Ambition's Queen: A Novel of Tudor England (29 page)

“But, sir,” Anne countered, her eyes narrowed in concentration, “I was given to believe that Sir Henry Norris had confessed, and now you tell me that it is Mark Smeaton alone? Which is it, Master Kingston?”

The normally unflappable Kingston looked flustered. “Well, madam,” he stammered, “I understand that Sir Henry did confess but he retracted that confession at his trial.”

“For what reason?” Anne demanded.

Kingston hesitated but then his innate honesty asserted itself. “Sir Henry said he had been tricked into confessing by Treasurer Fitzwilliam.”

Anne laughed shortly and clicked her fingers in triumph. “You see, sir, these accusations are based on nothing but trickery and false presumptions! I am innocent, and that shall be clearly shown at my trial.”

“You forget, madam,” Kingston replied, “that Mark has not retracted his confession and all have been found guilty, according to law.”

“According to law, Master Kingston, but not according to truth!” Anne affirmed, her voice ringing with certainty. “I have the truth on my side and all shall know it. The king shall know it!”

Kingston glanced at his wife and they shared a disbelieving look. “As you say, madam,” the constable replied, “as you say.”

Even though the men were all condemned and now faced the full rigours of a traitor’s death, Anne’s spirits were high over the weekend preceding her own trial. They were further bolstered on Sunday when Lady Shelton and the detested Mrs Coffin were relieved of their duties and, more sadly, Mrs Orchard as well. The old nurse burst into tears upon her departure and so forgot herself that she embraced the queen, whispering shakily that she “prayed for Your Majesty.” Mrs Orchard took Bridget aside just before she left and said, “Make sure you take care of the queen. I am much afraid for her.” Bridget assured her that she would.

Much to Bridget and Anne’s, delight, the three women were replaced by Catherine Carey, Joanna De Brett, and Margaret Wyatt, Lady Lee. Lady Lee was the sister of Thomas Wyatt and had known Anne since childhood. Bridget had never met her but was heartened when Anne greeted her warmly as an old friend. Clearly, Lady Lee was there as a slightly older woman both to attend the queen and act as a guide to the younger maids. Lady Boleyn and the constable’s wife kept their places. Bridget hoped that Will had had something to do with the removal of the other ladies and she silently thanked him.

Catherine and Joanna greeted her with tears and fierce hugs. “Oh, Bridget, I have missed you,” Joanna said. “It has been terrible at court—the queen’s apartments are deserted, there is nobody to attend to anything, and the stories we have heard! Lady Rochford says that the men are all condemned for adultery and for conspiring to murder the king!” Joanna dropped her voice to a whisper. “She says they will all die.”

Bridget had no difficulty imagining Lady Rochford conveying such information, no doubt with that strange smile upon her face as she did so. Unfortunately, she was mostly right. “It is true the men have been condemned,” Bridget answered, “but the queen and Lord Rochford have yet to be tried. That will take place tomorrow.”

“Joanna, come over here!” Anne called from across the chamber, where she was talking animatedly to Lady Lee. “Come here and tell me how the dogs are! Has anyone been walking them?” Joanna joined the queen, and soon the room was filled with her excited chatter. She did not appear to fully appreciate the seriousness of the situation, but Catherine Carey was under no illusions. The young maid moved closer to Bridget and said, “Tell me the truth. The queen is doomed, isn’t she?”

Bridget looked down at her hands and nodded once in reply. She found she could not speak the words aloud, not yet. Catherine said, “The court is a ghastly place now. The king is gone; he spends most of his time at Chelsea, where Mistress Seymour has been moved to. He travels only at night, never during the day; I suppose he wishes people to think that he is distraught.” Her face screwed up in disgust. “Meanwhile, several men have arrived to seek after Norris and Brereton’s goods and offices. They are not yet dead and already there is a scramble for advancement.”

Bridget was sad to see the normally good-natured Catherine so disillusioned. She was only a young girl, but her childhood was now effectively over. The events of the last month had forced her to grow up quickly and, as Anne Boleyn’s niece, her own prospects were in dire jeopardy. It was unlikely that Jane Seymour would want her as an attendant, although her extreme youth could yet prove to be her saviour.

