Anne Boleyn and Me Read online

  Table of contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Richmond Palace, 1525

  13th August 1525

  14th August 1525

  2nd October 1525

  15th February 1526

  19th April 1526

  23rd August 1526

  20th February 1527

  10th April 1527

  17th April 1527

  2nd May 1527

  17th May 1527

  2nd June 1527

  6th June 1527

  22nd June 1527

  24th June 1527

  16th July 1527

  15th September 1527

  16th December 1527

  1st January 1528

  24th February 1528

  4th June 1528

  14th June 1528

  15th June 1528

  17th June 1528

  23rd June 1528

  28th June 1528

  2nd August 1528

  9th October 1528

  13th October 1528

  24th October 1528

  29th October 1528

  12th November 1528

  15th November 1528

  Christmas 1528

  8th January 1529

  18th February 1529

  20th February 1529

  27th March 1529

  20th May 1529

  18th June 1529

  21st July 1529

  23rd July 1529

  25th July 1529

  14th August 1529

  20th September 1529

  21st September 1529

  4th October 1529

  7th October 1529

  9th October 1529

  17th October 1529

  2nd November 1529

  10th December 1529

  30th December 1529

  4th March 1530

  28th March 1530

  20th July 1530

  7th August 1530

  22nd September 1530

  24th October 1530

  1st November 1530

  28th November 1530

  21st December 1530

  Christmas Day 1530

  27th December 1530

  12th January 1531

  21st January 1531

  24th January 1531

  7th February 1531

  11th February 1531

  21st February 1531

  8th March 1531

  25th March 1531

  19th April 1531

  4th May 1531

  31st May 1531

  23rd June 1531

  14th July 1531

  29th July 1531

  6th October 1531

  27th October 1531

  11th November 1531

  25th November 1531

  25th December 1531

  8th January 1532

  10th January 1532

  25th January 1532

  23rd April 1532

  19th May 1532

  13th June 1532

  2nd July 1532

  28th August 1532

  30th August 1532

  1st September 1532

  6th September 1532

  10th September 1532

  6th October 1532

  14th November 1532

  Christmas 1532

  9th January 1533

  25th January 1533

  5th February 1533

  18th February 1533

  25th February 1533

  8th April 1533

  11th April 1533, Good Friday

  13th April 1533, Easter Sunday

  15th April 1533

  23rd May 1533

  28th May 1533

  31st May 1533

  Sunday 1st June 1533, Coronation Day

  28th June 1533

  11th August 1533

  18th August 1533

  27th August 1533

  29th August 1533

  7th September 1533

  10th September 1533

  2nd October 1533

  4th December 1533

  10th December 1533

  14th December 1533

  22nd December 1533

  26th December 1533

  6th January 1534

  17th January 1534

  23rd February 1534

  23rd March 1534

  25th March 1534

  1st April 1534

  11th April 1534

  17th April 1534

  20th April 1534

  13th May 1534

  28th June 1534

  8th September 1534

  2nd October 1534

  8th October 1534

  17th October 1534

  18th November 1534

  30th December 1534

  8th February 1535

  19th February 1535

  17th March 1535

  7th May 1535

  22nd June 1535

  29th June 1535

  6th July 1535

  11th July 1535

  15th July 1535

  29th October 1535

  30th October 1535

  6th November 1535

  12th November 1535

  16th December 1535

  27th December 1535

  29th December 1535

  8th January 1536

  10th January 1536

  12th January 1536

  24th January 1536

  28th January 1536

  30th January 1536

  26th February 1536

  1st March 1536

  5th March 1536

  2nd April 1536

  7th April 1536

  23rd April 1536

  24th April 1536

  28th April 1536

  29th April 1536

  30th April 1536

  Midnight, the same day

  1st May 1536

  2nd May 1536

  3rd May 1536

  7th May 1536

  12th May 1536

  13th May 1536

  15th May 1536

  16th May 1536

  17th May 1536

  18th May 1536

  19th May 1536

  15th September 1536

  Historical note

  Timeline

  Photographs

  Picture Acknowledgments

  My Story – a Series

  Copyright

  Richmond Palace, 1525

  13th August 1525

  This is the diary of Elinor Valjean, aged eleven.

  Today is my sister Rosanna’s birthday. Mama gave her a beautiful diary to write in, because Rosanna is sixteen, the same age as Mama was when she came to England with Catherine of Aragon, our queen. I am going to write a diary as well, only I do not have a proper one, so I have to write it on scraps of paper. I will keep them in the back of my Latin book, so they will be private.

  I am not jealous of Rosanna. Of course she must have nice things for her birthday. I gave her a beaded cap that I’d sewn myself, with some help from Mama. But I will have to wait a long time before I am sixteen, and I want to start writing my diary now. Mama began hers because she was leaving Spain and going on a dangerous sea voyage to a strange country. She showed Rosanna and me her diary, with its close-packed lines of neat Spanish writing. Mine will not look like that. I keep trying to make my writing smaller and more tidy, but I never seem to manage it.

