Hardly able to breathe, she dialled Kit’s number. When it went to voicemail, she swore but left a short message for him to call her urgently. If only Piper were here, she thought. This is a huge moment, I wish we could do this together, but Piper was still in Italy and would not be leaving for Marquess House until the following day. I can’t wait until tomorrow, she thought.
Perdita moved to one of the window seats and continued to contemplate the graffiti. Yet, she still could not make sense of their discovery. If Catherine Howard had given birth to two children, one of them the longed-for second male heir, why had this legitimate Tudor prince been written from history?
She sank back on to the cushions and began trying to rationalise her findings, but no matter how hard she tried to bring her analytical powers to the fore, all she kept thinking was: Catherine Howard gave birth to Henry VIII’s twins. Catherine Howard had twins. The words revolved around her mind, chasing each other in circles as she battled to grasp the enormity of this discovery. Two more Tudor heirs. Legitimate heirs. So, why had Catherine’s family hidden her in Pembrokeshire rather than revelling in her triumph at court?
Maybe the babies weren’t Henry’s? thought Perdita, following her grandmother’s line of reasoning. However, she quickly dismissed this: if Catherine had been unfaithful to the king and was trying to pass another man’s bastards off as Henry’s children, the senior members of her family would not have stood by her, particularly, Catherine’s uncle, Thomas Howard, the duke of Norfolk. Yet, the household records showed he had stayed at Marquess House when Catherine had been in residence. Perdita shook her head. No, she thought, the children must have been Henry’s offspring. But what happened to them? Did they survive or did they die young?
Toying with these questions, she forced herself to abandon the emotion of the discovery and reason it out in a calm academic manner. The most likely explanation was that the children had died, possibly Catherine too, but it still did not explain why there were no official records of this pregnancy or why history stated Catherine Howard had been executed in February 1542. Perdita thought for a while, working out dates from the information they had gathered from the household accounts. Catherine gave birth sometime in November, so she would have conceived in February 1542, the point where she disappeared from the official version of history.
This is it, thought Perdita, this is what MI1 doesn’t want us to know. Catherine Howard wasn’t executed, she escaped from her violent marriage and gave birth to Henry’s heirs. For some reason, two of her ladies-in-waiting were beheaded and their death warrant was changed to implicate Henry’s fifth queen and her companion, Jane Boleyn, even though Jane had actually died a few months earlier. Why, though?
Raking her fingers through her hair in frustration, she forced herself to concentrate and then it came to her. Catherine’s children must have survived, she reasoned, or it would not have mattered. Catherine would have been remembered as the queen who died tragically in childbirth, like Jane Seymour, and her children would be recorded in perpetuity. There would have been no need to hide the truth if they had died. If they had survived, however, then there might have been more of a problem.
Suddenly, Perdita had a moment of clarity. Not only had the children survived, she realised, they must have reached maturity, then tried and failed to claim their birthright, which was why they had been written out of history. Who were they? wondered Perdita. Who were these Tudor heirs? And what did they do that caused a later generation to wipe away all trace of them? Even more confusing, where did the mysterious Penelope Fitzalan fit in? The dates of her letters were from the 1660s, so she could not have been Catherine’s daughter, yet she claimed to have Catherine’s ruby ring.
The revelations of the night flowed around her mind, splashing against the sides of her brain like an angry tide until, like a piece of flotsam, an idea bobbed to the surface and her mind calmed. She knew what she had to do next.
But as she stood up, her phone buzzed.
“Kit!” she exclaimed in relief. “Where are you?”
“Walking up to the house,” he replied. “What’s happened?”
“I’ve found it, all of it, the secret MI1 doesn’t want us to know. I’m in the library, I’ll meet you in the Tudor hall. We need a torch. We’re going to the chapel to see if we can find Catherine.”
Perdita heard the key turning in the huge front doors and Kit was in front of her. He had two jackets slung over one arm and a torch in his right hand.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “You look completely wired.”
“The graffiti,” she replied. “CH, 1542 and two names: Elizabeth and Nicholas.”
“Yes, I’ve seen it, many times.”
“And?” urged Perdita. “CH — Catherine Howard, two names, Tudor names. We know she was pregnant, the household accounts show that. What if she had twins?”
She waited for his response but there was silence.
“Catherine Howard had twins,” repeated Perdita. “She came here because she was pregnant and she had twins, a girl called Elizabeth and a boy called Nicholas.”
“But, Perds, if she did,” began Kit, his tone hesitant, “they were legitimate Tudor heirs. Henry would have claimed his son, even if he didn’t bother acknowledging another daughter.”
“How could he if he didn’t know they existed?”
“It’s hard to believe someone as ambitious as Thomas Howard, the duke of Norfolk, wouldn’t have shoved his male Howard heir into Henry’s arms himself.”
“We have a record of things being ordered for Thomas Howard while Catherine was in residence at Marquess House. He came to visit but it doesn’t seem that he came to remove her. If he had helped to hide her from the court — and it would have needed someone very powerful to smooth over her disappearance — why would he then put her and her children in danger?”
“But a male Tudor heir? A duke of York? Do you think Norfolk could have resisted a Howard prince, potentially a Howard king?”
