The Last Wífe of Henry VIII

by Carolly Erickson

  I looked at my mother questioningly. “But I thought Queen Catherine only had a daughter, Princess Mary.”

  “Yes,” my mother answered through clenched teeth. “She does.”

  “Then who is this boy?”

  “He’s the son of Bessie Blount. Now, bow to King Henry and say nothing.”

  I obeyed. We bowed low to the king as he passed, smiling and chortling over his boy. He moved on, and I watched his retreating figure, thrilled to have been so near to him, honored that he should glance in my direction, and above all puzzled that with such a lovely wife and well-behaved daughter he should show such a marked preference for a mistress and a bastard son.

  2

  IN THE END MY MOTHER’S EFFORTS TO ARRANGE A MARRIAGE FOR ME WITH Lord Scrope’s grandson came to nothing. The aging lord was a shrewd negotiator, and my mother had little to bargain with beyond the queen’s sponsorship, my bit of royal blood and my good looks. I had no lands or wealthy titled relations, and I was not an heiress.

  Mother kept on trying. There were other meetings with men—and a few women—who looked me over and considered me as a future bride for their sons or grandsons. I did my best to be agreeable. But I got older and older and no betrothal was agreed upon. My lack of a large dowry always got in the way. By the time I was fourteen mother was nearly frantic with worry. But by then, of course, she had found another way to secure my future, indeed to secure the future of the entire Parr family.

  There were three of us children. I am the eldest, my brother Will is a year younger than I am and my sister Anne two and a half years younger. My brother, who at thirteen was already tall and broad-shouldered and who made friends easily, had the rare gift of being able to make everyone laugh. When mother took him to court he was a great success. He learned jokes and tricks from Queen Catherine’s Spanish dwarf jesters Diego and Leon and from Jane the Fool, the king’s principal entertainer, he learned how to sharpen his witty jests and barbs so as to amuse the courtiers without making them angry.

  Everyone wanted Will to sit near them at dinner, and to entertain them with his mimicry and funny stories. Of course, he often went too far, catching frogs in the moat and putting them in the queen’s chamber pot, unhinging the king’s jousting armor so that the carcinet fell off as soon as he tried to put it on, putting soap on the privy closet stairs to make people fall down when they tried to climb them and dropping pig bladders full of water on dancers at royal banquets. We were used to these tiresome pranks within the family, and accepted them with resigned good humor because Will always made us laugh when he talked and his silliness redeemed him in our eyes so that we forgave his excesses.

  What surprised us all was how Will’s lighthearted nature and constant store of good humor won over one of the great heiresses of King Henry’s court, Anne Bourchier.

  I first met Anne one afternoon in the garden of the king’s palace at Hampton Court—the one that used to belong to Cardinal Wolsey until the king asked him for it—and she was demanding that Old Squibb, one of the palace gardeners, pick some roses for her.

  “I’ll have some of those red ones,” she said, pointing vaguely in the direction of some bushes bearing masses of blooms. Old Squibb, white-haired and slow-moving, the pain of his swollen joints evident on his grimacing features, bent to do her bidding.

  “Not those, you imbecile, those over there.” Her voice was querulous, petulant, and curiously high. The voice of a spoiled child, not a smooth-skinned, fair-haired, shapely young woman whose costly silken gown trimmed in gold spoke of wealth and breeding.

  The old gardener, puzzled, began cutting roses from a different bush only to trigger Anne’s impatience when he handed her a fistful of red blossoms.

  She cried out and threw them on the ground.

  “These have thorns! Remove them at once!” She thrust a bleeding finger in her mouth.

  Old Squibb shrugged. “Roses have thorns, milady. That’s the way they grow.” He bent down to retrieve the rejected flowers.

  She looked at him coldly. “I’ll tell my father you said that. He’ll have you dismissed.”

  “Or you could pick your own roses, forget what happened here and let Old Squibb know how beautiful his garden is,” I said, walking up to the startled Anne and handing her the pruning knife I had been using to cut some lavender.

  The gardener nodded to me, and I returned his greeting with a smile. “He was growing roses here before you or I were born. Isn’t that right, Squibb?”

