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The Other Boleyn Girl Novel Chapters
List of most recent chapters published for the The Other Boleyn Girl novel. A total of 73 chapters have been translated and the release date of the last chapter is Apr 02, 2024
Latest Release: Chapter 1 : The other Boleyn girl : a novel.by Philippa Gregory.For Anthony Spring 1521.I COULD HEAR
The other Boleyn girl : a novel.by Philippa Gregory.For Anthony Spring 1521.I COULD HEAR A ROLL OF m.u.f.fLED DRUMS. BUT I COULD SEE nothing but the lacing on the bodice of the lady standing in front of me, blocking my view of the scaffold. I had been at
- 1 The other Boleyn girl : a novel.by Philippa Gregory.For Anthony Spring 1521.I COULD HEAR A ROLL OF m.u.f.fLED DRUMS. BUT I COULD SEE nothing but the lacing on the bodice of the lady standing in front of me, blocking my view of the scaffold. I had been at
- 2 We were to sit where we pleased, the knights of the Chateau Vert and the ladies, all mixed up informally at a round table. Cardinal Wolsey as the host sat opposite the king with the queen at the third point on the table and the rest of us scattered where
- 3 The king turned and smiled at me as George told a stable boy to lead a handsome bay horse from the stall. "But don't run too fast," my sister warned. "Remember he has to catch you."I danced with the king that evening before the wh
- 4 I said nothing. I just looked at him. If Anne or George had been close by they could have prompted me with some compliment. But I was empty of wit, it was all crowded out by desire. I could say and do nothing but just look at him and know that my face was
- 5 "Go on," Anne whispered. "You've got to get it." She pushed me in the small of my back and I stepped forward.The queen dropped it as I reached her, I caught it as it fell. It looked a sorry bit of cloth, something you might wash a
- 6 It was not a long ride, a little more than twenty miles. We stopped to dine at the roadside, eating nothing more than bread and cheese which we had carried with us. My father could have called on the hospitality of any great house along the way, he was we
- 7 I sank into a curtsy. "If it please Your Majesty.""You have been at your parents' home, all this long time?""Yes. At Hever Castle, Your Majesty.""You must have rested well. There is nothing in that part of the world
- 8 She nodded. "I hope you don't. But I'll wait up for you anyway. I'll sit by the fire and watch the dawn come in."I thought for a moment about her keeping a vigil for me in her spinster bedroom while I was snug and loved in the Kin
- 9 The huntsman blew his horn and every horse in the courtyard stiffened with excitement. Henry grinned across at me like an excited boy and I beamed back. My mare, Jesmond, was like a coiled spring, and when the master of the hunt led the way over the drawb
- 10 "But you must have an image that you pursue throughout the poem," Anne said to Henry Percy. "If you are going to write a poem to your mistress you must compare her to something and then twist the comparison round to some witty conclusion.&q
- 11 For a moment I would have defended myself but I saw Anne speak a sentence to the king and saw him glance back at the queen. Anne put her hand gently on his sleeve and said another soft word. I turned away from William, quite deaf to him, and instead watch
- 12 "He said what?" my uncle asked.I stood before him, like a prisoner under question before the court. Behind the table in the Howard rooms were seated Uncle Howard, Duke of Surrey, and my father and George. At the back of the room, behind me, Anne
- 13 "I did not mean to torment you. I meant to draw back a little. Nothing more than that.""Why?" he whispered.She looked down the garden to the river. "I thought it better for me, perhaps better for us both," she said quietly. &
- 14 "Anne, you cannot," I said, aghast. "You will get caught and you will be ruined.""We are betrothed in the sight of G.o.d and before witnesses. That's as good as a marriage, isn't it?""Yes," I said unwillin
- 15 "I do," she said. "I love him.""That means nothing to me," my father said. "Your marriage is the business of the family and you will leave that to us. You'll go to Hever for at least a year's banishment from co
- 16 "Oh don't ask me," Anne said. "I'm a virgin. Ask anyone. Ask Mother or Father or my uncle. Ask Cardinal Wolsey, he made it official. I'm a virgin. I am an attested official sworn-to-it virgin. Wolsey, the Archbishop of York h
- 17 I kept my silence, and my eyes down. When I looked up he was smiling at me, his ironical half-sad crooked smile. "Ah, little wife," he said gently. "We did not have much time together, did we? We did not bed very well nor very often. We did
- 18 The queen's face was radiant with joy, the years were stripped off her with his kisses. She was rosy, her blue eyes sparkling, her waist supple in his grasp."G.o.d bless the Spanish and the Spanish princess!" Henry bellowed suddenly and all
- 19 Anne silenced me with a quick frown. "Ssh. This is important. What does she like, George?""It's not like l.u.s.t," he said uneasily. "I can deal with l.u.s.t. And it's not variety-I like a little taste of the wild myself
- 20 "Good G.o.d, did he not know that you would do it anyway? That you flirt as naturally as you breathe?"Anne gave an unwilling laugh. "Clearly not. He came to tell me that our first task, yours and mine, is to make sure that wherever the king
- 21 "And this is why you are so dull?""I am not dull," I said flatly. "I am sad. I am so sad that I want to do nothing but lie on my bed and put my face into my pillows and weep and weep.""Because you miss your child?"
