“But why would anyone bother? She was queen for such a short period and, if other documents are to be believed, had no influence.”
They arrived at a high security door and Jenny handed Perdita a passkey.
“No one but you, Piper, me and the Mackensies are allowed to view classified documents,” she said. The heavy door slid open and once through, closed silently behind them. Perdita felt a small tremor of fear at being shut in but she quashed it, focusing instead on the task in hand.
“I know your priorities are the codex and the Llyn Cel mermaid legends,” said Jenny as they walked along a winding corridor, “but Alistair also suggested I include another document your grandmother had been studying shortly before she abandoned her Catherine Howard research. It’s a Book of Hours she purchased from her old and very dear friend Lady Pamela Johnson.”
“Really? A Book of Hours wasn’t listed anywhere in the bibliography.”
“It was a new acquisition. Mary discovered it in a batch of other documents she had bought from Lady Pamela.”
“Lady Pamela?” queried Perdita, the name tugged at her memory. She had read it recently, then it came to her. “The Lady Pamela letters…”
“How do you know about the letters?” Jenny asked, startled.
“It was written on one of Granny’s boxes of research. There was The Catherine Howard Anomaly and next to it was another partly researched manuscript with two working titles — The Ladies of Melusine or The Lady Pamela Letters: A Study of the Epistolary Styles of Women in the Tudor and Stuart Courts. Of the two, I prefer the Melusine option, although Granny would probably have used the latter. She was never known for her snappy titles.”
Jenny laughed.
“You might be able to advise me, Jenny, because it’s been a while since I read it, but didn’t the legend of Melusine state she was the water goddess who was half woman, half fish — although I think a few versions say half serpent — and she was supposed to be an ancestress of the House of Luxembourg and the House of Lusignan?”
“Correct,” said Jenny, “and through Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the mother of Elizabeth Woodville — who was the wife of Edward IV — and the maternal grandmother of Henry VIII, the Tudors were said to be distantly descended from Melusine too. After your mother died, Mary found it difficult to study anything from that period of history again. In her mind, her study of the Tudors and Stuarts had become irrevocably linked with sadness and loss.”
“Poor Granny, how terrible…” murmured Perdita.
Jenny either did not hear or decided to continue her explanation regardless. Perdita was unsure but listened avidly as the librarian continued, “Her friend, Lady Pamela, was descended on one side from a cadet branch of the Fitzalan family who were related to the Howards, and on the other from the Baynton families. Whenever things became difficult financially, which they did occasionally due to the expense of running her family’s enormous estates that her brother had mismanaged for years, Lady Pamela would approach Mary with papers from the family archive. Mary always paid far too much for them because she wanted to help her friend. She was studying one particular box of letters that she hoped would form the basis of a book to follow her Catherine Howard work, when she discovered an extremely ornate Book of Hours. Her rudimentary study of it suggested it might have belonged to Lady Kathryn Knollys. However, as I said, after your mother died, she abandoned both projects. We haven’t translated or digitised any of this document.”
“Lady Kathryn Knollys,” mused Perdita. “She was the daughter of Mary Boleyn, wasn’t she? Possibly Henry VIII’s daughter too?”
“Correct.”
“Have you dated the Book of Hours?”
For some reason, Jenny seemed reluctant to pass on the information. “Yes, and the dates are correct.”
Perdita whooped. “This could be it! From what Granny said in her manuscript, Lady Kathryn Knollys was one of Catherine Howard’s ladies-in-waiting. There could be something in the Book of Hours that corroborates the codex. This could be the proof we need. I must text Piper.”
“NO!” Jenny shouted, her voice fraught. “Do not, under any circumstances discuss this over any of your electronic devices with Piper or using your old contact details. I’ve set up secure email addresses for the two of you on The Dairy computer. I’ve already sent Piper the information concerning her new accounts and how to access her messages via a secure portal. Would you please do the same if you’re using your own laptop to contact her, rather than the computers in here. We use the portal when we’re off-site and also for sending information to Jerusalem. It can be accessed safely from all over the world as long as you have these passwords.”
