The Tudor Wife. Emily Purdy

like silver and was as keen as the sharpest razor. Her eyes were prominent and dark brown, with a beguiling and vivacious sparkle. But her complexion varied in the eyes of the beholder; deemed creamy by some and sallow by others. Nine years spent at the French court had left her more French than English, and her voice would always retain a lyrical—and some said sensual—lilting accent. Instead of petite, blond, and partridge-plump like all the celebrated English beauties, including her sister Mary, Anne Boleyn was tall, dark, and slender as a reed, with a cloak of glossy black hair reaching all the way down to her knees, which for her life entire she would flout convention by letting flow gypsy-free, instead of confining it inside a coif after she became a wife.

      No, she was not beautiful, but at deception she excelled, cleverly concealing her flaws by the most ingenious means, and in doing so she set fashions. A choker of velvet, precious gems, or pearls hid an unsightly strawberry wen upon her throat. And she devised a new style of sleeve, worn full, long, and flowing, over wrist-length under-sleeves to conceal an even more unbecoming blemish—the start of a sixth finger, just the tip and nail, protruding from the side of the smallest finger on her left hand. Anne set the fashions other women rushed to follow, never knowing that they were devices of illusion, like the objects the court magician employed to perform his tricks and leave his audience gasping in astonishment and delight, wondering how the trick was done but nonetheless enchanted.

      In 1522 when I, Lady Jane Parker, first met her, her fate was undecided. ‘What to do about Anne?’ was the subject of many grave parental debates from her infancy onward. If only she were blond like her sister Mary, or red-haired like the King’s sister, a true English rose—but no, Anne’s tresses were black. If only her eyes were blue and placid, or serene and green, instead of almondshaped and dark. If only her skin were porcelain pale with rosy pink cheeks, instead of sultry and sallow like a woman of France or Spain. If only, if only, if only! Would she ever make a good match? Would any man of standing take a dark, six-fingered bride with a tempestuous and rebellious temperament that even the stern Sir Thomas Boleyn had been unable to quash? Perhaps a convent would be the wisest choice? Filled as they were with plain, ugly, disfigured, and otherwise unmarriageable girls, surely there was a niche there that Anne could fill, and with her brains she might even rise to the rank of abbess and thus bring a small measure of glory to her family.

      Then—when marriage and the future were so much on all our minds—came the fateful day when my path first crossed hers and our destinies became irrevocably entangled. Centuries from now, if anyone remembers me, it will be because of Anne Boleyn.

      And for that I damn and curse her.

      

      My father, Lord Morley, and Sir Thomas Boleyn were keen to forge a match between myself, an only child and sole heiress to my father’s sizable fortune, and George, the only Boleyn son. It was a notion, I confess, that made me swoon with delight. My heart was already his, and had been ever since the day I arrived at court, a befuddled and nervous maid, lost amidst the noisy and confusing bustle of King Henry’s court. Suddenly finding myself separated from my escort, I asked a passing gentleman to help me find my way. Gallantly, he offered me his arm and saw me safely to my chamber door, and there he bowed, with a most elegant flourish of his white-plumed cap, and left me.

      No sooner had he turned his back than my hand shot out to waylay a passing page boy, clutching so tight to his sleeve I felt some of the stitches at the shoulder snap.

      ‘Tell me that gentleman’s name!’ I implored.

      ‘George Boleyn,’ came the answer.

      And ever since, it has been engraved upon my heart. Every night when I knelt beside my bed in prayer I pleaded fervently, ‘Please! Make him mine!’ I prayed to God, and I would gladly have prayed to the Devil too, if I thought Our Heavenly Father would fail to grant my deepest, most heartfelt wish. Sans regret, I would have sold my soul to have him! As I lay alone in darkness, waiting for slumber, I whispered his name times beyond number, soft and reverent, as if it were—and for me it was!—a sacrament or prayer.

