Work Text:
An Enchanting Dance in Calais
King François I of France sat at a table filled with French, Italian, and English victuals for all tastes. His English counterpart, King Henry VIII of England, was saying something, but he didn’t listen attentively. They were enjoying the sumptuous banquet organized in François’ honor by the English monarch. The orchestra played various chansons by Clément Janequin, one of François’ favorite composers; the musicians were English, but they had prepared well for the event.
I despise François, Henry snarled silently. The French throne belongs to me by birthright. If only I could subjugate France and make myself her sovereign, deposing the House of Valois... But he could hardly hope to emulate the accomplishments of King Henry V of England, and, most importantly, his priorities were different now. Henry Tudor had to ensure that there would be a European ruler whose support would reinforce the validity of his upcoming marriage to Anne.
For a while, his Valois counterpart admired the lavish banquet. Then their gazes intersected.
François smiled at the other man, but it did not reach his eyes. Clad in an expensive doublet of red and black brocade wrought with threads of gold, as well as matching hose, Henry looked attractive in an English way. A tall and broad man, Henry carried York features in his appearance, his famous Tudor red-gold hair framing his burly face. Yet, there was a sharpness in the air about Henry palpable for François. Henry might be a cruel man if provoked, conjectured François.
A momentous hush ensued, and then the musicians changed the tune. Plucking at the strings of their lutes, they produced the sweet melody of the chanson ‘L'amour, la mort et la vie.' A group of young women, dressed as Greek goddesses, entered the banqueting hall, with a tall, raven-haired lady at the helm. As the musicians’ fingers plucked at the strings of the instruments, the ladies twirled around the room with a grace comparable only with that of the Greek Muse Terpsichore.
“Magnifique,” François enthused, his gaze glued to the dancers.
The room went still, numerous pairs of male and female eyes following gorgeous movements of the ladies. The chanson dedicated to love, death, and life was so soul-stirring and so merry at the same time that everyone’s hearts soared to the summits of mythological Parnassus.
François’ attention was captured by the tall, slender woman dressed in a resplendent gown of dazzling white taffeta slashed with gold, an ornate mask covering her face. This lady was the most stunning one among the other six women, all of them clad in gold-laced overdresses of white taffeta, which was ornamented with an intricate pattern on silver cloth. They encircled the tallest woman, acting as if she were their grand mistress, and moved in the rhythm of the music.
L'amour, la mort et la vie
Me tourmentent a tout heure
De me laysser ont envye
Et veullent que j'y demeure
Quand je veulx rire je pleure
Du feu d'amour qui s'avive
La vie veult que je meure
Et la mort veult que je vive.
All this time, King Henry’s thoughts were on his wife-to-be – his Anne. The woman who was called, unfairly and infuriatingly, the Scandal of Christendom. Anne Boleyn who had once been the finest ornament to the Valois court, one which was the most magnificent in Christendom thanks to his French rival, much to Henry’s envy. Anne who had returned to England and imprisoned the heart of the passionate Tudor ruler within the pools of her bewitching black eyes.
The words of the chanson translated from French into English in Henry’s mind easily.
Love, death and life
Torment me all the time
To envy me
And want me to stay there
When I want to laugh I cry
Love fire that comes alive
Life wants me to die
And death wants me to live.
It seemed to Henry that his life indeed wanted him to breathe his last. The years of the Great Matter had depleted him of strength and hope, having also filled him with anger against the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor, Catherine of Aragon’s nephew. But despite all these problems, life craved for Henry to live and marry his dark-eyed angel who would give him his much-needed Tudor prince. Their golden prince would carry on his Tudor legacy and would rule empires!
The chanson ended, and the strains of some exotic music sounded enticingly. The women selected Frenchmen among the guests to dance with. One of them, who, Henry knew, was Anne, glided across the floor like a silver swan to François and invited him for a dance.
“She is ravishing,” purred a charmed François.
François took her hand and stood up, leaving Henry to stare at them with an enigmatic smile. As they swung around, François looked into the black eyes of his partner, feeling that demons of lust were beginning to devour his inner being. As they moved among the other masked beauties, she uttered no word, smiling at him in the same mysterious way as her eyes hypothesized her partner. Soon François felt as if he were lost in an enchanted forest, described in the oldest folklore as a place of threatening danger, or one of refuge, or a chance at adventure.
It was a wonderful adventure, so François asked, “Do I know you?”
The woman’s lips curved in a grin. Her eyes turned a shade darker, but she was silent.