- 22 "Deadly dull," George suggested impertinently.The king chuckled disloyally. "Deadly dull," he agreed.He sent George away by eleven o'clock and we were in bed by midnight. He caressed me gently and praised the plumpness of my b.r.e
- 23 The queen nodded, noting, as every member of the court strained to hear, that she was not to travel with the king this summer."Thank you," the queen said with simple dignity. "You are very good. She writes to me that she is making much prog
- 24 "The hazelnuts came too," I said temptingly. "And the chestnuts. It was a great woodland ball. I think the berries were there."It was enough. She rose from her stool and came toward me and I lifted her onto my lap. She was heavier than
- 25 Autumn 1526 WE RETURNED TO LONDON, TO GREENWICH, ONE OF THE KING'S most beloved palaces, and still his dark mood did not lift. He spent much time with clerics and with advisors, some people thought that he was preparing another book, another study of
- 26 He nodded, stroking the side of his nose. "Aye, she's a self-seeking woman. But he keeps asking for her, he's hot for her in a way he never was for you.""He has two children by me!"My uncle's dark eyebrows shot up at my
- 27 I felt myself chilled all through at this loveless a.n.a.lysis. But my father did not even look at me. This was business. "So it won't be Mary. But I doubt very much if his pa.s.sion for Anne will take him forward in preference to a French princ
- 28 "I tried! G.o.d knows, Henry! I tried! I bore you a son, that he did not live was no fault of mine. G.o.d wanted our little prince in heaven; that was no fault of mine."The pain in her voice shook him, but he moved away. "You had to give me
- 29 She dropped to the stool before the little looking gla.s.s, rested her head on her hands and stared at herself. "He's in love with me," she said. "He's mad for me. I spend all my time bringing him close and holding him off. When h
- 30 "Not asleep then?""No," I admitted.In the darkness his hands came out for me and found my face, stroked my neck to my shoulders, and thence to my waist. I was wearing my linen s.h.i.+ft but I could feel the coldness of his hands throug
- 31 "What is it, George?" I asked.He shook his head. "Something and nothing. Something I cannot tell you and nothing I dare to do.""Someone at court?" Anne demanded, intrigued.He pulled up a stool before the fire and looked deep
- 32 I took half a step inside the room."Don't come any closer!" he snapped. "Just go!"His tone was rude, and I turned on my heel and went out of the room in something of a pet and closed the door behind me with a little slam, so that
- 33 "This is my my son!" I could hardly say the words, I was choking on my grief. "He is not for sale like some Christmas goose driven into market." son!" I could hardly say the words, I was choking on my grief. "He is not for sa
- 34 "What?" I asked, unable to restrain my curiosity."Pearls," she said shortly. She turned to the page. "Tell the king that I am honored by his gift," she said. "And that I will wear them at dinner tonight to thank him myse
- 35 Still in my dream I heard the door opening and I lazily opened my eyes. It was not George's servant returning, it was not Anne coming to look for us. It was a stealthy turning of the handle and a sly opening of the door and then Jane, George's w
- 36 He glanced away to where the swallows were building their little mud-cups of nests under the turrets of the castle. "I should like a woman who was free as a bird. I should like a woman who came to me for love, and who wanted me for love, and cared fo
- 37 "She wouldn't," I whispered."She would," the queen said flatly. "And you would help her. Go away, Lady Carey, I don't want to see you again till Easter."I rose to my feet and backed away, at the doorway I swept her
- 38 He leaped to his feet, and still she did not shrink back."What the devil do you want of me?" he yelled into her face. His spittle showered her cheeks. She did not blink or turn away. She sat in her chair as if she were made of rock while he was
