The Grandmother's Tale Read online

  The two men are listening with polite interest.

  ‘But you don’t want to hear an old woman’s reminiscence,’ I say.

  ‘Nay, go on,’ urges Tebold.

  ‘Pray do!’ Sir Thomas smiles. ‘We would entertain your ladyship to your comfort, and you must have many memories to recount.’

  I do. There’s not much point in talking about the future these days, so the past is where my mind often dwells. And although there is much of it that I cannot bear to revisit, it heartens me to return to the days when I was young and full of hope. Like the day William first brought me to Hever Castle, and I fell in love with it.

  There is no place I would rather be than Hever, and I knew that when I was eighteen and came here as a bride, riding across the drawbridge with William and seeing for the first time the fine Tudor house within the ancient walls of the castle. Even today I can still recapture that thrill whenever I see sunlight streaming through the leaded windows onto the magnificent panelling, or make my painful way through the herb garden, conjuring up the scents of long ago. Hever is a little jewel of a castle, its mellow stone walls drowsing in a leafy valley. It holds for me the echo of that distant summer, lost in time, when William and I were lovers in Sir Geoffrey’s grand bedchamber, and all around us was magic and joy.

  Now, as I creak along the long gallery that Thomas built, I can hardly bear to look at the portraits hanging there. Hers has gone, of course. It’s in the attic. But there are Thomas and Elizabeth, all decked out in their brave finery, and neither evokes happy memories. How they do stare, tight lipped, keeping secrets now never to be told, for he lies beyond the gatehouse in St Peter’s Church, far from her. She, of course, had to be buried with her Howard forebears at Lambeth.

  But I digress, as I am wont to do these days. I tell my listeners how I love this house, and that I find beauty here, and an inner peace of sorts, and quietness in abundance. Yet there remains the taint of dark deeds, of treason or bloody retribution, and the shadow of a queenly wraith. I see her from time to time, and I wish I didn’t, but I don’t say that. Nor do I tell my guests of my awful gift, or of how I kept seeing a sword over her head. The gift is a curse, and it’s got me into trouble several times. In one of his unkind moods, Thomas once called me a witch. But witches practise their craft willingly. My visions come unbidden, and I have never been able to control them.

  Oh, I am rambling! So I tell Willoughby and Tebold how the Boleyns’ fortunes improved over the years, and how they rose to prominence through acquiring wealth through good marriages, and by their own cleverness and acumen. Again and again, the family has demonstrated its solid loyalty to the Crown. My William was knighted by King Richard III, although after the Battle of Bosworth he prudently switched his allegiance to the new King, Henry VII, and never looked back. Soon we were dividing our time between Blickling Hall in Norfolk and Hever Castle, so that William could be near to the court when need be. And the old King showed his trust in him by making him responsible for keeping the peace, delivering prisoners to the assizes, and for the beacons that would herald the approach of the King’s enemies. William was also made a baron of the Exchequer. I was so proud of him.

  Most of the time we lived at Blickling Hall, a handsome gabled manor house of moulded brick and tile, surrounded by a moat and yew hedges. William also owned a house at Mulbarton by Norwich, and a mansion in Norwich itself, by the River Wensum, very convenient for entertaining our many friends in the city. My husband was lord of a good number of manors in Norfolk and Kent, which afforded a substantial income. We lived well, and in comfort.

  These were the years in which we prospered and loved and conceived our children. Eight of the ten survived childhood, yet even now, I feel a great lump in my throat at the recollection of those two small waxen bodies lying in their coffins, their still faces lit by candles, and those tiny graves in Blickling Church. Part of my heart lies there too. The rest of it, broken beyond repair, lies in Norwich Cathedral, where my dear lord was laid to rest thirty-four years ago. A short illness, which no one thought dangerous – and he was gone.

  Thomas inherited everything, to his great satisfaction. Numb with grief, I allowed myself and my possessions to be bundled up alongside my grandchildren and trundled south to Hever with him and Elizabeth, Thomas declaring that James could have Blickling, as it was imperative that he himself be near to the court from now on. Preferment was his god, and I don’t recall his ever doing anything without a degree of self-interest. It was why he begrudged me the two hundred marks annually that his father had left me. That rankled, for years.