Evidently, Catherine herself was entertaining the same thoughts. “The queen is my aunt, and if she falls, as seems certain, what will become of me? I do not want to be selfish, but I have to think of these things. I suppose I will have to return to my mother and stepfather, but I do not relish the prospect of rusticating in the country forever. Not that I have a say in the matter. What about you, Bridget? What will you do?”

“Well, I have no family, but fortunately I always have a place with the abbess. I have no fears on that account. But I still have a small hope that the queen will be exiled and that perhaps I will accompany her.”

Catherine regarded her with surprise. “Exile? There is still a chance of that?”

The sensible part of Bridget’s brain said no, but she chose to ignore it. “The queen has not been tried yet, and exile is the worst that has ever happened to a Queen of England. The king loved her once, they have a child, and surely he will be merciful . . .”

Catherine leant in close, so close that their noses almost touched. “Bridget, the queen may believe that, she has no choice but to believe it otherwise she will go mad. But you know better. The king,
this
king, is not merciful. He sent More and Fisher to the block—the former his friend, and the latter an old churchman who could have been left to rot to death in his prison cell but the king would not allow that. He had to die, publicly and bloodily, because he had defied him. The king abandoned Catherine; he shunned the Lady Mary and would not allow her to see her mother, not even when she was dying. There is no mercy in the king. Anne has made him a cuckold, for all the world to see, and for that, and other things besides, he will kill the men first and then he will kill her. The rest is just a formality. And before you say it, I know she is innocent.”

Bridget recognised the frightening truth in Catherine’s words, but still the stubborn little spark of hope remained alight within her. “I know you are right,” she said, “I know it. But I refuse to completely give up. There is still life. Maybe there is still hope.”

If Bridget closed her eyes, she could almost believe they were back at Greenwich, the maids rushing around laying out the queen’s clothes, Anne herself selecting her jewellery and what style of headwear she would don—the English gable or the French hood? The air filled with the buzz of activity at the start of a normal day. Only this wasn’t Greenwich and nothing was normal anymore. This was the royal apartments at the Tower of London, and the Queen of England was dressing for her trial.

Anne selected a black velvet gown with a scarlet underskirt and a small, delicate cap with a black-and-white feather. She looked serene and heartbreakingly young, her high cheekbones jutting out like blades, and her brow smooth as silk. It occurred to Bridget that she did not actually know how old the queen was. Somewhere between thirty and five and thirty she estimated. Not youthful, but not decrepit either. A woman who should have many years left to her.

The maids had just finished dressing Anne when Kingston’s familiar knock sounded upon the door. He entered accompanied by his deputy, Sir Edmund Walsingham. “Madam, we have come to escort you to your trial in the King’s Hall.”

“I am ready, Master Kingston,” Anne answered, and she walked forth with stately dignity, the constable and Walsingham leading the way, followed by a gentleman gaoler, his ceremonial axe turned away from the queen. The four maids of honour, as well as Lady Boleyn and Lady Kingston, completed the company. It took them only a few minutes to walk from the apartments to the ancient Hall, situated with the river on one side and the White Tower on the other. A great, murmuring crowd had gathered within the precincts and they all pressed forward when they saw the queen. Anne smiled and waved as if she were on her way to a ball.

The little party reached the door of the battlemented building and waited until a booming voice from within cried out, “Gentleman gaoler, bring forth your prisoner!” Anne obeyed the command without a moment’s hesitation and entered the Hall. The interior was big and echoing, with aisles to the side and two wooden arcades in the middle. In the centre was a platform, with many noblemen sitting on benches, and all along the walls were more benches, holding a large crowd of spectators, crammed in shoulder to shoulder. Bridget gasped and whispered to Joanna, “There must be a thousand people in here,” to which she replied, “The king wanted as many people as possible to attend. Lady Rochford said so.”

The company continued to move further into the Hall, and Bridget saw that there was a dais at the far end, upon which sat the Duke of Norfolk perched on a throne under a canopy emblazoned with the royal arms of England. Norfolk was Lord High Steward, which meant that for these proceedings he was effectively acting as the monarch. He carried a white staff in his hand and a supercilious expression on his face. At his feet sat a handsome though haughty-looking youth, no older than eighteen. “That is Norfolk’s son, the Earl of Surrey,” Catherine said to Bridget’s look of inquiry. “He is a proud young man.”

