“How could I forget that you are my wife?”
“I am not. I am not. We were children playing at love.”
“You cannot deny that we were lovers in truth.”
“Please, Francis, please … I am going away.”
“To Culpepper?”
“No … no, only to Court.”
“You must not do this.”
“It has all been arranged for me. I am commanded to go. I am going to be a lady-in-waiting to the Queen.”
“That must not be!” he insisted. “You must tell them how it is between us. If you go away, I shall not stay in this house.”
“As to that, Francis, you must do as you list.”
“Katherine, at Court, you will be exposed to all kinds of profligacy which you do not understand. You are so sweet and innocent. No, Katherine, I will not have it.”
“It is not for you to say, Francis, whether or not I go to Court.”
“I am your husband.”
“Say that no more, Francis. If you love me …”
“You know I love you. How many times have I told you? How many times have you said you love me?”
“That is in the past. It is all over now.”
“It will never be over for me.”
“I am going to Court, I tell you.”
“To be betrothed to Culpepper?”
“I am not betrothed to anyone anymore.”
“But to go to Court. You … in that den of vice.”
“Can it compare with the Long Room in this house?”
He was silent. It was as though he were thinking of that innocent girl who had already been thrust into something like that den of vice to which he referred, and I saw a great tenderness in his eyes.
“Francis,” I said. “I did love you, but it is over. Please understand. We could still be good friends. If you love me, you will understand.”
He said slowly: “I do love you, Katherine. I have always loved you. I would never do anything to harm you.”
I believed him, for I was convinced that he was speaking the truth.
A Meeting with the King
IT APPEARED THAT the King’s marriages—and this to Anne of Cleves was his fourth—must always be overshadowed by death.
When he had married his first Queen, many years ago, that had only been possible because of the death of his elder brother, Arthur; and King Henry had inherited a wife as well as a throne through that death. Then, when the first wife was put aside that the King might marry my cousin, the great Cardinal Wolsey, although he escaped the axe, died, it was said, of a broken heart and despair. Many deaths had followed that marriage: the noble Thomas More, the saintly Bishop Fisher, many monks—most barbarously—and all traced to that second marriage. My tragic cousin had gone to the block; and Jane Seymour’s brief reign had ended in her death. Now there was the new Queen, and Thomas Cromwell—one-time favorite—appeared to be in danger.
There was a charge of treason, and his enemies—chief among them my Uncle Norfolk—had been quick to seek the opportunity to destroy him. The King’s anger against him had been fueled by the fact that it had been Cromwell’s activities which had saddled His Majesty with a wife who did not please him.
I learned something of Cromwell then and marveled at the hazards people risked when ambition drove them on. I wondered how Cromwell, who had once been so powerful, was facing the fact that he was in growing and acute danger.
Many people were pleased to see him in this plight. I was amazed at the constant references to his humble birth. His father was sneered at for being a blacksmith and a shearer of cloth who kept a brew-house in Putney which was also a hostelry. And this Cromwell, a blacksmith’s son, had had the temerity to climb to the position of Lord Great Chamberlain of England.
I said, in my naive way, that the blacksmith must have been very industrious to have done so many things. As for his son, he must have been very clever indeed to have climbed so high from such humble beginnings.
Patronizing glances were turned on me. What did frivolous Katherine Howard know of such matters? They were determined to hold Thomas Cromwell’s origins against him, but it did not seem logical to me.
“Too much climbing up high from low places can bring his sort to the headsman,” I was told. I wanted to say that a great number of our noble families went that way too—in fact more often than humbler men. But I did not. I was not clever at arguments, and most of my expressed opinions were generally reduced to ridicule.
I gathered that when Cromwell became a member of Gray’s Inn he was singled out by Cardinal Wolsey as a man who could be useful. When I did go so far as to say that Wolsey thought highly of him, I was reminded that Wolsey was a butcher’s son. “Like to like,” they said. “And look what became of Wolsey in the end.”
“There had been a time when the King was very fond of him, as he was with Thomas Cromwell,” I pointed out.
It was obviously dangerous to be favored by the King. My cousin Anne had surely been more favored than any. I dreamed sometimes that I saw her, with her head on the block, and the axe descending. Unpleasant dreams, to be dismissed as soon as it was daylight.
And now it was Cromwell’s turn. Poor Cromwell, who had risen so high, from working in his father’s hostelry—as he might well have done—to supping with princes. And where had that led him? To the Tower.
I heard that my uncle and the Earl of Southampton were to visit the Tower to talk to him, to learn for what reason he had beguiled his master into making this unsatisfactory marriage. What was Cromwell’s arrangement with her family? Was he serving the interests of others rather than those of his master?
My uncle, I knew, was his greatest enemy. I was not sure of Southampton; but it was clear that there would be no mercy from them: and Cromwell would know that, too.
I wondered, when my uncle visited him, whether he had been aware of the Duke’s triumph, which I knew must have existed. He had been very annoyed when Cromwell had been made Chamberlain and the title of Earl of Essex had been bestowed on him. The Duchess had let that slip during one of the massage sessions.
She said: “The Duke has discovered faults in this man. It was his duty to expose them and, fearlessly, before the others at the Council table, he stood up and accused Cromwell of treason.”
I later discovered what the charges were. Cromwell, it was said, had liberated people for bribes, and also taken payment for licenses to export corn and other food; he had helped to circulate heretical books; and there was one other ridiculous charge against him: he had planned to marry the Princess Mary and take the throne.
The Protestants would have saved him if they could, but they were powerless to do so.
Poor Cromwell. He wrote appeals to the King from prison, begging for mercy and a chance to talk to him; but the King turned his back on the man who had once been so highly favored: Cromwell remained in the Tower. And, on a hot July day, he was taken from there to Tower Hill where he laid his head upon the block.
I was caught up in the dazzling prospect before me. My uncle, the Duke, had given orders that the garments I should need for my new position were to be supplied. I loved clothes and it was wonderful to be fitted by the seamstresses and feel the softness of the beautiful materials which were being provided. I had always wanted to possess such clothes. I was required to parade before the Duchess in my new gowns while she nodded approvingly. I swear she had never been so fond of me as she was then. There was a faint hint of sadness in her expression though, for seeing me in the splendid clothes naturally reminded her of my cousin.
But this would pass quickly and soon she would be watching me, her eyes sparkling with anticipation of my future. When I left her I basked in the envy of the ladies.