The Boleyn Inheritance

Jane Boleyn, Whitehall Palace,
February 1540

I have been expecting this summons to confer with my lord the duke at some stage during the tournament, but he did not send for me. Perhaps he, too, remembers the tournament at May Day and the fall of her handkerchief and the laughter of her friends. Perhaps even he cannot hear the trumpet sound without thinking of her white-faced and desperate on that hot May Day morning. He waits until the tournament is over and life in the palace of Whitehall has returned to normal and then he tells me to come to his rooms.

This is a palace for plotting, all the corridors twist round and about each other; every courtyard has a little garden at the center where one may meet by accident; every apartment has at least two entrances. Not even I know all the secret ways from the bedrooms to hidden water gates. Not even Anne did, not even my husband, George, who stole away so often.

The duke commands me to come to him privately after dinner, and so I slip away from the dining hall and go the long way round in case anyone is watching me before entering his rooms without knocking, in silence.

He is seated at his fireside. I see by the servant clearing the plates that he has dined alone and eaten better than we did in the hall, I imagine. The kitchens are so far from the dining hall in this old-fashioned palace that the food is always cold. Everyone who has private rooms has their food cooked for them in their own chambers. The duke has the best rooms here, as he does almost everywhere. Only Cromwell is better housed than the head of our house. The Howards have always been the first of families, even when their girl is not on the throne. There is always dirty work to be done and that is our speciality. The duke waves the server away and offers me a glass of wine.

“You can sit,” he says.

I know by this honor that the work he has for me will be confidential and perhaps dangerous. I sit and sip my wine.

“And how are matters in the queen’s rooms?” he asks agreeably.

“Well enough,” I reply. “She is learning more of our language every day, and she understands almost everything now, I think. Some of the others underestimate her understanding. They should be warned.”

“I hear the warning,” he nods. “And her temper?”

“Pleasant,” I say. “She shows no signs of missing her home; indeed, she seems to have a great affection and interest in England. She is a good mistress to the younger maids, she watches them and considers them, and she has high standards; she keeps good command in her rooms. She is observant but not overly religious.”

“She prays like a Protestant?”

“No, she follows the king’s order of service,” I say. “She is meticulous in it.”

He nods. “No desire to return to Cleves?”

“None that she has ever mentioned.”

“Odd.”

He waits. This is his way. He stays silent until one feels obliged to comment.

“I think there is bad feeling between her and her brother,” I volunteer at last. “And I think Queen Anne was beloved of her father, who was sick from drink at the end of his life. It sounds as if the brother took his place and his authority.”

He nods. “So no chance of her being willing to step down from the throne and go home?”

I shake my head. “Never. She loves being queen, and she has a fancy to be a mother to the royal children. She would have Prince Edward at her side if she could, and she was bitterly disappointed that she could not see the Prin – the Lady Elizabeth. She hopes to have children of her own, and she wants to gather her stepchildren around her. She is planning her life here, her future. She will not go willingly, if that is in your mind.”

He spreads his hands. “Nothing is in my mind,” he lies.

I wait for him to tell me what he wants next.

“And the girl,” he says. “Our young Katherine. The king has taken a liking to her, hasn’t he?”

“Very much so,” I agree. “And she is as clever with him as a woman twice her age. She is very skilled. She appears completely sweet and very innocent, and yet she displays herself like a Smithfield whore.”

“Charming indeed. Does she have ambitions?”

“No, only greed.”

“She has no thought that the king has married his wives’ maids-in-waiting before now?”

“She is a fool,” I say shortly. “She is a skilled flirt because that is her great delight, but she can plan no more than a lapdog.”

“Why not?” He is momentarily diverted.

“She has no thought of the future; she cannot imagine beyond the next masque. She will do tricks for sweets, but she does not dream that she might learn to hunt and pull down the greatest prize.”

“Interesting.” He bares his yellow teeth in a smile. “You are always interesting, Jane Boleyn. And so: to the king and queen. I escort him to her room every other night. Do you know if he has yet managed to do the act?”

“We are all certain that he has not,” I say. I lower my voice though I know I am safe in these rooms. “I think he is unmanned.”

“Why d’you think that?”

I shrug. “It was the case in the last months with Anne. We all know that.”

He gives a short laugh. “We know it now.”

It was George, my George, who told the world that the king was impotent when he was on trial for his life. Typical of George, with nothing left to lose, to say the unsayable, the one thing he should have kept secret. He was daring to the very steps of the scaffold.

“Does he show her that he is discontented? Does she know that she does not please him?”

“He is courteous enough, but cold. It’s as if he doesn’t even think of her with pleasure. As if he cannot get pleasure from anything.”

“D’you think he could do it with anyone else?”

“He is old,” I start, but the quick glare from the old duke reminds me that he is no stripling himself. “That should not prevent him, of course. But he is sick with the pain of his leg, and I think that this is worse recently. Certainly it smells worse, and he limps very heavily.”

