Trials of Love *Winner*: Letters in a Rosewood Box

Letters in a Rosewood Box

The Tower of London, 19th May 1536

Sometimes distance isn't in miles or yards. For those unlucky in love, it's the aching void between two hearts. The first day I saw his unsmiling face he looked upon my home as if he owned it. He was wealthy to be sure and he did in fact own the land, the stables, the horses and the house. But he did not own me. I knew then that no matter the bargain, I could not be bought. Perhaps he knew it too, because I watched him across my father's table, the cruel lines of his brow drawn in consternation as he gazed upon my sister.

The folds of his velvet robe draped around him to pool against the timber floors making a chair in Hever Castle appear as opulent as a throne. Mary and I had chased each other around that stool many times in childhood. Who would have known that we would also chase the man? Next to her I was nothing. I was plain and unattractive, shadowed by the warmth of her golden hair and blushing cheeks. But, I had my wiles and my wit, two things a lady of any court should not be without.

At first I started writing to him to ease the tension in my soul. The moment my quill touched the parchment it had felt right. I had never intended to send the King of England my letters. Instead, I committed each one to a slender rosewood box stored solemnly beneath my bed. I wrote to him as if he loved me, as if he had chosen me across that oak table illuminated by winters warming light. I was as unguarded in my letters as I was in my heart. I let him flow as freely as the Thames into every chamber warming it with the rhythmic beating in my chest.

My Lord, I always began. Not because it was his due title, but because despite his wife, or the women he dallied with, he was mine. MY Lord. When my sister left our home to grace his bed, I wrote my disappointment to him and stored it in my little box. When he visited Kent and complimented me on my seat atop my mare, I thanked him in a line or two by candlelight. Until one day he wrote to me, unaware that our correspondence had begun some months prior. He spoke of my beauty, made allusions to my wit and wrapped each stanza in a bow of pretty promises. But, I was not a woman to be toyed with, nor was I my sister to be used. I knew the man I loved existed somewhere between the ink and ivory of my letters and I would not bend for anything less.

For the first time I responded with a letter destined for his eyes. I thanked him for his offer, and hastened my regrets. He belonged to Catherine, his wife and I belonged to no man. It took me far too long to pen the few words necessary to have his disappointment sealed with cooling wax but for as long as my hand curved in artful motion he was mine.

I should have known that the King of England would not be deterred by a mere collection of letters formed into words. Henry began writing to me, filling sheets upon sheets with the rolling calligraphy from quills dipped lovingly in ink. Between the solicitation and supplication, he shared his vulnerability with me. His secrets bled into his penmanship, fresh from open veins to stain the paper and suddenly my rosewood box was full. Every unread missive was replaced with testaments of his love and I became a woman in the confidence of a King.

He ended his letters as religiously as I had begun, By the hand of your servant, who longs to be yours.

Hope and agenda perfused every line, and perhaps it was not the most chaste of romances but we are not perfect beings. Flawed and raw, we tried so desperately to convey our love. But, how can the curve of a comma or the inflection of an umlaut speak to all the passion we held in our souls. He was a man who could not promise forever. I was a woman who would accept nothing less. And, yet we ached for one another.

His letters would come by special messenger and I could recognise the seal from across field in the moonlight. Holding the envelope to my chest I imagined the warmth still lingered from his touch and to this I would press my lips and breathe deeply of his scent. Often his hand would brush over the ink in hasty sweeps and at other times each slope and stroke was meticulous in its care. When the candle burned low and night grew ever more silent, the authorship of his words wrote my dreams. In the hours after twilight I was his.

Driven by love, we annulled his unfulfilled marriage, countered the church with our own and dared the anger of the court. There was no challenge that we did not rise to meet and yet in the end, it was our lack of letters that tore us apart. We suddenly sat side by side, and were further in our hearts than we had ever been. Dry quills scratched the surface of pristine paper and our love was lost in the absence of every unwritten word.

My Lord,

Sitting here in this prison of stone and mortar, I realise that we loved each other best at a distance. I had not your hands or eyes but I was in possession of your love. So, I go to meet my fate with that which has always been mine. You cannot give a heart away when it is no longer yours. It is stored in the safety of a small rosewood box owned by Your wife, Anne Boleyn.