“Not so!” Tom argued. “Hear me out. I said that if he would give me leave to measure it, I hoped it would be mine, and I took your jewel from my bosom and measured the distance with the lace. I know he recognized it, for he got very angry, and said I might be right, but he had been deceived. And then he stalked off.”
“You both acted like two cocks fighting over a hen!” Anne reproved him. “And now this farce must end. I pray you, give me my jewel back.”
“No!” Tom protested. “I love you, Anne—I cannot bear to lose you.”
“You never won me,” she said sadly. “It could not be.” She held out her hand and reluctantly he laid the trinket in it.
“So you love the King now?” he asked.
“He likes to think so,” she said.
There was sympathy as well as sadness in Tom’s eyes. “You do not have to do this, Anne. It’s not worth it.”
“I have no choice. He will not let me go.”
“You know I will always be here for you,” Tom said.
“I know that,” she said, and walked away.
—
That night, returning to Father’s lodging, she found a note waiting for her. Breaking the seal, she saw that it contained just a few lines of verse.
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.
Suddenly she was seeing it through a blur of tears.
1527
“Wyatt has been sent to Italy,” Francis Bryan said, his single eye full of mischief. “The King has apparently just discovered that he has good diplomatic skills, and a mission has been found for him.” He winked at Anne. They were in the Queen’s chamber, where Anne and the other maids were putting the finishing touches to their masque costumes. No fool, Francis, who was close to Henry, had guessed that his master was pursuing her. It was as well that Tom was out of the way. Life would be less complicated.
The King had fallen out with the Emperor, after five years of amity, and was again looking to France for friendship. Anne was delighted, for most of her happiest memories were of her years at the French court, and she was hoping that this new alliance might afford her an opportunity to visit there again. Of course, life had moved on. Poor Claude was dead these three years, and Marguerite had married the King of Navarre, but it would be good to be back, if only for a short while.
Lavish preparations had been made in honor of the French ambassadors who had come to negotiate the marriage of the Princess Mary to the French King’s son, which was to seal the new entente. Anne was present, in attendance on the Queen, at all the feasts and jousts that were laid on in honor of the visitors. She watched as the King showed off his eleven-year-old daughter, the pretty red-haired child, but small for her age, and skinny, and heard the ambassadors praising her lavishly. Anne knew that the Queen was bitterly unhappy at the prospect of her daughter marrying a French prince, for France and Spain were old enemies and her prejudice was deeply engrained. But she presented a smiling face to the embassy, and played her part faultlessly.
Anne had seen Henry hardly at all, for he had been busy playing host and engrossed in long private talks with the ambassadors. But after a few days she received a note, delivered by an usher in the royal green and white livery. “Come to the chapel at midnight. I would speak with you. H.R.”
Intrigued, she made her way there after the evening’s entertainments ended, thankful that she was not on duty tonight. The challenge would be getting into the maidens’ dorter without waking anyone or being quizzed on why she was so late.
The chapel was in darkness, save for the single lamp in the chancel symbolizing the presence of God. Anne curtseyed to the crucifix on the altar, then looked around for Henry. He was leaning forward, a dim form in the royal pew above.
“Up here!” he said, and when she had ascended the stairs he embraced her. “Thank God you came! Come and sit beside me.” He indicated the Queen’s chair. “It’s all right. We’re alone.”
“What has happened?” she asked, fearing something ominous.
“Anne, I have to talk to you. I am in turmoil, and I do not know whether to rejoice or weep. Monsieur de Grammont, the Bishop of Tarbes, has raised the question of the Princess Mary’s legitimacy.”
She was shocked. “But how can that be, sir? You have been married to the Queen for—”
“Eighteen years,” Henry finished. “And never did man have such a faithful, virtuous, and loving wife. In nearly every respect, Katherine is what a queen should be. But she has failed to bear me a son, and Anne, she is now past the ways of women.” He buried his head in his hands, resting his elbows on the front of the pew. “What I am about to say to you is in strict confidence, darling, because it touches the Queen too nearly. You must be aware—who is not?—of how much I have agonized over not having a son, and how to resolve the problem of the succession.”
“But sir, your daughter, the Princess, is forward in learning for her years and graced with all the virtues. Why should she not rule after you?”
Henry sighed. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it. That’s why I sent Mary to Ludlow, to learn how to be a queen. But it galls me, Anne, it eats at me. A woman rule England? It is against Nature for women to wield dominion over men. No man would heed her. And who would lead our armies into battle?”
“The Queen’s own mother, Isabella, did in Spain,” Anne pointed out, wondering how the Regent Margaret and Marguerite of Valois would have answered him.
“So Katherine keeps telling me,” he huffed, his hawklike profile set in stern lines against the flickering torchlight. “But Anne, this is England, not Spain, and our people would never tolerate it. There was a queen called Matilda, centuries ago, who attempted to rule and became a byword for infamy. Memories are long. I have a bastard son, as you know, but I’m not sure that my subjects would tolerate his succeeding me either, although I had come to see it as the only option. But it has just been put to me that my sole legitimate child may well be a bastard too. And if she marries into France, then I might well be the last king of England, for the French will rule here in her name after I am gone. So,” he ended, turning a perplexed face to her, “you can see why I am in turmoil.”
“I understand very well,” Anne said, feeling—for the first time—some sympathy for him, even if he was wrong about the ability of a woman to rule. “But why did the Bishop question the Princess’s legitimacy?”
Henry sighed. “On the grounds that, all those years ago, the Pope had no business issuing a dispensation allowing me to marry my brother’s widow. The Queen was married to Prince Arthur before, as you know.”