The Concubine (36 page)

“I am willing to believe that you have sufficient reasons for what you have done, but they must be other than those which have been produced in Court, for I am clear of all the offenses which you then laid to my charge.”

But he heard, because the peers grumbled about it, what one simple brave man, the Lord Mayor of London, had said, “I could not observe anything in the proceedings against her, but that they were resolved to make an occasion to get rid of her.”

For the month or so of wretched life that remained to him, he was haunted by those words and by the knowledge that he, of all men, should have been the one to say them.

E
VEN ON THIS WARM EVENING
the little low crypt in the Archbishop’s house struck chill and damp. Cranmer, the Duke of Suffolk, Lord Oxford, and Sir Thomas Audley were already there when Anne, accompanied by Margaret Lee, Sir William and Lady Kingston, and three guards arrived.

Margaret had stopped crying when Lady Kingston had come in to announce that Anne was to be conducted to Lambeth for an interview with the Archbishop. “Oh,” she had said, “that can mean nothing but good. What is it about, Lady Kingston?”

“That we must wait to know,” Lady Kingston said. Her manner was calm and impartial. Since the trial Anne had seen less of her aunt Elizabeth and the hateful Mrs. Cosyns, more of Margaret and Lady Kingston, and actually she preferred the latter’s company. Margaret was so deeply distressed, so unable to control her tears.

“I think I know what Cranmer, somewhere in the conversation will ask of me,” Anne said. “A confession.”

“Then make one,” Margaret cried eagerly. “There’ll be a…a bribe attached to it. They offered George and…and the others a free pardon if they would confess. They must offer you as much.”

“They died, four men, this morning, protesting their innocence to the end. Am I to turn about now and say that they were guilty?”

“Nothing can hurt them now. Say anything, anything at all that would save you; please, Anne, I beg…”

Anne, not too steadily calm herself, looked at Lady Kingston who said quickly,

“Lady Lee, if you are to accompany us, it would be as well if you made ready. Sir William and the guard will be waiting.”

Margaret hurried away and the dreadful, hysterical atmosphere of the room lifted a little. Anne’s own behavior was varied and unpredictable, Lady Kingston thought, but she did at least have periods of apparent resignation. Poor Lady Lee just could not accept the inevitable and many of Anne’s worst outbreaks were the result of her cousin’s behavior.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned making a confession in front of her,” Anne said. “I should have known how she would take it. And if that is what the Archbishop wants, how can I comply? I am innocent of all the charges they named, Lady Kingston. I am innocent.”

“It may be something altogether different,” Lady Kingston said, avoiding the issue in her practiced way. She looked Anne over, marveling once more at her ability to remain not merely neat, but elegant. “You look fit to appear anywhere.”

Margaret had then returned, having hastily splashed her swollen face with cold water and brushed back her hair.

“I am sure this means something good,” she said. “I was always certain that the King would never…”

“I think we should go,” Lady Kingston said.

So here they were, and Cranmer came forward to meet them, nervously rubbing his hands together, as though washing them. He greeted them gravely and then said,

“I have something to say that is for Lady Pembroke’s ear alone; so I must ask you to leave us together. If you wish, Sir William, you may examine this room and assure yourself that there is no other exit.”

Perfunctorily, Sir William examined the place. He had never suspected that this excursion was a trick to help the prisoner to escape. He could guess its purpose. Cranmer had been given the job of trying to extract a confession; for the truth was that since the trial nobody had been quite easy. The perverse London populace who had accepted Anne so reluctantly, had, the moment she was condemned, turned about and espoused her cause; the amateur street lawyers had fastened on three points. One piece of evidence brought against her had rested upon the word of a Lady Wingfield, dead for some years, and “that ain’t evidence. Anybody can put what words they like into a dead woman’s mouth. Hearsay ain’t evidence.” Then there’d been two specific dates for misconduct which the sharp-witted London women made mock of. “October that year she was still a-laying in with the white-leg; whoever said that didn’t know much about white-leg nor adultery.” And they said, “January this year, when she was five months gone! Tell that to somebody that never had a big belly. The last thing you think of such times…”

And if the evidence could be so obviously contrived in three places, how much of the rest could you believe?

That was the talk in the London streets, and Sir William, aware of it, had no difficulty in guessing what Cranmer had been ordered to procure by some means or another.

Inside the little crypt Cranmer said,

“Please be seated, my lady.” He waited until she was seated and then sat down himself. “I wish you to believe that what I am about to say is said from a most earnest desire to spare you pain.”

That was simple truth. The idea of anybody being burned appalled him. They could say what they liked about the smoke deadening the senses before the fire reached the living flesh; that was all a matter of chance, what the fire was made of, which way the wind blew. No matter how heinous the crime, burning alive was a punishment out of all proportion…whoever it was. And with this woman he was involved. He owed her so much. If the King had not been determined to marry her, where would Cranmer have been? Not here, not Archbishop of Canterbury.

Anne looked at him, and thought of Catherine. In her cold, calm moments—this was one of them—she thought often of Catherine. Catherine had had a chaplain, a Thomas Abell who had gone to the block for his loyalty to her. Cranmer, once her own chaplain, was so much a King’s man that he had not uttered a word of protest at the way she had been treated, and sat here now, plainly about to divulge some distasteful little scheme…

“I wish,” Cranmer said, “I wish with my whole heart that none of this had ever happened. I was incredulous. When I first heard of the business I wrote to the King. I said “I am clean amazed, for I never had a better opinion of a woman.” I wrote that, my lady.”

“But since, you have altered your opinion.”

He washed his hands violently.

“I am not a lawyer; I cannot judge. You were tried by your peers, my lady, and they condemned you…” He looked at her and imagined to
what
they had condemned her; that living flesh, that hair, those eyes…Oh God, help me to help her to avoid such a fate. “You must listen,” he said urgently, “you must listen to me and agree. His Grace demands it and only he can spare you now.”

