‘Write to the Princess Mary that I should be glad to see her at court for Easter and that she will be welcome as a guest in my rooms,’ she says. ‘Is that the right way to say it?’
‘Yes,’ I say, writing rapidly.
‘And write to the governess of the Lady Elizabeth that I shall be glad to see her at court too.’
My heart beats a little faster, like it does at a bear-baiting. She will walk straight into trouble if she sends these letters. These are an absolute challenge to the absolute power that is Henry. Nobody issues invitations in his household but he, himself.
‘Can you send these for me?’ she asks.
I am almost breathless. ‘I can,’ I say. ‘If you wish.’
She puts out her hand. ‘I shall have them,’ she says. ‘I shall show them to the king.’
‘Oh.’
She turns to hide a little smile. ‘Lady Rochford, I would never do anything against the king’s wishes.’
‘You have the right to have what ladies you please at your court,’ I remind her. ‘It is your right as queen. Queen Katherine always insisted that she appoint her own household. Anne Boleyn too.’
‘These are his daughters,’ she says. ‘So I shall ask him before I invite them.’
I bow, she leaves me with nothing to say. ‘Will there be anything else?’ I ask her.
‘You may go,’ she says pleasantly, and I walk from the room. I am rather conscious that she tricked me into giving her bad advice, and she knew of it all along. I must remember that she is far more astute than any of us ever credit.
A page in Norfolk livery is idling outside the queen’s rooms. He passes me a folded note and I step into one of the window embrasures. Outside the garden is bobbing with yellow Lenten lilies, daffodils, and in a chestnut tree which is studded with fattening sticky buds there is a blackbird singing. The spring is coming at last, the queen’s first spring in England. The summer days of picnics and jousts and hunting and pleasure trips, boating on the river and the summer progress around the great palaces will start again. Perhaps the king will learn to tolerate her, perhaps she will find a way to please him. I shall see it all. I shall be in her rooms, where I should be. I lean against the polished panelling to read my note. It is unsigned, like every note from the duke.
The king will keep company with the queen only until the moment that France quarrels with Spain. It is agreed. Her time with us can be measured in days. Watch her. Gather evidence against her. Destroy this.
I look around for the boy. He is leaning against the wall and idly tossing a coin, catching one side up and then the other. I beckon him to me. ‘Tell your master that she wants the princesses at court,’ I say quietly in his ear. ‘That is all.’
Katherine, Hampton Court, March 1540
The king is most angry at dinner tonight, I can tell from the way that he leads in the queen and he does not glance over to me as he usually does. I am sorry about this because I have a new gown (another one!) in creamy yellow, and it is gathered under the bust so that my breasts are on display in the most ravishing and shameless way. But it is a waste of time and trouble trying to please a man. When you are at your very best his mind is elsewhere, or when he agrees to meet you he has to go off somewhere else, with less than half a decent excuse. Tonight, the king is so cross with the queen that he hardly looks at me and I have wasted my new gown for nothing. On the other hand, there is a most delicious young man sitting at the Seymour table who is clearly appreciating the gown and the contents; but I have no time for young men any more, sworn as I am to a life of self-denial starting this Lent. I see Tom Culpepper trying to catch my eye but I don’t even look at him. I will not easily forgive him for promising to meet me and then failing me. I shall probably live and die a spinster and it will be his fault.
Why the king is angry, and what she has done, I don’t know until after dinner when I go up to the table to take her a handkerchief that she had embroidered to give to the king. It is a new fashion and very elegant. She certainly can sew. If a man prized a wife for her sewing she would be his very favourite. But she never even gives it to him, for as I come up he suddenly turns to her and says: ‘We shall have a merry court for Easter.’
She would have been better advised to say, ‘yes’, and leave it at that. But she says, ‘I am glad. I wish for the Lady Elizabeth and the Princess Mary to come to court.’