Beside Norfolk was Lord Chancellor Audley, and on the other side was Anne’s long-time enemy Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. His heavy lidded eyes were alive with anticipation. Bridget could see the queen scanning the crowd of noblemen assembled to try her and freezing for a moment when her eye fell on one in particular—the Earl of Wiltshire. Thomas Boleyn had come to pass sentence on his daughter and no doubt on his son in due course. He kept his gaze resolutely averted from Anne’s.

Gathering her composure, the queen presented herself at the bar and curtseyed deeply to her judges. A chair had been provided for her, and she seated herself gracefully upon it. Bridget and the other ladies took seats just behind their mistress. So far, the queen’s spirit and bravery were bearing her up, and Bridget observed many people in the crowd looking at her admiringly. By contrast, the only person in the court who was exhibiting strain was Thomas Cromwell. He was leaning forward in his chair, his hands on his knees, a vein in his forehead swelling dangerously outwards. Bridget had never seen him so worried before and she felt a little spark of optimism rise in her. It was, however, soon extinguished.

Sir Christopher Hales, the Attorney General, a spare-looking gentleman, got to his feet and read the indictment. This was the first time that the queen had heard the full extent of the charges against her, but she did not betray a flicker of emotion as they were enumerated. Catherine and Joanna’s eyes bulged when they heard that the queen was alleged to have “procured her brother and the other four to defile her and have carnal notice of her, which they had done often, and that they had conspired the death of the king, for she had said to them that she had never loved the king in her heart . . .”

Hales droned on, his thin voice rising at times to a shout in order to be heard over the din of the multitude. Anne sat still, looking neither left nor right, her back ramrod straight. She was like a queen carved in ice. As each charge was put to her, she responded in a loud, firm voice, “Not guilty.”

Hales came to the end and Thomas Cromwell rose to his feet. He clasped his meaty hands behind his back and waited until the Hall had fallen totally silent before he spoke. “Your Majesty,” he began, inclining his head towards Anne, “is it not true that you are very close to your brother, my lord of Rochford, and that you have danced with him many times in your chamber, and that you have been seen to kiss him on many other occasions?”

Anne merely looked at Cromwell and made no answer. He continued, unruffled, “Is it not also true, Majesty, that you wrote a letter to your brother, informing him that you were expecting a child?” Anne again said nothing, seemingly not wanting to sanction such a line of questioning.

“I have the letter here, sir!” a man called out, waving a sheaf of papers, “you cannot deny that you wrote such a thing, madam!” Anne regarded the man with contempt, but the crowd cheered him on and Cromwell took the proffered letter from him and pretended to read it with great interest.

After a few moments, Cromwell finished reading, carefully folded the letter, and continued on with his interrogation. “Your Majesty, have you and Lord Rochford ever laughed at the king, have you ever made fun of his dress, or of his poetry?” Several people tittered in the Hall, and Catherine leaned across and said, “Is this really all they have? Innuendo and court gossip?”

Bridget replied, “I cannot believe that the queen would be convicted on evidence such as this.”

Anne made her first answer to Cromwell. “Yes, I have sometimes laughed at the king, through foolish jealousy of his greatness. However, I have always been true to him with my body and my heart.” The crowd murmured in approval.

Cromwell, taking his cue from the crowd’s reaction, kept silent and moved on to the subject of Sir Henry Norris. “Majesty, is it not true that you desired to marry Sir Henry Norris and, to that end, you both conspired the death of the king?”

“No, never,” Anne replied.

“In that case madam, why did Sir Henry feel it necessary to go to your almoner and swear, upon the Bible, that you are a good woman after you were heard arguing with him?”

Anne moved forward slightly in her chair. “Sir Henry went to my almoner because we, as you say, had argued, foolishly I admit, and neither of us wanted the argument to be misconstrued.”

“Why should it be misconstrued, madam?” Cromwell demanded. “Surely, if it were an innocent disagreement, then no misconstruction could be placed upon it?”

“Aye!” several people called out.