Shadow of Persephone

by G Lawrence

  “I have learned my lesson, my lady, I promise you.”

  “What you will learn, child, is no matter how many lessons you learn, there are always more.” She smiled briefly, but it was not merry. She was thinking of her friend, the Countess. “Learn not only from your mistakes, but those of others. And stay away from that young man.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I do not want to hear that he extracted a promise from you. But even if he did, understand this; it is not the position of a young woman to choose her husband. That right is her father’s, or the head of her house’s. Anything that passed between you is therefore meaningless. And anything else he claims cannot be proven.”

  I must have looked relieved, for she smiled. Agnes was no fool. She knew all.

  “I will remain with you at all times, my lady.”

  “And I will keep that young man busy,” she said.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chesworth House

  New Year’s and Winter 1539

  At New Year’s gifts were exchanged between all members of the household. That also meant between me and Francis. He sent me a heartsease flower made of silk and an old shirt of cambric. The shirt had once been that of my dead uncle, Lord Thomas Howard. My grandmother had presented it to Francis, and he gave it to me. Twice a hand-me-down, it was still a nice gift, easily adaptable to make it fit for a woman. The heartsease was more troubling and I showed it to my grandmother. “Should I send it back, my lady?”

  She shook her head. “That would bring more comments than to accept. But wear it not. Give it to another. In a few days’ time, when he sees it pinned to another breast, he will understand.”

  In return I sent Francis a band and sleeves for a shirt. I sent the same to all officers in the household, and finer ones to my uncles. There was nothing special about my gift.

  I gave the silk flower to Kat, and she promised to wear it about the house. Soon, Francis had seen it, and Dorothy told me he was sorrowed. “But I think you are wise to keep him away,” she said quietly. “I found his temper fearsome, Catherine, and lord knows what your uncle would have done had he found out!”

  I shuddered to think. Norfolk was hardly known for restraint. My grandmother might thrash me, but if Norfolk had found out I might have found myself pleading my case before Saint Peter. And my uncle was not in a clement frame of mind at that time. When Gertrude Pole had been arrested, Cromwell had tried to get her to implicate Norfolk in the White Rose Affair. This, she had told my uncle when recently she had gained her freedom. Gertrude had refused to implicate the head of our house, but it was clear to Norfolk that Cromwell was his enemy.

  “Plots upon plots,” said my grandmother. “A man may twist anything in these dark days and kill rivals by doing so. That was what Cromwell is after, you see? Total power. If he could get the King to think Norfolk disloyal, Cromwell would be King in all but name.”

  My grandmother, against her wishes, had sent congratulations to the King for the executions of the Poles and their retainers, as well as the incarceration of her friend, the Countess. She had no wish to, she said, but it was politic.

  She was not the only one miserable about the outcome. Although all nobles congratulated their sovereign, they and common people were unhappy. The Poles had been popular; a symbol of the old ways. Much of the evidence against them was suspect, and Lord Exeter’s trial had been conducted in secret, making people think Cromwell and the King had much to hide.

  As more executions went on, including Sir Nicholas Carew, once the King’s bosom companion, mutterings grew. Cromwell had to publish a defence of the executions. Those who gained a copy, like Uncle William, said it offered no explanation of the alleged plots, but simply insisted the conspirators were papists.

  Bits of the Poles’ servants were displayed about London and other cities as a warning… a leg here, an arm there, heads bleached from broiling standing on spikes on the gate of London Bridge… but as people gathered, they showed respect. Hats taken from heads, faces bowed, they stood until moved away.

  And it was not only deaths that made people uneasy. Taxes were said to be rising that year, and talk of invasion was still rife. In the west, my grandmother told me, the price of food was rising, and the King had reduced the number of saints’ days, popular holidays his people had loved. Discontent was on the air, a tang of treason rising. People said all was merrier before the King had made himself Head of the Church.

  As though to give people something else to concentrate on, news leaked from court that the King was set on the Lady Anne of Cleves as his new bride. His embassy to Christina of Milan had gone nowhere but the stark world of mortal shame. The King’s men had gone to the Dowager Duchess and she had been frank about not wanting to marry the King. She claimed she would do as commanded by the Emperor, but said she had only one head. “If I had two,” she said. “One would be at His Grace’s service.”

  Some said this was a lie, for no princess would be so brutally outspoken, but there were more tales. Ambassador Wriothesley had spoken at length about the King’s virtues to her. “Oh, Madam, how happy shall you be if it be your chance to be matched with my master! You shall be matched with the most gentle gentleman that liveth, his nature so benign and pleasant that I come to think to this day no man hath heard many angry words pass his lips!”

  The young lady had burst into peals of derisive laughter.

  This was passed off as nothing by Christina, who claimed she had been tickled by something, but it was enough. She spoke to the Emperor about her reluctance, and the King had admitted defeat.

  In that area at least, but now the daughters of the Duke of Cleves were on the table, and the elder, Anne, in particular.

