by C. J. Sansom
Beside me Philip said softly, ‘And so it ends.’
IT WAS A FORTNIGHT later that the horseman brought the note to chambers, riding from Chelsea through the heavy snow that had lain for days. Henry was buried now, and little King Edward crowned. There was a tale that while lying overnight on the way to Windsor, Henry’s body had exploded, that stinking matter had dripped out and attracted the attention of a dog, fulfilling an old friar’s prophecy that the dogs should lick Henry’s blood as they had Ahab’s in the Bible. But that sounded too neat, and I doubted it had happened.
I was working in my room when the messenger arrived, while outside Skelly prepared a case for court and Nicholas laboured, inky-fingered, over a deposition. I recognized the seal at once. That of the Queen; the Queen Dowager, as she was now. I opened the letter, bright light from the snow-covered square outside making the copperplate lettering stand out on the white paper. It was brief, from a secretary, asking me to attend her the following afternoon at Chelsea Palace.
I laid it down. I had not expected to hear from Catherine Parr again; after that confrontation with the King, I had tried, so far as I could, to put her from my mind. But the King’s edict against my coming near had died with him. I had been sorry that Catherine Parr had not, as she had hoped, been appointed Regent, though glad when people said the King had been generous in his Will to her, as well as to the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth; each now had great wealth and status of their own. People said Catherine Parr might marry again, in time, and the name Thomas Seymour was mentioned.
I RODE TO Chelsea alone. Genesis plodded his way out of London slowly, for the roadway was covered with compacted snow and ice. Chelsea Palace, on the riverbank, was a fine new mansion of red brick, set in wide gardens which would be beautiful when spring came; I estimated it could easily house a staff of two hundred. The guards at the gate still wore the Queen’s livery. I was admitted, a steward taking me to the house. Inside, servants passed quietly to and fro, but there were no guards on the doors as at Whitehall, no sidling politicians. He led me to a door at the rear of the mansion, and knocked. A familiar voice bade him enter.
I followed the steward into a large room. I recognized some of the items displayed there from the Queen’s Gallery: an ornate clock, her box of coins which lay on the table beside a chess set. The Queen Dowager herself stood with her back to a large bay window, her black mourning clothes and gable hood contrasting with the snow-covered lawns outside. I bowed low. She dismissed the steward.
‘Matthew,’ she said. ‘It has been many months.’
‘Yes, your majesty.’
Her pale face was as attractive and composed as ever. In her stance I discerned a new relaxation, a new authority. Gently, she said, ‘I am sorry that your efforts to help me ended – badly. I know now who had the Lamentation. And what happened to you – and your poor servant.’
I wondered, did she know that I had lied to the King for her? I could not tell from looking at her, and I must not ask. ‘The book has been returned to you?’
‘Yes. By the Protector.’ I discerned a little bite in her voice at mention of the man who had taken the position she had hoped for. She added, ‘I plan to publish it later this year.’
I looked at her, surprised. ‘Is that – safe, your majesty?’
‘Quite safe, now. Master Cecil has offered to write a preface. He thinks, like me, that the Lamentation of a Sinner may help some suffering souls to salvation. He remains a good friend.’
‘I am glad. He is a young man of great talent.’
‘And you shall have a copy, signed by me.’
‘I – thank you.’
She came a step closer. ‘But I say again, I know what the search for it cost you.’ Her hazel eyes looked into mine and I thought suddenly, yes, she knows I told the King a lie: that I had been responsible for the decision to search for the book rather than telling him it was missing. Along with her uncle, whom I remembered Paget was to question the next day, and who must also have taken a share of the responsibility.
She said, ‘I will be grateful to you, unto death.’
‘Thank you, your majesty.’ There was an awkward pause, then I asked, ‘How fares Lord Parr?’
‘He has gone back to the country,’ she answered sadly. ‘To die, I fear. His great service to me last year was too much for him, ill as he is.’
‘I am sorry to hear it.’
She looked at me earnestly. ‘If he was ever rough with you, it was only through love for me.’
