“Well, Madam. What say you to this?”
“I say it is back stairs gossip, My Lord. I heard a similar rumour that I am carrying The Admiral’s child.”
I hold out my arms, turn a circle. “Do you see evidence of that, Sir? There is as much truth in that rumour as any of that which you have just read out. If Mistress Ashley and Thomas Parry spoke of any marriage then I cannot be held accountable for that. Both they and I would never consider any union without the full consent of the council; as both Parry and Kat clearly state. The part about The Admiral so graciously allowing me the use of his house when I travel to court is true. The rest is false, gained under threat of torture, no doubt.”
“You never discussed The Admiral with Mrs Ashley?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I may have, but we weren’t in earnest. We discussed many, many men, as women do, My Lord. Mistress Ashley finds The Admiral charming and handsome, is it a crime that we should discuss him?”
He frowns and looks down at his notes, and after a few more questions allows me to leave. Once in my chamber I sit down, try to quell my trembling limbs, and pen a letter in my best hand to the Lord Protector explaining in detail, and with much falsehood, the events of the past year or two.
As I draw to the end of my missive, I pause, and run the quill against my cheek before adding the following.
… Master Tyrwhit and others have told me that there goeth rumours abroad which be greatly both against my Honour and Honesty (which above all other things I esteem), which be these; that I am in the Tower and with child by My Lord Admiral. My Lord, these are shameful slanders, for the which, besides the great desire I have to see the King's Majesty, I shall most heartily desire your Lordship that I may come to the Court after your first determination ; that I may show myself there as I am.
Written in haste, from Hatfield this 28th of January.
Your assured friend to my little power,
ELIZABETH.
I will wait now and see what comes of it. If he consents to my attending court to prove my condition, it will put an end to the rumours and hopefully go some way toward winning leniency for Thomas.
But, despite my best attempts, the protector is not appeased. Although Kat and Parry’s revelations are merely embarrassing and not enough to convict me of any crimes, he decides that Ashley is not a suitable governess. He suggests that Lady Tyrwhit becomes her permanent replacement.
I am not having this. If they have not found anything to convict me, why should I be punished?
After another night of stormy weeping I dry my eyes, remember my rightful status, and write again.
My Lord,
Having received your lordship's letters, I perceive in them your good will towards me, because you declare to me plainly your mind in this thing, and again for that you would not wish that I should do anything that should not seem good unto the council, for the which thing I give you my most hearty thanks. And whereas, I do understand, that you do take in evil part the letters that I did write unto your lordship, I am very sorry that you should take them so, for my mind was to declare unto you plainly, as I thought, in that thing which I did, also the more willingly, because as I write to you you desired me to be plain with you in all things. And as concerning that point that you write—–that I seem to stand in mine own wit in being so well assured of mine own self. I did assure me of myself no more than I trust the truth shall try. And to say that which I knew of myself I did not think should have displeased the Council or Your Grace. And surely the cause why that I was sorry that there should be any such governess about me was because that I thought the people will say that I deserved through my lewd demeanour to have such a one, and not that I mislike anything that your lordship or the Council shall think good (for I know that you and the Council are charged with me), or that I take upon me to rule myself, for I know that they are most deceived that trusteth most in themselves, wherefore I trust that you shall never find that fault in me, to the which thing I do not see that Your Grace has made any direct answer at this time, and seeing they make so evil reports already shall be but an increasing of these evil tongues.
He replies promptly and coldly, rebuking me for my pert obstinacy and I realise with a heavy heart that I must concede to his wishes. They do make one concession however, and allow the return of both Thomas Parry and my darling Kat.
It is then that I learn The Admiral’s lands are being parcelled up and sold to the highest bidder. The undignified scramble that ensues as courtiers, who once claimed to be his friends, compete for his properties, bodes ill for the future. I take to my bed again, pleading illness; sick to the stomach that I must sit by and do nothing as they destroy the man I love.
***
For five days I lie abed, not knowing the outcome. I eat very little, ignoring the tasty morsels sent up from the kitchens to tempt me. I might as well be dead without Tom, without Katheryn, without Kat Ashley. She is the closest thing to a mother I have left.
I have just finished with the close stool, and my servant is bearing it away. I am half way across the chamber, barefoot, clad only in my shift, when I hear a scratching at the door. One of my women brings a robe to drape across my shoulders before I call for whoever is outside to enter.
The door opens a little, a woman sidles in, a cloak clutched tightly about her. She raises her head cautiously, as though she expects a whipping.
“Kat!” I throw off the robe and spring across the chamber floor to drag her into my arms. She is weeping, spluttering apologies, excuses, promises to never gossip again. I do not care to hear them. I am just glad she is home. I pinch her, just for the reassurance of hearing her yelp. She is real.
“Oh Kat. I am so glad to have you back. I have been so worried. Are you well? Did they hurt you?”
She shakes her head, sniffs. I click my fingers for a kerchief and wait while she noisily blows her nose.
“I am so sorry, Madam. I swear before God that I will never speak loose words again. Can you forgive me?”
