“Did you prove your innocence?” I ask him very quietly as we mount up and prepare to ride out.
“Nothing was proved or disproved,” he says as he helps me into the saddle and looks up at me, scowling against the bright sunshine. “I think it was not to test our guilt but to frighten us and throw us into disarray. And,” he says with a wry smile, “it surely did that.”
This used to be the happiest time of the year for the king, but not this summer. He glances at Jane’s plate when she is eating her breakfast, as if he were wishing that she felt queasy, he watches her—his head tipped slightly to the side—as she dances with her ladies, as though he would be better pleased if she were tired. I am not the only person who thinks that he is looking for a fault, wondering why she is not with child, considering that there may be some flaw in her that makes her unworthy to bear a Tudor heir, or even to be crowned as queen. They have been married less than eight weeks, but the king is quick to identify failure in others. He demands perfection—and this is the woman he married because he was certain that she was the perfect contrast to Anne Boleyn.
Sittingbourne is a great town of inns, built on Watling Street, the road from Dover to London, the main pilgrimage route to the Becket shrine at Canterbury. We stay at the Lyon, and their banqueting hall is so large and their rooms so many that they can house most of the court on the premises and only the hangers-on and the lower servants have to stay in inns nearby.
For the first time in my life I see that although the pilgrims push back their hoods to uncover their heads for the royal standard, they turn their faces away from the king. They dare do no more, but they do not call out blessings on him, or smile as he rides by. They blame him for closing the smaller monasteries and nunneries, they fear he will go on to destroy the bigger ones. These are devout people, accustomed to praying in an abbey church in their little towns, who now find that the abbey is closed and some hard-faced new Tudor lord is taking the lead from the roof and the glass from the windows. These are people who believe in the saints of little roadside shrines, whose fathers and grandfathers were saved from purgatory by the family chantries that are now destroyed. Who is going to say a Mass for them? These are people who were brought up to revere the local churches, who rented lands from the monasteries, who went to the nunnery hospital when they were sick, who went to the abbey kitchen in hungry times. When the king ordered the visitation and then the closure of the small monasteries and nunneries, he tore the heart out of the small communities and handed their treasures over to strangers.
Now these pilgrims are traveling to the shrine of a churchman who was killed by a king, another Henry. They believe that Thomas Becket stood for the Church against the king and the miracles that constantly occur at his celebrated shrine go to prove that the churchman was right and the king was wrong. As the royal guards trot into the village and jump off their big horses and line the village street, the pilgrims whisper of John Fisher, who died for his faith on the royal scaffold; of Thomas More, who could not bring himself to say that the king was the rightful head of the Church, and laid down his life rather than sign his name. As the royal party ride in, nodding to right and left with the usual Tudor charm, there are no beaming faces or excited shouts in reply. Instead, they turn their heads away, or they look down, and there is a discontented murmur like a deep embanked stream.
Henry hears it; his head goes up and he looks coldly around at the pilgrims who stand at the doorways of the inns or lean out of the windows to see the man who is destroying their Church. The yeomen of the guard hear it, looking round uneasily, sensing divided loyalties, even in their own ranks.
Many, many people, knowing that I am the princess’s governess and head of her household, call out to me: “God bless her! God bless her!,” afraid even to say her true name and her title as they have sworn to deny her, but still wanting to send their love and loyalty.
Henry, usually traveling between his rich palaces, mostly by barge, always heavily guarded, has not heard the rumble of a thousand critical whispers before. It’s like a distant thunder, low and yet ominous. He looks around, but he cannot see one person speaking against him. Abruptly, he laughs out loud at nothing, as if he is trying to demonstrate that he is not troubled by this sulky welcome, and he swings himself heavily down from his horse, throws the reins to a groom, and stands stock-still, his arms akimbo, a fat block of a man, as if daring anyone to speak against him. He can see no one to challenge. There is no scowling face in the crowd, no one is going to stand up to be martyred. If Henry saw an enemy, he would cut him down where he stood; he has never lacked courage. But there is no one opposing him. There is just a dull sourceless whisper of discontent. The people don’t like their king anymore, they don’t trust him with their Church, they don’t believe that his will is given to him by God, they miss Queen Katherine, they were horrified by the stories of the guilt and the death of Queen Anne. How can such a woman ever have been the choice of a godly king? He chose her to prove that he was the best, that he could marry the best. Since she is now shown to be the worst, what does that say about him?
They don’t know anything about Queen Jane, but they have heard that she danced on the night of the execution and married the king eleven days after he beheaded his former wife, her mistress. They think she must be a woman quite without pity. To them, the king is no longer the prince whose coming makes all things right, he is no longer the young man whose follies and sports were a byword for joyous excess. Their love for him has grown doubtful, their love for him has grown fearful; in truth, their love for him has gone.
Henry looks around and tosses his head as if he despises the little town and the lowered heads of the silent pilgrims. He reminds me, for one moment, of the way his father used to look, as if he thought we were all fools, that he had taken the throne and the kingdom by his own quick and cunning wits, and that he despised us all for having allowed it. Henry glances down at Jane who stands at his side, waiting to walk with him through the wide-open doors of the inn. His face does not soften at the sight of her blond bowed head. He looks at her as if she is another fool who is going to do exactly as he wants, even if it costs her life.
We are following slavishly behind, when there is a disturbance in the crowd outside, horsemen riding down the road and trying to push their way through. I see Montague, following the king, looking back at the noise. It is one of Henry Fitzroy’s servants, his horse nearly foundered, looking as if it has been ridden hard, perhaps all the way from St. James’s Palace, the young duke’s London home.
A small nod of Montague’s head as he goes into the darkness of the inner hall of the inn prompts me to wait outside and discover the news that has made Fitzroy’s servants ride so hard. The man pushes his way through the crowd, while his groom waits behind holding the horse.
At once people gather around him clamoring for news, and I stand back to listen. He shakes his head and speaks quietly. I clearly hear him say that nothing could be done, the poor young man, and nothing could be done.
I go into the inn, where the king’s presence chamber is filled with the court, talking and wondering what has happened. Jane is seated on the throne, trying to look unconcerned and talking with her ladies. The door to the king’s private room is closed, with Montague nearby.
“He went in there with the messenger,” Montague says to me quietly. “Shut everyone out. What’s happened?”
“I think Fitzroy may be dead,” I say.
Montague’s eyes widen and he gives a little exclamation, but he is such a trained conspirator now that he gives little away. “An accident?”