Текст книги "In the Shadow of the Crown "
Автор книги: Jean Plaidy
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I was five years older than she was. I wonder now why it was that I disliked her so much. She was mild enough, and I daresay if I had shown some affection she would have returned it. She was stupid; her education had been neglected, although she was the daughter of Sir Edmund Howard, a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk. He had been the hero of Flodden Field but his services to his country had never been recognized and consequently he was desperately poor. There were ten children and it was a strain on his resources to care for such a large family and he was constantly trying to elude his creditors. He was, therefore, glad to send young Catharine off to her grandmother to be brought up in that rather disreputable household—which was what set her on the road to disaster.
But that was to come. At this time, there she was… the uneducated little girl who had suddenly found herself the King's petted consort, his little Queen.
It was not that she gave herself airs. She certainly did not. She was just overwhelmed by all that had happened to her. She behaved like a child but she was quite experienced in certain ways of the world, as was to be revealed. I realized—only, I must admit, later, when I knew something of her past– that she was a girl of lusty sexual appetites and even if her good sense—of which she had very little—had warned her that she must not act in a certain way, she would have been unable to resist doing so.
I suppose she was just the girl to appeal to the jaded senses of an ageing man who had been bitterly disillusioned in his hopes of a beautiful bride.
I was surprised that she was aware of my dislike. I should have thought she was not intelligent enough to sense it. It was not a habit of hers to complain, but she did about my attitude to her, so she must have felt it deeply.
My father was annoyed that I had offended his little darling.
He said of me, “It is those women about her. She has too many of those whispering cronies. There is too much chatter in those apartments…too much brooding on this and that and rights and wrongs. She shall be taught a lesson.”
The lesson was to rob me of two of my women.
I was angry. I was fond of the women about me, and ours was a very happy household. I needed all the friends I could get. Fortunately Susan remained with some others of my closest comrades, but I did miss those two who were sent away.
I was about to protest when Chapuys came to see me.
“You must patch up this quarrel with the Queen,” he said.
“That stupid little creature!”
He laughed. “She pleases the King.” He gave a little smirk. “They say he has never been so pleased since he set eyes on the girl's cousin all those years ago. There must be a similarity to Anne Boleyn there.”
“Anne Boleyn was a clever woman,” I said. “This one is a fool.”
“None the less, one must beware of fools if they have power.”
“This one has power?”
“Through her devoted lover, of course. You are not entirely out of favor with the Court. Don't forget. You are next… after Edward.”
“Edward is so young.”
Chapuys looked at me slyly. “Who can say?” he murmured. “However, there must be no further estrangement between you and your father, and there will be if you continue to offend the Queen.”
“I did not think to offend her.”
“Yet you have shown disrespect for her in some way.”
“She is so silly.”
“Silly to you, but delectable to His Majesty, and it is His Majesty who has the power over us, remember. Find some means of making up the quarrel. The breach between you must not widen.”
I saw his point. There was always sound thinking behind Chapuys' words.
It was not difficult. When I was next in her presence, I admired her gown. She flashed her smile at me. She was really very pretty, and she had been so unused to having beautiful clothes that she was childishly delighted with her wardrobe. I admired her beautiful curls.
A few days after I had spoken to her, I made some progress. I learned that, while the Countess was in the Tower, Catharine had sent some clothes to her; and because his wife had wished it so ardently, the King had allowed her to do this.
I think that helped matters a great deal between us.
I mentioned to her that I knew she had done this, and I wanted to thank her for it.
“I heard that she was to die,” she said, “and it seemed terrible in that cold place. I hate the cold. It was cold in my grandmother's house in winter… and we were so poor, I hadn't any warm clothes… and I thought of the poor Countess…”
I said with feeling, “It was so good of you. I wanted to thank you for what you did…”
She gave me her dazzling smile.
“I sent her a nightgown of worsted, furred and lined… and I sent her some hose and shoes.”
“It was so kind…so very kind…”
“You loved her dearly,” said the Queen softly.
I nodded, too moved for words.