Taking her arm, I lead her to the fireside settle and we sit down, hands clasped. I am glad to see her fingers are as pretty and as unsullied as they have ever been.
“I know you meant me no ill. I am just grateful that they let you free. There are few who enter the Tower and come out alive.”
She is trembling. She tries and fails to hold back tears. Her face crumples as she shakes her head. “If I’d known my words could harm you, I’d have cut out my own tongue.”
“There now. We are safe, that is the main thing. We are all safe … all except The Admiral.”
I push the thought of him away and try to be grateful for what we have salvaged from this sorry plight. Kat is a foolish woman but she loves me, and had no way of knowing that her loose tongue would ever put me in such danger.
But from now on we speak only of trivial things; the burgeoning spring, the lambs in the fields, the choice of a new pup. We keep our speculation to small matters such as what we shall have for dinner. Although he is uppermost in my mind, we never mention Thomas who languishes still in the Tower, his fate all but sealed.
I know there is no saving him and I am aware they watch me still. The Protector’s spies are everywhere and my toughest test still lies ahead. I turn my mind to preparing myself.
I have no clue as to how I am to bear the news of his death as if it is of no great matter. Of late I have become a marvellous dissembler but this next act of deception will prove the greatest trial of my life so far.
20th March 1549 - Hatfield
I am abed but I do not sleep. My mind is with Thomas, sharing his last night on this earth. I do not see the fine trappings of Hatfield Palace that are all around me. The walls of my chamber melt away and instead I see the grim, grey confines of his cell, a square window high up showing a patch of barred night sky.
Thomas is with me, or I am with him. I share his punishment, feel the damp cold. My bones ache, my heart breaks. Our only company are rats, our only food a bowl of
watery broth.
He doesn’t know I am there at first. He sits dejected in the straw with his head in hands and regrets all he has done. All his failures, all his misdemeanours are piled around him like a miser’s treasure.
I reach out to touch him, take his cold and grimy fingers in mine and kneel with him in the straw, shuffle closer on my knees.
“Don’t be sorry for it, Thomas,” I whisper in his ear. “Remember us, and be glad for it.”
He raises his head, blinks his vacant eyes, and scratches his lousy beard. He tries to grin but it is a pale shade of his former smile, a rictus grimace in the face of death. There is little left in this broken man to remind me of my shining Admiral.
That is the moment when my heart finally breaks and I realise that in losing him, I have lost everything. He turns away.
In the darkest hour of his life he has ceased to think of me. I am become nothing more than a misguided yearning, an insignificant splash of joy in the ocean of his existence. I drop his hand and turn away, walk toward the grim stone wall.
When I wake in the morning I wish my life was ending with his. I can see little to live for and I feel so alone, more than ever I have before. Without Thomas, without Katheryn, without my father, I am nothing but a dispossessed princess in an empty hall. Bolt upright on my pillow I call out for Kat Ashley and she comes running, her braided hair bouncing on her nightshift. At my bidding, she throws back the covers and climbs into my bed.
I am out of favour with the king; gossips whisper of my shame in the taverns, and my suspected lack of chastity islikely to cost me the chance of a decent husband. Without marriage I will have no future. I feel everything is over and wonder why I was born. Surely, surely God must have a plan for me.
In the morning when they bring me the news of Thomas’ death, I am ready for them. Internally I collapse weeping to the floor, my spirit crushed, my future a great gut-churning void. But, with a great effort, I shrug my shoulders, pull a wry expression and take refuge behind clever, callous words.
"This day died a man of much wit, but very little judgement," I say, and then I walk away from them as if my world hasn’t just shattered into a million pieces. For a long time I stand passively at the window while my mind screams remorse.
Sorrow, there is nothing but sorrow. It surrounds me, it fills me, and it suffocates me but I must not let them see. As the days go on, misery is all-consuming. It grows so large that it lodges within my breast and forms and moulds me into something new.
From the day they kill him I put away my gay clothes. I dress sombrely in grey and tuck every tendril of hair tightly beneath my cap. I strip myself of emotion and constrain my passions tightly in the depths of my being where they will never again see the light of day.
To the outside world I must appear flawless, pious and, although I’d like to stick up my fingers and send them all to hell, I do nothing.
I say nothing.
I feel nothing.
One day at a time; one foot before the other. I tie up my tongue and school my face not to betray me. I must not speak. The world is teeming with enemies and I must always be discreet. There is no one I can depend upon and I wish, not for the first time, for someone, some unassailable friend in whom I can place my trust completely. I wish my mother was here. I try to image what would she say to me, what advice she would give.
From what I can gather, she would probably advise me to dance, to lift up my head and confound them all with my gaiety and wit, but I know that isn’t the answer. It is hard enough to be the daughter of a woman who has been condemned as a whore, let alone being labelled as one myself.
I give the matter a great deal of thought and, as the future stretches before me in a depressing unlit path, my thoughts turn to my other mother; to Katheryn.
Although I injured her, while she lived she was my mentor, and my guide. How would she advise me now? I close my eyes, meditate for a while on her philosophy and, as if she is in the room, I receive the hint of an answer.
