by Deryn Lake
‘But where there is life there is hope, Sire. I shall not leave the Queen’s side until she is out of danger.’
‘In one way or another!’ Henry answered heavily. ‘But what of her family? Should they be called?’
Butts hesitated. It was his own certain conviction that the Queen would not last the night, yet the last thing he wanted was to alarm Henry unduly.
‘If they could bid her goodnight perhaps. I would not want the Queen’s Grace disturbed by their remaining long.’
‘But I shall keep vigil,’ answered the King fiercely. ‘You’ll not turn me out, Butts.’
‘Your comforting presence is a different thing entirely,’ the doctor said uneasily.
They were summoned from their quarters: Edward and Anne, Thomas, Dorothy and Clement Smith, Elizabeth and Gregory Cromwell. Only Cloverella was nowhere to be seen as the family gathered round the bed to stare down at the small shrunken figure, its eyes closed, its face like tallow, that breathed so stertorously, obviously fast hastening out of life.
The two brothers stared at their sister bleakly. She had done so much, raising them up to high degree. and making them two of the most important men in the realm, the uncles of the future King of England. At that moment they grieved not only for the dying Queen but also for what her loss would mean to their future ambitions, while Anne Seymour, to her eternal shame, only thought that in future she would not be able to claim a Queen for her sister-in-law.
It was Elizabeth and Dorothy, hugging each other as they sobbed, who suffered most, crying for all the splendid time of youth, before Jane grew up and left them to go to Court.
And as though this set a train of thought in motion Elizabeth asked, ‘Where is Cloverella?’
It was Thomas who answered, ‘Gone out to grieve like a gypsy,’ to which Edward whispered, ‘Would Jane like to see her?’ knowing as he said the words that they were meaningless, that his sister was beyond seeing or talking to anyone ever again. For whatever fever had held her in its grip had now driven her beyond delusion to dreams. Jane lay without moving, her eyes firmly closed.
‘Let it be,’ said Thomas. ‘Let it be.’ Then he wept.
Edward turned away for a second, before bracing himself. ‘We must bid Jane farewell,’ he said. ‘His Grace waits in the ante-room for us. I fear that we shall not see our sister again in this world and we must pray for her immortal soul.’
The Bishop of Carlisle, Jane’s almoner, stepped from the shadows by the great bed and sank to his knees with the others as they begged God to look with love upon all that was left of their sister Jane Seymour, the plain little girl who had, in the manner of fable, become a Queen. And while they prayed, in the cold October moonlight Cloverella picked autumnal flowers fit to lay at the feet of one whose life was finished and done.
‘Oh my cousin,’ she said, stroking the petals as if they were fingers, ‘remember all the golden days of childhood. Think of them now, my darling, as you start upon your lonely journey.’
In the Queen’s bedroom, from whence all the Seymours were now gone and only Henry Tudor waited by his wife’s side, a faint smile seemed momentarily to play over her waxen features.
‘Look, she moves,’ called the King to Dr Butts.
‘Alas, Sire, I fear it to be the last great sigh of death.’
‘Oh no,’ said Henry into his clenched fist. ‘Don’t let her go, who has given me so much. Don’t let Jane die.’
The Bishop of Carlisle, hovering and anxious, at this raised a questioning brow to the doctor and at his nod began a solemn chant for the Queen’s passing spirit; while beyond the Palace Cloverella, feeling Jane’s departure, sang to the moon of death and birth before she fell to her knees and prayed like a Christian.
Only the Queen, who lay in her hair spread like a halo, and in whose marble face two vivid eyes had slowly opened to stare sightlessly at the intricate carving of the ceiling, seemed supremely tranquil and undisturbed as in the darkness a grieving King wept for her loss alone.
Part Two: The Ardent Swain
Chapter Seventeen
During the night a wind with frost on its breath blustered over the Channel, whipping up wild horses and showering their manes with drops of ice. It boomed in the sheltered harbour, driving the ships at anchor into a frenzy, leaping and dancing an enormous hornpipe, pulling at their moorings as though they would break free and sail home, while behind the fortified walls the town shivered at the onslaught as slates, lashed by the tempest, crashed down from roofs on to the cobbled, winding streets below. The flags which presently hung festively from all public buildings and many private, whirled round their poles like dancers, while the timbers of the ancient houses creaked and the sails of a great mill standing on the cliffs beyond the city walls spun like a wheel.
