Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

by Jean Plaidy

  Although less superstitious than the King, she was not entirely free from this weakness. As she stitched at garments for the poor, she asked herself if she were not doing this in return for a healthy boy. Was she placating the Powers above, as Henry did? Was she, she wondered, getting a little like him? She had her moments of fear. Was Henry capable of begetting a healthy boy? His body was diseased. What if this were the reason Katharine had failed, and she too, so far! Perhaps she was, in a way, placating Providence, making conditions.

  She was worried about the Princess Mary. She was still afraid of the Princess and of Katharine. It had seemed to her that if these two were together they might plot something against her, and through her against Elizabeth. Chapuys she feared. She knew well there were many powerful nobles who deeply resented the break with Rome. They were all only waiting to rise up and destroy her. She must not allow her new favor with the King to blind her to this.

  And as she stitched, she prayed for a son.

  The King prayed too. He was pleased with the change in Anne. It was well to see her calmer, quieter; it was well to feel this peace stealing over him because at last their union was flavored with hope. He needed such hope; the people were being difficult once more. They were saying that it had not rained since More had died; they would always find a reason for a bad harvest, and the crops had failed once more. The Flanders trade was not good. In fact it looked as if the country was getting together a collection of grievances and irritations in order to make trouble.

  The King needed distraction. It suddenly dawned on him that one of his wife’s attendants was—well, not so much an attractive girl as a different kind of girl. Perhaps he meant that she was quite different from Anne; she was so quiet, she moved about like a little mouse; she was very fair; she had a prim little mouth and quick, glancing eyes. She would never be leader of the revels, she would never shine, she would never outwit a man with her sharp tongue! She was as different from Anne as any woman could be. That was why he first noticed her.

  If she caught his eyes upon her, she would drop hers quickly; a soft rose-pink blush would steal into her cheeks. She was very demure.

  On one occasion he was sitting alone, thinking that it was a long time before his son could be born, and wondering if there was some holy relic the soothsayers could give him as protection against another girl child. He had some holy water, a tear which Christ had shed over Lazarus, and a vial of the sweat of St. Michael; all of which he had purchased at great cost during the sweating sickness. But in spite of these, Anne’s first child had been a girl, and he wondered whether he should buy something especially which might ensure the birth of a boy. As he considered this, the demure maid of honor came into the room and, seeing him, curtseyed in a frightened way and would have hurried off had he not detained her with a “Hi, there! What want you?”

  “Her Grace, the Queen . . .” said the girl, so low that he could scarcely hear her.

  “What of Her grace, the Queen?” He studied her from head to toe. Small where Anne was tall; slow of movement where Anne was quick; meek where Anne sparkled; slow of speech instead of bright; modest instead of coquettish; willing to listen humbly rather than disconcert a man with her wit.

  “I had thought to find her . . .”

  “Come hither!” said the King. “And are you very disturbed to come upon the King when you looked for the Queen?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty . . . I mean no, Your Majesty. . . .”

  “Well,” said Henry pleasantly, “make up your mind.”

  She would not come too close. He did not force her, liking suddenly her demureness, since there were so many of them who were too ready.

  She could think of nothing to say, which pleased him and made him remember that Anne was over-ready with her retorts.

  “Sit there awhile and I will play. You may listen. Bring my lute to me.”

  She brought it, cautiously. He tried to touch her fingers over the lute, but she was quick; she had leaped back as though he had tried to sting her. He was not angry. His thoughts were chiefly of his son, and therefore with Anne. But he liked the girl; he was, he told himself, always touched by modesty; he liked and respected it in the young people about his court.

  He commanded her to sit; she did so, modestly letting her hands fall into her lap; her mild eyes watched him, and then seemed full of admiration.

  When he had finished he saw that her eyes were filled with tears, so moved was she by his music, and he realized that he had not felt so gratified for a long time.

  He asked her name. She told him it was Jane Seymour.

  He dismissed her then. “You may go. We shall meet again. I like you, Jane!”

  It was not a quarrel with Anne, just a slight irritation. A petty argument, and she, in her overpowering way, had proved herself right. Jane Seymour would never be one to prove herself right. She’s all woman, thought Henry. And that’s how a woman should be. Women are women, and men are men. When the one will dabble with that which is solely within the province of the other, it is a sad thing.

  He sent for Jane Seymour. She should have the honor of hearing his new song before he allowed anyone else to hear it. She sat listening, her feet scarce reaching the floor; which made her seem helpless. She was very meek.

  He made inquiries about her. She was the daughter of Sir John Seymour of Wolf Hall in Wiltshire; he was by no means a powerful nobleman, but it was interesting to discover that there was a tiny root of royalty in his family tree, provided one dug deep enough to find it. Henry stored such knowledge. And as he played his lute, he thought about Jane; a quiet, mild bedfellow, he thought, pleasant enough, and white-skinned; unawakened and virginal. He grew sentimental; virtue had that effect on him. All women, he told himself, should be virtuous.