“She took the place of your mother. I had my grandmother… but she never took much notice of me.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you did for the Countess.”
It was the first time I had brought myself to call her “Your Majesty.” There were tears in her eyes; she was easily moved. I could not really like her or feel close to her as I had to Jane and Anne, but I knew she was goodhearted and generous, and if she was a little stupid, it was not for me to be annoyed because she had wormed her way into my father's affections.
After my speaking to her of the Countess, we were on better terms and I felt my relationship with her should no longer cause Chapuys any anxiety.
The King might be in a state of euphoria now that he had found the perfect wife, but the country was still in turmoil. It was when Sir John Neville had headed a revolt in the North that my father had decided that the Countess must die. The country was now more or less split into two. There were those who wanted to cling to Rome and those who saw the advantage of a break; there were those for the King and those against him. But the issue was not as clear cut as that. The Protestant Church had begun to grow, and there were some in England who were ready to embrace it. The King was not one of these. The break with Rome did not mean a break with the old religion; all the King wanted was to give the Church in England a new head. That was all he sought. It was due to the rival factions that the King had his great power, for neither was big enough to overcome the other, and the King stood apart from them and yet remained the great despotic ruler. It seemed strange that there had been two living Queens, Katharine and Anne; and now we were left with two different queens with similar names. There would be many people in the country who believed that, since the King had gone through a ceremony of marriage with Anne of Cleves, his marriage with Catharine Howard was no true marriage—just as in the days when my mother was alive, some had believed he could not be married to Anne Boleyn.
The tangle of his matrimonial affairs would be discussed for many a year, and I suspected there would always be different opinions. He was aware of this, and it irritated him… just as did the conflict in his realm which had in so many ways resulted from his involvement with his wives.
My father was infuriated by rebellion. He wanted his people to love him and when they showed signs of not doing so, he was more hurt than alarmed.
The John Neville rebellion had enraged him. He uttered threats against Reginald Pole—that devilish mischief-maker, as he called him—roaming the Continent stirring up trouble. He gnashed his teeth because he could not lay his hands on him and do to him what he had done to other members of his family.
He decided to go to Yorkshire to settle matters for himself. The Council he left in London to take care of affairs was well chosen—Cranmer, Audley and one of Jane Seymour's brothers—all men who accepted the King's supremacy in the Church and enemies of Rome.
Seymour had gained a good deal of power; not only was he the brother of the King's late wife—the only one not to be discarded—but also the uncle of Edward, the future King. I think the Howards were casting suspicious eyes on the Seymours, as undoubtedly the Seymours were on the Howards. The Howards were at the moment in the ascendancy, having just provided the delectable Catharine for the King's pleasure.
Chapuys had said we must be watchful of the growing power of the Seymours and the Howards.
Everywhere on his travels the King was received with acclaim. How much of it was genuine, I did not know. The people had seen so many dead men hanging in chains; they had caught a whiff of the smell of burning flesh. They would be careful how they acted toward this powerful monarch.
Meanwhile my father became more and more enamored of his Queen. He was an uxorious, adoring husband; she soothed him and pleased him in every way. If only his people would stop being contentious, he remarked, he could be a very contented man.
It is strange how one does not recognize important events when they occur. The Court was at Pontefract Castle when Catharine admitted a new secretary into her household. This was a goodlooking young man of rather dashing appearance. His name was Francis Dereham.
Poor Catharine! She would have been quite unaware of the storms which were blowing up around her. She would know nothing of the intrigues which were commonplace in the life of the Court. She was the adored Queen of an ageing King; she would not have believed that any harm could come to her.
She did not know that there were men watching the King's besotted attitude toward her; she did not know that the Catholic Howards were rubbing their hands with glee; she did not guess that the ambitious Protestant Seymour brothers were furiously noticing the King's devotion to the Howard Queen. The Seymours had risen from obscurity because their sister had married the King; now it was the turn of the Norfolk Howards.
It could not go on.
By the time the Court returned to Windsor, the plot was in progress. From Windsor the Court went to Hampton Court, and it was there that the storm broke.
