Anne Boleyn is dead, and King François, King Henry's old rival, receives the news about her execution in England. He speculates about her untimely death, thinking that there would probably never be any other lady in Christendom who would ever have such a glorious and tragic fate like Anne had.
This is a long oneshot written from King François' point of view. There will be several more oneshots illustrating the perception of Anne Boleyn's death by the characters on the show.
Undoubtedly, I don't own any characters and the show.
Hope you will truly enjoy this story.
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Her Tragic Fate
In the bright rays of the spring sunlight, King François I of France and Queen Marguerite of Navarre, the King's elder sister, sat together in the François I Gallery at the Château de Fontainebleau. He often spent many hours here locked from the problems of the outside world, together with his sister Marguerite or his maîtresse en titre Anne Jeanne de Pisseleu d'Heilly. The gallery, with its frescoes framed in stucco by Rosso Fiorentino, was the first great decorated gallery built in France.
King François was reading a letter from his Ambassador in England. His expression was impassive, his eyes taking in the contents of the letter. After what seemed an eternity, the King of France finally turned to face his beloved sister. With a look of deep sorrow, he spoke. "I received news from England," he said in a low, hollow voice, edged with clear notes of horror.
Queen Marguerite of Navarre turned her gaze at François. "What is this news about?"
"Anne Boleyn is dead," the King announced without any preamble.
"Finally dead," Marguerite echoed, regret creeping into her voice.
François shook his head as if he were trying to shake off a feeling of unreality. "Yes, Anne is dead."
"Was she executed?" Her heart was thundering in her chest, overwhelmed with grief. "Did Henry hire the French executioner from Calais as it was initially planned?"
"Yes, Henry didn't go back on his word. Anne Boleyn was beheaded by an executioner from Calais," François answered, struggling to keep his voice neutral; he found it hard to accept how Anne Boleyn had been executed. "Henry executed Anne on ludicrous charges. He murdered her to marry Lady Jane Seymour." His low voice cut the air with a sharp edge of anger and bitterness.
"Yes, he killed her." She preferred to call Henry's actions as they were.
"What a kind-hearted and fair King we have in England," François snapped mockingly.
"Henry has a wicked heart."
Like François, Marguerite believed that Henry Tudor was doing things which were too wild and too immoral. And, like her brother, she couldn't refrain from expressing her opinion, especially knowing that it was only between her and him.
"And a fickly heart," he added.
"Indeed."
"In addition, Henry is easily blinded by anger."
"And it happens very often. And then Henry cannot think logically and see the truth," she opined.
"It is the absolute truth, sister."
Marguerite sighed with a bitter sigh of both sorrow and anger. "Even a blind fool can see that Lady Anne was innocent, especially given the annulment of her marriage to Henry."
With an impatient gesture, François pushed the erratic tangle of his chestnut hair from his face. "Anne was an incredible woman. She was a woman very different from anyone I have ever met and certainly quite different from anyone at the English court and even at the French court." He swept his eyes over the Gallery, fixing them on the painted frescoes on the stuccoed interior from on the right from his chair. "I would mourn for her death."
"And so will I," Marguerite replied. "I always liked Anne Boleyn, although I didn't support that Henry had so cruelly abandoned Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne."
In King Henry, François found everything he detested in a King – Henry was a hedonist obsessed only with a quest of power and pleasure. They have always been rivals since the moment when the young Kings of France and of England had a physical fight in Calais, during the Field of the Cloth of Gold, all those years ago. When in 1535 the French ambassador informed François that Henry's feelings for Anne were cooling steadily as she didn't give him a son and as the King had new amorous conquests, he expected that Henry would probably divorce Anne, but he couldn't predict that the English King would overstep all the possible boundaries and murder Anne Boleyn.
François smiled as Anne's image flickered in his mind, little more than a vague impression – the image of the charming, alluring, dancing seductress who appeared in front of him with a white mask on her face in Calais and gracefully danced with had never forgotten that meeting with Anne.
