by G Lawrence
But as March came in, there was a new whisper about court. The King had changed his excuse. Now, it was not for her loose body and slack breasts that he could not bed the Queen, but for his conscience. It was paining him. The pre-contract between the Queen and the heir of Lorraine was on his mind, allowing him no rest.
“The King’s conscience is a strange thing,” Jane whispered, ghosts in her eyes. “It comes to life only, and always, when he is tired of a wife.”
The Queen, like those before her, was in grave danger.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Westminster Palace
Spring 1540
As the Queen dropped more and more hints about her coronation to the King’s men, and crocuses peeked from the borders of forests, the abbeys of Canterbury, Christchurch, Rochester and Waltham surrendered to the King.
With their closures the dissolution of the monasteries was complete. The King went about court wearing the ring of Saint Thomas Becket on his thumb, which once had adorned the shrine in Canterbury. Saint Thomas was no more a symbol of greatness, of the Church ruling over the monarchy, he was an example of sin. The wealth of the abbeys went into the King’s coffers. Huge swathes of land were handed out as gifts to lords.
“The nobles are now tied to the crown by coin,” said Jane. “This is how the King will keep order.”
Even I, by no means learned or wise, could see the power of this. No one with a mind to his purse would think to oppose the King. Support meant huge rewards in this life. Dissent would bring about a short, painful trip to the next.
People said this would lead to the Lutheran element of court gaining more sway, but it seemed this was not so. The King kept all the old traditions of the Catholic Church, upholding them as cardinal truths even as he pillaged institutions that had kept them alive. Many at court held reformist ideals. Charges for heresy were harsh, and people kept radical beliefs quiet, attending Bible-reading meetings in secret.
The Queen was coming to be regarded as a symbol for reformists, even though she was Catholic and had expressed no opinions on faith. The fact that she was seen in such a light made the Catholic party position themselves firmly against her marriage to the King. My uncle, returned from France with promises of support from François, was urging the King to separate from the Queen. Gardiner echoed all Norfolk said.
Although Norfolk was no more aware of me than he was of a pauper in the street, this put me in a strange position. I was trying to aid the Queen, but my uncle wanted her gone. It was the first time I became aware of how one’s heart and duty to family might become opposed.
And whilst she had tried to make herself the King’s friend, there were sides showing in the gentle Queen he liked not. She could be determined when she felt her royal dignity was being contested, and had continued to complain about the Lady Mary. After one conversation with her, the King complained she “began to wax stubborn and wilful”, showing that he, too, saw something less than docile under her court mask.
The coronation was another matter. She brought it up often, displeasing the King and making her officers and the Council uneasy. In both regards, she was simply attempting to secure her position. She was aware the King did not like her, and this King was far from kind to wives who pleased him not.
And the King’s displeasure in his wife was causing the balance of power at court to wobble. Cromwell had been in high ascent, with the reformists at his back, but since the marriage he had slipped from the seat of pure grace and Gardiner was slinking up the legs of that illustrious chair. Seeing this, that April Cromwell called out his dogs. During Lent a radical preacher called Robert Barnes, who all knew for an agent of Cromwell, accused Gardiner of being a papist. Gardiner had suffered such insults before, as he had initially opposed the break with Rome and had almost been sent to the Tower for it. If the King thought a man loyal to Rome, that man would end up dead.
Gardiner, understanding the mortal danger he was in, went straight to the King. Being the one to bring Barnes’ accusation to the King’s attention was clever, and Gardiner protested the slander in the strongest terms, demanding to be permitted to bring Barnes in for questioning.
And the King, to Cromwell’s abject horror, approved Gardiner’s request.
At the beginning of April, Barnes along with two of his friends were in the Tower. No doubt under threat, if not reality, of torture, Barnes confessed much. Not only had he slandered Gardiner, but had insulted the Virgin Mary, saying she had only been worth something when pregnant with Christ, but otherwise “was but a saffron bag.”
Barnes attempted to deny the charges, but when it was found he had said the King’s government had no right to make changes that would rule men’s consciences, he was in serious danger. That kind of radical thinking was poison to the King.
Another, William Jerome, was a preacher who had bellowed dangerous sentiments from the pulpit. He had spoken of predestination, the radical and unpopular idea that men were preselected for Heaven rather than access being granted for prayer, good works and confession. Predestination was seen as heresy. He was easy to arrest, therefore, and once he was in the Tower much came from him that seemed to point to Cromwell.
That Easter reformists and evangelicals at court were on edge, fearful they would be implicated in Gardiner’s strike. One of the men Gardiner had arrested had taken his own life in the Tower, many said because of cruel methods used to extract information. It was said Cromwell would not last a day. The King was angered against radicals on the reformist side of the faith, and now he had the wealth of the abbeys was swinging back towards Catholicism in a manner most fearful. Secret Lutherans were afraid they would burn, and people started to distance themselves from Cromwell, sure his end was nigh.
