The Concubine

by Norah Lofts

  The Earl turned himself again and eyed those who had come with him. Trusted men, all of them, but one could never be sure. There were many men who would do, or watch being done, something of which they did not wholeheartedly approve, so long as no one made a protest, so long as the victim of the proceedings seemed resigned, but once an appeal was made they lost firmness. Suppose, when the vital words were spoken, the old man turned and employed his honeyed, eloquent tongue in his own defense, in a demand for help. How many would then waver? It had better be done in private.

  He shifted himself again and said, “I am more thoroughly damp than I knew.” Wolsey made the hoped-for response.

  “Come into my bedchamber, my lord. There is a good fire there and I have no doubt that I can find you a robe and a pair of slippers.”

  Cavendish opened the door to the inner room and would have entered to help with the finding of the clothes, but Wolsey checked him.

  “We can manage,” he said. “My wardrobe is small nowadays. Stay by the door.”

  The Earl’s nervous and distrait manner had been noticed by Wolsey who suspected that he had something of importance to communicate and needed privacy.

  The bedchamber was plainly, almost austerely furnished, more like a poor cleric’s room than the palatial apartments which Harry Percy remembered as part of the Cardinal’s background. There was nothing of value in sight, even the candlestick was of pewter. York House and Hampton Court, the More and Tittenhanger had all been lighted by candelabra of gold and silver, set with jewels, and hung with chandeliers of Venetian work.

  “Something is troubling you,” Wolsey said, very kindly. “What is it? You can unburden yourself freely to an old friend. I have no power now, but I can listen, and as you know, I was ever prone to advise.” He smiled and then turned to go to the clothespress, knowing that some people found speech easier when not being watched.

  Despite everything, despite even his own suspicion of the Cardinal’s foxiness, Northumberland knew an instant of weakness, of distaste for the job he had been given, for the words that he must say. His cheek twitched so violently that it affected his mouth and made the words emerge in an unsteady, faltering voice. He laid his hand on Wolsey’s arm and said,

  “My lord, I arrest you on a charge of high treason.”

  Wolsey stood stock-still. So it had come, after all. Falling not with the force of a blow entirely unexpected, but with the force of one so often expected and so often postponed that he had hoped to escape it altogether. Henry had stripped him of everything, and there had been a time, last year, when he had momentarily expected to be hauled off to the Tower. Instead he had been allowed to come to Yorkshire, and he had begun to believe that so long as he attended strictly to his ecclesiastical duties, he stood a chance of ending his days in peace. But it was not to be. The King needed a scapegoat for the latest delay in Rome, and he, blameless as he was, was chosen.

  When he spoke his voice was as sure and judicial as it had ever been in his Court of Star Chamber; his own calm astonished him. Even the old flutter and jerk of the heart was absent now that the worst had come about.

  “You have authority for this, my lord?”

  “I have a commission.”

  “Permit me to see it.”

  “That I cannot do.”

  “Then you cannot arrest me.”

  In answer the Earl went to the door and said to Cavendish, “Bring Master Walsh in here.”

  Walsh entered and before the Earl could speak, Wolsey said,

  “Sir, my Lord of Northumberland attempts to arrest me for treason, but he cannot, or will not, show his commission. As a member of His Majesty’s Privy Council, do you know of this matter?”

  “I do, my lord. I assure you that we have a commission, but we may not show it, because it contains, besides our warrant, certain secret instructions.”

  “Then by you, sir, I will be arrested, but not by the Earl. A lord without a warrant, cannot arrest a plowboy; a member of the Privy Council may, without warrant, arrest the highest lord in the land. Therefore I place myself at your disposal, taking God as my witness that I have never, by word, or deed, acted treasonably toward my King.”

  Walsh glanced at the Earl who gave a small, almost imperceptible nod of the head, and shuddering turned toward the fire.

  “Then tomorrow, my lord Cardinal,” Walsh said, “we will set out for Pomfret, leaving my Lord of Northumberland here to see that all is left in order.”