Beneath the attack the town of Calais seemed to close in to protect itself, the wooden houses and taverns — The Sign of the Ship, The Three Heads, the Crosskeys — leaning anxiously towards one another. In the Exchequer, the stout building in which illustrious visitors to Calais were traditionally lodged, the Lady Anna of Cleves turned her solemn face, scrupulously scrubbed and shiny, into her pillow to block out the sound of the wind.
Sir Thomas Seymour, playing chess late with his pale-eyed cousin, Francis Bryan, in lodgings a mere stone’s throw from where lay the royal bride, looked up from the board and crossed to the window.
‘I doubt there’ll be a sailing tomorrow if this goes on,’ he said over his shoulder.
‘It’s less than two weeks to Christmas. I hope we’re not holed up here for long,’ came the immediate reply.
Thomas turned and smiled, his splendid eyes shining. ‘Would you miss your friend?’
‘You may leave her out of the matter. I was thinking only how difficult it would be to entertain the Lady Anna for several days when she speaks not one word of English.’
‘And, if rumour is true, has no ear for music either.’
Francis raised his brows and shook his head, saying no more, and it was left to Thomas, after checking that there was no one lurking outside, to whisper, ‘Moreover, it is not as if she is endowed with beauty to compensate for these lacks. By God, I would have thought her to be the last bride on earth for His Grace.’
Once again Bryan shook his head in silence and Thomas chuckled. ‘Afraid to comment, Francis? Have you grown lilyish?’
Bryan’s grey eyes looked at him without blinking. ‘One day, Tom Seymour, I swear you will lose your head. You play risky games. Until His Grace has denounced the Lady Anna as the ugliest whore in the Kingdom I shall sing her praises night and day.’
Thomas laughed wryly. His sardonic cousin had always used that trick, speaking slanders in the form of rebuke.
‘Aye, aye. Sing away until the tune changes.’
‘Which I vow it will,’ answered Bryan softly before returning his full attention to the chessboard, while Tom left his contemplation of the bitter night and threw another log on the fire before mulling his spiced wine with a hot poker.
‘At least he mourned her decently,’ he said to himself as much as anyone. ‘At least poor Jane was given time to grow cold before His Grace took another bride.’
Francis Bryan nodded but did not reply. He knew as well as did Tom Seymour, delude himself as he might, that enquiries had been afoot for another wife for the King before Jane had even been laid in her grave, but that despite Henry’s longing to refill swiftly the royal marriage bed it had nonetheless taken two years to find a suitable bride.
The beautiful Christina Sforza, sixteen-year-old widow of the Duke of Milan, had been Henry Tudor’s first choice, but that spirited girl had answered that only if she had two heads would she put one at the disposal of the King of England! Greatly rebuffed, Henry had cast round the whole of Europe to find a wife.
Bryan smiled to himself. Henry Tudor had sufficiently poor judgement to suggest to François, King of France, that he should bring the three sisters of Guise — Marie, Louise and Renée — t
o say nothing of Anne of Lorraine and another nubile princess, to Calais, under the chaperonage of François’s Queen, there to parade before him.
In a bizarre beauty contest, thought Bryan wryly.
The French King’s reply had been satisfyingly stinging. No noble woman of France would trot out like a hackney at a fair to be inspected by Henry. His brother of England must seek a bride more decorously.
The negotiations with young Duke William of Cleves, Juliers and Berg for one of his sisters had been opened by Thomas Cromwell, the man who had so caustically nicknamed Bryan ‘The Vicar of Hell’ for his part in the downfall of the Boleyns. Both Amelia and Anna of Cleves were at present available on the marriage market, and flattered by a King’s interest. Master Hans Holbein, Henry’s court painter, had accordingly been sent out to strike their portraits in oil, and Cromwell had virtually made the King’s choice for him. Anna in particular had a beautiful face and figure and outshone Christina of Milan as the sun did the moon, or so Thomas said. The King had been convinced. Without setting eyes on his future wife he had signed the marriage treaty on 6th October 1539.