  Described by some as a great beauty who outmatched Christina in looks as the sun did the moon, and by others as a woman of no great matter in appearance or person, this lady was something of an enigma.

  “Envoys are to be sent,” said my grandmother. “They will go to Dusseldorf and meet this Anne, and her sister Amelia. They say the King prefers Anne, for he is older now, and the age gap would not be so great with her for she is twenty-one.”

  The King will still be twice her age, I thought.

  “Cleves is a good idea,” said my uncle William. “With France and Spain bound in alliance, if the King wishes for friends and allies he must seek them elsewhere.”

  And friends, it seemed, England would need, for as the New Year blew in, rowdy and cold, there was word from Rome. The bull of excommunication, written up four years ago, was put into immediate effect.

  Our King was an excommunicate. Excluded from the rites of the Catholic Church and if the Pope were to be believed, from Heaven, our King was now cursed. All who followed him suffered the same sentence.

  For those still loyal to Rome in their hearts, this was damnation, and they had been thrust into that state by the King.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chesworth House

  Winter 1539

  That March, as our King reviewed his troops readying for possible invasion, and as the envoys to the court of Cleves reached their destination, there was word from Calais.

  My father had died.

  “I sorrow with you, child,” said my grandmother. “We will add him to our prayers each day.”

  My grandmother had thought my father nothing but a wastrel, but I was grateful for her sympathy. The loss of this man, who in truth had played so little part in my life, brought back the same feelings as when my cousin had been executed. I had lost something which was never mine.

  And when I heard more, I felt shamed, for he, this man once the star of the joust and a general in battle, had not died well or clean. He had been taking potions to aid his kidneys and liver, which had made him piss the bed. His wife had beaten him about the head for this, told him he was no better than a child. He had become friends with Lord and Lady Lisle, who had supported his ill-fated election to be Mayor of Calais, but the King had laughed at the notion and refused to all
ow him to take on the post. His money problems had never left him, and he had died in great pain, wetting the bed like an infant.

  I was sorrowful he had become so helpless, sorrowed more that we had never truly known each other. I had become an orphan. I was fifteen.

  “Here is news to cheer you,” said my grandmother one day as I watched snow settle on the rooftops of London. “The King’s men have reached Cleves, but the new Duke, William, whose father recently died, brought the women to the King’s men draped in veils and wrapped in monstrous apparel.” She smiled. “The men could not catch a glimpse, so when the women left, they asked to see them without their veils on, to which the new Duke replied, “What! You would see them naked?”

  My grandmother laughed and I smiled. “My lady, how will the King choose which to marry, if he does not know their looks?” I asked.

  “The King is to send Holbein,” she said. “The Duke will not object to formal portraits of his sisters.”

  We heard a great deal about this country I had little known existed before. Cleves was in the Lower Rhine, a place made up of many little duchies and bishoprics. It was a small country, but important as it bordered the lands of the Emperor. It also had friends; Lutheran princes who had rejected Rome and therefore had much in common with England. The dukes of Cleves carried English royal blood from Princess Margaret, daughter of Edward I, who had married the Duke of Brabant, and were also related to Philippa of Hainault, consort of Edward III, who was still remembered with affection for her mercy.

  Some objected to the match, as it was common thought to suppose all princes of the north Lutherans and heretics, but my grandmother said the truth was more complex. Some were Lutherans, others followed the teachings of different men, and some countries were like ours, differing on certain points from Rome, but still largely Catholic. “People like simplicity,” she said. “So ignore truth.”

  I could see why. It was all too much for me.

  “Erasmus is the true influence upon the court of Cleves,” said my grandmother. “And he is respected by many nations, Catholic especially.”

  I knew who she was talking about, for I had a book on good behaviour by Erasmus.

  The King decided to prove how Catholic he was that Easter, perhaps attempting to hold off threats of invasion. On Good Friday he crept to the cross, took holy bread and water each Sunday and commanded that criticism of holy ceremonies should be forbidden upon pain of death. He did not want to head under the boot of the Pope again, but he seemed to be doing all he could to demonstrate how Catholic his faith was.

  Cleves therefore sounded ideal. Catholic, but not too Catholic. Positioned well, with friends hostile to the Pope.

  By April, as spring started to dawn, Master Holbein was in Cleves, busy with his brush. Anne was rumoured to be more a beauty than her sister, and it was said Cromwell was telling the King daily of her many charms, her modesty, reserve and humbleness.

  “Holbein is not the only artist in the King’s pay,” sneered Norfolk. “Cromwell is painting the Lady Anne as a paragon of virtue and beauty, but few have seen anything of her. Yet the King is won. He has made an image of her in his mind, and once he is set on something…”

  “… nothing will dissuade him,” my grandmother finished for him. “He has always been that way, my son. It was how he thought of Katherine of Aragon before he knew her truly. She, of course, was a beauty in her youth, so he was not disappointed.” She toyed with her cane, passing it from hand to hand. “Think you the reports of Lady Anne’s beauty are lies?”

