The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn (38 page)

“I can see well where not to step, Lord Harrington, though I thank you for the offer of your arm. My wish is to be left to myself. In fact I would be grateful if you would clear the Green of all workmen and guards. I want to be quite alone.”

“Alone, Your Majesty?”

Her stern expression was all that was needed to confirm the order. He rushed away shaking his head and so upset by the Queen’s unusual command that a toe stuck between two of the flagstone slabs and the man tripped, only righting himself of an embarrassing fall at the last moment. Elizabeth smiled as she saw the masons and the carpenters scatter, watched the yeomen guarding several tower doors and gates learn they were for the moment dismissed from their posts by order of Her Majesty and disappear.

Finally she was alone in the ancient castle yard, the massive walls of the White Tower soaring high above her head. She gazed up at the battlement between the Bell and Beauchamp Towers where she’d taken exercise during her own incarceration. Remembered the dank stairwell and her clandestine meeting with Robin. Remembered how the horror of dungeons with their hideous implements of torture had kept her awake at night, worrying that she might fall victim to the racks and presses, teeth crushers and thumbscrews. The Tower was a place where, once imprisoned, a person could die of fear alone at the thought of his grisly demise. And now she owned it, had no fear of the place … or the ghosts of those that had lost their lives here.

Elizabeth approached the doors of the King’s Hall and threw them open. She stood in the cavernous and echoing chamber under the great arched ceiling imagining the noisy crush of humanity assembled for her mother’s trial. The thump, thump, thump of the Duke of Norfolk’s staff on the wooden floor to call the proceedings to order, the scarlet gowns of the Queen’s twenty-six peers, and the stink of their fear lest they choose wrongly and incur the King’s wrath upon their own heads.

Mother
.

She imagined Anne the Queen having mustered the reserves of her courage standing before that court, answering its false and heinous accusations with elegant defiance. Hearing her enemies as well as her once friends proclaim her guilty of treason, adultery and incest. “Condemned by her peers of a great lie.”

And yet, thought Elizabeth, her mother had been no saint. By some reckoning her hands had been stained with blood. She’d been reckless and more bold than an Englishwoman had ever dared to be. From her youngest days she’d been willful to a fault, possessed of a wild tongue and temper. She’d been a woman ruled by passion, ruled by ambition … but unwilling to be ruled by men.

How odd is the blood, mused Elizabeth. I did never know my mother, had no way to learn from her, yet I mirror her character in so many ways.

So many ways … and yet not all. Anne, it occurred to her, had been consistently inspired by anger and revenge. Wolsey. Katherine. Mary. Norfolk. But it had grown and festered, and the evil had eventually turned back upon Anne herself. It was one quality of her mother’s, Elizabeth decided, that she would do well to never emulate.

When the Queen emerged from the King’s Hall the scattered sun had been completely obliterated by dark clouds and Tower Green was a study in gloom. Though no scaffold was now erected on the lawn Elizabeth strolled to the place where it once had stood, where her mother’s lifeblood had stained the May grass. She wondered at how Anne could have come to this place to die so igno-miniously. The two men in a woman’s life are her father and her husband, thought Elizabeth. Anne’s father had, with a breathtaking ruthlessness, used his daughter to his own advantage, and abandoned her when she could no longer serve him.

Anne’s husband. There was no doubt that Henry had loved her. But she had been trapped by that love, like a hind pursued by hounds. There had been no way out for her but the chase. Henry had wanted her past all reason, past all caring. When a King desires a woman there is no answer but Yes, Sire. Unless like Anne, she mounts a great challenge. She had proven Henry’s most elusive quarry, leading him headlong through dark and dangerous landscapes, making his blood boil for her capture. Still she escaped him, year after year till he was half mad with the pursuit and his failures. But Anne, it need be remembered, was yet the hunted. Prey. With nothing to do but flee or surrender to his love which, as she had always known in her soul, was death.

Elizabeth reflected upon her mother’s husband. The man described in her diary as “Beast” was Elizabeth’s own father.

I loved, nay adored my father, thought the Queen. He was my master, my King, my God before God. And now from my mother I learn he was a monster. Oh, ‘tis a hard bone to swallow.

He had been cruel and outrageously unjust, but Elizabeth knew that all in her that was Henry she could not dismiss. She had learned perhaps the most important principle of her queenship from him. That whilst she might be kind and generous, seek peace for her kingdom and harmony amongst her men, she must at all times
rule absolutely
or lose the throne that had been so hard won.

Elizabeth shivered, for the gloom was deepening round her. She made her way across the Green to the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula and pulled open the heavy, creaking doors. Built in the ancient Norman style, it was small and unadorned. With only a few candles illuminating the nave and sharp incense thickening the air, it was a dark and melancholy place. She knelt briefly under the crucifix at the altar, but did not linger, for what she sought was the choir. The inlaid marble floor showed no indication of what lay under it — the earthly remains of her own mother, murdered at her father’s hand. Without warning Elizabeth was overcome with the ache of a longing so powerful it rocked her on her feet. Her mother who had held her, had loved her, had died because Elizabeth had been born a girl, lay all but forgotten beneath her feet, a headless pile of bones.

