“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 enemies 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.
It could not go on.
By the time the Court returned to Windsor, the plot was in progress. From Windsor the Court went to Hampton Court, and it was there that the storm broke.
I joined my brother's household at Sion, where Elizabeth was also. It was ironic but the day we arrived—it was the 30th of October, I remember—the King and Queen went to church to receive the sacrament, and my father made a declaration in the church. There were many to hear it, and it expressed his utter contentment with the Queen.
“I render, O Lord, thanks to Thee,” he announced in ringing tones at the altar, “that after so many strange accidents that have befallen my marriages, Thou has been pleased to give me a wife so entirely conformed to my inclination as her that I have now.”
How many wives had received such public acclamation of their virtues? She stood beside him, smiling with pleasure, acting in just the way he wished her to. He was a man of some intellect, a man of foresight, and of all the clever women who surrounded him it was this nonentity who pleased him!
Of course, he had always been one to deceive himself. Therein lay his weakness. He had a conscience but that conscience worked according to his will, so he was completely in control of it. He saw everything in the light of what good it could bring to Henry Tudor. And this little girl who said “Yes, my lord,” “Yes, my lord,” all the time, who titillated his ageing senses and aroused in him the desire of a young man pleased him because he drew on her dazzling youth and felt young again.
How deeply he must have felt about her for, having made that public declaration at the altar, he asked the Bishop of Lincoln to prepare a public ceremony. It would be a thanksgiving to Almighty God for having at last blessed him with a loving, dutiful and virtuous wife.
Fate is ironic. It was the very next day when the blow was delivered.
Susan told me about it.
“The King was in the chapel, my lady. The Queen was not with him. It may be that that was why Cranmer chose that moment. He handed a paper to the King and begged him to read it when he was alone.”
“Why? What was in this paper?”
“They say that it is accusing the Queen of lewd behavior before her marriage.”
I was astounded, yet I suddenly realized what it was about her that I had noticed. It was wrapped up in the fascination she had for the King. Of course, she was pretty—but so were others; there was something more than that about Mistress Catharine Howard. She was lusty, and lustiness such as she had, accompanied by fresh, youthful, dainty prettiness was irresistible. Before anything was proved, I guessed the accusations against her were true.