At court I learn that the Lady Margaret Pole is imprisoned in the Tower. I don’t quite understand the twisted history behind her imprisonment, but what I do know is this: She’s a very old woman, near to seventy years, and the Tower in winter is a bitter misery.
I speak to my King.
“Your Majesty, I seek your permission for an act of charity.”
“Why should you, my Queen? Surely it is a matter for your almoner.”
“No, for I fear it might not please you if you should hear of it from others, so I would tell you myself. I have two woollen cloaks, one with fur, and some gloves and some other warm things, and I would have them given to the Lady Margaret Pole, for she suffers dreadfully with cold in the Tower.”
“What! You would succour my enemy?”
“Your Majesty, how can she be a threat to you—she’s shrivelled and withered and as dried up as—as an old raisin!”
He laughs at that, and I take heart and plunge on. “Besides, such a kindness would show that you are merciful even to your enemies, a power wielded by only the wisest of rulers.”
That last was said to me by my lady Nan when I asked for her advice.
I see the King’s face grow thoughtful now. “I do not care for you to trouble yourself over politics,” he says. “But true enough that it would not serve well to have the people feel pity or sympathy for any of the Poles.”
I look at him pleadingly, and lean towards him and let my breast brush his arm as if by accident. He laughs again, not a bit fooled, then kisses the top of my head. “Do as you will, my sweet rose,” he says.
I thank him with kisses, delighting in my success. And as the weeks go by, I make more requests, on behalf of three prisoners. All of them are freed, including the well-known and well-loved poet Sir Thomas Wyatt, a longtime friend of the Howard family. The court is so pleased with his release that both His Majesty and I receive much praise, me for interceding, the King for his mercy.
Yet I have to admit that there are times when being Queen is a bit of a bother. Before I married the King, I received a letter from Joan Bulmer, who grew up with me as one of the Dowager’s charges. She was in great dismay, unhappy in her marriage, and she begged me to find her a place at court.
I tell the Dowager about her plight, and we arrange for Joan to become one of my chamberers. I’m happy to be able to help an old friend. Her appointment is followed by pleas from more of the girls I once knew, Margaret and Kate and Alice. All are given places in my household.
After that, the Dowager comes to me with a request. “An acquaintance of ours desires a position at court,” she says.
“Yet another?” I say, with a sigh, wondering who this time.
“You will of course remember him—Mr. Francis Dereham, of late returned from Ireland.”
My mouth and eyes widen in astonishment. “Mr.—Mr. Dereham! Oh, but surely—” I gasp and stammer.
His Majesty has never asked me about my past, about other lovers. My lovemaking shows plainly that I’m not a virgin, but it seems to be his preference to pretend that I never existed for any man but himself. If Mr. Dereham boasts of bedding me, that might well enrage the King, and I don’t know how many times the Duke has told me that I must never, ever anger him.
“How do you say?” the Dowager asks.
I gulp in a breath. “I—I’m surprised, for I recall the circumstances under which Mr. Dereham departed from your employ. He was not…in your favour then.”
She narrows her eyes and shakes her head. “Must everything be explained to you as to a child?” she whispers fiercely. “That is precisely why he must be given a position—in exchange for his silence.”
Snipes! I see the reason for her thinking, but I still wish I could banish Dereham to a post half a world away.
He is to be assigned a position as my secretary.
When Mr. Dereham takes up his appointment, I ask for a private audience. He greets me with a correct bow. It’s been more than two years since we last met. I’m startled to find that I’m moved to see him again. I welcome him to my court and wish him well. Then I gather my courage and look at him solemnly.
“Mr. Dereham, I would have you take heed what words you speak here at court,” I say.
“Your Grace, I am honoured by my appointment,” he replies. “I expect that your household will be a most happy place for me, and so long as it is, you need never fear.”
His voice is smooth, but there’s a sharp look in his eyes. I understand him perfectly. He bows again and leaves.
