Above All Others

by G Lawrence

  “For many years, I have felt a nagging ache in my conscience, my lords,” he said solemnly. “I asked myself why God had not allowed my wife and me to have living sons, heirs to this great Kingdom of England… Sons that I could cherish, nurture and love, and raise to lead this country as I have done, with strength and godly resolve.” He looked at Katherine again and I saw tears in her eyes. She turned her face from him. I am sure that she was remembering the children they had lost.

  “The Queen is a good woman; a woman of charity, peace and virtue,” he went on. “And I am a man of God and a true knight in the cause of the faith. I was chosen by God Himself to lead England as her King. The Pope conferred upon me the title of Defender of the Faith, and I have ever given generously to the Church, to her men and to her scholars, for the good of my country and for the love I hold for God the Father and His son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, we were denied sons, we were denied true heirs. Due to the great love I have for my Queen, I did not address this for many years, believing that in time, God would surely glance upon us with favour, but He did not. I gave more, I worked harder; to the Church I offered all that I could, and to the poor of my country I gave with generosity, seeking to do God’s will upon earth. And yet still, we were offered no son to continue my line, to ensure peace in this realm. I came, reluctantly, to concede that there must be a reason for God’s indifference to the fate of England. A reason why He turned his face from me, and from the Queen… and, after searching both my conscience and the Bible, I found the reason. In the Word of God Himself, in the Book of Leviticus it is written that a man shall not take the widow of his brother as his wife, for if he does so then in the eyes of God it is an unholy union, and shall not bear sons.”

  The passage actually said children, but Henry had consulted with many men who would affirm that the translation from the original mother tongue meant “heirs” and this, to him and many others, meant sons.

  “It is for the good of England, which is my care above all things, and for my fear that in my great love for my wife, I am in fact keeping her in a union which brings us into sin, that I have come to this court. My conscience can no longer allow me to rest. If I lead Queen Katherine into sin because of my love for her, then I am twice a sinner. And if I leave England a poor state with no heir to pass my throne to, then I am betraying my offices as her King, turning traitor the oaths I swore before God at my coronation.”

  He turned to Katherine. “But should this trial find that my marriage to Queen Katherine is legal, then I will go back to her side and to her bed with joy,” he lied smoothly. “For, as you know, I chose her to marry when I came to the throne as a youth, and were I to choose again, I would pick her from all the women of England or the world to be my wife, for I know well her value and her worth. No man has a better wife than Katherine, in all the kingdoms of the world.”

  Katherine’s eyes were fixed on her husband as he stood and lied to the court about his feelings for her. She knew it was not so, and yet his words seemed to have touched her nonetheless. How she must have wished that such words were indeed true! How she wished he loved her still! But it was not so. Henry wanted me; he would pick me above all other women.

  “I cannot rest with these fears and doubts upon me,” Henry went on. “And I beg of you, my lords, to examine the evidence here most carefully, and judge in sober and wise consideration to release me of my fears one way or the other. I will bend to your wisdom and accept it, howsoever you decide. I most heartily urge you to ponder my mind and intent, which is to have a final end to the discharge of my conscience, for every good Christian man knows what pain and unquietness he suffers, who has a conscience grieved. I can no longer do my duty to my country, so troubled am I, and therefore I turn to the one true Church and her wisdom to aid me in this time.”

  As Henry finished, there was great applause, and I could see many turning to speak to each other in animated fashion about Henry’s speech. I could see bitter curling lips on those who clearly did not believe him, but on other faces I could see awe and even tears. Henry had spoken with passion, and he had been believed by some; this was good. Henry sat down in his great chair of estate. But just as I thought that we were doing better than Katherine, she was called to speak.

  Katherine had sat quietly as her husband had spoken; a mask of politic silence on her face. Aside from the moments in which Henry had brought tears to her eyes, she had stared him down. She was dressed in a gown of deepest black, with a few brilliant diamonds here and there, but otherwise was unadorned. On her head was an English gable hood, and dark silks covered her auburn hair. Her hands held a rosary and her fingers moved along the beads. She was praying. Her lips moved as she spoke to God, no doubt asking Him for courage in what she was about to do. What she did, however, I doubt that any could have expected…

  Katherine rose, but instead of addressing the court as she was supposed to, she walked towards Henry and fell to her knees before him. There was a collective gasp from the court spectators as Katherine reached her hands out beseechingly to Henry. He looked at her with shocked eyes, wondering what to do. This was not part of the protocol of the trial. She was supposed to address the court, not him! With tears in her eyes, Katherine spoke directly to him in a tearful, yet fiercely strong voice that all the court could hear.

  “Sir, I beseech you… give me peace and justice!” she called out. “Bestow your pity upon me, for I am but a poor woman and a stranger, born out of your dominion. I have no friends here and no true counsel. In what matter have I offended you? What cause hath my behaviour given to your displeasure that you should thus seek to cast me off and take your grace from mine eyes? I call God in Heaven to witness that I have these long twenty years been a true, loyal, obedient, loving wife and subject to Your Majesty. I have at all times been comfortable to your will and pleasure.”

