could not be expected to understand his high motives. And this was his reward . . . a daughter!
He saw tears roll from Anne’s closed eyes; her face was white as marble; she looked as though all life had gone from her; those tears alone showed him that she had heard. And then suddenly his disappointment was pushed aside. She too had suffered deeply; she was disappointed as he was. He knelt down and put his arms about her.
He said earnestly: “I would rather beg from door to door than forsake you!”
When he had gone, she lay very still, exhausted by the effort of giving birth to her daughter, her mind unable to give her body the rest it needed. She had failed. She had borne a daughter, not a son! This then was how Katharine of Aragon had felt when Mary was born. The hope was over; the prophecies of the physicians and the soothsayers had proved to be meaningless. “It will be a boy,” they had assured her; and then . . . it was a girl!
Her heartbeats, which had been sluggish, quickened. What had he said? “I would rather beg from door to door than forsake you!” Forsake you! Why should he have said that? He would surely only have said it if the thought of forsaking her had been in his mind! He had forsaken Katharine.
Her cheeks were wet; then she must have shed tears. I could never live in a nunnery, she thought, and she remembered how she had once believed that Katharine ought to have gone to such a place. How different the suggestion seemed when applied to oneself! She had never understood Katharine’s case until now.
Someone bent over her and whispered: “Your Majesty must try to sleep.”
She slept awhile and dreamed she was plain Anne Boleyn at Blickling; she was experiencing great happiness, and when she awoke she thought, Happiness then is a matter of comparison; I never knew such complete happiness, for my body was in agony and now I scarce know I have a body, and that in itself is enough.
Fully conscious, she remembered that she was no longer a girl at Blickling, but a queen who had failed in her duty of bearing a male heir. She remembered that throughout the palace—throughout the kingdom—they would now be talking of her future, speculating as to what effect it would have upon her relationship with the King. Her enemies would be rejoicing, her friends mourning. Chapuys would be writing gleefully to his master. Suffolk would be smiling, well content. Katharine would pray for her; Mary would gloat: She has failed! She has failed! What will the King do now?
The sleep had strengthened her; her weakness of spirit was passing. She had fought to gain her place, she would fight to keep it.
“My baby . . .” she said, and they brought the child and laid it in her arms.
The red, crumpled face looked beautiful to her, because the child was hers; she held it close, examining it, touching its face lightly with her fingers, murmuring, “Little baby . . . my little baby!”
It mattered little to her now that the child was a girl, for, having seen her, she was convinced that there never had been such a beautiful child—so how could she wish to change it! She held her close, loving her and yet feeling fearful for her, for was not the child a possible Queen of England? No, there would be sons to follow. The first child had been a girl; therefore she would never sit on the throne of England, because Anne would have sons, many sons. Still, the mother must tremble for her child, must wish now that she were not the daughter of a king and queen. Suppose this baby had been born in some other home than royal Greenwich, where her sex would not have been a matter of such great importance. How happy she would have been then! There would have been nothing to think of but tending the child.
They would have taken the baby from her, but she would not let her go. She wanted her with her, to hold her close, to protect her.
She thought of Mary Tudor’s fanatical eyes. How the birth of this child would add fuel to the fierce fires of Mary’s resentment! Another girl to take her place, when she had lost it merely by being a girl! Before, there had been many a skirmish with Mary Tudor; now there must be deciding warfare between her and Queen Anne. For what if there were no more children! What if the fate of Queen Anne was that of Queen Katharine? Then . . . when the King was no more, there would be a throne for this child, a throne which would be coveted most ardently by Mary Tudor; and might not the people of England think Mary had the greater claim? Some considered that Katharine was still Queen, and that this newly born child was the bastard, not Mary Tudor.
“Oh, baby,” murmured Anne, “what a troublesome world it is that you have been born into!” Fiercely she kissed the child. “But it shall be as happy for you as I can make it. I would kill Mary Tudor rather than that she should keep from you that which is your right!”
One of the women bent over the bed.
“Your Majesty needs to rest . . .”
Hands took the baby; reluctantly Anne let her go.
She said: “She shall be called Elizabeth, after my mother and the King’s.”
The court was tense with excitement. In lowered tones the birth of Elizabeth was discussed, in state apartments, in the kitchens; women weeding in the gardens whispered together. In the streets, the people said: “What now? This is God’s answer!” Chapuys was watchful, waiting; he sounded Cromwell. Cromwell was noncommittal, cool. He felt that the King was as yet too fond of the lady to desire any change in their relationship. He was unlike Wolsey; Wolsey shaped the King’s policy while he allowed the King to believe it was his own; Cromwell left the shaping to the King, placing himself completely at the royal disposal. Whatever the King needed, Thomas Cromwell would provide. If he wished to disinherit Mary, Cromwell would find the most expeditious way of doing it; if the King wished to discard Anne, Cromwell would work out a way in which this could be done. Cromwell’s motto was, “The King is always right.”
The King still desired Anne ardently, but though he could be the passionate lover, he wished her to realize that it was not hers to command but to obey. A mistress may command, a wife must be submissive. Yet he missed his mistress; he even felt a need to replace her. He could not look upon Anne—young, beautiful and desirable—as he had looked on Katharine. And yet it seemed to him that wives are always wives; one is shackled to them by the laws of holy church, and to be shackled is a most unpleasant condition. There was an element of spice in sin, which virtue lacked; and even though a man had a perfectly good answer to offer his conscience, the spice was there. Anne could no longer threaten to return home; this was her home, the home of which she was indubitably master. She had given him a daughter—a further proof that she was not all he had believed her to be when he had pursued her so fanatically.
And so, in spite of his still passionate desire for her, when this was satisfied he would quickly change from lover into that mighty figure, King and master.
This was apparent very soon after Elizabeth’s birth. Anne wanted to keep the child with her, to feed her