“It seems he did,” said Perdita.
“Maybe the baby died,” reasoned Kit. “The daughter might have survived and was hidden for her own safety, but perhaps the reason there was no record of a Prince Nicholas was because the little boy died.”
“Possibly, but I don’t think so,” persisted Perdita. “My instinct tells me they both survived. The secret that MI1, or The King’s Men or The Queen’s Men, or whoever they were originally, was created to protect is obviously huge and this is enormous. I suspect Catherine’s children grew up and someone for some reason at some point further on, decided it was better to remove them from history, so things were altered and the ‘official’ version was created. Don’t you see, Kit, this is big enough to warrant being hidden and using an entire government department to do so. Something massive happened that the establishment wanted to suppress and I’m certain it began with Catherine Howard and her children.”
Kit had a pained expression on his face, as though he did not want to destroy Perdita’s theory or the hope in her eyes, but reason could not let him believe her version of events.
“Or the children could both have died and that’s why there’s no record of them,” he said, unable to help himself.
“But that wouldn’t make sense,” said Perdita, frustrated with his inability to see what seemed so obvious to her. “MI1 Elite is so determined to stop us revealing something that they tried to murder my grandmother. Unfortunately, it was my mother who became the victim of their evil desperation. Anyway, Granny Mary agreed with the hypothesis that Catherine was pregnant, something we have now proved with the household accounts. She also thought there was a link between those old letters from Penelope Fitzalan, the Llyn Cel mermaid legend and the words: Spe et nereidum.”
“What?”
“I found the missing chapter,” explained Perdita. “Granny wrote me a letter and hid it in her Apocrypha. She told me where the final chapter was hidden and she said, because of a change in circumstances, she no longer think
s dwelling in secrecy will keep us safe, she wants us to finish her work and find the truth.”
“Us? You and Piper?”
“No, you too. She wrote a note the night before she died saying she wanted you to explore the tunnel with her.”
“But that’s a legend…”
“No, it isn’t,” interrupted Perdita. “Granny discovered the tunnel when she was a child. She and Bethan Bridges used it as their secret hideout and she thinks the ring might be hidden there. I think they may have found something when they were children, a fireplace, perhaps with a secret cavity.”
For a moment, they stared at each other.
“Perds, this is crazy!” Kit exclaimed, but this time his voice rang with excitement rather than scepticism.
“I also have a theory.”
“Which is?”
“If Catherine gave birth to her children here, if she or they died, they might be in the chapel. If they’re not, then we must assume they survived, for a while at least.”
Their conversation had taken them through the house and down the passage to the kitchen.
“What do you want to do first? Grave or tunnel?” asked Kit when they reached the back door.
“Grave,” said Perdita. “Unfortunately, Granny didn’t give details for the entrance to the tunnel, although she did give a clue as to where it comes out on the island, so we might have to take a boat over there tomorrow.”
“OK, grave it is then,” he said. “I brought you a coat, it’s pouring with rain.”
Pulling on a far-too-large waterproof jacket, she found a woolly hat in the pocket. Tucking her hair inside it, she led the way out into the stormy night. Following the winding path, they ran through the rhododendron grove, past the mermaid fountain and down the footpath to the kissing gate. Sheltering for a moment under its roof, they paused, then sprinted to the chapel’s porch and threw themselves into its dry interior. Pulling off her hat and shaking the worst of the rain from it, Perdita looked around for a light switch.
“Here,” said Kit reaching into a shadowy corner and flooding them with light, “the main light board is inside.” He opened the solid mediaeval door and after a few clicks, the chapel was bathed in a warm golden glow. Perdita followed Kit inside and started.
“I’d forgotten it was being cleaned,” she said, looking in dismay at the two scaffold towers positioned at either end of the aisle and the ghost-like draperies of the dust sheets. Kit had set off towards the chaplaincy at the far end.
“It shouldn’t matter,” he called. “The burial records are in the safe out the back. If Catherine and her children are buried here, the records will say where, so we won’t have to search every single centimetre by hand.”
“What, burial records that go back to 1542?” asked Perdita.
“Perds, it’s a family chapel, the number of burials is quite limited,” echoed Kit’s voice from the transept as he disappeared around the corner.
Perdita pulled a face at Kit’s retreating back but her excitement was building, she was convinced Catherine would be here somewhere. She gazed about her, it was the first time she had been inside since her grandmother’s funeral, and she had forgotten its true magnificence. As she admired the blue ceiling sprinkled with golden stars, a thought struck her: the mermaid that marked the beginning of the tunnel was also in here, although Mary had not given the location. But then, why would she need to, mused Perdita, she had thought she would be able to show Kit. Looking upwards, she searched the ceiling, although, sense told her the carved mermaid ceiling bosses were not the key to the secret entrance.
Mermaids again, she thought. There are mermaids on the walls around the house, a tapestry of a mermaid, the Llyn Cel mermaid, even a mermaid marking the entrance to the passage. Did Catherine Howard put them here or was it subsequent generations? Have other women known this secret and passed it down from mother to daughter for centuries? she wondered.