  He was even more discountenanced when my father died ten years later – to my great heaviness – and left me half of his extensive wealth and property, amounting to thirty-six manors and two great houses in Essex, Rochford Hall and New Hall. All Thomas got from his grandfather was a hunting horn of ivory and gold, which had been in our family for generations. That really infuriated him for, as a widow, I had the right to do what I liked with my inheritance.

  But he browbeat and pressed me into letting him take control of it, saying it would stand him in good stead for claiming the earldom of Ormond. Now that was a sore issue for years! And because I wanted the earldom, I let him do it, and he immediately sold New Hall to the King, who turned it into a magnificent palace. I was put out by that, I admit, and yet I thought the sacrifice would be worth it. But Ormond was appropriated by my father’s cousin, Piers Butler, who had the effrontery to assume the title. Thomas was confident that he could wrest it from Piers. It took him years, and of course, in the end, he triumphed. It was all down to her. Besotted as he was, the King granted the earldom of Ormond, and that of Wiltshire, to Thomas.

  But I digress again. My earlier tale is not finished. It was my misfortune foolishly to mention seeing that vision of young Anne with a sword over her head. And my son, my own son, made it an excuse to deprive me of my income, getting his lawyer to declare me insane and incapable of managing my affairs. And so he grew fat on my wealth.

  ‘You have not mentioned your granddaughter,’ Sir Thomas ventures, refilling his goblet.

  ‘Mary?’ I ask, although I suspect he does not mean her. ‘She’s a foolish girl. Fancy marrying that landless clod Stafford – and for love!’

  ‘But did not your ladyship marry for love?’

  ‘No, my marriage was arranged for advantage, as marriages should be. Love came afterwards, and I was lucky, but it’s a fool who marries for love. It is love that has brought this family low. Both my granddaughters have suffered for love. Look at Mary, exiled from court and skulking in Calais with that landless dolt. And remember Anne . . .’

  There is an embarrassed silence. No one dares to speak of her these days, in case they say the wrong thing. It could be dangerous, in some quarters, to say the wrong thing.

  ‘A bad business,’ Sir Thomas says at length.

  ‘And because of it, we Boleyns have lost Hever,’ I sniff, pleating the tablecloth unthinkingly. ‘You know, she was as much her mother’s daughter as her father’s, and her mother was no better than she should have been, for all that she was a Howard and granddaughter to the Duke of Norfolk. But it was a grand marriage, and Thomas was fortunate. Had her father not fought for Richard the Third at Bosworth and been down on his luck afterwards, he would not have looked at my son as a possible husband. But he did, and we all rejoiced.’

  I take a spoonful of syllabub.

  ‘It was only later that I became aware that Elizabeth was cuckolding my son.’ I knew what had been going on with the steward while Thomas was at court. ‘That a noblewoman should stoop so low!’

  The men regard me with interest.

  ‘There were rumours,’ Willoughby says.

  ‘Especially after Master Skelton wrote that poem comparing her to Cressida!’ I tell him. ‘Thomas was furious, but he cared little for Elizabeth by then, and was content to leave her to her indisc
retions. It was his pride that was hurt, that people should know. Fortunately, the children were all growing up. There was no question of them not being his. And Anne was Elizabeth’s child, as is Mary, and every bit her father’s too; Mary inherited none of his ambition.’

  ‘Then you accept her guilt,’ Willoughby says.

  ‘I make no comment!’ I declare, and take myself off to bed, bidding them both good night.

  In the morning, I feel up to taking a short walk. Hever has glorious gardens, set in the beautiful, undulating Kentish countryside. But everywhere there are reminders of those who are now gone into the hereafter. I see my grandchildren playing on the grass, Thomas waiting on the drawbridge to welcome the King, Anne peering elusively through a window – she knew well how to play Henry and tie him in knots – and Elizabeth with a trug full of the flowers she loved. It is hard to believe that they are all gone now, and that I, who by the law of Nature should have died first, am still here.

