La Petite Boulain Read online

  Although I had my mother’s wide, large eye sockets, the eyes that flashed out from beneath my thick black lashes were my father’s; black, deep and dark depths that masked the thoughts that raced behind them. I came to rely on my eyes later in life, but when I was a child I disliked them. They were not a beautiful golden-brown like Mary’s or the warm hazel-brown of my brother’s eyes. No, my eyes had none of such warmth… but when I was excited or angry, my eyes sparkled like our fish ponds in the moonlight.

  I had the high cheekbones that we all three had inherited. My face was oval and my lips full and deep pink. My hands were thin and graceful, much like my mother’s; my long fingers made me naturally a better musician than my sister. Later, people would say that I had another finger on one of my hands, which proved I was a witch. Strangely, that was one of the slanders about me spoken by the common people which upset me the most. My long, elegant fingers were the loveliest things about me in my eyes; and I only ever had eight fingers and two thumbs.

  My limbs were strong and I was to grow to be middling tall for a woman, with a willowy look about me. I was not an un-pretty child to be sure, but I always felt lacking when I stood near Mary, whose beauty shone clear and true. There was always something in my features that seemed to me unfinished, something that you could not quite make out about me. This queerness I knew people felt as they looked me over, and as time went on I realised that glances would return to me and linger long after they had taken in Mary’s obvious charms. I was something of an unknown, something made those glances return to me, and keep watching, as though no one was sure what I was; whether I was beautiful or not, whether I was intelligent or not. When I caught my mother watching me in such a way I pouted, feeling that of all people, she should not watch me so. She smiled and stroked my face with her gentle hand and wondered aloud if I had been given to her by the faeries.

  “For they say the faeries are small and dark like you, Anne,” she said.

  I did not want to be a faerie, I told her, for they lived in the mounds of the earth and I much preferred our comfortable house and the softness of my down-stuffed bed. My mother then let one side of her mouth curve up and lifted one of her eyebrows.

  “Then you show good sense child, and reason far beyond those years of yours!” she smiled at me and leaned in to whisper to me. “I’ll wager that Mary would be a faerie as soon as she was offered, eh?”

  I smiled too, for Mary was always indeed ready to enter into any new adventure, something that our mother would come to despair of later in life.

  “Mary!” our mother called across the gardens. “The faeries have offered you a place at their court; what say you to such an offer?”

  Mary came bounding over, her face alive with the idea of living at the Faerie Court. I sniffed at her as she laughed with mother; I did not like attention to leave me for so long.

  “Then you are a fool, Mary,” I snapped with my long black hair swinging by my face and my dark eyes glittering. My temper was easily riled.

  “Anne!” my mother reproved me and slapped my hand; it was not like a lady to speak so. Mary looked hurt. Like a rose, she bruised easily.

  “She is so, my lady mother!” I went defiantly on, my wild voice ringing. “For much better than the Faerie Court would be the real court. The Court of England. The real court with the King would be much better than one made of earth and dirt. Think of how dirty all our dresses and hair would be! We would grow worms in the place of our hair!” And with that, both my mother and Mary laughed and I was forgiven for calling my sister a fool. I had a gift for outrageous behaviour, but could often soothe it with laughter.

  My brother George was usually somewhat apart from our games. George was handsome and always bold; he had the look of my mother in his face but it mingled well with the strength of our father’s features. George had well-defined cheekbones, a good leg and later a strong athletic figure. He had our father’s strength and our mother’s warmth. It was a good mixture.

  Despite being younger than me, George was my hero when I was a child, and he was my friend ever after that time. He would boldly climb trees and steal birds’ eggs. Mary was so upset at the thought of the baby birds being stolen from their mothers that she ran away, but I loved to stroke the shells of those beautiful eggs; some mottled blue and white and some with creamy shells dotted with brown spots. George let me keep one of them in my room, as my very own. He called it ‘the spoils of war’ and even allowed me for a while to be his second in command. I was supposed to be a man in those games, as women did not command armies, or so George said. But I knew my lessons better than George…

  “Isabella of Castille commanded armies, Joan of France led men into battle,” I would say with my hands on my hips and my dark eyes snapping, and then George would threaten to expel me from the game if I did not play his way. Although I knew I was right, I had to give in; I did not want to lose the honour of being George’s right-hand commander.

  We were happy in childhood, Mary, George and me, sometimes visiting our uncle at Blickling in Norfolk, yet spending most of our days at Hever in Kent. We were very close in ages, each having been born almost a year after the other. Later people would say that I was a commoner, an upstart, raised above her natural station in life, but my family was descended from great houses of English nobility. Our mother, Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, was of the direct line of the ancient King Edward I and had been the Lady Elizabeth Howard before she married my father. The Howards were a powerful family; her own father was the present Earl of Surrey and her grandfather had been the Duke of Norfolk.

