Between Two Kings Read Online Free Page A

– Elizabeth and the child in her womb – to be motherless. She realized that the king didn’t believe he was the child’s father and thought the poor innocent baby was a product of Anne’s alleged, sinful and shameful relationships with the executed men.
    Two months ago, Kingston told Anne that Thomas Boleyn had rejected the opportunity to become the child’s legal guardian. The king also said that he wouldn’t be responsible for the child who was the bastard of two traitors. Unexpectedly, Lady Mary Boleyn Stafford, Anne’s elder sister, had asked Henry to be the child’s guardian, and the king accepted.
    As Anne learnt about Mary’s desire to take her unborn child into her household, she sobbed for an hour, as she felt so guilty she had betrayed Mary by banishing her from the court after her sister had married William Stafford, a commoner and a soldier without money and social standing. Now Anne felt some relief that Mary and her husband would take care of her child. At least the child would still have family after her death, Anne thought.
    Master Kingston confided in Anne that Mary Stafford had begged King Henry on her knees to spare Anne’s life after the birth of the child. But Mary was surrounded by the guards and taken outside the palace; she wasn’t imprisoned only on condition that she would never return to the court under the threat of arrest and death. One of her ladies informed her that, even after her banishment, Lady Mary Stafford had sent several petitions to Cromwell and King Henry, imploring them at least to send Anne to a nunnery, but not to execute her. However, everything was in vain.
    It was a normal practice that all female prisoners were examined by a midwife before supposed execution. It was necessary to know whether a woman was with child because she couldn’t be executed under English law if she were pregnant. However, in Anne’s case that simple principle was ignored by her captors. Anne surmised that Cromwell had deliberately disregarded standard practice as he feverishly wished to execute the former queen.
    It also made Anne very angry with King Henry. She wondered whether it had ever occurred to him that she could have been carrying his child after he had bedded her in March and at the very beginning of April, which were the last nights they had spent together. Had Henry become such a monster he was willingly ready to execute a pregnant woman? Or was it Cromwell’s idea, without the king’s knowledge? The single thought that Henry wished to execute a woman carrying his child, filled her heart with festering hatred for Henry.
    The pregnancy was extremely difficult for Anne. Anne was afraid that she would be unable to carry the child to full term, but no miscarriage happened despite all the difficulties and heartache. She constantly felt weak, and nausea often bothered her even at the late stages of her pregnancy. She explained the difficulties by the poor conditions at the Tower and her deep emotional stress. She desperately craved for green apples as it had happened to her during all her previous pregnancies, but Master Kingston said that she couldn’t be given her apples at the Tower. Anne only sighed in response, unable to say or do anything else.
    When she learned about her pregnancy, Anne protested that she must be given special food rich in vitamins and easy to digest, which was necessary to make the child stronger. Yet, they refused her pleas as Cromwell didn’t give any instructions to improve her conditions.
    As a result, Anne started hating King Henry even more than she had ever hated him before. She despised and loathed Henry; a combination of feelings she had never had for him. Anne was a miserable prisoner; a former queen stripped of all her titles, disgraced and sentenced to death. She was the harlot and the whore who was hated by the common people of England and had enemies everywhere in England. Of course, such an evil and notorious woman didn’t deserve better