As the dance was over, the couples stood on the dance floor, but nobody moved, as if waiting for something to happen. Then Henry rose to his feet and approached François. With one motion, the King of England removed the mask from the woman’s face, and the whole room exploded with applause at the realization that the French monarch had danced with Lady Anne Boleyn.
The King of France beamed at her. “La belle Anne.” He laughed at Anne’s slyness and at himself, for he should have guessed that this nymph must have been the eccentric Anne.
François extended his hand to Anne, who took it at Henry’s firm nod. She glimpsed Henry’s grin, for she conversed with François, who was supposedly their ally. They crossed the chamber, where the English and French courtiers mingled together and resumed their merry chatter.
Anne and François walked to a reception room, adjacent to the grand chamber, for a private conversation. The monarch seated himself in a gilded chair, and with his permission Anne eased herself in a matching chair in front of her companion. A short pause stretched between them.
The Valois ruler interrupted the pause when he asserted in French, “Cette epoque ou vous et votre soeur, etiez demoiselles de compagnie aupres de ma reine (When you and your sister were here in France as ladies in waiting to my queen).” He stilled for a moment. Anne had spent a lot of time at his court and knew French perfectly well, so he spoke to her in his native tongue.
Tensing like a tightly drawn bow and visibly, Anne bobbed her head, and François continued blandly, "Je m'en souviens comme si c'etait hier (I remember it as if it were yesterday)."
Anne’s quick glance viewed François from top to toe. Attired in a splendid doublet of light blue passmented with gold and matching hose, he looked as young as she remembered him from her time at his court. His amber eyes bore into Anne’s, and his sensual, thin lips grinned at her. His saturnine handsomeness and his gallantry had long become stuff for legends: they impressed and attracted many women, the Boleyn girls – Anne and Mary Boleyn – not being an exception.
François has not changed at all, Anne estimated as her scrutiny focused upon his face. The greatest philanderer of France and the people’s most beloved king, whose release from the Spanish captivity almost bankrupted their realm because of the enormous ransom paid for François and his two sons. Years ago, this man had seduced her sister, Mary, who had fallen head over heels in love with the amorous monarch and then suffered profoundly after his abandonment of her. Maybe Anne would never forgive François for having defamed Mary as ‘his English mare.'
Now the past was not important. Very soon Anne would wed King Henry, which would lead to England’s break with the Catholic Holy See and other revolutionary changes. Not to be politically isolated, England needed allies, so Henry counted on François who expressed his desire to reestablish their friendship again. Henry desperately hoped that his Valois counterpart would be more inclined to support their unorthodox marriage due to Anne’s connections with France.
Garnering her courage, Lady Anne affirmed in flawless French, without any accent, “Votre Majeste est tres gracieuse (Your Majesty is very gracious).” She paused and sighed deeply while collecting her thoughts. “Mais il est des choses peut-etre, que votre Majeste connait a mon sujet je prefererais que vous les gardiez secretes et qu’elles ne soient jamais mentionnees au Roi (But there are some things, perhaps, which Your Majesty knows about me, which I would rather you kept secret, and never mention to the king).” Her orbs were full of expectation.
The French flirtatiousness and coquetry, which Anne had learned at the Valois court, had ensnared Henry of England. However, they were seen as something indecent and even prurient by many conservative Englishmen. The French court was the most enlightened and magnificent one on the continent thanks to King François and his love for the arts and education, while England was still a backwater that needed an intellectual and artistic touch, much to Anne’s disappointment. What was considered indecent in England was normal in France, and they both knew that.
Anne’s serious, frightened, and hopeful look somewhat discomfited François, goading him into proclaiming sincerely, “Madame la Marquise, I am a Frenchman. I would never betray the secrets of a woman. Especially a beautiful woman, who must naturally have a great many.” The monarch switched to English, which he knew well, his accent was thick and melodic.
The King of France traversed his gaze over Lady Boleyn. Her ancient Greek dress had a V-shaped neckline, making her bosom almost indecently exposed. His blood thickened and boiled in his veins as salacious thoughts of bedding Anne, just as he had slept with her sister years ago, entered his head. They were heightened by his imaginings of a naked Anne in a large gilded bed as François eyed her heart-shaped face, its features exotic and alluring in an exquisite way.
Indeed, there was something about Anne’s life in France that the English, especially Henry, would better never know about. Anne was not only a superbly learned lady, but also a marvelous flirt, who reveled in dancing and merrymaking of all sorts, save carnal pleasures. The Valois court was a frivolous, artistic, and majestic place, so a very young Anne had delighted in feasts, masques, fetes, and gatherings of intellectuals, where she had participated with a very fervent eagerness.
