The Last Wífe of Henry VIII

by Carolly Erickson

  In the king’s barge stood the Lord High Admiral himself, tall and very handsome in his red and gold doublet and heavy gold chain of office, and Prince Edward who stood at the wheel, and Princess Elizabeth, who had been allowed to join in the make-believe by wearing the jerkin and breeches of a gunner, her bright red-gold hair tucked into a gunner’s cap. The king sat in his wheeled chair on a raised platform just behind Edward, shading his eyes from the sun and shouting orders to the crew. I sat beside him, making myself as inconspicuous as possible.

  In the papal barge were Will, dressed like the pope himself in a long red gown and tiara and blessing everyone in sight, and Princess Mary, dressed as a nun and clutching her jeweled crucifix in excitement. Mary, devout as she was, continued to surprise and delight me by her sense of humor, and she was happy to take part in the race that was about to ensue. A group of servants dressed as cardinals manned the guns of the papal boat.

  At a signal from the shore the two vessels began racing downriver, the oarsmen straining, the hundreds of spectators making a noisy clamor on shore. Drums were beating and martial music playing, and the king happily beat time, merry as a schoolboy, and clapped as the boats sped toward the King’s Bridge, their destination.

  At a prearranged signal the gunners on both barges began firing blank charges, smoke billowing out over the water with angry shouts and taunts flung back and forth between the crews. Edward turned the wheel and tried to ram the papal barge, whereupon a loud volley of explosions was heard and the mock cardinals began to fall as if wounded. Finally Will, as the pope, pretended to be struck by a musket ball and leaped headfirst into the river, followed by his cardinals and crew. Amid much laughter and applause, the prize was awarded to the king’s barge and all the actors were rescued.

  Later, at a banquet celebrating the royal victory, Tom sat next to Princess Mary—now shorn of her nun’s costume—and showed her much attention. King Henry favored Kate Brandon as his dining companion, and I found myself seated between my stepdaughter Margaret and her husband, the German physician Philip von Lederer.

  “Princess Mary is much in favor tonight,” I remarked, hoping my envy was not apparent in my voice. “That ought to put an end to those stories about Princess Elizabeth having the admiral’s child.”

  “Edward wants his sister to marry the admiral, Mother Catherine. And since Edward will be king any day now, Tom Seymour is acting in obedience to Edward’s wish.”

  Margaret was sensible and shrewd. I supposed that what she said was correct, though this was the first I’d heard of it. Without Anne Daintry to be my informant, I was no longer in possession of all the latest news. And Tom had been avoiding me, just like my servants and the court ladies.

  I watched in increasing depression of spirits as Tom made Mary laugh and blush, and lifted his glass to drink to her. He served her from the plates of food brought to the banquet table in ceaseless succession. He’s all but wiping her mouth for her, I thought bitterly—only to see him do just that, with a gallant flourish of his own napkin of fine white lawn.

  I despised Mary then, despite our ongoing friendship, and envied her her rank as the future king’s sister, and quite possibly the queen herself, should Edward die young. She had to marry someone, I realized. True, she was a papist, and Henry had been unable to find a foreign prince who would agree to marry her. But she could not reign alone. She had to have a husband. Why not Tom?

  Suddenly feeling ill, I got up from the table and went into an anteroom. A group of dancers were assembled there, dressed for their role in a pageant. The women were gowned as the Nine Muses in flowing Greek robes, the men attired as Art, Music, Poetry and so forth in whimsical finery adorned with symbols of their crafts. The dancers were rehearsing their steps, and paid little attention to me as I stood in an alcove by one of the room’s tall windows, looking out into the torchlit garden. The garden where the king had planted four thousand rose bushes to please Kate Brandon.

  In a moment Philip von Lederer joined me there.

  “Are you feeling unwell? Is there anything I can prescribe for you?” His gentle smile told me that he knew what was troubling me, and that it wasn’t only a passing stomach pang.

  I returned his smile. “If only you could prescribe something that would make me pregnant with the king’s son. That would solve everything.”