When King Henry expressed his willingness to divorce Queen Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn, François thought that the King of England would soon change his mind over time. However, years were passing, but Henry was stubborn and persistent in his intentions.
As the French King's relations with the Emperor were highly strained, François was anxious to keep the friendship of the Pope and have an alliance with England. Therefore, in 1531 he undertook some diplomatic steps to bring England and Rome together and raised the matter that Henry could have finally received the papal divorce he had so long struggled for. François demonstrated his desire to support the marriage, and it was agreed that a meeting would be held in Calais in October of 1532.
It was initially supposed that Marguerite and other French noblewomen would attend the meeting. However, much later Marguerite withdrew her consent, pleading ill-health as the reason for her absence. Of course, it was a polite way to conceal Marguerite's disapproval of Henry's second marriage. In the end, it was decided that no ladies would be officially present on the French side, while the English were assumed to be represented by Anne and several English noblewomen, including Anne' sister Mary Boleyn who was François' former mistress, and Anne's Aunt Dorothy Stanley Howard, the Countess of Derby, one of her supporters.
François remembered each and every details of their meeting in Calais. As it was planned, Henry and Anne sailed for Calais where they were greeted by the thunder of a royal salute and by the great attentions of the mayor and lord deputy of the city. Anne lived like a Queen escorted by Henry everywhere and surrounded by the magnificent splendor and the perfect luxury.
François also remembered Anne's triumphal entry in the middle of the great banquet Henry had given in the French King's honor. When Anne appeared in the image of the Greek Goddess and led a masque of six ladies. All of the ladies were gorgeously dressed in the gold-laced overdresses of white taffeta, with sashes of crimson satin ornamented with a wavy pattern in cloth of silver, which made François think how perfect their clothing looked amid the banqueting hall that was magnificently decorated with hangings of cloth of gold and silver, which were ornamented with gold wreaths and were encrusted with precious stones and pearls.
Then every lady chose a Frenchman to dance with: Anne's sister Mary led out Queen Marguerite's husband, King Henry of Navarre, and the other ladies did the same with their partners. François was also invited by one of these women for the dance, and Henry delightfully approved that.
At first, François didn't know that Anne was among the dancers and that she claimed him for the dance, and he admired his female partner's dancing skills and passion that simmered in each movement of hers. After a long dance, Henry removed Anne's masks, and François' heart hammered harder and harder at the realization that the woman he greatly liked was Anne Boleyn. After a series of dancing, François and Anne had a private conversation when he orally supported her marriage and warned her about the difficulties associated with the royal position she would have to face.
In the end, the King of France was utterly charmed by Anne who was so captivating and so passionate that he couldn't help but enjoy her melodic laugh, her splendid grace, and her beautiful dark blue eyes that had hooked his desire to the point. At that moment François even felt some jealous of Anne to King Henry – he envied Henry. François was sad when Henry and Anne finally accompanied him to the border-crossing into France.
During their private meeting in Calais, François gave the implicit support to Anne for her marriage to Henry. Later he sent Anne wedding gifts and warm congratulations with the birth of Elizabeth Tudor, but he didn't officially acknowledge Anne as the Queen of England while Catherine was still alive. He acted in that manner due to political reasons, not because of his personal dislike of Anne. The reality was that François had to maintain good relations with the Pope as the King of the Catholic country.
The King of France also couldn't sharpen the existing hostility and hatred between France and the Holy Roman Empire because he didn't wish to have another immediate public confrontation with the Emperor at the stage when he was preparing for another war with the Emperor.
When Bishop Fisher and Thomas More were executed, François was truly shocked with the expense of the Reformation in England and even made some unpleasant comments about Anne's morals, which lowered the temperature of Anglo-French relations, but earned the more prolonged break for France before the escalation of the new conflict with the Emperor in the Italian wars. All François' movements towards England and public statements about Anne Boleyn were purely political.
"After the death of Queen Catherine, Henry's first wife, it seemed that nobody could dispute the legitimacy of her marriage to King Henry," Marguerite declared.
"Nobody, except the King of England," François pointed out.