During festivities, Anne had danced enticingly and been one of the best among numerous excellent dancers at court. Years ago, only François’ first official mistress – Françoise de Foix, Countess de Châteaubriant – could have rivalled the girl’s talent. His current maîtresse-en-titre – Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess d’Étampes – danced like an angel, but the English Anne was still the nicest queen of a dance. Tonight Lady Boleyn had been even more skilled than before.
It was easy to seduce Mary Boleyn, François mused with primeval male satisfaction. When I saw her younger exotic sister years ago, I regretted that Anne was not older so that I could try to tempt and conquer her. The blonde-haired Mary was a beautiful creature with blue eyes full of charm, mirth, and flippancy, but there was not enough intelligence, strength, and defiance in them. Unlike Mary, the girl Anne, who had been eighth years younger, had always intrigued François more, but he would never have attempted to seduce a girl of ten or eleven and deflower her.
Anne’s voice jerked him out of his reverie. “Do you really support my marriage to the king?”
The monarch nodded vigorously. “For one thing, I hate the emperor so that anything which discomforts him like the divorce of his aunt pleases me immeasurably.” He flashed a vibrant smile. “But also, I know that you are a friend of France, so we can do business.”
I hate that half-Spanish, half-Flemish thug wholeheartedly. Our life-long enmity cannot be quenched even by death. François stifled a surge of aversion towards his Habsburg rival, who had mistreated him, the King of France, in captivity in Madrid and who had created horrible conditions during his sons’ imprisonment in Spain, having traumatized Dauphin François and Prince Henri for the rest of their lives. With effort, the ruler concentrated on the present – on Anne.
“But there is something else?” Anne’s whole being was quivering.
After several heartbeats of hesitation, François leaned back in his chair and then, his look pensive, spoke courteously, in a cordial tone. “It is not my place to say this, Madame, but perhaps we know each other well enough.” He paused, not wishing to frighten Anne.
The monarch noticed that Anne, tacit and gloomy, was slightly trembling. Where were her notorious confidence, audacity, and hauteur, which had instigated her into openly wearing purple at the English court and refusing to acknowledge Catherine of Aragon as her mistress in public? Did his simple words instill fright into her? A blend of awkwardness and guilt swamped François.
Henry Tudor is a fortunate man, François thought as he glanced into two black pools. Anne Boleyn is unconventionally beautiful, passionate, and headstrong, but her most important asset is her brilliant mind. Queen Marguerite of Navarre, his beloved sister, in whose intellectual circles young Anne had spent a great deal of time, had characterized the English lady as ‘a nymph with a manlike mind and eyes of a siren’, deserving a place in Marguerite’s enlightened inner circle.
However, his sister and his wife – Eleanor of Austria, whom François despised – had refused to travel to Calais in order to meet with Anne and Henry. Eleanor was a Habsburg and Catherine of Aragon’s niece, so the fact that she snubbed the woman who had wracked Catherine’s marriage to Henry, was expected. Marguerite regretted that she would not see Anne, but she did not support England’s break with the Vatican, in spite of her keen interest in new religious ideas. Only Anne de Pisseleu and a handful of French courtiers accompanied their liege lord to Calais.
In the meantime, Anne’s thoughts were running in the same direction. She had hoped to see the entire French royal family in Calais, which would have been a sign of François’ solid support of Anne’s future matrimonial union with Henry. Yet, none of them had come, not even Queen Marguerite who had adored Anne absolutely in her adolescence, having commended Anne’s many accomplishments. Is François at least sincere now, or is he playing a sly game with me?
The king gazed at Anne with an impenetrable expression for what seemed like an eternity. His eyes shadowed by some ambiguous sentiment burned, penetrating and interested in Anne both as a woman and as an intellectual conversationalist. Anne could see his hesitation as well.
At last, the Valois monarch articulated with peculiar slowness, as if especially for Anne to let the information sink in, “The fact is the station you will be asked to occupy is not an easy one especially to those not born to it. It is much harder to have everything than to have nothing.” He lapsed into silence, letting her have time to digest his message. His countenance one of the utmost seriousness, François ended with, “If I was not born to be king, I would certainly not have wished that fate upon myself. You understand me, Madame, don’t you?”
