by Deryn Lake
The words, ‘The soul of the King’s Grace has departed this life,’ jerked him back to attention and as Cranmer led solemn prayers, Edward looked swiftly round the room before taking one last glance at the corpse. The face was losing colour already, resembling a millstone in both shape and shade. Even now Lord Hertford expected one of the eyes, closed for the first time in months, to reopen and stare at him angrily. Henry Tudor had left matters so disposed that he obviously expected to rule from beyond the grave.
But alas, thought Edward, that is too much to hope for, Your Grace. The old order inevitably must change.
As the prayer ended he rose swiftly to his feet and glanced about him. ‘Gentlemen, for the good of the realm I believe that all of us here present should hold a meeting immediately,’ he said calmly. ‘I would ask you to step into the ante-room out of respect for our late King.’
No one demurred and Edward felt the cloak of leadership slip about his shoulders as if it had always sat there. He gave one further look round. ‘The King is dead, long live the King, our most noble Prince, Edward,’ he intoned solemnly.
‘Long live the King,’ chorused the others as they left the mortal remains of Henry VIII behind them to discuss the reign which was just about to begin.
Part Three: The Lord Protector
Chapter Thirty-Four
It was wonderfully cold, exhilarating and heady, breath fluting like spun glass and cheeks rose-red. As far as the eye could see a crisp fine icing lay over the world which in daytime looked pink, edible almost. But at night the bitter flakes fell again, altering the landscape to a white wilderness, so that by morning the world had changed. Despite its beauty it was treacherous weather, threatening to travellers, big drifts blocking roads and paths. Only the foolhardy were out and of these Katherine Parr, giggling like a girl, took herself to be one.
She had run all the way from the house, plunging through the snow in the garden and kicking it up in plumes round her feet, laughing out loud and scooping snowballs to throw at a tree. Despite the fact that it had started to flutter down again, Katherine had never felt warmer or happier. For tonight, after so many years of longing, she was to be reunited with Thomas Seymour.
As soon as she had been informed by the Privy Council that she was at last a royal widow, Katherine had written to him, and he must have thought of her at exactly the same moment for his letter had crossed with hers. She knew now that the King had been dead for three days before the Council had publicly announced the fact, three days in which Lord Hertford had ridden to Hertford Castle to fetch the new King, making sure of the succession. Seymour had not broken the news of his father’s death to the boy until he had brought him as far as Elsynge Hall, where Elizabeth was staying, then on bended knee Hertford had told the two children together.
Now, standing by the gate that led from the garden to the fields surrounding her lovely Dower House in Chelsea, originally built as a royal nursery, Katherine remembered it all with a certain irony.
Because of Henry’s death at the early age of fifty-five years and seven months, old Norfolk had escaped the axe and she had been freed from slavery. As for material benefits, Edward Seymour had been advanced by wish of the late King to the honour of Duke of Somerset and, following a decree of the Council, ‘Protector of all realms and dominions of the King’s Majesty that now is and Governor of his most royal person.’ Thomas had been created a Baron, made a Knight of the Garter and promoted to Lord High Admiral. And she, Katherine, had been left money and jewels, plate and household goods, as well as two Dower Houses. The servant had been well rewarded. She was now a very rich widow indeed.
Katherine had felt no emotion at the news of the King’s death other than one of relief. At last the terrible man, old before his time, killed by obesity, capable of turning on anyone, however loyal they might have been, had left the world and she could breathe easily. Since the events of last summer when the Queen had come so near to arrest and death, Katherine had not known a moment’s peace. But at last it was over. She had escaped with her life and was free. She had written to Thomas straight away.
They had taken the vast coffin and its contents along the river to Windsor, where it was to be interred. It had rested overnight in the chapel of Syon House where Cat Howard had been kept prisoner until she had gone to the Tower at the very end. During the night the body had burst inside the coffin which had been shaken during the journey and become unsealed. In the morning when workmen had arrived to solder the casket, they had found a dog licking up the King’s blood from the chapel floor. It had been prophesied by Friar Petyo that Henry’s evil ways would merit such a fate as that of the biblical Ahab and sure enough it had come about. A grinning cur had consumed his fluids.
