Chapter Eight
Anne’s sister Mary, being older, had been sent first by her father to curry the king’s favour at the English court, and by all accounts had been very successful in her endeavours. She had married, but after giving her two children, her husband had died of the sweating sickness, which carried off so many in those times. Then she had set her cap at the king, and apparently been successful. “Too much so, I fear,” her father said to Anne when she had returned from France. “She will not tell me, but I am afraid that the king has taken full advantage of her and that she is with his child.”
“Can this be true?” Anne said. “Surely she has been told not to let herself be ruined in that way!”
“I thought she had,” said her father. “But she has always been headstrong. Now I shall have
