My consort of viols began to play a lively volta and Will, who loved to dance and was a graceful and skillful dancer, came up to me and held out his hand. I gladly took it and let him lead me out onto the bare tiles where the rushes had been swept back and a space cleared for dancing.
For a few carefree moments I lost myself in the pleasure of whirling and leaping in the intricate steps of the dance, even though my pulse raced and my dizziness and queasiness increased. When Will and I danced together we were always applauded, and Will’s nimble jumps met with shouts of admiration. Soon other dancers joined us until all the guests were caught up in the joyful commotion. Even the Duke of Najera was jumping high and twirling his partner with skill and finesse.
When the dance was over I went and sat down next to Henry, whose energy and high spirits, I could tell, had begun to flag and who was in evident pain.
“Here, my dear,” I said, smoothing out my embroidered damask skirt, “rest your leg on me.”
With difficulty he lifted his heavy, stinking leg up and heaved it onto my lap. I braced myself to receive the weight. With a sigh he leaned back in his great high chair and closed his eyes while I massaged the soreness away as best I could.
We stayed as we were, content to watch the others dancing and feasting, for an hour or more until the guest of honor took his leave and came up to us to say his farewells. He bowed and kissed my outstretched hand.
“Is your majesty feeling any better?” he asked.
“Enjoyable company always lifts my spirits.”
I smiled as graciously as I could while the Duke of Najera took his formal leave, bowing low to my husband and assuring him of Emperor Charles’s continuing brotherly fidelity.
I had not answered the duke’s question directly, I had evaded it. In truth I did not feel better, nor were my spirits improved. If anything I felt worse. My husband’s approaching departure, the duties that would fall on my shoulders after he left, Bishop Gardiner’s challenge to me over Anne Daintry and above all, my trepidation and excitement about being with Tom combined to increase my biliousness. For a moment I stopped rubbing Henry’s leg and rubbed my own stomach instead, hoping to ease the increasing discomfort I felt and the taste of bile in my throat.
36
WITH A FLOURISH OF TRUMPETS AND THE BEATING OF A THOUSAND drums the great army embarked for France.
First came the archers and bowmen in their leather jerkins, longbows of polished ashwood slung over their arms, then came the gunners, their huge guns drawn in carts behind them pulled by straining oxen, then the tall, stern-featured morris pike men, muscular as wrestlers, then the guardsmen in red tunics with blue and gold banners flying, and in the vanguard, the sappers and miners, mortar-makers and coopers, smiths and surgeons and butchers.
Gentlemen officers in doublets and hose of white satin commanded the feudal levies, armed tenants formed into hordes of marching men, carrying bills and pikes and with gleaming knives at their waists.
Armed at all points, and wearing special armor that did not chafe his throbbing legs, the king rode up to his flagship surrounded by the Calais Spears. It was his hour of glory, I thought, watching the embarkation from a specially built platform on shore with a huge crowd of onlookers around me. The start of his last campaign. Even though he had to be lifted up onto his huge warhorse by a winch, Henry was still a formidable warrior, who commanded loyalty from his troops and admiration and affection from all those who remembered him in his younger days.
Henry waved his plumed hat to me from on board his flagship, and I waved back. We had said our goodbyes earlier that day, and I had given him a gift, a gold-hiked sword made by his armorer Erasmus Kyrkenar engraved with an encouraging message.
“Rejoice Boulogne,” it read, “in the rule of the Eighth Henry! Thy towers are adorned with crimson roses, now are the ill-scented lilies uprooted and prostrate, the cock is expelled and the lion reigns in the invincible citadel.”
The French-held town of Boulogne was the army’s destination; to besiege it successfully was the principal object of the English campaign. Henry received his gift with delight, and ordered the sword carried alongside him by servants, who also carried his heavy musket and long metal lance.
I continued to watch as the ships were loaded and then as, with the turning of the tide, they sailed out of the harbor and were soon lost over the far horizon.
“Someone ought to put the old man out of his misery,” Tom muttered as we lay in each other’s arms, replete from lovemaking. We were at Sudeley Castle, Tom’s lovely rural estate in Gloucestershire built of weathered golden stone quarried from the surrounding hills. We were enjoying the first true privacy we had known in many months, though Tom was clearly nervous and he kept listening for footsteps in the corridor outside our bedchamber.
“If he doesn’t die of the heat and the camp fevers first.”
“He’s flourishing. This campaigning seems to invigorate him. They’ve already taken some of the smaller towns and according to the last despatch I had, the army is assembling in the vicinity of Boulogne.”
I looked over at Tom, his long reddish-blond hair tangled against the lace-trimmed pillow, his handsome face more stern and set than I remembered it in the past.
“Old men die in war—and usually not from wounds.” His voice, normally so soft and deep and rich, was grating, his words harsh.
“Did you want very much to go on this campaign?”
“What do you think, Cat?” he said, raising himself up on one elbow and looking down at me. I could not help but flinch under his gaze. “Do you imagine that I am finding it easy to stay here in England, fiddling with accounts and dealing with Italian bankers, while my brother and your brother-in-law Hertford and old Brandon are leading the men into battle? I resent it every day.”
