“Afore Heaven,” Henry raged, “he shall wear it on his shoulders, for by the time it arrives he shall not have a head to put it on!”
When three more Carthusian priors died bloodily at Tyburn, and there was public outrage at the prospect of the same sentence being meted out to the seventy-six-year-old Fisher, Henry promptly commuted it to beheading. The Bishop died on the scaffold on Tower Hill, and his head was set up on London Bridge as an example to others. On the day he suffered, Anne went to Mass, fighting unexpected feelings of guilt, and ordered her chaplains to offer prayers for the repose of his soul. She did not sleep that night.
The next day, she told herself firmly that the execution had been justified. Fisher had been a dangerous enemy. Smothering her qualms, she ordered a masque to be staged for the King’s pleasure, showing God sitting in Heaven, signifying His approval of the recent executions. Henry sat there beaming, roaring with laughter as he watched himself cutting off the heads of the clergy. Was he laughing a little too loudly? Was he feeling as troubled as she was? She thought not when he told her that she ought to arrange for the masque to be repeated on the Eve of St. Peter, a day on which the Pope had used to be honored in England.
What really chilled her was being told that Fisher’s head had not decayed. Some were calling it a sign of sanctity, which disturbed her even more, because if God approved of the Bishop, then assuredly He could not approve of her. She was heartily relieved therefore to hear that the head had been tipped into the Thames and lost.
—
The announcement that Anne was soon to bear the King a child made all the difference. No one dared slight her now, her opinions counted once more, and her patronage and favor were eagerly sought by all. When Henry’s fool, in an ill-judged jest, cried, “Anne is a ribald, the child is a bastard!” the King was so angry that Anne thought he would kill him, and the fool was obliged to go into hiding.
By late June she was unlacing her gown to accommodate the growing infant, and feeling extraordinarily well. But one morning, while watching Norris play Weston at tennis, she felt nagging twinges of pain in her lower back. When she returned to her apartments for dinner, the pain had seated itself in her womb. It came and went, and steadfastly she tried to ignore it. It was nothing. It would go away soon. But as she stood up, she felt dampness between her legs, and when she moved toward the stool chamber, she was dripping spots of blood on the floor. Soon she was bleeding quite heavily, passing clots, and the cramping pains became severe. Shaking with fear, she screamed, and her women came running.
Shortly afterward she delivered a tiny, perfectly formed dead boy.
—
Henry sat by her bedside, stricken. “Why does God deny me sons?” he cried. His sorrow was harder to bear than the anger he had not displayed.
Anne lay there, too shocked to weep. It had all been so sudden. She made a supreme effort.
“We can try again, Henry,” she said.
“How many times do we have to try?” he flung back. “Many men I know have a whole clutch of sons. I lead a righteous life; I love God; I put away my unlawful wife, so why is that blessing withheld from me?”
“I do not know! I took care of myself, I ate sensibly, exercised carefully, rested. It just happened, and I am so sorry, so very sorry.”
“It is not your fault,” Henry conceded. “But if it were known that you have borne me two dead sons, our enemies would say that God has cursed us, and that this is my punishment for what I have done. I dare not proclaim another failure to the world, so see that your ladies do not speak of it—on pain of my heavy displeasure.” He got up wearily, looking every one of his forty-four years. “I will come to you when you are well.”
She reached out and caught his hand. “Henry, you do not believe that God has cursed us?”
“I no longer know what to believe,” he muttered.
—
On the first day of July, Sir Thomas More was tried for treason in Westminster Hall and condemned to death. Six days later, he was due to mount the scaffold on Tower Hill and die by the ax.
Anne got up early to wait for news with Henry in his privy chamber. She watched him becoming more restless and agitated as the time passed. At nine, the hour appointed for the execution, he summoned his Master of the Cellar, one of his favored opponents, for a game of dice, and they sat down to play. Anne looked on, barely concentrating.
Norris entered and bowed. “Your Grace, Thomas More is dead.”
Henry threw down the dice. The Master of the Cellar bowed his head.
“Did he speak on the scaffold?”
“He declared that he died your Grace’s good servant, but God’s first.”
Henry was trembling. “What have I done?” he asked faintly. “There was an outcry at Fisher’s death; how much louder will the outcry be now? And it won’t just be in England—it will be heard all over Christendom.” Tears were streaming down his face.
“Leave us!” he commanded. Anne made to go, but he caught her wrist. “Stay.”
When the others had left, he rounded on her in fury. “This is because of you!” he shouted. “The most honest man in my kingdom is dead!”
She reeled in the face of his wrath, as great tearing sobs burst forth from him. “And you are also to blame for all the other terrible things that have happened recently in this kingdom!”
That was unfair! “Sir, you are more bound to me than any man can be to a woman,” she countered. “Have I not delivered you from a state of sin? Have I not been the cause of reforming the Church, to your own great profit and that of all the people?”
“You hounded me to have these good men put to death!”
“You were fierce to have them punished!” she retorted.
“Go away!” Henry roared. “The sight of you sickens me.”
—
That month, the King’s commissioners began visiting the monasteries and submitting their reports, which Cromwell was collating in a great book.
In private, in her chamber, Anne confided in George. “I have concerns about this plan to close the monasteries. I’d rather see their wealth used to good purpose.”