Ormond. I most humbly beseech Your Grace’s favor therein, and also to entreat the King’s Majesty on my behalf for his princely favor in this matter which I cannot forsake.”
The Cardinal turned to his servants, appealing to them to observe the willful folly of this boy. Sadly he reproached Percy for knowing the King’s pleasure and not readily submitting to it.
“I have gone too far in this matter,” said Percy.
“Dost think,” cried Wolsey, “that the King and I know not what we have to do in weighty matters such as this!”
He left the boy, remarking as he went that he should not seek out the girl, or he would have to face the wrath of the King.
The Earl arrived, coming in haste from the north since the command was the King’s, and hastened to Wolsey’s house. A cold man with an eye to his own advantage, the Earl listened gravely, touched his neck uneasily as though he felt the sharp blade of an axe there—for heads had been severed for less than this—hardened his face, and said that he would set the matter to rights.
He went to his son and railed at him, cursing his pride, his licentiousness, but chiefly the fact that he had incurred the King’s displeasure. So he would bring his father to the block and forfeit the family estate, would he! He was a waster, useless, idle....He would return to his home immediately and proceed with the marriage to the Lady Mary Talbot, to which he was committed.
Percy, threatened by his father, dreading the wrath of the King, greatly fearing the mighty Cardinal, and not being possessed of the same reckless courage as his partner in romance, was overpowered by this storm he and Anne had aroused. He could not stand out against them. Wretchedly, brokenheartedly he gave in, and left the court with his father.
He was, however, able to leave a message for Anne with a kinsman of hers, in which he begged that she would remember her promise from which none but God could loose her.
And the Cardinal, passing through the palace courtyard with his retinue, saw a dark-eyed girl with a pale, tragic face at one of the windows.
Ah! thought the Cardinal, turning his mind from matters of state. The cause of all the trouble!
The black eyes blazed into sudden hatred as they rested on him, for there had been those who had overheard Wolsey’s slighting remarks about herself and hastened to inform her. Wolsey she blamed, and Wolsey only, for the ruin of her life.
Insolently she stared at him, her lips moving as though she cursed him.
The Cardinal smiled. Does she think to frighten me? A foolish girl! And I the first man in the kingdom! I would reprove her, but for the indignity of noting one so lacking in significance!
The next time he passed through the courtyard, he did not see Anne Boleyn. She had been banished to Hever.
At home in Hever Castle, a fierce anger took possession of her. She had waited for a further message from her lover. There was no message. He will come, she had told herself. They would ride away together, mayhap disguised as country folk, and they would care nothing for the anger of the Cardinal.
She would awake in the night, thinking she heard a tap on her window; walking in the grounds, she would feel her heart hammering at the sound of crackling bracken. She longed for him, thinking constantly of that night in the little chamber at Hampton Court, which they had said should be a perfect night and which by promising each other marriage they had made so; she thought of how sorry they had been for those who were dancing below, knowing nothing of the enchantment they were experiencing.
She would be ready when he came for her. Where would they go? Anywhere! For what did place matter! Life should be a glorious adventure. Taking her own courage for granted, why should she doubt his?
He did not come, and she brooded. She grew bitter, wondering why he did not come. She thought angrily of the wicked Cardinal whose spite had ruined her chances of happiness. Fiercely she hated him. “This foolish girl...” he had said. “This Anne Boleyn, who is but the daughter of a knight, to wed with one of the noblest families in the kingdom!”
She would show my lord Cardinal whether she was a foolish girl or not! Oh, the hypocrite! The man of God! He who kept house as a king and was vindictive as a devil and hated by the people!
When she and Percy went off together, the Cardinal should see whether she was a foolish girl!
And still her lover did not come.
“I cannot bear this long separation!” cried the passionate girl. “Perhaps he thinks to wait awhile until his father is dead, for they say he is a sick man. But I do not wish to wait!”
She was melancholy, for the summer was passing and it was sad to see the leaves fluttering down.
The King rode out to Hever. In her room she heard the bustle his presence in the castle must inevitably cause. She locked her door and refused to go down. If Wolsey had ruined her happiness, the King—doubtless at the wicked man’s instigation—had humiliated her by banishing her from the court. Unhappy as she was, she cared for nothing —neither her father’s anger nor the King’s.
Her mother came and stood outside the door to plead with her.
“The King has asked for you, Anne. You must come...quickly.”
“I will not! I will not!” cried Anne. “I was banished, was I not? Had he wished to see me, he should not have sent me from the court.”
“I dare not go back and say you refuse to come.”
“I care not!” sobbed Anne, throwing herself on her bed and laughing and weeping simultaneously, for she was beside herself with a grief that she found herself unable to control.
Her father came to her door, but his threats were as vain as her mother’s pleas.
“Would you bring disgrace on us!” stormed Sir Thomas. “Have you not done enough!”
