by Alison Weir
“Is no one living there?” she asked.
“No. I have not yet decided what to do with it. It stands on prime land.”
Katheryn felt sad that such a great religious house had been brought low. She shivered a little. She would not like to go inside that empty, echoing monastery. But there was something else on her mind.
“Henry,” she said, gazing up at him, “I have a favor to ask.”
“Ask anything you like,” he told her.
“It is for my brothers. They have been brought up in my lord of Norfolk’s household. They are now very proficient at knightly skills, and it would mean a lot to me to have them at court.”
Henry beamed. “I can accommodate three more gentlemen in my Privy Chamber. They will have good wages and new robes, and your uncle Lord William can show them their duties.”
“Thank you!” Katheryn cried, and gave him a kiss.
“Anything for you,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I have a mind to give your uncle, the Earl of Sussex, the office of Lord Great Chamberlain, which has been vacant since Cromwell was arrested. It is an influential post in the Privy Chamber, and I know I can rely on him to fill it well. And young Surrey is to be a Knight of the Garter.”
Uncle Norfolk would be pleased! Katheryn flung her arms around Henry. “You are so good to me and mine!” She could not wait to tell her cousin Surrey the good news. They were much of an age, and she was fond of him and his wife, Frances.
“There is one other thing I would ask,” she ventured. “My half-brother John Leigh has been in the Tower for some time. I have always thought him a good man. Would your Grace consider freeing him?”
Henry frowned. “Hmm. I will look into the matter, sweetheart, and consider it.”
He sat there thoughtfully for a while, then changed the subject. “I have a mind to ask Master Holbein to paint you. I would like a miniature of you to carry around with me.”
“I should be very happy to sit for him,” she replied.
They were nearing Hampton Court now and the oarsmen were pulling in toward the landing stage. The night sky was dark blue and velvety, patterned by stars, and the palace lit up by torches. Henry helped Katheryn out of the boat and gave her his hand. Together, arm in arm, they strolled into the palace.
* * *
—
For her portrait, she dressed in a French hood and a tawny gown with a deep jeweled biliment that Henry had given her. She wore fur sleeves, which she would take off later because it was too hot to wear them for long. She chose a golden ouche with a table diamond from which hung a ruby and a pearl, and a heavy pearl necklace, all pieces from the Queen’s jewels. When she was ready, she seated herself in her presence chamber. Her brothers were arriving at court today and she wanted to greet them before she summoned Master Holbein.
They bowed low, then embraced her. They towered above her and she marveled at how manly they had become. Charles was twenty-four now, Henry twenty-two, and George twenty-one.
“How well you have done for yourself, and for us, sister,” Charles said.
“We are very grateful,” Henry told her. “My income from my new post will enable me to marry.”
“Marry?” Katheryn echoed.
“The fool thinks himself in love!” George teased.
“I am in love. Grow up!” Henry retorted. “Her name is Ann and she is very comely.”
“I hope to meet her.” Katheryn smiled.
“You are looking every inch the queen, Kitty,” Charles said. “I assume I may still call you that?”
“Of course.” She smiled. “Is there any news of our sister Mary?”
“Yes, she, too, is to be married, to Mr. Trafford, a young gentleman of Lancashire. My lord Duke arranged it.”
Katheryn was startled. “It’s hard to believe she is twelve years old and about to become a wife. I have not seen her since she was tiny. I would not recognize her, I’m sure. And now she is going to live in the north, so I doubt I will see her for a long time—and I had hoped to have her at court. It’s sad. I have a sister, but I don’t know her.”
“I hear she is quite happy to be wed,” Henry said. “Trafford is only fourteen. They will live with his parents. Maybe Mary can come to court one day.”
“Who is that young lady over there?” Charles asked, indicating Margaret Douglas, who was sitting in a window seat with Mary Howard.
“That’s the King’s niece, the Lady Margaret Douglas,” Katheryn told him.
“What a beauty she is!”
“No, Charles, she’s not for you,” Katheryn declared. “She will be married off to the King’s advantage one day.”
“But I can dream…” He winked at her. It was good to have her brothers at court.
* * *
—
After her sitting with Master Holbein had ended, she joined the ladies in her privy chamber and several young gentlemen came to keep them company. As some played cards and others played music, her cousin Surrey came over and seated himself on a stool beside her great chair. He was of a mercurial, artistic temperament and could be quite wild sometimes. Everyone knew what his opinions were, for he was loud to voice them, but he had a great wit and had always been kind to Katheryn.
“How is my cousin enjoying being Queen?” he asked.
“Wonderfully,” she enthused.
“My father sings your praises all day long, and that’s not like the old curmudgeon.” He grinned. “In truth, we are all grateful to you. It is no mean thing to ensnare a king.”
Katheryn laughed. “I think his Grace did the snaring.”
“And now the reformists are muzzled!” He smiled. “The days of Archbishop Cranmer and the upstart Seymours are numbered. I hear they’re squabbling among themselves now, which leaves us conservatives a free hand.”
Katheryn bristled a little. “And you think the King is not master of them all?”