He looks furious, and I see her hands grip together on the table before her. ‘Not the Lady Elizabeth,’ he says gruffly. ‘You should not wish for her company nor she for yours.’
This is too fast for her and I see her puzzled little frown, but she understands well enough that he is saying, ‘no’.
‘Princess Mary,’ she says quietly. ‘She is my stepdaughter.’
I can hardly breathe, I am so amazed at her daring to reply. Fancy having him snarl at you like that and then standing your ground!
‘I cannot think why you should want to summon a determined Papist to court,’ he says icily. ‘She is no friend of your faith.’
The queen understands the tone well enough even if she does not quite comprehend the words.
‘I her stepmother am,’ she says simply. ‘I guide her.’
He gives a sharp bark of laughter and I am afraid of him, even if she is not. ‘She is all but your own age,’ he says unkindly. ‘I don’t think she will want any mothering from the likes of you. She was mothered by one of the greatest princesses of Christendom, and when I parted them they defied me rather than huddle together for love. D’you think she will need a girl her own age to take care of her? When she and her mother let death part them rather than deny their faith? D’you think she’ll want a mother now who can’t even speak English? She can talk to you in Latin or Greek or Spanish or French or English, but not German. And what do you have? Oh, yes, only High German.’
I know I should say something to distract his temper, but he is so spiteful and so sharp that he frightens me. I can’t say anything, I stand there like a fool and wonder how she can find the strength not to faint in her chair.
She is flushed scarlet with embarrassment, from the neck of her gown to her heavy hood, I can see the blush under her muslin shift and under the collar of gold and her neckpiece. It is painful to see her embarrassment before his anger and I wait for her to burst into tears and run from the room. But she does not.
‘I learn English,’ she says with quiet dignity. ‘All the time. And I her stepmother am.’
The king gets up from the table so fast that his heavy gold chair scrapes on the floor and almost tips over. He has to steady himself on the table. His face is red and there is a pulse beating at his temple. I am half-dead of terror just looking at him, but she is still seated, her hands gripped together on the table before her. She is like a little block of wood, rigid with fear but not moving, not crumbling. He glares down at her as if to frighten her into silence; but she speaks.
‘I shall do my duty. To our children, and to you. Forgive me if I offend.’
‘Invite her,’ he snarls and he stamps from the high table to the door behind the throne which leads to his private rooms. He hardly ever uses this door, so there is no-one there to open it for him and he has to throw it open himself, and then he is gone, and we are all left dumbstruck.
She looks at me and I see that her stillness is not calm, she is frozen with terror. Now he has gone and the court scrambling to their feet to bow to the slammed door, and we are all alone.
‘It is the queen’s right to invite ladies to her household,’ she says unsteadily.
‘You won,’ I say disbelievingly.
‘I shall do my duty,’ she says again.
‘You won,’ I repeat incredulously. ‘He said: “invite her”.’
‘It is the right thing,’ she says. ‘I do my duty, for England. I shall do my duty to him.’
Anne, Hampton Court, March 1540
I am waiting in my rooms at Hampton Court for my new ambassador who arrived late last night and is to
come to see me this morning. I had thought that the king would see him before I did, but there are no plans for a royal greeting yet.
‘Is that right?’ I ask Lady Rochford.
She looks a little uncertain. ‘Ambassadors usually have a special reception to introduce them to the court and all the king’s council,’ she says. She spreads her hands as if to say she does not know why the ambassador from Cleves is to be treated differently. ‘It is Lent,’ she suggests. ‘He should not have come during Lent but at Easter.’
I turn to the window so she cannot see the irritation in my face. He should have travelled with me, and come to England when I did. Then I would have had a representative with the king from the moment that I set foot in England, and one who would have stayed with me. Counts Overstein and Olisleger were my escorts but they knew they would leave me and go home, and they were not experienced in foreign courts. I should have had an ambassador at my side from the first day. If he had been with me at Rochester when I insulted the king at our first meeting … But this is pointless to regret. Perhaps now that he is here, he will find a way to help me.
