Dear Heart, How Like You This (8 page)

CONTENTS

“And I have leave to go of her goodness.”

Our lives began to change drastically after Mary’s departure to Brussels. It was obvious Uncle Boleyn’s interest in his other offspring was now increased, as if debating with himself the best course to take concerning their futures.

This was the time when the betrothal between our Princess Mary Rose to Charles of Castile, later elected the Holy Roman Emperor, was broken off after Ferdinand—Charles’s grandfather—betrayed our King—his son-in-law—by signing a treaty for peace with Maximilian, Charles’s other grandfather. Thus, Cardinal Wolsey brought into being a new political alliance more to his own liking. The young Princess Mary of York was wed to King
Louis
XII of France.

Even at nearly twelve I was aware of the uproar this marriage caused. How could I not be? Simonette and the other women of the household buzzed here, there and everywhere their deep disapproval of this spring-to-winter marriage. Furthermore, my father told me their feelings of disgust were likewise echoed throughout England to those people living beyond our shores. Mary was just eighteen, and said to be a true paragon of beauty. Many called her “The Rose of all England.” Aye, England’s budding Rose married to
Louis
of France—a tottering, toothless old man. When the news finally reached us at Hever Castle, our feelings of sympathy speedily went out to the young Tudor Princess. However, Mary was no less than a Tudor and it was known she had obtained from her brother the promise that, after this forced diplomatic marriage, she alone would have the choice of who her next husband would be.

Thus, after a proxy marriage had been performed at Westminster in October of 1514, preparations were put under way for the beauteous new Queen’s departure to her husband’s kingdom.

Part of the preparations was deciding which attendants would accompany Queen Mary to the French court. Because of her own youth, it was decided several of the Queen’s attendants would be some nubile girls—children who would greatly benefit from being educated at the French court.

It happened so swiftly. Aye, so swiftly did we move from innocent childhood to somewhere and sometime that it demanded of us defences we had not. One October day George, Anna and I were enjoying some moments freed from serious study, partaking in a beautiful, splendid autumn day by climbing trees and shaking down leaves on one another. How we laughed until our sides ached! The next day, Simonette and Anne were frantically packing all their personal belongings into travelling chests. So it was happiness slipped away from one moment to the next.

That morning we had received a brief message from Uncle Boleyn telling us Anna had been summoned to form part of the assemblage to accompany Mary Tudor.

George, Anna and I were in a state of shock. Indeed, I know for certain that everyone at Hever felt completely broken up at the prospect of losing the child Anne forever more. Even Father Stephen seemed to lose his usual calm composure when he came into the library to find only George and me there, both of us subdued and close to tears, with Anne’s usual place forlornly and so obviously empty.

By the end of the day Anne and Simonette had finished packing. Aye, because of Anne’s extreme youth Simonette was also leaving to attend her in France, and also my cousin Mary, who had been summoned from the court of Brussels to be also an attendant to the new Queen. Anna felt comforted she would soon see her sister, as well as having the tender care of Simonette. But for George and me, it was not only Anna we were losing, but also the foster mother of our childhoods. I felt as if all my young blood had frozen somewhere in my heart. Looking at George’s sick face, I could easily see he felt the same.

Then the time came when we three children sat around a table, in a small room connected to the nursery, eating our final childhood meal together.

“At least Father Stephen has told me that Tom and I can come with you to Dover,” George said.

Anne looked up at that and smiled sweetly at her brother.

“Aye, George. That will give us a few more days together, perhaps even a week,” Anne replied.

“Thank the good Lord for small favours,” I sarcastically injected.

Anne suddenly lifted her head, as if she had just thought of something.

“Speaking of favours, coz… you’ve reminded me of something I wished to ask of you. Tommy, will you please look after Aster and Pluto for me? Oh, I wish I could… do you think that if I took Pluto with me to Dover they would allow me take him to France?”

George and I both looked at one another, probably with the same vision in our mind: an enormous Irish wolfhound, almost the height of a small horse, causing complete pandemonium aboard a small English galleon. George raised his hand to the right side of his face, and shook his head slightly in my direction.

“No,” I answered quietly for both of us, looking down at a trencher of food I possessed no hunger for. We all then became silent, with me lost in thoughts of what time could now hold in store for us three.

That night lives in my memory as one of the worst of my childhood. For hours I lay upon my bed, restless and in tears. Never had I thought that I would be separated from Anne so soon. Never had I realised how much I had bound myself—heart and soul—to my younger cousin. At long last, I sank into a fretful and unrestful slumber, tormented by ugly dreams.

Father Stephen awoke us for our journey before the break of day. George and I had spent the night before filling our saddlebags with the things we thought we would need for our journey to Dover. Thus, with our gear already prepared, we went down to kitchen to be given, by the cook, meat and some newly-baked bread with which to break our fast. Anne and Simonette, the servants told us, were busy doing a last minute check to ensure they had packed everything that they might need. However, before we had finished our bread, Anna came flying down the spiral staircase leading from the bedchamber she now slept in with Simonette.

