we were never let to say goodbye) that he defended me, my birth as high as his, refusing to renounce our vows. I shuddered when I thought of him, a tender boy come toe to toe with such a fearsome enemy. And so did Wolsey curse my wretched love and send him home to his furious father. Our pledges made in honesty were rent apart, infringed, dissolved as tho they’d not existed.
For my part, Father called me to his rooms and thrashed me soundly. That hot pain was sweet and mild compared to nev-erending separateness from my beloved. Stinging from his blows I did not weep but stood my ground and held his marble eyes.
I said, “Great Cardinal Wolsey thinks he’s won this game with me a helpless girl who cowers neath his lash. But let me say one thing to you, an oath, that if it ever lays within my power I shall do the Cardinal as much displeasure as he has to me.”
My Father stood shocked and still at my outrageous words, a young girl presuming to threaten so high a man. Then Father banished me from Court and sent me packing home to distant Hever Hall where I now write.
Life is dull in Edenbridge, the days are empty as a sodden field at dawn. The flowers have no smell, the birdsong grates my ear, I lose my self within the green hedge maze and wish that I could fade to nothing. A letter came a day ago to say that Percy and the Talbot girl had married. I did not cry, for all my tears were spent. Instead, like sick and festering pustules bursting forth, new hatred exploded within me for Cardinal Wolsey, and I set a curse upon his head.
I’ll have his soul, be that assured. When? How? I cannot know. But Anne Boleyn shall have her day.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
25 March 1523
Diary,
I am wearied beyond imagining. Each and every day we sit, my good Mother and my self, before the hearth as Chaplain Parker drones the Psalms and Scriptures and we stitch, stitch, stitch upon an endless tapestry. I swear if I embroider one more hoof of unicorn or wing of mythic dragon I shall scream! How does my Mother live so dull a life? Week after month after year rising early to oversee the baking, brewing, cheese making. Seeing every servant stay full occupied, collecting feathers for our pillows, candle making and prayers, always prayers.
I see behind her clouded eyes a dying fire that once burned sharp and bright, but here among the bumpkins and the sheep, the endless fields broken by a pallid stream they call a river, my Mother’s dreams are extinguished like the candles in a chapel, one by one by one. She will not speak of it but I believe there once was affection between her and my always absent Father. Not a love match altogether, but once married they were glad of it. Elizabeth Howard proud of a husband not highly born but bold, who saw the world as his for taking. And Thomas Boleyn glad of a wife who raised his fortunes, a kindly heart and pretty face who proudly gave him one child a year and did not die. Who saw to fields, accounts and manor with an even temper, bearing lonely years in blessed silence.
My Mother, like some domestic tutor, impresses me with virtues I must learn if I would marry well. Chastity, of course, and modesty I can abide. But humility and evenness of temper, in truth, are words that do not describe my self. She sees my sullen pain and tells me, “Do not brood so. You will be called to Court again. Go, take your hound Urian. Hunt, tend the gardens, ride to neighbors, pluck the lute.” But nothing changes such a leaden prison. Early to bed for saving candlewax, early to rise for household chores. The days drag on in deadly measure.
They say that with my love of Percy I invoked King Henry’s wrath and that his wrath is death. But this banished life he’s sent me to is worse than death. I nightly climb the dark narrow circle of stairs to my stone bedchamber, and with every step curse his name and Wolsey’s too. Lying on my stiff pallet, the moonlight cannot find its way through narrow window holes to cheer
For my part, Father called me to his rooms and thrashed me soundly. That hot pain was sweet and mild compared to nev-erending separateness from my beloved. Stinging from his blows I did not weep but stood my ground and held his marble eyes.
I said, “Great Cardinal Wolsey thinks he’s won this game with me a helpless girl who cowers neath his lash. But let me say one thing to you, an oath, that if it ever lays within my power I shall do the Cardinal as much displeasure as he has to me.”
My Father stood shocked and still at my outrageous words, a young girl presuming to threaten so high a man. Then Father banished me from Court and sent me packing home to distant Hever Hall where I now write.
Life is dull in Edenbridge, the days are empty as a sodden field at dawn. The flowers have no smell, the birdsong grates my ear, I lose my self within the green hedge maze and wish that I could fade to nothing. A letter came a day ago to say that Percy and the Talbot girl had married. I did not cry, for all my tears were spent. Instead, like sick and festering pustules bursting forth, new hatred exploded within me for Cardinal Wolsey, and I set a curse upon his head.
I’ll have his soul, be that assured. When? How? I cannot know. But Anne Boleyn shall have her day.
Yours faithfully,
Anne
25 March 1523
Diary,
I am wearied beyond imagining. Each and every day we sit, my good Mother and my self, before the hearth as Chaplain Parker drones the Psalms and Scriptures and we stitch, stitch, stitch upon an endless tapestry. I swear if I embroider one more hoof of unicorn or wing of mythic dragon I shall scream! How does my Mother live so dull a life? Week after month after year rising early to oversee the baking, brewing, cheese making. Seeing every servant stay full occupied, collecting feathers for our pillows, candle making and prayers, always prayers.
I see behind her clouded eyes a dying fire that once burned sharp and bright, but here among the bumpkins and the sheep, the endless fields broken by a pallid stream they call a river, my Mother’s dreams are extinguished like the candles in a chapel, one by one by one. She will not speak of it but I believe there once was affection between her and my always absent Father. Not a love match altogether, but once married they were glad of it. Elizabeth Howard proud of a husband not highly born but bold, who saw the world as his for taking. And Thomas Boleyn glad of a wife who raised his fortunes, a kindly heart and pretty face who proudly gave him one child a year and did not die. Who saw to fields, accounts and manor with an even temper, bearing lonely years in blessed silence.
My Mother, like some domestic tutor, impresses me with virtues I must learn if I would marry well. Chastity, of course, and modesty I can abide. But humility and evenness of temper, in truth, are words that do not describe my self. She sees my sullen pain and tells me, “Do not brood so. You will be called to Court again. Go, take your hound Urian. Hunt, tend the gardens, ride to neighbors, pluck the lute.” But nothing changes such a leaden prison. Early to bed for saving candlewax, early to rise for household chores. The days drag on in deadly measure.
They say that with my love of Percy I invoked King Henry’s wrath and that his wrath is death. But this banished life he’s sent me to is worse than death. I nightly climb the dark narrow circle of stairs to my stone bedchamber, and with every step curse his name and Wolsey’s too. Lying on my stiff pallet, the moonlight cannot find its way through narrow window holes to cheer
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