  Papa would laugh if he knew about my diary pages. He isn’t unkind, but he laughs at everything. I suppose it is because he is the court jester, “Mr John”, as they call him. He says he has to remember that things are funny because if he starts to think they are serious or sad, he would lose his job. I want to be a jester, too, but I am a girl, so I have to wear long dresses that make it hard to jump and tumble as he does. I wish I had been a boy. My brothers have far more fun, learning archery and fight ing with swords and quarter-staves. Little William is not much good at it yet, being only four and not very strong, but Daniel, at seven, thinks himself quite the man.

  Mama reminds me that I am lucky. She and Queen Catherine were childhood friends, so we live as members of the royal court, in whichever palace King Henry VIII chooses to have his household. Mama and Papa both serve the King and Queen, he as the jester and she as Catherine’s friend and favourite lady, and we children will be royal servants when we are old enough. Meanwhile, we ourselves are served by a great army of people who work in the barns and the yards and the smoky kitchens, tending livestock, washing clothes, and preparing and serving food.

  Yes, we are lucky. We do not put in long hours of work in the fields, digging and sowing and reaping. We do not cart dung or pick stones or undertake the horrible work of slaughtering and skinning and plucking. Our food arrives ready-cooked, served on gold dishes if the King is entertaining guests. We play music and sing and dance, and every summer we go with the royal party on progress to other parts of the country while the palace where we have spent the winter is cleaned. When we come back in the autumn, we find the soot gone from the walls and the grease and filth scrubbed off the floors. There are fresh rushes scattered in the dining hall, sweet to tread on, and the bed-linen is washed and aired. I always love those first weeks after our return, while all the rooms still smell clean.

  I would not have chosen to be a girl, but I enjoy some very nice things that the boys do not share. Sometimes Mama lets me join her when she and Maria de Salinas spend afternoons with the Queen. They talk together in Spanish, which I understand though I am not good at writing it, and they do their fine embroidery. Mostly it is Spanish style, black on white, as richly patterned as the bright sparkle of sunshine through dark leaves. It is very beautiful, but secretly I prefer the English use of reds and purples, blues and browns and gold. The Queen has all these colours, though she seldom uses them, and I love arranging the hanks of silk like a rainbow in their lacquered box. Queen Catherine said I could. She is a wonderful lady. Although she is the Queen of England, she is so kind.

  I wish I was better at embroidery. I try hard, but my fingers seem sticky and awkward, and the thread makes itself into grubby knots. Perhaps I will find it easier when I am older. Meanwhile, I am always glad if Papa comes to join us, playing his lute or viol for the Queen and telling funny rhymes, for then I can lay the work down and listen. He can only be with us if King Henry does not need his services, for, like everyone else in the court, he has to obey orders.

  This morning he could not come. To my amazement, Queen Catherine asked me to play instead, and handed me her own lute. I was very nervous, but she smiled, and when I had finished she clapped her hands. Papa must have told her I can dance as well, and that I make up my own stories, for she asked me to do these things, and afterwards she laughed and applauded again. She said I take after my father.

  It was the greatest compliment she could pay me, for I would love to be like him. My brother Daniel would laugh if he knew I wanted to be a jester, and little William would laugh as well without understanding why. Even Mama and Rosanna might be shocked, so I never mention it. But I dream of it all the same, and then I feel warm and excited inside.

  I must be careful not to get married, or I will never do anything but work as a wife and mother. Some girls have their first baby when they are only twelve, specially if they belong to the titled families. They could never be jesters, poor things.

  Princesses have no say in choosing their husbands. The Queen’s daughter, Princess Mary, is nine years old, two years younger than I am, but she was betrothed when she was six to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who is a grown-up man. He is the Queen’s nephew, so I should not be rude about him – but he is such a funny-looking person. I saw him when he came here for the betrothal ceremony, and he has a long, pointed chin that sticks out so he can hardly close his mouth. He belongs to the Habsburg family, and Mama says all of them look rather like that. Mary was sent off to Ludlow Castle last month, with a huge retinue of horses and servants, to live in a separate household there. I don’t know why.

  I must stop writing now. Mama is calling. She wants me to get William ready for bed. I tell him a story every night, and he will not go to sleep without it.

  14th August 1525

  Rosanna told me why Princess Mary went to live in Ludlow Castle. It’s all to do with the King’s son, Henry Fitzroy. He is six years old, and his mother is not Queen Catherine, she is called Bessie Blount. The little boy was brought here to Richmond Palace in June, and there was a big ceremony while the King made him Duke of Richmond and Somerset. Then he was sent to the north of England to be head of a great household. Rosanna says the Queen was annoyed because her own daughter, Mary, had not been given any such honours, and she told Henry she was not pleased. In fact, there was a frightful argument between them. So Mary has now been given her own household, to be equal with her half-brother.

