“Nihilo quo tui meminerim mihi opus est,” he whispered before bowing, courteously, and left my chambers.
I need nothing to remember you by.
The first death came days after my conversation with Will and looked, at first, like something that Anne’s friends should rejoice over. Katherine of Aragon had taken ill just after Christmas. With her so near to death, Anne felt compelled to have Lady Shelton, Mary’s governess and Anne’s own relation, seek a truce between Anne and Mary. She instructed her, via letter, to suspend all pressure on Mary to conform and said that she herself had considered the Word of God’s injunction to do good to one’s enemy and hoped that Mary would submit to her father quickly whilst it would still do her good.
Mary, surrounded by the mounting strength of conservative courtiers longing for the old days and a return to the True Faith, and hoping for the passing of favor from Anne, refused the offer of friendship as well as the advice.
On January seventh, shortly after having received extreme unction, Katherine of Aragon died, nearly alone, at cold Kimbolton Castle. Henry could not have behaved with less decorum. He dressed in his finest yellow clothes and kissed Anne often and with great passion in front of all. He sent for the princess Elizabeth and showed her off to the court, loudly proclaiming that she would soon be joined by a brother, the prince. He robbed Katherine of what little remained of her earthly goods, setting one of Cromwell’s minions to finesse the legalities so that Mary, and Katherine’s charities, received naught. She had asked to be buried in a Carthusian monastery, but ’twas not to be; Cromwell had already begun to dismantle as many Church of Rome properties as possible. She was buried at Peterborough Castle, and although he, shockingly, allowed “Queen of England” to be inscribed on her tomb, Henry, for his part, ordered a celebratory joust to be held on the day of her funeral.
“I love Queen Anne with all my heart, but ’tis a shame, Katherine dying alone an all tha’,” Edithe said as she prepared me for bed that night.
“’Tis,” I said, wondering if I, too, were destined to die alone.
“My cousin’s a maid for Lady Shelton, Mary’s gov’ness. She said that Katherine had asked her confessor if she’d done wrong, afore she died. Asked if by her stubbornness in not giving His Grace a divorce, or hieing her to an abbey, she’d brought heresy to England.”
I’d not thought of that. “I do suppose that her refusal forced the king to move against the queen,” I said, “and toward reform. For that, we may be glad.”
“Yes, ma’am. I am, for certes. Also…. is it wrong, mistress, to pay attention to those who say deaths happen in threes? ’Tis all the maids can talk of these days.”
“’Tis superstitious nonsense, Edithe, and you should know better!” I snapped.
She nodded. “You’re right, ma’am,” she said. “I’ll be taking your mending and leaving now.”
“Thank you,” I said, my tone softened. She left and I rolled over in the linens and stared at the cold winter moon. I was at least honest enough with myself to recognize why I had snapped. It was myself I was irritated with. I had not been able to exorcise every superstitious thought from my heart, either, and the worry had crossed my mind about death happening in threes too.
Henry’s joust had been planned for January 24, and that morn I arrived in my lady’s chamber to help her dress for the event. The king would be wearing one of her favors, and I’d had a dress made of similar fabric, fashioned so it was clear to all present whose favor the king rode under.
When I arrived in her apartments, though, she was still in bed. “I am afraid I am unwell,” she said.
“But, lady—the king’s joust!” I insisted. Nan Zouche looked at me, urging me on. The king did not like to perform without an audience; he played to the ladies, of whom his wife was foremost.
“’Tis all the activity and chatter round Katherine’s death,” Anne said. “I shall send my regrets to the king, with a note, and hope to lie here and recover my health before the dinner tonight.”
She sent her secretary with the note, and I and many of the other ladies followed to the jousting arena shortly thereafter. The king did not have Anne’s favor on his lance. ’Twas not certain whose favor he rode under, but the plain fabric looked distressingly like the light brown gown on Jane Seymour.
He turned back to the field, ready to meet his challenger at the lists, when all of a sudden his great horse stumbled. The crowd let out a collective gasp and then many screamed as both Henry, wearing over one hundred pounds of armor, and his horse fell heavily to the ground. Shockingly, the horse fell partly on top of His Majesty.
“Help us, help now!” one of the noblemen near the field called out. Several men threw off their own armor and ran to the king’s side and many others streamed from the arena to the field. They lifted the horse, who was frothing at his bit with his eyes rolling back into his head, and pulled the king out from under him. Tearing off Henry’s armor, one checked for a pulse.
“Someone tell the queen!” a call went out, and I saw Norfolk dash back toward the palace. I stood of a moment, looking at His Grace, willing him to stand up, to sit up, to call out. He did none of them, rather continued to lay without consciousness.
“Come.” Nan Zouche grabbed my arm. “We must to Anne!”
I picked up my skirts and we ran toward Anne’s rooms. We were still well down the hall when we heard her wailing. I pushed open the door to see Norfolk trying to talk sense to her.
“He’s dead! Dead!” Anne cried out, and held her hands in her hair, clutching great clumps of it but not tearing it. The tactless Norfolk, always ready to crow bad news, had told her the king was dead!
I took her face in my hands and stared in her eyes. “He is not yet dead, madam. He has lost his senses, but he may yet regain them.”
She looked at me, eyes going from wild to guarded. “Is it true?”
“Yes, dearest,” I said. “He is fine. Now calm yourself for the babe’s sake, if not for your own.”
She breathed heavily for another few minutes whilst Lady Zouche rushed Norfolk from the room. Anne settled and within hours someone had sent word that the king was now conscious and speaking but badly bruised.
I spent the night in Anne’s chambers, brushing her hair, whispering about light topics to bring a smile to her face. It was first light when she called to me. “Meg.”
I awoke from my chair near her bed and came to her side. “Yes, Anne?”
“I feel a trickle of blood down the inside of my thigh,” she whispered. “’Tis yet only a trickle. I need linen. And prayer.”
For whatever reason, it seemed as though the Lord Jesus had stoppered His ears against our many entreaties, because soon thereafter the trickle turned into an ooze and by the fourth day, it was clear that the queen was going to have to do the mighty, sorrowful travail of delivering a child which would not live to take a breath. Our king was delivered from death just afore his child was ushered into it.
The midwife had been called. After the baby’s body had been delivered Anne called out, “Was it a boy?”
The midwife looked at the tiny child, crossed herself, and then said, “Yes, madam. A son.”
The second death of the new year.
Anne burst out in tears, long jagged sobs from which she would not be pulled back. Four days of weariness and birth work coupled with the certain knowledge of how her husband would take the news fused into an animal-like wail. I sat on one side of her and my sister, Alice, on her other. After some time she looked up at us, composed herself, and said, “I have miscarried of my savior.”
Henry was well enough to come to visit her within days. We had her made up to look as lovely as could be, but she was still wan from the delivery. She dismissed us, but I and my sister remained, unseen, in her closet nearby. I wanted to be at hand should she need me when the king took his leave.