La Petite Boulain Read online

  La Petite Boulain

  G.Lawrence

  Copyright © Gemma Lawrence 2016

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this manuscript may be reproduced without Gemma Lawrence's express consent

  For my sister Shani, and my brother Jamie,

  For being not only my siblings, but my friends;

  For your weird and wonderful humour and your guidance.

  And for Petra Osterberg

  For the miles we walked from Hever to Penshurst;

  For the sandwiches eaten in the moat of Eltham;

  For walking the steps of Anne Boleyn with me.

  Defiled is my name full sore,

  Through cruel spite and false report,

  That I may say for ever more.

  Farewell my joy, adieu comfort

  For wrongfully ye judge of me,

  Unto my name a mortal wound,

  Seek what ye list, it will not be;

  Ye seek for that can not be found.

  Robert Johnson

  Oh Death, rock me asleep,

  Bring on my quiet rest,

  Let pass my very guiltless ghost

  Out of my careful breast.

  Toll on thou passing bell,

  Ring out my doleful knell,

  Let thy sound my death tell,

  Death doth draw nigh,

  There is no remedy.

  Anon, attributed to Anne Boleyn

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Thank You

  Prologue

  17th May 1536

  The Tower of London

  Circa Regna Tonat

  I am not alone. Ghosts and spies surround me. I cannot run, nor hide. Shapes seem to move in the darkness about me.

  The walls of this, my most opulent prison, are filled with the ghostly faces of those who were here before me. Their hollow faces stare out at me, watching me, from between golden thread and white plaster. I see them with but the edge of my vision, yet I see them.

  Their ghostly forms shift and bend, flitting in and out of sight; they are behind the painted wall covers and tapestries, they move through the streets below and the towers above. From the window I see these shades mingle with the living, unseen by the crowds of people and peasants that amble through these palace streets about their daily business. I see ethereal rich clothing billow in winds that move through the paths and walkways. I see their phantom faces look up at the windows of my rooms. I hear their step behind me, close to my heel and when I turn, I see them disappearing once again.

  I am haunted by their faces. I see those who died long ago, and those who have just passed. They are legion. How is it that no one else can see them?

  The living do not see the dead; they do not feel it when their shoulders brush against these ghosts. But I can see them now, now that I am so close to becoming one of them.

  Today, my brother’s face has joined them, staring at me blankly from the walls; he no longer smiles. Does he, too, blame me for his death?

  The others are also here; More, Fisher, Norris, Brereton, Smeaton, Weston. They join the other ghosts: murdered princes, murdered kings, dukes, ladies and common men. They all lurk beside me in this great palace, watching and waiting for me to join them; their silver fingers reach out from the walls to touch me, and I shiver to feel them close.

  Some of them are men I condemned to die here, if not by my hand, then by my will. They wait for me to die because I was the author of their deaths. As Queen, I might say it was my right to remove those who threatened my power. But as a mortal woman sat awaiting death, I now fear what these shades will have said to God on my behalf.

  Soon mine own ghost may wander with those shades and shadows I see before me. Is this place lost to God? Is that why these shades linger here? Am I, too, lost to God and to salvation? For what crime? For what sin have I been cast here, other than never showing to the King the humility of a true wife? God alone will know if I was guilty of enough to be brought to such a terrible end. I am innocent of the crimes I have been accused here of, and the Lord of Heaven must know this… but are there other sins I will be held accountable for when I face the gates of Heaven? What will these shades which walk at my side accuse me of, before the light of God?

  I have much in my life to be sorry for, and yet of none of what I am accused am I guilty. Yet we all come to think on our sins when Death lingers at our side.

  Empty darkness stretches before me in my dreams, when I can dream, when I can sleep. There is a chill running through my blood not caused by the cold stone of the Tower. The fire before me brings no warmth. Winds bay in the darkness of the night, howling about my windows and doors. The winds shriek at me, startling me from staring through this window, startling me from my dreaming, my wonderings… bringing me back into this unrelenting nightmare.

  I cannot move, I cannot run. I am trapped. I have no control.

  Finally, I am the true subject of the King.

  I am his prisoner now, subject to his will. This was what he desired of me in life: to have me, to hold me, to control me, to command me… It was the spice of such a chase, such a challenge, which first awoke his interest in me, and what kept him chasing all those years. To have a woman, any woman, refuse him was almost unimaginable to him when we first met. They all said that his love for me would die in the long chase… that he would cast me off… that he would go back to his first wife… and yet, he did not. It was not the chase that he tired of, but the capture. I could not hold him, once I had become his wife.

  But now, I am truly subject to his will, and now his will is my death.

