Brereton had accused a man of killing one of his Welsh retainers, but when a court in London acquitted the fellow, Brereton had taken matters into his own hands and hanged him.
“Master Secretary is most put out, with Brereton, and apparently with you. Father heard him say it was done out of sheer malice, and that he had liked the man and tried to save him.”
“Brereton says he was a villain,” Anne replied. “He told me how justice had failed him, and I authorized him to have the fellow rearrested and re-tried.”
“That explains why Cromwell mentioned your name.”
“Well, he’ll have to get over it,” she said. “Justice has now been done.”
Norris joined them, lute in hand.
“I hear you are to be congratulated,” George said, clapping him on the back. “Keeper of the King’s Privy Purse and Master of the Hart, Hounds and Hawks! And Black Rod in the Parliament House.”
“It is thanks only to the gracious favor of your Grace and the King,” Norris protested. “I fear I am not worthy of your goodness to me.”
“Nonsense!” Anne smiled. “The King loves you as he loves no other man. And I—I have every confidence in you.”
Norris went down on one knee, took her hand, and kissed it. “I am blessed to serve such a loving mistress,” he declared fervently.
Anne drew her hand away. She had seen George looking at them curiously.
—
“Mary is ill,” Henry said, arriving late for supper. “Chapuys has begged me to let her go to her mother, but I do not trust him—or them. Don’t say anything, Anne—I would never consent to it. Cromwell recommends that I send my own physician to Mary.”
Pray God that this child is a son, Anne was beseeching inwardly, as she sat down at the table and her napkin was placed over her shoulder. Until she had borne a prince, she would feel—and, indeed, be—insecure on her throne. In her most desperate moments, in the still watches of the night, she fretted that Henry would cease to love her if she gave him another daughter. Her worst nightmare was that he would heed the Pope’s sentence and return to Katherine.
A few days later, news came that Mary had recovered from her illness, and Anne could not stop herself from thinking it would have been better if Mary had died, and her mother, too. It would resolve everything.
Henry was considering making a state visit to France. She would not be accompanying him, because of her condition, but that suited her perfectly.
“If Mary is taken ill while he’s away, I’ll not be sending my own physician,” she told George when they were relaxing in her chamber that afternoon. “I’d as soon do away with her. I might starve her to death.” She was bursting with angry frustration.
George frowned. “I wouldn’t answer for how the King might react if you did.”
“I wouldn’t care, even if I was to be burned alive for it afterward,” she cried, feeling herself becoming hysterical.
“Hush, sister, you must not say such things.”
“But she is a threat to me, George, and to Elizabeth. I wish she were dead!” She was near to tears now.
“Soon she will be silenced,” he soothed. “The King said today that the oath is to be administered to the Lady Mary and the Princess Dowager. He’s sending the Archbishop of York, who won’t stand for any nonsense. He’ll visit the Princess Dowager first.”
“Thank God!” Anne exulted, relief flooding through her. “If they take the oath, well and good. If they refuse it, Henry must proceed against them. Whatever they do, we have them!”
—
Katherine had refused the oath. She had stated that, if she was not the King’s wife, as he maintained, then she was not his subject, and could not be required to take it.
“But since she has always insisted that she is your wife, she must know that she is laying herself open to punishment,” Anne observed to Henry as they rode at the head of their cavalcade, through lanes made festive with spring blossom, on their way to visit Elizabeth at Eltham Palace.
“They will persevere with her,” Henry promised.
—
The Princess’s household made obeisance in unison as the King and Queen entered the nursery and found their daughter on her lady mistress’s lap.
Elizabeth was seven months old now and talking already.
“Come to your father,” Henry said, scooping her out of Lady Bryan’s arms and dandling her on his knee.
“Papa!” the infant crowed, pulling at his beard.
“Ouch! You’ve a strong hand there, sweetheart,” Henry told her. “She is as goodly a child as I’ve ever seen, don’t you agree, Anne?” he asked.
Anne bent down and kissed Elizabeth on her downy head. “Indeed,” she said, feeling the familiar emptiness. All would right itself, she hoped, when her son was born. Then Elizabeth would not be a living and breathing reminder of her failure to bear a prince.
They left her with her nurses and went to inspect the nursery that was being prepared for the Prince. Well satisfied with its gilded splendor and luxurious furnishings, they proceeded to the chapel for Vespers.
As they came out, Lady Rochford approached Anne. “Madam, I must tell you. The Lady Mary was in chapel, and curtseyed to your Grace as you left.”
“Would that I had seen it!” Anne exclaimed, as Henry beamed. “If I had, I would have done as much to her. Where is she?” She looked eagerly around the crowded gallery, and espied Mary’s back, disappearing through the door at the far end.
“Go after her, Jane,” she said, all her ill intentions toward Mary forgotten. “Tell her that I salute her with much affection, and crave pardon, for if I had seen her make a curtsey to me, I would have done the same to her. Tell her I desire that this may be the beginning of a friendship between us, which will be warmly embraced on my part.” Lady Rochford hastened away.
When Henry and Anne arrived in the soaring great hall and seated themselves at the high table for supper, Anne saw her stepdaughter at one of the long tables set at right angles. Not so long ago, Mary would have occupied the place of honor by the King.
She was aware of the girl watching her as the first course was served. And then, as the company began eating and there was a lull in conversation, she heard her address Lady Rochford in a carrying voice. “It is not possible that the Queen can have sent me such a message, Her Majesty being so far from this place. You should have said it was the Lady Anne Boleyn, for I can acknowledge no other queen but my mother. I curtseyed in chapel to the Lady Anne’s Maker and mine, so they are deceived, and deceive her, who tell her otherwise.”
It was humiliating and it was offensive. Henry flushed angrily, but before he could speak, Anne turned to him and in tones as ringing as Mary’s declared: “I swear I’ll bring down this high spirit!”
“I will deal with her,” he muttered. “Let be for now.”
Before they left, he took Mary aside into a closet, and kept her there for several minutes. But when he emerged, Anne could tell, from the look on his face and the tears in his eyes, that his daughter had bested him yet again.