Lord, have a care for my friend through this treacherous passage.
After the match, Henry uncharacteristically asked six men to join him on a ride back to Whitehall. He had no intention of returning to Greenwich Palace, where we would. Henry Norris and George Boleyn were two of the six. The king slipped away without a word to Anne.
By midnight word had raced back to Greenwich. Lord Zouche had told his wife, Nan, what had transpired, and she ran to the queen’s chambers to wake and to tell us. Jane Rochford and Madge Shelton had been notably absent from the ladies since the afternoon.
“You have been accused of adultery with Mark Smeaton, Your Grace,” Nan told Anne. Anne sat on her bed.
“Smeaton? That whelp of a lute player? Surely Henry cannot believe—”
Nan held up her hand and then took Anne in her arms. “Not only Smeaton, lady, but Henry Norris. It seems that your cousin Madge Shelton had run to Carewe with the details of your disagreement of a few weeks back, claiming that it had been a lover’s spat centered about a hope for the king’s death.”
“And Henry believed her,” Anne said, her voice dull. “Where is Norris?”
“To be conducted to the Tower upon the morning tide, madam.” Lady Zouche indicated that I should sit on the other side of Anne. “The worst, my lady, is that they have accused you of adultery and incest with your brother.”
“George?” Anne stood up. “They have accused me of carnal knowledge of my brother, George? What evil fool brings this charge that it may even be considered?”
“His wife, Jane Rochford,” Nan whispered. Anne stood, turned her back to us, and then vomited on the floor.
TWENTY-FOUR
Year of Our Lord 1536
Greenwich Palace
The next morning guards were sent to take Anne to be interrogated before the council at Greenwich. I dressed her quickly in a gown that was both somber and regal and pulled her hair under one of her famous French hoods.
“I hear my uncle Norfolk will be on council,” she said. “Mayhap he will bring some reason to the questions. ’Tis not so long ago he were an official at my coronation and the birth of Elizabeth.”
“Yes, Your Majesty, we may pray ’tis so,” I said, but held little hope in the constancy of Norfolk’s affections.
“Fitzwilliam will be there too,” Nan Zouche said. “Have a care. Have a care.” Fitzwilliam had been an especial friend to Wolsey and had always held Anne responsible for his death. For which among us could serve a master we believed to order the slaughter of innocents? No, no, ’twas far better to scapegoat someone to the side so that we might continue to shut our eyes and serve in peace.
With the hour news came back to us that while Anne had not been condemned, yet she would be taken by boat to the Tower. I quickly packed several of her gowns, and her prayer books, Bible, and letter-writing materials. Her hair combs. I left the royal jewels in her box but took her personal items out, some strings of pearls and a dual locket ring, afore racing down to my own rooms.
“Edithe!” I handed the jewels over to her. “Quickly. I want you to leave Greenwich and go to Hever. Find Roger and get him, and your son still at home, and leave Hever. Go to My Lord Asquith’s home, however you may get there. I do not know what will happen at Hever but you need to find safe employment and ’twill not be here nor there.”
I handed the bundle to her. “Do not open this, stash it in your saddle bag, and be gone. Give it to Will when you reach him. He will find service for you in his household, with his lady, or in his family. Go! Now!”
“What has happened to the queen, my lady? Where is Anne?” she asked me, wringing her red hands.
“She is to be taken to the Tower.”
“Oh no. No!” Edithe cried. “And you, mistress. Where will you go?”
“I shall stay here until I am allowed to join the queen. My place is to be with my friend and offer her whatever comfort and love I may.”
“No, ma’am, please. You must to your sister’s house. Or Allington. Edmund will take you, given the circumstances.”
“Go,” I said to her firmly. I held her to me, hugged her one last time, and left for Anne’s rooms.
She was there when I arrived. “It went poorly. My uncle Norfolk was no help at all. He simply said ‘tut tut’ and shook his finger at me. In a haste to return to his rooms and dally with his mistress, I suppose.”
“We shall not need his help,” I said defiantly. “There are surely others.”
“You’re not to come with me, Meg,” she said. “Lady Kingston, the wife of the lieutenant of the Tower, will be in charge of the four ladies I may take with me. Mrs. Stonor, the mother of the maid who has ‘witnessed’ much of my illicit goings-on, will come. My aunt Lady Boleyn, favorite of Katherine of Aragon, is come to twist the sword. As is Jane Rochford.”
“Jane?”
“I suspect to keep me from talking,” Anne said. Her eyes were red and rimmed but she’d regained her dignity and I would not do or say anything to unsettle it. “Thank you for packing my things, dearest. And, and should I not see you again….”
I ran to her and held her tightly in my arms. “I shall follow anon. I shall find a way to get to you. I will not leave you in any manner. I will be there shortly. Depend upon it.”
She nodded and said no more, nor did I. We both needed to believe that it would happen.
That night word filtered back to Greenwich that Henry, still at York Place, alternated wandering about the palace bemoaning his bad luck to all who would hear with festive, flirtatious merriment with Jane Seymour. He’d taken to carrying a small book in which he had written down all of the ways Anne had tricked and bewitched him, pressing it upon all who would read it and agree. His capacity at table was surpassed only by his appetite for self-pity. His maudlin moaning drew silent disgust from all listeners, even those who wished to see his daughter Mary reinstated in the succession. If he’d stuck simply with Anne’s perhaps having had one lover, some may have believed him. But when he claimed that she had had more than one hundred secret lovers in three years, including her brother, even her enemies knew to disbelieve him.
That night, afore his baseborn son the Duke of Richmond went to sleep, he stopped by his father’s chambers. Word came that Henry kissed his son violently on each cheek and told him, weeping, “You and your sister Mary owe God a great debt for having escaped the hands of that cursed and poisoning whore who had planned to poison you both.” One can only imagine what Richmond, whose wife, Mary Fitzroy, was an especial favorite of Anne, thought of this rant.
Greenwich was in a silent panic. No one knew whether to go, to stay, who would be next, or what was happening at the Tower. I moved in with my sister, Alice, and shared her lady maid, who, because of her long affiliation with the Rogers family, would not be tainted by us Wyatts. It was a good thing Alice and I were together because on May 8 our brother Thomas was conducted to the Tower under suspicion of adultery with Anne.
I allowed myself the indulgence of letting my mind wander for a moment to consider what life would have been like had Anne married Thomas and I married Will. I ached with the wishing of it and turned my thoughts away.
“I had not a chance to bid Thomas good-bye!” I wailed in her chambers. This time I let myself cry and Alice did too. Even Edmund, mayhap with an eye to our family name if not for fraternal devotion, tried to get Cromwell to speak on Thomas’s behalf. It was no use. The king’s bloodlust had been stirred beyond restraint, and, I fear, he viewed this as a chance to rid himself of all who may have irritated him for any reason at all.
My father had been told of Thomas’s arrest and aroused himself from stupor long enough to say, “If he be a true man, as I trust he is, his truth will him deliver.” Then he fell asleep. Edmund said he would prevail upon Father to write a letter on Thomas’s behalf to the king.