Текст книги "Queen of This Realm"
Автор книги: Jean Plaidy
Соавторы: Jean Plaidy
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ALSO BY JEAN PLAIDY
WHEN I LOOK BACK OVER THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS of my life and consider the number of times I was in danger of losing it, I believe—as I have since that wonderful day when I rode into my capital city in a riding dress of purple velvet, beside me my Master of Horse, Robert Dudley, the most handsome man in England, and listened to the guns of the Tower greeting me, and saw the flowers strewn in my path—yes, I fervently believe that my destiny was to be a great queen. I swore to God then that nothing should ever stand in the way of my fulfilling it. And I have kept that vow.
I could rejoice in those early twenty-five years—and indeed all through my life have done so—because during them I learned many a bitter lesson and it has been my endeavor never to forget one of them. I was young, lacking experience in the ways of men and women; and over my defenseless head—as dangerously as it ever did over that of Damocles—hung the sword of destruction. One false step, one thoughtless word, even a smile or a frown and down would come that sword depriving me of my life.
I was not quite three years old when I had my first encounter with adversity and my fortunes changed drastically. I cannot say with truth that I remember a great deal about my mother though sometimes I fancy I do. In my mind I see the most brilliantly fascinating person I have ever known. I sense the soft touch of velvet and the rustle of silk, long perfumed dark hair and a wild sort of gaiety born of desperation. But there is one image of her which remains vividly in my mind and as long as I live I will never forget it. I am in a courtyard and my fascinating mother is holding me in her arms. At one of the windows there appears a glittering figure—large, imposing, red-bearded. It is the King and she is trying to say something to him through me. She is holding my hand and waving it at him, appealingly, desperately. For a brief second he regards us with exasperated indifference before he turns away. That actually happened. Later I discovered it took place three or four days before she was arrested and taken to the Tower. The memory of her desperation and his cruel indifference stays with me forever, and I vowed that no man should ever do to me what my father did to my mother.
Before that she had been a presence of power, and my governess Lady Bryan, who was a kinswoman of hers, was overwhelmingly anxious to please her as was Mr Shelton who was also a family connection. My mother looked after her own when she had the power to do so. But there came that bewildering sadness… the end of her visits… the days when I asked for her, and Lady Bryan turned away to hide her emotion.
My father was a more tangible presence. I thought he was the most powerful man in the world. He certainly was in England. I was fourteen when he died so I could say I knew him fairly well. He was one who inspired fear and yet affection with it, and despite all his cruelty and all his ruthlessness he never lost the love of his people. That was one way in which I intended to emulate him. I learned from my studies of our history that it is a foolish monarch who loses the esteem of the common people.
Lady Bryan told me that my father had once been very proud of me and used to stroll in the gardens at Hampton Court or Windsor—wherever the Court happened to be—holding me in his arms. I liked that picture—myself magnificently attired swinging high in the arms of a splendid king as his courtiers walked with him exclaiming at my perfections.
That ended with an executioner's sword which severed my mother's beautiful head from her willowy body.
What I do remember clearly is catching Lady Bryan by the skirts and demanding: “Where is my mother? Why does she never come now?”
And when she tried to run away to weep in silence, I refused to relinquish her and insisted she tell me. She took me onto her knee and said: “My Lady Princess, you have no mother now.”
“Everybody has a mother,” I said, for I was logical as soon as I was old enough to reason.
“Your mother has gone to Heaven,” she said.
“When will she come back?”
“People do not come back from Heaven.”
“She will come to see me.”
Lady Bryan held me to her and wept so bitterly that she bewildered me.
Then I began to realize that something terrible had happened but it was a long time before I gave up hope of seeing my mother again.
I talked of her with Lady Bryan and made her tell me about my birth.
“It was in Greenwich Palace,” she said, “a beautiful palace and one of the favorites of the King and Queen. You first saw the light of day in the Chamber of Virgins. It was given that name afterward, but before you arrived it was just a chamber the walls of which were lined with tapestry and this tapestry depicted the lives of the holy virgins.”
“Did my mother want a boy?” I must have heard some whisper of a servant to put that into my head. It was important, I knew, for Lady Bryan turned pale, and for a moment or so did not answer.
