by Jean Plaidy
There was that fellow Holbein. He was paid thirty pounds a year. Let him earn his money.
He sent for the man. He had a weakness for those who excelled in the arts. He often declared that, had he not been burdened with matters of state, he would have devoted himself to the writing of poetry and the composing of music. But Master Holbein had painted some fine pictures since he had been introduced to the court by Sir Thomas More. There were two allegorical and certainly very beautiful paintings by the man, on the walls of a salon at White Hall; and there were in addition many portraits of the royal household and the nobility.
The King, however, was not altogether pleased with Master Holbein. He remembered how the fellow had deceived him with a portrait of his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, representing her as a beautiful woman. Whenever the King saw the painter he would be reminded of the shock he had received when he had gone, with a handsome present of sables, to meet the original of the picture. Ah! The horror, when he had looked into that pockmarked face, so different from the Holbein representation!
Moreover the man revived other memories. It was in More’s Chelsea house that he had first met him; and so the painter reminded the King of More, the great man—the greatest statesman of his age, he had been called—the family man who loved to joke with his sons and daughters and who had sought to evade the glories of office when he could not accept them with honor. The King would never forget how More’s daughter had stolen her father’s head from London Bridge, and how the people had quickly called the man a saint. Saint! thought Henry angrily. People were too ready to apply that word to any who lost his head. Had not More been jubilant at the prospect of burning heretics at Smithfield?
Ah yes, the King liked to remember that. More had not been all softness, not all saintliness. True, he had gone to the block for his beliefs, but one did not forget the Smithfield fires. Every time he smelled the smoke, heard the crackle of flames, he could think of Thomas More…Saint Thomas More.
He was sage enough to know that these thoughts came to him because he was growing old. Being all-powerful here on Earth, he must yet placate the invisible powers; and sometimes, with the pain on him and the hot blood pounding through his veins, he could fancy his end was not far off; then the fears multiplied, the uncertainties returned; and then it was consoling to remember the faults of other men.
“Now, Master Holbein,” he growled, “I pay you well, and I want you to earn your money. We want a picture of ourselves. We want something larger and grander than anything you have done before. Yes, we will have a picture of our family. My son, my daughters, my…Queen. You will start tomorrow.”
Hans Holbein bowed. Nothing, he declared, would give him greater pleasure, and he would be eager to start on the royal portrait the next day.
And during that day the lady of the bedchamber, who had caught the King’s eye, sang a song of his which greatly charmed him. A strong-looking girl, he reflected, with health as well as beauty. A girl molded to bear children.
When he was alone with the Queen that night he said: “It is a marvelous thing that God denies me a son.” And the look which accompanied the words was that which Katharine had begun to dread more than any other.
The next day when Hans Holbein came to the King, Henry’s resentment had increased. His son and daughters stood before him, and he surveyed his daughters with distaste, his son with apprehension.
In health he felt well; his leg scarcely pained him at all. Before leaving his chamber he had examined himself in his mirror; he had seen a magnificent figure in a gown of gold and scarlet drawn in at the waist with a sash of white satin, its short skirts embroidered in gold; about his neck was a collar of pearls and rubies; his dalmatica was lined with sables and decorated with pearls to match those in his collar. More than usual he glittered with jewels, and if he did not look too closely he could imagine he was young again.
“By God!” he had told his reflection. “I feel I have many years of health left to me. Have I once more saddled myself with a woman who cannot give me sons?”
He looked at her now, at her meek eyes and gentle mouth. He did not want gentle meekness; they were all very well for a sick man; but when a man feels himself to be in good health and hopes to be cured of the accursed humors in his leg, he does not wish to waste his time with a barren nurse. He wants fire and fertility.
The Prince looked pale, and the crimson cap of velvet with its feather and jewels merely accentuated his pallor; the red damask garment did not suit him, and no amount of artful padding could hide the fact that he was thin and puny.
The two girls in their crimson velvet gowns, wearing their pearl and ruby crosses, angered him; the elder because she reminded him of his first Queen (and he did not wish to be reminded of his past and the Spanish woman’s reproaches), the younger because she was the most healthy of his children and had failed to be born a boy.
The picture would be of himself, his children and his Queen; but he would not have Katharine in it. This was a family portrait, and had she helped him to add to his family? She had not.
He growled his instructions. “I will sit as though on my throne, and the boy shall stand beside me. Come here, my son. Let my daughters take their stand by the pillars there, and my Queen should be beside me.” He glowered maliciously at Katharine. “Methinks though that there should be another beside me on this day, and that is the Queen who gave me my son.”
There was silence. Hans Holbein looked uncomfortable. Katharine forced herself not to show the fear that came to her whenever the King talked in this way.
Henry had seated himself. His son and daughters took the places he had assigned to them. Only Edward dared to look compassionately at the Queen.
“I have it!” cried Henry. “You shall paint the boy’s mother beside me. Queen Jane must be the Queen in this family group. She is dead, and that fact grieves me sorely, but she was our Queen; she was the mother of our son. I will have you set her beside me, sir painter. You understand?”