“But with you here, we can be together.”
“When old Harry dies we can be together permanently. And without any fear of meddling by that self-righteous demon Gardiner or his spy Thomas Burgh.”
“My former father-in-law?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know? The two have become as thick as thieves. Burgh has been poking his nose into everything, looking for sins against the Ten Commandments so that the good bishop can burn more people at the stake.”
I looked at him, admiring for the hundredth time his fine profile, smelling his rich masculine smell, and once again my heart melted. He could do no wrong, say no wrong. I tried to snuggle closer to him and reached up to kiss his cheek with its bristling stubble.
“All that matters, dearest one, is that we are together now. This is our eternity.”
“And all I know is that it is taking an eternity for the king to die.” He got up and began putting on his clothes.
Dismayed, I watched him. I knew better than to try to make him stay longer. He was restless these days, watchful and with an underlying anxiety that troubled me.
When he was dressed, he turned back toward the bed.
“I need a loan, Cat. Ten thousand pounds.”
“I’ve already loaned the king seven thousand, for the war.”
“It’s only for a few weeks. You can get a loan against your rents.”
“This is July, Tom. My rents are not due until October, after the harvest is in.”
“I know, I know. But the bankers will lend to you, you are the queen. They wouldn’t dare refuse you as they do me. Besides, if I know you, you have never been late in repaying your accounts. You keep your heart pure and your silken petticoat clean and pay your debts on time.”
He was right, of course. I was conscientious about everything. Everything but my love for him, that is; where my love for Tom was concerned, I was careless, reckless, daring. As well he knew.
“Well? Can you get me the money?”
“I’ll send Uncle William’s deputy to London in the morning.” My uncle William was the controller of my household, and in charge of overseeing my accounts. But he was in France, with the Calais Spears. In his absenc
e one of his servants would have to go to see the Flemish or Italian bankers in the capital.
“What is it for, Tom?”
“What is it for? You’ve seen this place of mine. It’s crumbling. It was built in the time of Ethelred the Redeless, you know, about a hundred centuries ago, and old Ethelred was no builder. The roof has fallen in, the walls have holes in them, the tenants don’t pay their rents—yes, I know, I must get a new steward to look after all that, you remind me often enough!”
I sighed. “All right, Tom. I’ll see to the money. And you will let me have it back in a few weeks?”
He nodded impatiently. “I must be off.”
“When will I see you again, dearest?”
He shrugged. “Soon,” he muttered, and was off out the door, leaving me crestfallen and with a hollow feeling just behind my ribs, near my heart.
37
YOUR HIGHNESS, WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITH THE SCOTS PRISONERS? There are too many of them to feed, and they are dying.”
I sat at the head of the council table in the painted chamber at Whitehall, wearing my purple velvet gown whose royal color gave me strength to face the unruly council members, and listened to the question.
“I would hear more of this matter,” I said.
“Your majesty is aware that Lord Hertford’s army took some two thousand Scots prisoners after the latest border raids, and they are being housed in the jails of Durham and Newcastle and the nearby towns. Some have the jail fever. None have enough to eat.”
I opened my mouth to respond but Bishop Gardiner was too quick for me.
“The Scots are false, deceiving wretches who defy the king’s authority. They deserve to die. Let them die.”
There were outcries of protest from others around the table and wrangling broke out. “Kill them all! Burn their crops,” said some harsh voices. “We must not be as savage as they,” said others. “They have not all been tried. Some may be innocent.”
I held up my hand and the commotion died down. “By the queen’s authority,” I said, “and in the king’s name, let the most villainous of them be sent to our jail at Alnwick, and let those closest to death be fed at our royal charge.” I nodded to my comptroller who began counting out coins from a small chest at his feet and putting them into a leather pouch. “The rest can be released if they put up a bond to guarantee their good behavior.”
Bishop Gardiner snorted. “Good behavior! No Scot understands good behavior!”
The council secretary wrote down my decision and passed the writing to me. I signed it, in my large broad hand, “Kateryn the Queen Regent,” and he sealed it.
“Take this letter and the purse of coins to the jails and see that my orders are carried out.”
“Foolishness,” the bishop said, but no one echoed him, and we passed on to the next matter to be discussed.
It had been like this ever since the king left for France. Fractious councillors, emergency decisions to be made, petitioners coming to me at all hours of the day and night with papers to sign and messages to deliver. I had no idea the tasks of rulership were so many and so demanding.
“With your highness’s concurrence, we must take another loan, for forty thousand pounds.” It was Wriothesley who spoke, dark-faced and unsmiling.
“Didn’t we just take a loan last week?”
“We have another urgent request from my lord of Norfolk.”
“Very well, if we must. But each time we borrow, the usury rates rise.”
“No one profits in war but the bankers,” was Archbishop Cranmer’s remark, his gentle voice a contrast to the shrill and strident tones of the others.
“Even as we debate here and borrow money to aid the killing in France, let us bow our heads to remember all those who are dying.”
“Amen. Let the council be silent for the space of the Lord’s Prayer.”
A silence fell. All bowed their heads. I prayed for the dying—and for strength and wisdom to carry out my task.