Then she said: “She wanted a boy. The King wanted a boy. But as soon as you were born they knew that you were just what they wanted.”
I was soon to discover how false that was, but I loved Lady Bryan for telling the lie. My mother's life had depended on her giving birth to a boy. If I had been a son, they would not have sent to France for that sword which cut off her head. She would have been an honored queen instead of a corpse lying in her grave in the Church of St Peter ad Vincula.
“The Queen said,” went on Lady Bryan, “people will now with reason call this room the Chamber of Virgins, for a virgin is now born in it on the vigil of this auspicious day on which the Church commemorates the nativity of the Holy Virgin.”
“Was that what she said?” I asked wonderingly.
“It was. You were born on the eve of the Virgin Mary's birth. Just think of that.”
My dear governess did so much to comfort me, but even she could not keep the truth from me. I could not but know that I who had been the important Lady Princess was now of no consequence and few cared what became of me. My mother was dead, executed for treason against the King because she was accused of taking five lovers—one her own brother, my uncle George Boleyn. Her marriage to the King had been proved by Thomas Cromwell—the King's influential minister—to have been no marriage at all, and because of this I was branded illegitimate. And naturally bastards of the King were not of the same importance as his legitimate offspring.
I began to notice the change when my gowns and kirtles grew thin and threadbare and Lady Bryan spent long hours trying to patch them.
“I don't like this old dress,” I grumbled. “Why cannot I have a new one?”
At which the good Lady Bryan turned away to hide her anger against somebody—certainly not me, for she took me in her arms and said I was her Lady Princess and always would be.
She was very angry with Mr Shelton, who had a high place in my household, because he insisted that I should sit at table in some ceremony and would give me wine and help me to highly seasoned dishes. I heard Lady Bryan quarreling with him. “It is unsuitable to let the child eat such foods,” she said.
Mr Shelton replied: “This is no ordinary child. Remember she is the King's daughter.”
“Oh, he still acknowledges her as that, does he?” Lady Bryan spoke angrily. “I am glad of that! Do you know, Mr Shelton, it is months since that child had new garments. I cannot go on patching forever.”
“I repeat she is the King's daughter and we should never forget that. Who knows…”
“Just what is your implication, Mr Shelton?”
He did not reply. I kept my eyes and ears open and because I knew strange matters were being decided outside my nursery I began to realize that for some reason Mr Shelton was trying hard to win my good graces and wean my affection from Lady Bryan. He never denied me anything that he could and he was always most obsequious.
At first I thought what a nice man he was and then when I discovered that Lady Bryan restricted me and meted out her little punishments because she felt it was her duty to do so, I did not like Mr Shelton so much; and whatever disagreement there was between us I always turned back to Lady Bryan when I was in need of comfort.
Mr Shelton, like Lady Bryan, was related to my mother, and that was the reason why they were at Hunsdon in my household. Those two were in constant conflict. Once I heard Lady Bryan declare to him: “You want to keep my Lady in royal state as long as you can, do you not, Master Shelton? But I tell you this: it will avail you little. There has been a new Queen now ever since the death of Queen Anne, and she is with child, and if that child should prove to be a boy… what of our lady then?”
“But what if it is not a boy eh?” demanded Mr Shelton. “What if Queen Jane goes the way of Queen Anne.”
“Hush,” said Lady Bryan. “Such words are treason and should never be spoken. All I ask of you is not to indulge the child. Do you not understand that these highly seasoned foods are bad for her digestion? I believe you give her sweetmeats outside meals, and if you do not desist from such I shall be forced to make complaints where they could come to the ears of the King.”
Mr Shelton was unimpressed and I learned later that she did write to Thomas Cromwell himself, telling him that I had neither gown nor kirtle, nor any manner of linen, and begging him to send something for me to wear. She also complained of Mr Shelton's insistence that I sit at table where spiced foods were served and suggested that I have plain wholesome food served in a way suitable for a child of my age.
