Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All
Page 23
And the thought was awful. I was exhausted and sorrowful. I had no desire to entertain a mere girl.
I am, however, always thinking first of the ladies, and I wished her to feel welcome in her new homeland. I resolved to put a happy face on it. The night before I was to meet her, New Year’s Eve, I sat in a feasting-hall before a fire with my Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and drank hot Yuletide hippocras until the world seemed to blush again. I drank to steel myself. At first I drank in rage. Then, as the liquor rings on the table ran together and blotted out the memory of Jane, in faith, I drank in a state of fierce joy.
We all were loud and rowdy.
“Come, now, Your Majesty,” said one of the men. “Bed this Hessian and make a Duke of York for us.”
“I shall build the finest Duke of York,” I promised.
They all cheered.
I looked carefully at them, and wondered whether they spurred me on because they feared I grew too old, too infirm, too sleepy. Of course, my age matters not a bean. I am young in the mind, young in the loins, and I could not have them doubt me.
So I exclaimed: “Boys! How about this: To her tonight! Yes? We’ll visit her now, boys! Why should I wait?”
Cromwell said, “She is not expecting you, Your Majesty, until tomorrow.”
“I am King of England. Isn’t that right? King of England?”
“Your Majesty, we are to meet her at Greenwich.”
“But we shall go now. Heh? See? Come, my lads. Let’s gallop down to Rochester and spring a surprise. Let’s show this German beauty we are still frisky, despite the grey hairs!”
It was quickly arranged: We ordered our masqueing gear from a recent disguising, put on visors and wigs, and set out in a drunken rout, after a few of the younger pips, who couldn’t hold their hippocras, vomited over the battlements.
We laughed as we rode through the chilly night, and it was a game like the ones I had played in my youth. We passed the frozen villages, the dark towns where my subjects huddled in sleep. I leaned close to my steed and spurred it on. I saw before me the girl’s face Holbein had painted, but as she would look when we began our antics: laughing, thrilled to see the King of England play a prank upon her—a wonderful man, she will think, a monarch who is still merry. Is this, she will think with awed delight, my new husband?
She is a young thing. She will like jests.
And so we reached her lodgings, where the crowd enjoyed a bull-baiting. In the crush of the contest (the bull bellowing as the dogs assaulted it), my boys pressed people backwards to make room for me to dismount. I could barely contain my anticipation as they levered me off my horse.
Up the stairs we ran in our disguising, and charged through the door, chanting, “Mugga mugga mugga mugga,” like barbarian monsters come for kisses. The English ladies knew who we were at a glance, and were delighted by our play.
Her face: so sombre. My bride and I stared, each upon the other. I was the older one, not she—I was the one who was bereaved—I was the one who should be sombre. When I kissed her, she did not understand the jest, did not squeal. Her cheek smeared beneath my lips.
I cannot abide people who can’t laugh.
She was one of those dreary people who find no thrill in life. Who could wed such a person?
There in that moment, with the bull screaming outside, too weak to hold off the dogs, I knew the marriage would not work. I should have to be rid of her soon.
How Cromwell could have thought to pair us is a mystery to me.
I should not speak ill of her, for now she is my sister. Strange to say, now that she is not my consort, I find her pleasant to be with. I want nothing from her. She wants nothing more from me. It is restful to know a woman who is of no use to one whatsoever.
Our conversations: dogs, their habits, their tricks. Cuisine, its cooking. The palaces I build, where, as I show her plans, she even smiles sometimes at their whimsy.
Sometimes I wonder about her smile, which did not appear in Holbein’s complacent portrait.
It is the smile of a victor.
FEBRUARY 1542
A solid wooden block, about knee-high. The two guards who have brought it up the stairs to my rooms are grunting and puffing—it must be very heavy. They heave it onto the floor and leave.
I walk around it once, looking at it from all sides. Then I touch the top—gingerly, at first. I don’t know why; it’s not as if it can hurt me.