  I know what they say about Thomas, that he was complicit in destroying his children. God alone knows what it cost him to sit in judgement on them and declare them both guilty – and of the most disgusting crimes. But Elizabeth was ill; he had to think of her. He really didn’t have a choice. Had he refused, he might have been brought down with Anne and George, and then where would Elizabeth have been?

  He came home a broken man. They were both broken, paralysed with grief and horror. I remember Elizabeth sitting in her chair, rocking in her misery, and her hysterical cries when word came that the dread sentence had been carried out. Thomas uttered no word of protest or sorrow, but you had only to look at him to know that he was suffering. They were never the same afterwards, either of them.

  There is no doubt in my mind that the tragedy hastened Elizabeth’s death. Not two years afterwards – two years in which grief and illness destroyed her, and the last vestiges of her marriage – she died in London.

  Thomas rallied, for a time. He had lost his office of Lord Privy Seal to Lord Cromwell, but managed to retain his place on the King’s Council. It was good to see ambition surfacing in him again. He was determined to claw his way back into royal favour, and it didn’t take much, for I believe that the King genuinely liked him – and found him useful. Thomas smiled bravely and made himself courteous to that pallid little bitch who stole Anne’s husband and her crown. He even attended the christening of the prince she managed to bear. How different everything would have been had Anne achieved that. No one could have touched her then.

  But she had failed in that one crucial thing, and so she had been brought down.

  I am in no doubt that they concocted a case against her. The granddaughter I knew had her faults, but she was not that much of a monster – and nor was George. As to what was said about them – no one in their right mind would credit it. But I must stop myself here, or I’ll end up going over and over it all in my mind and torturing myself by wondering what it was like for her at the end, flesh of my flesh. They didn’t even give her a proper burial. I can’t forgive that, nor the King for marrying again only eleven days after her death. And I can’t forgive George’s unspeakable wife, for it was she who claimed that he and Anne committed incest. The word is bitter gall on my tongue.

  Thomas would do nothing for her when she was widowed and left destitute, and can anyone blame him? I have never forgotten him exploding with rage when the King asked him to provide for her. His pen jabbed the page as he asked Cromwell to inform the King that he did so only for his Highness’s pleasure. But he made sure that that filthy whore (for such she was) didn’t get her hands on the widow’s jointure settled on her at her marriage. And I’m determined she won’t have it in my lifetime either! What galls me is that she was welcomed back to court to serve the Seymour woman. I have no doubt that it was a reward for services rendered in bringing down her husband and her Queen.

  Slowly, I make my way along the path to the castle. The sun has gone in and I’m getting cold. I’m remembering how tenacious Thomas was. He kept in with Cromwell and others with influence, and was soon being well entertained at court. There was even a rumour that he would wed the King’s niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, which would have been the greatest honour and restored him to an even higher eminence than he had enjoyed before. But he was ailing. Although he was my son, I never liked him, but he died like a good Christian man.

  George being dead, there is no heir male, and Piers Butler gets the earldom of Ormond at last, much to my annoyance. His victory eats at me, although I suppose I should be past such things, with death just around the corner, but my blood – my noble blood – cries out for reparation. Unfortunately, even God seems to be deaf to my entreaties.

  I’ve had more visions over the years, but kept them to myself. I saw my grandson George doing something so abominable to his wife that I can’t bear to think about it. But there’s another vision that comes increasingly these days. I see a young woman with red hair wearing a crown, and I wonder who it could be. Not my Elizabeth, surely – the grandchild I’ve never seen. How can a bastard be crowned queen?

  I hope Henry’s being a good father to her and sees that she is well cared for. She needs stability, after losing her mother so tragically, poor mite. I wish I could see her and be a proper grandmother to her. But she is far beyond my reach.

  I never saw Anne either after she married the King. I was left here at Hever while almost everyone else entrenched themselves at court to bask in her glory. Only Mary was here – Mary, who was supposed to stay out of sight as far as possible. And I knew why. Before Anne had become his obsession, Mary had borne the King a child, which was passed off as her first husband’s. That was a compliant man, if ever there was one. You have only to look at Katherine to see whose child she is.