I did get some new clothes but I think that may have been due to the intervention of my sister Mary. She was twenty years of age at that time, which seemed very old to me. She was pleasant-looking and very serious, spending a great deal of time on her knees. An example to me, said Lady Bryan, for I was far less dedicated to my religious studies than Mary had been as a child. (Lady Bryan had been her governess, too, so she could speak with conviction.) I was interested in so many things and asked too many questions, I was told. “There are matters which must be accepted without question,” said Lady Bryan. “One's faith for one, loyalty to the King for another.” Even at that stage I was beginning to have doubts of sustaining either.
Lady Mary's mother, Katharine of Aragon, had died a few months before my own, and my sister was stricken with grief because they had been especially devoted to each other. Before her mother's death Mary had not liked me at all. On the rare occasions when we had met, young as I was, I had sensed that my presence angered her. Now it was different. We had both lost our mothers; both had died outside the King's favor; we were both branded bastards. It was because of her uncertain position that Mary was not married, and it was strange for a King's daughter to reach the age of twenty without having a husband found for her. But now she was quite tender toward me and since I tried to please her we were becoming friends. When one has no mother and one's father is a king whom one rarely sees, it is very pleasant to have a sister. I hoped Mary felt this too.
I was very sad when Mary left Hunsdon but she was delighted to go, for Queen Jane had asked for her to go to Court. Much of this I learned later. Because of my extreme youth I must have been very much in the dark at this time. It was when Katharine Champernowne came to be my governess that I made my discoveries through her. Katharine—I was soon calling her Kat– was the most indiscreet and delightful person I had ever known and I grew to love her dearly.
It appeared that the King could deny his new wife nothing; fair where my mother was dark, docile where she was vivacious, Queen Jane was the greatest possible contrast to Queen Anne for whom out of the white heat of his passion had grown a burning hatred. Moreover Jane was almost immediately pregnant after her marriage, which took place, most shamefully, ten days after my mother's death by the sword.
Queen Jane, it seemed, asked the King if Mary could come to Court and be with her during her pregnancy.
“She shall come to thee, darling,” Kat told me he said; and so gladly Mary went.
I missed her, but like everyone else I wanted to hear of the birth of the child.
When Lady Bryan took me to her own private chamber, I knew I was going to learn something important. She put her arms round me and drew me close to her.
“The Queen has given birth to a son,” she said. “The King and the whole country are very happy.”
I felt my face go hard as it did when I was angry. Lady Bryan had told me of it many times. “A bad habit,” she said, “and one which can bring you no good.” I tried to curb it but on this occasion it was difficult, for how could I prevent the resentment which rose in me when I heard another than my mother called the Queen? Moreover this new Jane had given birth to a boy—the son which I should have been.
“The bells are ringing all over the country,” said Lady Bryan. “The King is so happy. This little boy will one day be King though, God willing, not for a very long time. His Grace the King has sent word to Mr Shelton and to me that you are to have the very special honor of carrying the chrisom at the christening. There! What do you think of that?”
I thought very well of it. At last I was going to Court.
How happy I was on that October day when I sailed along the river to Hampton Court, most sumptuously attired as befitted one who was to take part in such an important ceremony.
There lay the palace, majestically beautiful seen from the river. Small wonder that my father had said when it had belonged to Cardinal Wolsey that it was too fine a residence for a subject and had taken it for his own. I was enchanted by its enormous gatehouse, its privy gardens, its tennis courts and its fireplaces, each of them large enough to roast an ox. It was in settings such as this that I belonged.
I was delighted by the respect shown to me and I deluded myself into thinking that this might be the beginning of a change for me, and I wondered whether the pallid Queen who had replaced my mother was responsible for it.
Looking back it is not easy to say whether I remember the details of that ceremony or whether they were related to me afterward. I was only four years old but I do remember how happy I was—contented rather—to be among those powerful and important people. The King was not present in the chapel. He had remained with the Queen in her bedchamber for it was reported that she was very weak indeed. But several important people were there. The Duke of Suffolk, the Marquis of Exeter, the Earl of Arundel and Lord William Howard held the canopy over the baby who was carried by the Marchioness of Exeter. I heard that among the nobles was my grandfather Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, with a wax taper in his hand and a towel about his neck, playing his part in the ceremony. I did not see him and I was glad I did not, for it occurred to me later that it was somewhat contemptible of him to take part in such a ceremony since his own daughter had been murdered by the King in order that the mother of this child might replace her. At the time I was completely happy. I was part of all this splendor, and the gloriously appareled infant who was the reason for the ceremony was my brother.