In the silence Elizabeth strained to hear Anne crying out from her grave. A message, a lesson, a warning. But nothing came to her except a desperate ache in her heart for Robin Dudley. Her dearest friend, bringer of the sweetest sensations, sharer of her boldest fantasies. She could no longer trust him. She could trust no man. If her mother’s voice could ever make itself heard Elizabeth was certain it would say,
Never relinquish control to any man
. Then a strange idea began to take shape in her mind. The one man who had natural cause to rule her — her father — was dead. Why on earth should she marry now… or ever? Willingly surrender the awesome power of the crown to a husband? Would that not make her a great fool?

She stopped suddenly. Am I entirely mad? she thought. What folly am I planning? A monarch who schemes to remain childless and end the greatest dynasty ever to rule England?

She remembered how when she was young she had proudly announced to Robin that she would never marry. He had laughed, told her she was a silly girl. That she was a princess born, and bound to wed. Twenty years had passed. Now she was queen and here she stood contemplating that promise. Had she known even then in her child’s heart that love, for a woman, was to be feared?

“Will I never marry?” Elizabeth said aloud, the words echoing in the marble chapel. Never marry? Never bear sons? Never birth a daughter? Hot tears sprang unexpectedly to Elizabeth’s eyes. To never have a daughter, who would speak kindly of her, cherish the tokens of her life — a ring, a book, an initialed handkerchief. But no, she forced such sentimentality from her thoughts. What need had she of children? She would be rich with subjects who loved and adored her, who would long remember her glorious reign.

Then like a miracle, the dark of the chapel was pierced by a single renegade sunbeam which streamed in through the clerestory window. Elizabeth was riveted to its startling brilliance and suddenly … There! It had been transformed into the blinding light streaming in through the Hatfield nursery windows. There! She smelled the rich scent of spice and musk. There! She heard the gay laugh, the lilting French lullaby. And then in a ghostly vision emerging from the light into clear and brilliant focus were a pair of eyes — alive, deeply black and bewitching. Yes, yes, they were her mother’s eyes! Teasing coquette’s eyes that could drive a man mad with wanting, a dark sea where his soul could drown. Arrogant flashing eyes where lived a keen intelligence that defied despair. Ever hopeful eyes that sought passion where none could finally be found.

The vision began to dim.

“No!” cried Elizabeth aloud, for she wished fervendy to bask for a few moments more in her mother’s sight.

The eyes smiled merrily then, and Elizabeth’s heart soared, for she could see they were filled with great and unspoken joy, reflecting in them the love of a tiny red-haired girl toddling with outstretched arms into her mother’s warm embrace.

“Hold, stay with me, Mother!”

She reached out her hand toward the vision, but the ghosdy eyes were fading. They grew faint … and then vanished entirely until all that was left was a shaft of light streaming in through the clerestory window. And as a great cloud moved to cover the sun, that disappeared as well.

Elizabeth stood in the chapel still as a statue of the Virgin. The vision was gone, but she had remembered. Remembered and taken within her a piece of her mother’s spirit, one that would forever be a part of herself — a second spine to keep her strong throughout the coming years, a second heart to beat within her breast. For she would surely need greatheartedness to be the Queen that the Nun of Kent had clearly prophesied. The Tudor sun who, risen from the belly of Anne Boleyn, would shine as England’s brightest star.

Elizabeth turned and swept from the chapel with the strength of destiny at her back, pulling the heavy doors closed with a resounding crash.

Yes, she thought as she strode out into the now sunlit afternoon, I am my mother’s daughter. And I shall make her proud.

This book is the result of twenty-five years of passionate interest in the brilliant world of Tudor England. My indoctrination began with a pair of novels by Norah Lofts that introduced me to the two female titans of the early sixteenth century, Anne Boleyn and Katharine of Aragon.

When simple interest turned to serious research I gained invaluable knowledge and insight into the life and times of my characters from biographies by Carolly Erickson, Marie Louise Bruce, Elizabeth Jenkins, and Paul Johnson. William Manchester’s
World Lit Only by Fire
was my source for understanding Luther and the Protestant Reformation.

I heartily thank my editor, Jeannette Seaver, for her deep understanding of this work; my copy editor, Ann Marlowe, for knowing more about the sixteenth century than I did; and my agent, Kim Witherspoon, for her dedication in finding the book its prefer home.

In the personal realm I owe enormous debts of gratitude to several people. My teacher, Deena Metzger, helped me leap the formidable hurdle from screenwriting to novel writing. Billie Morton, dear friend and fifteen-year partner in crime, not only offered the original suggestion that I write this book but dogged me eternally with kind but scathingly honest criticism and with admonishments against missed opportunities. My mother, “Skippy the lionhearted,” was the earliest and fiercest champion of my writing career, and remains my greatest inspiration.

To my husband, friend, teacher, and ally, Max Thomas, I owe the most profound debt of love and appreciation. With unfaltering loyalty and graciousness he has supported me physically, emotionally, spiritually, and materially throughout our years together.