Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All

by M. T. Anderson

  If he pitied me before, there is no sign of it now. I should have known better than to hope: He has survived decades at court by means of unswerving loyalty to the King. My tears mean less than nothing to him, compared to Henry’s desires.

  He says that Thomas Culpeper has confessed everything, even to declaring that he would marry me once the King was dead. Under the law, this is treason: Just wishing the King dead is considered a crime equal to the act itself.

  Joan Bulmer and Kate Tilney and Lady Rochford have been arrested and admitted their roles in aiding my relations with Thomas. Their confessions and his are all the evidence required. I will not stand trial. The Privy Council will seek a Bill of Attainder with Parliament—a pronouncement of my guilt without the necessity of a trial.

  “You will be taken to the convent at Syon to await the passing of the bill,” the Bishop says.

  He has prepared for me a full and frank confession, which pronounces all my crimes against King and country. It states that I duped the King into a false marriage, and then conspired with others who wished for his death. I haven’t done any of those things, but the Bishop swears to me that signing the confession is my only chance at mercy.

  I sign in a fog of numbness. I can’t feel the quill in my hand, and when I’m done, I can’t even read my own name.

  The Bishop’s departure is followed almost immediately by the arrival of Lord Thomas Seymour.

  “Jewels, furs, dresses, and hoods,” he says coldly to my ladies.

  He has come to confiscate all my queenly things.

  It took just six months for His Majesty to make me his Queen.

  It has taken only six days for him to unmake me.

  DECEMBER 1541–JANUARY 1542

  Now it is I myself, my body, to be taken away, to the convent at Syon. My body alone, for my soul wanders lost and alone in a land of terror, and I can’t do a thing for it. As I leave Hampton, I’m escorted through the great hall, past the wooden screen at its entrance. I catch a glimpse of one of its carvings: an “A” and an “H” entwined in a lovers’ knot. All those carvings were ordered removed after my cousin Anne’s death, but this one was missed.

  As I look at it; the “A” seems to twist and writhe and transform, snakelike, into a “C.”

  * * *

  —

  At Syon I’m given three rooms. Lady Nan is allowed to stay with me, along with three other attendants and a staff of servants. I have a fire at all times, and am given ample blankets and cloaks, a few even of fur. I am still being accorded at least some of the respect due to a Queen.

  My days here are mostly quiet. I cry a lot. My ladies often cry with me. What a miserable sight we are.

  The hours are so very empty, with nothing to distract me except for the occasional word that reaches us from court. Lady Nan wonders if there might be some sympathy for me, because of the sudden change of the law, and the Bill of Attainder, and because I’m so young. But I know she says this only to comfort me, for unlike Queen Katharine or Queen Anne or even Anna of Cleves, I have no champion at court. My uncle the Duke made too many enemies: There’s no one to plead for mercy for me.

  Lady Rochford, imprisoned in the Tower, has gone mad. The law used to say that no insane person could be put to death. So that law, too, has been changed to the reverse, and she’s been sentenced to die. How convenient to be able to change the law whenever you feel like it.

  One day I ask Lady Nan for news from court, as I do nearly every day.

  “None, Your Grace.”

  But she answers too quickly, and doesn’t look at me.

  Then I remember the date. It is the tenth of December: the day that Francis and Thomas are to be executed. As a gentleman, Thomas will be allowed a merciful death by beheading. But Francis, a commoner, faces being hanged, drawn, and quartered.

  I wake in the night screaming. I was dreaming of his agony, and of my own horror in knowing my affection to be a vile, poisonous thing: They are both dead because I loved them—Francis, because I did not know any better; Thomas, because I should have.

  FEBRUARY 1542

  I am no longer Queen Consort. The title has been taken from me by the Privy Council and Parliament. Still, my ladies dress me as a Queen, in black velvet. I want to leave Syon as a good Queen would, with sober dignity.