Because of my youth and the length of the proceedings I was carried in the arms of Edward Seymour, brother of Queen Jane. This was my first encounter with the family who later on were to play an important part in my life. Their elevation through the King's marriage to their sister had been swift. A few days after the christening Edward Seymour was created Earl of Hertford.
My sister Mary, who was godmother to the little Prince, gave me an encouraging smile when Edward Seymour set me down at the font. I returned it gratefully and eagerly watched while the little boy was wrapped in the christening robe and his state proclaimed.
“God, in His almighty and infinite grace, grant long life to the right high, right excellent and noble Prince, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester, most dear and entirely beloved son of our most dread and gracious lord, Henry VIII.”
In spite of all the excitement I was feeling a little sleepy as the ceremony had lasted three hours and it was nearly midnight. My sister Mary must have seen this; as Lady Herbert picked up the train of my magnificent gown, Mary took my hand so that I did not stumble. I noticed how happy she looked. It was because she was at least back at Court and had the high honor of being godmother to this important Prince, our brother. I loved him already. He was the reason for my being here. His coming had so pleased my father that he was even ready to smile on my sister Mary and me who had committed the unpardonable error of being born girls.
Queen Jane lay in her bed, propped up by cushions, in a beautiful bedgown, but her pallor and sunken eyes proclaimed how exhausted she was.
As we entered the bedchamber the trumpets sounded so loudly that I who must have been half asleep started with terror, which made Mary smile.
Our father was there. He looked splendid, glittering with jewels, and he seemed a head taller than other men. How genial he looked, a great beneficent god—very different from the man I had seen in the courtyard! My father, I thought, is the greatest man in the world. His eyes were very small and so was his mouth, but perhaps they seemed so because his face was so large; and as I looked at him I could not help thinking of my mother, and fascinated as I was, admiring him as I did, I was afraid of him.
The Prince was placed in his mother's arms and she gave him her blessing.
The ceremony was over and we went back to Hunsdon.
THERE WAS GREAT CHANGE in the next few years.
The King, having got his son, was more benign. He rejoiced in Edward even though he had cost Queen Jane her life, for, poor pale creature, she died about a week after that ceremony in her bedroom.
To me the event of great importance was the coming of Katharine Champernowne.
Lady Bryan had become Lady Mistress of my little brother's household because she was considered to have proved her abilities in bringing up my sister Mary and me; and of course this position in the household of the heir to the throne was a great honor. She was in the royal nurseries at Hampton Court for a while and afterward was removed temporarily to Ashridge and later to Hatfield. To my great joy, when I was there, I shared my brother's nursery and even though he was so young he showed an immediate fondness for me.
But the big change in my life was wrought by Katharine—my Kat as I called her. She must have been in her mid teens at that time and from the moment I saw her I knew I was going to love her dearly. She was well educated—otherwise she would not have been appointed as my governess—but certainly she bore her scholarship lightly; she was inclined to be frivolous, but it was her gaiety and warmheartedness which endeared her to me. She supplied something which up to that time I had sadly missed without realizing the lack.
So Kat came, dear indiscreet Kat, who told me so much that had been kept from me and to whom I should be grateful all the days of my life.
Life became interesting, less restricted than it had been under Lady Bryan's sterner rule. We moved frequently from house to house which was necessary for the sweetening of the place. The privies would smell foul after a while and the rushes seemed to harbor horrible insects which irritated even the dogs. So when a house became intolerable we went to another while the privies were emptied and the rushes removed and the abode generally sweetened.
Kat used to tell me all sorts of things which were happening in the outside world and this delighted me for there was nothing I disliked more than to be kept in ignorance.
For one thing I learned that my father, for all his professed grief at the loss of Queen Jane, was desperately trying to replace her.