- 39 The messenger tapped on the doorway and cautiously put his head inside the door. I leaped to my feet and would have slammed the door in his face for impertinence, but the queen put her hand on my sleeve."Any reply?" he asked. He did not even cal
- 40 I lit the candle one night and held it up to see her. Her eyes were closed, dark eyelashes sweeping her white cheeks. Her hair was tied back under a nightcap as bleached as her skin. The shadows under her eyes were violet as pansies, she looked frail. And
- 41 "Good," my uncle said, unimpressed. "He's a rogue given half a chance.""He won't have a chance with me," I said.Anne and I were ready for bed, dressed in our night s.h.i.+fts, the maids dismissed, when there was the
- 42 "But why should she say it if it is not so?" Henry demanded."To rid herself of her husband!" Anne snapped."But why choose that lie, rather than another? Why not say he was married to Mary here? If she had his poems too?""
- 43 "I don't say yes," I whispered, closing my eyes at the sensation of his kisses on my skin and the warmth of his breath."And you don't say no," he agreed.At Windsor Castle Anne was in her presence chamber surrounded by tailors
- 44 She had been glowing with his praise but at that question she looked suddenly afraid, as if she remembered the curses of the fishwives and the shouts of "Wh.o.r.e!" from the market traders. "I want everyone to know it," she said."
- 45 At once he turned back to her and the door swung behind him. We all strained forward to hear what we could not see. "You would not leave me.""I will not be half a queen," she said pa.s.sionately. "Either you have me or not at all.
- 46 "n.o.body," I said provocatively.One finger under my chin forced my face up and his bright brown gaze scanned me as if he would look into my soul."A n.o.body," I specified.His kiss, when it came, was as light on my mouth as the brush o
- 47 The next day pa.s.sed, and the next. She did not tell Henry of her hopes but I imagined that he could count like any other man. They both started to have the look of a couple balancing on air like rope dancers at a fair. He did not dare to ask her, but he
- 48 "You can't stay here," he said softly.I opened my eyes in surprise. "No?""No." He lifted his hand to forestall me. "Not because I don't love you, because I do. And we must be married. But we have to get the mos
- 49 They were long days for me at Westminster in Anne's court. I could see William only by chance during the day. As a gentleman usher he was required to be in close attendance to the king. Henry took a liking to him, consulted him about horses and often
- 50 "Some bread," he said. "A couple of mugs of small ale. Some fruit if you have it, for the lady. A couple of eggs, boiled, a little ham perhaps? A cheese? Anything nice.""This is my first batch of the day," the man grumbled. &
- 51 It was as if he thought that the king's immortal soul and the future of England were too great for him. The one place where he could be effective was to keep the baby growing in Anne's belly. "This is our guarantee," he said quietly to
- 52 Anne did not get her royal christening gown. They wrote to the queen with proposals for her separation from the king. They addressed her as Dowager Princess and she tore the parchment of the declaration with an angry pen-stroke when she crossed through th
- 53 "I shall not tolerate it," she said flatly."You will have to," he said, as uncompromising as she was."He never looked away from me in all the years of our courts.h.i.+p," she said. "Not once."George raised an eyebro
- 54 "This is more important," she said. "This has to be gone before anyone has even the slightest idea of it."I put the poker into the fire and turned over the hot embers. My mother knelt at the fireside and ripped the sheet into a strip and laid it on th
- 55 I slipped out of the door and went to my bedroom.Madge Shelton was changing her dress before the looking gla.s.s. She turned when she heard me come in, a bright smile on her young face. She took one look at my grim expression and I saw her eyes widen. Tha