“He is highly suggestible and easily led, and it is our job to see that he is not led in the wrong direction. That is why your role is so important. While he loves you so deeply, we have nothing to fear, so it is essential that you keep his affection.”
“He is not as simple as that,” Katheryn said coldly, angry at Surrey for thinking that Henry could be manipulated so easily. “He is very suspicious and finds it hard to trust people. He worries about those around him embracing Lutheran ideas, especially the younger generation, like us. He is wary of ambitious courtiers. He likes it when people are unsure of him. It is unwise to judge him as you do, for he is no puppet.”
“You have been observant,” Surrey observed. “Yet he is still suggestible—and dangerous. He burns Catholics for supporting the Pope, and Protestants for heresy. We all have to watch our step lest we get fried! And if the King will not curb the reformers at court, then we must.”
She shook her head. “You had best watch your tongue, my lord, lest it get you in trouble.”
He gave her a sharp look. “You would not tell him what I said?”
“No, but I can see you fear that I might. And that is the measure of the King’s power!” She smiled at him defiantly.
“All right, I concede you the victory.” He laughed. “His Grace should know what a loyal champion he has!”
* * *
—
The summer remained hot and dry; there was plague in London, and the court moved to Windsor Castle, which seemed old-fashioned and gloomy after the glories of Hampton Court. Henry ordered the bishops to exhort the people to pray for rain and an end to the pestilence, and there were processions of clergy and supplicants in the streets.
“We are going away,” he told Katheryn. “It is time to continue our honeymoon with a hunting progress.”
Excitedly, Katheryn ordered her women to pack, herself choosing what she would take. When Henry walked into her bedchamber and saw
the gowns piled on the bed, the shoes all over the floor, and hoods on every surface, he clapped his hand to his forehead.
“It’s no wonder my treasury is empty!” he groaned in mock anguish. Then he put his arm around a giggling Katheryn. “But you look lovely in them all, my darling, so it is money well spent.”
They left Windsor on August 22 and rode through Berkshire to Reading. There they stayed in the deserted abbey, where the lodgings once used by numerous kings and queens were still in good repair. Katheryn found it eerie, peering into the great empty church, imagining invisible monks and the echo of plainchant. How sad it was that there were no religious houses left now. She was glad when it was time to leave.
They rode on into Oxfordshire and Ewelme, a beautiful village nestling in lush countryside, where they stayed in the old royal manor house.
“I was conceived here, so my father told me,” Henry said, as they walked in the gardens. “It used to belong to my sister Mary, the French Queen. She died seven years ago.” He looked wistful; he had clearly been fond of her. “It’s a good base for hunting.”
With some courtiers in attendance, they walked through the village to see the church. There, Henry showed Katheryn the magnificent tomb of Thomas, the son of Geoffrey Chaucer the poet. “He was once lord of the manor of Ewelme, and fought at Agincourt,” he said. Katheryn wished she knew more about England’s history, because it would please Henry, but she had vaguely heard of Agincourt.
Henry had moved on. “And this is the tomb of Thomas’s daughter, Alice Chaucer. She married the Duke of Suffolk. My grandmother, the Lady Margaret Beaufort, was married for a short time to their son. The last Duke of Suffolk proved to be a traitor, which is how the manor came to the Crown.” Katheryn thought the white marble effigy of Alice Chaucer very beautiful.
Outside, crowds had gathered to see them. By the village pond, an old woman told Katheryn that the fairies played there and the water had healing powers. Just then, Henry stumbled on a stone and nearly fell into the pond, getting his velvet shoe wet.
“They’ll have to call it the King’s Pool now!” he said, and everyone laughed.
* * *
—
That evening, after he and Katheryn had dined in private, a messenger arrived from the Council and handed him a sealed document. His eyes narrowed as he read it and he waved the man away.
“What is wrong?” Katheryn asked.
“Nothing to bother yourself with, sweetheart,” he said. “Just malicious gossip.”
His words chilled her. Too many people knew too many things about her.
“If it is about me, I should like to know what has been said,” she told him.
Henry hesitated for a moment. “A priest has been brought before the magistrates at Windsor for having spoken unbefitting words about you.”
“What words?” What could a priest at Windsor possibly know about her?
“The Council does not say. But I will not have it. No one will be allowed to impugn your honor. He shall be confined to his diocese and admonished to be more temperate in the use of his tongue.”
She wondered what Henry would say if he knew that her honor had already been impugned, as he would see it. Again, guilt struck her.
* * *
—
They journeyed on, stopping at Rycote, Notley, and Buckingham, and, at the end of August, came to the royal manor of Grafton in Northamptonshire.
On the first evening, as they supped together in a paneled chamber overlooking open fields, Henry told Katheryn that his grandfather, King Edward IV, had married in secret at Grafton. “His nobles wanted him to wed a French princess, but he loved a widow, Elizabeth Wydeville, and defied them. It caused a lot of trouble.” He chuckled. “It seems that marrying for love runs in my family!” He raised her hand and kissed it.