  But when the guards come to take me to the Tower, something inside me shatters into pieces so sharp that I feel my insides bleeding. I shriek in pain, and struggle and flail and kick and fight with more strength than I knew I had. Finally they are forced to pick me up by my arms and legs and carry me down to the boat. I wish I could laugh at what a ludicrous sight it must be.

  The boat is not an open barge, but covered, so no one will see me as it travels up the Thames. The Lord Privy Seal and some members of the Council ride in a boat in front of mine, with Lord Brandon and his soldiers behind.

  My ladies comfort me as best they can, and I am calmer now for their sakes. After some time, the boat heaves and shudders, and I realize that we’re passing under a bridge.

  London Bridge.

  I close my eyes, and swallow, and swallow again to keep from retching.

  The spikes of London Bridge hold the impaled heads of executed prisoners. The bloodied heads of Thomas and Francis are there now.

  I hear Francis’s words in my head, telling me not to look back. I can’t see outside, but I close my eyes anyway. Tears trickle out from under my eyelids, hot on my cheeks, stone cold by the time they reach my chin.

  * * *

  —

  My stay in the Tower will be a short one. I make arrangements to leave what remains of my wardrobe to my faithful attendants. I wish I had something else to give them, rather than clothes full of grief and bitterness. Only a few short days ago, I was Queen of All England….

  The warden comes to tell me what will happen in two days. He describes the yard, and the platform, and the wooden block.

  “Might I see it?” I ask.

  He looks at me in puzzlement. “See what, madam?”

  Madam. Not “Your Highness.” Don’t think I don’t notice.

  “The block,” I say. “Could it be brought to me?”

  His confusion changes to astonishment. “You wish to have the block here?”

  No one has ever asked this before, despite the countless numbers of condemned prisoners who’ve been held in the Tower. The next day, two soldiers lug the solid, weighty block up the stairs. They put it on the floor in the middle of the room. I ask them to leave me for a few moments.

  As I walk around it, I realize that I was wrong at Hampton Court. My fate is not to be quite the same as Anne Boleyn’s. Her death was by sword. Mine will be by axe. She didn’t put her head on this block—I’ll be the first Queen ever to do that.

  I remember how distressed I was leaving Syon, and I’m absolutely determined that it won’t happen again. There will be people watching, and how I comport myself will be my last act on this earth.

  I picture the yard and the platform in the chill clouded dawn. I imagine myself there. I practise approaching the block and kneeling. Gracefully, regally, for I was indeed once a Queen—a Queen truly beloved by her King.

  One-two, one-two, step and kneel…

  * * *

  —

  What would I do, if I could have a day or even an hour of my life again? I think about this a lot, and decide on three things.

  I would make my King laugh, and hear him call me his rose.

  I would forgive someone his or her sins, whether against me or against those I love.

  I would dance.

  I am so alone.

  Teeming crowds fill the apartments of my palaces. They all plot against me. The women laugh, the men scheme. Those I do not hate, I still can’t trust.

  I may smile, sitting in state, but only to conceal my sorrows and to keep watch over ministers who wish me dead. I feel no joy. I, King of the English, suffer more than any other man on this island.

  Curse her
to Hell. I will not say her name. The Church teaches the ingenuity of devils. Where she lies now in their fiery realm, headless and screaming, may they find torments for her severed flesh as fine and keen as the pleasures she offered her lovers. Rods heated in flame. Screws dripping with blood. Hooks to rend.

  This is all that can give me pleasure when my own body is wracked by its pains. My head aches like an awl hammered into my temple and eye. My legs shred themselves like the stigmata of the saints—wounds that arise from nowhere and pierce with pain. The royal blood runs freely, but not at my bidding. Ancient injuries twinge. I cannot stand or sit or lie down without suffering. The only thing that soothes me is the hope that in Hell, the same is happening to her.

  I need aid to move. Once I was a shining prince; now I am stranded in a body bloated like an island kingdom, hot with distempers and assaulted by its own corruption.

  I am alone, all alone in this world, and surrounded by the unsteady sea.