I smiled. ‘I always understood that.’
She moved over to the chess set. The pieces were laid out for a new game, and I wondered for a moment whether she might ask me to play. But she only picked up a pawn and set it down again. ‘It is because I owe you so much that I have sent for you.’ She smiled. ‘To offer you some employment, if you wish to take it.’
I did not reply. Not politics – I would say no to that, even to her.
The Queen Dowager pressed her palms together. ‘My circumstances are much changed now. I am a widow, free to remarry. In a little time, I may.’ She coloured then, and looked quickly down, as though knowing that I and many others would disapprove. I thought, so the rumours are true, it is Thomas Seymour. My heart sank and I thought: what a waste.
I think the expression on my face gave me away, for she took a deep breath, and said, ‘If and when that time comes, I am afraid I should not be able to employ you, or see you again.’ Yes, I thought, it is Seymour, who detests me as I do him. But then, what had she meant by employment?
She continued, ‘You will know about the – promotions – that have taken place since the late King’s death.’
‘Only the gossip,’ I answered cautiously.
She smiled sadly. ‘Do not worry, Matthew. I am going to tell you something which should be kept confidential for now, but only because it is in your interest to know.’
I spoke quietly, ‘Forgive me, your majesty, but I wish to know no more secrets. Ever.’
‘It concerns Richard Rich,’ she said, her eyes on mine. ‘Baron Rich, as we must now call him.’
I bit my lip, did not answer. The Queen Dowager looked down at the chessboard. ‘Rich shifted his allegiances just in time. He has been promoted, and I fear he is about to be promoted further.’ She looked at me intently. ‘Thomas Wriothesley is a peer now, too, but strangely he of all people has had an attack of conscience, and is raising difficulties regarding some of the powers Lord Hertford is taking to himself. Wriothesley will not long remain Lord Chancellor. That is the word I have, and I trust my source.’ Thomas Seymour, I thought, the Protector’s brother. ‘His successor will be Rich.’
I took a deep breath. ‘It is what he has lusted after for years.’
‘Anne Askew’s book has already been smuggled in from the Continent. Its revelations regarding Rich will soon be public. The Protector already knows them.’ She frowned, then bent to the chessboard and moved a knight forward. ‘But he wants Rich for Lord Chancellor – he is a clever and experienced lawyer, he knows the ways of politics intimately, and – ’ she sighed – ‘people fear him.’
‘Rich, Chancellor, head of the legal profession. He will be able to destroy my career.’ I shook my head. Well, I thought, perhaps now was the time to retire. I had been thinking of it last summer, before the trouble began. But then I thought, stubbornly, I do not want to be forced out. I like my work, and I have responsibilities: Timothy, Nicholas and, yes, Barak. And I thought, too, where would I go? What would I do?
‘I am sorry, Matthew.’ The Queen Dowager raised an arm as though to take mine, then dropped it. ‘I fear your position as serjeant at the Court of Requests may soon be given to another.’
‘Yes. Rich would do that to me, and worse. Perhaps another accusation of misconduct; which this time will not be dropped. I am sure Treasurer Rowland would not be sorry to cooperate with him.’
She nodded sadly. ‘That is possible.’ Then she continued, her voice serious. ‘But not if you al
so have a secure position with someone of high enough status.’
I looked at her, puzzled. ‘But your majesty, you just said that you – ’
‘I do not mean me.’
‘Then who?’
She smiled. ‘You will not know yet, but I have been given the guardianship of the Lady Elizabeth. She is to reside with me here, along with her tutor and her staff. She has been left numerous properties by her father. She is a young lady of great wealth now. As is the Lady Mary, who if she accommodates herself to the religious changes that are coming, may marry. As for our young King – ’ her smile widened – ‘he is a fine boy, healthy and clever. If he lives even so long as his father he could reign near half a century.’ I saw her happiness that her side had won, even if her own family had not reached the pinnacle.