There is a knock at the door and the two guards swing it open. ‘Herr Doktor Carl Harst,’ the guard announces, labouring over the title, and the Cleves ambassador comes into the room, looks around for me, and bows low. All the ladies in waiting curtsey while looking him over and noting, in a breeze of critical whispers, the worn shine on the collar of his velvet jacket and the scuffed heels on his boots. Even the feather in his bonnet looks as if it has had a hard journey overland from Cleves. I can feel myself flush with shame that this man should be representing my country to the wealthiest and most frivolous court in Christendom. He will make himself laughable, and me with him.
‘Herr Doktor,’ I say and stretch out my hand for him to kiss.
I can see he is taken aback by my fashionable dress, my English hood set neatly on my hair, the rich rings on my fingers and the gold chains at my waist. He kisses my hand and says in German: ‘I am honoured to present myself to you, Your Grace. I am your ambassador.’
Dear God, he looks more like a poor clerk. I nod.
‘You have broken your fast?’ I ask.
He makes a little embarrassed face. ‘I … er … I could not quite …’
‘You have not eaten?’
‘I could not find the hall, Your Grace. I am sorry. The palace is very large and my rooms are some way from the main building, and there was no-one …’
They have put him somewhere halfway to the stables. ‘You did not ask someone? There are thousands of servants?’
‘I don’t speak English.’
I am truly shocked. ‘You don’t speak English? How will you conduct the business of our country? Nobody here speaks German.’
‘Your brother the duke thought that the councillors and the king would speak German?’
‘He knows full well that they do not.’
‘And he thought I would learn English. I already speak Latin,’ he adds defensively.
I could cry, I am so disappointed. ‘You must certainly have some breakfast,’ I say, trying to recover myself. I turn to Kitty Howard who, as usual, is lingering at my side eavesdropping. She is welcome to our conversation so far. If she can speak German well enough to spy then she can translate for this useless ambassador. ‘Mistress Howard, would you send one of the maids for some bread and cheese for the ambassador? He has not broken his fast. And some small ale.’
As she goes I turn back to him. ‘Do you have any letters for me from my home?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I have instructions from your brother, and your mother sends her maternal love and hopes you are a credit to your home and have not forgotten her loving discipline.’
I nod. I would prefer it if she had sent me a competent ambassador who could also have been a credit to my home, rather than this chilly blessing, but I take the package of letters that he holds out to me, and he settles to his breakfast at one end of the table and I read my letters at the other end.
I read the letter from Amelia first. She starts with a list of the compliments that have been paid to her and how happy she is with her own court at Cleves. She likes to be in sole possession of our rooms. She tells me of her new gowns, and of dresses that were mine but have been adapted for her use. This is to form her trousseau, for she is to be married. I give a little gasp at this and Lady Rochford says kindly: ‘Not bad news I hope, Your Grace?’
‘My sister is to be married.’
‘Oh, how lovely. A good match?’
It is nothing compared to my good fortune, of course. I should be laughing at the small scale of Amelia’s triumph. But I have to blink back tears before I can answer. ‘She is to marry my brother-in-law. My older sister Sybilla is already married to the Duke of Saxony, and she is to go to their court and marry his younger brother.’ And so become a happy little neighbouring family, I think bitterly. So they are all together: mother, brother, two sisters and their two husbands, and only I am sent far away to wait for letters which bring me no joy but just continue the sense of exclusion and unkindness that my brother has dealt me all my life.
‘Not a match like yours then.’
‘There is no other match like mine,’ I say. ‘But she will like to live with my sister, and my brother likes to keep the others close.’
‘No sables for her,’ Kitty Howard points out, and makes me smile at her unending shameless greed.
‘No, that is the main thing of course.’ I smile at her. ‘Nothing matters more than sables.’