“Now let us resume, my lords.”
An hour later the wrangling and debating was still going on, and my head had begun to ache from the effort of keeping control over the pace and direction of the meeting. A quarrel had arisen over some French sailors captured by the fishermen of Rye after the French ship they were sailing in foundered. Should they be executed as spies or put to the rack and tortured until they revealed all they knew about a plot to invade the south coast?
“My lords, we will be prudent in this matter,” I said at length. “I will write to the king about the Frenchmen and let him decide what should be done.”
At that moment the doors to the council chamber burst open with a violence that made them crash against the painted walls.
“LET him decide? Let him decide? He decides now: the French will die. Every last man. If I have to kill them myself!”
It was King Henry, scowling angrily and wielding the heavy sword I had given him when he left for France nearly five months earlier. Grunting with effort he lifted the immense sword and brought it down in the center of the council table, smashing the thick oak in pieces and sending the panicked councillors running to the corners of the room. I stayed where I was, too startled to move and hampered in any case by the bunched folds of my long purple skirt.
“My lord king!” I cried when I found my voice. “My dear husband! We did not expect your return for another ten days at the earliest!”
“That is quite evident. I see you are taking my place very competently. I hope you are not expecting to replace me permanently any time soon.” With an agility remarkable in one so stout he picked up the heavy sword and ran his finger over the blade, whose smooth metal edge had been chipped and broken in places by the force of his blow.
“How can you say such a thing, husband, when it was you yourself who placed on me this burden of governance? A burden I gladly relinquish as of this moment. Very gladly indeed.”
I rose from my place at the head of the smashed table and knelt at the king’s feet.
“That is not what I have been hearing. I have been hearing that you have been enjoying your role immensely That you have played the king with a sure and firm hand. An overly firm hand. You are even wearing the royal color, purple. Clearly, like so many others at this court, you are waiting impatiently for me to die, so you can take over.”
Bishop Gardiner was smiling and nodding. Archbishop Cranmer, to his credit, looked dismayed (he knew me to be a woman without worldly ambition) but was too reticent a man to oppose the king openly.
“Milord, you do me an injustice. I have been exhausted by this thankless task of being regent. You read the letters I sent you. I told you how impatient I have been for your return. Only you can govern this realm—you and your councillors. I am a poor substitute.”
Ignoring my protest, the king motioned to a groom to take his sword and asked for his chair of state. When it was brought he sat down with a sigh of relief and looked around the room.
The councillors, standing in little knots of two and three against the walls, ceased to cower and, following the king’s beckoning finger, seated themselves on their long benches amid the wreckage of the council table. I remained kneeling.
“Bring a chair for the queen,” Henry said and a chair was brought.
“Now, Cat,” he said when I was seated, “what’s this I hear about you leading your women in Bible reading and theology? Have you really been telling them that they need no priests or church to be saved? And that there is no such thing as purgatory? That is heresy, Cat. Are you a heretic as well as a would-be ruler?”
“I thought the Inquisition was confined to Spain and Rome, sire. It appears to have taken root in England as well.”
“Mind your tongue, woman, and remember that you are addressing your sovereign, who is head of the church in these realms.” It was the high, unpleasant voice of Bishop Gardiner.
“I am addressing my husband, milord bishop. The man who chose me as his wife—so he confided to me—for my piety and g
oodness. Sire,” I went on, turning to Henry, “someone has been misleading you. I am no heretic, but a true daughter of the church.”
“Ah! So it is only that those around you are leading you into heresy.”
“There are no heretics in my household, as far as I am aware.”
“And is it true that you have been writing a book on matters of faith?”
“Only a small devotional work, sire, in which I call attention to my faults.”
I noted that the king’s voice was lower and his tone much less wrathful than earlier. As usual, his outburst of violent anger, while severe, passed quickly, leaving him fatigued.
“I will talk further of these matters,” he said. “But for now, the council meeting is at an end.” He waved the men away and they left the room, all but Bishop Gardiner. A few of them glanced at me as they left, some in concern, most in apprehension, for the king’s suspicion, once kindled, was inclined to spread.
“I must have the truth,” Henry said when only the three of us were left in the room and the bishop had closed the thick doors with a fateful-sounding click of the lock. “Is it true that you have an ill-living woman in your service, the laundress Anne Daintry, and that she has led you into heresy?”
“No, my husband, it is not true. She reads her Bible daily, and says her prayers, and is reformed in her manner of living. She seeks only a return to modest respectability. She and her children have been under my protection for several years.”
“Your generous impulses lead you into error, madame, as I have pointed out to you often in the past.”
“May I remind your highness,” the bishop put in, “that there can be no protection for those who espouse blasphemy and error? And that anyone in the queen’s household who lives sinfully brings dishonor upon her mistress?” The bishop was skillful with words. His accusations stung.
I felt the blood rising to my cheeks and resisted the impulse to give in to anger. Instead I knelt once again at Henry’s feet, and this time I sensed a response from him. For the first time since he made his startling appearance in the council chamber I felt his presence as a man—and a man who loved me.
The Last Wífe of Henry VIII Page 24