Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (35 page)

I felt that Hampton Court was a huge, cold,
unwelcoming place, and one I did not much favor for all its color
and finery. Forced to live within its walls, I made the best of it,
and passed my days.

•
~
۞
~•

During the summer, we always went on progress
throughout the country, packing up ourselves and our entourage,
then touring England to reassure those who resided outside of
London that the King was in good health and concerned about their
welfare. It was at such times that we moved between the various
palaces and viewed our holdings.

I had always looked forward to this festive
season. I loved to travel, and I enjoyed the excitement and change
of scenery. I most loved the opportunity it afforded me to give
directly to the English subjects by passing out alms, or sewing
clothing and distributing it among the poor.

I sent messengers on ahead of us to gather up
a list of the families most in need. When we arrived, I then gave
them the shirts my ladies and I had made, and money or livestock,
or I arranged for medical care–whatever was needed. I was
invigorated whenever we were on the road, for it was the season
when I was busiest, felt most useful, and was most at home.

Now, however, the prospect of our summer
progress brought me no pleasure. Henry had plans to go without me.
It was for my own good, he insisted. It was out of concern for me,
he said.

It was 1534, and I was pregnant again. Henry
had stopped coming to me, so a quick calculation was all I needed
to place conception around the time of my nightmare, and the birth
around late summer.

Henry was not as solicitous toward me as he
had been the time before. Knowing now that my temperament in
pregnancy was foul, he spent a large portion of his time away from
me. Since I had daughters rather than sons, his interest in me was
spent.

Word got back to me that he was lecherous in
his pursuit of other women while I awaited the birth of his child.
There was no shared pleasure and expectation. No longer did he show
more than superficial concern for my welfare, and when he did, it
was only for the benefit of an audience. He showed no concern in
private and he placed no buffer between me and shocks I might
suffer, either physically or emotionally. This time, I was pregnant
alone, bristling with resentment and struck mindless with fear.

As my belly grew larger, I carried on long
conversations with God in the gilded chapel, gazing up at the
clutter of sweet winged cherubs, eyes wide, lips pressed, fingers
white from gripping rosary beads.

Emma was gone, replaced by other ladies who
could not ever hope to replace her. I had never been so lonely in
my life.

I had no Emma with me, but I had my fool. He
alone could cheer me into good temper. Easily wounded and prickly
with distrust, I allowed only my fool the privilege of chiding and
abusing me as, before him, I had allowed only Emma. He was the only
person upon the earth, besides Emma, whom I knew with certainty
loved me. I had removed even my own family from that small
list.

We spent our days together, and I took my
fool with me wherever I went. There were several instances when we
ventured outside the palace gates by carriage, and crowds screamed
their insults. Each time, he screamed right back in my defense,
making a mockery of them by aping them, and pointing his finger,
and twisting his face into horrible contortions.

Then he would turn to me and say “But you
know, all they say about you is true, Your Majesty.” He would pause
then continue: “You did eat ham this day, just as these goodly
people insist.” I would laugh nervously at his nonsense if I were
able. When I was not, when I was in tears or white from panic, he
would hold my hand tightly and pat it while the shouts rang out:
“Nan Bullen be damned!”

“Nan Bullen had ham!” he cried to drown them
out until the carriage rolled past the angry crowd and its
threats.

I never knew he held my hand, for he only did
so at critical times when the shouts drove me to near hysteria. It
was a shocking breech of propriety for a commoner–and a man–to
touch a queen. It was an act that could even be construed as
treasonous, and considering Henry’s state of mind, could have meant
death. My fool was well aware of this. He did not seek reward in
comforting me. Yet a fool’s seemingly small, unnoticed act of
defying convention and precept to hold a terrified woman’s hand
looms large, in this realm. It was a compassionate act of selfless
courage, and he will be amply repaid, I am assured.

This pregnancy ended with the early birth of
a stillborn male child we named “Henry” and placed in the crypt.
The nursery preparations were hastily removed and nothing further
was said about them, or about my poor dead child for whom, it
seemed, only I grieved.

Henry’s lips grew more taut.

I grew more shrill as I plummeted into an
abyss of misery and fear. I could not hold back the fear, nor could
I keep it from dominating my thoughts. When I was fearful, I could
not stop my tongue. I lashed at everyone. I aimed carefully
restrained reproaches at Henry, spewing louder reproaches into the
ears of others. In private I chewed the cuticles from my fingers,
and lapsed into long moments of absent staring.

My eyelid uncontrollably twitched.

Was I turning into Katherine? I now
understood her as no one else on earth could understand. I did not
hate her less, but I knew, as no one else did, what Katherine had
prayed, and why.

•
~
۞
~•

There were two means through which an English
subject might guarantee the hastening of his death: treason or
heresy.

Treason consisted of any act actually
committed against the Crown, any act that might be construed as
disloyal or threatening toward the Crown, and any act that might
either provoke Henry to rage, rational or otherwise, or incite him
in a moment of abstract displeasure or whimsical pique.

Heresy, on the other hand, consisted of any
thought or deed suggesting God was something or someone other than
that which Henry decreed Him to be. Heretics were typically burned
at the stake; this was considered apt punishment for wrong thoughts
or ideas inconvenient to the Crown.

Parliament had earlier passed the Act of
Succession, which declared Princess Mary a bastard, and my own
children Henry’s successors. All England was now being called upon
to declare fealty, and to swear an oath. Few refused: to refuse was
treason and the punishment for treason was death. My Elizabeth was
now the heir to Henry’s throne, and England was forced to swallow
this. It was forced to swear it swallowed willingly, and with
pleasure.

