The Pearl Of Great Price

Chapter 29: Pain

The thing about life is there is always a new set of problems waiting at the door. New things that require strength, courage, and diligence. Great things never came from the comfort zones of life. These new moments are essential for turning wounds into wisdom and pain into power. For every challenge encountered there are opportunities ahead. When life tries its best to give a pounding on all sides, the person one has at their side becomes as important as the problem itself.

After getting through the presentation of the twins, Mary saw her husband very little. The King occupied Charles's time with matters of state pertaining to his marriage with the Boleyn woman. Apparently, Pope Clement VII sent a proclamation announcing the marriage invalid. Even after almost a year of this shame, people in positions of power still think the marriage is a shame. 

It makes Mary laugh to know people hate the woman almost as much as she does. In retaliation her father had parliament pass the Treason Act. This made it an offense to attempt to accuse the King, and his heirs, of heresy and tyranny. All subjects were now ordered to take an oath accepting this. Which is where Charles comes in. Since Sir Thomas More refused to take the oath, he was to be imprisoned in The Tower.

Charles has been the King's eyes and ears at the hearings going on at Lambeth Palace. All this did was make Mary hate this accursed place even more. She is more than happy to quit London altogether and go to either of their homes in Wales or Suffolk. Instead she, herself, feels imprisoned here, in this crummy castle. Nothing is as painful as staying in a place you don't belong.

The very little she did see of her husband is at night. Even then he is too tired and worn out to speak. He goes to bed exhausted mentally and physically only to wake up and go through the whole ordeal again. During their time together he doesn't wish to speak on the trial. Rather he is content not speaking at all, just snuggling and cuddling in bed until his eyes will close. He also wants her to read to him poems of love while her fingers card, and caress, through his hair. It's almost like he's trying to rid himself of the leftover feelings of damnation and discomfort, that are wrought throughout the day.

She learned from Ambassador Chapuys that Thomas More was happy to swear that the children of Anne Boleyn could be the heirs to the throne. However, he could not, in good conscience, declare all of the previous Acts of Parliament are valid. Chapuys told her "The man could not deny the authority of the pope without jeopardizing his soul to the damnation of Hell."

Mary cringed but didn't say a word for she knew a good man had sealed his fate. And for what, she wonders. Along with this, her heart broke and she cried when word got out about the Observant Friars of Richmond, who also refused to sign the oath. They were all rounded up and hung, or drawn and quartered for denying the royal supremacy. A few days later a group of Carthusian monks was executed for the same offense.

When told how the monks were chained upright to stakes and left to die, without food or water, wallowing in their own filth, the Grand Duchess was downright inconsolable. She rose from off the bed, which she flung herself onto, and began packing a trunk for herself and the children. Panic has now overtaken her. It harkens back to a dark time in Ludlow when the anxiety would be so great it threatened to swallow her whole. Taking things from out of a wardrobe and throwing them haphazardly into the trunk, she freely wept. 

Entering the room, Charles saw his wife sobbing and shoving items into one of their luggage cases. He rushed to her side and grabbed her steady. She refused to look at him. "Sweetheart please what's wrong?" he asked. Concern is written all over his tired face.

Waving her hands around the room, her broken voice yelled out "This place! This place is all wrong. Everything is all wrong. I hate it! I hate this palace. I hate London. I hate what is happening to men of God all because of some wretched, wicked woman and her children." Her sobbing continued in earnest.