“If it is a confession you ask of me…my lord, I cannot make it. I never did commit adultery with any of the men named. When I think of burning…” She clasped her hands together against her breast. “I try not to think of it, but it’s there. All the time. They say that the smoke chokes you before…but…” She gave a great convulsive shudder.

Cranmer leaned forward and took one of her wrists, circling it between his finger and thumb.

“I’m not asking a confession,” he said quickly. “Oh no. It is easier than that. The King says that you shall have a quick, easy death if you will agree that you were never his lawful wife. A specially skilled headsman, brought over from Calais…”

What a nightmare situation; to sit here and offer a healthy young woman, once his friend, his patron, the choice of two forms of death, both horrible.

“I should prefer the block to the faggot. Anybody would.”

“Anybody would,” Cranmer echoed; and his flesh shuddered, too, as though, from a distance of twenty years, it had felt the lick of the flames that were to consume it.

“But you, at the Dunstable Court, ruled our marriage good and valid. And to deny that now will make my child a bastard.”

“That will be done, I fear, with or without your consent. His Grace has set his mind upon that.”

Pliable as he was, he had a feeling of dismay as he contemplated the manner of man whom he must serve or face ruin.

“Then I will agree. On what grounds?”

“Precontract.”

“So I was never married!”

“That is the argument.”

She jumped up and began to walk the little room. “But that I fear the fire, I would
never
agree. The Concubine. That is what the Spanish Ambassador always called me. The Concubine did this and said the other. I always hated it; but I could laugh then, knowing it untrue. All those years and years of waiting. This makes mock of them.” She stood still, struck by a thought; for five months she had deserved the name; and now it would be hers forever. And she had committed adultery, so secretly that the sin was known only to God. Yet she would be remembered as an adulteress, too. She swung round on Cranmer and said, “God is said to be a stern yet merciful judge, my lord. I only pray that His mercy matches His sternness!”

“His mercy is infinite,” Cranmer said. And it had need be, with men so sinful. His own conscience was far from easy.

Anne resumed her pacing.

“And how do we go about this making void of a marriage?”

“A mere formality. Those gentlemen who were here with me will constitute a Court. Dr. Sampson will stand proctor for the King, Dr. Barbour and Dr. Wootton for you. I shall conduct the inquiry. You through your proctors will admit to a previous betrothal which invalidates your marriage to the King.”

“To whom was I supposed to be betrothed?”

“To Lord Harry Percy, now Earl of Northumberland.”

She was at the end of the small room, and turning, faced him, leaning back against the wall.

“Oh no!” she said.

“If you prefer to name another gentleman…”

“Harry Percy will do,” she said and began to laugh. The crazy sound filled the crypt, bouncing back from the low ceiling and stone walls.

“Please,” Cranmer said, “my lady, this is no matter for Lady Pembroke, I beg you…I’ll call your women…”

But to reach the door he had to pass her and she put out her right hand and caught him by his full sleeve. Without engaging in an unseemly struggle he could not release himself and was forced to stand rocked by the laughter that shook her. She made a fist of her left hand and beat with it upon her chest. “It will stop,” she gasped, between gusts of laughter, speaking as though it had nothing to do with her. And presently it did stop. She said, breathlessly,

“I’m not mad. There is a joke—such a one as only God could have devised. I had to laugh or cry. And jokes are meant to be laughed at, even the cruel ones.”

Cranmer regarded her miserably and without understanding.

“It all began with him,” she said. “We were in love, we would have married, but they parted us. Thirteen years ago they would not allow us to be betrothed, now to destroy my marriage they claim that we were. When I was young and able to love they took him away; now, in this guise they give him back to me. Did he laugh, too?”

Cranmer thought it best not to say that Northumberland had not been consulted or that he had twice denied the betrothal. He said,

“Evidence of the betrothal was given by George Cavendish who was gentleman-usher to Cardinal Wolsey at the time. He affirms that Lord Harry Percy told the Cardinal that he was so bound in honor to you that he could not in conscience marry another woman.”

“If only they had heeded him
then
,” she said bitterly, “none of this would ever have happened.”

And again the little self-seeking strain in Cranmer came uppermost and he thought the inevitable thought—And I should not be Archbishop of Canterbury. He said,

“Will you agree that there was a precontract?”

“I would deny it, but I don’t want to burn. I thought just now of Catherine, how stubbornly she stood upon her rights, but she wasn’t threatened with burning. My lord of Canterbury, threatened with burning anybody would agree to anything.”

“Then this business should take but little time,” Cranmer said. And then, thank God his part would be done.

It took about fifteen minutes to unmake the marriage which had taken so long to make: which had brought the Reformation to England; which had produced Elizabeth.

W
HITEHALL
, G
REENWICH
, R
ICHMOND
, H
AMPTON
C
OURT
, W
INDSOR
, M
AY
17
TH
, 1536

In all the royal palaces the needlewomen were working late. With red eyes, aching backs, and tired fingers they were working at bed-hangings and covers, at chairbacks and cushions and tablecloths, everywhere where the H and the A had been worked in interlinking stitches, the A was to be removed and a J put in its place. A lot of work to do in a little time. The woman the A stood for was to go to her death on the day after tomorrow; the woman the J stood for would be married that evening or next day, and all must be in order.

One old woman could remember the time when all this stuff was new and everybody was busy embroidering H and C on everything. The new king was then being freehanded with the money his tightfisted old father had saved. They’d been the days; everything young and full of hope and promise.

Yes, she’d worked H and C; and then, her sight still good, thank God, she’d picked out many a C and worked A instead, and now here she was, her sight still good, thank God, picking out A and putting J in its place.