Doomed Queen Anne: A Young Royals Book: A Young Royals Book – The True Story of Anne Boleyn: A YA Historical Novel of Ambition and Power - Softcover

Meyer, Carolyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0152050868 ISBN 13: 9780152050863

Verlag: HMH Books for Young Readers, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

Though born without great beauty, wealth, or title, Anne Boleyn blossomed into a captivating woman. She used her wiles to win the heart of England's most powerful man, King Henry VIII, and persuade him to defy everyone--including his own wife—to make her his new queen. But Anne's ambition was her fatal flaw. This is the true story of the girl everyone loved to hate.

Carolyn Meyer's engrossing third novel in the award-winning Young Royals series tells Anne's fascinating story in her own voice—from her life as an awkward girl to the dramatic moments before her death.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

CAROLYN MEYER is the acclaimed author of more than forty books for young people, many of which have received awards and honors. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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Doomed Queen Anne

A Young Royals Book

By Carolyn Meyer

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Copyright © 2002 Carolyn Meyer
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-15-205086-3

CHAPTER 1

The Grand Rendezvous 1520

Somewhere in that enormous throng was my hateful sister, and I resolved to find her.

It had been three years since Mary went home to England. Now she'd come back to France, and I wished to show her how much I had changed. She would see that I was no longer the ill-favored child she'd once taunted. I was now a fine young lady of the court! But first I had to find her.

Permission to go in search of my sister would never have been granted by the mother of the maids, the squint-eyed Madame Mathilde, and so I determined to go without asking. I dressed in one of my prettiest gowns and restlessly awaited my chance to slip away.

The moment Madame Mathilde was distracted, I gathered my courage and my skirts and hurried out of the French royal encampment. Plunging into the noisy tumult, I was swept up in the colorful jostling of lords and ladies, knights and priests, tradesmen and servants, horses and dogs. Surely, with such a crowd, my absence would not be noticed. Then I saw a one-eyed man watching me. Had he been set to spying by the mother of the maids? His look chilled me, and with racing heart I ran toward the English camp.

I had just passed my thirteenth birthday in June of the year 1520 and was part of the great entourage that accompanied François, king of France, to meet with Henry VIII, king of England. The entire French court had made the five-day journey north from Paris and King Henry and his great entourage — including my sister — had sailed across the English Channel so that the two powerful rulers could pledge their mutual friendship. Their grand rendezvous was to be an event of unrivaled splendor. Thousands of artisans and workmen had labored for months to transform this dusty plain into two royal encampments. Hundreds of tents fashioned of cloth of gold and silk in brilliant colors shimmered in the late afternoon sun. No wonder it was called the Field of Cloth of Gold.

What excitement! Butchers hurried by with hogs suspended from poles; bakers carried great wooden trays stacked high with manchets made of the finest wheaten flour. Musicians played upon their pipes, and I stopped to watch a trained bear dance while his master drummed. But then I thought I saw the one-eyed man again, and I hurried on.

Once I reached the English camp, hardly anyone took notice of me, a small, dark-haired girl, asking for Lady Mary Bullen or Marie Boleyn (our father had changed the spelling of our family name from Bullen to the more fashionably French-sounding Boleyn). Everyone seemed to know who she was. She had once been a blazing star in the French court, and it was no surprise that she had managed to attract the same sort of attention in England as well. I was directed to a sumptuous tent of yellow silk. Suddenly I felt uneasy. How would my sister receive me? What if she laughed at me! Cautiously I pushed aside the curtain and peered inside.

My sister rested upon an embroidered pillow, sipping from a silver goblet. She was full-breasted and narrow-waisted, her hair as thick and rich as honey, her fair complexion touched with pink, her eyes the color of spring violets. Her brows were delicately arched, her rosy lips pleasingly bow shaped. She shone with the special radiance of one well pleased with herself.

The moment I found her, I regretted it. The refinements I had acquired — the elegant wardrobe, the refined manners, the excellent French, the graceful dancing — all meant nothing. My sister had become a great beauty, and I knew at once that I was still the ill-favored child.

At the sight of me, she set down the goblet. "Dear sister!" she cried, and rose gracefully to greet me before I could change my mind and flee. "We embraced, as was expected, although I felt no real affection from her, and I caught a whiff of her scent.

She held me at arm's length and inspected me with a critical eye, taking in my long, dark hair; my dark eyes, nearly black; my skin white as skimmed milk, with no hint of blush; my newly budded breasts. Then she reached out to examine the jewel I wore close around my neck on a bit of ribbon, intended to conceal a large mole that grew at the base of my throat. I thought the disguise effective, but Mary managed to move the jewel in such a way that I was sure called attention to the flaw. "How clever," she said.

Scorched by her critical gaze, I pulled away from her and adjusted the jewel.

"You look much too thin, Nan," my sister said. "Are you well?"

"Quite well," I replied. My sister had always been the first to notice my faults, and that had not changed. And she had forgotten her promise to call me Anne instead of my childhood name of Nan. All of my confidence seemed to drain away, and I did not correct her.

Mary bade me sit down near her. A serving maid brought me a goblet of the spiced wine that poured from one of the many gilded fountains. "Have you heard the gossip?" Mary asked before I could ask after our parents and brother. She pursed her pretty red lips and tossed her curls.

"I hear gossip every day" I replied carefully, wondering what she intended. "One cannot be a member of the royal court and not hear gossip. Of what do you speak, dear sister?"

She called for her servant to bring a tray of sweetmeats, and when we had each selected one and Mary had taken a dainty bite, she leaned toward me with a coy smile. "I am the king's mistress."

I gaped at her. "The king?" I repeated, rather stupidly. "King Henry?"

"Of course, King Henry!" she said, laughing. "Of what other king would I speak? It is quite an honor to be chosen by one's monarch."

"I assume that your King Henry has several mistresses," I replied, annoyed by her boasting and determined not to let her best me. "François certainly does." This was not an exaggeration; everyone knew that the king of France was in love with the comtesse de Châteaubriant, and that he enjoyed the favors of many other women as well.

"The king does as the king wishes," Mary informed me with a shrug. "And I care not with whom he does it when he is not in my company. But I assure you that he has long since tired of Queen Catherine. And he no longer pays the least attention to his former mistress, Bessie Blount. He has given me this gown," she said, flaunting her velvet sleeves and a brocade petticoat.

My sister was gotten up in the English fashion: a gown with too many colors, too much gold lace and brocade, too much of everything. I preferred the refined elegance of the way we dressed in the French court.

"And this ring as well," she added. She waved the bauble under my nose. It was gold, set with rubies and diamonds.

Mary could not stop prating about King Henry. "He had a child by Bessie about a year ago, before he tired of her and sent her away. Henry Fitzroy is the little one's name, and being the king's son, he is treated with all manner of deference, even though he is a bastard. When we are alone, the king talks constantly of how keenly he desires a son to inherit the throne."

"King Henry has a daughter, has he not?" I asked.

"Yes, the princess Mary, poor little snip of a child." Mary sighed and sipped her wine. "The king pays her great attention — when he thinks about her! — but she is of no use to him, for she cannot rule. He must have a son — a legitimate son of a lawful wife, not...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HMH Books for Young Readers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0152050868
• ISBN 13: 9780152050863
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Product Safety Manager; enquiries@harpercollins.ie; ; HarperCollins, Macken House, 39/40 Mayor Street Upper; Dublin 1; D01 C9W8; Irland