TWELVE
THAT winter I awoke each morning in the great pearl bed, with my husband already up and dressed and gone. He continued to be a font of energy, riding, hawking, meeting with his councilors and with a new group of builders who he set to work enlarging Hampton Court and building a new palace, St. James’s, where the leper hospital used to be.
His list of new constructions was a long one. He ordered a new closet for Windsor Castle, new kitchens for Anna at Richmond—she had begged for these—a new gallery at Eltham and another at Whitehall, a new tiltyard at Whitehall and a vast new enclosed tennis court as well, and new leads for all the palace roofs. He rubbed his hands together with glee when telling me all that his laborers were doing, and all that he meant to have done in future. When the royal stables burned to the ground—a source of great sorrow to my husband, who loved his horses—he built vast new stables where the royal mews had been, with barns to hold the horses’ fodder and housing for the grooms and stable boys.
So eager was the king to have these works completed that he ordered the laborers to stay at their tasks day and night, working by candlelight in the sunless hours. He took great pleasure in inspecting the progress of his undertakings, hiring more and more designers and craftsmen and visiting the work sites again and again, often taking friends and officials with him and sometimes combining a tour of inspection with the pleasures of banqueting and even hunting, when the weather was not too foul.
I expected to be taken along on these excursions, but he did not invite me, and when I asked to be included he made excuses for leaving me behind.
“You must not tire yourself, sweetheart,” he said, or “I would not want you to take cold.” I was sure he was hoping that I would soon conceive a child, if I had not done so already, and wanted me to stay quietly indoors, without exerting myself or exposing myself to the outdoor air, in order to ensure that I would not lose the babe in my womb.
When word reached him that a huge double cannon he had ordered from a German foundry had finally arrived, he celebrated by taking a number of ladies of the court to see the monstrous thing as it was brought ashore. As usual I was not included in the party, but I heard from Master Denny how when the king first saw the ordnance he cried, “Oh! I like it marvelous well! I shall put it in my tower at Nonsuch!” and all the ladies clapped and cheered. He called for wine and comfits to celebrate, and had his gunners load and fire the great cannon until all the ladies were nearly deaf from the explosions.
One lady in the party drew particular attention: Anna. I did not know whether my husband had invited her or whether she had simply discovered that he was going to the docks to see the new cannon and decided to join the group, confident that she would be welcome. But her presence led, inevitably, to gossip. It was whispered that my husband might be having second thoughts about Anna, wondering whether he might have been too hasty in declaring their marriage null. Dr. Chambers’s opinion about my being barren was still lively conversation, I was sure, while no physician had ever ventured such an opinion about Anna.
Even within my own household I was beginning to hear disloyal voices. Charyn, appointed to be among my ladies in waiting—and very mortified to find herself in such a subservient position to me, the girl she had once called an inferior whelp—approached me one day.
“Are you to have no coronation then, Catherine?” she asked. “You have been the king’s wife now for many months. Why is it he has not had you crowned queen?”
“I imagine he will order it, when he thinks the time is right,” I said, trying to keep my voice mild—and trying not to look at Charyn’s waist, which was expanding. She had married Lord Morley’s son and was expecting a child in the spring.
“I don’t believe coronation robes have been ordered,” Charyn went on. “But then, it may be that the king is waiting until you have had your first child.”
Others among my ladies who were strict Protestants whispered that I was lax in my religious observance and far from sober enough in my conduct to be queen. My lightness of spirit, my joking manner were held against me, as signs of the devil at work in me. I was unworthy to be the mother of the next king, they told one another (as Joan and Lady Rochford and others were quick to inform me).
I was advised to purge my household of such critics, but I did not, fearing that anyone I sent away might spread much worse gossip about me from a desire for revenge.
