In the Shadow of the Crown

by Виктория Холт

  The alliance with the German princes was at an end; and that meant that there was no question of a betrothal to Philip of Bavaria.

  * * *

  THE YEAR 1540 was a terrible one for death. My father was filled with rage against those who defied him. He was probably worried now and then about the enormity of what he had done; it was not only that he had denied the Pope's supremacy and set himself up in his place in England; he had suppressed the monasteries and taken their wealth. His rule became more despotic and those about him obeyed without question, anticipated his desires and did everything possible to avoid offending him. But it was different with the people; and when those men who called themselves holy had the effrontery to deny him and to suggest that he was not the head of his own country's Church, his rage overflowed.

  He wanted vengeance and would have it. Respected men were submitted to humiliating and barbarous torture on the scaffold, men who, the people knew, had led blameless lives, like Robert Barnes the divine and Thomas Abell, were submitted to this horrible death with many others.

  I thought of these things and shuddered. My father had indeed changed. Where was the merry monarch now? He was irritable, and the pain in his leg sometimes sent him into maddened rages.

  When I heard that Dr. Featherstone had been treated in the same manner, I was deeply distressed and I was glad that my mother was not alive, for she would have been very distressed if she knew what was happening to her old chaplain. He had taught me when I was a child, and I could well remember his quiet kindliness and his pleasure when I learned my lessons. I could not bear to think of such a man being submitted to that torture. And all because he had refused to take the Oath of Supremacy. How I admired those brave men, and how I deplored the fact that it was my father who murdered them.

  People were burned at the stake in such numbers that in the streets of London one could not escape from the smell of martyrs' flesh and the sight of martyrs' bodies hanging in chains to feed the carrion crows.

  Rebellion was at the heart of it. My father had broken with Rome but that did not mean he was no longer a Catholic. The old religion remained; the only difference was that he was head of the Church instead of the Pope. He wanted no Lutheran doctrines introduced into England. People must watch their steps … particularly those in vulnerable positions. I was one of those.

  Cromwell lost his head on the very day my father married Catharine Howard; that changed him for a while. How he doted on the child…she was little more. They looked incongruous side by side—this ageing man with the purple complexion and the bloodshot eyes, fleshy and irascible, biting his lips till the blood came when the fistula in his leg pained him. And she … that dainty little creature with her wide-eyed innocence which seemed somehow knowledgeable, with her curls springing and feet dancing, a child in her teens… and yet not a child, a creature of overwhelming allure for an ageing, disappointed man.

  But he was disappointed no longer; he was rejuvenated; he had regained something of his old physical energy: he was dotingly, besottedly in love.

  I felt sickened by it. I remembered his treatment of my mother and Anne of Cleves; to those two worthy women he had behaved with the utmost cruelty, and yet, here he was, like a young lover, unable to take his eyes from this pretty, frivolous little creature whose doe's eyes had secrets behind them.

  A horrifying incident happened that year. I shall never forget my feelings when I heard. Susan, whom, happily, I had been able to keep with me, came to me one day. I guessed she had something terrible to tell me and was hesitating as to whether it would be better to do so or keep me in the dark.

  I prevailed on her to tell me. I think I knew beforehand whom it must concern because she looked so tragic.

  “My lady,” she said when I insisted, “you must prepare yourself for a shock.” She looked at me with great compassion.

  I stared at her, and then my lips formed the words, “The…Countess… what of the Countess?”

  She was silent. I tried to calm myself.

  She said, “It had to come. It is a wonder it did not come before.”

  “Tell me,” I begged.

  “She is dead…is she not?” “She had been suffering all these months in the Tower. She was wretched there. It is best for her. Cold, miserable, lacking comfort. Heartbroken… grieving for her sons…”

  “If only I could have gone to her.”

  Susan shook her head. “There was nothing you could have done.”

  “Only pray for her,” I said.

  “And that you did.”

  “I always mentioned her in my prayers. Why… why? What had she done? She was innocent of treason.”

  “That insurrection of Sir John Neville… such things upset the King.”

  “I know. He wants the people to love him.”

  “Love must be earned,” said Susan quietly.

  I went on, “But there have been so many deaths…so much slaughter… fearful, dreadful deaths. And the Countess… what had she done?”

  “She was a Plantagenet…”

  I covered my face with my hands as though to shut out the sight of her. I could see her clearly, walking out of her cell to East Smithfield Green, which is just within the Tower precincts.

  “She was very brave, I know,” I said.

  “She did not die easily,” Susan told me.

  “I would I had been with her.”

  “You would never have borne it.”

  “And she died with great courage. She… who had done no harm to any. She who had had the misfortune to be born royal.”

  “Hush,” said Susan. “People listen at times like this.”

  “Times like these, Susan. Terrible … wicked times. Did she mention me?”

  “She was thinking of you at the end. You were as a daughter to her.”

  “She wanted me to be her daughter in truth…through Reginald.”