‘The Lady Elizabeth is far from the throne. In due time no doubt she will marry into the senior nobility. For now, she is but thirteen, and under my guidance. A council must be appointed to deal with her estates, and in the nature of things there will be much legal business to be done. To begin with, her new properties must be conveyed into her name.’ She took a deep breath, smiled again. ‘I would like you to take on all the legal work connected with her properties. It will be regular employment. You would report not to me but to her Treasurer, Sir Thomas Parry. He will instruct you when legal advice is needed. He will be based near the law courts rather than here.’ She added, ‘I have spoken to the Lady Elizabeth. She remembers her meetings with you, and readily agreed to my suggestion.’
I stood, thinking hard. Elizabeth might be the least important of the King’s children, but an assured place working for her household would provide ample protection against unwarranted persecution by Rich. And my official appointment to the Court of Requests was indeed all too likely to go. This new appointment would bring a steady flow of legal work, in the field of property law too, my specialist area.
The Queen Dowager said, ‘A new start, Matthew, for us both.’ She gave a hesitant smile, with something of apology in it.
I looked at her and thought again, how could this sophisticated, beautiful and profoundly moral woman marry a creature like Thomas Seymour? But perhaps Catherine Parr, after so many years of duty, felt the right to her own choice. And Seymour had good looks, if nothing else.
‘You will take the post?’ she asked.
I looked at her, and nodded. ‘I will.’
‘The Lady Elizabeth is not here at present, she is down at Richmond Palace. I would like you to go there now, take your oath to her. I sent a message you might come today. My barge is ready.’
I said, smiling, ‘You knew I would accept.’
‘I knew you would let me do this for you.’
I nodded, slowly, in acknowledgement. ‘Thank you.’
She regarded me seriously. ‘Elizabeth is not yet fourteen, yet already she has the will and intelligence of an adult. There is one thing she asked me to say to all those appointed to work for her. From another girl her age it might be childish boasting, but not Elizabeth.’
‘What is that?’
The Queen Dowager smiled ruefully. ‘My dogs will wear my collars.’
‘Yes,’ I answered quietly. ‘I can imagine her saying that, and meaning it.’
She stepped forward, and now she did take my hand and pressed it tightly. ‘Goodbye, Matthew. I shall never forget all you have done. Or the true regard in which you hold me. Believe me, I understand that, and value it.’
She looked me in the eyes, then stepped away. I was too choked with emotion to reply, as I think she saw, for she rang a bell for the steward to come and take me down to her barge. There were tears in my eyes, which I tried to hide with the depth of my bow.
Outside the steward said, respectfully, that he would ensure Genesis was taken safely back to Chancery Lane for me. He led me outdoors, and I huddled into my coat as we walked down the path between the snow-covered lawns to the river. He helped me into the barge waiting at the landing stage, where two liveried oarsmen sat. They pulled slowly out into the slate-grey Thames. I glanced back once at Chelsea Palace, then turned to face the oarsmen. They carried me downriver, to Elizabeth.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As well as my friends in the writing group, many thanks to Maria Rejt, Liz Cowen, Sophie Orme, Antony Topping, Chris Wellbelove and Wes Miller. Thanks once again to Graham Brown of Fullerton’s for meeting my ceaseless stationery demands.
I would also like to thank Dr Stephen Parish for advice on Henry VIII’s medical symptoms. My interpretation of what happened to Henry during the last months of his life is of course entirely my own.
My last Shardlake novel, Heartstone, centred on the sinking of the King’s warship Mary Rose during the battle of the Solent in July 1545. Since its publication the new Mary Rose Museum has opened in Portsmouth, showing the surviving half of the ship with, as a mirror image, the widest ranging and most beautifully presented collection of Tudor artefacts anywhere in the world. It is truly an extraordinary place, which I have been privileged to be associated with, and I am again grateful to the museum, the staff and especially Rear-Admiral John Lippiett, for continued insights into the vanished world of the 1540s.