“Simonette has shooed me away,” Anna said when she reached us. “She says I am just in the way… You know, I do believe she is in a bad mood this morning. I do not think she wants to return to France.”

Anna danced around the room, as if her feet would not let her stay still. I could understand Simonette’s reason for sending her away; you could almost breathe in the feeling of Anne’s nervous, unspent energy.

“Here,” said George and passed her half a loaf of bread from the inside of his doublet, “I saved you some food.”

“Thanking you most kindly, sweet brother!” Anne responded with a slight curtsey.

“Good lord,” I said in disgust. “You two act as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening.”

Both George and Anne looked at me in surprise.

“Is there anything we can do about it, Tom?” George asked, lifting an eyebrow at me.

No. There was nothing we three could do to stop the sands of time changing the pattern of our lives. Indeed, the journey to Dover soon became a memory of the past. As too the memory of our heart-broken farewells. And there is an image, frozen somewhere in my heart, of a priest’s huge figure over-shadowing two lanky boys. I know—
aye, how I do know
—one of those boys stood on that rocky shore, watching, in unspoken anguish, as a galleon vanished forever over a grey horizon.

Thus, my childhood ended.

*

Soon I entered fully into my thirteenth year and my father summoned me home to Allington so to inform me of my entry into St. John’s, of Cambridge University. It was not my father’s plan for me to obtain a degree (which I did not, as I was called home just before the close of my fourth year and the attainment of my Bachelor of Arts). Rather, my father hoped my time at Cambridge would set my feet upon the road he wished for me to take: for certes, to be in the future as he was now, a valued court official.

I was very thankful for the time I had spent with Father Stephen. For it was his tutoring which had first opened up the windows of my mind, building sound foundations for all that I studied at Cambridge: philosophy, theology, expanding my knowledge of classical languages, beginning too my grounding in civil law. This last my father regarded immensely important, as it prepared me for my expected role at court. But I never forgot my dream of spending my life with Anne, and I promised myself one day I would turn it into a reality.

At the university, we lived a very simple life. I could easily imagine life in a monastery similar to how we were expected to conduct ourselves while students at Cambridge. Divided into three camps—the first, of which I was a part, nobility and gentlemen living their lives close to the crown, as well as respected academics—the university mixed together nobility, gentlemen, scholars and esteemed persons, and a sprinkling of persons possessing very little status in our commonwealth.

As similar were our lives to that lived by monks, so was our garb, almost twin to the black robes worn by the Jesuit priests, though our hats were square rather than round like the ones they wore. I enjoyed my time as a scholar at Cambridge, feeling fortunate to be born in this time where all seemed turned to the enrichment of knowledge. Thus, it appeared to me all doors—in sooth, everything underneath the heavens—was open to us scholars.

*

The narrow bed groaned under my weight as I flicked a roving flea off my wrist, knowing full well that another and yet another would soon replace it. Grabbing my book from off my pillow, I became aware that light flowed all around me; my pillow—part of it now shadowed by my head and shoulders—gone from a dirty, dull yellow to hint at its former duck-feathers’ colour of a year past. I turned to see Harry Durham returned from his morning lecture, holding in one hand his square-shaped student hat and in the other, book-marked by finger, a thin Greek manuscript.

“Tom! ’Tis long time for you to be gone, my friend! Anon, if you do not go this very moment you’ll discover the door locked to your entrance.”

I took out from the pages of my book several pages of folded parchment, and again opened them on my lap.

“This letter from my kinsman came while you were gone, Harry. I wanted time alone to read it and make a beginning of a reply. Civil law can do without my company this morn.”

“Be it upon your own head, Thomas Wyatt!” Harry said, flinging the hat upon his own cot before pulling the long gown over his head.

Now with tousled hair and dressed in small clothes, he frowned at me, but I saw the merry glint in his gaze.

I smiled in response, thinking how fortunate I had been to find Harry to share my university abode with, meaning one other beside myself also needed to provide furniture and tableware for the room’s comfort, not forgetting provision of fuel for the chamber’s small fireplace. Not only did it reduce the cost of our board, but Harry and I also appreciated the fact that we had formed an advantageous friendship, which ensured both his kin and mine could well afford our stay at Cambridge. Indeed, it cost my father upwards of twenty pounds a year to ensure that my time of study at Cambridge was lived in a way our family’s station required.

Harry went to the one and only chair in the room and began to read his book. I likewise returned my attention to Anne’s letter, one of the many that had come my way via George, the same route I used to send her letters. During her first months in France, and because of her extreme youth, Anna was quickly made a part of the royal nursery. In the letter I held in my hand, Anna relayed how she had become fast friend of a princess of royal blood. Indeed, like her previous letters, her latest communication spoke of her growing love for all things French, but also of her continuing affection for all she had left behind.

For safekeeping, I placed the letter again between the pages of my book, and sighed, knowing full well the words I wanted to write to her in reply. But I knew it was useless to write and ask her when she expected to return to England. The decision was not in her hands. Anna would return when her father decided it was time for her to return.