  “I shall be ready,” Wolsey said. “His lordship was about to shed his wet gear; you also, Master Walsh, should change or you will be stiff tomorrow. Cavendish will see to you.” He crossed the room and opened a door. “My stoolroom,” he said. “There is no exit. You may safely leave me here. I should like to be alone.”

  The next day, though it was no longer raining, was so murky and overcast that even the morning was twilit. It was Sunday, and through the gloom the church bells sounded, muffled and mourning. Wolsey with the flux still on him, painful and humiliating, set out for Pomfret; and shortly afterwards Harry Percy, having hastily and perfunctorily seen all the fires out and the house at Cawood closed, rode away in the other direction.

  Anne Boleyn rode with both of them. With Harry Percy, young and sweet, the ghost of a lost love, for lack of whom life had become so dry and desolate that even an act of revenge, so coincidental that surely in the whole history of the world it had no equal, was tasteless. With Wolsey, a cruel and malignant persecutor who at Grafton had snatched away his one chance to rehabilitate himself in Henry’s esteem, and not content with that, had so worked and talked against him that this had happened.

  The mule jogged steadily along toward Pomfret, Pontefract Castle, which was an ill-omened place. Many political prisoners and one King, Richard II, had died there in mysterious circumstances. Wolsey did not expect to die there; he was bound for London and the Tower and the block. He could not know that this flux, far from being a passing indisposition, was a symptom of a grave disease which was to kill him, mercifully, in a few days’ time. But he did, as he rode, look back over the past, remembering how from humble beginnings he had risen to greatness and talked to Kings and their representatives as an equal. Henry’s favor had raised him, his disfavor had cast him down. The Bible said, “Put not thy trust in princes,” and that was a sound saying; for princes, like Samson, went and put their heads in the laps of strange women and were shorn of their strength. He thought, rationally, and without emotion—I should have done better to have served God with even half the zeal with which I served Henry; he would not, in my age, have left me naked to my enemies. The chief of whom is, and always has been, the Lady.

  Harry Percy, riding North, riding faster, knew that nothing had changed. The Cardinal was doomed, but it made no difference. Nothing could restore the magic of those hours in the rose-scented garden. He had, he thought—mistakenly as it happened, for him, too, death was busy—years and years of life to get through. All those springs, with the trees in bud, lucently green, and flowers breaking and cuckoos calling and doves crying. One word only. Anne. Anne. Anne.

  XIX

  …the most virtuous woman I have ever known and the highest hearted, but too quick to trust that others were like herself and too slow to do a little ill that much good might come of it.

  The Spanish Ambassador

  GREENWICH. 1531

  THE WORN QUILL WAS WRITING too thickly; impatiently Catherine flung it aside and selected a fresh one. How many quills, she wondered, had she worn down on letters which, for all the result they brought, might as well have remained unwritten?

  Changing the quill had interrupted her flow of thought and she reread the last sentence she had written. “Your Holiness should mark that my complaint is not against the King. I trust so much in my lord the King’s natural virtues and goodness that if I could only have him with me for two months, as he used to be, I alone would be powerful enough to make him forget the past…”

  That, she thought, was abs
olutely true; she was completely certain that Henry had undergone no fundamental change; he was the victim of an ambitious, unscrupulous woman.

  Now, how to continue? She brushed her mouth with its firmly closed lips with the feather of the quill. She wished to write vehemently, urging Clement to decide soon, and in her favor. The delay was inexplicable. It was two years since Campeggio had decided that the case must go to Rome, and no progress had been made at all.

  Not for the first time Catherine faced the question—Why was Clement afraid to declare for her? He was afraid of angering Henry and driving him to Lutheranism. That must be the reason. There could be no other. And the truth was that by delaying Clement merely increased the danger. Wolsey was dead now. Catherine had never liked him, she had detested his pro-French, anti-Empire policy, but he was a sound, orthodox churchman. The men who had taken his place with the King were different altogether. Thomas Cromwell, once Wolsey’s secretary, was the new favorite, a dangerous, worldly man; and there was the seemingly harmless little Cranmer, too, earmarked as the future Archbishop of Canterbury. They were both prepared to do Henry’s bidding without protest or question; if the delay went on too long, or if the verdict displeased Henry, Cromwell and Cranmer would assist in separating the English Church from the Papacy.

