“I have read it, twice over—the entire book!”
Anne was awed with the secret message, searing in indictments, scandalous in generosity. Why had she waited to read it? If it undid the world, so be it. The book belonged in the hands of the people, no matter what chaos it loosed.
Something did trouble her, deep within. Something lodged in her spirit that she couldn’t dismiss. She didn’t know what to do with it, this thing that thrilled to hear the secret words, but felt fear when she considered her new happiness. She had it all—the blessing of an heir in her womb, the gift of the crown for her family and name. Why did she not rejoice in these blessings? Why was there no ease?
Henry grunted and sat on the edge of her bed, looking out the window. Hampton Court was so quiet these past few weeks with so many of the women gone and Wolsey dead.
“What is it, Henry?”
“Do you not wonder, Anne?”
“What?”
“Do you not wonder why things happen as they do? If they are not signs from God, indications of His pleasure or fury, what are they? How are we to read our days?”
Anne set the book aside.
“I do not know. But I am learning,” she said, taking her time with these next words. “I am learning to think less of my days and trust more in God’s purpose.”
Leaning over to kiss her belly, he pressed his hands deep into the bed to steady himself.
He recoiled in horror.
Charging from the room, he began shouting. Anne could hear much yelling in the halls. She threw back the coverlet to rise and go after him and saw she had been lying in a pool of blood.
The cramps were constant. She found it hard to breathe. The pain stabbed and stabbed without stopping. She was panting, writhing to find a position that eased the muscles and kept the baby inside.
Dr. Butts was helpless, standing at the side of the bed with a look that she had seen only once before. It had been in the French Court, when the king had sentenced a thief to hanging. His family had stood motionless and without expression, as he was dragged away. If they ever cried, no one knew.
The pressure came, the force that crushed all reason and objection. She had to push. She grabbed for Dr. Butts’ hand to save her, as her muscles contracted, pushing.
“Dear God, make it stop!” she screamed, pushing again.
“Mercy! Mercy!” she cried out, to anyone who would listen, anyone who might help.
With one more push, he was delivered.
“Oh, God!” Anne cried, reaching for the baby, but Dr. Butts had already snatched him, rubbing him furiously, muttering wild prayers under his breath. Anne couldn’t hear the words—was he praying for the child or his own life?
He stopped and his shoulders dropped. “What have you done?” he whispered.
Anne’s heart contracted sharply, fear shooting through her body. Dr. Butts turned to her, slowly, holding out the infant, its face shrouded with linen wrappings.
“Catherine died a few hours ago.” He said it as an accusation.
Anne held her hands out for the baby. Its face should not be shrouded, she thought. It won’t breathe well.
“Thou art surely a witch!” Dr. Butts said. “I will not die for your sin.”
He laid the baby on the bed and ran from the room. Anne thought she was going to faint, but no one was offering her water or wet rags to wipe her face with. Her vision sharpened, and she saw there were servants in the room, pressed against the walls. No one was moving.
She would not faint. She took a deeper breath, dragging the baby closer up the bed. It was not moving.
“No, no,” she whispered, peeling back the linen, piece by piece.
It was a boy. But he was not as a child should be; his arms were shriveled and his head was bulging in one area. She could not bear to see him and threw a linen over his still face before she screamed.
The servants moved with a collective will, moving towards the door, keeping themselves as far from her as possible. No one met her eyes. Anne began to sob. She looked with clouded, stinging eyes, and pain was everywhere. Nothing was the same. The turtledoves calling from the courtyard pained her ears; the gold of the room stung her eyes. She was too far from home.
“I want my brother!” she wept.
The last of the servants leaving heard this, his face changing when she said it.
She was taken by barge to the Tower, through the Traitor’s Gate. People were running to the water’s edge to see her, screaming obscenities … some in Catherine’s name, others in God’s.
As she was led along the stone path, she heard unimaginable screams.
The guard smiled. “Seems your brother is already here.”