  It wasn’t just the fact that Mary bore a bastard child, more that she was a walking reminder of the unlawfulness of Anne’s marriage. For Anne was forbidden to Henry. Katherine’s existence rendered their union incestuous. It was the unspoken truth between us all, and I suspect it was the grounds upon which the King disinherited Elizabeth. No wonder Anne flew into a rage when Mary married William Stafford in secret and turned up at court pregnant, drawing undue attention to herself when Anne wanted her kept in the background!

  I remember Mary coming back here, in floods of tears.

  ‘I have been banished from the court, my lady!’ she wailed to me, running around the house like a whirlwind, gathering up her belongings. ‘Father says we can’t stay here, so we’re going to William’s people.’ William was just standing there looking awkward. And so they went. Later I heard that they had gone to Calais, where William was serving as a soldier in the garrison. Later still I gave thanks for it, for being abroad, Mary did not have to live through the scandal – or the dangers – of Anne’s fall. What grieves me is she and Anne never were reconciled.

  Mary is the only one left to me now, my silly, sweet grandchild. Her, and her two children, Harry and Kate. I have missed them cruelly, these past four years. But now there is no more risk of royal displeasure, and Mary can return whenever she wants to.

  The months pass so quickly now that I am old. It seems that no sooner are the servants pulling down the Christmas greenery – or what passes for it nowadays – they are putting it up again. And now another Christmas is approaching, and Mary is coming home.

  I am so happy to see the little procession trotting into the courtyard. I’m even happy to see that fool Stafford, with his big wide grin and gangly frame.

  ‘My lady!’ Mary cries, and runs into my arms. Her children are dancing about her, glad to be home. I hug and kiss them all, feeling life seeping back into my ancient bones. Now the servants will no longer be able to tyrannise me!

  Mary is looking about her in wonder. ‘I had forgot how lovely Hever is,’ she breathes. A shadow clouds her pretty face. ‘It seems so strange and empty that they are all gone – Father, Mother, George . . . and Anne.’ He
r eyes gleam with tears. ‘I feel quite an orphan!’

  ‘You have me, child,’ I assure her.

  ‘Thank the good Lord for that,’ she says, taking my arm, and leads the way into the entrance hall.

  They have returned to England in the train of the new Queen, another Anne.

  ‘What is she like?’ I ask over supper in the evening, as we tuck into dishes of suckling pig and herring.

  Mary hesitates. ‘Very pleasant, it seems, but – very unlike any of the King’s other wives. She’s no beauty.’

  ‘I daresay he knew what he was doing when he chose her,’ Stafford offers. ‘But it’s an odd choice.’

  ‘Who can fathom the minds of kings?’ I ask.

  ‘Aye.’ Mary’s response is heartfelt. I see Stafford wince.

  ‘Will is to go to court,’ Mary tells me. ‘He will be serving his Grace as one of the Gentleman Pensioners, keeping watch in the King’s presence chamber. They are but fifty in number, and there is much demand when a vacancy arises. But Will was recommended by Sir Anthony Browne, whom we met in Calais.’

  ‘You are a lucky fellow, Will,’ I tell him. I find myself quite liking him, despite myself. He’s amiable and straightforward, and he clearly worships Mary.

  ‘Will you go to court with him?’ I want to know.

  ‘I think not. There is nothing for me there now. Besides, I have to take possession of my inheritance. I need to find a good lawyer.’ She frowns. ‘I’m surprised but pleased to see you still here at Hever, my lady.’

  ‘I’ll be here till I die,’ I say. ‘The King has sanctioned it.’

  ‘Then, God willing, you will be here for many years yet!’ she smiles.

  In the morning, I walk with Mary to Hever Church, leaning on her arm. We stand for a time by Thomas’s tomb, staring down at the fine memorial brass showing him wearing his Garter insignia. Masses are being said for his soul here, by the King’s order.