And then, the King astonished everyone.
Cromwell was not arrested, taken to the Tower or disgraced, but was made Earl of Essex.
The last Earl had died at the end of March, falling from his horse and snapping his neck. Everyone had thought the title would go to his son, but in April it was announced Cromwell would become a member of the higher nobility for good service to the Crown. It was but three weeks since his allies had been marched to the Tower.
“Gardiner is terrified,” said Jane. “He thought he had Cromwell by the throat. With Cromwell’s protégés in the Tower spilling secrets, he thought he had Cromwell plucked, ready for the kill, and worse, he thought he had the King on his side.”
“So why did the King ennoble Cromwell?” I asked, frankly baffled.
“To keep power balanced,” said Jane. “The King is a Catholic, who is Head of the Church. An enemy to Rome, who upholds its ways. When the King broke with Rome everyone thought he would make England a Lutheran state, but the King despises Luther. England has a religion all its own, neither Lutheran nor Catholic, radical nor conservative. The only rule in this faith is the one men find hardest to abide by; think not for yourself, obey the King.”
“So,” I said slowly, “the King keeps each in power to balance the other?”
“That is the way of things.”
“So because Gardiner was growing more powerful, Cromwell is rewarded?”
“You have it,” she said, smiling. “There is also the fact that Cromwell is far more useful than Gardiner. The Bishop has a good mind, when not distracted by his temper, but Cromwell is always calm, collected and is more intelligent than Gardiner. The King knows that.” She paused. “There is one last reason. The King is at his most powerful when he is unpredictable. If men believe they can predict him, they think they can control him. If he keeps everyone guessing, no one becomes too secure. This is his greatest power; to do what no one expects.”
On the same day Cromwell became Earl of Essex, he was also made Lord Great Chamberlain. Lands that once had been monasteries in Essex became his for life, and the new Earl was so proud of his title he began signing letters “Thomas Essex”. Soon after, a bill securing the dower rights of the Queen passed in Parliament. It seemed Gardiner’s plot
to unseat the Queen and his greatest enemy had gone awry. The night Cromwell was elevated, the King dined with the Queen in her chambers whilst Cromwell ate with his fellow magnates in the Council Chamber. The radicals arrested by Gardiner were punished, but Cromwell, it seemed, remained untouchable.
But this, like every other certainty at court, was in truth as insubstantial as the promises of a child. Cromwell’s enemies had not surrendered.
And, without meaning to, I became their weapon.
*
“Your Majesty must hear my songbird,” the Queen said to her husband as he and his men entered her chambers.
In an effort to win the King’s affections, and under advice from Cromwell whom the Queen trusted since he had arranged her marriage, the Queen had ordered an entertainment. My clever mistress had sent the invitation when the King was in Council, meeting the last remaining officers of Cleves about the Queen’s dower. He therefore had no polite way to refuse.
But perhaps the thought of an afternoon with the pretty ladies in his wife’s chamber had softened his reluctance. Perhaps he also hoped to see me, for he had called me to him another two times, apparently to talk about affairs in the maidens’ chamber.
He was not interested in those affairs at all, but he was certainly interested in one between us. He had me sit at his side, and always found a way to put a hand on me somewhere, my arm, my leg… sometimes reaching up to stroke my face, the crinkled skin on the back of his hand trembling as though he were touching a holy icon.
I was unsure what to do. I had no wish to become the King’s mistress, but was well aware that if he asked I would have to accept. The thought of being in his bed was a horror. That this wasted yet fat body would press against mine was something I tried not to think about, but I had no way to escape. My life, my body… they did not belong to me. My grandmother and uncles would command me to lift my skirts if they found out.
And aside from this, he was my King. It was my duty to obey. To refuse might see me or my family in the Tower. There would be another reason given, of course, but I had seen what happened to men who stood against the King. The monasteries had fallen. The Pope, the Emperor, Katherine of Aragon and her daughter, my cousin… they had all failed. Why would I, little Catherine Howard, with small brains and little worth, succeed where those intelligent, powerful people had not?
And little as I liked the thought of my family whoring me for their benefit, I would not see them punished, fallen or dead. They were my kin, all I had.
So when the King came and the Queen swept her hand to me, indicating I was the songbird of which she spoke, I smiled and curtseyed. But I could feel darkness coming for me.
With Anne playing the virginals, I stood before the King and his men. As I lifted my voice to sing a ballad of love, I could feel not only his eyes, but those of my uncle upon me. I could sense Thomas, too; feel a kind of sadness emanating from him. He had brought me each time to the King, had sat on the other side of the chamber as his master petted me like a lapdog. Thomas knew what the King wanted, and he knew he was likely to succeed.
