Page 15 of The Rest is History

Elodie

A fter a few days of painful silence between me and Charlie, I wake up Friday morning to an actual WhatsApp message from him.

That is correct.

I should be embarrassed by the intensity of the flutter that wings its way around my stomach at the sight of his name on my lock screen.

Charlie Vaughan.

Such a delicious surprise. We’ve never contacted each other except via school email and messaging systems. I tap on the message, willing myself not to get my hopes up that it’s some kind of acknowledgement of what happened between us.

He’s certainly not a talker. Maybe he finds it easier to express himself in writing?

Oh.

I have food poisoning. Can you cover my A Level class this morning? Think you have a free period.

Oh God. Poor guy. Sympathy and concern instantly overtake any disappointment that he’s not declaring his undying love or proposing marriage (or even a hookup).

Oh no! Are you OK? Of course I can. What’s the topic?

Thx. Trial of Anne Boleyn. Emailing you my notes. Just stick to them pls

Yes yes yes! Not only am I getting the chance to teach my beloved Tudors, but I have truly hit the jackpot. Anne Boleyn’s trial ? Is he kidding me?

All over it. Feel better. Do you need anything? And have you covered the background / run-up? Charles V / France / Cromwell?

All done. This lesson is focusing on the case against Anne I’ll just work my way through them ? ’

‘But she might have been jealous,’ someone else says. ‘Because Henry was shacking up with Jane Seymour by then. I think Anne would have been pissed off.’

I turn in the direction of the voice. ‘I agree. That’s a great point.

With the exception of Henry’s grandfather, Anne and Henry were the first love match since William the Conqueror.

Royal marriages were supposed to be political alliances.

Henry’s fidelity to Anne, before and during their marriage, was completely unprecedented.

She was supposed to look the other way when he took a mistress, but she didn’t, because Jane Seymour undermined everything Anne’s marriage had stood for. ’

I change tack.

‘Now, let’s play devil’s advocate for a minute. If we know that Anne was a skilled stateswoman and a strategic thinker, can anyone suggest why she would have had affairs for strategic reasons?’

There’s a pause.

‘To make Henry jealous?’ someone pipes up.

‘Very possibly. What a dangerous game to play, but Anne could have been trying to remind him that she was still desirable. But I’m thinking of another, more tangible, objective.

What did Anne want more than anything else—what would have shown Henry beyond a shadow of a doubt that Anne was the right wife for him and that God approved of his marriage? ’

Martha gasps. ‘A son.’

I jab a finger at her. ‘Exactly. A son. And Henry’s problems in bed have been much debated. Given he had six wives and a handful of mistresses, he had remarkably few children. So…’

‘So she might have slept around to try to get pregnant,’ blondie says.

‘She might have. And that’s where a lot of the more spurious rumours came in, especially the grim ones around her miscarrying her brother’s child’s deformed foetus.

But there’s no evidence at all that this ever happened.

So, speaking of the evidence, let’s go back to it.

What was the biggest problem with the trial of Anne and George, and also that of her other alleged lovers a few days previously? ’

‘There was no proper evidence,’ Tallulah said quietly.

‘There was no proper evidence,’ I repeat.

I pause to let it sink in. ‘Cromwell had concocted a case against these people based on smoke and mirrors, a lot of hearsay, and some incredibly jammy timing. Aside from Mark Smeaton, no one ever admitted adultery. And it’s extremely likely that he was tortured, or at least put under extreme psychological pressure to confess.

The poor kid was likely terrified. But let’s think about the logistics of a queen having an affair. How do you think it would work?’

There are a few furtive glances and smirks.

I sigh. ‘I said logistics, not mechanics.’

‘She wouldn’t have had much privacy,’ Dan says. ‘She would have had to get her ladies-in-waiting involved, surely.’

‘Exactly right, Dan. And Cromwell couldn’t find a single lady-in-waiting to give evidence.

Actually, they all transitioned to waiting on Jane Seymour after Anne’s death, so there was no black mark against any of them.

I’m telling you, a queen’s chambers were not a private place.

There’s no way she could have smuggled lovers in without cooperation from her ladies. ’

We spend a good thirty minutes going over the flakiness of the evidence, laughing at the fact that Anne supposedly cheated four weeks after Elizabeth’s birth. She would still have been in confinement then. And after we’ve torn the evidence to shreds, I turn the conversation to Anne.

‘Where did she sabotage herself? What could she have done differently? Which were the factors beyond her control, and where did she go wrong? Because whatever her sins were, they weren’t treasonous, that’s for sure.’

I sit against the front of Charlie’s desk and preside over an uproar as the kids debate the laxness of Anne’s court, the blurring of boundaries, and the likeliness of the rumours that jokes to which rumoured jokes over Henry’s lack of sexual prowess abounded.

We then cover off the factors over which Anne had zero control: the international picture.

Cromwell’s need to bring the Seymour faction to ascension while ensuring that Henry continued to deny his daughter Mary’s legitimacy.

The covert tactics he used to assemble Parliament in advance of any actual strike against Anne.

The way he so effectively played to Henry’s greatest complexes and refused royal access to any of the Boleyn faction.

The coup was as much of a shit-show as it was a masterpiece.

I tell the class about Anne’s final indignity—that Henry had their marriage legally dissolved, and Elizabeth’s legitimacy dissolved alongside it, a couple of days before he had her executed.

Oh, and Henry married Jane Seymour eleven days after Anne’s head was severed from her body.

I swear a few of the girls get weepy.

‘So it was all for nothing?’ Tallulah asks. ‘Because if the marriage was never valid in the first place, then she didn’t commit adultery after all, and he didn’t have to have her killed. That’s so fucking stupid .’

This is not the moment to pull her up for swearing. The lesson has made its point, and I can see it sinking in as I look around the room at the pissed-off faces.

I give them all a sad, defeated smile. ‘Exactly.’