And yesterday the welcoming party, led by the Lord Admiral the Earl of Southampton, arrayed in their finest clothes, had received the Lady Anna into the pale of Calais. The Admiral himself had been resplendent in a coat of purple velvet, cut on cloth of gold, tied with great aiglettes and trefoils of gold. Thomas Seymour and Francis Bryan had, however, almost eclipsed him, each wearing such a glinting mass of chains about their necks and shoulders, Thomas’s in particular being of most unusual design and great value.
The Lord Admiral had made low obeisance before the Lady Anna, who had blushed scarlet, aware that the eyes of everyone in the welcoming party were upon her. Then, while the guns of the town boomed and an answering salute fired from the King’s ships lying at anchor in the harbour, his bride had been escorted into English territory through the Lantern Gate.
‘God’s blood but she’s plain,’ said Thomas, remembering. ‘But then so was my poor sister. The Lady Anna may yet please.’
Carew took Thomas’s rook before he looked up. ‘I think not, Tom. Remember His Grace is not far off fifty now and swelled up huge.’
‘So?’
‘So it will need a beautiful woman to arouse passion in him these days. That, or a wanton.’
Thomas guffawed, repeating the word ‘wanton’ before he said, ‘Keep your voice down for the love of Christ. You’ll end a traitor yet.’
Bryan smiled slowly, his cold eyes unblinking. ‘That could happen, I suppose.’
‘Perhaps the Lady Anna is skilled in the arts of love,’ whispered Thomas as he resumed his place. ‘You know what they say about ugly women.’
‘We shall see,’ said Bryan, as he thoughtfully refilled his wine cup.
*
On Christmas Eve, just as the Milk Gate into the town of Calais was being closed against the night, the watch bell having sounded for half an hour to give due warning, and one of the porters having raised his staff to knock upon the gate to mark its closing, a party of four travellers hurried through, the great gale which kept the royal bride still marooned in the city puffing at their heels.
The Controller’s Clerk — always present at the opening and closing of the entrance into Calais — pulled his hat closer about his head, raised his lantern to see the late arrivals, and called out to them for their names, it being his sworn duty to mark the coming and going of all visitors to the King’s citadel. Then, having noted down that they were the family of Howard, father and three children, passing through Calais prior to sailing for England, the Clerk signed them in for the night telling them where they could find Strangers’ Lodging.
‘Though the town is full mark you,’ warned the Clerk, ‘the Lady Anna’s retinue and welcoming party taking up a great deal of room, plus those who have come into the city to pass Christmas.’
‘But there is space somewhere surely?’ asked the man, the light from the Clerk’s lantern shining on his broad nose and coarse tangle of black curls.
‘Try the Widow Lucas’s or, failing her, Adrian Dogan’s house. According to my records they have beds.’
The stranger nodded his thanks, marshalled his tired little flock about him, and strode out of the lantern’s range into the bleakness of the night.
‘Howard,’ said the Clerk thoughtfully, staring after him. ‘Zachary Howard. That name seems well familiar.’
And he was still puzzling over it as he packed up his things, the watch having now been set beyond the walls by the Marshall’s Deputy and the wickets of both the inner and outer gates securely locked and barred for the night. The order of the Keys was already forming up — the Master Porter, the Gentleman Porter and ten others — ready to carry them into the town to the King’s Deputy, Lord Lisle. And it was behind this small procession that the Clerk and his assistant now marched to rejoin their families, and the fish supper that every burger of Calais was enjoying that night, it being a religious feast and therefore a fast.
This eve of Christmas the Lady Anna and the Lord Admiral were dining with the Deputy in his residence, while the rest of both bridal and welcoming parties fed in their lodgings. Tomorrow, to start the twelve days, there would be a costly banquet and a joust and, no doubt, games of cards which the Lady Anna enjoyed. But tonight was kept quite quietly and there were not many on the streets when Zachary, having seen his three children safely to bed, went out to The Sign of the Ship to arrange for a sailing to England.
