The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr

by Jean Plaidy

  Wriothesley said: “The pain is terrible, I know. Endure no more of it. Merely whisper those names.”

  She tried to turn her face away. Her lips began to move; but as Wriothesley put his ear close to her face, he was disgusted to find that she gave no names; it was but prayers she uttered, prayers for courage and the strength to endure her pains.

  Wriothesley cried out in anger: “Again! Again! The woman is a fool. Let her suffer for her folly. That was merely a taste. Now let her have the full fury.”

  “No…no…” cried Anne’s lips. “This…is…too…”

  She had believed, a few seconds before, that she had learned all she could ever know about pain, that she had suffered it in all its malignancy, its fullest and most venomous powers. She was mistaken. Here was woeful agony, excruciating, exquisite torture, the very peaks of pain. “Oh God, let me die… let me die….” Those words beat on and on in her brain.

  But they would not let her die. They would not let her long enjoy the benefit of unconsciousness. They were there, those evil men, bringing her out of the blessed darkness to suffer more pain.

  “Names… names… names….” The words beat on her ears.

  “Oh, God,” she prayed, “I had not thought of this. I had not thought I could endure so much and live. I had thought of the quick sharp pain. Death by the flames could not bring such agony as this.”

  She heard the voice of Wriothesley beating like an iron bar on her shattered nerves:

  “I will have those names. I will. I will. Again. Again. Give it to her again. You men are soft. You are too gentle. By God, I’ll have those names.”

  Sir Anthony Knevet intervened: “My lords, I protest against this additional racking. The lady has been put to the test. That is enough.”

  “And who, sir,” demanded the Chancellor, “are you to say what shall and what shall not be done?”

  “I am the Lieutenant of this Tower. I am in sole charge in this Tower. The lady shall not, with my consent, be tortured further.”

  “And who has placed you in command of this Tower? You forget to whom you owe your honors. This is rank disobedience to His Majesty’s orders. I will carry reports of this to the King, and we shall see how much longer you remain Lieutenant of the Tower, sir.”

  Sir Anthony grew pale. He was afraid of the Chancellor and the Solicitor-General, for the two stood firm against him. But when he looked from them to the halfdead woman on the rack, he boldly said: “I cannot give my consent to the continuation of the racking.” He turned to the torturers. “Hold!” he ordered. “Have done.”

  Wriothesley laughed.

  “Then must we do the work ourselves. Come, Rich!” he cried; and he threw off his cloak. “We will work this together. We will show the lady what happens to those who defy us. As for you, sir Lieutenant, you will hear more of this matter. I, personally, shall convey the tale of your disobedience to the King.”

  Knevet walked out of the chamber.

  Rich hesitated; the two professional torturers, who dared not disobey the Lieutenant’s orders, stood watching. But Wriothesley had pushed them aside, was rolling up his sleeves, and, signing to Rich to do the same, he took an oar.

  And venomously and most cruelly did those two go to work.

  Anne was past prayers, past thought. There was nothing in the world for her, but the most exquisite agony ever inflicted on man or woman; there was nothing for her but the longing for death.

  Sweating with their exertions, Wriothesley and Rich paused.

  “She cannot endure more,” said Rich. “She is on the point of death.”

  Rich was also thinking: And Knevet will be in his barge at this moment on his way to Greenwich. And what will the King say? His Majesty would not want this woman to die on the rack; he only wanted her to betray, as a heretic, the woman of whom he was so tired that he wished to rid himself of her.

  Wriothesley followed his thoughts.

  “Remove the ropes,” he said. “She has had enough.”

  The professional torturers untied the ropes and laid the broken body of Anne Askew on the floor.

  KNEVET SOUGHT AN AUDIENCE WITH THE KING.

  “Your Majesty, I come in great haste. I come to lay before you my sincere apologies if I have disobeyed your orders. But I cannot believe Your Most Clement Majesty ever gave such orders.”