The top has been sanded very smooth. There will be no splinters when I kneel down, turn my head, and place my cheek upon it.
Splinters. Such a small thing. But I have to think about the small things, all the time.
Because if I don’t, I’ll start screaming and never stop.
SUMMER AND FALL 1539
Sixteen. I’m sixteen now, as grown as I’m going to get.
I’m not tall and willowy like Margaret, or dark and fulsome like Bess. I used to wish I were, but then I found out that some men are drawn to girls who are petite and have auburn hair, and enjoy dancing and a good laugh. Men like Henry Manox, the music teacher at Chesworth House.
Along with the other girls who are wards of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, I have lessons in reading and writing, sewing, dancing, religion, and music. There are usually around a dozen of us, the number changing as younger girls arrive and older ones leave to marry. The Dowager keeps two households, Chesworth in Sussex and Lambeth Palace in London; we travel between them as it suits her.
Manox taught me how to play the clavichord.
He also taught me how to kiss.
But I wasn’t long with Manox, because then I met Francis Dereham, a courtier at Lambeth. Stars afar, what Francis hasn’t taught me isn’t worth knowing. When I’m with him, I can’t get enough of him; when I’m not with him, I can’t stop thinking about him. Sweet torture!
He and a few of his friends bribed young Mary, the chambermaid, for the key to our dormitory. They visit two or three times a week, late at night. The evenings start out with laughter and wine, or with games, or riddles and stories. But no matter how they begin, they always end the same way: with Francis in my bed, the two of us kissing as no one in the world has ever kissed before.
The first time, he lay with me in his doublet and hose, but it didn’t take long before we were completely naked. In such a frenzy for each other, we were incautious, and then I panicked waiting for my monthly blood. I cried to him that I mustn’t get with child, for if I do, the Dowager might turn me out. Francis soothed me and stroked my hair, and then showed me the ways of love without that worry.
What he has taught me above all else is to feel utterly free in bed.
“My little Cat,” he often says, “the bed is an island, a world of its own.”
“Meow,” I always reply. A silly joke, but one that makes us laugh.
Francis says that as long as we’re both willing, we can try anything without pause or shame. Such freedom from the restraints of being a woman outside the sheets! He has taken to calling me “wife,” and has asked me to call him “husband.” And I do, of course—I’ll do anything to please him.
One fine autumn day, I can’t bear to wait for night, so I arrange to meet him in the forenoon. Lambeth Palace is so large that there are lots of private corners. I stand with my back to the wall under the east wing stairs as Francis kisses my neck and my breasts. I can feel the heat of my blood, my pulse surging in every hidden part of me; it’s more than marvellous. My skirts are raised so he can stroke me deeply, while I bring him satisfaction with my hand.
Then I straighten my skirts and hair, and take a few breaths so my colour might calm a bit. Francis glances around to make sure that the corridors are empty, and gives me a last long kiss before he leaves.
“You mustn’t look back at me,” he says.
“But why not?”
“There is an old story, that looking back brought bad fortune to two lovers. Resist the temptation, my darling Cat. It will make our love all the stronger.”
> “Tell me the story, meow.”
So he tells me about Orpheus and Eurydice, and how Orpheus walked out of Hades with his true love behind him, and he’d been told not to look back, but then he worried because he couldn’t hear her, so he took one little peek, and that ruined everything. She got snatched back into Hades. Such a sad story, and now it gives me a thrill not to look back at him when he leaves, thinking of those poor doomed lovers.
A fortnight later, we’re pressed together under the same stairwell when I’m stunned by a blow to my head.
“Lady Catherine!” thunders the Dowager. “How do you dare!” She strikes me again with her fan, as I shriek and try to dodge her blows.
Next she turns her fury on Francis. “Base, impertinent scoundrel! You would menace a Howard girl? Fie, fie!”
