LADY SHELTON WAS no longer insolent but mildly placating. I treated her coolly but I was not so foolish as to reject my new concessions. Her attitude told me a great deal about the rapidly declining importance of Anne Boleyn.
Eustace Chapuys came to see me. I was amazed that he had been allowed to do so, and my delight was profound.
He told me that there would almost certainly be a change in my position. He understood my deep sorrow at the death of my mother, but that event had made my position safer. There were rumors about Anne Boleyn. She would be removed in some way, there was no doubt of that. The King was working toward it.
“We do not know,” went on Chapuys, “what method the King will choose. Anne Boleyn has no royal relations to make things difficult for him. Her family owe their elevated position to the King's favors through Anne and her sister Mary before her. They will be put down as easily as they have been raised up. Her fall is imminent. The Seymours are promoting their sister. Edward and Thomas are a pair of very ambitious gentlemen, and Jane is a quiet, pale creature … a marked change from Anne Boleyn. But rest assured, events will move fast and we must be prepared.”
“Yes,” I answered.
“If the King puts Anne Boleyn from him, his next move will be to marry again. If his plan is to declare the marriage to Anne invalid, then his marriage to Queen Katharine was a true one and you are his legitimate daughter. We cannot guess how he will do it, but in any case it seems your status must change. There is a rumor that he had been seduced by witchcraft and now is free from it. We must hold ourselves in readiness for whichever way he turns.”
The intrigue was helpful to me in a way. It lifted me out of my overwhelming sorrow and imposed itself on the despondency which had enveloped me.
It was action … and whatever happened seemed preferable to sitting alone in my room brooding on the death of my mother.
I was now hearing more because I could have visitors
Anne Boleyn blamed her miscarriage on her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, because he had broken the news of the King's accident to her too suddenly. She had been so worried about the King that the shock had brought on the premature birth of her child.
It did not help her. Nothing could help her now. The King was as determined to be rid of her as he had once been to possess her.
I had thought the last two years, when I had been more or less a prisoner, were the two most eventful through which I had lived. But there was more to come.
It was a relief to me to be able to talk to Chapuys and to learn that the Emperor's concern for me had been great and that he had always been eager to seize an opportunity to help me.
Now it seemed there was a chance.
“If you were out of this country, in Spain or Flanders … under the Emperor's care, he would be happier,” said Chapuys. “The King, your father, has shown himself to be capable of any rash act which momentarily serves his purpose. He broke with Rome so that he might marry Anne Boleyn. To take such an unprecedented step for such a reason must give us all some concern. Whether Queen Katharine was poisoned—and poisoned at his command, we cannot be sure, but it is a possibility which we must not lose sight of. The Emperor would feel happier if you were out of the country.”
“My father would never let me go.”
“Certainly he would not. It would be a great blow to him if he thought you were with the Emperor, for if he declared his marriage to Anne Boleyn nall and void, you are the heir to the throne.”
“But he has declared his marriage to my mother was no true one, and it was said by the bishop at her funeral service that she admitted it, which was a lie, I know … but it was all done at my father's command.”
“That was before he knew that Anne Boleyn had lost the child. All is different now. Her reign is over.”
“They say that he plans to put another in her place.”
He nodded. “We cannot be sure which way events will turn but you must be prepared.”
“What do you suggest?”
“This is highly secret. If it were mentioned outside these walls, it could cause trouble…great trouble. It would cost you your life and there would be little I could do to save it. I should immediately be sent back to Spain. You understand the importance of secrecy?”
“I do.”
He nodded. “My plan is to get you out of this place. There will be horses waiting to take us to the coast, and there we shall cross to Flanders.”
“I shall be taken to my cousin?”
He nodded.
“Now, we must plan. Could you get away without your women's knowledge?”
“I have few servants now, you know.”
“That is good.”
“There are some whom I can trust.”
Chapuys shook his head. “Trust no one. You must slip away unseen. No one must know that you have gone until you are on the sea.”
“They are here. They would see me leave. Unless I gave them a sleeping draught.”
“Would that be possible?”
“I think so…if I had the draught.”
“That would be an easy matter.”
“I should have to avoid Lady Shelton.”
“Would that be difficult?”
“Less so now. She is not so watchful as she once was. She no longer acts like my jailer.”
“This sounds plausible. We should have horses waiting. We could get to Gravesend easily from here… and there embark. You will be hearing more of this from me.”
After he had gone, I lay in my bed thinking of it. I should be taken to my cousin. I remembered so well that occasion—years and years ago it seemed now—when my mother had held my hand and we had stood on the steps at Greenwich while the barge came along. I could see my dazzling father and beside him the young man in black velvet with the gold chain about his neck… the young man with whom I had been told I was in love.
He had broken our engagement, but I had forgiven him that now. I understood that monarchs such as he were governed by expediency. I forgave him for that and for not coming to my rescue as a knight of chivalry and romance would have done, however difficult.
I was no longer romantic. Events had made me cynical, yet still there was a softness in me. I was capable of loving deeply, which was clear by the sorrow the loss of my mother was causing me.
SO WE PLANNED and Chapuys visited me often. Lady Shelton made no objection. Chapuys was deeply anxious that all should go well, for if it did not, there would be dire consequences.
He told me that he was making arrangements with the utmost secrecy and would bring the sleeping draught to me when it was to be administered. I had practiced what I must do. I had made a careful study of how I should go without passing Lady Shelton's window. We must wait for a moonless night when all would be ready.
Lady Shelton came to me the day after I had had a visit from Chapuys and he had told me that, as soon as the moon waned, we would put our plan into action.
She said; “Madam, my lady, we have orders. We leave tomorrow for Hunsdon.”
“But …” I cried, “why?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Orders,” she said tersely.
After she had gone, I sat on my bed and stared at the window. This would change everything. We could not go tonight for the moon was too bright. Someone would almost certainly see me creeping across the garden. Besides, the horses would not be ready. Everything had to be perfect. Had someone heard? How could I be sure? There were spies everywhere. I could not believe that it would be someone in my household.
Chapuys came to see me in some consternation.
“Hunsdon,” he said.
“Hunsdon! It will be too difficult from Hunsdon. We could not do it in a night. We should have to ride through the countryside. We should have to change horses. We should be detected. Everything depends on the closeness to Gravesend.”