  “I cannot think any man would be so foolish as to present a donkey as a steed to His Majesty,” said Norfolk. “But Cromwell is desperate enough that he may well be exaggerating anything good and ignoring everything ill.”

  “Would you object to the lady?”

  Norfolk shook his head. “Her family are Catholic, but Johann, Duke William’s father, rejected papal authority some time ago. They have links to Lutherans and I might not like the notion of heretics in league with the throne, but we have few friends elsewhere. If Spain and France unite against England, we are in grave danger. They have already agreed that neither country will make alliance with England without the other’s consent, and the Emperor has recalled his ambassador. Invasion may well be their ultimate aim. The princes of the north would provide a buffer, and if the lady is Catholic but with Lutheran leanings she would suit the King, for he is, as always, stuck in the middle of the faiths.” He smiled. “And besides, if she is not all Cromwell promised, the King will never trust him again, which is to our benefit.”

  Something not to the benefit of England was our King’s reputation. It was said the Duke was worried by reports of what had happened to the previous three wives of the King of England, and also had concerns about the English Court. His sisters, he declared, had been raised in virtuous surroundings, learning only modest tasks suitable for women. From all he had heard of the Court of England, it was anything but virtuous. He also had no dowry to offer.

  But the King, entranced with his fantasy of Anne, sent word to say that if he liked her portrait, he would accept her with no dowry. It was an extraordinary statement, almost unheard of, and everyone was talking of it. Such an offer, a crown for his sister in return for nothing, the Duke could hardly refuse. He allowed Master Holbein to paint Anne, and a miniature was dispatched, heading for the hands of our eager King.

  “It hardly matters,” said Norfolk. “The King is already lost to fantasy. Anne is perfect, and will be his wife.”

  “Before he knows what she looks like?”

  “He thinks he can see her, in his mind.” Norfolk snorted. “When the last messengers were sent, they were told to get a good look at her, for she would be their Queen. If that does not tell you what the King’s intentions are, nothing will.”

  Norfolk looked at me, as though noticing for the first time I was in the room. “This one looks bonny,” he said. “The King wants new maids presented at court so he might pick the most beautiful and charming for the Queen’s household.”

  “He will find all qualities benefiting a noblewoman in Catherine,” said my grandmother. “She is modest, quiet, has the sweetest voice I ever heard, and it is richer now, better with constant practice.”

  “Good. The King likes music. He cannot seem to warm to a woman unless she can sing and play.” He glanced at me. “Get her a good wardrobe. French fashions, not Spanish. The King might once have hated gowns such as those that woman wore, but when I see him looking at pretty girls, they are always dressed like her.”

  I wondered for a moment if I was going to court to please the King, rather than the Queen.

  “The King chooses the women in the Queen’s household,” my grandmother informed me once Norfolk had gone. “He will want only pleasing ones, with skills that delight him.” She touched my chin, moving my face upwards. “You will not disappoint. In truth, you are all he likes in women; outwardly modest with a little fire inside, pretty and slight, small of breast and sweet of hip, and you can sing and dance, hunt and ride… all things he likes.” She nodded, patting my cheek. “You will do well. And whilst at court, you will catch a handsome husband with a fine fortune.”

  I was elated. It was a way to escape Francis for good. And I would see the court, the glittering, wonderful place where my cousin had ruled all men and all lives.

  There, I would be away from my past. This was a new start, and I was determined to make the most of it.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chesworth House

  Early Summer 1539

  There is something deeply pleasurable in the contemplation of a new life. Perhaps you have always been a good person, without reproach, and cannot imagine what it would feel like to want to leave the person you had been behind and be born anew. Perhaps you can imagine. Imagine leaving behind all that had hurt you, all you had done wrong. Being handed the opportunity to start again, where no one knew your sins, where no one would judge you.

  Wishes did
not always come true, that I knew, but bathing in their waters can still be sweet. How I longed for court! I prayed the King would adore this lady of the north and send for her at once. Then, I would be free of Norfolk House, free of Francis, free of the shadow.

  Summer fell upon London as a warm blanket of smouldering yellow. Dusk skies glowed rose and amber, a blush of petal upon gold. Even when it rained, as often it did in summer in England, I greeted it with a merry heart.

  One reason for this new lightness of spirit was the attention I was getting, not from a man, as had always been my source of comfort, but from my grandmother. She had taken Norfolk’s advice and ordered gorgeous cloth to make a new wardrobe for me. I stood in her rooms, my friends pinning material to my waist and breasts, checking which colours flattered my pale looks best. Tailors from London were commanded to make court dresses in shades of pale blue, crimson and white, to flatter my skin and hair, and hoods in the French fashion were also ordered. I had new kirtles and bonnets, hoods, sleeves and even some furs, for it was likely to be autumn by the time I joined court, and it would be cold.