I joined my brother's household at Sion, where Elizabeth was also. It was ironic but the day we arrived—it was the 30th of October, I remember—the King and Queen went to church to receive the sacrament, and my father made a declaration in the church. There were many to hear it, and it expressed his utter contentment with the Queen.
“I render, O Lord, thanks to Thee,” he announced in ringing tones at the altar, “that after so many strange accidents that have befallen my marriages, Thou has been pleased to give me a wife so entirely conformed to my inclination as her that I have now.”
How many wives had received such public acclamation of their virtues? She stood beside him, smiling with pleasure, acting in just the way he wished her to. He was a man of some intellect, a man of foresight, and of all the clever women who surrounded him it was this nonentity who pleased him!
Of course, he had always been one to deceive himself. Therein lay his weakness. He had a conscience but that conscience worked according to his will, so he was completely in control of it. He saw everything in the light of what good it could bring to Henry Tudor. And this little girl who said “Yes, my lord,” “Yes, my lord,” all the time, who titillated his ageing senses and aroused in him the desire of a young man pleased him because he drew on her dazzling youth and felt young again.
How deeply he must have felt about her for, having made that public declaration at the altar, he asked the Bishop of Lincoln to prepare a public ceremony. It would be a thanksgiving to Almighty God for having at last blessed him with a loving, dutiful and virtuous wife.
Fate is ironic. It was the very next day when the blow was delivered.
Susan told me about it.
“The King was in the chapel, my lady. The Queen was not with him. It may be that that was why Cranmer chose that moment. He handed a paper to the King and begged him to read it when he was alone.”
“Why? What was in this paper?”
“They say that it is accusing the Queen of lewd behavior before her marriage.”
I was astounded, yet I suddenly realized what it was about her that I had noticed. It was wrapped up in the fascination she had for the King. Of course, she was pretty—but so were others; there was something more than that about Mistress Catharine Howard. She was lusty, and lustiness such as she had, accompanied by fresh, youthful, dainty prettiness was irresistible. Before anything was proved, I guessed the accusations against her were true.
“What do they say?” I asked.
“That she had lovers.”
“They will never prove it. The King won't believe it.”
“The King, they say, is very unhappy.”
“Then if he does not want to believe it, he will not.”
“It may not be as easy as that. There are strong men surrounding him… determined men.”
“So you think it is a matter of politics?”
“Is that not generally the case?”
I had to agree.
We waited for news. These cunning men had collected evidence against her. They could produce her lovers; they had an account of what her life had been like in the household of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. There were young people… all sleeping together in one large room, living intimately. The Dowager Duchess herself was too old or too lazy to care what was happening to her wayward granddaughter. A girl like Catharine Howard, brought up in such a household, could hardly be expected to emerge as an innocent maiden.
I had not liked her and I had thought my father had demeaned himself by doting on her so blatantly. Perhaps I was angry because he had treated my own mother so shamefully, humiliating a great princess of Spain and becoming so foolishly enslaved by this ill-bred little girl. But when I heard the state the poor child was in and how she had taken the news, I felt an overwhelming pity for her.
She had almost gone into a frenzy. She had seen the axe hanging over her head. It was what all my father's wives must have felt when they offended him. The ghost of Anne Boleyn would haunt them all as long as they lived.
And this one was really only a child, in spite of her knowledge of the needs of men. She would not know how to defend herself. She would only think of what had happened to her own beautiful, clever cousin who had found herself in a position similar to that which now confronted her. The difference might be that Anne Boleyn had been innocent; but was Catharine Howard? On the other hand, the King had wished to be rid of Anne that he might marry Jane Seymour. He certainly did not wish to be rid of Catharine Howard.
The shadow of the axe would hang over every bride of my father's from the day of her wedding. Catharine must have felt secure in his love—so petted, so pampered, she was the pretty little thing who knew so well how to please. Had it never occurred to him that she might have learned her tricks through practice?
They told me about her, how she had babbled in her anguish, how she had worked herself up to a frenzy and to such an extent that they feared for her sanity.
