on her after being dressed myself in a gown that shimmered now azure, now jade, depending on the light and my own movement. My neckline was just north of daring, and though I’d privately bemoaned my childless state, it had allowed me to keep my figure intact. I wore a single large emerald set in gold round my neck and its accompanying bracelet, a gift from Anne the Christmas before. Edithe had becomingly twisted my golden-red hair and woven a thread of gold throughout it.