In October, the court returned to Greenwich, and Anne took herself off, with her mother for company, to Durham House. It was good to be away from the court for a while, and even to have some respite from wrangling with Henry over Wolsey, but she fretted constantly about what was happening in her absence. Would the Cardinal find some way to outsmart her? And what was this new ambassador, Chapuys, about? She missed Norris, as always, even though she was still annoyed with him for receiving Wolsey at Grafton. She had shown herself cool after that, and now regretted it. She should really be at court, and yet here she was talking about embroidery with Mother and her maids!
It was while she was rummaging around for red and blue silks that she discovered that the casket in which she kept some of Henry’s love letters was empty. The lock had been broken!
She questioned the servants who had been left in charge during her absence, but they all showed themselves nonplussed, and none knew of any stranger breaking in or intruding.
When Henry arrived that evening, she told him that the letters were missing.
“Someone must have stolen them,” she said, thinking of Wolsey. “Who would do that?”
He frowned. “Cardinal Campeggio, I suspect. Perhaps one of his people bribed someone to search for evidence that we have committed criminous conversation, as the church courts like to put it. That, darling, as I need not remind you, could prove highly damaging to my case.”
“I know the Church is corrupt, but would a cardinal really stoop to theft?”
“If it were to get such evidence, yes. You and I know that we have not sinned, but anyone reading those letters might draw other conclusions—if it served them well. If Clement reads them, there’s little hope of him deciding in my favor.”
Anne shuddered. It was horrible envisaging the consistory of cardinals poring over the letters, exposing her intimate secrets and drawing the wrong conclusions. It was even more horrible to think of the consequences.
“There is no time to lose!” Henry declared, jumping up and summoning an usher.
“Take a message to Dr. Gardiner. Have him send soldiers to Dover to intercept Cardinal Campeggio and search his luggage, even his saddlebags. Tell him that letters belonging to the Lady Anne have been stolen, and we need to find them.”
The usher hurried away.
Henry sat down. He was fidgeting in agitation. “I hope I can trust Gardiner to order an efficient search. Wolsey would have known just what to do. He’d have tracked down those letters.”
Oh no, Anne thought. This must not be your excuse for recalling the Cardinal.
She had to prevent Henry from sending for Wolsey. The next morning, she summoned her father, her uncle of Norfolk, and the Duke of Suffolk.
—
Dr. Gardiner had been extremely efficient, but to no avail. Two days later, Anne received a note from Henry informing her that no trace of the letters had been found, despite a thorough search of the baggage of Campeggio and his suite.
She strongly suspected that Wolsey had them, and might use them against her. It was now more imperative than ever that Wolsey be brought down.
—
Father and Norfolk were exultant.
“The King has agreed to charge the Cardinal under the Statute of Praemunire, with the offense of allowing a foreign power to interfere in the affairs of the realm. We did not have to look far to find evidence against him. Accepting the office of Papal legate alone renders him guilty.”
“The penalty is forfeiture of all his lands and goods,” Norfolk added, gleeful. “And it serves him right.”
They had done their work well. The relief was overwhelming. Anne had looked to harden Henry’s heart against his former friend, but she had never expected him to go this far. Banishment had been the best she had hoped for. That evening she and her mother danced around her chamber in exultation.
Eight days later, Henry stripped Wolsey of his office of Lord Chancellor.
“My lord of Suffolk and I are off to demand that he surrender the Great Seal of England,” Norfolk came to tell her. “He is to remain at his house at Esher while a bill of indictment is drawn up against him.”
The great Cardinal was finished, his stranglehold on the King broken. And it was she, that foolish girl yonder in the court, as he had called her, who had brought it to pass.
—
Henry came to see her, furious about Wolsey, yet pleased to be in possession of all the property that had belonged to the Cardinal.
“York Place is mine now,” he declared. “For years, since Westminster burned down, I have lacked a great house in London. Now I have one! I am renaming it Whitehall, and darling, it will be our palace. I am having it renovated for you. It will be like those palaces of the Netherlands you often speak of. Tomorrow we will go and see it, and you shall decide what improvements you wish to make.”
She listened avidly as he spoke of the improvements he would make. Whitehall, being an archbishop’s residence, had no lodging suitable for the Queen, and he had no plans to create any for Katherine. Anne was to have her own court and preside over it as queen in all but name.
Mother, who was still staying with her, attended her as chaperone when she viewed the palace with Henry. He was waiting for them there at ten o’clock in the morning, with just Norris in attendance. As usual, Anne’s heart skipped a beat, but she would have to be especially careful not to betray her feelings today, for Mother knew her too well and had eyes like a hawk.
Henry kissed her hand on greeting, and she asked after Norris’s health. She had noticed that he was clad entirely in black.
“I am well enough, Mistress Anne,” he told her, his light blue eyes meeting hers, “but you find me in sorrow. My poor wife has died.”
The news struck her like a thunderbolt. “I am so sorry, Sir Henry,” she managed to say, remembering fair-haired Mary Fiennes as a merry young girl in France, fourteen years ago now.
As Henry led the way through chamber after chamber, speaking enthusiastically of his plans for the palace, Anne followed slowly, barely seeing the breathtaking splendor. From the jocular way he was talking with the King, Norris did not seem too saddened by his wife’s death. An arranged marriage, no doubt, made for convenience, as most were. All she could think about was that he was now free.
He could be hers.
But it was Henry who could give her the crown she so desperately wanted.
Above them the painted beams of the great hall soared, and Henry was saying that the first thing he’d do would be to have Wolsey’s coats of arms removed—they were everywhere, uncomfortable reminders of the Cardinal’s greatness. But Anne was asking herself why becoming queen mattered so much, when the chance of true love was hers for the seizing. And always she came back to the argument that the crown was hers for the seizing too.