“My brother? Why? What has he done?”
The guard laughed, his grip on her arm bruising her. “They’ll work him hard through the night, and take confession tomorrow.”
“This is madness!” Anne began struggling, trying to break free and run towards the screams. “George!”
The guard knocked her off her feet and spat on her.
She looked up at the guard’s face twisted in hate. Her Yeoman cast a sidelong glance, and Anne saw no one else near them. He elbowed the guard so hard that the man went down on his knees. Turning his back so that Anne could not see his face, he faced the guard and raised his arms.
The guard screamed in terror, scrambling away on all fours. There was no time for Anne to think, for new guards ran from around the corner. They picked her up and continued her descent into hell.
The room was clean enough, and she was given servants, handpicked by Henry, but she was delirious from fear, fear that would not let her sleep or eat. Some moments she was laughing, which made the other women pale and silent. When she wept, only then did they have the nerve to come near and touch her.
“I want to see Elizabeth,” she moaned. “Please tell Henry I want to see our daughter.”
Elizabeth was brought to her, and Anne beheld her face, so perfect and plump, God’s utter grace out of her imperfect union. Anne inhaled deeply as she cradled her, drinking in the fragrance of roses and sunlight. At last the ladies scooped Elizabeth away from her, cradling her gently and promising her many treats.
Anne saw in her mind the men of the court … how she had stood before them as queen, receiving all honour, and just yesterday, stood before them accused, dripping with shame. Even her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, who had served her at her wedding feast, betrayed her. They pronounced Henry’s good pleasure that she die by beheading. Henry was not there. Jane’s father was, and Anne saw that he wore scarlet now, the colour of nobility. Jane had done well for herself.
She had begun to chuckle quietly, and the men shifted in their seats.
Henry, no doubt, was already commanding her to produce an heir. He needed an heir for more than just the kingdom; he needed an heir to be justified, to silence the blood that began to stain the ground all around him. His train was of blood, his coat of arms was of blood. Jane was in love, no doubt, and could not taste it.
“Have you a defense?”
Anne shook her head. “Henry knows I did not commit this crime. It is not in my heart. Nor is it in my brother’s. Henry knows this full well.”
She lay awake through the night, her body straining to hear if her brother screamed. He would not confess before death, she knew this. He would not tell them his secret.
But he did.
She rose at 2 a.m. to begin saying her prayers. Every time she drifted to sleep, she was awakened by her own cries. Begging God to speak. Begging for mercy in her hour of need. She checked her clock often, her little Nuremburg Egg that Henry had given her to mark the hours until they could be together again. It had been a love gift from long ago.
The night watchmen were agitated, peering in at her with deep scowls. Her maids said it was because she was a witch; they were terrified she might escape. Messages came throughout the night, causing them to become more animated. The maids heard only pieces of the conversations.
Signs and wonders were rocking the city. A nobleman of Henry’s court had awakened at midnight from a nightmare, a premonition of Anne’s death that caused him much suffering. The candles all around Catherine’s tomb, tucked quietly away at an abbey, flamed to life by themselves, and when the priest cried out, they extinguished. Henry had sent men to the tomb, fearful perhaps that Catherine might rise and decry his justice. Anne’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, dreamed that he would be condemned in the next life, consumed by flame and sentenced to ride for one thousand years with four headless horses. He sent word to the Tower to watch Anne, to prevent her from casting such spells with the devil.
Anne paid them no mind. What business of this was hers, how the spirits tormented those who betrayed her? Their names were safe. It was what they wanted.
The sun had risen about an hour before, when her cell door opened. Her maids had just finished dressing her in a black robe, with a white ermine draped across her shoulders. She stroked the soft fur, a new pelt that still had the stench of the tannery.
Her Yeoman stood behind the constable of the Tower. She saw him as if in a dream, a beautiful dream.
She drank in the flecked colour of the stone walls, and the morning air that has just been touched by the sun. It had been a beautiful world. She did not know what the next would be like.