“Why?”
“Please, Perdita, trust me, it’s safer this way. There’s also a secure face-to-face mode.”
“OK,” said Perdita, startled by the sudden sharpness in Jenny’s voice and her ashen face.
“Thank you,” Jenny whispered. “Now, it’s all in there. Good luck.” Jenny looked near to tears as she hurried back down the corridor and through the security door.
What was that all about? wondered Perdita. Then she drew her attention back to the room she had entered. Again, the décor was subtle and tasteful. It was also a direct copy of the office Perdita had adopted in the main research centre. My grandmother was certainly a creature of habit, she thought as she looked around.
Her laptop was on the desk which was over to one side of the room which offered views of the gardens and an ornate, gushing fountain, the water creating floating rainbows as it danced through the sparkling summer air.
Running along another wall was a conference table with chairs around it, and dominating this were three vast, foam wedges covered in smooth, lint-free cotton. The copy of the book she had been studying earlier lay at the end of the row of wedges. Dumping her bag on the large leather chair behind the desk, she walked to the table and began examining her treasure.
Resting on the first foam wedge was the book of local legends. Having already seen a more up-to-date version, Perdita was intrigued to examine the original. Pulling on some cotton gloves, she examined the stiff wooden cover. It showed only the title and the author’s name. Perdita was disappointed, she had hoped for an illustration of the mermaid. She gently turned the vellum leaves and after checking the index, found the tale of the mermaid who was supposed to live in the lake in the grounds of Marquess House.
To her surprise, it was shorter than the version she had read earlier. Fetching her notebook from her computer bag, she made a few comments concerning the legend but, as it had not featured in her grandmother’s work, only in the bibliography, she decided to ask Jenny to return it to its safe storage area for the present.
Next, she turned her attention to the second foam wedge, her excitement mounting as she stared down at the ancient document. Resting in the middle of the cushioned base was a dark brown book, its cover made from smooth polished wood. There was no lettering, no mark of any kind to suggest what secrets it held.
Gazing down at it, Perdita felt her breath catch in her throat. Being in the presence of such a precious artefact was something she found humbling, so she was not surprised when her fingers trembled as she lifted the document from its safe resting place in order to examine it more closely.
In the top left corner, there was a small hole running through the cover and pages, where it had originally been joined together. However, somewhere in its history, the codex had been bound in the form of a traditional book.
“What tales will you tell me?” murmured Perdita as, with great care, she replaced it on the wedge and opened the cover.
It was lined with faded lilac silk and the frontispiece held an intricate illumination featuring the same mermaid who swam around the walls of Marquess House. Above its head were the Latin words: Luncta Sanguine and below, Semper Sorores. Perdita smiled to see her familiar face, wondering how it was linked to the codex. Another mystery to solve, she thought. She also made a note of the Latin, tr
anslating the two phrases in case they reoccurred throughout the codex or had some other significance.
“Luncta Sanguine,” she murmured as she typed it on to a new document. “Joined in Blood and Semper Sorores — Sisters Always.”
Opening it to the first page, the exquisite writing was revealed. It was tiny but meticulous with a curious swirling grace. After a few moments of staring at it, Perdita’s eyes gradually attuned to the style and she was able to decipher the words. Like small angels holding hands, the letters began to give up their secrets, their story unfolding across the ancient vellum.
“August 1540, Hampton Court Palace…” she breathed. “No way!”
Checking the manuscript of her grandmother’s abandoned book, she flicked through until she found what she was looking for: “Catherine Howard was presented as queen in late August 1540; it is unclear why Henry delayed the introduction as contemporary records have them marrying on 28 July 1540 at Oatlands Palace, Surrey. The Bishop of London, Edward Bonner, officiated…” Next to this were a multitude of references corroborating these facts.