How could she help it? Poor girl, she was so young, so full of life. She enjoyed life to such an extent that she could not bear the thought of having it snatched from her.
She believed, naturally, that if she could speak to the King, if she could cajole him, if she could, by her presence, remind him of the happiness she had brought him and still could…he would save her. He would cherish her still. But the wicked men would not allow her to see him. They would keep them apart because they knew that, if she could but speak to him for a moment, this nightmare for her would be over.
They said that when she heard he was in the Hampton Court chapel she ran along the gallery calling his name. But they stopped her before she reached him. They dragged her back to her chamber and set guards on her so that the King should not be aware of her terrible distress. They must have believed, as she did, that if he saw her, he would forgive her.
Susan and I discussed the matter. I suppose everyone was discussing it. We learned many things about the life Catharine Howard had lived before the King set eyes on her and made her his Queen. We heard details of the establishment of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, of the young people who had been under her care… only there was no care.
It was a sordid little story. I could picture it all… the long dormitory, those high-spirited young people. For a girl of Catharine's temperament there would be temptations, and she was not a girl to resist them. Therein lay her great attraction. There would have been many to enjoy what had so pleased the King.
I remembered that she had taken Francis Dereham into her household at Pontefract. What a little fool she was to do so. She was foolish not to see the danger which would have been obvious to a more worldly person. Her knowledge of sexual adventuring might be great but she had no understanding of human nature. It would never occur to her that, for some to see the little Catharine Howard—the poor girl who had scarcely been able to clothe herself—now reveling in the silks and satins which she loved, would arouse great envy, and envy is a most destructive passion.
It all came out… the flirtations with Manox, the musician, the familiarities she allowed Francis Dereham, who wanted to marry her and claimed her as his wife. It had been as though they were married. And she, as Queen, had brought this man, the lover of her humbler self, into her household!
How easy it must have been to build up evidence against her!
There was one other case which was even more damning. Her cousin, Thomas Culpepper, was in the King's household, and many had noticed the soft looks which had passed between him and the Queen. It was soon discovered that there had been interviews between them when they had been alone in a room together.
Lady Rochford's name was mentioned as one who had helped arrange the meetings with Culpepper and to make sure that the pair were not disturbed during them.
I had never liked Lady Rochford. The fact was that I had never liked anyone connected with the Boleyn family overmuch. I had seen Anne Boleyn as the one who had killed my mother. I was not sure that she had plotted to poison her, but I felt she had killed her all the same; but for Anne Boleyn, my father would have remained married to my mother, and I believe she would have been alive still.
Lady Rochford had been the wife of George Boleyn, and it was she who had given credence to the story that he and Anne were lovers. I had never believed that, much as I hated them, and I had always wondered how a wife could give such evidence against her own husband. And now she was accused of helping to further an intrigue between the Queen and Thomas Culpepper. I believed that such a mischievous and unprincipled woman could do just that.
I wished I could go to my father and comfort him. Of course, I could never have done so.
I wondered how deep his affection went and whether it would be strong enough to save her. She had pleased him so much. He had recently given thanks to God for providing him with a wife whom he could love. Surely he would not want to lose her, merely because she had had a lover—or two… or three—before her marriage to him? I sometimes felt an anger against men who, far from chaste themselves, expect absolute purity in their wives. If Catharine had not had some experience before her marriage, how could she have been the mistress of those arts which seemed to please him so much?
I wondered what he would do. I did not talk of this to Susan. I feared I would be too frank about him. He was my father and he was the King. I thought about him a great deal. I had seen him in his moods, when he was preoccupied with his conscience. I had judged him in my mind but I could not do that before others. So I said nothing of these intimate matters.
Susan said one day, “They have arrested Dereham.”
So, I thought, it has started. He will not save her. His pride will have been too hurt. He did not love her more than his own pride.
“On what charge?” I asked.
“Piracy,” she replied.
“He was involved in that in Ireland where he had gone to make his fortune, some say, that he might come back and marry Catharine Howard.”