- 56 "I'd be sorry to leave the farm again for long."I chuckled. "Have you become a rustic, my love?""Arr," he said. He rose from the milking stool and patted the cow on the rump. I held open the gate for her and she went out into the field where the sp
- 57 We sat long over dinner, this court had become gluttons. There were twenty different meat dishes: game and killed meat, birds and fish. There were fifteen different puddings. I watched Henry taste a little of everything, and continually send for more. Ann
- 58 I nodded eagerly but she held up a hand. "But what if she's mistaken? If it's a live baby in there? Just resting awhile? Just gone quiet?"I looked at her, quite baffled. "What then?""You've killed it," she said simply. "And that makes you a murd
- 59 "What?""What is it that is wrong with her? That she cannot carry a child?""She had Elizabeth.""Since then?"I narrowed my eyes and looked at him. "What are you thinking?""Only what anyone would think, if they knew what I know.""And what would
- 60 Anne's dark eyes flashed with temper. "And G.o.d bless you, Mistress Seymour, if you forget that this Princess Dowager is the woman who defied the king her brother-in-law, trapped him into a false marriage and brought him much distress and pain."Jane f
- 61 "G.o.d bless you, that you have," he said. "I brought my hunter out of it without a scratch on him, and I'd rather have that than any reputation for heroism.""You are a commoner," I said, smiling at him.He slid his arm around my waist and drew me t
- 62 Henry was sweating and one of the physicians went to ease the covers back from him, but suddenly checked. On his fat calf where he had been injured jousting long ago was a dark ugly stain of blood and pus. His wound, which had never properly healed, had o
- 63 Jane and I kneeled side by side in the queen's chapel and listened to the Ma.s.s celebrated before the altar of the church below us."Jane," I said quietly.She opened her eyes, she had been far away in prayer."Yes, Mary? Forgive me, I was praying.""I
- 64 My mother neither looked back at her nor checked her step. She walked from the room without a word. When the door clicked behind her I thought, this is the end. The end for Anne."I have done nothing," Anne repeated. She turned to me and I though
- 65 Gently he took my hands and unfolded the clenched fingers. "But Mary. How else would she have made a monstrous child but from a monstrous union? She must have lain in sin.""With whom, for G.o.d's sake? Do you you think she has made a c
- 66 George stiffened. He could see from the window the return of the hunting party to court."Run downstairs, Mary, and tell the king I am come," Anne said, not moving from George's embrace.I ran downstairs as the king was dismounting from his h
- 67 With a word to Madge he came across to the queen and dropped with mock gallantry to one knee. "I obey!" he said."It is time you were married, Sir Henry," Anne said with pretended severity. "I cannot have you hanging about my rooms
- 68 "For G.o.d's sake, I nearly ran you through. You shouldn't be here without invitation. Get out, lad. Go!""I have to ask...I have to say...""Out," George said."Will you bear witness for me, Your Majesty?" S
- 69 I sent a message to my baby's wet nurse to wait for my coming, we would try to leave within the next hour.There was a tennis match and Anne had promised to award the prize, a gold coin on a gold chain. She went to the courts and sat under the awning,
- 70 The next day there was nothing to do but wait. I let the wet nurse go away for the day and encouraged William and Henry to stroll about the town and take their dinner in an ale house while I stayed home and played with the baby. In the afternoon I took he
- 71 "You, is it?" he said abruptly. "Where have you been hiding this last week?""She's been with me," William said firmly, from behind me. "Where she should be. And with our children. Catherine is with the queen."&
- 72 Catherine slept for all that day and all that night, and when she awoke, William had the horses ready and she was on her horse before she could protest. We rode to the river and took a s.h.i.+p downriver to Leigh. She ate while we were on board. Henry bes
- 73 ZELDAS CUT. BREAD AND CHOCOLATE.……