Pulling up a chair, Perdita settled down to immerse herself in the ancient document when there was a tentative knock on the door. Swearing under her breath at the interruption she nevertheless called out, “Come in,” as politely as she could manage. To her surprise, Kit stuck his head around the door.
“Hello,” she smiled, beckoning him into the room. “I thought you had a meeting with your dad.”
“Yeah, I did but it was strange.”
“What happened?”
“He told me I had to work with you and Piper on these documents and I was to put all my other projects aside, he’d deal with them himself.”
“Why?”
Kit shrugged. “He was in a really odd mood,” he sighed, sprawling in a chair opposite Perdita. “He was even more jittery than the day he decided to tell me and Stuart the facts of life.”
She laughed.
“What else did he say?”
“That, as his successor here, at some point, there are secrets he’ll have to impart, things which it’ll be vital I understand, but until he feels the time is right to tell me them, he insists you and I work together on the codex. He said we needed to draw our conclusions so we could decide on what action we’d like to take in order to ‘safeguard our futures’.”
Perdita stared at him, perplexed.
“Safeguard our futures? Is he talking financially, do you think?”
“No, we discuss finances every day so it can’t be that. I really have no idea what he means, Perds, I’m sorry. If you’d rather continue your research alone, that’s fine by me. I’ll go back to Dad and tell him it’s a no-go.”
“When I came down here, Jenny behaved very strangely too, she was almost in tears,” she said. “I assumed it was something personal but maybe it was something to do with your dad’s instructions.”
“It makes no sense, though,” said Kit, clearly irritated.
“Look, why don’t you hang out here with me this afternoon, then tomorrow we could talk to your dad together and ask him to explain. He might be a bit less jittery by then.”
“He gave me this too and told me I had to read it as quickly as possible so I could be a help rather than a hindrance.” As he spoke Kit pulled a bound copy of her grandmother’s manuscript out of the battered Fred Perry sports holdall he used as a computer bag.
“Would you like me to talk you through the basics?”
“No, you’re busy doing your thing with the codex,” he said, walking around behind her, appraising the book with his expert eye. “Wow, this is in pristine condition. It’s bound though; a codex is usually loose leaves joined in one corner.”
“There are holes here, top left,” she said, pointing, “so I think the binding is later than the contents, possibly done by a subsequent owner in order to preserve it.”
Examining it, Kit nodded, “Definitely,” he concurred. “How far have you got?”
“The frontispiece and the first line,” said Perdita wryly. “Then I was interrupted.”
“Blame Dad,” replied Kit, unrepentant. He walked back to his chair, sat down and flicked through the manuscript then looked up at Perdita, “Go on, then,” he said, beaming, “demonstrate your brilliant lecturing skills, give me the short version. Why, apart from what’s contained in the codex, did your grandmother believe that there is an anomaly in the accepted historical representation of Catherine Howard, aka Henry VIII’s fifth unfortunate bride?”
Sliding off her white gloves, Perdita picked up her own copy of the manuscript and moved away from the codex so she was sitting opposite Kit.
“For now, I’ll give you the basics,” she said, “but if we’ve got to work on it together, it’ll probably be easier if you do read it.”
“I promise,” said Kit, with a mock boy scout salute.
“My grandmother has structured the manuscript in quite an unusual way,” she began.
“How?” he asked, flicking noisily through the pages of his own copy. She raised her eyebrows at him and he desisted.
“Well, rather than follow the usual chronological order of most historical biographies, at the beginning, she lists all the anomalies which have arisen in her study of Catherine’s reign, then proceeds to discuss them,” replied Perdita, giving him a quizzical look. She did not know how seriously he was taking this and she was not in the mood to be teased.
“So, there were some before she found the codex?”
“Yes, if you were looking, but if you took the accepted version at face value, it would be possible to gloss over them as unimportant. It’s only when you view her reign as a whole, you realise the accepted version is full of contradictions.”
“Were there many?”