  Philip shook his head. “It’s no use. He’s too sick to become a father.”

  “Not even with Kate Brandon?”

  “Not even with her. Not with any woman.”

  “Have you ever tried telling him that?”

  “No. He has never heard the truth from his other doctors, and if I told him the truth he would reject it as a lie. He would probably send me to my death.”

  After a pause I said, “He may well send me to the stake, and soon. I have had ample warning. Some days he threatens me, other days he laughs and says he would never dream of letting me come to harm.”

  “Unfortunately he allows himself to be too easily led by those around him. The weaker he gets, the more frightened he becomes. He lets Bishop Gardiner persuade him to do whatever Gardiner wants. And all Gardiner wants is power.”

  “And I stand in his way.”

  “Yes. You must protect yourself, in any way you can.”

  I needed to protect myself. That I well knew. But how? Should I keep a ship waiting at Greenwich to take me to Spain, like Kate Brandon? Or to the Low Countries where there were many adherents of the reform belief like myself and I would not be hounded for my views? Should I go to the New World, where the Spanish and Portuguese were said to have colonies, or to the Spice Islands where the cannibals lived? Or should I simply go back up north to Yorkshire, where I felt at home, and hide myself away until Henry died? I could go on a pilgrimage, as so many did before the monasteries were destroyed, and never come back.

  But I was no coward. I would not run. I would stay at court and face whatever fate awaited me. But I would not face it alone.

  A few days later I sought out Tom and found him, after much difficulty and many inquiries, at Deptford where a new ship was being prepared for launching. He drew me into a dockside workshop full of workbenches, tools and lengths of lumber—a shipwright’s workshop. Once he had shut the doors he embraced me.

  At once I was enveloped in the warm, musky, sweaty scent of him and my blood quickened, my heart beating faster and my breath coming in uneven gasps.

  “Tom!”

  “Darling! I’ve wanted so to be with you!” He kissed my cheeks, my forehead, my lips. This was the old Tom, my dearest lover. At his touch my fears about Princess Mary almost melted away entirely.

  “I’ve longed to be with you. I’ve missed you so!” I clung to him, reassured by the feel of his strong arms holding me tightly.

  When at last he released me he held my hands and looked down at me, his face alight with love.

  “You know we can’t be together. We can’t risk being seen together. Even now, if we aren’t careful, one of Gardiner’s spies will find us. Are you sure you weren’t followed here?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  Tom let go of my hands and walked noiselessly to the door. He opened it a crack and peered out, then shut it again.

  “There is another way out. I’ll show you. You mustn’t stay here very long.”

  “Isn’t there anywhere we can meet, even for a few hours? The king has given me a manor at Chelsea. Could you come by boat, at night, and meet me there?”

  “Every house that belongs to either of us is sure to be watched. Don’t you know how much gossip there is about us? We mustn’t do anything to confirm the stories. I must stay away from you, and you from me. Now, you must go.”

  He led me into a smaller room and opened a cupboard to reveal a hidden flight of stairs.

  “At the top of these stairs is an attic. Walk along it and you’ll find another door. It leads into a room where my servants sleep. Wait until one of them comes. He’ll show you how to get
back to the palace without being seen.”

  I started up the narrow stairs, then turned to look at Tom once more.

  “Tell me the truth. Are you going to marry Princess Mary?”

  He shrugged, looking pained. “Young Edward wants me to. But I doubt if he will actually order me to, even when he becomes king. In the meantime, courting Mary is the best way to convince everyone that I am not enraptured by you! You do see that, don’t you?”

  I wanted to believe him. What he said made sense. “Yes, of course. It’s just that I miss you.”

  “I miss you too, beloved. Never doubt that. Oh, and as to our friend Gardiner, there is something you might pass on to the king. When I was in France Commander Hertford told me that all the shipments of arms the bishop sent were late, and that half the supplies were missing.”

  “Were the sailors stealing the arms?”

  “No. The cartons and chests were nailed shut, and sealed. They were only half full when they left London.”