It had taken sixteen stalwart yeomen to lower the box into the vault beside that of Jane Seymour and then the trumpets had sounded for the new King, her son. Five days later the boy had been crowned in a ceremony that had been shortened from twelve hours to seven because of King Edward’s age.
Katherine had watched it all, the two royal princesses sitting beside her, for Elizabeth had been given into her care now, to live with her stepmother in Chelsea as that part of her education which required learning courtly ways. But during the coronation Katherine could only think about young Edward, with his pale face and reddish hair, struggling through the ceremony, the Duke of Somerset looming omnipresent.
I pray the Protector governs him well, Katherine had thought suddenly in the middle of all the pomp. The King is, after all, only a nine-year-old boy.
But it was difficult to tell how Edward Seymour was reacting, his dark face giving away nothing though his wife, on the contrary, already acted as if she were a crowned Queen of England.
A silly woman, thought Katherine now, and wrote ‘Anne Somerset is a puffed-up peahen’ in the snow before blowing it away and laughing.
It was at that moment, smiling to herself, that Katherine caught a glimpse of a lantern and braced herself. She had seen Thomas, of course, at both the funeral and the coronation but there had been no more than courtesies exchanged between them. He was being as discreet as ever outwardly but in secret it was a different matter. Tom was braving the snow, public displeasure, everything, just to be with her.
‘I’m here,’ she called softly, and saw the dark figure start to run as best it could.
‘My darling, is that you?’ he was saying, and Katherine fled to meet him. Opening the gate and hurrying into the field where she fell in a drift, laughing and blushing as he deliberately pretended to stumble and rolled on top of her.
There had never been such a kiss in the history of the world. They had been parted for so long that they had become desperate for want of love. Thomas’s mouth consumed hers and Katherine savoured his in return as they embraced at long last, pressing against each other, trying to feel each other’s bodies through their thick winter clothes.
‘May I stay the night?’ Thomas asked urgently.
‘Yes, yes. You must.’
‘But what of the servants?’
‘We’ll say you called late, anything. But we have to be together.’
‘Yes, I must be with you.’
He scooped her to her feet, brushing the snow from her clothes. ‘Oh pretty Kate, I missed you so much.’
‘Were you faithful to me?’
Thomas grinned. ‘Of course!’
Did it matter if he had not? Did anything matter now that they were together again with all dangers past and behind them?
‘It doesn’t signify.’
‘Nothing does,’ Thomas answered, ‘nothing and no one. I am going to marry you, Kate. Soon.’
‘There will be a scandal.’
‘Who cares?’ he said.
That night in bed, locked in her chamber away from the world, Katherine and Thomas found the greatest magic of all, passing through every stage of love, every facet of relationship. At first she wept against his chest, sickened by the memory of Henry Tudor’s lovemaking, an ob
scene pawing which had always come to nothing.
‘Nothing?’ asked Thomas. ‘Really?’
‘Vanished,’ said Katherine, wondering what it was that allowed her to be so free with this man, ‘disappeared. Found dead beneath a mountain.’
Now they were giggling wildly, dangerously, verging on making a noise.
‘Shush,’ murmured Katherine, not quite serious. ‘If the servants come I am finished.’
‘But this is just the beginning,’ Thomas whispered back. ‘I intend to be here often, to lay siege to you until you marry me.’
‘In two years,’ she answered, but his reply was to glide into her, reminding her with every move how many years of her life had been already wasted on feeble men, for there was nothing feeble about Thomas Seymour, every inch of his muscular body made to please women. As he slowly, easily, biding his time, led her to completion, Katherine Parr felt that it might be quite possible, in his hands, to die of sheer pleasure.