  Katherine stared up at Henry who squirmed uncomfortably on his purple cushion. He frowned at her, shaking his head a little to try and make her stop, but Katherine did not heed him. She might protest that she was obedient, but she certainly was not now! Katherine was playing for pity. She wanted Henry’s people to see her as vulnerable, feeble and abused. She was going to make a show and no one, not even her husband, was going to stop her. Henry stared straight ahead, his face shaking with shame and anger.

  Katherine swallowed hard. “When was the hour that I ever contradicted your desire and made it not mine too, my gracious lord? I have loved all those you have loved for your sake alone, even if I knew them to be my enemies. I have forsaken those friends of mine that were not of liking to you, and have ever turned my eyes from the times you wandered, as all men must, from the bed of our marriage. You entrusted me with your kingdom whilst you fought valiant wars against the enemies of God and this land of England, and I returned her to you safe, in peace and without the threat of war. For you, I worked to vanquish your enemies, and bring harmony to England. For you, I have done all that was my natural role as a wife, a mother, and as Queen.”

  There was muttering at this throughout the court, for all knew that her words were true enough. When Henry had gone to war with France he had left her as his trusted Regent, and she had seen off the threat of invasion from Scotland. Silently I cursed her… Katherine was winning hearts. And she was not finished yet. Henry continued to stare ahead of him, refusing to look on her.

  “I have given you many children; princes and princesses of England, my beloved,” she importuned Henry, “and although it has pleased God to call them from this world for His own purposes, we are left a fine daughter, whose great talents and beauty springs from the wealth of those same attributes in her father, you.” Katherine’s eyes darted between Henry and the Cardinals as she reached the climax of her speech. “I swear upon my everlasting soul, before Almighty God, and to you, my lord husband, that when I came to your marriage bed I was a true maid; a pure virgin as intact as the day my mother bore me, and whether this be true or not, I put to your conscience.” Henry narrowe
d his eyes, fixing them on the back of the court.

  “I swear to God and upon my soul that the marriage between your brother and me was never consummated,” Katherine went on. “I have these twenty years been your devoted wife, but I should never have become your wife if I was not assured by my own conscience, by the dispensation allowed by the Pope and by my true and humble obedience to God, that I was your lawful wife. I will go to the grave your true wife as you will as my husband, my lord. I call upon you, my lord, master and husband to consider my honour, as well as that of our daughter, and that which is your own, and call off this trial which so degrades your family and your own virtue.”

  Katherine gazed about her and I could see many heads nodding both in sympathy and agreement with her. She lifted her voice again, and it rang about the hall with courage and strength. “I ask that these unlawful and cruel proceedings be ended now and taken instead to the Holy City of Rome, for if this case is to be heard, it should be heard before the Holy Father, as God’s own and only representative on earth. I say to you that as long as this is heard here, within these barren and illegal walls, I shall not stay here, for this court holds no justice for me.” Katherine remained on her knees, her hands stretched out to Henry like a supplicant. He gave no answer.

  There was silence. It hovered thick and immovable throughout the hall. Everyone was struck dumb at the force and power of her speech. Katherine rose and made an elegant curtsey to the Cardinals, then turned, and gazed around the court with magnificent majesty and calm. Slowly, indicating to her attendants to follow her, she walked out of the hall with dignity, leaning on Rhys’s arm. Katherine walked away from the Cardinals, away from Henry, and away from the trial with her head held high. Down the wooden steps from the dais she went, down through the crowds who parted for her, taking their caps from their heads and bowing to her. Nobles stared at her, open-mouthed but all the common people gazed at her with raw admiration. She was every inch the Queen that she had been born to be, and I hated her for it.

  Henry was horrified, humiliated. He sat back on his chair and closed his eyes. I knew he was trying to displace himself from this awful scene of a wife begging her husband and liege for mercy. He knew how much damage Katherine had done, and that his people would know all her words soon enough. She had not given evidence, but in speaking passionately of her devotion to him, of her obedience to the role of a true and humble wife, she had won their sympathy. And there was worse yet. Everyone knew Katherine was a devoted, pious woman. Swearing upon her soul before the eyes of God was not something to be taken lightly. All would now believe her, for such a devout woman would surely make no such claim as she had unless it were true.

  Wolsey jumped to his feet, his chair clattering behind him, and called for Katherine to return, but his words could barely be heard over the shouts and cheers that had exploded forth for the Queen. Katherine and her servants were directly below me when I saw Rhys murmur something to Katherine. He must have been saying that she was being called back, and they should return, for she shook her head. “On, on,” she insisted loudly. “It makes no matter, for this is no indifferent court for me. Therefore I will not tarry.”

  As Katherine left the building, we could all hear the crowds outside. Their screams of joy and shouts of “God save the Queen!” were thunderous. They believed her rapid exit meant the Cardinals had decided in her favour. Inside, the court erupted into confusion. Everyone was shouting, talking and fighting to be heard over one other. It began to get rowdy; people shoved and pushed. Everywhere I could hear voices speaking Katherine’s name with reverence. Everywhere I could hear love for her. The legates tried to call Katherine back again, but she refused to come. Her representative, Bishop Fisher, sat with a small, satisfied smile on his lips as he watched the confusion. Katherine had done more for her cause in that one speech than any evidence could have done. I hated the smirk on Fisher’s face and I hated it all the more for knowing that his happiness was not misplaced. By God’s Holy Cross! Katherine had damaged our cause that day!