Many works were invaluable for my research. Catherine Parr has received some deserved attention in recent years. Janel Mueller’s (ed.) Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondence (Chicago, 2011) is a work of fine scholarship, as well as an exhaustive compendium, which includes the text of Lamentation of a Sinner. Anthony Martinssen trod the biographical ground a generation ago with Queen Katherine Parr (New York, 1971). Two excellent recent biographies are those by Susan James, Catherine Parr (Stroud, 2008) and Linda Porter, Katherine the Queen (London, 2010). For other characters, Dairmaid MacCulloch’s biography, Cranmer (London, 1996), was yet again an invaluable resource. Samuel Rhea Gammon’s Statesman and Schemer: William, First Lord Paget – Tudor Minister (Devon, 1973) is an excellent biography of this unshowy, and therefore perhaps neglected, Tudor politician. Along with McCulloch, he gives the remarkable Bertano affair the attention it deserves. Glyn Redworth’s In Defence of the Church Catholic: The Life of Stephen Gardiner (Oxford, 1990) was very helpful, though it failed to convince me that Gardiner did not play a leading role in the events of 1546. Stephen Alford’s Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I (Yale, 2008) was helpful on Cecil’s early career and first steps on the political ladder.
Dakota L. Hamilton’s The Household of Queen Katherine Parr (unpublished PhD thesis, Oxford, 1992) was a treasure trove on the structure of the Queen’s Court. Simon Thurley’s Whitehall Palace, The Official Illustrated History (London, 2008), Whitehall Palace, An Architectural History of the Royal Apartments 1240–1690 (London, 1999) and his The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (Yale, 1993) brought the vanished palace back to life, although a good deal of my reconstruction had of course to be imaginative. David Loades’s The Tudor Court (London, 1996) and Maria Hayward’s Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII (London, 2007) were also of great help.
For the wider London world, Liza Picard’s Elizabeth’s London (London, 2005) was once again invaluable and, as with MacCulloch’s Cranmer, never far from my side. James Raven, The Business of Books (Yale, 2007) was especially helpful on the early printing trade. Susan Brigden’s London and the Reformation was another book which, again, was always near to hand. Irvin Buckwalter Horst’s The Radical Brethren: Anabaptism and the English Reformation to 1548 (Holland, 1972) was a mine of information on the early Anabaptists.
My description of Henry’s funeral is based on the account in Robert Hutchinson, The Last Days of Henry VIII (London, 2005).
Thanks also to Amanda Epstein for discussing the legal aspects of the Cotterstoke Will case with me, and to Jeanette Howlett for taking me to Sudeley Castle, where Catherine Parr lived during her sad fourth marriage, and where some beautiful examples of her clothing and possessions survive, as does her tomb, where I left some flowers in memory of Henry’s last, and to me most sy
mpathetic, Queen.
HISTORICAL NOTE
THE LAST YEAR OF Henry VIII’s life saw some of the most tumultuous political events of his entire reign: a major heresy hunt, an attack on the Queen, radical changes in foreign policy, an attempt at reconciliation with the Pope and, at the end of 1546, a switch in control of the Privy Council from religious traditionalists to radicals, who were left in charge of England upon Henry’s death. Unfortunately the sources are very thin, which leaves events open to a wide variety of interpretations. The historian Glyn Redworth has said, rightly, that ‘all accounts are obliged to be in the nature of interpretative essays’.1
My own attempt at interpreting the events of 1546 forms the background to the story of Lamentation (except of course for the fact that Catherine Parr’s Lamentation of a Sinner was not, in the real world, stolen). So I will start with those elements of the story where the facts are clearer, before moving on, for those who may be interested, to my own venture at an ‘interpretative essay’ on what happened in the tumultuous last months of Henry’s life.
IN 1546, ENGLAND’S ruling elite, as well as the common people in London especially, were split between those sympathetic and those hostile to religious reform. It was a matter of degree, and many people either kept their heads down to avoid trouble, or, among the ruling classes, bent with the wind for political advantage. And the wind blew very fiercely in in the mid-Tudor period, as Henry VIII, following the split with Rome in 1532–3, lurched between traditional and radical religious policies for a decade and a half.