I sat down one night, after Alice had gone to bed, and prayed. Lord Jesus, please let me go to Anne. Her trial, if there even be one, will happen quickly. She needs comfort and love and that means me. And surely, Lord, of all the bishops she has placed on Your behalf in England, one could be spared to soothe and console her?
A picture came to mind. Lambeth Palace. I would speak, if I could, to Archbishop Cranmer.
I confess it was not easy to find Cranmer, but now that I had no duties to Anne I was free to make my way. I took my steed and rode to Lambeth Palace. I’m sure I looked a sight when I arrived, and his servants were loath to let me in.
“Wait—’tis Lady Blackston,” one of them pointed out. I was glad to be recognized and nodded as I shook off my hood. They let me in and I pleaded for a moment with Cranmer.
When I was ushered into his chamber he greeted me kindly but coolly. None of us knew whom to trust and whom to keep at arm’s length.
“Archbishop,” I said, “thank you for seeing me.”
“Gladly, my lady,” he said. “I know you are the aunt of John Rogers, devoted to the cause. And, of course, great friend to the queen. I am, even now, writing to the king on her behalf.”
I could barely stop the sobs from coming forth. “So you will champion her, then?” I asked.
I saw the look on his face and knew that he would not go as far as she needed him to, and my voice grew pointed. “She needs your assistance, sir, as she readily offered it to you in placing you to this position. Have you no shame or sense of honor?”
“I do what I can, my lady. I offer the king a letter in which I explain that I have never had a better opinion of a woman than I did in her, which makes me think that she should not be culpable. But,” he added to me, “of course His Highness would not have gone so far except she surely had been culpable.”
“You cannot think that!” I said. “You know that is untrue.”
He flinched. He was a man conflicted in the job he never wanted; I suspected he would like nothing more than to retreat to a small country home with his secret wife. But it was not to be.
“None of us chose to be here but, Bishop Cranmer, as we find ourselves in this time and in this place, you must play the man and do your part.”
“You shall not scold me, madam,” he said. “I tell the king, herein”—he tapped the letter—“that I love her not a little, for the love which I judge her to bear toward God and His gospel. But if she be culpable of these things, then no one should but hate her because of the way she has mistreated the gospel.”
“I understand now. You are going to allow Anne to take a fall to save the reform.” He did not deny it. “How does your letter finish, sir?”
He looked down upon it. “I tell him that I trust His Grace will bear no less entire favor to the gospel because he was not led to it by affection to her but by zeal unto the truth.”
“If there is one thing made plain, Archbishop, in this entire matter, it is not that His Majesty has zeal unto the truth.”
He looked at me, stricken, as I said that, realizing that by my saying it and his hearing it we could both be judged guilty of treason. “Is there anything further I can do for you, madam?”
“Yes.” I drew my cloak about my riding habit. “You can convince Master Cromwell to replace Anne’s ladies with friends who love her and will bring her care and comfort in her last days. ’Tis the least you can do. Find a way to get me to the Tower.”
He nodded. I expected that he would not act upon it. But he did.
Within days the council began to break up Anne’s household. It would be disbanded by the thirteenth of May. Anne had not yet had her trial. Would she have one at all? The fact that her household was being broken up indicated that the king had already concluded that she would not be coming back to court. The courtiers who had gained so much by her favor now fled and, like Saint Peter, denied in every manner possible knowledge of her at all.
The king, for his part, made several romantic rendezvous to Beddington, wherein Mistress Seymour lodged with Sir Nicolas Carewe, chief perpetrator of the case against Anne. Even the fishwives of London, we’d heard, the same stout matrons who had hurled dung and insults at her carriage three years past, now stood by her in righteous indignation. The king had not a care for their, or anyone else’s, opinion of the matter.
“My lady,” said a messenger come from Cromwell’s. I had been packing my things, supposing that Edmund would, compelled by duty or at least not wanting to shame the Wyatt name, take me in for a short while if I could not lodge with Alice for a spell.
“Yes?” I said.
“’Tis orders.” He handed a scroll to me. “You, your sister, and Lady Zouche are commanded to the Tower. These men”—he indicated four burly guards standing behind him—“are to escort you on the tide.”
“Do we go as…. prisoners?” I swallowed back my fear.
“You go first to serve the queen,” he said tautly. “After that, I know not.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Year of Our Lord 1536
The Tower of London
There are many ways to arrive at the Tower of London, though there are few ways out. Kings and queens ride in before a coronation, retinue trailing like a train of ermine. Prisoners, however, arrive on foot, shoved through one cavernous gate or another by the wardens, who live, as all do, at the mercy of a merciless king. Some unfortunate few are delivered to the Tower by water.
The Thames lapped against our boat as it stopped to allow for the entry gate to be raised. The metal teeth lifted high enough for the oarsmen to row us into the Tower’s maw, called Traitor’s Gate. This beast never ate its fill and, like all beasts of prey, ate only flesh. It brought to mind the words of King David: My soul is among lions: I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.
I glanced up as Lady Zouche caught a sob in her handkerchief. I then looked to my older sister, Alice, for comfort. She held my gaze with a somber shake of her head. Our falsely accused brother was even now waiting, being digested in the belly within. For the first time Alice had no comfort to offer me, no tonic of hope.
Momentarily we bumped up against the stone stairways leading out of the water and were commanded to quickly disembark.
I had half expected Henry to quarter her in some kind of dungeon, but no, Sir William Kingston informed us upon our arrival that Anne was staying at the Queen’s Lodging, which had been refurbished to her tastes just three years past, in advance of her coronation. We walked up the green and to the doors that led to her apartments. Four armed burly guards stood in front of the door. When we arrived, they parted like the Red Sea and let us through.
I opened the door and went in first. Her receiving room was simpler than when we were last there: one bed and several pallets, now pushed up against the wall. A study desk. Cold stone walls—no tapestries to warm nor cheer had been sent. A pitcher of water sat on a basin. There was a privy pot squatting under her bed. Then I saw Anne, in the corner of the receiving room, sitting on her bed, her hair pulled back but not done, her shoulders back, not wilting in defeat. Her aunt, Lady Norfolk, gossiped in a corner with Jane Rochford. Clearly neither was there to serve.
“We’ve come, darling,” I said, rushing to her bed and taking her into my arms. She fell into them for a moment, then regained her composure.
“I’m so glad you’ve arrived,” she said. Her voice and her hands tremored slightly. “The ladies here will want a break from their strenuous service, for certes.” At that she began to laugh, not the low, husky laugh I was accustomed to hearing from her but one with the high pitch of hysteria hiding just behind the jollity. “If you’re allowed to me then it must be done and over with. What of the king’s council? Why have they not questioned me to see if there needs be a trial?”