  I see the ghost of myself, just a few short years ago, glowing; dancing and prancing in these chambers for joy, laughing with friends and playing with her courtiers, smothered in jewels and furs, diamonds choking her slim neck, her hands weighted down in gold and emeralds. I shiver to see that ghost of my foolish self as she glides past me, glowing with exultation and pride, snapping her bold fingers at those who would oppose her, thinking she is safe, safe forever in the love of the King… my husband, finally my husband! After all those years I had him, at last. I was so happy that day. I remember it so clearly. My triumph, my crown, my England, my King! I shone that day; beautiful and adored, with my husband the King looking on, his love lighting my triumph like a wild flame; I was Queen. I was his Queen. I had ascended.

  I was a fool; dancing, prancing and prattling my way to death.

  And now, it is that same long-fought-for husband, that same handsome, glorious king who holds my doom in his hands. It is my husband who will have my death.

  My throat feels constrained, tight; the hands of Fate are pressing on its slim and elegant bones. Breath after breath comes painfully, but that will all stop soon. There will be no more brea
thing; there will be no more singing, no more dancing, no more laughing… no more living. The wolves of court have caught their prey and now they close in for the final blow. Will there be peace for me finally, at the end? Perhaps a peace I have never known in life. I long for it now, now, now, now. Not to wait more hours and more minutes and more days, but just to come to the end now. Waiting for an end one cannot escape… this is true torture.

  They sent Cranmer to me; Master Kingston brought him in. I clasped the hands of perhaps the last true friend I have in this world and felt tears come to my eyes to see the soft sorrow in his. He thought to bring me hope; that if I agreed that my marriage to the King was no true marriage, that if I had indeed been pre-contracted to Henry Percy, oh, so many years ago, then even now, the King might show leniency, send me to enter a religious order, rather than take my head on the block. I looked at my friend, and I almost smiled.

  “He wants to be rid of me,” I said softly, looking down at my hands; they shook slightly as I thought on his words. “He will re-write all that has happened, and cast me from his memory. As if I was never his wife, as if none of this ever occurred.”

  I smiled at Cranmer’s grave face. “You think to bring me comfort, old friend,” I said softly. “But the King, and his men… Cromwell… they will not let me go so easily, not now.” I looked up at him, shaking my hands at my sides, as though I could shake the fear from them. “If the King will agree to watch over our daughter, even if she is declared a bastard, if he will agree to be still a father to her, if he will protect her, then I will agree to these things put here before me.”

  Cranmer nodded; I knew that he was thinking that he was unlikely to have trouble in convincing the King to agree to such a small request. To accept a daughter the King already knew was his, in exchange for writing Anne Boleyn out of his life, out of history… this was a small request.

  Cranmer nodded to me, and I agreed to all he said; that I was pre-contracted to Percy, that my marriage to the King was no true marriage, that I was not the wife of Henry Tudor, that I was not the Queen of England… that my daughter was a bastard.

  I told lies for the pen and ink of man and law, for my daughter, for Elizabeth, in the hope that this last sacrifice might allow him to reconcile himself to her, to remain as a father to my daughter. Katherine’s refusal to do the same as I did now only led to her and her daughter being hated and ostracised by Henry. If there was anything I could do now, to ensure that the same fate did not touch my own daughter, then I would do it. The last act I could perform, to try and protect my little girl. The last act of a mother, trying to ensure the survival of her daughter.

  Cranmer heard my confession that night, but it was a simple one. I told my old friend the truth, as I told it to God; I had ever been a faithful wife to the King, I had not tarried with other men, or wished or plotted for his death. I had not always shown humility or graciousness to the one who raised me up from noble seat to throne of royalty, but I had not committed the sins for which I was to die. Cramner expressed no surprise at my confession; he knows as well as I that there are other reasons I am to die. The life of the court is a game of power, a game I was most skilled at… but I have lost this final hand to another player, and now I am in his way.

  Cranmer left me that night, my lies walked beside him to the King. With the coming of the morning, my brother and those men accused with me for adultery and treason walked out to their bloody deaths. I watched them die. And I sit still staring from this window. Unable to sleep, haunted by the ghosts of the past and the wind outside these walls. My fears surround me, my impatience to die fights with my will to live. My head is filled with thoughts and memories, with regrets and yet with memories of sweetness too; perhaps it is this way for all who know their end is coming.