"Indeed, the King of England made himself the most powerful man in the kingdom."
Muted, unclear sparkle flared up and quenched in the King's amber eyes. "It is interesting that Henry introduced so many drastic changes for Anne Boleyn and only for her, and the same changes gave him an absolute power in the country. England is a perfect example of an absolute monarchy now." He secretly envied Henry that he was an absolute monarch in his country.
Marguerite gave a nod. "And these radical changes also eventually killed the person for the sake of whom they were made." Melancholic notes crawled in her tone. "It is a dark irony of fate."
"Greatness has its price, and at times this price may be very high," François retorted.
"To achieve greatness in life, we must live as though we would never die."
"There is also greatness in death," François supplemented. "Anne Boleyn achieved greatness and died. And even in her death she cultivated an air of greatness around herself." He drew a deep breath, his right hand briefly touching his forehead. "Her death is an event people of England will remember forever. They had already embedded the moment in their mind."
"The common people of England might remember Anne Boleyn's death as an act of tyranny stemming from absolute monarchy," she suggested in a firm tone. "A monarch should be moderate and wise, but this cannot be said about Henry."
François laughed moodily. "You are lecturing, again!"
Marguerite cocked her head and smiled. "Yes, I am."
He looked thoughtful. "Henry used to be a different man until he received absolute power. He was influenced by humanism only in his early youth. Later he stopped supporting humanistic trends in the English society. He was corrupted by the absolute power," he speculated.
"Unfortunately, it is true."
"And what about the Seymours?" she asked.
"The Seymour family and their supporters are happy," François replied. "The power of the Seymour faction will considerably strengthen now."
"Oh, of course, they are!"
"Henry is going to marry Lady Jane Seymour in nearly ten days after Anne's death."
Marguerite shook her head in disapproval. "This is distasteful and indecent. Henry truly creates the image of a tyrant in Europe," she exclaimed, glazed stare burning with irritation.
François and Marguerite shared sorrowful, almost lamentable glances.
"Definitely not a perfect image," François suggested. "I wonder how long Jane Seymour will stay the Queen if she doesn't provide the King of England with a male heir."
"I guess Lady Jane will also be set aside if she fails to have a boy," Marguerite concluded.
François smiled with a devil-may-care smirk. "I feel that Henry will marry several more women, but I doubt he will ever completely get over Anne Boleyn."
Marguerite smiled knowingly. "It is impossible to get over Anne Boleyn."
The King shut his eyes, his mind replaying the images of Anne and himself dancing together; he agreed with his sister that Henry would never forget Anne. "Anne had a glorious and tragic fate, and she will never be buried in oblivion because she is unforgettable."
"Anne Boleyn's memory will live forever," Marguerite concluded.
Anne Boleyn wasn't the most beautiful woman in the world, and her beauty was unconventional and enigmatic, not a classical beauty of a Goddess. Anne attracted François because she was an epitome of grace, charm, elegance, wit, and, of course, intelligence. She also was impeccably well educated and well learned in arts. She also had a practicable, cunning mind in politics.
François instinctively compared Anne with his beloved mother Louise de Savoie and his wife Queen Claude of France were strong and intelligent women, having brilliant qualities to occupy the position of the Queen. His sister Marguerite was another example of a highly talented woman who was able to rule and take important political decisions. Among all the women whom he had ever met, Anne was the fourth woman who was capable of being the great Queen Consort of France.
When Anne was alive, she was an unforgettable seductress and a mysterious beauty; everyone was charmed and envied her even if they slandered her name and did everything to destroy her. In her death, Anne was humble and gracious, proud and truthful. Her life was notorious and unique, but her death was even more unique than her entire life. The death of Anne Boleyn inscribed her name among the immortals, and neither Marguerite nor François had any doubt about that.
Anne Boleyn was just Anne Boleyn. There was no other woman in the world like she was. She was the Queen of Heaven. She was great in life and even greater in death, and there would probably never be any other lady in Christendom who would ever have such a glorious and tragic fate like Anne had.