Anne Boleyn, a King's Obsession
Alison Weir
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain There is written her fair neck round about: Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am, And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.
—SIR THOMAS WYATT
“…Verily,
I swear, ’tis better to be lowly born And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perk’d up in a glistering grief, And wear a golden sorrow.”
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HENRY VIII, ACT 2, SCENE 3
1512
Her skin was rather sallow, Anne thought as she studied herself in the silver mirror, and she had too many moles, but at least her face was a fashionable oval. At eleven she had no womanly figure to speak of, but that hopefully would change in the next year or so. Mary, after all, was already buxom at thirteen.
She drew back, considering herself. People had often said, within her hearing, that Mary was the more beautiful of the two Boleyn sisters. Yet they were both brunettes, with long glossy hair, high cheekbones and pointed chins, and both slender and graceful, for the deportment fit for royal courts had been drummed into them. So what was it that made a girl beautiful? What made the arrangement of Mary’s features better than hers? It had begun to bother Anne, now that she was growing up and was constantly being enjoined to prepare herself for a glorious future in which royal favor and a wealthy husband of rank loomed large.
Maybe it was the moles and the sallow skin. The sallowness could be rectified by a lotion of powdered egg whites and alum. At least she had a pretty mouth, and the black eyes that her Grandmother Butler always said were her best feature.
“And you know already how to use them for effect, child.” Anne had not quite understood what that meant, but then Grandmother was Irish and a little fey and often said some startling things. Everyone tolerated it because she had been a great heiress and one of the chief sources of the family fortunes.
Anne propped up the mirror on a chest and twirled in front of it. She did look good in the green gown, which made her waist seem so slender. The dark color became her too. The only thing that was wrong was the cut of the sleeves, which were tight to the wrist and did not cover the deformity of which she was always so painfully aware. She was forever curling it into her palm, the little finger of her right hand, so that none should see the tiny extra nail. If only she could have a gown with hanging sleeves that would cover it! But Mother said it was foolish to worry about such a little thing. It was not a little thing to Anne, and it had loomed larger than ever since the day when Mary, bested in one of their interminable arguments, had called it a witch’s mark.
Anne pushed the hateful memory aside. She would not dwell on it on this beautiful late-summer day. She had a free hour before her lesson with the chaplain, and was determined to waste not a minute of it. In a trice she had summoned her maid, changed into her everyday worsted, descended the stairs and crossed the stone drawbridge across the castle moat; then she picked up her skirts and ran through the gardens into the meadows by the River Eden, where she loved to wander.
From here she had a grand view of moated Hever Castle, her family’s seat, and the lush wooded Kentish countryside that cradled it. But of greater interest was the sight of her beloved brother George lying sprawled in the grass, twanging his lute, his dark brown hair tousled, his clothes crumpled.
“They are looking for you indoors,” she told him, kneeling down. “You should be at your books. You’ll be beaten if you don’t go back.”
George grinned up at her. “I had an idea for a song. Listen!”
He played well for a boy of nine, and his composition had the sophistication one would have expected from someone far older. He was gifted, this brother of hers. He could make his mark as a musician if he did not carve out a career at court, as their father expected.
They had always been close, Anne and George. They looked alike and thought alike.
“I know, I know—I can’t spend my days making music and writing poetry,” he sighed, mimicking Father’s voice.
“Much good it would do you! And in the end you would not be satisfied. It would never be enough for you. So stop playing truant. Father Davy is livid.”
For all her mock reproof, she felt sorry for George. She knew how deeply it gnawed at him, being the youngest of three sons. It was sixteen-year-old Thomas who would inherit Hever and all their father’s lands and wealth—and it was Thomas who, to George’s envy, had been sent to the household of the mighty Duke of Buckingham at nearby Penshurst to learn courtly manners and the martial arts, which would befit him for the glorious future that awaited him. And then there was clever Henry, twelve years old and destined for the university at Oxford, since Father had decided to dedicate him to the Church—and save himself the burden of having to provide for him. There had been other sons too, but they slept in St. Peter’s Church, to their mother’s great grief. Anne had never gotten used to the appalling sight of her tiny dead siblings lying in their cradles, all decked out in macabre finery, to receive the final prayers and farewells of their family.
Lady Boleyn doted on George, her youngest, more than she did on Thomas and Henry. But in George’s breast there burned a fierce resentment against his older brothers. Unlike them, he must make his own way in the world. Father reminded him of it often.
Given her rivalry with Mary, and George’s envy of their older brothers, Anne often felt that it was a case of her and George, the two youngest Boleyns, against the world. Because she did not have looks and he was not the heir, they had pulled together since they were very little. Some took them for twins.
“Come on!” she commanded, pulling him up, and together they raced back to the castle.
Father Davy was waiting for them as they sped across the courtyard and tumbled into Father’s new entrance hall. Their tutor was a rotund little man with a merry face and cheeks rosy as apples.
“Ah, you’ve deigned to grace us with your presence,” he said to George. “And mightily timely too, for we’ve just had word that your father is expected home this evening, and we wouldn’t want to greet him with the news that you’re in disgrace, would we?”
“No, Father Davy.” George was trying to look contrite.
“Mistress Anne, you may join us,” Father Davy said. “You can set an example to this young knave.”
“Where’s Mary?” George asked, rolling his eyes.