  The dusty platform on which the final moments of my life will be played has been built. The swordsman from France will be here soon; they have prepared a stage upon which my life will end with the sudden sweep of a sword. I will never see my daughter again. I will never see my husband… and he will never see me again; that is what Henry does when he disposes of a wife. He leaves and she is forgotten. I will become a myth; vilified and tainted. My name will be spoken as they speak of cursed women of the Bible, of spiteful faeries, or Arthur’s Guinevere. I will become a story used to make children behave, eat their dinner, or go to bed. I will become a demon; the Evil Queen Anne, the betrayer, the traitor, the whore, the witch. They will not remember me truly. They will not remember my charity, my loyalty, my desire for reform. They will not remember my love for my family, for my daughter, or my love for my husband.

  It was a love that made the Church tremble. A love that made England roar. It was a true love, an equal love, a mighty love. It was all-powerful… once.

  But people will forget these things, especially Henry. I know him too well to doubt it. His courtiers will tell him pretty lies to justify his wishes; they will paint me as a witch, as a whore. It is easier for Henry to believe that I deceived him in everything I ever did, in everything I ever was, than to believe that he wishes to get rid of me for the satisfaction of his own desires. He cannot believe bad of himself, he never could. To believe these lies of me will make it easier for him to kill his own wife, his once true love. Henry was always happy within a world of fantasy; now, in this tale, I am the evil harpy sent to lead him astray, but he is still the good knight, the virtuous prince. I will be killed and my name defiled, but he will live on as the great King who triumphed over evil.

  The people will believe his stories of me; I always had fewer supporters than Katherine. I was never liked by many of the common people; they resented me, resented my rise in fortune and power. My temper and my arrogance helped little to win people to me, but my temper always had the better of me. I learned self-control far, far too late in life. But the common people blamed me for things that Henry too was a part of, acts and actions he took of his own accord. They blamed me for everything which happened in Henry’s rule; for Katherine, for Mary, for England, for the reform of the Church, for the dissolutions of the monasteries. Henry will get away with killing me; there are none left now who would risk themselves to save me. Not even my father.

  But there are those who will mourn me. They will mourn my death in secret, but there will be some in this world to sorrow at my passing.

  And what of our child… my poor Elizabeth? Will Henry truly be kind to the daughter of a demon? When I think of my child I fear I shall truly go out of my mind; the thought of Elizabeth makes me sick. I cannot run to her as I wish to, I cannot protect her, I cannot hold her. She will be made a bastard, no more a princess… stigmatised as my daughter. But she is still the daughter of the King, and he cannot deny her that. No, he cannot deny that she was the true fruit of our love. She is the very image of him, with that red hair aflame with the fire of the Tudors, her pale skin and the little mouth which pouts when she is thwarted. Oh yes, she is Henry’s daughter and none could claim otherwise. But the eyes in that little face are mine, those dark deep black pools; when I am gone, my eyes will still look on the world from within her face.

  In Elizabeth at least, something good of me will continue to live in this world. I wish I could explain to her what is to happen, but she is only a babe. If she is clever, she will not seek to mention my name as she grows, but I hope that she will remember something that is good and sweet about me. I hope that she will live to see a better life than her mother’s. I pray to God that she will lead a quieter, happier life than mine.

  I cannot rest; I am plagued with thoughts that have no sense, no linear sense. Images and broken fragments of conversation flit through my mind, perhaps I do start to lose my mind, as so many have done in this Tower.

  But a month ago, I had thought that there was little that could threaten me for my position, power, or my place in his heart; and now I am to die at his pleasure. There was so much time waiting to be his queen and such a short time being his queen. Three years. That is all my reign w
as. I could not hold it once I had it; his love, the crown, my power… it has all slipped through my fingers.

  Henry has a tested method to discard unwanted wives. He has practised it well and often now. That Seymour creature will need to be wary… Will she succeed where Katherine and I failed? A matter of chance is all it is; produce a son and your position is safe, fail to do so and become the next wife to be shut in a castle, awaiting death at the King’s pleasure. He did it to Katherine; waiting long years until she wasted away, her heart broken but her pride still intact, but for me there will be a quicker solution, a faster removal. Henry does not often make the same mistake twice. He is getting better at his own game.

  I cannot hold only Henry to blame though. It was not all his fault. There was also me; my pride, my harsh tongue, my reckless, careless mouth. There were the long weary years of waiting for an annulment from Katherine that took such a toll on us both. There was my refusal to become what he wanted in a wife; my reluctance to relinquish the power I had over Henry as his untouched mistress. There was my failure to conceive a son for him. My womb became as barren to his seed as Katherine’s had. I think on Katherine and her daughter much now, for only now do I understand their pain, the pain that I helped cause. I understand it, because that same pain is now mine. I too am now imprisoned, held and captured, my daughter kept from me, abandoned by the King. God shows me now, at the end, the pain I caused to others. He grants their pain to me. These are harsh lessons to learn.