She went to the King.
He was sitting in a window seat, playing a harp and singing a song he had written.
“Ah! Sweetheart, I was thinking of you. Sit with me, and I will sing to you my song . . . Why, what ails you? You are pale and trembling.”
She said: “I am afraid. There are those who would poison your mind against me.”
“Bah!” he said, feeling in a merry mood, for Wolsey had left riches such as even Henry had not dreamed of, and he had convinced himself that the Cardinal’s death was none of his doing. He had died of a flux, and a flux will attack a man, be he chancellor or beggar. “What now, Anne? Have I not told you that naught could ever poison my mind against you!”
“You would not remember, but when I was very young and first came to court, Percy of Northumberland wished to marry me.”
The King’s eyes narrowed. Well he remembered. He had got Wolsey to banish the boy from court, and he had banished Anne too. For years he had let her escape him. She was a bud of a girl then, scarce awake at all, but very lovely. They had missed years together.
Anne went on: “It was no contract. He was sent from the court, being pre-contracted to my Lord Shrewsbury’s daughter. Now they have quarreled, and he says he will leave her, and she says he tells her he was never really married to her, being pre-contracted to me.”
The King let out an exclamation, and put aside his harp.
“This were not true?” he said.
“Indeed not!”
“Then we must put a stop to such idle talk. Leave this to me, sweetheart. I’ll have him brought up before the Archbishop of Canterbury. I’ll have him recant this, or ’twill be the worse for him!”
The King paced the floor, his face anxious.
“Dost know, sweetheart,” he said, “I fear I have dolts about me. Were Wolsey here . . .”
She did not speak, for she knew it was unnecessary to rail against the Cardinal now; he was done with. She had new enemies with whom to cope. She knew that Henry was casting a slur on the new ministry of Norfolk and More; that he was reminding her that though Wolsey had died, he had had nothing to do with his death. She wished then that she did not know this man so well; she wished that she could have been as lightheartedly gay as people thought her, living for the day, thinking not of the morrow. She had set her skirts daintily about her, aware of her grace and charm, knowing that they drew men irresistibly to her, wondering what would happen to her when she was old, as her grandmother Norfolk. Then I suppose, she thought, I will doze in a chair and recall my adventurous youth, and poke my granddaughters with an ebony stick. I would like my grandmother to come and see me; she is a foolish old woman assuredly, but at least she would be a friend.
“Sweetheart,” said the King, “I shall go now and settle this matter, for there will be no peace of mind until Northumberland admits this to be a lie.”
He kissed her lips; she returned his kiss, knowing well how to enchant him, being often sparing with her caresses so that when he received them he must be more grateful than if they had been lavished on him. He was the hunter; although he talked continually of longing for peace of mind, she knew that that would never satisfy him. He must never be satisfied, but always be looking for satisfaction. For two years she had kept him thus in difficult circumstances. She must go on keeping him thus, for her future depended on her ability to do so.
Fain would he have stayed, but she bid him go. “For,” she said, “although I know this matter to be a lie, until my lord of Northumberland admits it I am under a cloud. I could not marry you unless we had his full confession that there is no grain of truth in this claim.”
She surveyed him through narrowed eyes; she saw return to him that dread fear of losing her. He was easy to read, simple in his desires, ready enough to accept her own valuation of herself. What folly it would have been to have wept, to have told him that Northumberland lied, to have caused him to believe that her being Queen of England was to her advantage, not to his. While he believed she was ready to return to Hever, while he believed that she wished to be his wife chiefly because she had given way to his desires and sacrificed her honor and virtue, he would fight for her. She had to make him believe that the joy she could give him was worth more than any honors he could heap on her.
And he did believe this. He went storming out of the room; he had Northumberland brought before the Archbishops; he had him swear there had never been a contract with Anne Boleyn. It was made perfectly clear that Northumberland was married to Shrewsbury’s daughter, and Anne Boleyn free to marry the King.
Anne knew that her handling of that little matter had been successful.
It was different with the trouble over Suffolk.
Suffolk, jealous, ambitious, seeking to prevent her marriage to the King, was ready to go to any lengths to discredit Anne, provided he could keep his head on his shoulders.
He started a rumor that Anne had had an affair with Thomas Wyatt even while the King was showing his preference for her. There was real danger in this sort of rumor, as there was no one at court who had not witnessed Thomas’s loving attitude towards Anne; they had been seen by all, spending much time together, and it was possible that she had shown how she preferred the poet.
Anne, recklessly deciding that one rumor was as good as another, repeated something completely damaging to Suffolk. He had, she had heard, and she did not hesitate to say it in quarters where it would be quickly carried to Suffolk’s ears, more than a fatherly affection for his daughter, Frances Brandon, and his love for her was nothing less than incestuous. Suffolk was furious at the accusation; he confronted Anne; they quarreled; and the result of this quarrel was that Anne insisted he should absent himself from the court for a while.
This was open warfare with one who—with perhaps the exception of Norfolk—was the most powerful noble in the land, and the King’s brother-in-law to boot. Suffolk retired in smoldering anger; he would not, Anne knew, let such an accusation go unpaid for, and she had always been afraid of Suffolk.
She shut herself in her room, feeling depressed; she wept a little and told Anne Saville that whoever asked for her was not to be admitted, even should it be the King himself.
She lay on her bed, staring at the ornate ceiling, seeing Suffolk’s angry eyes wherever she looked; she pictured
