I Am Woe

Night falls. It is warm for mid-May, here in my apartments, yet I feel a chill. Somewhere outside, an owl screeches. I have ever been afraid of them, their ghostly white faces in the darkness too otherworldly. It is not that they kill; I know they keep our fields and stables free of mice and other such creatures. And I have loved hawking since I was old enough, even choosing a falcon as my badge when I was crowned queen. A noblewoman does not fear those who kill if it is in her service. But the owl… it is not trained, it hunts not in the day, and its face holds too many secrets. Some also say it is an ill omen to hear its cry. I need no owl to tell me that I will die on the morrow, my husband the King has commanded it and so I shall.

Some would say I should have known that this would be my fate. That he, so willing to discard his first wife – whom they say he truly loved once, stronger than he ever loved me, wretched Anne – should find it even easier a second time, if I did not provide the needed heir. How, though, could I have doubted that I would? Younger than Catherine, and my sister had proved able to bear a son, some said to have been the King’s. Though Henry had never claimed him, he had provided well for the boy that indeed shared his own name. I gave him a daughter as soon as we were wed, had reason to believe that there would be more children, but they failed to quicken or came into the world already expired. The last, I was told, was the son that we needed, but I could not tell to look at the unformed thing. It happened on the day of Catherine’s burial. Were I more superstitious, I might say that it was her final curse thrown at me, God knows her supporters believe it. The wicked ambassador Chapuys, who, outside of my hearing, never called me anything but “The Whore” as if no one would report it to me, would certainly like it to be her work or that of her bastard daughter. I tried to befriend the lady Mary after her mother’s death, but she refused my overtures, as if she were still a titled royal and I the commoner!

Alas, in this prison it matters not that I am a queen, for I am still subject to the King. I am sure the smug Mary is overjoyed that I have been brought lower than Catherine. The owl screeches again. Perhaps it is fighting over prey, or mating, or simply proclaiming its prowess in the hunt, or its freedom that I shall never again know except in death. I picture its heart-shaped face and shudder. I am like the mouse caught in its talons.

Too, although I have been crowned, I this evening told that my marriage to the King has been annulled, as if it never happened. I have in retrospect been made the whore that my enemies called me though I had a ring on my finger and a crown on my head. My daughter is as much bastard as her half-siblings, the lady Mary, and Bessie Blount’s son who despite the taint of his birth is yet a Duke and Lord High Admiral. Without king as husband, though my jailers treat me with deference for my high birth, I am no longer truly Queen.

Yet with title or none I am housed in the Queen’s Apartments, from which very same rooms not quite three years ago I left for Westminster Abbey and was given a crown to wear heretofore only borne by kings. We were sure that the child I then carried would be the longed-for legitimate prince, blessing my beloved’s rule! I had worn white cloth of gold to process to the Abbey, rode in a litter carried by two palfreys wearing white damask. Barons acted as my footmen, holding a golden canopy above my head. My coronation was to guide England into a new, exalted era: no longer beholden to Rome, we would bring our people closer to God by allowing them to read the Bible in their own tongue, and in return be blessed with many sons: one to inherit the throne when my lord husband finally consented to leave this earth, others to support him as loyal Dukes and lieutenants, and perhaps even one or two in the new Church of England as spiritual advisors who also had an understanding of royal pomp and etiquette. I had for my motto, “The most happy,” and I then believed that I was.

Instead, because I failed in my duty to provide the sons, I was accused of plotting to take my husband’s life – treason – and raise some lowborn lover or other to his station. I, daughter of an earl, the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, once pursued by earls and heirs until I caught the eye of the king, debase myself with musicians and groomsmen? Tongues wagged because I had the common touch and would banter with my servants and the King’s, but I would never allow such men to touch me in that way. And then, in order to give me a lover of my own rank yet turn even more who might yet be my supporters against me, they said I even gave myself to my own brother! George and I were close, true, but only in the natural manner of siblings, especially after our sister left court following her scandalous second marriage two years ago. Perhaps she would consort with men who could not match her, but she was a widow who had already been discarded as the King’s mistress after all. I had held out for a marriage, did that not prove to all that I cared more for my virtue than that?

The men were all executed yesterday. Fortunately as the White Tower stands between my apartments and the Green, I was not forced to watch. The men of lower rank had been sentenced to drawing and quartering, though due to several of them being minor aristocrats and George as a viscount, it was commuted to beheading. The musician Smeaton was entirely of common birth, but perhaps the quicker death was granted as he had already been tortured to make him confess, the poor soul. Although George and I were tried separately due to being of higher birth, it was found sufficient for him to be dispatched with the same axe as the others. Although with the loss of my brother and my status as a wife I feel already dead, it was decided that I must wait a further two days to meet my Maker.

I strain my ears, but the owl has fallen silent. For now I am alone with my thoughts. I cannot sleep, knowing that soon I will never again awaken. There has been no time to prepare a proper tomb, and I wonder if my name will be erased from history. My only living child is not old enough to hold on to memories of me, although I have done my best to see her as frequently as possible in her household at Hatfield. I wonder what lies they will tell her, will she grow up to hate me for having lost her place as princess? Those who had reason to love me – my uncle Norfolk, my former chaplain and now Archbishop Cranmer, my erstwhile suitor Percy, not one of them moved to help me for fear of his own doom. The only kindness I have been shown since my arrest is word that the King will not suffer me to burn as other female offenders are done to and has fetched an expert swordsman from France for the task of separating my head from my body and thus committing my soul to the King of Heaven as I once committed my body to the King of England. It is said that the sword, handled properly, is quicker and cleaner than the axe. I know that he will not further his kindness by rescinding the sentence and its concomitant accusations; just as he gave his heart to me when he tired of Catherine, he has already begun paying court to one of my own ladies and second cousin, a plain and lumpish girl called Jane, with little education and even less gift for conversation, but with the audacity to show off the painted miniature Henry gave her in front of me. I tore it away from her and ought to have done worse, but hoped that my leniency would give Henry cause to show me favor again. The more fool I.

The candle has burned down and it is now two hours after midnight. My almoner has come to sit with me, so that we can discuss the disposition of what few earthly goods I possess in my new straits, my last act in this life for the sanctity of my soul. I shall go placidly to my end as to die will be preferable to remaining as prisoner or facing the humiliation of going back to public life in my reduced circumstances for all to jeer at, only the King’s mistress after all. For at least the time that my head remains on my shoulders, I shall hold it high. I have already declared my innocence and shall not beg or weep.

Now I hear the owl again, but it soon shall be going to its rest, as I move inexorably to mine: dawn approaches, and I send for my gaoler, Kingston, to hear mass with me and bear witness to my innocence as I pledge before the sacrament that I have done none of which I am accused. He arrives as the dawn pinks my window. He is more afraid than am I, and stumbles to say that my death should be painless. I assure him that I fear no pain, for, “I have heard that the swordsman is quite good, and at any rate I have got a very little neck.” I hold my hand to my throat and laugh as if this is the gayest jest ever made. As if I shall not soon walk for the last time through the Great Hall where I was judged, and meet my destiny upon the scaffold. But then, I shall be free of cares and those who judged me will know that they have sent an innocent woman to the block, so who then will have the advantage?