I feel as if I’ve brought an adder into my nest.
* * *
—
It’s been months, and I’m still not pregnant.
I can’t understand it. But my worry is nothing compared to the Duke’s. He’s so upset about it that he forces me to tell him everything about my nights with the King.
“He completes the act, you are certain?” the Duke asks, for the hundredth time.
I can’t hold my tongue any longer. “Sir! If you doubt my word, I would invite you to witness for yourself—but I must first ask of my husband his permission!”
The Duke splutters in anger but makes no other response. From then on, he doesn’t badger me quite so relentlessly.
Besides this unhappiness, the King’s leg has gotten much worse. The pain puts him in a dreadful mood. Nothing I do or say can relieve him. At first he’s peevish, then cross, and then angry. I know he’s not really angry at me; still, it hurts my feelings when he growls and snaps.
But mostly I’m just worried about him. One evening I go to visit him in his privy chamber. Lord Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk and a member of the King’s Privy Council, stops me in the hall.
“Your Highness,” he says as he bows his head and dips his knee. “I am sorry, but His Majesty is unable to see you.”
I blink in surprise and glance behind me at my ladies. “But what can you mean?” I ask.
“He requested that I convey his regrets.” His voice is kind, but he hasn’t answered the question.
A chill stiffens my neck. Did Henry really say that? How can I be sure? What if he needs me, and Lord Brandon is trying to stop me seeing him? But why would he do that?
This is what being at court does to you: I’m starting to hear things that haven’t been said, and see things that might not be there.
Lady Rochford steps forwards to whisper in my ear. “Tell him you will return tomorrow. Be gracious.”
“Be gracious”—when I want to flounce past him and accidentally tread on his foot…But Lady Rochford has told me that Lord Brandon is in great favour with the King just now, which is why I must take care. I don’t know how she knows all these things, but she does.
I incline my head a little. “Thank you, Lord Brandon. I will return this time tomorrow. Will you please tell His Majesty that my thoughts are with him always, and that I wish him a good night?”
“I will, Your Highness.”
He bows. I turn and go back to my rooms.
* * *
—
Day after day, His Majesty refuses to let me into his chambers. I get so worried that I can’t sleep. How can I please the King and get with child if he won’t even see me?
My ladies scurry about like clever mice, collecting bits of news.
“It’s his leg,” Lady Nan reports. “The ulcers have putrefied. It is not just the pain, but the terrible smell, Your Highness. He does not wish you to see him in this way.”
“But I’m his wife,” I say in distress. “If I can’t help at a time like this, it makes me feel worse than useless!”
In desperation, I summon the King’s favourite courtier, Mr. Thomas Culpeper. Upon his arrival, I notice my maids and ladies fluffing and primping; his considerable good looks have not escaped their notice.
Nor mine.
“Your Grace,” he says, and bows most prettily.
“Mr. Culpeper. Will you tell me please how His Majesty does today?”
He looks around quickly, and I sens
e that he doesn’t want to spread news of the King’s ill health. I nod at my ladies and wave my hand for them to leave us.
Once we’re alone, I speak firmly. “Mr. Culpeper, I am the Queen Consort. I should know of His Majesty’s state, and I give you my word that what you say is between us only.”
He still seems uneasy, but finally says, “I would speak of things that are—not very pleasant, Your Grace.”
“You may speak plainly. I must know how he does.”
“The wound on His Majesty’s leg was blocked. It went black, and was grave indeed. The doctors were forced to lance it.”
I feel myself grow faint, and have to grip the arms of my chair.
“Your Grace?” He leaps forwards in alarm and steadies me with a hand on my shoulder. I draw a breath, which brings me back to myself. Then I sit up straighter and shrug my shoulder a little, to signal that he should remove his hand.
He does, and steps back. “His Majesty has been in terrible pain, but the wound is draining now,” he says. “He will be feeling better soon.”