  “Surely the bishop would not deliberately weaken the royal army!”

  “He would if he was in the pay of the French. Hertford’s men saw Gardiner’s men taking bribes from a French seneschal.”

  “And the king doesn’t know.”

  “Everyone is too afraid of Gardiner to tell him.”

  “Not everyone,” I said, and mounted the stairs.

  42

  DR. WENDY, ONE OF THE KING’S YOUNGER PHYSICIANS, CAME TO GET ME as I was preparing for bed one evening.

  “He’s worse again,” was all he had to say. I knew that the king had been ill for several days. He had kept to his room, seeing no one. I felt sure he would send for me eventually, and I was ready. I put on a velvet gown in a dark garnet color—Henry liked me in deep red shades—and dispensed with my elaborate coiffure and French hood. I was careful never to wear purple, as it angered him and led to accusations that I was trying to usurp the throne.

  Calling for my fool, I took my herbs and poultices and followed Dr. Wendy to the king’s apartments.

  “Are his hounds in the room with him?”

  “Two of them, your highness.”

  “Good.”

  We went in quietly. A lutenist was strumming in one dark corner of the vast room. On the big bed with its carved posts and curtains of cloth of gold lay the old man, his legs resting on cushions, his hands moving restlessly across the satin bedclothes.

  In the candlelight his wrinkled face was a grotesque mask, locked in a grimace of pain, and I could hear him alternately holding his breath, then releasing it with a groan. His head was bald but long gray wisps of hair hung from just above his ears, giving him the look of an aged derelict from the London streets. The costly furnishings of the room did nothing to dispel the impression he gave, as of a man without comforts, abandoned to the inevitable decay of the flesh.

  He brightened slightly when he saw me.

  “Cat! It hurts so much, Cat.”

  I went to the bed, willing myself to overcome the nausea that always came over me when I smelled his putrefying sores.

  “Shall you take a cordial, sire, to ease the pain?”

  He nodded and closed his eyes and I signaled to Dr. Wendy to prepare the opiate drink.

  “He hasn’t slept in two nights,” the doctor murmured to me as I held the goblet to Henry’s lips.

  “He will.”

  When the king had drunk the draught I whistled to the dogs and they came to the bedside, pushing their warm muzzles under the satin coverlet.

  “I’ve brought you some licorice for Tostig and Gundred.” I put the sweet soft pastilles in his thin hand and let the dogs take them, licking the hand that fed them.

  “Good dogs. Faithful dogs.” The words uttered in a rasping voice.

  “Now then, husband, shall we attend to your legs first, or would you like a song and dance or two?”

  “Both,” he said, trying to smile.

  I looked over at Ippolyta, who told the lute player to play a galliard and began hopping around the room, twirling her bright skirts with their silver spangles and banging on a little drum that hung from her belt.

  When the dance was finished she sang a Russian song—her singing and the harsh gutteral Russian sounds always amused Henry. Then she began telling a bawdy story, and Henry snorted, though I could tell that the effort to laugh hurt him.

  I had long since used every poultice and healing compound I knew of on my husband’s tortured legs. But I had recently learned of another form of treating the sores. It seemed very odd, yet I reasoned that it could do no worse than the outworn remedies that no longer seemed to have any effect.

  “What are those?” Henry asked when I extracted four earthworms from a basket.

  “Just what they look like. Garden worms.”

  “You’re not going to feed me those, I hope.”

  I laughed. “No. They feast themselves on the corruption in your legs. Or so I’m told by a healer from Hispaniola.”

  I held the wriggling creatures close to the sores and they obediently began to burrow into the rotting flesh.

  Henry shuddered. “I can feel them,” he said, closing his eyes.

  “They bury themselves deep. Like the traitors in your armies.”

  Henry’s eyes flew open. “What? What traitors?”

  “You mustn’t agitate him, your highness,” Dr. Wendy cautioned.

  “But I am already agitated.” No longer moribund, and suddenly oblivious to the pain in his legs and the worms I had attached to them, Henry struggled to sit up. “Tell me. What traitors?”