  “What orders are these?” asked the King, his shrewd eyes glinting. He guessed that the Lieutenant of the Tower had news of Anne Askew.

  “Your Grace, I have come straight from the racking of Anne Askew.”

  “The racking of Anne Askew!” The King’s voice was noncommittal. He wished Anne Askew to betray the Queen’s guilt, but he did not care to have his name connected with the racking of a woman.

  The Lieutenant of the Tower lifted his eyes hopefully to the King’s face.

  “It is the woman, Your Grace, who is condemned to the stake.”

  “The heretic,” said Henry. “She is condemned with three men, I understand. She has offended against our Holy Church and slandered the Mass. She has been tried and her judges have found her guilty.”

  “That is so, Your Majesty. The sentence is just. But… they are racking her to death. Your Chancellor and Solicitor-General are racking her for information.”

  “Racking her! Racking a woman!”

  Knevet was on his knees, kissing the King’s hand.

  “I knew that Your Grace in your great mercy would never have given your consent to such treatment of a frail woman. I could not allow myself to be involved in the matter unless I had written orders from Your Majesty. I trust I did right.”

  The King’s lips were prim. To rack a woman! He had never given his consent to that. The rack had not been mentioned in his talk with the Chancellor.

  “You did right,” said the King.

  “Then I have Your Majesty’s pardon?”

  “There is no need of pardon, my friend.” The King laid his hand on Knevet’s shoulder. “Go back to your duties with a good conscience.”

  Fervently Knevet continued to kiss the King’s hand.

  As he was about to retire, Henry said: “And the woman…did she disclose…er… anything of interest?”

  “No, Your Majesty. She is a brave woman, heretic though she be. I left the Chancellor and Solicitor-General working the rack themselves, and with great severity.”

  The King frowned. “And…on a frail woman!” he said in shocked tones. “It may be that under dire torture she will betray others who are as guilty as she is.”

  “I doubt it, Your Majesty. She was then too weak to know anything but her agony.”

  The King turned away as though to hide his distress that such things could happen in his realm. “A woman …” he murmured, his voice half sorrowful, half angry. “A frail woman!”

  But when the Lieutenant had gone, his eyes, angry points of light, almost disappeared in his bloated face.

  “A curse on all martyrs!” he muttered. “A curse on them all!”

  Memories of others came to him in that moment. Norris and Derham; Fisher and More.

  And it seemed to him that the ghosts of those martyrs were in the room, mocking him.

  IN THAT SQUARE where so many tragedies had been played out, where medieval duels had been fought, where the sixty-two-year-old Edward III had held a seven-day joust for the entertainment of the young woman with whom he was in love, where Wat Tyler had been bettered by the youthful Richard II—in that square of gay triumphs and cruel deeds, men were now piling the faggots around four stakes.

  From all over London the people were coming to Smithfield. Today was a show day, and the crowning event of a day’s sightseeing was to be the burning of four martyrs, one of them a woman—the famous Anne Askew. They chattered and laughed and quarreled, and most impatiently they waited for the sight of those who were to suffer.

  The hot sun burned down on the walls of the Priory renowned for the fine mulberries that grew in its grounds, picking out the sharp stones and
making them glitter. The smell of horses was in the air, although this place was to be used for a purpose other than the marketing of horses on this tragic day.

  On a bench outside the Church of St. Bartholomew sat Wriothesley, with important members of his party, among them the old Duke of Norfolk and the Lord Mayor.

  Wriothesley was uneasy.

  The King had not reproved him in private for the racking of Anne Askew, and he knew that he had done what His Majesty had wished even though he could not be commended for it in public. Still, the torturing had been a failure, for the woman had refused to give the names which were required of her; and it was not wise to forge a false confession, for she was a fearless woman who was quite capable of exposing the fraud when she was at the stake and there would be many to hear her.