I put Amelia’s letter aside, I cannot bring myself to read her confident predictions of family Christmases and joining together for hunting in summer, and celebrating birthdays and bringing up their children, the Saxony cousins all together in the same happy nursery.
I open the letter from my mother instead. If I had hoped for some comfort here I would be disappointed. She has spoken with Count Olisleger and she is filled with anxiety. He tells her that I have been dancing with men not my husband, that I wore a gown without a muslin filet up to my ears. She hears that I have put aside Cleves dress and am wearing an English hood. She reminds me that the king married me because he wanted a Protestant bride of impeccable behaviour and that he is a man of jealous and difficult temperament. She asks me if I want to dance my way to Hell, and reminds me that there is no sin worse than wantonness in a young woman.
I put down the letter and go to the window to look out over the beautiful garden of Hampton Court, the ornate walkways near to the palace and the paths, running down to the river with the pier and the royal barges rocking at their moorings. There are courtiers walking with the king in the garden, dressed as richly as if they were going to a joust. The king, a head taller than any man in his train and broad as a bull, is wearing a cloak of cloth of gold, and a bonnet of velvet which sparkles, even at this distance, with diamonds. He is leaning on the shoulder of Thomas Culpepper, who is dressed in the most glorious dark green cloak pinned with a diamond brooch. Cleves with its uniform of fustian and broadcloth, seems a long way away. I will never be able to explain to my mother that I do not peacock in English fashions for the sake of vanity, but only so that I do not seem more despicable and more repellent than I already am. If the king puts me aside, God knows that it will not be for dressing too fine. It will be because I disgust him, and I seem to do that whether I wear my hood like my grandmother, or like pretty little Kitty Howard. Nothing I can do can please the king; but my mother could spare herself the trouble of cautioning me that my life depends upon pleasing him. I already know that. And it cannot be done. At any rate, I cannot do it.
The ambassador has finished eating. I return to the table and motion to him that he may stay seated while I read my last letter, from my brother.
Sister, he starts. I have been much troubled by the report of Counts Overstein and Olisleger as to your reception and behaviour at the court of your new husband, King Henry of England. Your mother will deal with matters of clothing and d
ecorum, I can only beg that you listen to her and do not allow yourself to be led into behaviour that can only embarrass us, and shame yourself. Your tendency to vanity and ill-conditioned behaviour is known to us all; but we hoped that it would remain a family secret. We beg you to reform, especially now that the eyes of the world are upon you.
I skip the next two pages, which are nothing but a list of the times that I have disappointed him in the past and warnings that a false step at the English court could have the gravest consequences. Who would know this better than I?
Then I read on.
This letter is to introduce the ambassador who will represent our country to King Henry and his council. You will extend to him every assistance. I expect you to work closely with him to further our hopes for this alliance that has so far disappointed us. Indeed, the King of England seems to think that he has made a very vassal of Cleves and now he is hoping for our alliance against the emperor, with whom we have no quarrel and are not likely to make one to oblige your husband or you. You should make this clear to him.
I understand that a senior Englishman, the Duke of Norfolk, has enjoyed a visit to the French court and there is no doubt in my mind but that England is drawing closer to France. This is the very thing that you were sent to England to prevent. Already, you are failing your country of Cleves, failing your mother, and me. The ambassador should advise you as to how you can do your duty and not forget it in the pleasures of the flesh.
I have provided him with transport to England and a servant to attend him, but you will have to pay him directly. I assume, from what I hear of your jewels and your new clothes and other ungodly extravagances including, I am told, expensive sables, that you can well afford to do this. Certainly, you would do better to spend your new-found wealth on the future of your country than on items of personal vanity and adornment which can only attract contempt. Just because you have been raised to a high position does not mean that you can neglect your conscience as you have done in the past. I urge you most earnestly to mend your ways, Sister. As the head of your house I advise you to abjure vanity and wantonness.
Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Page 131