  “Indeed it is, milady. When I was a boy I served the old king, the good one. King Edward. He loved his flowers, King Edward. Why, I remember—”

  “Enough! Get on with your work and be silent!”

  Anne turned to me and looked at me scornfully. I was suddenly aware that my old sarsnet day gown of a dull mulberry color, made over from one of Grandmother Fitzhugh’s, was shabby compared to her finery of peach-colored silk.

  “You’re Cat Parr, aren’t you. The one they can’t seem to find a husband for. How old are you now, fourteen? Fifteen? Pity. Still, I daresay there must be some convent somewhere that would have you as a nun.”

  “I don’t see a betrothal ring on your hand, and I believe you are several years older than I am.”

  She laughed, a laugh with a bitter edge.

  “Oh, that’s our choice. Mine and my father’s.” I was well aware of who Anne’s father was, the very wealthy and influential Earl of Essex, one of the luminaries of the court.

  Anne sighed. “Everybody wants to marry me. Or rather, to marry my fortune.”

  “You mean your father’s fortune.”

  She gave a dismissive shrug. “What does it matter? My father is rich and I’ll be rich one day soon, because he is old.”

  The callousness of Anne’s remark took me aback. Didn’t she love her father at all? I thought of my own father, who at the time of my conversation with Anne had been dead for many years. How I wished he were still alive to talk to and go to for advice!

  I saw out of the corner of my eye that Old Squibb was approaching me, holding out a bunch of sweet william. “These have no thorns,” he said, and walked slowly away again, ignoring Anne. I called out my thanks to his retreating back.

  “When I marry,” I said to Anne, “I hope it will be for love.”

  She snorted. “Love! Like the king and Mistress Anne?”

  “Hush! We must not speak of such things. They concern only the king and queen.”

  “What a little prig you are! Everyone is talking about the king and his mistress—and wondering whether he’s going to divorce the queen, and why Mistress Anne Boleyn isn’t pregnant!”

  It was the scandal of the court, in that year of 1527. Our King Henry, our warrior king and great champion, had become enamored of the Duke of Norfolk’s niece Anne Boleyn, the black-eyed gypsylike girl I had once thought so striking when I saw her in Flanders in the Golden Valley. Then she had been a maid of honor to the French queen; now she was a maid of honor to Queen Catherine, and King Henry’s favorite. She had displaced Bessie Blount and all the king’s other sweethearts, even her own sister, who, it was said, had borne the king a halfwit son.

  “She isn’t pregnant,” I said, keeping my voice low, “because she is a virtuous girl. Not like her sister.”

  “She’s no more virtuous than I am. She’s only doing what she’s told, by all her relations. Don’t give in to the king, they are telling her. Wait until he puts the queen aside. Then let him crown you. That’s what they’re saying. But then, you’re too young to understand.

  “Now, when I marry,” Anne went on, “it will be for diversion. For amusement. Someone to keep the awful boredom of life at bay.”

  I thought to myself, how could anyone find life boring? When there was so much to see and do, so many interesting books to read and people to converse with. Walks to take and sights to see. To Anne I said, “I expect to love my husband and find him amusing. And handsome, and intelligent, and kind, and affectionate—”

&n
bsp; “And rich, and famous, and saintly—”

  We both began laughing. For the first time I saw something other than hauteur and hostility in Anne’s eyes. I saw, for a moment, liveliness and even a hint of friendliness. Then the moment passed.

  “Well, may all your romantic dreams come true.” She swept up her skirts and left the garden, ignoring Old Squibb who looked up from his weeding as she passed, and shook his head.

  It was only a few weeks later that mother told me, a look of immense relief and satisfaction on her face, that my brother Will was betrothed—to Anne Bourchier!

  So she has got what she wanted, I thought to myself. She has found her diversion and amusement—my very amusing brother!

  I told mother about my encounter with Anne and how self-centered and vain I thought she was.