  His Holiness should be warned. She dipped the quill and then hesitated. The Spanish Ambassador knew all these things and was in constant touch with Clement and with Charles; he would have reported the state of things in England. There was nothing for Catherine to tell Clement—he probably even knew how at Christmas Anne had assumed the Queen’s peculiar function and touched the silver rings which, being touched by the Queen, were supposed to have the power of relieving night cramp!

  There was nothing to do but to appeal again, more humbly, more earnestly…

  Griffiths opened the door and said, quickly, a little breathlessly,

  “Your Grace, there is come a great deputation from the King. They ask immediate audience.”

  “It is late,” Catherine said. “It must be urgent.” Her heart leaped. News from Rome. And only one verdict was possible. Many disappointments had taught her caution, however, and she asked, “Who are they?”

  “I recognized the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk; the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Wiltshire…”

  “Bring them in,” she said. If Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, was one of the number, they did not bring any news she wished to hear.

  She moved around the table, so that it was behind her as she faced the door. Her face had aged and her figure thickened since her appearance at the Court of Blackfriars, and tonight she was not dressed for show; but she had retained her dignity and even the ink-stained fingers of the hand she extended to each man in turn did not detract from the queenliness of the gesture. In addition to those Griffiths had named there were many of less importance, as well as Dr. Gardiner, Dr. Sampson and the Bishop of Winchester. It must be a matter of supreme importance. Mary!

  She addressed herself to the Duke of Norfolk who had taken up a position that marked him as spokesman.

  “My daughter, the Princess Mary…you bring me…” Even her resolution could not enable her to finish the sentence. Mary had never been robust, and now, just at an age when a girl most needed her mother…

  “Madam, your daughter the Lady Mary is in excellent health. The matter which we have come to lay before you does not concern her.”

  “I thank your Grace.”

  “It concerns the matrimonial dispute, lately advoked to the Roman Court,” Norfolk said.

  Dear God, Catherine prayed quickly, lend me strength! For with that woman’s father present they could only be about to tell her that her marriage was annulled, that the struggle and the shame had been borne in vain.

  “His Holiness has decided that the case should be tried in a neutral court. He therefore suggests a French court, in Cambrai. His Majesty is agreeable to this and wishes the court to be set up with all possible dispatch. We have been sent to obtain your promise to acknowledge the jurisdiction of such a court and to attend it, either in person or by proxy.”

  The words came into her head, so suddenly and completely that she almost said them aloud—No French court could be neutral to me, a Spaniard! But that was a mere comment and she forced it back.

  “My lords, I expect no favor of the Pope who has indeed helped me little and injured me much; but it was to the Pope that my lord the King first made his appeal to have our marriage looked at; and it is only from the Pope, Christ’s Vicar on this earth, that I will accept a verdict.”

  She had been writing by the light of two candles, but others had been brought in and now the room was bright. The light wavered and the planes of the men’s faces shifted, but their eyes stayed steady and it was at their eyes that she looked. Hostile some of them, indifferent some, but there were those that regarded her with respect, and a few with kindness. It was true, she thought; if you make no false claims but stand steadily upon your indubitable rights, keep your temper, refuse to give way to hysteria or self-pity, the honest man of goodwill will be on your side.

  This was Henry’s own picked deputation and she had given them the wrong answer, yet at least half of them approved.

  The blood of her mother, Isabella, the warrior Queen of Castile, made itself felt for a moment. She thought—I could rouse this country against him; the common people love me and abhor Anne Boleyn. If I took up arms, not for myself, for Mary, I could overturn this new, shallow-rooted Tudor dynasty…

  But to do that she would have to hate Henry and that was impossible. His image was fixed, immutable in her heart; the big strong handsome boy who had lifted her from her anomalous position of widow of the Prince of Wales and made her Queen of England, and had loved her and teased her, and made her laugh, so that the six years between them had seemed as nothing…No, she could never take action against Henry; only against his determination to put her away.