  Yes, the affair was a failure, for clearly the torturing and burning of a gentlewoman had not in itself been the desire of the King or the Chancellor. The motive had been to implicate the Queen, and that had not been achieved.

  On this day a fence had been erected on all sides of the square. It was necessary to keep back the press of people. He was afraid of what they might do, what sympathies they might display toward a woman who had been broken on the rack … whatever her faith. He was afraid of what words Anne Askew might speak while the flames crackled at her feet. Fervently he hoped that if she did speak, the fences would prevent the mass of sightseers from being near enough to hear her. He was, therefore, a most uneasy man.

  The victims were now on their way from Newgate, whither Anne had been taken after her torturing, to await the day of her death. Anne came first. She was carried to the stake in her chair, for her limbs were useless. The people shouted when they saw her. The cry of “Heretic! To the stake with the heretics!” was distinctly heard. But so also were the words: “God bless you.” And some pressed forward to touch the garment of one who they considered would shortly be a holy martyr.

  Her golden hair lay lusterless about her shoulders, but how fiercely her blue eyes burned. No torture could douse the light which burned within her. She was the fanatical and triumphant martyr. She knew that she had come successfully through the greater ordeal. Death by the flames would offer a welcome release from pain.

  With her were three men—three others who had denied the Mass. None of them was considered of any importance; they were humble people. John Lascelles was the most interesting, because he had been the man who had first spread the rumors concerning Catharine Howard and so sent her to her doom.

  Wriothesley thought fleetingly that every man was near to death. He who condemned today, was in his turn condemned tomorrow.

  He turned to Norfolk. “A woman to die thus! It seems cruel.”

  “Aye,” said Norfolk, who had seen two female relatives, wives of the King, lose their heads. “But she is nevertheless a heretic.”

  “I have the King’s pardon in my pocket. It is hers if she will recant. I wish to let the people know that pardon awaits her if she will see reason.”

  “Have it sent to her before the sermon starts.”

  Anne received the message while, about her body, they were fixing the chain which would hold her to the stake.

  “I come not hither,” she said, “to deny my Lord and Master.”

  She saw that the three men who were to die with her received similar messages.

  They were brave, but they lacked her spirit. They turned their agonized eyes to her, and she saw how their apprehensive bodies longed to recant, although their spirits would firmly ignore the frailty of the flesh.

  She said: “My friends, we have suffered…I more than any of you. I am happy now. I long for death. I long to feel the flames. To deny your God now, would mean that you would loathe the life offered you on such terms.”

  She smiled and looked almost lovingly at the faggots about her maltreated legs.

  Then the men smiled with her and tried to emulate her courage.

  “They are beginning the sermons,” she said. “There is Dr. Shaxton. He will preach to us, he who a short while ago was one of us. Now he has denied his faith. He has chosen life on Earth in place of the life everlasting. Do not envy him, my friends, for very soon now you and I will be in paradise. We are to die, and we die for truth. We die in the Lord. God bless you, my friends. Have no fear; for I have none.”

  She held the cross in her hands. She lifted her eyes to Heaven, seeming to be unaware of the flickering flames. She heard the shrieks of agony about her; but she was smiling as the flames crept up her tortured body.

  Soon there was silence, and a pall of smoke hung above Smithfield Square.

  CHAPTER

  IV

  THE KING WAS DISSATISFIED.

  The execution had availed him nothing. He was a tired man; he was a King in need of relaxation, and my lady of Suffolk seemed to grow more fair as the days passed.

  He was overburdened with matters of state. The cost of garrisoning the town of Boulogne and holding it against the French was a considerable drain on his resources, yet he would not give it up. It was an additional foothold in France which he felt was necessary to England. He affectionately called Boulogne “my daughter”; and it was said that he never squandered so much on any child of his as he did on the bricks and soil of that town.