I did tire of hearing about my husband’s excursions in the company of ladies, however—excursions which always excluded me. I became vexed and worried when I discovered that among the ladies he invited was Madge Shelton, a beautiful, dimpled woman who had been his mistress in the past, when his marriage to my cousin Anne had been troubled and the court was full of gossip—as it was now—about how he might be thinking about ridding himself of Anne and marrying someone else.
The next time he organized a party of ladies to go aboard his flagship the Great Harry, with a promised banquet to follow on shipboard, I resolved to be a part of the festivities. I ordered my barge to be made ready, and when my husband and his many lady guests arrived at the river pier, I was already aboard my barge and the oarsmen were ready to row.
I had my own group of women supporters on board with me: Joan and Malyn, Lady Rochford and Catherine Tylney and some others I felt I could trust to be staunchly loyal to me. The number, I am sorry to say, was disconcertingly small.
My plan was to follow the immense flagship when she set sail. I knew she would not travel far, only a short distance past the lower docks and on downriver. I consulted my pilot concerning the tides and calculated that the barge could keep pace with the flagship for at least a few miles, depending on the strength of the winds.
The Great Harry set forth, and my barge followed. From both vessels came the faint gabble and murmur of female voices carried on the breeze. Then I heard a loud male voice.
“Aha! Catherine! A race! A race!”
It was my husband, waving and challenging us to a contest. Knowing it would be futile, I nevertheless spurred my oarsmen on, while shouts and yells went back and forth between the two vessels. We kept pace for as long as we could, but before long the wind rose, favoring the flagship—which was in any case much faster than my poky barge—and we were left far behind. But at least I had made an effort, and my oarsmen cheered, making my spirits soar. My loyal women and my oarsmen—and, I was sure, a few of my guardsmen as well—were on my side. They admired my daring, my boldness. I felt certain of it. I saw how they looked at me, smiling and nodding, when I disembarked. I knew.
Just at that time the court seemed at loose ends, lacking in direction and—despite the king’s strong presence—lacking leadership. Quarrels erupted, proud words were spoken in anger, leading to blows. Grudges were held, threats made. Factions formed, only to dissolve suddenly. It was as if the courtiers were running here and there, back and forth, now taking momentary pleasure in adorning themselves with the latest fads in gowns and doublets, now abandoning them, now championing certain favorites, now casting them aside. Old wounds festered, new wounds were created—and in the midst of it all, the king seemed to dart from one building site to another, elusive, his motives unreadable.
He announced that it was time for me to make my first official entry into London as queen, though what prompted him I could not tell. I would not be part of a procession through the streets, but instead would travel through the town by river, aboard the king’s barge, with my husband at my side, in all our finery. There would be a cannonade from the Tower, the king told me, and all along the riverside, colorful displays of flags and painted ensigns and mottoes would proclaim my welcome.
The City guilds were alerted, and the citizens were given an incentive to turn out to acclaim me; they were told that wine would pour from all the fountains and conduits and that food in abundance would be provided on the day of the royal entry.
The day arrived, overcast and with a hint of rain in the air. We went aboard the barge and took our p
laces, standing in the bow where we would be seen to greatest advantage. The king’s barge was much larger and more grand than mine, splendidly gilded and decorated and rowed by seventy-five strapping oarsmen. Pennants flew from every corner of the vessel’s canopy, and silken streamers floated in the rather cool spring air. I wore a gown of glimmering silver embroidered with clusters of pearls, and my neck, wrists and fingers sparkled with gems. The king looked at me approvingly as we began our journey, as if to say, yes, you’ll do. But he did not take my hand, or make me laugh, and his manner, though regal, was subdued.
The barge shot London Bridge and then was joined by dozens of other brightly decorated barges, with the mayor and livery companies aboard. Hundreds of smaller boats carrying Londoners of all ranks crowded around our barge, some with choristers serenading us, some with musicians, others with well-wishers who threw flowers into our vessel and shouted words of welcome.
Suddenly the Tower guns began to boom forth, a deafening sound that went on and on, getting louder the farther downriver we went.