  THE ENDLESS MAZE OF DEATH

  Summer 1546

  It is the hand of the Lord that can and will bring me out of the endless maze of death.

  —Kateryn Parr, The Lamentation of a Sinner, 1547

  No one can help me now.

  I stand before this gleaming wooden door, unsure what fate awaits me on the other side. My husband will be there, of course, magnificent and massive. And my enemies, so eager to be rid of me, may be there, too.

  They’d love to dispatch me to the Tower. At the least, they want to silence me. They prefer their women to be as still as the lavish portraits on display in the palace gallery. The last thing they want is for me to speak.

  I should have seen this coming. I should have remembered that in this kingdom, Queens are dispensable, discarded as easily as a maid dumps slops from a chamber pot onto a London street.

  My breath catches in my throat; my palms feel cold and damp with sweat. I wipe them on my light pink kirtle. My sister and my friend have left. I listen until I can no longer hear the rustle of their skirts or the echoes of their careful footfalls.

  I am alone.

  * * *

  —

  Suddenly, the air stirs. I shiver, though I’m sure it’s no more than the usual draught in these halls. Or is it?

  For, somehow, I sense their presence—those dead wives, my fellow Queens. I have long imagined them, wandering together. In my imagination they are lost in a maze—an endless maze of death. Perhaps my desperation has brought them to me now.

  There are four: first, Katharine of Aragon, loyal and desperate, followed by crafty Anne Boleyn, who so enticed Henry with her charms. Henry as he was then, vibrant and forceful, before he became swollen with fat, his wounded leg oozing sour, stinking pus.

  Next comes plain Jane Seymour, prim and virginal on her wedding night, the perfect bride, full of love or perhaps just pretending—I cannot know. And finally, the fifth wife: lusty, foolhardy Catherine Howard. (There is no Anna of Cleves, of course. She lives still, and wouldn’t lift a finger to help me even if she could.)

  We have all been in Henry’s magnificent bed. We have felt not just the imposing presence of the man, but the sense of being engulfed by the grandeur of the bedchamber itself—red-and-gold murals, spectacular paintings. It is hard not to be awed by such power.

  Power. We were, each in her own way, powerless to change our fates. That is what I think of most now. Not the lovemaking of the other Queens—but their ends.

  I imagine proud Katharine of Aragon, withering to death in a cold, forgotten house. I envision Anne Boleyn, herded onto a barge to the Tower to meet her death from that silver blade, her final sharp-edged gift from Henry. I see Jane Seymour, taken at her moment of triumph—the birth of the Prince. Oh, how she must have gasped and fought as the acrid stench of hot blood and sweat rose up to swallow her like fog on the River Thames. And then there is young Catherine Howard, whose spirit still lingers in these halls. It’s not so long ago that she made her own way over that same river, its waters dark as the old blood clinging to her lovers’ heads impaled above on London Bridge.

  For a long time, I thought I was brighter, cleverer, more beloved than these other wives. But I was wrong. In the end, I made the same errors. I forgot that in this kingdom no woman—not even a Queen—can be ambitious; she can never let down her guard.

  She can never show her own power, be her true self.

  And yet, and yet…

  The air stirs around me. Perhaps I can draw courage from Henry’s past wives still. I might have one more chance—if I am clever and sharp enough. I take a breath to ready myself for the battle ahead. Then the door opens and I step inside.

  AT COURT

  Winter 1542–1543

  Now unto my lady

  Promise to her I make:

  From all other only

  To her I me betake.

  —from “Green Groweth the Holly”

  Song by King Henry VIII

  It began with a song.

  All eyes turned towards the singer. He drank in the attention, savouring it like a fine wine. Even in that cluster of glittering courtiers, resplendent in rich shades of velvets and silks, he lit the centre like a brilliant candle. You couldn’t take your gaze from him. At least I couldn’t.

  His lively dark eyes sought mine. I sensed that this promise was for me. I felt something unexpected stir inside, violent as a startling burst of rain. I was no stranger to the marriage bed. But this, well, I’d never felt like this.