  Indeed he needed relaxation. In the days of his youth he had found great pleasure in the hunt; but he could no longer hunt with pleasure. He had enjoyed dancing, jousting, playing games, amusing and distinguishing himself in the tiltyard. But now that he was no longer a young man those avenues to pleasure were closed. There was still love. He needed love; but because he was a virtuous man—and he was continually worried by the thought that his end might not be far off—it must be legalized love; the sort of love which would not distress his conscience while it delighted his body.

  All the kings of his age were egoists; but egoism was the very essence of this King’s nature. Everything that happened must be colored by his view of it, garnished and flavored to satisfy his conscience.

  After he had fallen from grace, Cardinal Wolsey, who had perhaps known him better than any other person, said of him: “The King is a man of royal courage. He has a princely heart; and rather than he will miss or want part of his appetite he will hazard the loss of onehalf of his kingdom.”

  It was true of Henry. He was as Wolsey had seen him. But he was strong and ruthless in an age when strength and ruthlessness were the qualities a growing country looked for in its King; and under this man a little island had become a great power; he, who had seemed to his enemies on the Continent of Europe but of ducal standing when he ascended the throne, had become a mighty King.

  But there was more than one Henry. Just as there was the moralist and the sensualist, so there was the strong and ruthless ruler, determined to make his country great, and that other who must at all cost have his pleasure and who was ready to sacrifice half his kingdom for his appetite. But every phase of Henry’s character—the moralist, the sensualist, the great King and the weak King—was dominated by the brutal, callous monster.

  Those about him, those sly and subtle ministers, continually watching him, sensed his moods.

  They had murdered Anne Askew, but they still had to rid him of his sixth wife and provide him with a seventh. And there came a day shortly after the executions in Smithfield when Gardiner found his opportunity.

  Gardiner had been granted an audience with the King when His Majesty was alone with the Queen, and the Bishop sensed at once a certain tension in the atmosphere. The King was irritated and wished to quarrel with the Queen; and the woman would give him no opportunity.

  When Gardiner had the King’s signature to the papers which he had set before him, he spoke of the execution of Anne Askew, a subject which never failed to upset the Queen so thoroughly that it set her emotions above her common sense.

  The King scowled.

  “The trouble, Your Grace,” said Gardiner, “can be traced to these books which are circulating in your realm. Th
ey lead astray those who read them.” Gardiner had turned to the Queen, and he added pointedly: “Your Majesty has doubtless seen the books to which I refer?”

  “I?” said Katharine, flushing uncomfortably.

  “I feel sure that the woman, Anne Askew, must have brought them to Your Grace’s notice.”

  Katharine, who had suffered and was still suffering from the tragedy which had robbed her of a woman whom she had loved and respected, said sharply: “The books I see and read could be of little interest to you, my lord Bishop.”

  “Not if they were forbidden books, Your Majesty.”

  “Forbidden books!” cried the Queen. “I was unaware that I must ask my lord Bishop’s advice as to what I might and might not read.”

  Henry, who could never like Gardiner, thought his manner insolent, and growled: “I, too, was unaware of it.”

  Gardiner bowed. He was a bold man and he knew that he was but obeying the will of the King in what he was doing.

  “In truth,” he said quietly, “it would be presumptuous of me to direct Your Highness’s reading. I would but express an opinion that it might be unwise for the Queen’s Grace to have in her possession books given to her by those who, by order of the King, have been found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death.”

  The King’s eyes glistened; they almost disappeared into his face as they did in moments of great pleasure or anger.

  “What books are these?” he growled. “Has our Queen become the friend of those who work against us?”

  Gardiner caught the note of excitement in the King’s voice. Was this the moment? Could he, by subtle words, trap the Queen, as he and the Chancellor had been unable to do by applying the torture to Anne Askew?

  “Indeed not,” said Katharine.

  She saw the crafty wickedness in her husband’s eyes, and because of what had happened to those who had shared his throne before her, she read his thoughts.

  “Not so?” said the King. “We would be sure of that.”