Her eyes shifted to the beautiful carvings of the women on the central bosses and it was then that Perdita noticed it: there were only four faces. Moving further into the light, she looked from one serene image to the next. Four women whose faces were endlessly repeated throughout the chapel. All thoughts of the mermaid vanished as this new anomaly presented itself. There was still no sign of Kit, so Perdita threw off her jacket and approached one of the scaffold towers. Checking it was securely anchored, she began to climb.
Within moments, she was at the top, only inches from the delicate carvings. She examined each one, taking in the different appearances and the various styles of headdress, suggesting they were all from different eras. Pulling her phone out of her jeans’ pocket, she took a series of pictures of each face. If only you could speak, Perdita thought, gazing into the dark eyes of one of the women.
“You, Madam,” she said addressing one boss, “look familiar and, I would suggest, you might be a depiction of Anne Boleyn, particularly as this was once your house.”
Searching in her rigorous, academic way for more identifying clues, it took only seconds for her to discover the tiny initials at the base of the carving: A.B. Surprised, she moved to the next image of another younger woman, and there in the same position at the base were the letters C.H. She felt a chill run down her spine. Moving swiftly to the remaining faces Perdita found two more sets of initials: A.S. and P.F. — Penelope Fitzalan. Taking a series of pictures of the initials, her mind began whirring once again.
“Anne Boleyn,” she whispered, “Catherine Howard, Penelope Fitzalan and another woman who was linked to this house…”
“Perdita, what the fuck…?”
Kit was standing by the altar looking up at her in horror. He had reappeared from the back rooms and was holding a large leather-bound book but his eyes were on Perdita.
“It’s Anne Boleyn,” said Perdita pointing at the carving, “and I think this is Catherine Howard and this could be Penelope Fitzalan who compiled the book of legends but this one, I’m not sure yet…”
“Get down, now!” he shouted, his voice tense. “Those towers aren’t the safest pieces of equipment we own.”
“OK, OK,” said Perdita and began her descent. A moment later she was by his side. “Are you scared of heights?” she asked, wondering if this would explain his rather violent reaction.
“I don’t love them,” he admitted. Perdita could not contain the laugh that rose to her lips. Kit pulled a face. “I thought we were looking for graves,” he muttered.
“You’re right, we are,” said Perdita. She slid into a pew and Kit followed. They placed the book of burial records between them and began searching the early entries.
“First one is 1536,” said Kit, giving her a satisfied smirk.
“Nothing for 1542 or even early 1543,” she said, her voice disappointed.
“Maybe they weren’t buried here,” suggested Kit.
“Maybe they didn’t die until much later,” replied Perdita running her finger down the page. The burials listed were names she had never heard before and were mostly in Welsh.
“Wild goose chase?” asked Kit, making to close the book.
“Looks like it, although…” she said taking it from him, wondering if the initials A.S. would correspond with any of the names in the records or whether a Penelope Fitzalan appeared. She turned another page and ran her eye down the list, nothing, nothing… Then she gasped.
“Lady C Howard, March 1552.”
Kit leant over. “But how can it be?” he murmured staring at the faded writing.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t jump down my throat, I’m on your side, but if this really is Catherine Howard someone would have found this grave before now?” He looked at Perdita, an apprehensive expression on his face. Perdita, however, was calm, considering his doubts.
“True,” she said, “but remember, history tells us Catherine was executed at the Tower of London in February 1542. No one but us and Mary have discovered she wasn’t or that Catherine came to Marquess House to h
ave her children. No one would have been looking.”
“Agreed,” said Kit, “but what about over the intervening centuries? You’re telling me no one ever noticed her grave?”
“It could be unmarked…” suggested Perdita.
“Great,” muttered Kit under his breath.
“Or,” continued Perdita, ignoring him, “people assumed it was another Catherine Howard?”
“Another Catherine Howard?” asked Kit, incredulous.
“It was quite common in Tudor times to find duplicate names in the same family,” she said. “There were several Thomas Howards, a few of whom were dukes of Norfolk, which can be confusing when you’re studying them, at least two Thomas Culpeppers, who were thought to be brothers — Granny has a theory about them which I need to tell you later — at least two Jane Seymours… Put Catherine Howard’s name into any internet search engine and you’ll see what I mean. At the time our Catherine was around, and in the ten years after, I discovered a number of other Catherine Howards too.”
“What? Who were they?”
“There was Katherine Howard, countess of Nottingham who went on to be a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth I, and was related to Mary Boleyn. Then there was Catherine Howard, countess of Suffolk; Katherine Howard, countess of Bridgewater and later on, there was another Catherine Howard, this time she was countess of Derby. So, even if someone discovered a grave marked ‘Catherine Howard’ in a far-flung place like this, it was never going to be connected with Henry’s fifth queen. It would have been nothing more than an interesting anomaly. Unless, of course, you’ve discovered what we have.”
Kit stared at her in wonder. “You’re incredible,” he said, then reached for the book. “Does it give the location?”
“There’s something faded under her name…” she replied, suppressing the smile that was threatening to appear all over her face after Kit’s compliment.
The Catherine Howard Conspiracy Page 38