Names of the men who indulged in such licentiousness with her were quickly unearthed and soon arrests were made and the trials began.
But where each and every man accused alongside my mother stood and protested her innocence, Katherine’s paramours did not do the same, not one, Elizabeth observed.
The only person who protested the queen’s innocence in this case was Katherine Howard herself. But there was too much evidence against her to save her from the block. They found the love letters she wrote to Thomas Culpepper. They had the testimony of her music master as well as her secretary Francis Dereham.
The charge of adultery then was laid at Katherine Howard’s feet. Those set the task of prosecuting her had letters and witnesses too many to count.
They had not needed the added charge of incest like they did in my mother’s case to bring down the young queen. But no matter, the result remains the same. Another queen sent to the block. My father’s queens have all been destined for harsh ends, guilty or no, there has been death, death and more death, Elizabeth determined.
As for the men, they died too, one by one.
For all his sins, at the end, Elizabeth’s father decided to grant Culpepper a simple execution. He died a noble’s death. The queen’s old lover, Francis Dereham, was not so lucky. He was first hanged then cut down before he was insensate. While thus, half-dead but still in possession of his faculties, they cut his chest open from neck to groin. They pulled his entrails from him, and then they took up the axe and set to work on his limbs, hacking him into tidy quarters…
They said such things were not for a child’s ears, but no one had been able to escape the whispers. The fever of another trial of yet another queen had set England on fire. The queen’s disgrace was on everyone’s lips and despite Kat Ashley’s insistence that no word should reach the ears of Elizabeth, they had, and an endless stream it was too.
Talk of her mother was rife. The tales of Anne Boleyn were being trotted out once more so that they might be compared to her cousin Katherine’s. But this time, the spectacular fall of yet another queen was to take with it more victims. Arrested alongside the now dead trio was many of the Howard clan.
The Duke had managed to free himself from the quagmire but others were not so lucky. Lady Rochford, the wife of the dead George Boleyn was tried and found guilty too. They said she aided the queen in her affairs. She arranged the meetings, admitted Culpepper to Katherine’s privy chambers and stood guard while the couple satiated their lusts. By decree of the king, Lady Rochford died too.
Lady Rochford, Elizabeth remembered the name and the face of the woman, she had been the one to accuse her husband of incest with Anne Boleyn. Whether by persuasion or coercion, she had stood all those years ago, doing the king as well as my Great Uncle Howard the expedient service of swearing her husband and my mother guilty. Now she was dead too.
Other Howards were also imprisoned, including the Dowager Duchess, their titles withdrawn and their properties forfeited for supposedly concealing the queen’s illicit affairs.
Who would have thought that one little Howard girl would be able to cause such havoc? Indeed, little Katherine Howard had been insignificant until the king decided to raise her high, high above her station, and for those who had rejoiced at her ascension, they were all of them weeping now. For the vast Howard clan had been brought into disrepute. Some said the Howards were as good as done.
Anne Boleyn’s downfall didn’t bring them to ruin, but this matter with Katherine Howard was different. Many insisted that the Howards would not be able to swan their way out of this new cesspit. But Elizabeth’s great-uncle was a fierce man and he was well on his way to proving himself indispensable to the king once more. He had volunteered to head north, to guard the troubled border with the Scots.
The Scots never ceased to cause her father consternation and Norfolk had always been the king’s man in the north. And so the Howards were not yet done. Her great-uncle would live and he would rise again, of that Elizabeth had no doubt.
As for the condemned Katherine Howard, history would know her ever after as the Great Harlot and the Great Whore, just like her cousin Anne Boleyn. Few would ever remember her; they would only remember her for her crimes.
Elizabeth pitied Katherine Howard, for she was indeed pitiable and very, very young. She was just seventeen when she laid her head down on the block.
During her last night in the Tower, Katherine was said to have asked for the block to be brought to her so that she might practice laying her head upon it. If the tales could be believed, she had practiced the night away until the following morning when it was time for her to mount the scaffold steps.