“Heirs, heirs, heirs!” said Kat. “That is a king's great need. Though why he should feel so desperate now, I cannot see. He has the longed-for boy and then there is my Lady Mary to say nothing of my own sweet Elizabeth– daughters of the King, both of you, and he has never denied that despite the fact that he got rid of your mothers—one in the law courts, one on the block—but rid himself nevertheless.”
That was how Kat talked—not so much when I was very young, but afterward when I was getting older. She was the most intriguing person I knew in those days, and if she had not been so indiscreet she could not have been so exciting.
When my father was on the point of marrying the Princess Anne of Cleves, Kat was full of information. “Who knows,” she declared, “this could mean a new way of life for you, my Princess.”
“How so?” I asked. “What if the new Queen wants to meet her stepdaughters? She is sure to be curious to see them.”
I was not yet seven years old when that disastrous marriage took place and I was very different from the child who had taken part in her brother's christening at Hampton Court. I grew up very quickly and life was full of interest, especially when Edward and I were in the same household, which quite frequently happened. We shared tutors and we had a great deal in common for we both loved learning. I found no difficulty at all in mastering languages—nor did Edward; and I think even our tutors were a little astonished at the speed with which I gained a mastery over French, Latin and Italian. I could converse fluently in all three. Edward was determined to surprise our teachers too. He was amazingly precocious and at the age of four was quite a scholar. I loved to be with him, to treat him as a little brother, and he loved that too for he was lonely, surrounded as he was by so much ceremony. No one could ever forget that he was the heir to the throne and so very precious that if he as much as sneezed, those about him were thrown into a panic.
“They guess,” said Kat to me, “that if aught befell my lord Prince, the heads of those whose duty it is to serve him would become somewhat insecure on their sturdy shoulders.”
“You do talk wildly, Kat,” I reproved her.
She fell onto her knees and half mocking, half serious, cried: “You would never betray your poor Kat, would you, mistress?”
It was strange that one as learned as Kat could also be so frivolous. But that was Kat and my life had become considerably more agreeable since she came to me.
We soon learned that my father deplored his marriage to Princess Anne of Cleves. She lacked the beauty of her predecessors, and after receiving Holbein's picture of her and the accounts of her perfections which had forestalled her arrival, he was bitterly disappointed. He found her quite repulsive.
She was my friend for many years and I often wondered why he had disliked her so much. She was wise and kind and by no means uncomely. I can only believe that he had a particular taste in women, however variable, and she did not fit any of his predilections, and so poor Anne of Cleves was discarded as two of my father's queens had been. She was lucky; she did not suffer as my mother or Mary's had; and according to Kat was as happy to be relieved of the King as he was of her. Their marriage was declared null and void. Thomas Cromwell who had arranged the match lost his head. He had once been my mother's enemy and helped those who cost her that lovely head and so I gained some satisfaction from that.
“Four wives so far,” said Kat. “I wonder, my lady, who will be the fifth, do you?”
I said it would be interesting to wait and see.
“We shall not wait long I fancy. The King has his eyes on a relation of yours, young Katharine Howard. She is a young beauty, if ever there was one.”
“You gossip too much.”
“So it is Madam Princess today, is it? Very well, I will keep my news to myself.”
But she did not of course. I would not let her. So I was well aware of my father's courtship of Katharine Howard. My father was infatuated by her, I heard. She was a lovely girl and she took an interest in me because not only was I her stepdaughter to be but she had been my mother's first cousin. I guessed she would do her best to restore me to my father's regard and I was right. She pleaded with the King that I should be allowed to go to Court, and as he could deny her nothing, gladly I went.
I had reached my seventh birthday then and although I had read a great deal and my tutors agreed that I was exceptionally talented for my age, I was a little childish in my knowledge of the world; and when I saw my mother's cousin in all her youthful beauty and vivacity with so much affection to give to anyone who asked it, I felt that all would be well. My father seemed to see no one but Katharine. I heard it said that only once before had he felt such unstinting passion, and that was for my mother Anne Boleyn in the days when she had had his favor.