At the peak of their sensational tide of love, when in Katherine’s head every bell in Christendom raised its joyful voice, they clung together, like children. But, as Thomas grew tired and slept, she became motherly, stroking his hair and fondling him until she, too, went to sleep. When they woke it was the grey dawn of a snowy February day. The widow’s husband had been buried two weeks and she felt no remorse. She had been fond of Lord Latymer but unable to resist Thomas even then. Now she no longer cared.
Lord Seymour left as soon as he was dressed, hurrying away to the inn in the nearby village of Chelsea to idle the day away and come back to her that night. Very soon his duties as a Privy Councillor would give him less freedom but at the moment he had time to spare and was intent on wooing and winning the woman of his choice with economic speed.
Just as he left the Dower House, Thomas looked up to give Katherine a final wave and saw a flash of red hair jump back from another window. So his young obsession was up and about and spying. Thomas doffed his hat in that direction but there was no answering response. Had he looked back again as he hurried away through the snow-filled garden he would have seen a pair of dark eyes following his every move.
So, thought Elizabeth, that’s the lie of the land, is it? Well, well! Who would have dreamed it of my earnest little stepmother?
She supposed that she ought to be filled with righteous indignation, swelling up with rage that her father’s memory was being thus abused, but yet had no inclination to rouse herself on the matter. This particular stepmother had been enormously kind to her, not as eccentric as the Lady Anne of Cleves nor as glamorous as pretty Cat Howard, but genuinely good-hearted to all the royal children.
And who, Elizabeth said to herself, could pretend that it has been easy for her?
She knew the facts of life by now, being thirteen and daily expecting her first flux which, as yet, had not started within. Learning everything had been fascinating and somehow compulsive, for Elizabeth could not drag her mind away from her own mother, that chic, dark being who had only to look at a man for him to fall in love with her. Would she have that power, she wondered? And yet she had considered Tom Seymour, with his teasing and laughter and over-bright eyes, had a certain tenderness for her.
But obviously not, thought Elizabeth, it is my stepmother that he visits in the night, not me.
She got back into bed, snuggling down beneath the covers, wondering what it would be like to lie with a man and whether Tom and Katherine had really done that rudest of things last night. Kat Ashley, formerly Champernowne, who had recently married John Ashley, a close friend of Roger Ascham who was already under consideration as at tutor for Elizabeth, had explained everything. In her usual intelligent way the girl had considered the facts without emotion and found a strange reaction within herself, part longing, part disgust, not helped by the lateness of her physical development.
For Elizabeth’s body at thirteen seemed unusually thin and lanky, or so she thought herself. Her breasts, though forming, were still childish and her only claim to beauty so far was her hands. Elizabeth thought them very fine, long-fingered and tapering, supple at both wrist and palm. She would often spend time gesturing and posturing before a mirror to watch their swanlike movements. Now, thinking about Tom Seymour and her stepmother, Elizabeth put her fingers together to form a steeple.
‘What if they were to marry,’ she muttered, then laughed. Serious little Kate would never consider such a rash step.
But yet Tom had been there visiting, if not overnight, early for a social call. Elizabeth, now too flustered by her thoughts to sleep again, rose from her bed, anxious to get outside. She loved sporting activities, running about and being boyish. Deep in her heart she wished that she had been the male heir and not Edward. Then she could have ruled her kingdom with a childish roughness and gruffness which would have blossomed to supreme statesmanship when she had reached man’s estate.
‘Womanhood! Bah!’ she exclaimed, gazing at her pale thin frame, before she covered it with clothes and headed out into the snow.
*
He was a very odd little boy, thought Edward Somerset, looking across to where his nephew, swamped by his grown-up clothes which included a prominent and quite unnecessary codpiece, read and re-read the document which the Protector had handed to him. That the child was near to being a genius, even by the advanced standards of education that he was already receiving, was obvious by the way his eyes flew across the sheet, then read again slowly to assimilate the facts.