  Our mother’s father had been held in the Tower of London following the Battle of Bosworth Field, where he had fought on the side of King Richard III, who had lost. His own father, our great-grandfather, had been killed in the battle. The only reason, our mother told us, that her father had fought on the wrong side was because of the great loyalty the Howard family had to the throne. The Howards had pledged their loyalty to Richard III as King, and so, had fought for him.

  After Bosworth was won by King Henry VII, our grandfather was held in the Tower of London for some years until the King had released him, knowing well his worth and loyalty as a soldier of the crown. Now, our grandfather was in high favour once again at court; he was the King’s great general, and was sent to suppress rebellions against the crown in the north of England. My mother’s brother, Lord Thomas Howard, was even married to the sister of the dead Queen Elizabeth, the Princess Anne of York. We were well favoured and connected at the court of Henry VII.

  “People still whisper about the loyalties of the Howards,” our mother told us. “But people always seek to destroy those who are raised higher than them, those more favoured than them. You must never forget the greatness of our family,” she told us. “And never forget that that greatness comes from the favour of the throne and the talents of those clever enough to use them.”

  Our father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, was a younger son of a family descended from the Earls of Ormond. As a younger son, he was fortunate enough to marry an heiress of the Howard family, but he was a rising star at a court which valued his natural talents. It was due to my father’s cleverness, and eventually mine too, that the Boleyns would rise beyond the gifts that heritage and wits alone had given us, and into the circles of greatness.

  Our father was often away from home, at the English Court; he was an intelligent and useful man who made his way through his own brilliance. Later, people would whisper spitefully that Thomas Boleyn only got advancements through the open legs of his daughters, but this was not so. Our father would have been valued for himself even if his daughters had not caught the eye of the King. Our father was a great scholar and a modern man; a follower of the New Learning and of humanist thought. The New Learning was a great revival of the works of Greek, Roman and other ancient cultures, and appreciation for classical architecture, design and styles. Scholars were interested in learning Latin and Greek, so that they might revisit the works of ancient philo
sophers and also learn to read and interpret the original scripts of the Scriptures themselves. Some saw the New Learning as sacreligious, as the word of God had long been the office of the Church, with her priests alone authorised to transcribe and translate the word of God to the common man. But our father was a keen scholar with a sharp mind and he, like many others, believed that man should be able to read the word of God for himself, and take part in the New Learning.

  Our father’s interest in humanism and the New Learning was also a likely reason for our excellent education. Humanists believed that members of the elite should be educated to a high standard, to prepare for a life where they would serve the common good of all with their knowledge. Humanists taught that men should learn to master all of their God-given gifts and talents, so that the nobility could take care of the needs of the poor and lowly. They also believed that peace was preferable to war. Whilst many of these goals were, particularly in the case of everlasting peace, seen as lofty and unrealistic, there were many amongst the high and the noble in courts all through Christendom who followed humanist teachings. In our father’s case, however, I believe that the excellent education he supplied us with came about as much from a desire to have children who were of great use to him, as from his humanist beliefs. Perhaps the one desire fed the other, or the first interest sparked the second… one never knew with our father.

  Thomas Boleyn was not just a man of intellect, but also one of action. He spoke many languages and was a useful ambassador, sent on countless diplomatic missions during his lifetime. Desiderius Erasmus himself, that great philosopher of our times, would compliment and praise my father after meeting him in France. But our father was also an excellent jouster and sportsman; something which would endear him to the lords of the court and would eventually spur on his advancement still further. For much as kings love men with a mind inside their heads, they, like all men, love to be with those whose interests mirror their own.

  Thomas Boleyn was an accomplished courtier who knew well how to play the games of politics and power. He was a man to be greatly admired in many ways, but he could also be ruthless, ambitious and dangerous.

  George idolised our father when we were young, and we all followed our father’s lead more often than not when we were grown. Thomas Boleyn was the head of our house, and we owed loyalty to him. Our father and mother gave us grand ideals to follow from an early age, and we wanted desperately to prove that we were worthy of being their children. George often boasted that he would marry an heiress and become a Duke, a star of the jousting field and a hero of war. Although he was chided for this boldness and arrogance, I think George’s boasts were close enough to what our family was expecting of all of us, and especially of George as the heir; advancement and greatness. In our education and our accomplishments our father meant to give us the best start he could; his children were destined to further his dreams and lead our family higher still in society. This is what he polished us for; and we wanted it… we were eager for it.

  We would surprise even our ambitious parents in how high we would eventually rise.

  In the day, we trained in dancing, music, the classics and languages; I loved to dance and to sing and I had a sweet, clear voice that could make people shiver with enjoyment. I was proud of my voice and sung often. Mary and George had fine voices too, and to hear the three of us sing together was something beautiful. We would learn and sing old songs which our mother taught us, songs of valour and sorrow, of love and of loss. One of my favourites was the song of ‘The Three Ravens’. With one of us singing the principal part, and the others singing in a round at the refrain, George, Mary and I could make this song of sorrow and loss into a work of prettiness:

  There were three ravens sat on a tree

  Down a down, hay down, hay down,

  They were as black as they could be

  With a down derry, derry, derry, down, down.