“Is that your double cannon I hear?” I asked my husband, but he only gave me a quick smile and then turned away, distracted. For it was just then that we began to hear the clamorous voices shouting insults.
“Bitch! We will have none other than Queen Anna!”
“Devil’s harlot! Bring back our rightful queen!”
To my horror, someone in a small boat threw an object into our barge that landed at my feet. It was a dead rat.
The insulting cries continued, while others shouted “Good Queen Catherine” and “Queen Catherine forever!”
Meanwhile more things were thrown at us—or rather at me—and I shrieked when a pile of bloody entrails nearly struck me, splattering filth on my gown.
King Henry quickly pulled me under the barge’s canopy and shielded me, shouting orders to the guardsmen to “attack the filthy churls” with their pikes.
“Seize them! Take them to the Tower!” he ordered, though the harassers were too quick and too nimble. They turned their small boats swiftly and rowed away, and there was no catching them.
Servants hurried to remove the offending things flung onto the deck of our barge—not only entrails but bloody cloths, fish scales and bones, the head of a cat. I covered my eyes. I didn’t want to see any more.
“By all the saints! I have a woeful people to govern! It was an unlucky day when I was crowned! But I will chasten them, I will chasten them until they beg for mercy! I will make them suffer!”
It was a full hour before my husband was able to master his anger, and even longer before he stopped sputtering curses and threats and managed to eat his supper. We returned to the palace, having received the ceremonial welcome from the Lord Mayor and the City guilds. There were no more insulting words or flung objects, though for the remainder of our barge journey I remained alert to insolent outcries and kept looking around me, watching for rats and offal.
I was badly shaken by the incident on the river. I could not eat at all, and had to drink a good deal of calming poppy broth before I could go to bed and try—in vain—to sleep. I kept thinking about what Charyn had said weeks earlier, asking me if I was to have no coronation. I thought of the empty pearl cradle, of the harsh judgments of the strict Protestants who condemned me for lacking in sober conduct. I thought of the beautiful Madge Shelton, sailing away aboard the Great Harry with my husband, and of the somewhat improved Anna—improved in appearance but not in manner. Was she to dog my footsteps with her gloating and her unkind teasing banter?
Finally, toward morning, I managed to fall into an uneasy drowse, with the great bulk of my snoring husband by my side.
* * *
It was to be the last night we slept side by side for many days.
The day after my official welcome into the capital my husband gave orders to his privy chamber gentlemen that the door of his bedchamber was to be closed to me. And kept closed until he told them otherwise.
Tom brought me the news.
“He is irked,” Tom told me. “You know his quicksilver moods, full of happiness and generosity one moment and thundering with anger the next.”
“But why?”
Tom shook his head. “None of us knows why. He is uneasy in his mind. So many things trouble him. His leg hurts. The northerners are rebelling again. His favorite horse is spavined. He imagines that one of the yeomen of the bedchamber found a dagger hidden in his bed. He was wrong, to be sure. It was no dagger, but only a short stave, though what it was doing in his bed I cannot imagine.”
“He is angry with me for seeming to be barren. Though he is surely the one who deserves the blame.”
We were silent for a time. “Can nothing be done?” Tom asked.
“Joan has given me every remedy she knows of to administer to the king. Nothing seems to help him. Dr. Chambers blames me for the problem, as everyone knows. I cannot ask him for help.”
Tom was thoughtful for a moment. “It is said Queen Jane had a relic, a tear of the holy Virgin, that she wore around her waist. It brought her her child.”
“What became of the relic?”
“No one knows. Perhaps it was buried with her. Or perhaps she gave it to Archbishop Cranmer when he blessed her as she lay dying. She was a kind woman. She would have wanted others to have what had been precious to her. Though they say she was quite mad in her last days, with her fever.”
Tom took my hand and pulled me into a corner of the staircase, after listening for footsteps. No one was near. He kissed me and held me close, until we heard someone coming up the stairs.