If my nephew lives, thought Somerset cynically, he will probably be the ablest statesman ever to sit the throne of England. In truth, an extraordinary little creature.
The King was not like any Seymour that Somerset could remember. Old Sir John had been a countryman, loving the forest and hunting and loudly blowing the Esturmy horn to greet the monarch, and in a way Thomas had taken after him, being a man of action rather than an intellectual. In fact, thought the Protector very privately, Tom has moments when his rashness borders on stupidity.
The other Seymour children had been quieter, leading more settled lives, including the future Queen Jane. She had been intelligent, true enough, and witty when called for but how she had given birth to this prodigy of learning, Somerset could not imagine. Tudor blood must be carrying the seed which engendered such feats.
‘My Lord Uncle,’ the boy was saying, combining both Somerset’s relationships to him in one title, ‘do I take it from this paper dated 21st March, ratified with the Great Seal, that the power for our realm, to conduct matters of state and all business, private and public, domestic and foreign, until we have accomplished the age of eighteen, now rests with you?’
Somerset bowed his head. ‘Your Grace approved such a measure.’
‘Oh yes,’ answered the King seriously, ‘that is not the point. What I believe to be the issue is the tremendous responsibility now resting on your shoulders. Is it too much for one individual to carry such a burden?’
Somerset looked at the boy with a crazy mix of emotions, longing to pick him up and carry him shoulder high as once he had used when Edward had been Prince.
‘It is indeed a great onus, Your Grace. But the Privy Council of this land are used to one person being so empowered. They found it too difficult to rule the realm by committee as it were.’
Edward screwed up his face and just for a second Somerset saw Jane peep out of his eyes.
‘Yes, my Lord Uncle, but we rule the realm when all is finally said.’
Somerset went down on one knee. ‘Your Grace, this land so gallantly brought to Reformation by the late King’s Majesty must now continue on its course. I believe’ — here Somerset laid his hand upon his heart, convinced of every word he uttered — ‘that toleration of faith is essential, that true reform must be our goal.’
‘Our goal?’
‘The realm’s, Your Grace.’
‘Ah!’ answered Edward, looking wise. ‘I thought for a moment you meant us, Uncle.’
That boy is too clever for his ow
n good, thought Somerset, rising and bowing. Aloud he said, ‘The Duchess of Somerset, your aunt, wonders if you would do her the honour of dining with us tomorrow, Your Grace.’
The King’s face brightened. ‘Will Uncle Thomas be there?’
‘He has not as yet been invited, Sir.’
‘A pity,’ said the boy, looking fractionally wistful. ‘But then he may yet come.’
‘I shall make sure that word gets to him, Your Grace,’ answered Somerset, feeling unreasonably irritated that the child so obviously preferred his scampish brother.
‘Then tell the Duchess we shall be delighted to attend her.’
It was all so formal, so pompous, that Somerset felt like throwing caution to the wind and saying, ‘You are speaking to your uncle, boy. Just for a few moments in private you could surely unbend and let us be as once we were,’ but the King was speaking again.
‘We do congratulate you, Lord Uncle, on the position of pre-eminence to which you have been called and we do most heartily pray that with God’s help you will act wisely as Lord Protector to our kingdom.’
‘Thank you, Sir,’ answered Somerset gravely, then changed his voice. ‘I have recently had constructed in my garden some new butts for archery practice. I think them of reasonable standard …’
He said nothing further, knowing how the boy enjoyed sports, watching as the King’s face grew enthusiastic and younger-looking. Briefly, Somerset experienced a moment of true compassion for the poor soul, doomed from the moment of his birth to lead a completely unnatural life, never allowed even once to be free and naughty as was the right of every other child in the land.
‘I should like to try them, Lord Uncle.’
‘Then perhaps tomorrow …’
‘It will be a pleasure.’