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May 19, 1536
-YEARS BEFORE, Anne could have named many places where she would be; in the position of Queen; the King's Whore; a respected, noble lady with her own household...Anne could name many prestigious places where she could have seen herself.
But she never saw herself being locked up in the Tower, looking forlornly out the window at the area below where she was sentenced to die.
When she had been taken to the Tower, Anne collapsed, and she was unable to fathom what exactly was going on. As the guards dragged her in she wanted to kick and scream, and yell at the top of her voice that she was the Queen of England; she was Queen Anne Boleyn, she had uprooted Katharine of Aragon and taken her place, she was rich and elegant and powerful and what did they think they were doing, dragging her along the dirty ground, throwing her into a cell?
Anne had tried; she'd tried as hard as she could, she did.
Countless times she struggled to hold Henry back and at the same time fuel his desire. Uprooting Katharine of Aragon took longer than predicted.
There were rows between the two. Henry would always be reassuring, but Anne always got angry. In those early days, it was always like that.
"I'm wasting away, just waiting," she had snapped at him, slapping his hand from her waist. "What is your loyal Cardinal Wolsey doing? Is he really working for us? Does making the Pope say a simple 'yes' take this long?"
Henry soothed her, making as if to kiss her neck. "Wolsey is loyal, sweetheart. He is doing all he can-he faces strong opposition but he will triumph for me, and us, in the end."
"By now," Anne had seethed, "I could be married to a honourable lord, have my own household, whelping children yearly. But I'm waiting here, dry as an old bone, waiting for your Wolsey to pick up the pace. I don't trust him. See that you do something about that."
But their rows ended as they always had-at least, in terms of those early years. Anne would always come back, soft and pliant, allowing Henry to hug her and soothe her once more.
She would always whisper, "I can give you the sons you desire, the sons you deserve." Henry's eyes would always light up at that, and would always make him lust after his sweet elegant lover even more.
She remembered the look of glee on Henry's face when he finally married his sweet love at last, and how high her spirits soared as she was crowned, and taken through the streets in all her finery.
Of course, she'd seen how the crowds looked at her sullenly, with dead eyes and the hats on their heads. Of course she noted the silence, and the hollow voices of the scarce few who cheered for her. But Anne held her head high; she was Queen, she had her hold over the King, she would bear a son. Nothing would stop her now; nothing. Let the people talk, what harm could they really do? A lioness didn't concern itself with the emotions of sheep. She was the most happy, and that was what mattered.
Anne clenched her fists tightly. Her thick, black and lustrous hair was coming off in ugly clumps, and her alluring eyes were lined with heavy eye-bags and creases of weariness.
She looked down, out her window, at the block where they'd killed Mark Smeaton, Henry Norris, Francis Weston, William Brereton...and her dear brother George. All innocent men. Her friends and companions.
YOU ARE READING
The Six
Historical Fiction'Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived." In this way, the six wives of Henry VIII were remembered not for how they lived, but in the way they died. It is impossible to know exactly what they were thinking or had to go through, in h...