I thank him and ask him to return in the morning.
My poor darling Henry—once so fine and fit, the most beauteous ruler in all Europe.
* * *
—
Snipes and snails, I’m in such a muddle. Worried about His Majesty’s health, terrified that maybe he doesn’t care for me anymore, wondering when I’ll get to see him again. And something else.
Something that has to do with Mr. Dereham. At court I’ve met a lot of gentlemen, born and raised to nobility, and now I see Mr. Dereham quite differently than when I was a girl. He’s holding our past as a kind of ransom. Really, he’s no gentleman.
But he has also stirred up memories of our time together, and made me realize that I’m not completely happy in my marriage.
In bed with the King, it’s always about his satisfaction. My own doesn’t seem to matter a fart or a farthing. I never feel what I felt when Mr. Dereham was my Francis—the breathlessness, the urgency, the wild desire.
I realize now that I miss those things, and not just a little. I miss them desperately.
* * *
—
On the tenth day of my not seeing the King, Thomas Culpeper visits me again at my request.
“His Majesty is feeling much better now,” Mr. Culpeper says. “He requests your company this evening.”
Are his eyes twinkling? Of course he knows what it means for the King to request my presence: He’s one of the men who hoists His Majesty into the bed. If his eyes are twinkling, it’s quite the cheek. I stare at him for a moment.
A pause. A breath. A stroke of silence that lasts a little too long.
Or is it only my imagination? Mr. Culpeper leaves me wondering.
That night, I work hard to please His Majesty. It’s no simple trick to be gentle and tender because of his leg, while at the same time arousing him and using every wile and skill to bring him to finish. Then he falls asleep immediately, without a word or a caress or even tenderness. I remind myself that he’s been ill, but it doesn’t help.
I lie awake long into the night, him wheezing and snorting through his fatty jowls, me crying silently.
Back to my rooms in the morning. I’m almost finished dressing when Lady Rochford dismisses the maids and takes up the hairbrush herself.
“He is here,” she says in a near-whisper.
“His Majesty?” I say with a start.
“No, not His Majesty.” Her voice drops even lower. “Mr. Culpeper.”
Her face is a complete blank, but I’m not fooled. She’s on the hunt for secrets, which she hoards like jewels. Now I remember that she was in the room yesterday when Mr. Culpeper and I were talking.
Her gaze rests on my reflection in the glass. “Please tell him I no longer have need of his visits,” I say.
“Your Grace?”
I look down at my lap. I should cut her off now, right this instant, before the conversation goes any further.
But I know what she’s thinking.
“I would that the King lives longer than any man ever lived,” she says. “Even so, he being so much older than you, it is not treason to expect that you will one day be a widow. You would best be prepared against the day, and certain alliances are more valuable than others, worth your trouble to cultivate now.”
I close my eyes.
Whether or not I give birth to an heir, as a widowed Queen I will need a champion at court—someone to protect my interests once the King is gone. Lady Rochford is intimating that a member of the powerful Culpeper family would be suitable for the role.
She is telling me to take Thomas Culpeper as a lover.
“I would know nothing of which you speak,” I say, making my voice as stern as I can. “It vexes me to repeat myself: Please see that he is dismissed.”
And at last she leaves me.
I stare at my reflection, seeing the doubt in my eyes.
I don’t want him for a lover, I don’t! It’s impossible—I mustn’t think of it, not even for a second.
And from that very moment, I can think of nothing else.
JUNE–SEPTEMBER 1541
The court will travel north towards York tomorrow, for the King’s progress. A spectacle, wherever we go. Hundreds will march in uniform and unison, archers with their bows drawn, banners and horses, glitter and pomp and huge crowds cheering.
But tonight, Thomas Culpeper will come to my privy chamber.
Lady Rochford has made the arrangements. Because of tomorrow’s early departure, the King will not want my company this evening. I feign preparing for sleep, my hair loose around my shoulders. Lady Rochford dismisses the other ladies and maids. After they’re in bed, a knock sounds. She opens the door, then slips out and stays in the next room, alone.