“It is ecstasy,” her Yeoman said, his face still straight ahead, holding her arm as she was led down the winding stone steps, the little crooked staircases with steps so narrow that it took great concentration to make her way down. Her billowing skirt meant she couldn’t see her feet; she was relying totally on him.
She knew that voice.
She stopped cold on the stairs, and he turned to her. She saw his eyes were enormous gold orbs with pinpoint black irises. He had eyes like the lion she had seen in the royal menagerie. She had stared at the beast when he was brought forth; she had been sad to see such majesty paraded for amusement and doomed to die alone, far from the plains that birthed him.
She realized her Yeoman’s steps made no noise, though hers went clack-clack against the stones.
“No one dies alone, Anne,” he said. “How I have loved you and walked with you through all your days.” His face shimmered, little muscles in his face rippling. She saw tears spilling out of the corners of his eyes. “Do you remember when you were born, and they were rubbing you down with wine, how your eyes met mine for the first time and you grew so still, so serious, that it made me laugh?”
“I am sorry. I do not remember this day.”
“These first years, they are God’s gift to us. We do not have to shadow ourselves near our children. We take such delight in those days. But you do not remember.”
He stopped, his face composing itself into a serene expression, the tears evaporating from his cheeks. She watched him as he turned to shadow at the edges. He leaned down and kissed her on her forehead, inhaling her perfume with a heavy sigh.
“My time of service to you has ended. One greater than I has come to walk with you.”
They exited the stairwell into the Tower Green. The block was in sight, a platform raised by only four wide steps. That comforted her somehow; she would not be raised so high as to be an even greater spectacle. Her executioner was there—a thin, stringy man, undeniably French, with a waxen face and obvious impatience to collect his fee. He had been hired, she knew, as a sign of Henry’s gracious nature, for his aim was said to be perfect. Few of his victims had needed more than one stroke.
“Why did George confess?” She blurted, afraid her Yeoman would leave, wanting the answer, wanting to keep him here. “I would have protected him to the end.”
The Yeoman did not reply, and Anne was terrified of the silence.
“I knew he desired men more than women,” she said. “But I kept this shame between us, for the sake of our name. Now we both die in dishonour.”
“Shh. He thought it would prove your innocence. He did not see they were infected with the madness of the age. No truth could be spoken to them.”
Anne began to cry, and he reached out and caught the tears. “This is the end of sorrow, Anne.”
“This is not what I wanted. Known as a whore and a witch … endless amusement for idle women. I sought to serve God.”
“You did. And your name has always been secure in His presence. He has given you a new name, sacred to Him. You are His beloved daughter.”
“I am afraid,” she whispered.
“When you lay your head on the block, you will feel someone lay across you, His arms over yours, His neck across your own. The blade will pass through Him first, and you will be free. Do you understand?”
“Will I see you again?” she asked.
“I must walk many days upon this earth before we are together again. Elizabeth will be loved. I will never leave her side.”
He bowed as the sheriff took hold of her.
Henry betrothed himself to Jane the next day.
The gardens at Hampton Court, indeed, the flowers of all of England, were blooming, new life springing up, the dead blossoms trampled underfoot making the soil rich and fertile. Henry entered into this new union full of hope and eagerness. The people of the realm had no idea that he had unleashed a thousand stinging serpents among them. Suffering was his lasting heir; it claimed his crown and carried his name into all future generations.
Thousands would die under his reign. Jane would die giving him the heir he so longed for. The child, Edward, was not long lived.
Soon England would send her exiles to a new land called America, and King James would authorize a Bible that pleased the crown and could be presented to the people. He would borrow heavily from the Bible first translated by William Hutchins, also known as William Tyndale. It was this book, the infamous Hutchins Bible, which set all of Europe on fire.
Elizabeth would eventually take the throne and become of the most beloved monarchs in the world.
She was never alone.