  The one of them said to his mate,

  Where shall we our breakfast take?

  Down a down, hay down, hay down,

  “Down in yonder greene field,

  There lies a knight slain under his shield”

  With a down derry, derry, derry, down, down.

  “His hounds they lie down at his feet

  So well they can their master keep”

  Down a down, hay down, hay down,

  “His hawks they fly so eagerly

  There’s no fowl dare him come night”

  With a down derry, derry, derry, down, down.

  Down there comes a fallow doe

  As great with young as she might go

  Down a down, hay down, hay down,

  She lift’d up his bloody head

  And kissed his wounds that were so red

  With a down derry, derry, derry, down, down.

  She got him up upon her back

  And carried him to earthen lake

  Down a down, hay down, hay down,

  She buried him before the prime

  She was dead herself ere even-song time

  With a down derry, derry, derry, down, down.

  God send every gentleman

  Such hawks, such hounds and such a leman

  With a down derry, derry, derry, down, down.

  We were often called upon to perform for our parents, and any visiting courtiers to the castle of Hever. Our young voices matched each other so well that we sounded quite angelic, even if many of the songs were of death and love and loss.

  Mary was not as good at learning her instruments as George and I were. We were clever in ways that she was too flighty for, but all of us deeply loved music. George would write songs and poems and give them to Mary and me to sing; soon he would give them to me to put to music, also, as I started to play with making my own tunes and songs. We were precocious in our musical talents I think; there are many others I have met since who played well enough, and could copy the tunes of others, but yet never experienced the joys of creating music for themselves. Since music and singing were accomplishments greatly admired at court, we were much encouraged in our studies and experiments in the musical arts.

  We were allowed to play and work in the schoolroom or the long gallery at Hever. Of the two, we liked the long gallery better; it was newly built and made in the modern style. We could dance and sing in there whenever there were no visiting courtiers who might wish to use the passage for walking or talking on days where the rain drove them within the walls of the castle. Hever was close enough to London that our father could ride back to visit with ease and keep an eye on his growing family. Our mother visited court with our father at times, and then there would just be us children and the trusted servants that our family kept at the pretty castle. At those times, we would have the long gallery to ourselves and the walls would echo with the sound of tiny feet as we practised and practised the dances that our dancing master put before us to learn. We got used to the bruises and the blisters from hours of dancing the same steps and our feet hardened through our laborious practise. The sound of the lute and the harpsichord often filled the upper levels of the house. I remember the sound of Mary’s happy laughter as she succeeded in completing a complicated dance without fault, and George and I applauded her. We were close, we children, locked away from the world in that little castle amongst the forests of Kent, which shone beautifully in the light of each dying day.

  As we grew older I found that it was I, more so than Mary, to whom the adults turned for an opinion or an answer. I was checked often for boldness, and beaten, too, for what my mother called “sauciness”. I did not mean to be saucy, even though at the time I hardly knew what it meant other than it was something naughty. It was just that I knew so often that I was right when I spoke, that I felt that I should speak first. Although my parents had me beaten for such behaviour, they did not discourage me entirely from boldness. I think my father liked my confidence, and saw a certain usefulness in it. My mother, I think, worried more that with such spirit I should never find a husba
nd who would keep me, or that I would get one who would beat the insides from me once married. But my father and others saw that this confidence could be useful and encouraged it.

  “After all,” he said to our mother when they thought I could not hear, “she is to go overseas if I can manage to arrange it; she will need some spirit if she is to stand out.”

  Mary, too, saw that the adults were thinking differently of our futures, and perhaps this should have made her jealous. But there was little bitterness in Mary; she seemed not to have room for it in her heart. She would shrug off her troubles, and carry on as she was. But she confided in me in whispers when the tutor had fallen asleep, which happened often in the sultry summers locked in our room… then she would tell me of her thoughts for her own life.

  “I shall make my own way,” she declared daringly, sticking her chin into the air. “They expect I am good for nothing but marriage to a rich man, but I will marry where I choose… I will marry for love, be he rich man or poor!”

  I would gasp and stare at her in admiration for this audacious and, ridiculous, statement; no one married for love. People married because their families wanted it. They married to advance their own wealth, title, or property. Love was something that grew once a couple were married and children were born; we knew this was the way of things from the start. To marry a man without fortune or title would be impossible for us; our father would cast us out and skin us alive, not necessarily in that order, if we dared go against his wishes so. So, whilst I listened to Mary’s daring words with the round-eyed admiration of a younger sister, secretly I knew well enough that there was no such room in our lives for such ideas. Our parents were quite clear that what they expected of us was what would happen to us.