  “And that, Madam, is what you wish to tell His Grace?”

  “That is my decision.”

  Thomas Boleyn said,

  “You place the King in an intolerable position, Madam. Throughout the whole procedure he has been amenable to the wishes of the Pope. The Pope now proposes a neutral court, but if you refuse to acknowledge such a court what answer can His Majesty return?”

  Catherine looked at him and thought—You are her father. One night, all unwitting, you lay with your wife and nine months later this monster was born, to be the ruin of us all. And now you tell me that Henry’s position is intolerable!

  She said, “I love and have loved my lord the King as much as any woman can love a man. But I would never have been his wife against the voice of my conscience. I came to him a virgin; I am his true wife. Any evidence to the contrary is based on forgery and lies. He appealed to Rome and it is there that I wish the case to be tried.”

  They went away. It was another tiny triumph. There’d be no trial in Cambrai, with some cynical French Cardinal sitting in judgment. Neutral? When everybody knew that the French hated Spain and all things Spanish.

  She sat down at the table and put her head in her hands and gave a sigh that was almost a groan. How long, oh Lord, how long?

  The case would stay in Rome and sooner or later Julius’s ruling would be upheld and she would be declared Henry’s lawful wife. And what would that profit her? If Henry didn’t hate her already, he would then. And who wanted to be tied, until death, to a husband who hated her?

  Oh, how willingly, she thought, would I have gone to a nunnery and set him free and said, “Go play with your new toy, but think kindly of me.” But for two things. My duty to the Church, in whose eyes we were legally wedded; and my duty to Mary, born in wedlock and indisputable heir to England’s throne.

  She looked at her unfinished letter to Clement and had her first, sickening feeling of suspicion of his intentions. He had suggested the court at Cambrai, and he must have known what that meant. He was weak, vacillating, unfit for�
��No, no, that was not the way to think, that kind of thought led straight to Lutheranism. Clement was Pope, by the will of God who was omniscient and omnipotent, and if Clement were weak and vacillating it was because God knew that the world, at this moment, needed such a Pope. One who would bend, but not break. That was it. A stronger, more brittle man would long ago have given way before Henry’s determination. Clement had suggested Cambrai, trusting her to refuse the idea…

  None the less, she did not feel like completing her letter to him. She pushed it away. She remembered the moment when she had feared that something had happened to Mary. She must write to her, one of those bracing, heartening letters which since their separation had been their sole link. She took a fresh sheet, dipped the quill, and wrote, “Daughter…”

  XX

  The timing of her surrender was masterly. Had she waited longer after Warham’s death, Henry, whose infatuation for her did not exclude resentment at the way she had treated him, might have had leisure to reflect that once he had his divorce he would be free to marry a more docile and respectable wife.

  Garrett Mattingley, The Life of Catherine of Aragon

  HAMPTON COURT. AUGUST 1532

  THE LIME WALK, LEADING FROM the house to the river, was one of the things which Wolsey had made and which Henry had allowed to remain unaltered. The lime trees were so trained and so cut that each tree linked arms with its neighbor, and overhead the branches made a roof impervious to all but the heaviest rainstorm. Between the boles of the limes lavender bushes had been planted, and on this August morning they were blue with flowers and all abuzz with bees. At the end of the walk, shaded by trees and near to the river, was a seat, cool on a hot day, and sheltered on a cold one. Henry and Anne had been making for it when he was recalled to give audience to a messenger.

  One day, she supposed, some real news must arrive; but not today. She had hoped so much and been disappointed so often that words like message, messenger, dispatch, important news no longer moved her. Waiting now for Henry to rejoin her she thought that waiting had composed the greater part of her life. On her tomb they could cut the words “She waited” and they would say all.