Slowly, very slowly, Anne Boleyn gave a nod. A reluctant and thankful nod. Much to her chagrin and to her even greater bitterness, Anne comprehended that she was not a member of some well-connected and powerful royal family such as the House of Habsburg. Unlike Catherine, Anne did not have the backing of Carlos V, Holy Roman Emperor, and his relatives. The people of England and countless devout Catholics across Europe sympathized with Catherine and loathed Anne for standing between husband and wife, bound to each other by holy matrimony.
The English people and Catherine’s defenders considered Anne a whore. A vile upstart who strove to rise too far above her station. A witch and wanton with merchant roots. Indeed, Anne’s great-grandfather, Geoffrey Boleyn, had been a merchant who had become Lord Mayor of London in 1457 and received a knighthood. Nevertheless, Anne was a direct descendant of King Edward I of England, while her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, was the first peer of the English realm.
I have royal blood coursing through my veins, Anne said wordlessly, as if to reassure herself of her importance. Henry and François were both her distant cousins. Anne descended from King Edward I of England and his second wife, Marguerite of France from the House of Capet, through their son, Thomas of Brotherton Plantagenet, Duke of Norfolk. I have some Plantagenet and Capetian blood, but many aristocrats have such blood as well. Others might think whatever they want, for I care not a whit for them. Henry loves me, and that is all that matters. Nonetheless, François’ warning clicked in Anne’s mind, and she remembered that it was Henry’s obsessive love for her that would make her his queen. Only the English ruler could rise Anne to queenship, but he could also topple her from the pedestal.
Smiling at François gratefully and yet with restraint, Anne climbed to her feet. “Majesty.” She made her low and entrancing Boleyn curtsey, which François admired.
The monarch stood up, smiling at her, but said nothing else. With a heavy heart, he watched Anne rise from the curtsey and walk away from him, her trepidation masked with a smile.
A sliver of contrition snaked a path along his spine. François had distressed Anne, but he had felt obligated to warn her about the dangers of queenship because of his good attitude to her. Another tide of guilt slithered through him: the Catholic King of France would not be able to recognize Anne’s union with King Henry as valid and legal while Catherine was alive. He could already predict that he would send Anne wedding gifts without acknowledging her as queen.
François did not wish to offend Anne in any way. Given his affable disposition towards women in general and in particular towards remarkable ladies such as Anne, he wished to be her ally and to advise her regarding her uneasy situation, which would become far more difficult once Henry perpetrated the final step – the country’s break with Rome and his wedding to Anne. But François would not be able to counsel Anne in the future, and perhaps they would not meet again.
Today, François did what he could: he admonished Anne to be cautious and behave cleverly, to plan her steps, moves, and actions strategically. His words also implied that Anne ought to be careful around the mercurial and egocentric King of England, who would not always be faithful to Anne once she disappointed Henry somehow or if another beauty became the object of Henry’s dreams and lusts. François had no illusions about Henry’s fidelity to Anne, for it was male nature to seek female attention, in particular if this man was a ruler and could have mistresses.
No doubt Anne was still a virgin – François could see that in her movements, her eyes, and her behavior, despite her flirtatiousness. Henry would not have risked sleeping with Anne out of wedlock because of his fear to impregnate her, and they needed a legitimate male heir, although now Henry could not enter into any legal marriage in François’ opinion. Now Henry was obsessed with Anne because she was unattainable and too tempting, but it would not last forever.
Yet, as soon as Henry received what he wanted – Anne’s lovely body – his eye would begin to wander around. François, who himself was a womanizer, had no doubt that Henry would sleep with as many women as his virility would let him do so and for as many years as his health would permit him to practice lascivious exercises in bed. It was a primitive male need to find a pretty woman and, if his lustful instincts surged for life, a man pursued her until she capitulated.
Anne was a woman – a nymph in love with Henry. She did not understand how men lived and thought in this aspect. François sighed as he imagined how an angry Anne would be throwing tantrums lest Henry betrayed her with someone. François also doubted that Henry would use Anne’s great intelligence for the benefit of the Tudor realm – if Anne married the English king, she would not govern England alongside Henry, who was more attracted to female good looks.
Henry does not understand how useful for a country a smart lady can be in politics. Unlike François who ruled France alongside his brilliant mother, Louise de Savoy, God rest her soul, and his sister Marguerite, Henry would see in Anne mostly a womb to bear his sons before allowing her anything else. François pitied Anne whose illusions regarding Henry and royal life would be shattered, fearing to imagine what would happen if Anne failed to give Henry a healthy son. What will Henry do if Anne does not birth his son? God, not a woman, determines a child’s gender.
“God bless you, Anne,” whispered King François, and a horrid presentiment gripped him.