The memory of my mother's fate was always somewhere in my mind and when I saw my father I often recalled that look he had given us in the courtyard and it sent a shiver through me; to see him happy with this young girl helped to soothe me. She was a Howard…a little like my mother, they said, and if she lacked her cousin's wiles, her vast sophistication, her wit and her lively mind, she made up for it with an infinite sweetness and good nature.
“Just fancy,” she said, “I am your stepmother. And I hope you will let me be your friend.”
Who would have expected a queen to talk thus to a girl who had been brought out of obscurity at her request?
The King smiled on me now because the Queen was fond of me. She talked round-eyed of my achievements and what my tutors had told her, opening her beautiful eyes wide and declaring that even to contemplate such learning was beyond her. At which the King said he was thankful for that, since she was perfect as she was—his rose without a thorn.
On the first night she dined in public with the King, she insisted that I be there as well. So there I was, opposite her, unable to take my eyes from her lovely laughing face, and watching the King touch her arm and her hand with such loving tenderness, calling her sweetheart in a voice which was soft and overflowing with love.
Kat said: “All will be different now. We shall have our rightful place. We shall be recognized as the King's daughter, which we are, of course. But our new Queen has a fancy for you, my Lady, and if she asks for your company, rest assured the King so dotes on her that she will have her way.”
If only it could have stayed like that I believe it would have made a great difference to us all. The King would have been happier for undoubtedly he loved her and, as Kat pointed out, she was not under the same stress to produce a son as my poor mother had been. “Moreover,” said Kat wisely, “the King is no longer in his first flush of youth. Don't whisper a word that I said so or it might cost me my head… but it is the truth and even kings cannot change it. No, His Grace the King has a delightful wife. Let us hope that he never wants another.”
But it seemed inevitable that the rumors must start. Kat told me of them.
“Wicked and unscrupulous men are plotting to bring a case against the Queen,” she said.
I could not understand but Kat explained that when the Queen was very young she was overflowing with affection. She was loving and giving…and that sort drew men to them like bees to the flowers and wasps to the honey. The Queen was so kind and tender to men that she found it hard to say no to them. When she was quite young it seemed she had said yes when she should have said no; and now those cruel people were looking back into her past to uncover some scandal.
“They think the Howards are getting too strong,” said Kat. “My faith! A little while ago it was the Seymours … now it's the Howards. The most dangerous thing on Earth is to be married to the King. A woman is better on her own. It may be that our little Queen would have been happier as the wife of Tom Culpepper, who they say adores her—and she not indifferent to him—than as the Queen of England.”
I did not see Katharine again. I heard terrible stories. They were accusing her of treason—that simple child whose only purpose was to be happy and make others so too. How could they? But even she, who had harmed no one, had her enemies. Thomas Cranmer questioned her about her past, accusing her of having entered into marriage with someone called Francis Dereham and thus in marrying the King committing adultery. There were tales of her wanton behavior with other men and she was arrested.
Kat said that the King was most distressed and would not at first believe those accusations against her. I was glad of that and hoped he would forgive her, but I suppose he was angry at having been deceived in her, thinking that all her loving had been inspired by him alone, and to learn that others had enjoyed it would be galling to a man of his nature.
I was very moved. I was reminded more vividly than ever of my mother. I kept wondering what she, who had held off the King's demanding passion for so long before she had submitted to him, had thought in her lodgings in the Tower, knowing that she was going to die, falsely and maliciously accused. And now poor little Katharine. She must have known what her fate was going to be. It was history repeating itself.
She was distraught, hysterical and terribly afraid. She was so young to die; and she did not believe that the King would agree to her death. She believed that all would be well if she could only see him and explain what it had been like in her grandmother's household where she had been brought up with all those young and lively people about her, and how they had been amused by her flirtations, which had grown into something more, and had helped her evade the rules laid down by her grandmother, the Duchess of Norfolk. She must have felt that she could make the King understand that she was older and wiser now and that she truly loved him and wanted to be a good wife to him. He was in chapel one morning when she escaped from those who were guarding her chamber and tried to reach the King; she ran along the gallery screaming but they caught her before she could get to him, and dragged her away. I wondered what would have happened if she had been able to speak to him. Would her life have been spared? I like to think that it might have been.