I nodded. I knew what would happen. They would question him, and he would be persuaded to answer them. Persuaded? In what way? How strong was he? I had thought him a dashing fellow—but one can never tell who can stand up against the rack.
We heard later that he confessed that, when they were together in the Duchess's household, the Queen had promised to marry him. They had thought of themselves as husband and wife, and others had considered them as such; they had exchanged love-tokens. They had lived together in the Duchess's household as husband and wife.
They tried to force him to admit that when he returned and was taken into the Queen's household the relationship between them had been that which they had enjoyed in the Duchess's. This he stoutly denied. There had never been the slightest intimacy between him and Catharine since her marriage to the King.
We heard that the King shut himself in his apartments, that he had burst into tears, that he had raged against fate for ruining his marriage. There was great speculation. Would the King waive her early misdemeanors and take her back?
Even I, who knew him so well, was unsure of what he would do. I wished that I could have seen him, talked to him. I could imagine his tortured mind. He wanted to believe her innocent and on the other hand he wished to know the worst.
I think he might have relented. He could usually be relied on to adjust what he considered right with what he wanted; and he wanted Catharine Howard. There was no doubt of that. I think he would have taken her back if it had not been for Culpepper.
It is not easy for people in high places to act and no one know what they are doing. Catharine had received Culpepper in her chamber, and Lady Rochford had helped her arrange the meetings.
It was all coming out. There were men like Thomas Wriothesley who were determined to ruin the Queen and make reconciliation with the King impossible.
How I hated that man! There was cruelty in him. He sought all the time to bring advantage to himself, and he cared not how he came by it.
All those connected with the early life of Catharine Howard were now in the Tower—even the poor Duchess of Norfolk, sick and ailing, and a very frightened old woman.
My father must have tortured himself. He could not believe that his dear little Queen, his “rose without a thorn,” could possibly have had a lover when she was his wife. That was something he found it hard to forgive. That was the charge he had brought against Anne Boleyn, but I think he never believed it. It was treason for a Queen to take a lover, for it meant that a bastard could be foisted on the nation. And the thought of that charming, passionate little creature going off to her lover… perhaps laughing at the King because he was no longer so young and lusty as Master Culpepper…was more than my father could bear.
He summoned Cranmer. “Go to the Queen,” he said. “Tell her that if she will acknowledge her transgression … even though her life might be forfeit to the law, I would extend to her my most gracious mercy.”
I understood his feelings. He had to know … though he did not want to.
Poor Catharine! I heard that when his message came to her she was almost out of her mind with fear. She was so terrified that the fate which her cousin had suffered would be hers. She was too distraught to speak; words would not come. Cranmer believed that if he questioned her she would go into a frenzy, so he said he would leave her with the King's gracious promise and when she had composed herself he would come back and hear her confession.
It was some time before she was ready to do that. Every time she was approached she was ready to fall into what they called a frenzy. They feared she was losing her senses. But in the end she was ready to talk.
She did admit that she had believed at one time that she was going to marry Francis Dereham. They had kissed many times.
She broke down and it was impossible to get any more information from her; when they attempted to, she became frenzied and was overcome with such terrible weeping that they feared she would do herself an injury.
Culpepper was the son of her uncle, and they had known each other since they were children; they had always been very friendly.
There were those who were ready to give evidence against her. They wanted to prove that she had been guilty of adultery. She had been reckless, indiscreet, there was no doubt of that.
A certain Katharine Tilney of her household told how she and another maid had wondered why the Queen sent strange, enigmatic messages to Lady Rochford and why sometimes they were dismissed before the Queen had retired. They reported secret whisperings with Lady Rochford and the fact that sometimes the Queen would not retire until two of the morning. Thomas Culpepper was seen in her apartments and Lady Rochford kept watch.
It was all very incriminating.
There was a hush over Sion House. Elizabeth, who was now nearly nine years old, was very concerned about what was happening. Could she be remembering how similar was the fate of this Queen to that of her mother? She had only been three years old when Anne Boleyn had been beheaded, but she had always been ahead of her years.