  I hope she will like it. I would hate to be sent away from my home and family to a castle near Wales, which they say is a very wet place. Thank goodness I am not a princess.

  I saw Mark Smeaton catch Rosanna by her waist yesterday and give her a kiss. She was very offended and pushed him away. Mark said he was only trying to wish her a happy birthday, but I don’t think she believed it. Mark is one of the court musicians. He plays the lute well and has a good voice, but Rosanna detests him. “He is pathetic,” she said. “Like a trodden-on spaniel, always hoping people will like him. He has no spirit. He is just cheeky, and that is a different thing.” I didn’t understand what she meant. I quite like Mark. He gave me a bit of sugar candy the other day.

  The King was in high good humour this morning. I saw him run his hand down Anne Boleyn’s back as she went through a door ahead of him yesterday, then he laughed and bent his head to kiss her on the cheek. Anne works with Mama and Rosanna as one of the Queen’s ladies, but she does not seem to mind being kissed. She smiled up at the King, all gaiety. She has been away at Hever Castle, her parents’ home, for the last two years, and only came back quite recently. Rosanna says the King himself is in love with her, and he sent her away because she was having an affair with a young man called Henry Percy. There was quite a rumpus about it, and Cardinal Wolsey, the King’s close adviser, told Percy that Anne Boleyn was not a suitable wife for a young man of good family. Percy was sent off to marry someone else. And Rosanna says Thomas Wyatt, the poet, is in love with Anne now.

  I think all that is very silly. I love my family and I love the grey cat called Minna and the dogs that lie around when we all eat in the great hall, waiting for bones and scraps to be thrown. I love horses, too. But poets and young men called Percy sound a terrible bore.

  This afternoon the King’s mood changed completely, and he flew into one of his rages. Papa had a terrible time with him. King Henry loves music and plays well himself, so he is usually easy to amuse, but today something had upset him. Papa found out later that the Emperor Charles has broken off his engagement to Mary. The King has taken it as a personal insult, so his temper has been explosive ever since the news came. The whole court was tiptoeing about for fear of being shouted at, and even the Queen, who is always so calm and wise, dissolved into tears.

  2nd October 1525

  I meant to write my diary every day, but there are so many other things to do. I practise my dancing and singing, and Papa has given me a wooden flute, so that is a new instrument to learn, as well as the viol and lute. But I love the sound it makes, and Papa is a good teacher. My fingers are getting quicker at finding the notes.

  Mark Smeaton still pesters Rosanna, though she won’t have anything to do with him, and Thomas Wyatt gazes with soulful eyes at Anne Boleyn. But so does the King, which I find very odd. If she is too common a girl for young Percy to marry, how can she cast her spell on the King of England? Everyone is whispering that he is in love with her, but I can’t unders tand it. King Henry is married to Queen Catherine, so how can he be in love with Anne? I am sure the Queen must be very upset about it. I asked Mama, and she sighed and said, “Poor lady – if only she had given him a son.”

  It is true that the Queen was unlucky. She had child after child, but all of them died except Mary. I know babies die sometimes. Mama had a little boy after I was born, and he died before he was a year old. But at least she has four of us. People say the Queen’s last childbirth left her injured, so she cannot have any more children. The King is disappointed because he wanted a son who would inherit the throne of England. All this fuss about sons puzzles me. Surely Princess Mary can be Queen of England when King Henry dies? Her grandmother, Isabella, was Queen of Spain, and she ruled the country, with some help from her husband. If Isabella could do it, why not Mary? Mama shook her head when I suggested this. “King Henry is set on having a son,” she said.

  15th February 1526

  There was a joust this afternoon. We watched from the covered stand, and Daniel was grumbling that he is not old enough yet to take part. I said, “But you will one day.” He is lucky. I myself will always be sitting on the benches under the striped awning, a mere spectator.

  When the men rode in, they looked magnificent, as they always do. They were in armour, of course, but scarlet plumes flew from their helmets, and they wore full-skirted, embroidered tunics. Their horses were beautifully dressed as well, in embroidered trappings that covered them almost completely, just showing the lower part of their legs. There was one I specially liked, in pale blue and silver.

  When the King came riding in on his big, black horse, a murmur went up because his tunic was stitched with the words, DECLARE I DARE NOT. All the ladies were giggling behind their hands, and I asked Mama what it meant. Her face had turned quite pink and she said, “Never mind,” so I asked Rosanna later. She told me the words meant the King has a new love, but he dares not say her name. But everyone knows her name. It is Anne Boleyn.

  I keep thinking about Anne, wondering what it must be like to be loved by a king who already has a wife. I came face to face with her this evening as she brought a flask of sweet wine to the Queen’s chamber. She is hardly taller than I am, a slender wisp of a thing. I suppose I must have been staring because she asked me what I thought I was looking at. She sounded very annoyed. It was no use pretending I hadn’t been looking. I dropped her a respectful curtsey while I thought fast, then said, “I was looking at you.”