“Her grandfather was but a merchant in London town. Why should we have a merchant’s daughter for our Queen?”
“There cannot be a second Queen while the first Queen lives.”
“I lost two sons of the sweat . . .”
They trampled through the muck of the gutter, rats scuttled from under their feet, made bold by their numbers and the lack of surprise and animosity their presence caused. In the fever-ridden stench of the cobbled streets, the people blamed Anne Boleyn.
Over London Bridge the heads of traitors stared out with glassy eyes; offal floated up the river; beggars with sore-encrusted limbs asked for alms; one-legged beggars, one-eyed beggars and beggars all but eaten away with some pox.
“’Tis a poor country we live in, since the King would send the rightful Queen from his bed!”
“I mind the poor lady at her coronation; beautiful she was then, with her lovely long hair flowing, and her in a litter of cloth of gold. Nothing too good for her then, poor lady.”
“Should a man, even if he be a king, cast off his wife because she is no longer young?”
It was the cry of fearful women, for all knew that it was the King who set examples. It was the cry of aging women against the younger members of their sex who would bewitch their husbands and steal them from them.
The murmurs grew to a roar. “We’ll have no Nan Bullen!”
There was one woman with deep cadaverous eyes and her front teeth missing. She raised her hands and jeered at the women who gathered about her.
“Ye’ll have no Nan Bullen, eh? And what’ll ye do about it, eh? You’ll be the first to shout ‘God save Your Majesty’ when the King makes his whore our Queen!”
“Not I!” cried one bold spirit, and the others took it up.
The fire of leadership was in the woman. She brandished a stick.
“We’ll take Nan Bullen! We’ll go to her and we’ll take her, and when we’ve done with her we’ll see if she is such a beauty, eh? Who’ll come? Who’ll come?”
Excitement was in the air. There were many who were ever ready to follow a procession, ever ready to espouse a cause; and what more worthy than this, for weary housewives who had little to eat and but rags to cover them, little to hope for and much to fear?
They had seen the Lady Anne Rochford in her barge, proud and imperious, so beautiful that she was more like a picture to them than a woman; her clothes looked too fine to be real . . . And she was not far off . . . her barge had stopped along the river.
Dusk was in the sky; it touched them with adventure, dangerous adventure. They were needy; they were hungry; and she was rich, and doubtless on her way to some noble friends’ house to supper. This was a noble cause; it was Queen Katharine’s cause; it was the cause of Princess Mary.
“Down with Nan Bullen!” they shouted.
She would have jewels about her, they remembered. Cupidity and righteousness filled their minds. “Shall we let the whore sit on the throne of England? They say she carries a fortune in jewels about her body!”
Once, it was said, in the days of the King’s youth when he feasted with his friends, the mob watched him; and so dazzled were they by his person, that they were unable to keep away from him; they seized their mighty King; they seized Bluff King Hal, and stripped him of his jewels. What did he do? He was a noble King, a lover of sport. What did he do? He did naught but smile and treat the matter as a joke. He was a bluff King! A great King! But momentarily he was in the hands of a witch. There were men who had picked up a fortune that night. Why should not a fortune be picked up from Nan Bullen? And she was no bluff, good king, but a scheming woman, a witch, a poisoner, a usurper of the throne of England! It was a righteous cause; it was a noble cause; it might also prove a profitable cause!
Someone had lighted a torch; another sprang up, and another. In the flickering glow from the flares the faces of the women looked like those of animals. Cupidity was in each face . . . cruelty, jealousy, envy. . . .
“Ah! What will we do to Nan Bullen when we find her? I will tear her limbs apart . . . I will tear the jewels off her. Nan Bullen shall not be our Queen. Queen Katharine forever!”
They fell into some order, and marched. There were more flares; they made a bright glow in the sky.
They muttered, and each dreamed of the bright jewel she would snatch from the fair body. A fortune . . . a fortune to be made in a night, and in the righteous cause of Katharine the Queen.
“What means this?” asked newcomers.
“Nan Bullen!” chanted the crowd. “We’ll have no Nan Bullen! Queen Katharine forever!”
The crowd was swollen now; it bulged and sprawled, but it went forward, a grimly earnest, glowing procession.
Anne, at the riverside house where she had gone to take supper, saw the glow in the sky, heard the low chanting of voices.
“What is it they say?” she asked of those about her. “What is it? I think they come this way.”
Anne and her friends went out into the riverside garden, and listened. The voices seemed thousands strong.
“Nan Bullen . . . Nan Bullen. . . . We’ll not have the King’s whore . . .”
She felt sick with fear. She had heard that cry before, never at such close quarters, never so ominous.
“They have seen you come here,” whispered her hostess, and trembled, wondering what an ugly mob would do to the friends of Anne Boleyn.