Edward was aware, too. He was always susceptible to Elizabeth's moods. There was a puzzled look on his face.
Elizabeth sought me out when I was alone and asked me what was happening to the Queen.
I said, “She is in the Tower.”
“What are they going to do to her?”
“I don't know.”
“Will they kill her as they did…?” I looked at her steadily. She blinked and went on, “As they did my mother?”
It was rarely that I heard her speak of her mother. What happened to Anne Boleyn was something she kept to herself and brooded on. Not even Margaret Bryan knew how she felt about her mother. Whether she remembered her and mourned her, I do not know. It was always difficult to tell with Elizabeth. Anne Boleyn was not a person who could be easily forgotten, and she was Elizabeth's mother.
“I like her,” she said.
“She is a sort of cousin to me.”
“Yes, I know.”
“She is very pretty.”
I nodded.
“My father loved her dearly.” She frowned.
“Why does he no longer do so? And what will happen to her now?”
I could only fall back on those often-repeated words: “We shall have to wait and see.”
Edward came in. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“The Queen,” Elizabeth replied.
“Why don't we see her now? She is in disgrace, is she not?”
“She is in prison,” Elizabeth told him.
“In the Tower.”
“In the Tower. That is for wicked people.”
“The King puts his wives there when he doesn't like them any more,” said Elizabeth, and she turned away abruptly and ran from the room. I think she was going to cry and did not want us to see her do so.
I thought: She does remember her mother. Perhaps also she was crying for Catharine. Elizabeth was resolute and strong and she had already come to terms with an uncertain existence such as we all must who relied on the favor of the King.
THEY WERE BRINGING CATHARINE to Sion House, and we had orders to move. We were going to Havering-atte-Bower. I was sad. I should have liked to be near the Queen. So would Elizabeth. We might have comforted her a little.
How sordid this was! How dreary! Why did they pursue it? It was clear that Catharine had behaved freely with certain men. They were tortured, but Dereham would admit only that he had loved Catharine as his wife because he had once regarded her as such. Was that a sin, for there was no question then of her marrying the King? He was a brave man, this Dereham; they tortured him cruelly and tried to make him admit that there had been impropriety between him and the Queen since her marriage, but he would not do so.
Catharine had denied any sexual involvement at first but after a while she broke down and confessed to it.
I know my father was suffering in his way. There was no proof that she had committed adultery in the case of Culpepper. I daresay she had flirted a little with him. It was in her nature to flirt with men—particularly those who admired her—and most did.
I went on wondering whether the King's obsession with her would override his pride. I think it might have done—and if it did, men like Sir Thomas Wriothesley and perhaps Cranmer would find themselves out of favor.
They had seen what happened to Thomas Cromwell over Anne of Cleves. He had died, it would seem, more because he had provided the King with a bride he did not like than for the foreign policy he had pursued with the German princes and the charges which had been brought against him.
So there were powerful men who would find a reconciliation an embarrassment to themselves, and they made sure that the story of Catharine's misdemeanors was circulated abroad. François, King of France, forever mischievous, wrote his condolences to his brother of England. That was the deciding factor. My father could not take back a wife who had humiliated him, however much he wanted her.
I wished that I could have gone to her. Elizabeth did, too. The child was deeply upset. She had been fond of Jane Seymour; she was even closer to Anne of Cleves; and now Catharine Howard was to die.
She became very thoughtful. I guessed she was thinking of the precarious lives we all led.
How brave they were, those two men. Neither Dereham nor Culpepper would implicate Catharine; and surely what had happened before her marriage could not be construed as treason. But the verdict had already been decided. Norfolk turned against his kinswoman just as he had against Anne Boleyn. He had wanted to make the most of the advantages which came from their being in favor, but as soon as they lost that favor he became their most bitter enemy. I despised such men—just as I had Thomas Boleyn for meekly presiding at the baptism of Edward. Self-seekers, all. They had no feeling, no heart. They made me despair of human nature.