She beats him on his head and shoulders until he finally escapes. “Gather your things,” she shouts after him, “and make it your heart’s desire that I not lay eyes on you again.”
I can hardly see, I’m crying so hard. The Dowager relents a little and softens her voice. “He is the son of a yeoman, Catherine. Not a drop of noble blood. You are not a child any longer—you must know that he isn’t a suitable match.”
“I don’t care,” I say, heaving with great, ugly sobs. “I love him.”
She ignores me. “I shall say nothing of this to the Duke. Be certain you give me no cause to regret this kindness.”
Francis and I see each other once more before he leaves. He tells me that he’s planning to go to Ireland.
“Ireland! But when will I see you again?”
We lie in bed, my head on his shoulder. “Dear wife, you know it is not uncommon for a man to depart from his beloved for months, or even years,” he says, “and return with the love between them all the stronger.”
“How will I bear it?”
“I should think this will cheer you.” He reaches for his doublet on the floor, then holds out a leather purse bulging with coins. “One hundred pounds, near all my worldly goods save what I must have for Ireland. Keep it for me, and if I should not return, it is yours forever.”
“If you should not return!” I cry. “How can I, now that you pair it with such a thought?”
In the end he persuades me, and I take the little purse, wetting it with my tears. After such distress, our lovemaking is hot and keen, and I want it never to end.
A girl in the throes of first love. How is it that such honest passion could years later be transformed into treason and evil and death?
DECEMBER 1539
I wish he wouldn’t look at me like that.
My uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, is looking me over as if I’m a—a cow, or a firkin of butter. Or a codfish. With only the one thought in his mind: What use can I get of her?
I wonder if he looked at Queen Anne the same way. Poor Anne. She was my first cousin, God rest her soul; he was her uncle, too.
This time, though, there’s a good reason for his shrewd sneer. “She may have two new dresses,” he says to the Dowager.
New dresses, because I am to be at court.
At court!
The King’s new bride has arrived from the Continent. He wants her to learn English, so he dismissed most of her German-speaking attendants. Hundreds of girls and women vied for places to serve her, and my uncle the Duke has secured a position—for me.
It’s the best of all dreams! I was very young the last time I moved to a new household, but I remember it too well. I can see that poor wee eight-year-old girl standing in the entry hall of Chesworth House. Small for her age and looking even smaller in that vast hall, so frightened and sad, her mother dead, her father feckless, she and her siblings farmed out all over England to whomever would take them in.
Even so, I was by nature cheerful and lively. I soon made my place among the girls by devising bits of mischief—like the time I stole the chambermaid’s cap and tied it onto one of the Dowager’s dogs. I still laugh to think of it! The household has been a happy enough place for me, except when I’m forced to listen to the Duke and the Dowager complain about my father being the worst of the Howards. Measles and cankers, if I have to hear about it one more time…
No matter, no matter now. What matters is I will be moving to court.
“New dresses look ill with old hoods,” the Dowager says.
My uncle frowns. What a sour face he has, like a dried apple full of bad gas.
“Would you have it said that your niece is not well suited to attend the Queen?” she says. I’m glad she doesn’t look at me; if she did, I might burst out laughing at how she’s goading him.
He waves impatiently and leaves.
Which means yes, that I may have hoods as well as dresses, because “no” would have been a loud and nasty harangue.
I clasp my hands and turn to her. “I can never thank the good Dowager enough,” I say, then shower her with praise and more thanks. It was the Duke who secured the place at court, but it was the Dowager who chose me for the position, from among the many girl cousins and relatives.
“And, madam, if I may, I look well in green. Might one of the dresses be of green silk?”
* * *
—
Two new dresses and two new hoods! I grew up in castoffs, for my father never sent the Dowager anything more than my keep, and often, as she liked to remind me, not even that. A new ribbon, once or twice, but a new dress? Never.
