“Will there be fireworks tonight?” Anne asked Henry.
“I haven’t ordered any,” he replied, looking uncomfortable. She knew he would have had a prince been christened. She was upset to learn, the next day, that there had been no celebratory bonfires in the streets of London either, and appalled when George, visiting her and his niece, told her that two friars had been arrested for saying that the Princess had been christened in hot water that was not hot enough.
“How can they say that of an innocent babe?” she asked.
“Ignore them,” he counseled. “Chapuys told me to my face that we should not have expected the people to celebrate. He said there was little love for you or any of our race.”
“I trust you told him to go hang himself,” Anne seethed.
“Something of the sort!” George snorted.
Henry had not visited her very often. For all his brave words at Elizabeth’s birth, she was convinced he felt she had failed him. Was he asking himself why he had risked so much for her, and—more crucially—why God had denied him a son? Yet he had made it implicit to Anne that he was determined not to lose face, and was as adamant as ever that he had been right to put away Katherine and marry her.
As if to prove this, he suddenly had the Nun of Kent and her supporters arrested and imprisoned.
“What will happen to her?” Anne asked, sitting up in her chair for the first time since giving birth.
“She will be tried. She has said enough and more to incriminate herself of high treason.”
This was one aspect of the new Henry of which Anne could approve. He had been too patient, too forgiving, toward his opponents. She rejoiced now to see him so resolute.
He was more resolute in bed, too. As soon as she had recovered from the birth and had been churched, he appeared at her bedchamber door.
“Let’s make that son you promised me,” he said, bearing down on her, lust in his eyes.
She was reluctant to let him make love to her so soon. She had lost the weight she had put on in pregnancy, but her belly and breasts were slack, and on her hips there were silvery marks where the skin had stretched. She did not want him to see her like this. She feared being penetrated so soon after giving birth, and she really did not want to be pregnant again yet. She had also been tormenting herself with thoughts of him cavorting with Lady Carew. Was he still swiving her? She did not dare to ask. She was maintaining the dignified silence he had enjoined.
But she knew her wifely duty, and she was well aware of the urgent need for her to bear a son. So she opened herself to him, and was surprised by the force of his desire. Maybe he had been celibate since August. At least it proved one thing: he still wanted her.
—
It worried her that she could not love Elizabeth as she ought. She was quite content to leave the child to her nurses, in her elaborate nursery. Sometimes, out of guilt, she commanded that the Princess be brought to her chamber and laid on a cushion at her feet, so that all could see how devoted a mother she was, and not guess at the heavy sense of failure she carried.
She often wondered if she could have loved Elizabeth had she been a boy. Would she love a son who had that old face and seemed such a self-contained infant, as her daughter did? Margaret, Lady Bryan, who had efficiently run the Princess Mary’s nursery and had been appointed by Henry to preside over Elizabeth’s, reported that the Princess was a good baby generally, but was given to roaring tantrums when denied something she wanted. “But she’s very forward for her age, madam, and takes her milk well.”
Anne salved her conscience by buying the child pretty toys—a rocking horse, a cloth doll, a wooden stump babe for teething—and commissioned jewelry for her: a bracelet for the tiny wrist, a miniature string of pearls and a golden girdle book of psalms for when she was older. She did all the things she thought a good mother should do. And she suffered in silence, because she did not want anyone thinking her unnatural and unfeeling.
—
Late in November, the Nun of Kent was found guilty of treason, and an example was made of her and the Observant Friars and priests who had abetted her. All did public penance, walking through the streets of London to Paul’s Cross, where they were made to stand on a scaffold, holding lighted tapers, while a sermon was preached against them.
But the sympathies of the watching crowds were with the “Holy Maid of Kent,” as they called her, shouting out their encouragement. It was gratifying that the evidence for her treason had sounded suitably damning when blasted from Paul’s Pulpit, and that the crowd had witnessed the accused being hustled to the Tower to await sentencing. Henry was trying to persuade his reluctant Council to agree to Parliament passing an Act of Attainder condemning them. He did not want them sentenced in open court because he feared there would be demonstrations.
By then, Anne was nursing a secret. She was sure she had conceived again. She had seen just one flowering of her courses since Elizabeth’s birth, in the middle of October. By late November, her hopes were high.
“I am with child already,” she informed Henry.
“Darling!” He was ecstatic. “That is the best news I’ve had in ages!” He folded her in his arms, pressing his lips to hers. “When will it be?”
“In the summer—probably in July.”
“It cannot be soon enough.” Henry’s eyes were shining. “How are you feeling?”
“Very well,” she assured him, elated and relieved. If he had had any doubts that God approved of their marriage, this must allay them.
—
In December, when Elizabeth was three months old, Henry established a household for her at Hatfield, which was convenient for London, yet well away from its noisome, often plague-infested air. In the capable arms of Margaret Bryan, and attended by an army of nursemaids, laundresses, officials, and servants, the Princess was taken north from Greenwich by a roundabout route, the better to be seen by the people and impress on them her status as the King’s heir.
Watching her daughter depart, Anne felt that familiar ache of relief and guilt. When she had a son, she would love Elizabeth better, she assured herself.
Among Elizabeth’s maids was nine-year-old Catherine Carey, Mary’s daughter by Henry, who was new to court. Despite her looking so like him, he had never acknowledged her, and she knew nothing of their blood tie. Anne was fond of her niece, and pleased that she had secured the place for her. Catherine was thrilled to be serving the Princess.