Between Two Kings Read Online Free PDF Page B

When the Duke of Suffolk married Catherine Willoughby, 12 th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, his hatred for Anne deepened tenfold. It was not a secret at the court that the Duchess of Suffolk hated and despised Anne because her mother Maria de Salinas had been a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon and remained loyal to the late Queen.
    Anne didn’t exclude the possibility that Charles Brandon’s wife had told her husband to destroy her and the Boleyns at the earliest opportunity. Anne knew that Charles Brandon had always been whispering something negative into Henry’s ear to anger him at Anne. She didn’t doubt that Suffolk had played a role in her downfall because when her influence over Henry declined, Suffolk’s increased. At last, the trumped-up charges were designed against Anne and other courtiers. The outcome was tragic: all accused and condemned men were murdered on the king’s orders.
    If only the question about an annulment of their marriage had ever been raised by King Henry, everything would have been different, Anne thought. Why couldn’t Henry just tell Anne that he no longer wished to have her as his wife and his queen? She was an intelligent woman and would have gone from his life quickly and quietly, not risking her own life, the lives of so many innocent men, and without leaving her little Elizabeth motherless, if she had known that the king had truly wanted to get rid of her at any price. She would have agreed to an annulment if she had suspected that so many innocent people would have been condemned to death and murdered just because Henry wanted to be free of her. Anne would have never followed Catherine’s example, fighting with Henry that hard; she could have predicted the consequences if she had resisted an annulment.
    Henry was a man obsessed with the idea of having a male heir and would surely do everything possible to set Anne aside and marry Jane. The way he treated Catherine proved how far he was willing to go in order to get what he wanted, regardless of the hurt his wife and even his own child went through in the process. Catherine died in poverty at the Kimbolton Castle and alone, while her bastardized daughter served at Hatfield on Henry’s orders.
    Anne didn’t want Elizabeth labeled a bastard, but she would have stepped aside to save their daughter from a miserable life somewhere in exile, at a godforsaken manor in the English countryside, and from the humiliation Henry would surely put Elizabeth through if Anne hadn’t agreed to have their marriage declared null and void. Thus, Anne would have agreed to be discarded by herself, but she wasn’t even given this choice because Henry wanted her dead, to be murdered for the sake of his lust for the new, pretty, pale face of an undereducated English country girl.
    At last, Anne was so exhausted that she was incapable of being angry with Henry for what he had done to her and their children. There was only pain, emptiness, and darkness surrounding her, and they were tearing her heart apart. She was emotionally dead inside her heart, drained of almost all positive or even negative feelings.
    How cruel Henry was and how much he hated her for the fact she had promised him a son and, unfortunately, failed him. For other people, it sounded ridiculous to hate a woman just for giving birth to a healthy daughter, but Anne had become the recipient of Henry’s hatred in the aftermath of Elizabeth’s birth.
    Henry wanted Anne dead, and there was nothing that could have changed his decision, not even if the child she carried was a healthy boy. Convinced that she had betrayed him with various men, the king didn’t wish to see Anne or even to hear her name. It would be natural if the king had the same attitude to Anne’s unborn child, his own child. The king would assume that Anne’s child wasn’t sired by Henry, and that was the most painful thing for Anne.
    November 21, 1536, the Tower of London, London, England
    Anne’s labor started