For one dress, kirtle and skirt in palest green satin the colour of new leaves, with sleeves a deeper green. For the other, a skirt of burnished-copper damask over a kirtle of cream, the copper a match to the auburn of my hair. When I first donned the green one and looked in the glass, I could hardly believe it was me!
My hoods are trimmed with ribbon and French lace. The Duke won’t let me have pearls on them, the old barnacle. He said maybe I can have them later, once I’ve pleased the Queen and earned her trust.
Joan says I’ll be the only girl at court without pearls. She sleeps two beds over in the dormitory and is mostly my friend. Now she’s jealous and says snippety things, so I’m not sorry that she’s leaving soon to be married. But I am sorry we’ll be parting on bad terms because I’ve known her ever since I first came to the Dowager’s household. I hope one day we’ll make up. The hard part about that is, both people have to be of the mind to make up at the same time, and it doesn’t always happen that way.
I’m too busy to worry about it much. And best of all, I’m too busy to miss Francis. Being fitted for my dresses; learning the dances most favoured at court; horseback riding and archery added to my lessons—the King likes the ladies to ride out and sport on occasion. Such fun and excitement!
But of course there are boring and tedious duties as well. I spend hours in the Dowager’s presence chamber so she can tutor me on the ways of the court. Curtseys and modesty to my betters. Firmness without cruelty to the servants. Above all, I’m supposed to observe the Queen every moment and learn to predict her needs so that she’ll like me, and depend on me above all the other maids.
“Catherine, you know why the Duke has gone to such pains to garner you a place at court?”
“So that I might have the honour of serving my Queen?”
I think it’s a good answer, so I’m startled when she cuffs my ear. I let out a mewl like a sick kitten.
“Witless girl!” the Dowager scolds. “You are at court on behalf of the entire Howard family. You must never forget for a single moment that you serve the Queen as a means of serving the Duke! He requires two simple things. You are to keep your eyes and ears open for any news that might be of interest to him. And you are to make a good marriage with a courtier, one who has His Majesty’s favour, so as to strengthen our family’s ties to the King.”
Make a good marriage? I feel a twinge in my heart over Francis. But I’ve had no word from him since he left, and who knows how long he’ll be away? I once thought I couldn’t live without him. And he’ll always be the first man I ever loved.
If the Duke wants me to make a suitable marriage, it seems that I can have some good fun along the way!
JANUARY 1540
The great hall is lit by what must be a thousand candles to celebrate His Majesty’s wedding to Anna of Cleves. Everywhere I look, I see silks and jewels, furs and pearls, silver and gold. Goblets of wine, trays of sweets, tapestries and draperies, banners and tassels: It’s impossible to see everything at once, but that doesn’t stop me trying.
On a dais at one end of the hall, His Majesty and the new Queen are sitting on chairs of velvet and gold. Snipes and snails, isn’t he big! I’ve heard talk that he’s grown stout; now I see for myself that he’s very broad indeed. But he’s a tall man, and his clothes fit him beautifully, and he is King, after all—it wouldn’t seem right if he were thin and feeble.
The new Queen is tall, too, and strong-boned. If I stood beside her, I’m sure I would barely reach her chin. She’s wearing a gown draped with chains, in the German style. In truth, she isn’t very pretty—all the ladies have said so—but there’s something about her, a kind of grace. Maybe it’s the way she holds her head. I try to do the same, my neck straight but my chin down so I won’t seem haughty….
In my lovely green dress, I am every bit the maid of honour: Who would ever guess that I was once barely more than a foundling?
I thought on this before my arrival here at the hall. I thought that if I keep my head lowered and skulk around like a beaten dog, people are more likely to notice, not less. The trick is to get them to notice something else—and I know how.
Dancing! I love it so! I think it must be because of the music, which seems to enter my ears and go straight to my blood, and makes it impossible for me to stay still. The worst part about learning to become a proper lady is having to sit and wait for what seems like days at a time, embroidering or folding linen the best part of the day—fah!