The Imperial and French ambassadors, Eustace Chapuys and Charles de Marillac who observed the execution reported that the condemned queen had been pale, fearful and trembling. She said very little, confessed her offenses and asked for the pardon of the king before she closed her eyes and laid her head down.
The executioner was apt at his job; he severed her head in one hefty chop.
Jane Rochford who had been feigning madness in the hope of being spared was dragged out next, held down and executed.
Chop. Chop. Chop.
A great many persons have died by my father’s will, Elizabeth thought. Anne Boleyn, George Boleyn, Jane Rochford and Katherine Howard. They have all met the same end and they would now keep each other’s eternal company by the Tower green.
Elizabeth cocked her head as she counted them all again on her fingers, Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard. Her father had a veritable parade of queens. Thus far, there were five in all. Of the five, two of his queens had died a traitor’s death, rising high before falling low, their heads rolling by their sovereign’s command.
Katherine Howard and Anne Boleyn. The names ran, turn and turn about in her head. Elizabeth, eyes sparkling, regarded her reflection in the mirror.
Auburn hair, large eyes, sharp nose, thin lips, Elizabeth studied her reflection, looking for traces of her mother. She had never seen any images of Anne Boleyn. Some said her mother was bewitching, captivating and beautiful. Others said she was nothing but a witch, her face a riot of warts. Some whispered that she possessed a sixth finger, a mark proclaiming her guilty of her otherworldly sins…
Elizabeth wondered which image of her mother was true. Curious, she often wondered if she shared a likeness with the mysterious woman, but her father had been careful to expunge Anne Boleyn from their lives. Those she trusted enough to ask had assured her that she bore no resemblance to the woman. They told her that she had too much of her father in her for her to be her mother’s child.
But surely a man cannot conceive and birth a babe all on his own? Elizabeth reasoned. As decreed and ordained by God, a man needed a partner in the endeavor. Though Elizabeth was still unclear as to the precise process of growing a babe, she was sure that the procedure had to include a man and a woman. As such, was she not her mother’s child also? Was she not flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood?
Elizabeth crinkled her nose in distaste. And this business, this business of bearing children is a most dangerous task, she thought. One can die from such an endeavor; she grimaced, just like Jane Seymour. Hence, being a wife, Elizabeth determined, brings with it a great many dangers.
The matter of Lady Howard now sprang to her mind. Elizabeth clucked her tongue, pitying her. The Lady Howard, Elizabeth Stafford, was the second wife of her great-uncle Howard. The tale of the lady was a sorry one, and the court as well as the realm, be it high or low, knew of the lady’s sorrows.
With no crime to her name, the Lady was banished for one simple reason: her husband was tired of her.
Installing his mistress in her place, her great-uncle expelled his wife from her place in his house, waving her aside like a common servant. The shame done to Mistress Howard was great. Everyone knew about the break between the couple, even a child like Elizabeth. They said he beats her, kicks her
and treats her no better than a dog.
Beaten and banished, the whispers said Lady Howard spent her days at Redbourn in Hertfordshire in almost total seclusion, with few servants and no monies. Gone were her jewels and fine gowns. She had been evicted from her grand houses and forced to live in the country in disgrace. For all of Elizabeth Stafford’s distinguished titles, illustrious lineage and infallible connections, she had been as helpless as a washer-wench in the face of her husband’s brutality.
And none had dared to reproach her great-uncle Howard for it. No one had dared to intervene.
So even when a wife was comely, dutiful and gave a man many sons, she could still be banished, beaten and forgotten, just like the Lady Howard. Elizabeth plucked at her skirts.
A wife can be bullied for a great many things, decided Elizabeth, a great many things indeed.
And they tell me that I must marry too. She jutted out her chin. Mistress Howard, my mother and all my father’s queens have been brought to wife and found no joy by it. I do not think, she thought, that I want to be married.