  “Hush, my lady,” said Susan again, glancing over her shoulder.

  I wanted to cry out: I care not. Let them take me. Let them try me for treason. They have come near enough to it before now.

  “She did mention you. She asked all those watching to pray for the King and Queen, Prince Edward … and she wanted her god-daughter, the Princess Mary, to be specially commended.”

  “So she was thinking of me right to the end.”

  “You can be sure of it.”

  “How did my dear Countess die?”

  Susan was silent.

  “Please tell me,” I begged. “I want to hear of it from you. I shall learn of it later.”

  “The block was too low, and the executioner was unaccustomed to wielding the axe.”

  “Oh … no!”

  “Do not grieve. It is over now, but several blows were needed before the final one.”

  “Oh, my beloved Countess. She was my second mother, the one who shared my sorrows and my little triumphs during those early years. Always she had been there, comforting me, wise and kind…”

  I could not bear the thought of her dear body being slaughtered by a man who did not know how to wield an axe.

  All through the years I had not seen her I had promised myself that we should meet one day.

  The realization that we never should again on Earth filled me with great sorrow and a dreadful foreboding. How close to death we all were.

  * * *

  MY FATHER WAS in a merry mood those days. He was delighted with his fifth wife. He watched her every movement, and he did not like her to be out of his sight. He took a great delight in her merry chatter. I thought she was rather silly.

  When I remembered my father's turning from my mother, from Anne of Cleves, even from Anne Boleyn, I marvelled. All of them were endowed with qualities which this silly little girl completely lacked. Yet it was on her that his doting eyes turned again and again.

  Queen of England she might be, but I could not treat her with respect. To me she was just a frivolous girl. It could only have been her youth which appealed to him. He was fifty
and she was about seventeen; and he was desperately trying to share in the radiant youth which was hers.

  I was five years older than she was. I wonder now why it was that I disliked her so much. She was mild enough, and I daresay if I had shown some affection she would have returned it. She was stupid; her education had been neglected, although she was the daughter of Sir Edmund Howard, a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk. He had been the hero of Flodden Field but his services to his country had never been recognized and consequently he was desperately poor. There were ten children and it was a strain on his resources to care for such a large family and he was constantly trying to elude his creditors. He was, therefore, glad to send young Catharine off to her grandmother to be brought up in that rather disreputable household—which was what set her on the road to disaster.

  But that was to come. At this time, there she was… the uneducated little girl who had suddenly found herself the King's petted consort, his little Queen.

  It was not that she gave herself airs. She certainly did not. She was just overwhelmed by all that had happened to her. She behaved like a child but she was quite experienced in certain ways of the world, as was to be revealed. I realized—only, I must admit, later, when I knew something of her past— that she was a girl of lusty sexual appetites and even if her good sense—of which she had very little—had warned her that she must not act in a certain way, she would have been unable to resist doing so.

  I suppose she was just the girl to appeal to the jaded senses of an ageing man who had been bitterly disillusioned in his hopes of a beautiful bride.

  I was surprised that she was aware of my dislike. I should have thought she was not intelligent enough to sense it. It was not a habit of hers to complain, but she did about my attitude to her, so she must have felt it deeply.

  My father was annoyed that I had offended his little darling.

  He said of me, “It is those women about her. She has too many of those whispering cronies. There is too much chatter in those apartments…too much brooding on this and that and rights and wrongs. She shall be taught a lesson.”

  The lesson was to rob me of two of my women.

  I was angry. I was fond of the women about me, and ours was a very happy household. I needed all the friends I could get. Fortunately Susan remained with some others of my closest comrades, but I did miss those two who were sent away.

  I was about to protest when Chapuys came to see me.

  “You must patch up this quarrel with the Queen,” he said.

  “That stupid little creature!”

  He laughed. “She pleases the King.” He gave a little smirk. “They say he has never been so pleased since he set eyes on the girl's cousin all those years ago. There must be a similarity to Anne Boleyn there.”

  “Anne Boleyn was a clever woman,” I said. “This one is a fool.”

  “None the less, one must beware of fools if they have power.”

  “This one has power?”

  “Through her devoted lover, of course. You are not entirely out of favor with the Court. Don't forget. You are next… after Edward.”

  “Edward is so young.”

  Chapuys looked at me slyly. “Who can say?” he murmured. “However, there must be no further estrangement between you and your father, and there will be if you continue to offend the Queen.”

  “I did not think to offend her.”

  “Yet you have shown disrespect for her in some way.”

  “She is so silly.”

  “Silly to you, but delectable to His Majesty, and it is His Majesty who has the power over us, remember. Find some means of making up the quarrel. The breach between you must not widen.”

  I saw his point. There was always sound thinking behind Chapuys' words.

  It was not difficult. When I was next in her presence, I admired her gown. She flashed her smile at me. She was really very pretty, and she had been so unused to having beautiful clothes that she was childishly delighted with her wardrobe. I admired her beautiful curls.