“More than I would have expected for such a well-discussed period of history,” she replied. “The first point Granny makes is that there is doubt over the characters who are always associated with Catherine. A great deal of information about her still comes from a document called The Chronicle of King Henry VIII of England, usually known as The Spanish Chronicle. It tells the supposed ‘love story’ between Catherine and one of Henry’s courtiers, Thomas Culpepper…”
“That’s quite well known though, isn’t it?” interrupted Kit.
“Do you want me to explain or not?” Kit nodded and Perdita continued: “Except, we should view this document with suspicion as the author is unknown and it was written at least ten years after Catherine was queen. All that is known is the document came from Spain. It’s possible the author was never at Henry’s court but was writing from gossip and hearsay.”
“So, not a reliable source,” said Kit.
“An extremely unreliable source,” she agreed. “Not only that, there is no mention in its account of events of either Francis Dereham or Henry Manox, who were supposedly Catherine’s lovers, or of Jane Boleyn, the infamous Lady Rochford, who was executed with Catherine, allegedly for helping to facilitate her affair with Culpepper. A lady-in-waiting called Jane is mentioned but there is no surname to identify her and Jane was a very common name in Tudor England. Yet, these are the names that have been linked to Catherine throughout history.”
“There must be other chroniclers though, who mention them?”
“A few contemporary writers mention Dereham and Culpepper but references to Manox and Jane Boleyn are more limited,” said Perdita. “In fact, some of the contemporary writers at Henry VIII’s court barely mentioned Catherine.”
“It’s pretty thin.”
“There’s more. The next point Granny Mary raises is the question of whether or not Catherine Howard was actually illiterate. History tells us she could barely write her name.”
“Why would that be a question?” asked Kit. “Many women were back then. It wasn’t seen as important to educate girls.”
“And yet, they were supposed to run vast estates with their husbands, so the majority of well-born and noble women were educated,” countered Perd
ita. “Maybe not to the same level as men but certainly so they could read, write and keep accounts. Catherine was a member of the exalted Howard clan, a good marriage was expected for her, so it’s probable she was given a basic education. Especially when it’s well-documented that she had dancing and music lessons.”
“Did she?”
“Yes, she was supposedly seduced by her music teacher Henry Manox when she was approximately thirteen years old.”
Kit looked disgusted. “I agree, if her guardians were paying for music lessons, it would have been odd not to give her a rounded education by the standards of the day.”
“Exactly,” said Perdita. “So, if we take it that Catherine was literate, why are there no letters to or from her during the period of her reign? Why is it that the only letter she left behind was the one to Thomas Culpepper? Particularly as this was the document that incriminated her. And, if no one is sure what her handwriting looked like because there are no other corroborating documents, how do we know she even wrote it?”
For the first time since he had been forced into working with her, Kit sat up alertly, his interest finally captured. “And I take it this was a love letter?” he asked. Perdita nodded. “How very convenient! I’m beginning to understand; the only sources used to tell her story are those that unequivocally incriminate Catherine? Any other details which could give an alternate version of events seem to have disappeared.”
“Unless, of course, you’re looking for them,” replied Perdita, gratified to see he was at last giving her his full attention. “However, back to the Culpepper letter. What makes it even more interesting is that it was written in two different styles of handwriting.”
“Meaning two people wrote it?” asked an astounded Kit, and Perdita nodded again. “Yet this was the letter which began the scandal that condemned her to death?”
“Yes,” said Perdita riffling through her copy of the manuscript until she found the photograph of the letter. She pushed it towards Kit to examine. “It’s thought by her most recent biographer, in a note Mary added earlier this year, that Catherine only wrote the first sixteen words, the formal introductory sentence asking after Culpepper’s health, something which would be a normal part of her queenly duties, but that the rest is written by someone else. Although, as there are no other known documents to corroborate her handwriting, it’s possible she didn’t even write the opening sentence.”
The Catherine Howard Conspiracy Page 20