  The court noticed his preoccupation with the maid of honor. Chapuys and the French ambassador laughed together. They were cynical. The King had been noted of late to extol virginity. “He refers to Jane Seymour!” said the French ambassador, to whom the Spanish ambassador replied that he greatly doubted Jane possessed that quality, having been some time at court. He added that the King might be pleased though that she did not, for then he could marry her on condition that she was a virgin, and when he needed a divorce he could then find many witnesses to the contrary.

  But the King continued to view Jane through sentimental eyes. She had been primed by her father and her brothers, when dazzling possibilities had occurred to the minds of these very ambitious men who had the example of the Earl of Wiltshire and the young Lord Rochford before their eyes. They advised Jane: “Do this . . .” “On no account do that . . .” Jane herself was not without ambition. She had watched many a quarrel between the King and Queen, and she understood the King more than he would have thought from the demure eyes that met his with such seeming sincerity.

  When he tried to kiss her, she was overcome with blushes; she ran away and hid herself, and the King, having become the champion of virtue, could not satisfy his conscience if he forced the girl to anything. His mind began to scheme with his conscience once again. What if this marriage with Anne had been wrong? What if God should show his disapproval over the child? The plans were not very well shaped as yet—they were misty shadows of thought, which allowed him to dally with Jane, while respecting her virtue.

  He gave her a locket bearing his picture; she wore it on a chain round her throat, intending this to be a sign that were she not of such unbending virtue she would readily consider his advances, having the greatest admiration for his person. He wanted Jane; he could not have her; and this made her seem very desirable to him.

  The story of Anne was to Jane a long object lesson: what to do before, what not to do after. But though Jane knew what she must do, she was not very intelligent, and she could not prevent a new haughtiness creeping into her manner, which Anne was quick to notice. She saw the locket which Jane was wearing, and asked mildly enough if she might see it.

  Jane flushed guiltily, and put her hand
over the locket; whereat Anne’s suspicions flared up. She took the locket, breaking its chain as she did so, and on snapping it open beheld the smiling face of the King crowned in a jeweled cap.

  A year ago she would have raged against him; now she was silent and undecided. She saw in sly Jane Seymour, with her much-paraded virtue, a more deadly enemy than any other woman who had taken the King’s fancy.

  She prayed urgently. A son! I must have a son!

  At Kimbolton Castle, Katharine lay dying. She had lived wretchedly during her lingering illness, for money due to her was not paid. She was full of sorrow; not only had she been separated from her beloved daughter, but when she had asked that she might see the Princess before she died, even this request was denied her. She was deeply disturbed by the fate of her former confessor, Father Forrest, who though an old man had, through his allegiance to her, been cruelly treated at the hands of the King; he had been imprisoned and tortured in such a manner that she could not bear to contemplate; she longed to write and comfort him, but she feared that if a letter from her was intercepted, it might cause the old man’s execution, and though, in his case, death might be the happiest release from his misery, she could not bring it about. Abell, her other confessor, was treated with equal cruelty; it was unbearable that her friends should suffer thus.

  Chapuys had got the King’s reluctant permission to visit her, and arrived on New Year’s Day. She was delighted to see one whom she knew to be her friend. She was very ill, and looked ten years older than her fifty years. He sat by her bed and she, while expressing genuine sorrow for all those who had suffered in her cause, said that she had never thought for one instant that she had been wrong in her struggle against the King.

  To the man who had caused the chief miseries of her life she had no reproaches to offer. She was the daughter of a king and queen, and she believed in the divine right of royalty. The King would bastardize a princess, because he was bewitched; he would, she believed, emerge from that witchery and see the folly of his ways. It was her duty in the interests of royalty to uphold herself and her daughter—not for any personal reasons, but because they were Queen and Princess. Katharine was adamant now as ever, and would have suffered any torture rather than admit that her daughter was not the legitimate heir to the throne of England.

  She talked with tears of Fisher, with regret of More; she talked of Abell and Forrest, mercifully knowing nothing of the more horrible deaths that awaited these two of her faithful adherents.

  Chapuys, the cynic, thought, She is dying by his hand as surely as More and Fisher did. He thought of the years of misery this woman had endured, the mental torture that had been inflicted on her by her husband. Here was yet another victim of the murderer’s hand. What though the method was different!

  Chapuys had no real comfort to give her. His master would not wish to be embroiled in a war with England for the sake of Katharine of Aragon and her daughter since he had his hands full elsewhere.

  To comfort her though, he hinted at some action from outside on her behalf. She brightened. His visit did much to revive her; it was so rarely that the King allowed her to be visited by her friends.

  After he left, another incident occurred which helped to lighten her grief in being denied the comfort of her daughter’s presence.

  It was evening of a bitterly cold day, when through the castle there echoed the sound of loud knocking. Her maid came to tell her that it was a poor woman who, making a journey across country, had lost her way and begged to be allowed to spend the night at the castle for fear she and her attendant should freeze to death.

  Katharine bade them bring in the poor souls and give them food.