“I shall be for ever at Your Gracious Majesty’s command.”
“She will be painted pale and shadowy…almost like a specter…as though she has come from her grave to join our family group. So, madam” (he had thrown a malevolent glance at Katharine), “we shall have no need of your presence here.”
Katharine bowed and retired.
This was the greatest insult she had received since her marriage, and it filled her with a terrible fear. It could mean only one thing: the King regretted his marriage. When Henry the Eighth started to regret a marriage he was already looking for a new wife.
Everyone at court now knew how the picture was being painted; all had heard of the spectral Queen.
Gardiner and Wriothesley congratulated each other. Now was surely the time to strike.
Cranmer and Hertford were watchful of Gardiner and Wriothesley. Katharine’s closest friends were nervous. As for Katharine herself, she thought constantly of her predecessors who had walked out to Tower Green and died there, for she felt her time was near.
The bells rang jubilantly: Sons…sons…sons….
And all through the court there was tension and a sense of waiting.
FATE, IN THE GUISE of War, distracted Henry’s attention.
There had for some months been trouble in Scotland. It was Henry’s dearest wish that his son should marry Mary, the baby Queen of Scots, and so bring Scotland and England under one crown. This the French King wished to oppose with all his might. François planned to remove the child and bring her up at his court as the future wife of his eldest son. He had sent ships and supplies to Scotland, and the Scots thereupon repudiated the promises they had made to Henry and began to negotiate with France.
Henry’s great ideal was a British Empire; he realized that a marriage between Scotland and France would make this impossible. He decided therefore that the only course open to him at this stage was a war on two fronts.
The Emperor Charles had been seeking England as an ally against Fran
ce, and Henry decided to join forces with the Spaniard. He had sent troops to the north of France under Thomas Seymour and Sir John Wallop; he was sending his brother-in-law the Earl of Hertford to Scotland. Henry decided that he himself would go to France for the attack; he and the Emperor planned to meet triumphantly in Paris when that city fell to them.
Temporarily Henry had ceased to think of a seventh wife.
There must be a Regent in England, and if his wife had ceased to appeal to him as a bedfellow, nevertheless he could trust her to act in his name during his absence. With Cranmer and Hertford to help her, he decided he could safely leave England and cross with his Army to France.
Thus on a July day he set out for Dover and reached Calais in safety.
While deeply aware of the immense responsibility which now rested upon her, and aware also of what reward would be hers if she failed in her duty, Katharine could feel nothing but relief. After all, when one was married to a man who had murdered two wives and terrified and humiliated three others, one must be prepared for alarms; and it was possible, if not to feel contempt for death, to be less unnerved by the contemplation of it.
He had gone; and she was free, if only for a little while. She rejoiced in secret.
He had parted from her with loving assurances of his devotion, but before he had left he had given her a special charge with regard to Prince Edward.
“We cannot get ourselves another son,” he had said reproachfully, “so we must guard well him whom we have.”
When he had kissed her fondly she had known he was thinking: A whole year and no sign of a son! Doubtless, as he crossed the Channel under his sails of cloth of gold, he was telling himself that he was a patient man and that a year was a very long time to wait for the sign of a son.
One day when she was with the children, superintending their studies, word was brought to her that a lady had presented herself at court and, stating that she was a friend of the Queen, asked if an audience might be granted her.
Katharine bade the messenger say that as soon as she was free she would see the lady; and shortly afterward there was brought to her a young woman, tall and slender, a pale primrose of a woman, with golden hair, and deep blue eyes in which seemed to burn an emotion not of this world.
“Your dearest Majesty…” The young woman knelt before the Queen.
“Why, Anne! It is Anne Askew. Though I suppose I should call you Mistress Kyme now that you have married. Rise, my dear Anne. I would hear your news.”
“Pray call me Anne Askew, Your Majesty, as you did in the old days, for that is how I wish to be known from now on.”
Katharine, seeing signs of distress in the face of her friend, dismissed her attendants with the exception of little Jane, whom she sent to her needlework in the far comer of the apartment.
“What has happened?” asked Katharine.
“I have left my husband. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that he has sent me from him.”
“He has turned you out of his house?”
“I fear so, Your Majesty.”
Anne laughed without mirth.
“I am sorry, Anne,” said Katharine.
“Do not look so sorrowful, Your Majesty. It is no great sorrow to me. I was married to Mr. Kyme, as you know, because he is the richest man in Lincolnshire. He was to have had my elder sister, but she died before the marriage contract could be completed; and so, my father gave me to him. I had no wish for the marriage…nor indeed for any marriage.”
“Alas,” said Katharine, “such as we are, we have our marriages made for us. Our wishes are not consulted.”
She thought of her own three marriages, particularly of the present one.
“And now,” she went on, “he has turned you out of his house?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I was forced to marry him, but I cannot be compelled to abandon my religion.”
“So, Anne, he has discovered where your sympathies lie?”