I get on my knees and begin to pray for the strength to be a better person. I close my mind to The Admiral, shut away his face and, as the darkness shifts a little and the blackest sorrow begins to recede, I begin to perceive a way forward.
The path that lies ahead may be uncertain and I know I must always tread most carefully. But, looking back at the road I have already travelled, I come to realise that my body has played tricks on me. Romantic passion has put both me and those I love in the greatest of peril.
Katheryn was a strong brave soul until she married for the last time; bonded with a man for love. She made three political marriages, one forged in the softness of her heart. It was that last marriage that caused her the most misery. Now Thomas is dead there is still time for me to turn away from all that.
I put away my jewels and my most frivolous gowns forever, and continue to play the part of a pious protestant princess. Quite consciously I mould myself into a more severe shape than Katheryn took. I become the ‘dutiful’ Katheryn, the woman she was before she fell for the charms of Sir Thomas Seymour.
The Admiral came close to destroying all three of us; his love for me, real or counterfeit, could have led to my own death. It was a fortunate escape and, as hard as it is, I turn my back on his memory.
I concentrate on the woman Katheryn was during the time Father was in France. It was a time when I was only learning to love and admire her but, in the absence of the king, she proved to me that women can be resilient. It is possible to be strong and stand alone in a world of men.
Even if it is a world of enemies.
I am determined to bury the part of me that is as fickle as my father, and as impetuous as my mother. If I am to survive in this uncertain world, I see it is Katheryn I must emulate, not my parents. I will strive to live my life as Katheryn lived hers.
My stepmother, Katheryn Parr, the Queen.
Author’s note
In writing this novel of Katheryn Parr I have made every effort to stick to known facts but, as always with fiction, it is only an interpretation of what might have been.
We know very little of Katheryn’s early life, or whether her first and second marriages were happy or otherwise.
There are no details of her personal experiences during the siege at Snape where the novel opens, but we do know that she was there with John and Margaret Neville. We cannot know if the women were subjected to any violence, but we do know that other women were badly handled during other sieges.
Sir Francis Bigod was hung with the rebels as a result of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and her marriage to his son Ralph never took place. We do not know why. The idea that she developed an infatuation for Francis Bryan is my own invention. All we know is that Margaret followed Katheryn to court after the death of her father, Lord Latimer, and died young of an unknown cause in 1545.
It is not until Katheryn catches the eye of Henry that the picture of her begins to become much clearer. She was an intelligent woman, a keen supporter of the reformation, writing and publishing her own books on the subject of religion. While not displaying any terribly original ideas, they do reveal a mind that was both fertile and keen to make a difference in the world. Marriage to the king empowered her and provided her with a real voice in the changing world of the 16th century.
We must remember that she lived in terrifying times, married to a petulant and powerful king but, from the knowledge we do have, it seems that her marriage to Henry was not a bad one. The fate of Henry’s former wives must have been with her constantly, but Henry seems to have held her in high regard. He enjoyed her company and respected her intelligence.
In my opinion, there is little doubt that the king took a great deal of pleasure in confounding Wriothesely and Gardiner when they sought to arrest her and replace her with someone of the Catholic faith. Throughout the relationship she seems to have ‘managed’ Henry very well, understanding his moods and pacifying him where other wives failed.
Perhaps this was the real key to he
r survival.
Throughout most of her life Katheryn displayed great resilience of character. She wed three times, wisely and well, and proved herself to be an excellent wife and helpmeet. With the possible exception of Catherine of Aragon, she was arguably the most dedicated of all Henry VIII’s wives. Her own personal downfall was her ‘intractable heart,’ her love for a man who was both unstable and unworthy. It is extraordinary that so sensible a woman fell for a man like Thomas Seymour, but as Elizabeth states in her narrative, “…women are soft when it comes to love.”
The love triangle that developed between Katheryn, Thomas and Elizabeth can be viewed in several ways. I do not accept that it was child abuse on Seymour’s part. Elizabeth was of marriageable age. The emotions of teenage girls have not changed and their passions can be equally if not more ungovernable than those of adults. I believe the attraction was strong, possibly not the great love affair that I have portrayed but too strong for an inexperienced girl and a hot-blooded man to ignore.
Katheryn was unfortunately the injured party and met her death knowing that the two people she loved most in the world had, quite possibly, betrayed her in the worst possible way. Her daughter Mary was given into the care of Katherine Willoughby, who reluctantly took her into her household. Baby Mary was a burden, her entourage a huge drain on their expenses. We are not entirely sure what became of the child but she fades from the historical record at around the age of two years old.
By falling in love, or lust, or whatever you like to label it, with a princess of royal blood, Thomas Seymour was sailing very close to the wind. The danger increased after his marriage to Katheryn because his intentions after that date can only be seen as nefarious. Either he planned to do away with his wife and marry against the council’s wishes; or he planned to deflower and ruin the reputation of a royal princess. Either way it was a risky and almost insane enterprise.
Intractable Heart: A story of Katheryn Parr Page 24