“There are ways to prevent pregnancy,” Madge laughed. “A woman has to experience pleasure to conceive. I’ll think of something gruesome if I find myself getting carried away!”
It felt bizarre plotting the seduction of Henry, her own husband, like this. What had she come to? But if Madge could persuade him to treat her more kindly, it might be worth it.
—
“It worked!” Madge whispered two days later, as she followed Anne to Mass.
Anne did not know what to feel—pleased or jealous. She should be grateful to Madge, but she couldn’t help feeling wronged. Henry was probably making efforts to please her cousin. With Anne, he no longer bothered.
Two days later, though, Madge was despondent. “He’s not interested in talking, and when I mentioned you, he told me we had better things to do.”
After a week, it was over. “I don’t know how you stand it, Anne,” Madge said, sorting through the Queen’s jewel box as Urian tried to nuzzle her hand. “He’s the most boring lover I’ve ever had. Thank God he’s tired of me.”
—
The Lady Mary was ill again. Henry found Anne in her closet, writing letters.
“The doctors fear she might die,” he told her, looking utterly miserable and torn. “Chapuys has urged that she be sent to her mother to be nursed, but I daren’t allow it. What if she escapes abroad, as she might easily do if she were with Katherine? The Emperor might well aid her, then hold me to ransom.”
He sat down, his head in his hands. “If Katherine was to take Mary’s part, she could wage against me a war as fierce as any her mother Isabella ever waged in Spain.”
“They are rebels and traitors, deserving of death,” Anne declared, “and while they live, they will always make trouble for you.”
“If you gave me a son, they could do nothing!” he cried.
“Heaven knows I have tried,” she flung back. “I pray for a son daily, but I fear it is in vain. I had a dream the other night, in which God revealed to me that it will be impossible for me to conceive children while Katherine and Mary live.”
Henry looked at her with distaste. “Sometimes I wonder if God approves of this marriage. You should look to your duty, madam, and not invent excuses.” And without another word, he got up and left her.
—
She could not have felt more wretched or insecure. It did not help that Father kept telling her about those who slandered her. A woman was in prison for calling her a whore and a bawd, a priest for saying she stank worse than a sow in her fornication. Worse still, a monk had been hauled before the Council for asserting that young Henry Carey was the King’s son by her sister. Fortunately, the boy, who had been in her charge since Mary and William Stafford had departed for Calais, was at Hever with his grandmother, protected from the gossip.
These were the little people, their crime mere sedition. The defiance of influential persons was more threatening. Whatever Henry had said to Anne in private, in public he would not lose face. All must acknowledge that he had been right to set aside Katherine and marry her, that Elizabeth was his rightful heir, and that he was Supreme Head of the Church of England. When it came to those who had denied the oath, he was savage.
In May, the Prior of the London Charterhouse, two Carthusian priors, and a monk of Syon were hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. Norris was there, watching, and told Anne afterward that, far from being terrified, these monks went joyfully to their deaths. He spared her the grim details, and she could barely imagine what it had been like to be dragged on hurdles through the streets, hanged until they were half dead, then cut down to suffer the horrors of castration, disemboweling, and decapitation. At least they had been unaware of their bodies being hacked into quarters, to be publicly exhibited.
“How did the people react?” she asked.
Norris winced.
“They blamed me,” she whispered. His nod was imperceptible, his eyes full of compassion. She turned away. She must not think of what Norris meant to her. If she did, she might break.
—
That week, Henry had the oath put again to Fisher and More, and again they refused to take it.
“They are traitors and deserve death,” Anne reminded him, again and again, desperate for their voices to be silenced forever.
“They will be tried,” he told her, his expression grave. “The law will take its course.”
“No one must challenge the legitimacy of our son,” she said.
He looked at her, his eyes widening. “Our son?”
“Sir, I am with child!” she told him triumphantly, barely sure of it herself, but so desperate to be restored to his love and esteem that she could not contain herself.
He took her hand and kissed it. “I thank God,” he declared. “You must look after yourself, Anne. We dare not risk losing this one.” It was not quite the reaction she had wanted, but it signaled a new beginning, she hoped.
Luck was again with her, she told herself. She was looking daily for George’s return from another embassy to France, hoping that he had managed to persuade King Fran?ois to agree to Elizabeth marrying the Duke of Angoulême. But one glance at his face when he arrived at Greenwich told her that he had failed.
“How dare Fran?ois slight me like this!” she seethed.
She would not let her disappointment spoil her joy in the coming child. She arranged feasts and sports and dancing, and as her mood lightened, so did Henry’s. The change in him she had prayed for was dawning. And while she danced, ten Carthusian monks, having refused to acknowledge the royal supremacy, were chained, standing upright, to posts and left to die of starvation, by the King’s order.
Let that serve as an example to her enemies. It was a pity Henry had not chained Fisher and More to die with them. But she would have her way. She laid on a lavish banquet for Henry at the grand house he had given her at Hanworth, twelve miles from London. The fine sweet wine of Anjou that he loved was poured in abundance, and soon he was drunk, throwing his arm about her, kissing her heartily and patting her belly in front of the company.
“There are those who would have me put away,” she murmured in his ear. “While they live, spreading their vile sedition, this little fellow I carry will never be secure in his title.”
“Of whom do you speak, darling?” Henry asked, slurring his words.
“Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More! For the sake of our son, sir, I beg of you, put them to death. Silence those who have the power to destroy us!”
“It shall be done,” Henry promised. “I can deny the mother of my son nothing.”
—
Two days later, Bishop Fisher was tried at Westminster Hall and condemned to suffer as a traitor. Soon afterward, news came from Rome that Pope Paul had made Fisher a cardinal, and was sending his red hat to England.