They had been married for a month now and he was more loving and amorous than ever, and so openly demonstrative. His hands must always be touching and caressing her. He would gaze into her face and tell her how beautiful she was, not caring who was nearby.
“I have had this gold medal struck to commemorate our marriage,” he told her, and placed it in her hand. It was embossed with Tudor roses and true lovers’ knots entwined, and carried the inscription: HENRICUS VIII: RUTILANS ROSA SINE SPINA.
“What does it say?” she asked.
“It says you are my red rose without a thorn,” he told her.
Thorns were spikes; they hurt. She would never hurt him, for she thought too highly of him and loved him in her way, so the inscription was apt. Yet, again, she felt guilty, for he thought her perfect and she wasn’t.
* * *
—
In the second week of September, they traveled south to Ampthill, where they stayed for a fortnight. Henry went hunting, while Katheryn sunned herself in the pretty garden with her ladies and maids.
“I was here before with the late Princess Dowager after she was banished from court,” Anne Parr told her one morning. It took a moment for Katheryn to realize that she was talking about Queen Katherine. “I was very young and had not long lost my mother, who was very close to the Princess Dowager. We were all prisoners, really. Fortunately, the King allowed me to leave and found me a post at court. I felt bad about abandoning my kind mistress, but glad to be gone, for Ampthill was a dismal place to be back then.”
“It is best not to dwell on such things,” Lady Suffolk advised, fanning herself with the veil she had removed. It was hot and the garden looked parched.
“If the Princess Dowager had not defied the King and had agreed to an annulment, he would have given her the world,” Lady Rutland observed. “Such misplaced courage!”
Katheryn did not want to hear any more of this talk. She did not like to think of Henry sending a queen from court to a lonely exile in the shires. There was to be dancing after dinner and she needed to decide what she would wear.
“I hear that Will Somers is to entertain us this evening,” she said. When she became Queen, she had been disconcerted to find that the King’s eccentric little fool, with his wicked wit, was an almost permanent fixture in Henry’s chambers and never far from his master’s side. He was privy to many of his master’s private thoughts. No one dared to speak to Henry as familiarly as Somers did, yet his discretion was absolute. Katheryn wasn’t sure she liked him, being wary of his barbed tongue, which she had seen used to effect on others, but he was always pleasant to her. Of course, he knew how much Henry loved her.
Dinner was excellent and Somers very funny. He had the court holding its sides and crying with laughter.
“What beast is it that has her tail between her eyes?” he cried. “It is a cat when she licks her arse.” Henry roared at that.
At one point, Thomas, the King’s juggler, entered the hall.
“Time for my performance!” he said to Somers. But Somers was having none of it. Out he stormed and came back carrying a jug of milk and a bread roll.
“Will you give me a spoon, Harry?” he asked the King, as Thomas glared at him.
“Alas, I have none,” Henry told him.
“Ooh…” went the courtiers, and the King laughed.
Somers grinned at them and, handing his master a piece of the bread, burst into an impromptu song:
“This bit Harry I give to thee
And this next bit must serve for me,
Both which I’ll eat apace.”
He grabbed back Henry’s share and handed it to Katheryn.
“This bit Madam unto you,
And this bit I myself eat now,
And the rest upon thy face.”
So saying, he turned to Thomas, raised the jug, and threw the milk at him, then ran cackling out of the hall, with Thomas, bawling insults and dripping with milk, running after him. Katheryn laughed so much she could barely catch her breath.
Henry, too, was in fits, as was everyone else present.
When the tables were cleared, the musicians played and the dancing began. Katheryn was partnered in turn by most of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, while the King, whose leg was paining him a little, looked on indulgently, flushed with wine.
When it grew late, he stood up, took her hand, and bowed to the company, then led her off to bed.
“I hope you will not mind if I do not play the husband tonight,” he said as he lay down beside her. “This wretched leg is getting worse and I think I shall have to see my physician tomorrow. Just let me hold you, darling.”
She sank into his arms and began to drift off to sleep. But the quietness of the night was abruptly shattered by shouts and laughter from outside their window. Henry disengaged himself, sat up, and reached for the sword he always kept by the bed in case some would-be assassin attacked him in the night.
“What’s going on?” Katheryn asked.
The carousing—for that was what it sounded like—continued in a rowdy fashion.
“What the devil…” Henry heaved himself to his feet, stalked over to the window, and opened it. Katheryn joined him and was shocked to see, sprawled below in the garden, Sir Edward Baynton, as drunk as might be, with a group of other men, whom she recognized as members of the King’s and her own privy chambers. They were passing around flagons of ale and ewers of wine, and some were singing a bawdy song.
Henry’s face had turned puce. He pulled on his night robe, ordered Katheryn back to bed, and flung open the door. “Send for Sir Anthony Wingfield!” he commanded the young knight who had been sleeping on a pallet bed outside.
When the King’s Vice Chamberlain presented himself, Henry barked at him, “Look out of that window and see yonder fools below. I will not have anyone drunk and disorderly in my presence or that of the Queen. You will advise them of my pleasure concerning the sober and temperate behavior I would have them use at all times in my household.”