Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

to go to France.”

The sewing-room seemed suddenly unbearably quiet to Simonette; outside she heard the breeze stir the willows that dripped into the moat; the tapestry slipped from her fingers. Anne picked it up and put it on the governess’s lap. Sensitive and imaginative, she knew that she had broken the news too rashly; she was at once contrite, and flung her arms round Simonette’s brown neck.

“Simonette! Simonette! To leave you will be the one thing to spoil this news for me.”

There were real tears in her eyes, but they were for the hurt she had given Simonette, not for the inevitable parting; for she could not hide the excitement shining through her tears. Hever was dull without George and Thomas, who were both away continuing their education. Simonette was a darling; Mother was a darling; but it is possible for people to be darlings and at the same time be very, very dull; and Anne could not endure dullness.

“Simonette!” she said. “Perhaps it will be for a very short time.” She added, as though this should prove some consolation to the stricken Simonette, “I am to go with the King’s sister!”

Seven is so young! Even a precocious seven. This little one at the court of France! Sir Thomas was indeed an ambitious man. What did he care for these tender young things who, because they were of an unusual brilliance, needed special care! This is the end, thought Simonette. Ah, well! And who am I to undertake the education of Sir Thomas Boleyn’s daughter for more than the very early years of her life!

“My father has written, Simonette....He said I must prepare at once...”

How her eyes sparkled! She who had always loved the stories of kings and queens was now to take part in one herself; a very small part, it was true, for surely the youngest attendant of the princess must be a very small part; Simonette did not doubt that she would play it with zest. No longer would she come to Simonette with her eager questions, no longer listen to the story of the King’s romance with the Spanish princess. Simonette had told that story often enough. “She came over to England, the poor little princess, and she married Prince Arthur and he died, and she married his brother, Prince Henry...King Henry.” “Simonette, have you ever seen the King?” “I saw him at the time of his marriage. Ah, there was a time! Big and handsome, and fair of skin, rosy like a girl, red of hair and red of beard; the handsomest prince you could find if you searched the whole world.” “And the Spanish princess, Simonette?” Simonette would wrinkle her brows; as a good Frenchwoman she did not love the Spaniards. “She was well enough. She sat in a litter of cloth of gold, borne by two white horses. Her hair fell almost to her feet.” Simonette added grudgingly: “It was beautiful hair. But he was a boy prince; she was six years older.” Simonette’s mouth would come close to Anne’s ear: “There are those who say it is not well that a man should marry the wife of his brother.” “But this is not a man, Simonette. This is a king!”

Two years ago George and Thomas would sit in the window seats and talk like men about the war with France. Simonette did not speak of it; greatly she had feared that she, for the sins of her country, might be turned from the castle. And the following year there had been more war, this time with the treacherous Scots; of this Anne loved to talk, for at the battle of Flodden Field it was her grandfather the Duke of Norfolk and her two uncles, Thomas and Edmund, who had saved England for the King. The two wars were now satisfactorily concluded, but wars have reverberating consequences; they shake even the lives of those who believe themselves remote. The echoes extended from Paris and Greenwich to the quiet of a Kentish castle.

“I am to go in the train of the King’s sister who is to marry the King of France, Simonette. They say he is very, very old and...” Anne shivered. “I should not care to marry a very old man.”

“Nonsense!” said Simonette, rising and throwing aside her tapestry. “If he is an old man, he is also a king. Think of that!”

Anne thought of it, her eyes glistening, her hands clasped behind her back. What a mistake it is, thought Simonette, if one is a governess, to love too well those who come within one’s care.

“Come now,” she said. “We must write a letter to your father. We must express our pleasure in this great honor.”

Anne was running towards the door in her eagerness to speed up events, to bring about more quickly the exciting journey. Then she thought sadly once more of Simonette...dear, good, kind, but so dull Simonette. So she halted and went back and slipped one hand into that of her governess.

In their apartments at Dover Castle the maids of honor giggled and whispered together. The youngest of them, whom they patronized shamefully—more because of her youth than because she lacked their noble lineage— listened eagerly to everything that was said.

How gorgeous they were, these young ladies, and how different in their own apartments from the sedate creatures they became when they attended state functions! Anne had thought them too lovely to be real, when she had stood with them at the formal solemnization of the royal marriage at Greenwich, where the Duke of Longueville had acted as proxy for the King of France. Then her feet had grown weary with so much standing, and her eyes had ached with the dazzle, and in spite of all the excitement she had thought longingly of Simonette’s strong arms picking her up and carrying her to bed. Here in the apartment the ladies threw aside their brilliant clothes and walked about without any, discussing each other and the lords and esquires with a frankness astonishing—but at the same time very interesting—to a little girl of seven.

The King was at Dover, for he had accompanied his favorite sister to the coast; and here in the castle they had tarried a whole month, for outside the waves rose high against the cliffs, and the wind shrieked about the castle walls, rattling its windows and doors and bellowing down the great chimneys as if it mocked the plans of kings. Challengingly the wind and the waves tossed up the broken parts of ships along that coast, to show what happened to those who would ignore the sea’s angry mood. There was nothing to be done but wait; and in the castle the time was whiled away with masques, balls and banquets, for the King must be amused.

Anne had had several glimpses of him—a mountain of a man with fair, glowing skin and bright hair; when he spoke, his voice, which matched his frame, bellowed forth, and his laughter shook him; his jewel-trimmed clothes were part of his dazzling personality; men went in fear of him, for his anger came sudden as his laughter; and his little mouth, ready enough to smile at a jest which pleased him, could as readily become the most cruel in the world.

Here in the apartment the ladies talked constantly of the King, of his Queen, and—to them all just now the most fascinating of the royal family group—of Mary Tudor, whom they were accompanying across the Channel to Louis of France.

“Would it not be strange,” said Lady Anne Grey, “if my lady ran off with Suffolk!”

“Strange indeed!” answered her sister Elizabeth. “I would not care to be in her shoes, nor in my Lord Suffolk’s, if she were to do that. Imagine the King’s anger!”

Little Anne shivered, imagining it. She might be young, but she was old enough to sense the uneasy