The House Of Allerbrook

“Oh, for the love of God, will you have done?”

Across the width of the spacious bedchamber the two of them glared at each other—King Henry with feet apart and hands on hips, Queen Anne twisting her hands together and trying not to burst into tears.

And to think I was once out of my mind for love of her! Henry said to himself, staring at the termagant in front of him.

So short a time ago, she had been his one desire. He had adored her, lusted for her. He had written love letters to her, created songs and poems for her; in the gardens of Hever, her family home in Kent, he had knelt at her feet to plead with her. What on earth had possessed him? Look at her! Thin as a broom handle, her face drawn into lines of discontent, black hair escaping untidily from its expensive jewelled cap, dark eyes hard with rage.

Listening to her was no better than looking at her. Had he really ever raved about the beauty of her voice? She was as shrill as a bad-tempered cat. And look at those twisting hands! There was a tiny outgrowth at the base of one little finger, a little extra fingertip, even to the miniature nail. She was ashamed of it and wore long sleeves to conceal it. Once, in their courting days, when he caught sight of it, she had cried and said she hated it, and he had kissed it and called it sweet. Now he thought it an ugly blemish and recoiled from it. Suddenly he lost his temper.

“I have had enough! Half the morning I have been in here with you, listening while you screech at me! All because yesterday afternoon I spoke pleasantly to a shy young girl. She is timid. She was nervous of being alone with her king and I wished to make her mind easy. I will not be accused of…well, what are you accusing me of, if anything?”

“I’m not accusing you!” There was a point past which Anne dared not go. She did not know quite what she feared, except that it was the sense of power that emanated from King Henry. He couldn’t divorce her as he had her predecessor, Catherine of Aragon. He’d never get away with that twice. Catherine was still alive, after all. They’d laugh at him in the streets if he tried to take a third bride while he still had two wives living. Anne knew the people of England had no love for her. She’d heard the names they called her. That witch, NanBullen, they said, giving her surname the old English pronunciation rather than the French one, which she preferred. Another name they had for her was The Concubine.

All the same, she couldn’t imagine them letting Henry, their leader under God, play with the sacrament of marriage as though it were a tennis ball. If she couldn’t mend this breach between them, if he wanted to be rid of her and marry again…what would he do?

What, indeed? That was the cause of the fear. It lay deep in her mind, like a dark, frightening well that she didn’t want to look into. The only thing that would release him from her would be her death. And when a man had as much power as Henry had, and such a very great determination to get himself a son, one way or another…

The tears spilled over despite all her efforts to restrain them. She went to the great bed and threw herself down on it, weeping. Henry found himself moved by pity against his will. He went to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Her unblemished hand came up to cover his.

“I want to give you a son,” Anne sobbed. “I want to give you a son, so very, very much.”

Her despair, her defencelessness, stirred him as he had not been stirred for a long time, or not by her. He lifted her, and her thin form felt birdlike. He could have cracked those slender bones in his two hands. He forgot the aversion which had overwhelmed him only a few moments ago. His loins awoke. “Well, there’s only one way to go about that,” he said.

“The one thing none of us must do,” said Sir John Seymour firmly to his daughter, “is offend the king.” He was tired. His sixtieth birthday was behind him and he was feeling his years. “We should have got you married before this, I suppose,” he said. “You are already in your mid-twenties. Only, your mother hoped you would stand a better chance of a really fine match if you were at court. We didn’t expect this.”

“There isn’t really any this,” said Jane Seymour unhappily. “But the queen thinks there is.”

“Let us hope she is wrong, just a jealous woman seeing what isn’t really there. But if it is there…well, my dear, neither I nor your mother would want you to be anything but modest and virtuous. But in the last resort, if the only alternative is to make the king angry—well, don’t. That would be unwise. To annoy the king,” said Sir John warningly, “could be dangerous.”

CHAPTER SIX

Terrifying Ambition 1536

It was the month of May, 1536, and out of doors the world was burgeoning. Now was the time when cows were milked three times a day and on the moor the ponies were dropping their foals. The skies were full of singing skylarks, and in Allerbrook combe the woods echoed with birdsong and the soft call of the wood pigeons. Every part of Jane’s being wanted to be out there, among it all, but these days she rarely had the chance. Life now seemed to be all fine sewing, music and dancing.

She was being relentlessly groomed for court life. The day was coming nearer and nearer when she would be exiled from Allerbrook, perhaps forever. She knew very well that Francis and Eleanor hoped that once at court, she would take the eye of some suitable young man, and marry him. Then she would live wherever his family home might be, even if it was at the other end of England.

It was in her nature to be compliant, and certainly it was in her interests. Both Francis and Eleanor could make themselves unpleasant if crossed. But inside, she was afraid and rebellious and longed to find a way of escape. Except that there didn’t seem to be one.

Master Corby was pleased with her progress on the virginals, except that he said she put a little too much passion into her fingers. The passion came from anger and unhappiness, but it was no use telling him that. At the close of yet another music lesson, she went as she had been bidden to do, to join Eleanor, who was sewing in the parlour above the family chapel, settled in a window seat for the sake of the daylight, her workbox open on a table in front of her.

Eleanor looked a trifle wan and was putting in her stitches in an unusually languid fashion. Jane looked at her pale face and slow movements with some concern and said, “Eleanor, are you well?”

Eleanor, however, glanced up with a smile and said, “I had a restless night, that’s all. I’ve started on a new altar cloth. Come and help. You can embroider at the other end.”

“Where’s Francis today?” Jane asked. “I saw him ride off this morning. From the path he took, I thought he might be going to Dulverton.”