Men like her father seemed to harbor no scruples when it came to the matter. For despite his supposed shame and sorrow, he had defied them all and wed yet again, this time to the woman they call the Widow Parr.
So far, her father had no complaints against this new wife of his. Indeed, they said her father was happy now. He had a new wife and it was the Yuletide season, the season for jollity, and this year, her father was determined to be merry.
Last year, the king had charged the Lady Mary with the task of presiding over the festivities, but now with a new wife by his side, things would be different yet again.
Come Kat! Elizabeth called to her Katherine Ashley. She jumped off her chair. She was ready to greet her father.
Kat smiled at the girl indulgently. For a girl ten years of age the Lady Elizabeth proceeded from her chambers with her head held high, her bearing as regal as a queen. She did not skip and she did not run, instead, she walked at a stately pace, comporting herself with grace.
As she neared the doors to her father’s privy chambers, she pasted a brilliant smile on her face. When she was granted admittance, she strode forward boldly and greeted her father, her eyes unwavering as she fixed them upon yet another queen, her father’s sixth wife: the Widow Parr. She was her father’s third Katherine, and as Elizabeth observed her, she could not help but wonder how this new Katherine would fare.
KATHERINE PARR
1546
Hers was meant to be a quiet life. She never imagined that she would be what she was now.
Queen. Queen to Henry the King.
She laid a damp cloth against his forehead. He murmured in his sleep, his brow knotted in pain. The king’s physicians had tried their best. Doctor Butts had dressed the king’s legs and given him a draught to help him sleep. The king had not slept for nigh on three days.
Night after night, he fought the demons inside of him while he lay abed, gritting his teeth.
His legs were wrapped and bandaged. Both of them were now leaking puss from ulcers that seem to spring from nowhere. They covered his legs, bloody and painful. The wound he sustained in that joust long ago was now back to haunt him with a vengeance, spreading and taking possession of his body.
But he bore it all like a king. He dressed and attended council, presiding over the court, and no one knew how he suffered save his doctors and his queen.
When they were first married, he was still able to ride. Since then, he had been forced to give up his horses, and as the degeneracy of his legs progressed so did his temper and his ability to walk.
Deprived of his mobility, the king began consoling himself by eating. The greater his pain became the greater his craving was for the foods that seemed to give him comfort. He ordered more and more elaborate feasts, commanding the cooks to outdo themselves each night. Obediently, they bowed to his wishes, keeping the king in good spirits to the best of their ability. So the king’s girth grew and grew as he ate and ate. Sugar was his favorite food and he would demand that it be used in every dish.
The king needs sugar to sweeten his palate, thought Katherine, life has soured him and illness has made him bitter…
By the order of the king then, the feasts grew longer and longer, and more often than not at the end of it all, the king would be the only one still eating. He had a hunger that refused to be quenched. He would taste each course at the beginning of the feast and order triples of the ones he liked best, and though the trestle tables would overflow with dishes, he was forever of the mind to call for more. Stuffed capons, roasted kids, wild boar, hares, whole stags, deer and veal were served almost every night.
All the while the king ate, Katherine watched on, gauging his progress. The king liked his savories well but he liked his sweets even better and he always had a plate of sugared plums by his bed for convenience. He ate and ate and ate, in a desperate effort to assuage his pain.
Katherine sighed, looking upon the puffy face of the king, how different he was now. Her mother Maud had attended Katherine of Aragon during her reign by Henry’s side. Maud had loved the Spanish queen so well she named her daughter after the great lady, and so here she was, his third Katherine, so named after his first, here to serve the king.
She smoothed his hair. The locks upon the king’s head were sparse now but Katherine remembered a time when he was in his prime, young, golden and resplendent. She saw him once, long ago. Then, he had been a king to draw all eyes.