      When I went home to Great Hallingbury, our sturdy redbrick manor nestled in the sleepy Essex countryside, I began, like a general, to plot my campaign. Fortunately, I was a spoiled only child and, more often than not, my father was happy to indulge me.

      Father was a keen classical scholar, more at ease with the ancient Greeks and Romans, their history, culture, and myths, than the backbiting, scandal, politics, and intrigue of King Henry’s court. Whenever he could, he shut himself away in his library with his beloved scrolls and books, surrounded by statues and busts of gods, goddesses, and great warriors, while he worked zealously at his Greek and Latin translations, which he had afterwards elegantly bound and presented to the King, his friends, and other like-minded scholars. Whenever I could, I haunted his library, chattering endlessly, no doubt making a great nuisance of myself, endeavoring at every opportunity to insert George Boleyn’s name into the conversation, and for months it was George Boleyn this and George Boleyn that, until Father took the hint and, no doubt hoping to restore serene and blessed silence to his library, made arrangements to meet with Sir Thomas Boleyn and discuss the possibility of a betrothal.

      Thus, with further negotiations in mind, my father was pleased to accept Sir Thomas Boleyn’s invitation to visit the family castle of Hever, a modest, mellow-stone block nestled in the heart of the Kentish countryside, surrounded by a moat and lush greenery.

      Pale and patrician in sapphire blue velvet, Lady Boleyn, the former Elizabeth Howard, welcomed us warmly.

      ‘Let all the formality be in the marriage contracts!’ she declared, embracing me as if I were her daughterin-law already.

      After I had quenched my thirst and changed my gown, she directed me to the garden where I might enjoy the company of her children—George, Mary, and the newly returned Anne.

      Surely my heart must have shown upon my face when he turned a welcoming smile in my direction. It was like a whip crack, a sharp, ecstatic pang, a slap, lashing hard against my heart. Love was the master and I was the slave!

      At twenty, George Boleyn was breathtakingly handsome, endowed with a lively wit and a reputation for being something of a rake. He was slender and tall, dark as a Spaniard or a Frenchman, with sleek black hair and a short, neatly trimmed beard and mustache, eyes the warmest shade of brown I had ever seen—they reminded me of a sable robe I wanted to wrap myself up in on a cold winter’s day—teeth like polished ivory, lips full, pink, and sensual, and skin the warm golden hue of honey. A poet and musician, his pen and lute were always at his side, and when he strummed his lute I felt as if my heart were its strings. How could I not love him?

      But I was never fool enough to think that he loved me. I hoped, I yearned, I burned with lust and jealousy, but I never cherished that illusion. Was there ever a Jane plainer than I? Me with my nose like a beak, my face and figure all sharp angles with no plump, pillowsoft bosom or curves, and my hair a lank and lifeless mousy brown, I could never stir a man’s loins and make his blood race. But reality didn’t stop me from wanting, hoping, and dreaming. And in our world, where titles, lands, and fortunes—not love—are the stuff of which marriages are made, the odds of winning him were not entirely stacked against me.

      As I followed the garden path, the summer breeze carried the tart tang of lemon to my nose and I turned to seek its source.

      Indolent and lush as a rose in full bloom, Mary Boleyn lounged in a chair situated to take best advantage of the sun. Gowned in gold-embroidered peacock blue and fiery orange satin, far too rich for such a rustic setting, Mary lolled back against her cushions like a wellcontented cat. Upon her head she wore a straw hat with the crown cut out and a very wide brim upon which her long golden tresses, soaked thoroughly with lemon juice, were spread to be bleached blonder still by the sun’s bright rays. And beneath her orange kirtle her stomach swelled with the promise of King Henry’s child.

      The most amiable of wantons was Mary. She lost her virtue early, to no less a personage than the King of France. She comported herself with such lascivious abandon that she was banished from that most licentious and hedonistic of courts for ‘conduct unbecoming to a maid,’ and sent home to England, where she at once caught King Henry VIII’s eye and