“Yes, he was,” Eleanor said. “To talk to a possible replacement for our poor chaplain. I like to have proper family prayers on weekdays—it keeps a household together in my opinion. I hope Francis brings someone back with him. Listen! The dogs are barking. Is he coming now?”

The window beside Eleanor didn’t overlook the yard. Jane went to one that did, throwing it open in order to look out. “Yes, it is. He’s on his own, though. And Eleanor, the horse is lathered! He never brings a horse in sweating as a rule. Something must have happened! I’ll just run down…”

“No, you won’t. Sit down,” said Eleanor. “No doubt he’ll appear in a moment and tell us all about it. A young lady shouldn’t rush about, asking questions. Come and sew with me.”

Reluctantly Jane seated herself and threaded her needle. Down in the yard, Francis was speaking to someone, probably Tim Snowe. A door slammed, however, as he came indoors and then they heard him call to Peggy, asking where his wife and sister were. A moment later he came racing up the stairs to the parlour. He flung the door open dramatically and stood in the doorway, breathless, so that both of them paused, needles poised, and looked at him in astonishment.

“It’s the queen!” he said.

“The queen?” Eleanor asked. On the stairs behind Francis, Peggy and the maids appeared, eyes wide.

“She’s been arrested,” said Francis. “Dulverton’s buzzing with it. There’s been a King’s Messenger with a proclamation. Queen Anne’s in the Tower of London, charged with treason. For taking lovers. She’s going to be tried. It’s a capital charge. It…it’s…”

“But that’s incredible!” said Eleanor, shocked, her languor quite vanished. “She’s…the queen!”

“The king’s wanted to get rid of her ever since she lost that last pregnancy, the one she must have started last summer, on progress. Ralph Palmer knows all the gossip. He went to London again in February to see his cousin Flaxton and he told me the rumours when he visited us last month. I doubt if anyone will ever know the truth, but I wouldn’t place any heavy bets on her being found innocent,” said Francis. “Even if she is.”

There was a silence. Then Eleanor said, “What about our chaplain?”

“Dr. Amyas Spenlove will join us in a few days. He was chaplain to a man who recently died and made him the executor of his will. He has business to finish before he leaves Dulverton. You’ll like him, I think.”

“We’ll be glad to see him. But this news about the queen,” said Eleanor. “It’s dreadful!”

For the rest of her life Jane was ashamed of the thoughts that went through her head as she sat listening.

If there is no queen of England, then there’ll be no need for ladies-in-waiting or maids of honour. I can stay here.

In the days that followed, news came in successive waves, like a swiftly rising tide.

King Henry, determined now to rid himself forever of the harpy into which his once-adored Anne had turned, wanted his subjects to understand why he was ridding himself of her and how, and wanted them to know, too, that the new marriage he had in mind was lawful. King’s Messengers and town criers were kept busy. Vicars, too, took up the task, repeating the latest announcements from their pulpits. Even the Gypsies who wandered the roads and the charcoal burners who often spent weeks deep in the forests encountered the news before many days had passed.

Yes, the queen was in the Tower. She had been tried, along with her so-called lovers. One of them was her personal musician, whose name was Mark Smeaton. Another was her own brother George. She had been accused of incest as well as adultery. They had all been sentenced to death. The men had been executed but the queen was still alive.

Queen Anne, the last to die, went to the block on Tower Green on May 19. She was executed with a sword, wielded by a professional headsman brought from France for the purpose on Henry’s orders. There was no professional headsman in England accustomed to use the sword, and executions by axe could be very butcherly. Sometimes it took several blows to finish the victim off. The sword, properly handled, was instantaneous.

Cynical people remarked that King Henry evidently wished to be as merciful as he could—as long as he wasn’t left with a living ex-wife whose existence might call the legality of a new marriage into question.

He had enough of that with Queen Catherine, said the knowing voices in the taverns and marketplaces. Well,Catherine of Aragon is dead now, poor soul, and so is NanBullen. Never cared for the Bullen witch myself, but I don’t thinkshe got justice.

Nor me. Can’t believe she ever went with her brother, or playedthe fool with some court minstrel. I mean, I ask you, five of them!If it were just one, well, a fellow might believe it, but five—and herthe queen, and adultery for a queen is high treason! She’d have tobe out of her mind.

Ah. You’re right there. Whatever next, that’s what we’re all wondering.

Jane heard of the queen’s death from Father Anthony Drew, the vicar of Clicket, on the Sunday following, and shuddered. That Sunday was a particularly lovely May day, more beautiful even than the day when Francis had brought home the news of the queen’s arrest. Rain in the night had been followed at daybreak by drifting early mist and then sudden, lavish sunshine. The tree-hung ride down the combe to Clicket was dappled with it, as though by a scattering of gold coins, and vegetation was growing almost while one watched. Long grass and cow parsley and red valerian overhung the edges of the lanes and the meadowsweet had come out early. May was no month for dying.

Whatever next? Everyone was asking that, and the answer came soon enough. On May 20, the day after Queen Anne’s head had rolled into the straw, King Henry had been betrothed to her former lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour.

On May 30, he married her.

Francis and Jane heard the wedding announced by the Dulverton town crier. Eleanor was not with them. She had of late seemed more and more out of sorts and now they knew why. She had been with child, but something had gone amiss and she had miscarried. She was in bed, with Peggy looking after her, while the new chaplain, Dr. Spenlove, took charge of the house. He was cheerful and competent and had very quickly established himself as someone who could deputize for Francis when required.