  Wolsey turned to the King. “Sire,” he cried desperately, trying to refute Katherine’s claim that the trial was unlawful, or that this matter had been called by him to trial. “I most humbly beseech Your Highness to declare, before all this audience, whether I have been the chief inventor or first mover of this matter unto Your Majesty, for I am greatly suspected of all men herein.”

  Katherine’s blows against the lawfulness of the trial and suspected partiality of the judges had shaken Wolsey. The Cardinal was burning under the hot glare of the crowds. Katherine’s words had been taken as truth; all of them. The people suspected Wolsey and Campeggio, and they believed the Queen was in the right.

  “It was I who called this trial, Your Excellency,” Henry agreed, his voice a little unsteady as he tried to rally. “And of that fact, I would make it clear all men should know it.”

  Outside, not concealed by the shouts of “God save Queen Katherine!” and “Bless Good Queen Katherine!” there were other cries. “We’ll have no Nan Boleyn as Queen!” rang out, screeched by the many women who had turned out for Katherine. “Burn the goggle-eyed whore!” came next. My heart skipped into my throat. They could not know I was here. I would be lynched. I dropped back as far as I could, gathering my hood and cloak about my face. I saw Henry look up warily from the dais. He had heard the shouting too.

  Wolsey called for silence, but it took a long time to come. He ordered the proceedings to continue, stating that Fisher would stand for Queen Katherine if she refused to accept the position herself. The proceedings continued, but Henry sat slumped in his chair, looking already like a defeated man. Terror raged in my soul, not only for the threats shouted from outside, but for what Henry’s expression meant. He looked ready to give up. Would he abandon me now that there was only more trouble and opposition? Would he go back to her?

  Wolsey tried to continue on, but his face was ashen, and Campeggio was quiet and thoughtful. Henry was stunned. He hardly responded as he was asked questions. Seeing he was getting nowhere, and no event to follow would ever live up to the drama of that day, Wolsey called for the Legatine Court to break early. They would resume in the morning, he said, with a worried glance at his dejected King. I trembled to see Henry brought so low.

  That night, Henry was quiet and sad. He seemed old, broken and lost. There was none of the boyish glee in his movements that I had come to love. I saw wrinkles beside his eyes for the first time, as though he had suddenly aged. We parted almost silently as he left my rooms to go to Katherine’s, continuing the façade of their marriage.

  I sat by the fire long that night, drinking wine until I became insensible. I was put to bed crying wildly and shouting. “He will set me aside and run back to her!” I shrieked, sobbing on Margaret’s shoulder. “He will turn from me! I will die alone, never having known the love of a man or the joy of a child!” I stumbled against Nan, and clung to her shoulders as I stared unsteadily into her eyes. There were two of her, their faces swimming and dancing before me. “He is weak,” I hissed, out of my mind with fear and wine. “Henry is weak. He is feeble. He will not fight for me.”

  I was mad to talk so, but I was distraught. I remember but splinters of the words I cried out then and they chill me now to recall them. Some of my ladies whispered they were sure I was possessed as I raged and insulted the King, Katherine, the Pope and the Cardinals. I remember my ladies pleading with me for peace, for the sake of my sanity, terror in their faces when they looked into my black, bloodshot, wild Devil’s eyes. They all but dragged me to bed and heaved me onto the top of it as I wept into the cushions and covers.

  My good servant, Nan, turned to them as they went to leave me. “Hush your mouths about this night if you value aught your heads,” she said. “Speak of this to no one, am I rightly understood?”

  I remember them nodding to her as they left, ashen-faced and full of wonder. They had watched their usually controlled mistress fall apart in her despair. But Nan and Mar
garet would not let me be touched by the stain of my own recklessness. Nan and Margaret sat beside me through that night, lulling me into sleep with soft words of comfort. The next morning I awoke with a raging headache. I could not move without feeling I might vomit. I lay in my bed, staring at the window and seeing nothing, my misery compounded by the poison flowing through me. Henry was busy at the court, which I was glad of, for I did not want him to see me like this.

  At the end of the day I rose and dressed in my finest. I greeted him at dinner as though nothing had happened, and tried to distract him with gossip of the court. But act for Henry, though I could, I could not pretend to myself that all was well. I was sick with worry. I felt I was on a cliff edge, looking down at the rocks where I would fall and shatter to bits. I felt as though I were made of glass. As though I were a scrap of parchment tumbling in the wind. When we parted that night, I went to my bed and wept bitter tears. The only comfort I had as I doubted Henry and as I hated Katherine, was my women… my friends. They had cared for me, looked after me, when I was lost and alone.

  Nan Gainsford had protected me from myself that night. Soon enough, she was to become a catalyst for something to further our cause for the better, if only by accident.