The Boleyn Inheritance

‘Indeed?’

‘Yes, on my honour.’ I hesitate and then I tell her the greatest reason. ‘I was not very happy at my home,’ I admit. ‘I was not highly regarded or well treated. Here I can be somebody, I can do good. At home I will never be more than an unwanted sister.’

She nods. Many women know what it is to be in the way while the great affairs of men go on without them.

‘I want to have a chance,’ I say. ‘I want to have a chance to be the woman I can be. Not my brother’s creature, not my mother’s daughter. I want to stay here and grow into myself.’

She is silent for a moment, I am surprised at the depth of my own feeling. ‘I want to be a woman in my own right,’ I say.

‘A queen is not free,’ she points out.

‘She is better than a duke’s disliked sister.’

‘Very well,’ she says quietly.

‘I suppose the king must be angry with my ambassadors for forgetting the papers?’ I ask.

‘I am sure that he is,’ she says, her eyes slide sideways. ‘But they will give their word that you are free to marry and I am sure it will all go ahead.’

‘There is no possibility of the marriage being delayed?’ I am surprised at my own feeling. I have such a strong sense that I can do much for this country, that I can be a good queen here. I want to start at once.

‘No,’ she says. ‘The ambassadors and the king’s council will resolve it. I am sure.’

I pause. ‘He does want to marry me?’

She smiles at me and touches my hand. ‘Of course he does. This is just a small difficulty. The ambassadors will undertake to produce the document and the marriage will go ahead. Just as long as you are certain that the document is there?’

‘It is there,’ I say, and I am speaking nothing but the truth. ‘I can swear to it.’

Katherine, Greenwich Palace, 6 January 1540 (#ulink_ff993bd5-080f-5f17-b6e9-6ef22a3c0c56)

I am to help the queen to dress for her wedding and I have to get up extremely early to get everything ready, I would rather not get up early, but it is nice to be singled out from the other girls who sleep so late and so lazy. Really it’s very bad of them to lie in bed so late when some of us are up and working for Lady Anne. Truly, everyone but me is completely idle.

I lay out her dress as she is washing in her closet. Catherine Carey helps me spread out the skirt and the underskirts on the closed chest as Mary Norris goes for her jewels. The skirt is enormous, like a great fat spinning top, I would rather die than marry in a dress like this; the greatest beauty in the world could not help but look like a pudding, waddling out to be eaten. It is hardly worth being queen if you have to go around like a tent, I think. The cloth is extremely fine – cloth of gold – and it is heavy with the most wonderful pearls, and she has a coronet to wear. Mary has put it out before the mirror and if no-one else was here I would try it on, but already, though it is so early, there are half a dozen of us, servants and maids and ladies in waiting, and so I have to give it a little polish and leave it alone. It is very finely wrought, she brought it from Cleves with her and she told me that the spiky bits are supposed to be rosemary, which her own sister wore as a fresh herb in her hair at her wedding. I say it looks like a crown of thorns and her lady secretary gives me a sharp look and doesn’t translate my remark. Just as well, really.

She will wear her hair loose and when she comes out of the bathroom she sits before her silver looking-glass, and Catherine brushes her hair with long, smooth strokes, like you would a horse’s tail. She is fair-haired, to be just to her she is quite golden-haired, and wrapped in a bath sheet and glowing from her wash, she looks well this morning. She is a little pale, but she smiles at all of us, and she seems happy enough. If I were her I would be dancing for joy to be Queen of England. But I suppose she is not the dancing sort.

Off she goes for the wedding and we all fall in behind her in strict order of importance, which means that I am so far back it is hardly worth my while being there, nobody will be able to see me, even though I am wearing my new gown that is trimmed with silver thread, the most costly thing I have ever owned. It is a very pale grey-blue, and suits my eyes. I never looked better; but it is not my wedding and nobody pays any attention to me at all.