  The melody ended; he was at my side, speaking my name: “Lady Latimer.” His lips brushed my cheek; I took in his scent of spices and woodsmoke. “I hope you’re well. It’s a pleasure to see you here again. Your brother suggested I should look for you.” Those musical tones, almost a whisper now, for my ears only.

  I curtseyed, willing the flush on my cheeks to subside. I knew when I looked up I’d see a reddish beard, a handsome face with high cheekbones, dancing eyes that held an invitation. When we’d met before on my occasional visits to court, he’d always put me in mind of a sleek, saucy fox.

  “You do justice to the song, Sir Thomas. I believe His Majesty wrote it?”

  “Yes, though I can’t claim to sing as well as Henry.” Thomas Seymour flashed a sly grin, wondering if I’d caught the joke.

  I had, of course. The King’s voice was comically high-pitched, as if God had given a great hound the peeping squeak of a little dog, like the one Anne Boleyn had loved so well. Poor Purkoy! My sister, Nan, who’d served all the Queens, said it was rumoured that one of Anne Boleyn’s enemies had tossed the tiny creature out of a window. “How awful!” I’d exclaimed. “I’m glad no will ever hate me so much.”

  Oh, I was so innocent then.

  “I’m sorry to hear of Lord Latimer’s illness,” Sir Thomas was saying.

  “My husband complains I hover; he suggested I come to court to bring back gossip to distract him,” I replied. “And since my mother, Maud Parr, served the first Queen, Princess Mary has kindly invited me to visit.

  “Lady Mary, I mean to say.” I corrected myself quickly. I glanced around, hoping no one had caught my mistake. Princess or Lady? In the line of succession or not? It was hard to know where things stood with regard to Henry’s daughters, Mary and Elizabeth.

  The same, I suppose, could be said for Henry’s church. Nan had tried (more than once) to explain it to me. “Sometimes the King leans towards Protestant reforms, such as allowing people to read the Bible in English. But he doesn’t want too much change; he is still attached to his strict Roman ways.”

  “It doesn’t sound as though he knows what his church should be,” I’d observed.

  “There’s truth in that. I think it may just depend on whom Henry has spoken to last—or who can manipulate him best.

  “If you ask me,” Nan concluded, “these struggles over religion are less about God and more about politics: influence, wealth, and most of all, power.”

  Another courtier began to sing. To listen better (and keep mys
elf from stealing glances at Sir Thomas’s handsome face), I closed my eyes. But I couldn’t concentrate on the lilting notes of the lute. Instead, I thought of the other advice Nan had given me.

  “You must always be on your guard at court,” she’d said. “The fine ladies and gentlemen you meet may preen like glossy peacocks, as colourful as the glimmering gilt-thread tapestries on the walls, but they are raptors in disguise. Always ask yourself: ‘With whom am I speaking? Who is listening? Who is spying for whom?’ ”

  I brushed her words aside. “Nan, I am no more than a minor lady at court, nor is our family influential. I doubt anyone will ever have reason to spy on me.”

  “Just mind what I say, Kate. Your husband is near death; you’ll soon be an eligible widow again. But you married John quickly after your brief first marriage. You’ve never been a single woman alone at court before.”

  “Well, as a twice-married woman, I don’t think I have to worry too much about attracting a man’s attention.”

  Nan had raised her eyebrows, a habit she’d picked up from our uncle William, who’d been like a father to us when our own had died.

  “You’re good at reading books, Kate. But at court you must learn to read people.”

  * * *

  —

  As the last, sweet notes of the lute faded away, I opened my eyes. To my surprise, King Henry was bearing down on me with all the force of a runaway cart on a London road. Sir Thomas was nowhere in sight.

  All men must stand aside for the King, I thought.

  “Lady Latimer, we are delighted to welcome you!” King Henry boomed, beaming down from his great height and over his even greater girth. His face might be as broad and pale as a potato, but those blue eyes were still keen. Now they sparkled with pleasure, as if someone had just placed a delectable dessert before him.