“How could I deny them?” She stood before the Queen, her eyes a burning blue, her hands clenched. “Your Majesty, there is one true religion and one only. I have studied much in the last few years. I know that there is only one way to the salvation of England, and that is for her to adopt the true religion, the religion of Martin Luther.”
“Hush, Anne! Hush!”
Katharine looked fearfully about her; the little girl in the comer had her head bent low over her needlework.
“There are times when I think I am past caring what becomes of me,” said Anne.
“Heads have rolled in the straw because their owners have dared say words such as you have just said,” the Queen reminded her severely.
“Your Majesty would betray me?”
“Anne! How can you say such a thing! I am your friend. You have my sympathy. I too love the new learning. But I pray you, have a care what you say. Terrible things happen in the torture chambers of the Tower. Have you ever heard the shrieks of agony at Smithfield stakes? So recently three gentlemen of Windsor were burned to death.”
“Such shrieks,” said Anne, “are but the triumphant shouts of martyrs.”
“Martyrs indeed, poor souls!” said Katharine. “And, methinks, there are some of us who are born to wear the martyrs’ crown. But let us not be rash, dear Anne. You have come to me now because you have nowhere else to go, since your husband has turned you out. Is that so?”
“I put myself under Your Grace’s protection.”
“Rest assured, my dear friend, that I shall do everything in my power to help you. You shall stay here; but Anne, have a care. We are surrounded by enemies here. Your movements will be watched. You will be spied on. Oh, Anne, have a care.”
Anne knelt and kissed the Queen’s hands.
Katharine was uneasy. This burning love of the new religion in Anne Askew bordered on fanaticism. She guessed that it had been enhanced by her experiences. Anne should never have been forced into marriage with Mr. Kyme nor with anyone. Anne was not meant for marriage; she was without the desire for physical love.
Katharine longed to help Anne. She decided she would give her a place at court and see that she had leisure for her reading and study. And above all she would try to infuse into Anne the need for caution.
KATHARINE FOUND THAT the very absence of the King brought fresh fears to her.
The heat was intense that summer. From the noisome pits and sloughs of the highways rose the stench of decaying refuse. In the narrow streets flanked by houses with their high gabled roofs and the stories which projected one above another, the atmosphere was stifling although the sunlight was almost shut out. The hovels in which the poor lived were made of wood and clay and, in them, vermin flourished. The rushes on the floors were added to month by month and not removed until they were halfway up the walls; they abounded with lice; the dogs slept in them; bones and gristle lay rotting beneath the top layer; and it was only when the noses of the inhabitants, long accustomed to the smell of decay and sewage, were nauseated beyond endurance that any attempt was made to “sweeten.” The windows were small and not made to open, and the sick lay with the healthy on the malodorous rushes.
And one day a man, walking along the highway which connected the Strand with the village of Charing, collapsed and lay there on the road; when he was discovered it was seen that his face was covered with spots and was of a dark purple color. Some who saw him recognized the symptoms and turned shuddering away. There was nothing to be done for him; he had but a few hours to live.
Later that day one body was discovered by the Church of St. Clement Danes and another in Gray’s Inn Lane; more were found on the causeway leading from Aldgate to Whitechapel Church.
The news spread. The plague had once more come to London.
When Katharine heard the news, her first thoughts were for the young Prince. She was terrified. He was so weak that she felt he might be a ready prey for any fever that stalked the town.
She watched him; he seemed listless; and she could see that his headache was mor
e acute than usual.
Should she shut him into his apartments, order that none should approach him, and hope that the pollution would not reach him? Or should she take the risk of riding through the plague-infested streets, far away to some spot as yet unvisited by the plague?
She was uncertain. Haunted by visions of the King’s wrath if any harm should come to the all-important heir, she could not help putting her hands about her neck and shivering. She was no martyr. She was no Anne Askew. She wanted to live, even though she must not so much as think of the man she loved, even though she must be on perpetual guard against her enemies.
While the King had been away she had conducted herself with caution. Cranmer and Hertford, without whose advice she would not have dreamed of acting, were pleased with her, admiring her calm judgment. She herself had written regularly to the King, and in a manner which she knew would please him. Hypocritical, some might say those letters were. Always she applauded his greatness, speaking of him as though he were a god rather than a King, stressing her gratitude for the honor he had done her when he raised her to the throne.
What is a woman to do, she asked herself, when any false step might cost her her life? And is it not better to try to believe that I am honored and should be grateful, to make an attempt to see myself as the King sees me, rather than to rail against my fate? It is the presence of Anne Askew that has set me despising myself. Anne would never demean herself with hypocrisy. Anne would tell the truth and nothing but the truth. She would die rather than write or act a lie. But how different we are! Anne cares nothing for life, and I want to live; I want desperately to live.
In her heart she knew why. The King was not a healthy man; he was many years older than she was…older than Sir Thomas Seymour. Thomas had said: “The future is ours.” She could not help it if she longed for the future, if, while she tried to do her duty as the wife of the King and to accept the cruel fate which had been thrust upon her, she tried also to put the best face upon it and to give herself courage by believing that it could not last for ever and that she would outlive it.