“What do they say?” I asked.
“That she had lovers.”
“They will never prove it. The King won't believe it.”
“The King, they say, is very unhappy.”
“Then if he does not want to believe it, he will not.”
“It may not be as easy as that. There are strong men surrounding him… determined men.”
“So you think it is a matter of politics?”
“Is that not generally the case?”
I had to agree.
We waited for news. These cunning men had collected evidence against her. They could produce her lovers; they had an account of what her life had been like in the household of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. There were young people… all sleeping together in one large room, living intimately. The Dowager Duchess herself was too old or too lazy to care what was happening to her wayward granddaughter. A girl like Catharine Howard, brought up in such a household, could hardly be expected to emerge as an innocent maiden.
I had not liked her and I had thought my father had demeaned himself by doting on her so blatantly. Perhaps I was angry because he had treated my own mother so shamefully, humiliating a great princess of Spain and becoming so foolishly enslaved by this ill-bred little girl. But when I heard the state the poor child was in and how she had taken the news, I felt an overwhelming pity for her.
She had almost gone into a frenzy. She had seen the axe hanging over her head. It was what all my father's wives must have felt when they offended him. The ghost of Anne Boleyn would haunt them all as long as they lived.
And this one was really only a child, in spite of her knowledge of the needs of men. She would not know how to defend herself. She would only think of what had happened to her own beautiful, clever cousin who had found herself in a position similar to that which now confronted her. The difference might be that Anne Boleyn had been innocent; but was Catharine Howard? On the other hand, the King had wished to be rid of Anne that he might marry Jane Seymour. He certainly did not wish to be rid of Catharine Howard.
The shadow of the axe would hang over every bride of my father's from the day of her wedding. Catharine must have felt secure in his love—so petted, so pampered, she was the pretty little thing who knew so well how to please. Had it never occurred to him that she might have learned her tricks through practice?
They told me about her, how she had babbled in her anguish, how she had worked herself up to a frenzy and to such an extent that they feared for her sanity.
How could she help it? Poor girl, she was so young, so full of life. She enjoyed life to such an extent that she could not bear the thought of having it snatched from her.
She believed, naturally, that if she could speak to the King, if she could cajole him, if she could, by her presence, remind him of the happiness she had brought him and still could…he would save her. He would cherish her still. But the wicked men would not allow her to see him. They would keep them apart because they knew that, if she could but speak to him for a moment, this nightmare for her would be over.
They said that when she heard he was in the Hampton Court chapel she ran along the gallery calling his name. But they stopped her before she reached him. They dragged her back to her chamber and set guards on her so that the King should not be aware of her terrible distress. They must have believed, as she did, that if he saw her, he would forgive her.
Susan and I discussed the matter. I suppose everyone was discussing it. We learned many things about the life Catharine Howard had lived before the King set eyes on her and made her his Queen. We heard details of the establishment of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, of the young people who had been under her care… only there was no care.
It was a sordid little story. I could picture it all… the long dormitory, those high-spirited young people. For a girl of Catharine's temperament there would be temptations, and she was not a girl to resist them. Therein lay her great attraction. There would have been many to enjoy what had so pleased the King.
I remembered that she had taken Francis Dereham into her household at Pontefract. What a little fool she was to do so. She was foolish not to see the danger which would have been obvious to a more worldly person. Her knowledge of sexual adventuring might be great but she had no understanding of human nature. It would never occur to her that, for some to see the little Catharine Howard—the poor girl who had scarcely been able to clothe herself—now reveling in the silks and satins which she loved, would arouse great envy, and envy is a most destructive passion.
It all came out… the flirtations with Manox, the musician, the familiarities she allowed Francis Dereham, who wanted to marry her and claimed her as his wife. It had been as though they were married. And she, as Queen, had brought this man, the lover of her humbler self, into her household!
How easy it must have been to build up evidence against her!
There was one other case which was even more damning. Her cousin, Thomas Culpepper, was in the King's household, and many had noticed the soft looks which had passed between him and the Queen. It was soon discovered that there had been interviews between them when they had been alone in a room together.
Lady Rochford's name was mentioned as one who had helped arrange the meetings with Culpepper and to make sure that the pair were not disturbed during them.
I had never liked Lady Rochford. The fact was that I had never liked anyone connected with the Boleyn family overmuch. I had seen Anne Boleyn as the one who had killed my mother. I was not sure that she had plotted to poison her, but I felt she had killed her all the same; but for Anne Boleyn, my father would have remained married to my mother, and I believe she would have been alive still.
Lady Rochford had been the wife of George Boleyn, and it was she who had given credence to the story that he and Anne were lovers. I had never believed that, much as I hated them, and I had always wondered how a wife could give such evidence against her own husband. And now she was accused of helping to further an intrigue between the Queen and Thomas Culpepper. I believed that such a mischievous and unprincipled woman could do just that.
I wished I could go to my father and comfort him. Of course, I could never have done so.
I wondered how deep his affection went and whether it would be strong enough to save her. She had pleased him so much. He had recently given thanks to God for providing him with a wife whom he could love. Surely he would not want to lose her, merely because she had had a lover—or two… or three—before her marriage to him? I sometimes felt an anger against men who, far from chaste themselves, expect absolute purity in their wives. If Catharine had not had some experience before her marriage, how could she have been the mistress of those arts which seemed to please him so much?
I wondered what he would do. I did not talk of this to Susan. I feared I would be too frank about him. He was my father and he was the King. I thought about him a great deal. I had seen him in his moods, when he was preoccupied with his conscience. I had judged him in my mind but I could not do that before others. So I said nothing of these intimate matters.
Susan said one day, “They have arrested Dereham.”
So, I thought, it has started. He will not save her. His pride will have been too hurt. He did not love her more than his own pride.
“On what charge?” I asked.
“Piracy,” she replied.
“He was involved in that in Ireland where he had gone to make his fortune, some say, that he might come back and marry Catharine Howard.”