  A few days after I had spoken to her, I made some progress. I learned that, while the Countess was in the Tower, Catharine had sent some clothes to her; and because his wife had wished it so ardently, the King had allowed her to do this.

  I think that helped matters a great deal between us.

  I mentioned to her that I knew she had done this, and I wanted to thank her for it.

  “I heard that she was to die,” she said, “and it seemed terrible in that cold place. I hate the cold. It was cold in my grandmother's house in winter… and we were so poor, I hadn't any warm clothes… and I thought of the poor Countess…”

  I said with feeling, “It was so good of you. I wanted to thank you for what you did…”

  She gave me her dazzling smile.

  “I sent her a nightgown of worsted, furred and lined… and I sent her some hose and shoes.”

  “It was so kind…so very kind…”

  “You loved her dearly,” said the Queen softly.

  I nodded, too moved for words.

  “She took the place of your mother. I had my grandmother… but she never took much notice of me.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said.

  “Thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you did for the Countess.”

  It was the first time I had brought myself to call her “Your Majesty.” There were tears in her eyes; she was easily moved. I could not really like her or feel close to her as I had to Jane and Anne, but I knew she was goodhearted and generous, and if she was a little stupid, it was not for me to be annoyed because she had wormed her way into my father's affections.

  After my speaking to her of the Countess, we were on better terms and I felt my relationship with her should no longer cause Chapuys any anxiety.

  The King might be in a state of euphoria now that he had found the perfect wife, but the country was still in turmoil. It was when Sir John Neville had headed a revolt in the North that my father had decided that the Countess must die. The country was now more or less split into two. There were those who wanted to cling to Rome and those who saw the advantage of a break; there were those for the King and those against him. But the issue was not as clear cut as that. The Protestant Church had begun to grow, and there were some in England who were ready to embrace it. The King was not one of these. The break with Rome did not mean a break with the old religion; all the King wanted was to give the Church in England a new head. That was all he sought. It was due to the rival factions that the King had his great power, for neither was big enough to overcome the other, and the King stood apart from them and yet remained the great despotic ruler. It seemed strange that there had been two living Queens, Katharine and Anne; and now we were left with two different queens with similar names. There would be many people in the country who believed that, since the King had gone through a ceremony of marriage with Anne of Cleves, his marriage with Catharine Howard was no true marriage—just as in the days when my mother was alive, some had believed he could not be married to Anne Boleyn.

  The tangle of his matrimonial affairs would be discussed for many a year, and I suspected there would always be different opinions. He was aware of this, and it irritated him… just as did the conflict in his realm which had in so many ways resulted from his involvement with his wives.

  My father was infuriated by rebellion. He wanted his people to love him and when they showed signs of not doing so, he was more hurt than alarmed.

  The John Neville rebellion had enraged him. He uttered threats against Reginald Pole—that devilish mischief-maker, as he called him—roaming the Continent stirring up trouble. He gnashed his teeth because he could not lay his hands on him and do to him what he had done to other members of his family.

  He decided to go to Yorkshire to settle matters for himself. The Council he left in London to take care of affairs was well chosen—Cranmer, Audley and one of Jane Seymour's brothers—all men who accepted the King's supremacy in the Church and enemi
es of Rome.

  Seymour had gained a good deal of power; not only was he the brother of the King's late wife—the only one not to be discarded—but also the uncle of Edward, the future King. I think the Howards were casting suspicious eyes on the Seymours, as undoubtedly the Seymours were on the Howards. The Howards were at the moment in the ascendancy, having just provided the delectable Catharine for the King's pleasure.

  Chapuys had said we must be watchful of the growing power of the Seymours and the Howards.

  Everywhere on his travels the King was received with acclaim. How much of it was genuine, I did not know. The people had seen so many dead men hanging in chains; they had caught a whiff of the smell of burning flesh. They would be careful how they acted toward this powerful monarch.

  Meanwhile my father became more and more enamored of his Queen. He was an uxorious, adoring husband; she soothed him and pleased him in every way. If only his people would stop being contentious, he remarked, he could be a very contented man.

  It is strange how one does not recognize important events when they occur. The Court was at Pontefract Castle when Catharine admitted a new secretary into her household. This was a goodlooking young man of rather dashing appearance. His name was Francis Dereham.

  Poor Catharine! She would have been quite unaware of the storms which were blowing up around her. She would know nothing of the intrigues which were commonplace in the life of the Court. She was the adored Queen of an ageing King; she would not have believed that any harm could come to her.

  She did not know that there were men watching the King's besotted attitude toward her; she did not know that the Catholic Howards were rubbing their hands with glee; she did not guess that the ambitious Protestant Seymour brothers were furiously noticing the King's devotion to the Howard Queen. The Seymours had risen from obscurity because their sister had married the King; now it was the turn of the Norfolk Howards.