In the Shadow of the Crown - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,72

was better that I should not be there, for the bishop who delivered the funeral sermon stated that on her deathbed my mother had admitted that her marriage to the King was no true marriage.

All those who had been close to her were shocked by this, for they knew it was a lie. I was deeply hurt that my father could do this. Was it not enough that she was dead, brought to an early grave through his cruelty?

It was almost like a sign from Heaven. First my father had his accident, which some would say was a warning to him; and on the very day of my mother's funeral Anne Boleyn miscarried. And to make matters worse, the three-month fetus was proved to be a boy.

How did she feel, I wondered, lying there? All her hopes had been on this boy. And it had happened again. It was a sign of Heaven's displeasure, I was sure. Anne Boleyn was doomed from that moment.

There were many to report the King's reception of the news that he had lost his longed-for son. He had not been able to hide his fury and disgust. He blamed her, of course. That was because now he wanted to be rid of her, as once before he had wanted to be rid of my mother.

It was emerging as a terrifying pattern. I exulted. The concubine would be put from him… just as my mother had been.

He had told Anne Boleyn, as she lay there exhausted from her ordeal, weighed down as she must have been with anxiety and fear of the future, “You will get no more boys from me.”

Everyone knew we were on the edge of great events and were waiting to see what would happen next.

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