My plan is to speak with him, to propose that if I become a widow—without wishing for the King’s death, for that would be treason!—we might have an understanding. We have to meet alone, for if we’re overheard, someone might misinterpret our words; it could sound as if we’re plotting against the King.
I’ll say what I have to say, and then dismiss him. It will take only a few moments.
He comes into the room and bows. “Your Grace.”
Candlelight flickers. His shadow dances on the wall behind him. He’s not as tall as the King, but his physique is straight and strong, so unlike His Majesty’s heaving tottering bulk.
I’ve prepared my words carefully. I open my mouth—and nothing comes out.
I stare at him as if I’ve never seen him before.
He’s so handsome. His eyes, his lips…
I don’t know how long I’m standing there—a moment? an hour?—before I realize that he’s staring at me, too. Somehow we’ve moved until he’s within reach. He raises his hand to touch my hair, and I close my eyes.
I’m already gasping. For a desperate moment, I’m sane enough to realize my madness, and I try to take a step back, to push him away….How is it that I step forwards and pull him towards me instead?
He holds my face in his hands.
“Please.” I can barely whisper, choked by my desire.
He lowers his head and kisses me gently, almost hesitantly. At the first touch of his lips, I’m like a starving beast—I surge against him so hard that he nearly loses his balance. He backs into my dressing table and leans on it, and I step between his legs, my hands clutching at his shoulders, my mouth on his in a frenzy that I can’t control. Then he grasps my hair and pulls my head back and kisses the hollow at my throat, groaning with urgency. His lips move up the length of my neck and find my mouth again.
If the ground beneath my feet split—if there were suddenly an abyss beneath me, I wouldn’t be able to tear myself away from him.
I’d fall to my death with my tongue seeking his.
* * *
—
In Lincoln.
In Pontefract.
In York.
We find back stairs and back d
oors, deserted galleries, forgotten closets. We meet for a single kiss, or for entire nights of passion. The danger of being discovered sharpens the keenness of our lovemaking.
I can’t keep from him. I’m helpless, my desire a fever, raging, burning. This isn’t the same as what I felt with Francis Dereham. That was a girl’s first awakening, new and green and tender. The girl has grown into a woman who knows what she wants and needs. For all the enjoyment my girl-self felt, she could never have dreamt the ravishment I know now.
In a hidden alcove at York Castle, I bury my mouth in his shoulder to stifle my cries. Our bodies are fused with such heat and fervour, it’s as if we’re one being, and on finishing, we fall away from each other, nearly senseless.
“Zounds!” Thomas laughs ruefully as he peers at the bright beads of scarlet on his shoulder.
“Oh, no!” I’ve bitten him—hard—and never even knew it! I kiss the wound and lick away the blood, and then he kisses me again.
But despite the wildness of our rapture, I never allow him to finish inside me. Not once. For that would be treason of the worst kind against the King, to get with child and not know who fathered it.
I insist on this with Thomas, no matter how he pleads, and because I’m so steadfast, I convince myself that I’m fulfilling my duty of loyalty to His Majesty.
Who suspects nothing. As always, I dine with him, and sit with him in the evenings, and go to his bed whenever he asks. I’m still his rose, and I make sure that I’m always light and gay with him, to disguise my true state.
For though I want Thomas with a craving like an illness, I do love the King, my Henry. Truly I do!
OCTOBER—NOVEMBER 1541
We tarry in York for weeks, waiting for His Majesty’s nephew, James, King of Scotland. James never arrives, which puts His Majesty in a terrible mood.
When we get back to London, I’m relieved to learn that we’ll go to Hampton Court in November. The King loves that palace, smaller and warmer and more inviting than many of the others, and it’s my favourite, too. I hope we’ll stay to celebrate the holidays there.
Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All Page 26