  “That’s true enough. But don’t forget, dear, she’s an earl’s daughter. Everyone caters to her. She’s never known anything different. I moved heaven and earth to arrange this betrothal. I had to borrow from Uncle William, and even from your grandmother Fitzhugh. All your dowry funds went into obtaining Anne for William, and your sister’s dowry too of course. Don’t worry, once we have an earl’s daughter in the family you two girls will have all the offers you can handle.”

  My grandmother Fitzhugh, whose lineage was as high as Anne Bourchier’s, disapproved of the match for William and came up from the country to London, to our house at Blackfriars, to tell my mother so.

  “I don’t like it, Maud,” she said bluntly. “I know the girl. She’s flighty. Irreverent. No sense of family. No dignity. Only snobbishness. Probably a heretic.”

  I had to smile. Grandmother called everyone she was suspicious of a heretic. For several years we had been hearing about heretics, rebellious and dangerous followers of the German renegade monk Martin Luther. They were said to spread harmful ideas and to refuse obedience to the Holy Father in Rome. Grandmother blamed them for all the evils in the world.

  As soon as Will’s betrothal was announced our lives began to change. Tradesmen sought our business. Italian bankers came to see mother and offered to lend her money, which enabled her to repay grandmother and Uncle William and to buy luxuries we had never had before. All this newfound abundance came from Anne’s future inheritance. Knowing that she would one day be very wealthy, merchants and bankers were more than willing to lend money now—at high rates of interest of course.

  Will’s wedding was very grand. My sister Nan and I held our new sister-in-law’s long silk train and there were masses of lilies and gillyflowers, roses and flowering vines decorating the royal chapel. A bishop in gold vestments conducted the wedding mass, and the queen and many court dignitaries were present.

  The Parrs were rising in the world. We moved to a finer mansion not far from our old house near Blackfriars. Uncle William, who had always been ambitious for our family and who had at one time been a gentleman of the chamber to the old king Henry VII, was rapidly becoming a wealthy landowner. He was borrowing a great deal, my mother told me, from the Italian bankers and buying estates in the North Country.

  One day he came into the room where mother and I were sitting, rubbing his large hands together in satisfied anticipation.

  “Well, Maud, it is all but done,” he said. “They are coming this afternoon to look her over, but it is all but done.”

  “What is done?” I asked, feeling uneasy. Mother laid aside her embroidery and picked up her little tawny lapdog, holding him and stroking him as she did when she was nervous. She watched Uncle William’s face intently.

  “Why, Catherine’s betrothal of course. It’s high time she married.”

  “But you know I have been negotiating with Lord Abergavenny for her to marry his son. I have hopes that this time my efforts will be successful.”

  Uncle William waved one hand dismissively.

  “That scrawny boy? I’ve seen him on the tiltyard and he can barely couch a lance, much less unhorse an opponent. He’s a weakling, a sickly weakling. I doubt he’ll last five summers. Besides, Lord Abergavenny doesn’t have much money.”

  “You can’t go judging every potential husband for Catherine by his skill in the tiltyard. Just because you were a champion at sixteen, or was it eighteen, doesn’t mean that any man she marries has to be an athlete.”

  I thought I saw Uncle William smile ever so slightly at this remark as he murmured “True enough.”

  I had met Lord Abergavenny’s son, and had no special liking for him, as he was shy and clumsy and had a constant silly half-smile on his face. Yet I knew that mother wanted me to marry him, and had been working hard to bring about our betrothal. Now Uncle William was shattering all mother’s efforts—and my hopes.

  “No, we will do much better for you, Catherine, than the puny son of Lord Abergavenny. It was Lord Burgh himself who approached me, as we were doing business together, inquiring whether you were free to marry into his family.”

  “Ah, the Burghs,” my mother said, relaxing a little. “There are three of them, always together at court. Only the old man bears the title, of course, but in the queen’s chamber we call them Old Burgh, Middle Burgh and Young Burgh.” She laughed. “The old one drools, the middle one pinches and the young one is still wet behind the ears.”