“I will do my best to find out what became of the relic,” he whispered as he left me. “Think of me, dearest. And remember what I said about the privy chamber.”
* * *
The surgeons were at work, doing their best to heal my ailing husband. Once again his leg had flared up (how tedious these repeated inflammations had become to me!), and Dr. Chambers and Dr. Butts had called in half a dozen surgeons to minister to him. Knowing how he disliked having me see him when in agony and danger from his inflamed sore, I wanted to believe that the king had barred his bedchamber door to me because of his illness. Yet I knew that his order to me to stay away had come before he fell ill, several days before. So he was, as I suspected, angry with me. Punishing me, knowing full well that by barring me from his presence he was frightening me as well.
The surgeons were skillful, Tom told me. They lanced the pus-filled sores and probed them with hot irons to counteract the infections. They burned away the inflamed flesh and drained blood from a nearby vein and sewed up the wounds their painful ministrations left behind.
“They set no store at all by his ointment with the powdered pearls,” Tom told me. “They explained to him that it had made his leg much worse. You can imagine how he liked being told that! They brought leeches to suck out the poisons and he yelped with fright at the very sight of them, though I do think that, of all the remedies, the leeches help the most.”
Once again, in a grotesque way, our hopes were raised, for even the surgeons, Tom said, were shaking their heads and admitting to one another in low tones that the king could not live. Soon, I hoped, my brief uncomfortable time as queen consort would be over, and I could retire from court and, after perhaps a year of mourning, marry Tom.
But my husband, in fear of his life, sent to the French court for an apothecary he had heard of who was said to work wonders. We all awaited the arrival of this remarkable man, who was known only as S, with a great deal of interest. Intriguing newcomers were always welcome in any case, but in this instance, the mysterious S was said to be bringing with him a wonder-working remedy that would make the king well. Indeed he had the reputation of being able not only to restore health but to make the patient so strong and healthy that he or she would never be ill again.
By the time S made his appearance, the king was in a very serious state indeed, fighting for breath, crying out in pain—piteous cries, Tom said, like a wounded
animal—and so swollen and bloated he was all but unrecognizable. Tom told me how the Frenchman wasted no time in bringing forth from a velvet chest a golden vessel filled with the powerful medicine. He called it the mithridate, and said that it was a secret mixture of some seventy ingredients, including dried mummy and powdered snails, poppy juice and a piece of the flesh of a hanged man. It was an ancient remedy that had been used for centuries. Apothecaries had kept it secret since the time of the Roman emperors.
It was as if the entire court held its breath, waiting to see whether the mithridate would restore the king to health. Hours passed—and then I heard the sound of running feet in the corridor outside my apartments. A buzz of voices, muffled cries, and then the word was passed to me: the king had not died, but was breathing a little more easily. By evening he was said to be regaining a little of his strength, and on through the night there were more bits of news coming from the royal privy chamber, all of it positive.
Positive, that is, for the king. Negative for Tom and me. I told my chamberers that the tears I shed were tears of relief, of joy. But in truth I was sadly disappointed, even though I knew a relapse was always possible, no matter how amazing the French apothecary was, or how remarkable his potion.
* * *
I was to be crowned, after all. My husband had announced it, the entire court had been informed and soon, very soon, the heralds would proclaim the forthcoming coronation in towns large and small throughout the land.
I, Catherine Howard, queen consort, would receive the venerable crown from the hands of Archbishop Cranmer, amid the solemnity of Westminster, with all the peers of the realm in attendance.
The king had commanded it, and so it would be carried out, at Whitsuntide, on the second day of June.
“But surely not,” Grandma Agnes cautioned me, rushing to my bedchamber as soon as she heard the news, and barely remembering to curtsey. “Not at Whitsun. It would be bad luck. Your cousin Anne was crowned at Whitsun, and nothing but ill fortune followed.”
The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Fifth Wife Page 20