That year, she had been seventeen and the virgin bride of Edward Borough. The Boroughs were of little significance, they were landed barons who attended court very seldom, and as a wife of that House, Katherine had been ready to resign herself to a life of simplicity. Yet her happiness was not to be. Edward caught the sweating sickness not long after they were wed and died within the year. There were no children from the union.
The Boroughs though were good to her. They gave her a generous portion of her dead husband’s fortunes and Katherine was able to live in comfort.
When she was twenty and two however, Katherine thought it politic to wed again and she accepted the suit of John Latimore. He was twenty years her senior and a widower. He had been a doting husband. Katherine did her best to be good to his children and they enjoyed the simple pleasures in life until he too fell ill and died.
For the second time in her life Katherine became a widow, but she was comfortable in life and with the state of her affairs. She was the rich widow Parr. She had done well by her first two husbands and there were many who would count her very fortunate.
So it was at the ripe age of one and thirty, Katherine Parr found herself alone with neither the inclination nor the desire to wed again. She didn’t need to. She could do just as she pleased. So she decided to dedicate herself to her pursuits. She came to court, earnest in her desire to be amongst those foremost in the king’s realm, so that she might study the sacred texts and apply her person to the advancement of the reformed faith.
She never intended to fall in love. She relegated foolish dreams and notions of love to the realm of impossibility. She was a woman grown and a woman who understood the ways of the world. Sentimentality and carnality were the last thoughts on her mind.
And then she met Thomas Seymour.
He was unlike any man she had ever known. He pursued her, wooed her and thrilled her. He was a soldier, brash and handsome, and unlike her husbands who were too sickly to concern themselves with the matters of the flesh, Thomas was a master at the art. He would smile his wicked smile at her and call her his little sweetheart. He would whisper the salacious things he wished to perform upon her person into her ear, and she would listen despite her better judgment. Listen and blush.
He enticed her. He drew her and he made her as giddy as a girl of fifteen. It was as if he had awakened some slumbering demon within her and now she was no longer her own woman. She was his. She wanted to be his more than anything else in the world. She craved him and he bec
ame as essential to her as the very air she breathed.
Katherine Parr fell hopelessly in love. She became blind to all things save Thomas Seymour and the burning desire she had for him, and because of this blindness she failed to note the signs. Thomas saw the danger before she did. Again and again, he urged her to wed him for fear of the king’s roving eyes, but Katherine had laughed away Thomas’ fears. The king had just executed Katherine Howard. His wounds were still too raw. He, she insisted, would not be so eager to take a new wife. Further, even if the king should feel so inclined, she never thought it possible that he would settle his sights upon her.
But settle them upon her he did and before Thomas could forestall it, the king asked her to be his queen.
Katherine was stunned.
She panicked. Images of his queens, their faces and their ends flashed before her eyes, making her heart lurch and her stomach drop. But Katherine had no choice.
One does no refuse a king.
So she gave him her assent, crying what the king assumed to be tears of joy.
Not long after, they were wed in the queen’s closet at Hampton Court, attended by no more than twenty persons.
On their wedding night, she went to him, nervous but resigned and ready to do her duty. But she was dismissed. Waving her aside, the king had called for Doctor Butts and Doctor Wotton instead. It was then that Katherine understood. The king had spent the vestiges of his remaining lust on his last wife. He had given Katherine Howard what remained of his youth and what he needed from her was something else in its entirety. Henry the king now wanted a companion and a nursemaid. She had nursed two husbands and done it well, seeing to their every comfort and every need.
The king had chosen her not because of lust, desire or any other contemplation of the sort. His requirements now were far more pragmatic.
Still, he was cautious. He was ill but he was reticent in revealing to her the full extent of his ailments. Yet, slowly and with her gentle insistence, he came to trust her. She did not fear the sickroom. She was accustomed to the sights and the sounds. She was no shrinking flower to faint at the sight of blood and puss. She was calm, steady and reliable. She showed no fear and slowly, he came to rely on her.
Tudor Queen, Tudor Crown Page 10