  All three of the Burghs called on us that afternoon, and as I was introduced to them I saw the fitness of my mother’s description. Old Burgh, the holder of the title Lord Burgh, who leaned on his son’s arm, was stooped and bent and his gray hair hung in untidy wisps around his long, lined face. His eyes were bright as he looked at me, however, and though his thin lips were wet and parted, I saw no drool escape them. Middle Burgh, a spry and dapper man dressed in fine velvet whose intense face was almost womanish in its beauty, paid little attention to me but was effusive in greeting my uncle, whom he appeared to know well, and looked lingeringly and appreciatively at my mother, who as I have said before, was very pretty and very charming.

  Young Burgh, who I liked immensely the moment I saw him, was a boy of about my own age who grinned at me as if to say, you and I have nothing to do with these old people! The boy had wavy brown hair and soft brown eyes and such smooth cheeks that I wondered if he had begun to be shaven yet. I wanted to sit beside him but knew I must not appear too eager. I sat beside my mother, yet when I looked over at Young Burgh I saw that he was looking at me, and we smiled at each other again.

  Middle Burgh took charge of our little gathering, saying how happy he was to meet me and what pleasure it gave him that I was willing to become part of his family.

  “Are you fond of Lincolnshire?” It was the loud, shrill voice of Old Burgh, interrupting his son. “The fens? The wolds?”

  “I have never been there,” I was forced to admit, “but I believe it is a very beautiful place. Very—remote.”

  “People are often drowned in The Wash while trying to get there,” Young Burgh put in, making me laugh. I was sure he had done it deliberately. Middle Burgh glared at him.

  I remembered being told by my tutor that once long ago King John crossed The Wash and lost the crown jewels when the tide came in too quickly for him to escape with all his possessions.

  “Gainesborough Hall is an exceptional property—er, house,” Middle Burgh went on.

  “With many farms and tenants, I believe,” said my uncle.

  “Seventeen farms, all fully tenanted. Turnips, winter corn, meadowland for grazing. Abundant stock, of course.”

  I exchanged glances with Young Burgh.

  “We have abundant stock on our farms in the North,” my mother remarked, trying to keep up her end of the conversation. The men ignored her.

  “How about swans?” Old Burgh piped up, looking at me. “Do you like swans?”

  “I like them roasted, of course. Or baked, with sweetmeats and truffles.”

  A look of horror crossed the old man’s wrinkled features.

  “He raises swans as pets,” Young Burgh explained to me. “He can’t bear to eat them.”
>
  “I’m sorry,” I told Old Burgh. “Yes, I enjoy watching our swans, in the river.” Our house was just by the riverbank. At high tide the wherries, the swans and the floating garbage from downriver all drifted past our windows. “And I don’t eat them very often. Only on feast days.”

  Young Burgh stood up. “Shall we see if there are any in the river now? I’d like to see your gardens.”

  “Yes, dear. You two young people go on. We can talk business in here without you.” It was my mother’s encouraging voice.

  “But I—” Old Burgh said, attempting to rise to his feet.

  “Stay where you are, father. If you try to get up you’ll fall over.”

  Young Burgh held out his hand to me and I took it, eagerly, and we left the room.

  As we stepped out into the sunshine and began to stroll together by the riverside I was aware of two things. First, the feel of Young Burgh’s warm large hand holding mine. A feeling that made me smile and go limp with pleasure. And second, the heat of the sun on my upturned face.

  “I’m Ned,” Young Burgh said.

  “I’m Cat.”

  “You’re Will’s sister. I beat Will at wrestling.”

  “He’s not much of a wrestler. Besides, you’re older.”

  “True. But even if we were the same age, I would beat him. I try harder. I want to win.”

  I saw no reason to disagree. We paused to look out across the river, still hand in hand. Church bells chimed the hour, and a wherryman called out “Bridge ho!” as he prepared to guide his craft through the fast-moving waters under a stone arch.

  I looked up at Ned, thinking to myself, this is the man I am going to marry. The man who will be the father of my children. I was excited and happy. It could have been so much worse. He could have been someone ugly, or ill-tempered, or unmanly, or hideously marked with the pox. Instead he was Ned: tall, sturdily made, with pleasing looks, brown hair that curled at his ears and friendly brown eyes. How could I have done better?