She nodded.
A terrible despondency descended on me. This was what I had feared for so long.
I was avid for news. I asked everyone who might know something, and there were several who were eager to please me now. There was nothing to comfort me.
Christmas had come—a joyless season for me now.
My mother's health was a little improved, for she had seen Chapuys, and there was something else which had cheered her. My women told me all they knew of it.
The Emperor's ambassador went to Kimbolton on New Year's Day, and later that day there appeared at the castle gates a woman begging for shelter. She was cold and had fallen from her horse and was in dire need. Because she was clearly a lady of noble bearing, she was allowed to enter the castle.
“Who do you think she was, Madam?” asked my woman.
I shook my head.
“Lady Willoughby, the lady who came with your gracious mother from Spain. The Queen and Lady Willoughby embraced and swore that they would never be parted again. Lady Willoughby said she would die rather. That and the visit of “the ambassador cheered her mightily.”
I was greatly relieved.
She has spirit, I told myself. She will recover.
IT WAS THE 11TH of January…a date I shall never forget. Lady Shelton came to my room. She said, “I have come to tell you that your mother is dead. She died four days ago.”
Her face was a mask. She had lost a little of her truculence now but she managed to convey her dislike of me. Perhaps it was more intense for being subdued, now that her mistress Anne Boleyn was no longer sure of her position.
I was stunned. I had been expecting this for so long but now that it had come I was deeply shocked. I wanted desperately to be alone with my infinite sorrow.
“Leave me,” I said and I must have spoken imperiously for she obeyed. Dead! I should never see her again. For so long I had been parted from her but I had always hoped to. And now she was gone and there was no hope. Never again…
Oh, the cruelty of life…of people who satisfy their wanton desires by trampling on the lives of those about them.
How had she been at the end? There would be no more pain for her. I should rejoice that she was safe in Heaven and far from her miseries. I should have been with her. I thanked God that Lady Willoughby had found a way of getting to her. That would have been a great comfort to her.
My woman came in. She stood looking at me, her eyes brimming with sympathy. I shook my head at her. “I wish to be alone,” I said.
She understood and left me, and I was alone with my grief which was what I wanted.
How had it been at the end? I asked myself. I wondered if I could see Lady Willoughby, who could tell me how she died. But I should not be allowed to, of course.
I sat in my room. I could face no one. I dressed myself in black and thought of all we had been to each other. I recalled endearing incidents from my childhood—some of them when my father had been present. We had been a loving, happy family then.
I was horrified when I learned that, hearing of my mother's death, my father's first words were, “God be praised! We are now free from all fear of war.” Did he remember nothing of those happy days? Had he not one morsel of tenderness left for her?
He was justifying himself, of course. He wanted to believe that my mother's death was a reason for rejoicing. There was no court mourning. Instead there were celebrations—a grand ball and a joust. The people must remember that her death had delivered them from war. In the tiltyard at the joust he performed with great skill. He was the triumphant champion. He was telling the people that he was the leader, the one they could trust to take them away from the devious Church of Rome. At the ball he dressed in yellow—yellow jacket, yellow hose and yellow hat with a white feather. The concubine was dressed in yellow too.
How could he care so little for one who had never harmed him and who had always been a dutiful wife?
I became obsessed with the idea that my mother had been poisoned. It would have been so easy and, as they made no secret of their delight in her death, my suspicions might be well founded. I could think of nothing but that. How had she died? I must discover. I asked that my mother's physician and apothecary should come to see me.
When he heard this, my father asked why I should need a doctor. He could understand that I felt a little low in the circumstances, but I should get over that. Chapuys, however, talked to my father and, to my surprise, at last he agreed to allow me to see them. No doubt he was softened by his pleasure in my mother's death; moreover he knew there would be silent criticism of his treatment of her, and he did not want to show more harshness toward me at this time.
One of my maids brought me a letter from Eustace Chapuys in which he advised me to be brave and prepared for anything that might happen, for I could be assured that there would be changes. He also sent me a little gold cross which my mother was most anxious that I should have.
I was deeply moved and I was in a state of indifference as to what might happen to me. There were times when I wished with all my heart that I was with my mother.
In due course the physician arrived, with the apothecary, and from them I learned the details of my mother's last days, and of how delighted she had been at the arrival of Maria de Salinas, so much so that briefly her condition improved. The two friends had not been parted for an hour since Maria arrived, and my mother was in better spirits than she had been for a long time. Her talks with the ambassador had cheered her also. Eustace Chapuys had departed on the morning of the 5th of January. He had left her in a mood of optimism, believing that, if she could continue with the companionship of Lady Willoughby, she would recover.
“It was in the early hours of the morning of Friday the 7th that it became obvious that she had taken a turn for the worse,” said the physician. “At daybreak she received the sacrament. Lady Willoughby was, of course, with her. Her servants came to the chamber, for they knew the end was near. Many of them were in tears. She asked them to pray for her and to ask God to forgive her husband. Then she asked me to write her will, which I did. She told me that she wished to be buried in a convent of the Observant Friars.”
I said, “But the King has suppressed that order.”
“Yes, my lady, but I did not tell her. It would have distressed her. It was ten o'clock when she received Extreme Unction and by the afternoon she had passed away.”
“Was there anything… unusual about her death?”
“Unusual, my lady?”
“Did you have any reason to suspect it might have been something she had eaten or drunk?”
He hesitated and I shivered perceptively.
“Yes?” I prompted. “There was something?”
“She was never well after she had drunk some Welsh ale.”
“Do you think…?”
He took a deep breath and said quickly, “She was not ill as people are when they are poisoned by something they have taken. It was just that she seemed… feeble after taking the beer.”
“Did the thought occur to you that her condition might have something to do with the beer?”
“Well… there have been rumors…Yes, the thought did occur to me that it might have had something to do with the beer. But it would have been an unusual substance … not one which would be recognized as a poison.”
“Ah,” I said. “So the thought did occur to you.”
He was silent.
Then he went on, “After she died …” He paused. Evidently he was trying to decide how much he should tell me. He seemed to come to a decision. “Eight hours after she died she was embalmed and her body enclosed in lead. I was not allowed to be present… nor was her confessor.”
“It seems as though they were in something of a hurry.”
He lapsed into silence.
I wanted to ask him outright if he believed she had been poisoned, but I could see how uneasy he was. One simple remark could lose him his life.