The violent wind almost lifted the astrologer off his feet as he walked down Lantern Gate Street, usually bustling with noise from the leather, swordsmiths’ and goldsmiths’ shops, but tonight silent and dead, except for chinks of light coming from those shops behind which their owners lived. In the harbour, frothing and roaring, bounced the King’s vessels, the Lyon and the Sweepstakes, each bedecked with over a hundred banners of silk and gold on the day of the Lady Anna’s entrance, but now wisely stripped of decoration.
And, indeed, so fierce was the night that on entering the tavern Zachary thought at first he had ventured in vain; the owners of the fishing craft who also ferried travellers across the Channel must have all kept to their hearths. But on looking more closely he saw that one sea-dog, quite a youngish fellow with wild ocean-coloured eyes and a broken nose and teeth, had braved the gale to drink to the Christmas festivities that lay ahead.
‘Friend,’ said Zachary approaching, ‘I’ll buy your ale and reward you well if you’ll get me and my family safe back to England.’
The blue eyes looked him up and down. ‘You’ll not be meaning before this wind blows out?’
Zachary stared through the grimy window and shook his head. ‘No. Weather that can imprison the King’s bride must be respected. I’ll ask that we may sail on the same tide as the Lady Anna when she does go.’
The fisherman grinned. ‘That I’ll do, and certain. But by my reckoning that’ll be some while yet.’
‘Who knows?’ Zachary stretched his arms above his head, shaking all over, dog-like. ‘Yet suddenly I’m impatient to see my homeland. I sailed from England three and a half years ago, meaning to be away six months at most. Now it seems like a lifetime.’
‘You say you have family. How many should I leave room for?’
‘Three children, all under twelve years.’
‘And no lady?’
Zachary shook his head with a small, sad smile. ‘No lady, alas.’
The fisherman grew brisk. ‘Then meet me here, Master, on the day that the Lord Admiral pronounces the Channel fit to bear the Lady of Cleves to her wedding, and I’ll ferry you across behind her.’
Zachary nodded. ‘I’ll give you half payment now and the rest when we have crossed, if that is acceptable?’
‘It is.’
‘Then I’ll see you a few days short of the end of the year.’
The fisherman’s brows met his grizzled hair. ‘Why do you say that? Are you a sea-faring man?’
Zach
ary grinned. ‘No, it’s merely a feeling I have. Would you care for a wager on it?’
The man shook his head. ‘I reckon you’re right. She’ll blow out and change with the moon.’
‘Yes,’ said Zachary, ‘I think she will.’
And with that the two men forgot the weather and fell to downing ale and speaking of all that had taken place in both Calais and the world in the years that had passed since Zachary last set foot in the citadel.
*
On the first day of the new moon, being the 27th December, the royal bride having kept her Christmas at Calais amid much merriment, the gusty wind finally dropped and was replaced by a keen, hard breeze that spoke of England. The Earl of Southampton, the Lord Admiral, rose early to inspect conditions, then ordered that the Lyon and the Sweepstakes be dressed overall with the hundred silken banners, golden in colour, that they had displayed on arrival. It was fair wind to sail. With enormous relief the welcoming party, their horses and servants, complete with the Lady Anna’s entourage, boarded the flotilla of fifty ships that lay waiting in the harbour. And around noon, amidst the roar of Calais’s cannon, the Lady herself embarked, and the Admiral ordered full sail.
Behind the royal fleet followed its parody, as every fisherman in Calais, deprived for days of his livelihood, took to the water in a ragamuffin flotilla which accompanied the Lady Anna as far as the fishing grounds, though some, bearing passengers, crossed with her, ready to fish on the return journey. And with the wind as fine and keen as it was, it was only four hours before England was sighted and the royal bride, only too aware of her own shortcomings, retired to her state cabin to adjust the wig of flaxen curls which she believed made her more comely in the eyes of men.
Zachary, his three children pressed close to him, peering out from beneath his cloak which was draped over all four, stood at the rail of the herring boat which carried them and stared at the milky coastline with tears in his eyes.