  She was dozing, when her bedroom door was opened and a woman came in. Katharine looked at the newcomer in astonishment for one moment, and then the tears began to flow from her eyes. She held out her arms, feeling that she was a girl again, riding the rough seas of the Bay of Biscay, thinking fearfully of the fate which awaited her in an unknown country where she was to marry a boy husband; she was young again, watching the land grow less blurred, as she sailed into Plymouth. With her there had been a band of beautiful Spanish girls, and there was one among them who, during the unhappy years which England had given her, had ever been her faithful friend. This girl had married Lord Willoughby; and they had been together until, by the King’s command, Katharine had been banished from the court and cut off from all those she loved. And here was Lady Willoughby coming by stealth, as a stranger lost in the snow, that she might be with Katharine during her last hours in England as she had been during her first.

  This was wonderful; she was almost happy.

  “If I could but have seen my little daughter . . .” she murmured.

  But the coming of her friend had put her in high spirits, and she revived so much that she was well enough to sit up in her bed, though she was too far gone in sickness of body, which had grown out of sickness of mind, to make any real recovery. During the first week of January her condition grew worse. She had mass said in her room on the afternoon of the sixth, and then, ill as she was, asked for materials that she might write a last letter to the King. She did not blame him; she accepted her fate meekly; she only asked that he should be a good father to their daughter Mary, and that he should do right by her servants.

  Henry was hilarious when he heard the news of Katharine’s death; there followed one moment of apprehension when in a blurred fashion he remembered her sad, pale face, heard her strong voice pleading for justice. He did then what he ever did when remorse touched him; he made the persecution of Katharine someone else’s burden, not his own; he assured himself that he had acted from the highest and most disinterested of motives.

  “Praise be to God!” he cried. “We are delivered from all fear of war. The time has come for me to manage the French better than before, because in wondering whether I may now ally myself to the Emperor, they will do all I want.”

  He would now show that he had never been married to Katharine. He dressed himself in yellow, having a white feather set in his cap, for why should a man go into mourning for one not his wife!

  “Bring me my daughter!” he cried, and the nurses brought Elizabeth to him. Although little more than two years old, she was already a very bright and intelligent child who enjoyed being exhibited, and surveyed her great dazzling father with the utmost interest.

  He called for all the musical instruments to play; the courtiers must dance. He went from one to the other, demanding they do homage to their little Princess. “For,” he exclaimed again and again, “we are now delivered from the evil threat of war!”

  Anne rejoiced when she heard the news. It was a great relief. For the first time, she thought, I can feel myself to be really Queen; there is no shadowy Queen in the background to whom some could still look. I am Queen. There is no other Queen but me!

  She was inordinately gay; she imitated the King’s action, and dressed in yellow.

  She did not know that he had once discussed the question of divorcing her with his most trusted counsellors; she did not know that he had refrained from doing so because they said he might divorce her, but if he did, he would surely have to take back Katharine.

  Now that Katharine was dead, and Anne felt more secure, she decided she could be less harsh to the Princess Mary, so she sent one of her ladies to the girl with a message. Would Mary come to court? Could they not be friends?

  “Tell her,” said Anne, “that if she will be a good daughter to her father, she may come to court and count me her friend. Tell her she may walk beside me, and I shall not need her to hold my train.”

  Mary, grief-stricken by the death of her mother, brokenhearted so that she cared not what became of her, sent back word that if being a good daughter to her father meant denying that for which martyrs’ blood had been shed, she could not accept Anne’s offer.

  “The foolish girl!” said Anne. “What more can I do?”

  Then she was angry, and at the root of her anger
was the knowledge that she herself had helped to make this motherless girl’s unhappy lot harder than it need have been. She could not forget what she had heard of Katharine’s miserable death, and in her new and chastened mood she felt remorse as well as anger.

  She tried again with Mary, but Mary was hard and stubborn, neither ready to forgive nor forget. Mary was fanatical; she would have all or nothing. She wanted recognition: Her mother to be recognized as the true Queen, Anne to be displaced, Elizabeth to be acknowledged a bastard. And on these terms only, would Mary come to court.

  Anne shrugged impatient shoulders, really angry with the girl because she would not let her make amends. When my son is born, thought Anne, I shall be in such a strong position that she will do as I say. If I say she shall come to court, she shall come to court, and it will not be so easy for her to find favor with the King when she is forced to do that which she might have done more graciously.

  The beginning of that year was disastrously eventful for Anne. The first disturbance was when Norfolk came hurrying into her chamber to tell that the King had taken such a toss from his horse that he feared he was killed. This upset Anne—not that the King, during their married life, had given her any reasons to love him—but in her condition she felt herself unable to cope adequately with the situation which must inevitably arise if he died. She had the interests of her daughter and the child as yet unborn to look to, and she was greatly disturbed. This however proved to be a minor accident; the King’s fall had done scarcely any harm, and he was too practiced a horseman to suffer much shock from such a fall.

  After this escape, the King was in excellent spirits. He found Jane Seymour alone in one of the Queen’s apartments. People had a way of disappearing from Jane Seymour’s side when the King approached. Demure as she was, she had permitted certain liberties. He was somewhat enamored of the pretty, pale creature, and she was a pleasant diversion for a man who can scarcely wait to hear that his son is born.