Did he mourn? I hoped so. For all that I would wish not to be in this situation again, with an older man about to beckon and me unable to say no, I hoped it at least gave Thomas cause to regret. Slim comfort, but I clung to it.
As my song ended, I looked up to see the King staring at me. To look into those blue eyes, so fixed and warm, I was the only woman in the world, and he the only man.
The King applauded loudly, hands bashing together like drums. As I went back to my place at the back of the chamber, I saw Norfolk staring, as though I were a lonesome sheep on a hill, and he a wolf, slinking in the undergrowth.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Norfolk House
Spring 1540
A day later, I was told to get on a barge and go to Norfolk House.
My heart sank as I donned a cloak to protect against the chilled spring breeze upon the river. Sitting on a seat in the boat, I stared blankly at Whitehall as it got smaller and smaller, thinking of how when I returned I would be once more in the grasp of the shadow.
And when he was done with me, what then? When I was cast off would I be called names again, approached aggressively by other men, thought nothing again?
I had some hope in that regard. The time of being mistress to the King might be awful, the bed part particularly so, and the pretence of love I would have to create would be sickening, but when he was done with me I would be found a husband, perhaps even one of my choosing. It might happen before the King claimed me. Bessie Blount, mother of dead Fitzroy, had been married off after the birth of her son, but my cousin Mary Boleyn had been carefully married, before the King had taken her, to a husband who would not object to wearing cuckold’s horns. Of course, my cousin had bedded the King when he was still young, handsome and had no puss-filled running sore on his leg. She had been more fortunate than me.
But I thought of the empty place, and although it chilled me, it also brought courage. It would come again, rise when he touched me. I would not feel his caresses, or feel him within me. He would not notice I had gone. I harboured no illusions the King wanted me for anything inside my head. He wanted the shell. That could be handed to him without me suffering for it.
As I entered the house, I was surprised to find servants waiting for me. Usually there was one to take my cloak and escort me to my grandmother’s chamber, but this time there were four. One took my cloak, another asked if I wanted water to wash, and another brought me hot wine, asking about my journey. Two of the girls I recognised from the maidens’ chamber, the two little Howards, not quite so little now, that I had tutored to take my place greeting the gentlemen. But when I tried to engage them in gossip, they smiled bashfully, acting as though I were Norfolk.
Baffled, I simply surrendered to their care, and found myself escorted to my grandmother’s chamber as though I were a princess.
“Granddaughter!” my grandmother called as I entered and curtseyed. Before I could dip all the way down, she raised me up. “Sweet child! You look beautiful,” she said. “Do you not think, my son?”
Something was going on. They must know, I thought.
“Like a queen,” he said, an oily smile slick upon his face.
I smiled, but my heart froze. “You wanted to see me, my lady… Your Grace?”
“Sit, sit,” gushed my grandmother, snapping her fingers for wine. Beside me on the table were platters of gilded gingerbread and comfits of almond, honey and spices. Expensive treats. The wine I sipped was the best in my grandmother’s cellar, and I should know. Francis had been stealing it for years.
“We wanted to see you, niece,” Norfolk said. “Because something wonderful has happened, something that will change not only your life, but the fortunes of our noble house… perhaps even the fate of faith in England.”
“The King has noticed me, Your Grace,” I said.
Both of them blinked, but Norfolk smiled. “I saw his eyes upon you. Has there been more?”
“He has brought me to his Presence Chamber three times, Your Grace,” I said. “When only one of his men was there with us.”
I saw worry flit between my grandmother and uncle. “Nothing more than talk passed between us, Your Grace,” I said.
“And of what did you talk?” asked my grandmother.
“Of his unhappiness, my lady. In truth, he talked and I listened.”
“The way it should be,” said my uncle. “And the King was… pleased with you, niece?”
“He calls me his sweet friend, Your Grace. And says it is our secret that we are such good friends.”
“Has he asked for anything else?”
I shook my head. “He has not, Your Grace, but he puts his hands on my arm, and on my knee. He strokes my face, tells me I am beautiful, charming and kind. He tells me he is unhappy in his marriage, and does not feel well used by his men.”
Norfolk looked as though someone had presented him with the crown of the world fo
r New Year’s. “And what do you say to him?”
“That I am sorry for his pain, Your Grace,” I said. They exchanged a glance and I sipped my wine. “What do you expect of me, Your Grace?”
My uncle rolled his eyes, rubbing his belly with his hand. “At the least, to become the King’s mistress,” he said. “But I have hopes there may be more for you, if you have enough wit to play this game well.”
I must have looked confused, as my grandmother stepped in. “What my stepson means, Catherine,” she said. “Is that our King hath ever been a man to look for love in marriage.”
“And that will grow between him and the Queen, my lady,” I said, baffled.
My grandmother closed her eyes and appeared to be counting silently. When she opened them, she shook her head. “The King is falling for you, Catherine. Play this right, and you could be the next Queen of England.”