  “I am told that the chests of arms and ammunition sent to the royal armies in France were only half full, or less.”

  “Yes, that is so. We could have conquered all of Normandy if those chests had been full. We were told the sailors were thieves.”

  “I have it on the best authority, sire, that the thieves were not sailors, but our own provisioners. One in particular.”

  “Which one? Tell me and I’ll have him broken on the wheel. I’ll have him spitted and roasted. I’ll have him eaten alive by rats!”

  “If I tell you, will you promise to believe me? I swear by the holy Scriptures that what I say is true.”

  He regarded me solemnly, his angry eyes intent on mine.

  “I promise.”

  “Well then, it is Bishop Gardiner.”

  My words had a curious effect. At first the king’s yellowish forehead wrinkled in confusion, then disbelief, then renewed anger.

  “Yes,” he said, staring in front of him, his voice low. “Yes, I can believe that. Gardiner has enjoyed a sudden increase of wealth. Now I know why.”

  “There is more.”

  He looked at me intently once again, with an almost feral curling of his lip.

  “Gardiner’s officers were seen taking bribes from the French.”

  The howl that came from the king’s throat was agonized.

  “Boulogne! My Boulogne! Oh my good fallen gentlemen!”

  He wept, crying for the loss of the town, which had been seized by the enemy because the English had run short of arms and ammunition. I did my best to comfort him, pulling his head down to my chest and wrapping him in my arms while Dr. Wendy, made uncomfortable by the king’s raw show of emotion, quietly left the room.

  For many minutes neither of us spoke. Then, gradually recovering, the king sat dazed, drained and spent.

  “Worms,” he said. “All of them, Gardiner and his traitorous men. Worthless worms. Burrowing deep into their chests of French gold just like those horrid things that are eating into my legs. And to think Gardiner almost had me convinced that you were a traitor, and a heretic, Cat. But I should have known. You were the faithful one.”

  He reached over and patted my hand. “It was you who were faithful all the time.”

  As if on cue the dogs came up to the bed once again, wanting to be petted. At the sight of them the king’s eyes glistened once again.

  “I know who loves me,” he said,
stroking the dogs’ heads and scratching their ears. “I should no more have doubted you, Cat, than these loyal friends. Forgive me.”

  “I didn’t realize until today that there was anything to forgive.”

  It was a lie, of course, and we both knew it. But it was a comforting lie.

  Henry rummaged in the drawer of a small chest next to his bed. “Now then, Cat, I want you to wear this. It’s my signet ring. I gave it to Cranmer when Gardiner went to arrest him. It saved him. It will save you, if I cannot.” He put the ring on my finger and clasped my hand in both of his. Then, weary, he sank back onto the cushions of the bed, his eyes closed, his face gaunt and tired, the marks of tears on his sunken cheeks.

  43

  I WAS WHEELING MY HUSBAND IN HIS UPHOLSTERED CHAIR IN THE ROSE garden at Westminster. All around us were blooming rose bushes, their scent so sweetly pungent it was nearly overpowering. As we passed through the densely planted bushes Henry reached out and plucked a bloom. He inhaled its fragrance, then handed it to me. Smiling, I tucked the flower into one of the loops in the sleeve of my gown.

  It was midday, and the warm sun beat down on the flagstones under our feet. Henry was humming a tune he had written in his youth, a tune I knew well, “The huntsman and his snare.”

  Before long we heard the ominous sound of booted feet marching in unison. The sound became louder, and soon a large detachment of guardsmen came into view, tramping through the roses, with Chancellor Wriothesley at their head.

  “Milady Catherine, I have a warrant for your arrest. You are accused of heresy, and of being a traitor to the crown.”

  I stood still, not flinching, though there were many guardsmen and the swords at their sides flashed menacingly in the sunlight.

  I held out my hand, to show the chancellor the king’s ring.

  For a moment no one spoke or moved. Then the king got up out of his chair, supporting himself with his gold-headed cane.

  “Wriothesley!” he called out. “Come here.”