Then, since the Pope would not acknowledge
Henry’s marriage to me, or children born of our union, Henry had
declared a new church, and assumed a role equivalent to “pope”
within it. I even helped him with this, by locating literature that
supported his position and handing it off to him to use in his
arguments. In other words, it was I who fueled his flame. I was
there behind him, encouraging him and showing joy when his efforts
succeeded. It was I who had done all this.

It was I who, after these efforts had
succeeded, felt the icy cold rush of second thoughts and of doubt.
Not Henry.

So, Henry solved our problems with a wave of
his magical, regal wand. With a wave of that wand, he dismissed the
Pope, took his place as the highest representative in the Church of
England and (in his mind) took his rightful seat at the right hand
of God.

According to the rules of Henry’s church, our
marriage was legal and Elizabeth was legitimate. Henry’s God (one
must assume a different God from the one we knew before, since His
opinions were so changed) viewed our marriage as valid and blessed.
Those who thought otherwise must die.

To escape condemnation, the populace was
therefore made to swear twice, first declaring loyalty to Anne
Boleyn and the Princess Elizabeth, and then to Henry as Supreme
Head of the Church of England. All were also forced to deny the
Roman Catholic Pope in Rome.

In terror, people swore their oaths to save
their lives. In one breath the people of England were spitting out
the words “Little Whore” and “Great Whore” and in their next, were
declaring their undying loyalty to Elizabeth and to me. I did not
question which of the oaths was the more sincere. Nor did Henry. He
had long since abandoned all hope of persuading our subjects to
love me. He was forcing their love–a love he himself no longer
thought he felt–out of stubborn perverseness. He angrily,
tenaciously, insistently promoted my cause throughout the country,
even though he scarcely looked at me anymore and responded to me
with irritation when I spoke.

Faced with the anger of England, I once had
begged Henry, “Make it stop!”

Now, by God, he would. He would make it stop.
And he would make me watch.

The butchering began.

Words declared against Elizabeth and me were
now whispered, not shouted. Public, and even private displays of
disloyalty toward us could send a man to prison, or even to his
death. Some people took advantage of this as neighbor turned
against neighbor, reporting treasonous speeches by those whom they
disliked or wished to be rid of. The accused were then sentenced
and dragged away to prison with neither proof, nor interest in
proving within the courts, which churned out guilty verdicts one
behind another.

Four monks, criminals for having worn
priestly robes and hence shown loyalty to the Roman Catholic
Church, were disemboweled and their heads paraded, rotting on
sticks, through the streets of London. More clerics and cardinals
were rounded up and slaughtered, and their severed hands and feet
were nailed to the city gates.

Had Henry lost his reason? No one dared
question him lest treason be their crime and death their just
reward, so Henry moved along, unchecked.

There was a fine line between heresy and
treason, once Henry became both Church and Crown. In fact, one
accusation was quite as good as the other. It hardly mattered
why
you were dead, precisely. The important thing was this:
If you were dead, you most likely were dead because of me.

I did not have the influence I once did, and
could not reason Henry away from the murderings. I grew drawn and
gray as they continued. I could not even mourn because I could not
feel; to feel meant I would have to lose my mind from
responsibility, guilt and grief. Some self-preserving reflex numbed
me through the months of slaughter. I watched it all unfold with
detachment, as if from a large distance, and viewed it as if it
happened because of someone other than myself.

For a time, throughout the bloodiest days,
Henry seemed to need me again, and during that time he set aside
his latest mistress. The guilt and the sorrow were beginning to
fester within him.

Then, his fear grew even larger still, for
the sky had burst open and the rains would not cease. Henry heard
it said by many that God was taking His vengeance against him and,
in his heart, he suspected it might be true. Rain pummeled against
the palace walls, and washed away the roads, and brought the river
Thames to the point of flooding. Cracks of thunder and bolts of
lightening hurled across the sky in judgment and reproach, making
Henry silent, pale and jittery. He spent a significant portion of
his day knelt in prayer. He installed himself at my side through
night and day, as if only I could offer him protection. I seemed
the only one who could comfort him, during the storms.

I reassured Henry that he did the right
thing. My critics might ask themselves what they would say, when
asked by
that
king under
those
circumstances if he
was right to kill. One does not argue with the man who wields the
knife and who shows no mercy or restraint. Even I could bite my
tongue when faced with that, or lie.

Furthermore, the killings were being done for
my sake and for the sake of my child. If I protested, Henry was
enraged and screamed that I was an ingrate and a peasant, and could
instantly be flung back into the mud from which I had sprung. Such
words bit me and stung because I had come to believe them to be
true, and so I took measures to appease him in whatever ways I
could. For the first time since I met him, I was frightened enough
of Henry to become his quiet helpmate.

I aged years during those months, standing at
his side as he grew ever more insane.

Meanwhile, in light of what they saw
unfolding around them, our subjects searched their hearts and
souls, reevaluated their religious faith, and made the decision
that Henry’s God was the one they much preferred to worship.

Just that quickly, the population of Britain
gave up its faith and accepted a new one. With naught but an oath,
they let the old God die, and welcomed Henry’s.

I say, “They let the old God die,” but mean
this more symbolically than literally. Henry did not outwardly
change the Church except to change the structure of its hierarchy,
remove Rome’s influence, and rename the pope “Bishop of Rome”.
Priests still said Mass as they always had, and the Scriptures
remained intact. But thoughts churned and whirled about in my head
that perhaps we—both Henry and I—had gone too far.

I could still sympathize with Henry’s desire
to rid himself of people who committed treason (by my definition,
not Henry’s). As aghast as I was at the frightening speed of
conviction and the injustice in many instances, I was quite as
willing as he was to be rid of people who physically threatened my
life and my child’s, and I fervently wished these people as dead as
they wished me.