“So I see.”

“And he is costive.”

He makes a face. “As we all know.” The latest movement of the king’s bowels is of constant concern to the court, for their own interest as much as his; when he is bound his temper is much worse.

“And she does nothing to arouse him.”

“She discourages him?”

“Not exactly, but my guess is that she does nothing to help him.”

“Is she mad? If she wants to stay married, it all depends on her getting a son from him.”

I hesitate. “I believe that she has been cautioned against appearing light or wanton.” I can hear a little gurgle of laughter in the back of my voice. “Her mother and her brother are very strict, I think. She has been severely brought up. Her great concern seems to be not to give the king cause to complain that she is amorous or hot-blooded.”

He lets out a crack of laughter. “What are they thinking of? Would you send a king like this a block of ice, and expect him to thank you?” Then he sobers again. “So do you believe that she is a virgin still? He has managed nothing?”

“Yes, sir, I think she is.”

“She will be anxious about these matters, I suppose?”

I take a sip of wine. “She has taken no one into her confidence, as far as I know. Of course she may speak to her own countrywomen in their language, but they are not intimate, there is no whispering in corners. Perhaps she is ashamed. Perhaps she is discreet. I think she is keeping the king’s failure as a secret between the two of them.”

“Commendable,” he says dryly. “Unusual in a woman. D’you think she would talk to you?”

“She might. What do you want her to say?”

He pauses. “The alliance with Cleves may no longer be so important,” he says. “The friendship between France and Spain is weakening. Who knows? It may be falling apart even as we speak. So if they are not allies, then we no longer need the friendship of the Lutherans of Germany against the united Papists of France and Spain.” He pauses. “I am going to France myself, on the king’s command, to the court of King Francis to find how friendly he is with Spain. If King Francis tells me that he has no love of Spain, that he is weary of them and their perfidy, then he might choose to join with England against them. In such a case we wouldn’t need the friendship of Cleves; we wouldn’t need a Cleves queen on the throne.” He pauses for emphasis. “In such a case we would be better with an empty throne. We would do better if our king was free to marry a French princess.”

My head is spinning, as it often does when I talk with the duke. “My lord, are you saying that the king could make an alliance with France now, and so he does not need the Queen Anne’s brother as his friend anymore?”

“Exactly so. Not only does he not need him, the friendship of Cleves could become an embarrassment. If France and Spain are not arming against us, we don’t need Cleves, we don’t want to be tied up with Protestants. We might ally with either France or Spain. We might want to join the great players again. We might even reconcile with the Pope. If God were with us, then we might get the king forgiven, restore the old religion, and bring the church in England back under the rule of the Pope. Anything, as always with King Henry, is possible. In all of the Privy Council there was only one man who thought that Duke William would prove to be a great asset, and that man may be about to fall.”

I gasp. “Thomas Cromwell is about to fall?”

He pauses. “The most important diplomatic mission, that of discovering the feeling in France, has been given to me, not Thomas Cromwell. The king’s thoughts that the reform of the church has gone too far are shared with me, not with Thomas Cromwell. Thomas Cromwell made the Cleves alliance. Thomas Cromwell made the Cleves marriage. It turns out that we don’t need the alliance and that the marriage is not consummated. It turns out the king does not like the Cleves mare. Ergo (that means therefore, my dear Lady Rochford), ergo we might dispense with the mare, the marriage, the alliance, and the broker: Thomas Cromwell.”

“And you become the king’s chief advisor?”

“Perhaps.”

“You would advise him into alliance with France?”

“God willing.”

“And speaking of God, he reconciles with the church?”

“The Holy Roman Church,” he corrects me. “Please God we can see it restored to us. I have long wanted it restored, and half the country feels as I do.”

“And so the Lutheran queen is no more?”

“Exactly, she is no more. She stands in my way.”

“And you have another candidate?”

He smiles at me. “Perhaps. Perhaps the king has already chosen himself another candidate. Perhaps his fancy has alighted and his conscience will follow.”

“Little Kitty Howard.”

He smiles.

I speak out bluntly: “But what of the young Queen Anne?”

There is a long silence. “How would I know?” he says. “Perhaps she will accept a divorce; perhaps she will have to die. All I know is: she is in my way, and she will have to go.”

I hesitate. “She is without friends in this country, and most of her countrymen have gone home. She has no support or counsel from her mother or her brother. Is she in danger of her life?”

He shrugs. “Only if she is guilty of treason.”

“How could she be? She cannot speak English; she knows no one but those people we have presented to her. How could she plot against the king?”

“I don’t know yet.” He smiles at me. “Perhaps I will one day ask you to tell me how she has played the traitor. Perhaps you will stand before a court and offer evidence of her guilt.”

“Don’t,” I say through cold lips.

“You have done it before,” he taunts me.

“Don’t.”