“Jane, I know what I shall do. I shall have them make something for her … by the seamstresses. A nightgown furred against the cold … some shoes she will need. Stockings. They will help to keep her warm.”
“The King’s enemy …” began Jane.
“Need the King know?”
“What, deceive His Majesty so soon after the marriage!”
“Oh, Jane, do not be silly! It is not really deceiving. It is just not telling.”
“Well, all you have to do is smile sweetly, tell him how wonderful he is and that you adore him, and he will be at your feet.”
I smiled complacently.
“Send for the seamstresses,” I said. “We will begin at once. That poor lady shall no longer freeze in that dreadful Tower.”
Jane obeyed, and in a very short time I was able to send the Countess two nightdresses—one furred—together with hose and boots.
Jane entered into the scheme and was a great help. She was most excited and I wondered whether it was because she really cared about the comforts of the Countess, or because she felt it to be a rather dangerous undertaking, assisting a prisoner who was in the Tower by order of the King.
I was not afraid. If he heard of it, he would only smile, I was sure. Perhaps he would ask me jovially why I was sending comforts to his enemy, to which I would answer that I was so happy in the love of the King I could not bear to think that an old lady was in such discomfort.
Nevertheless, although it was probable that many knew what I had done—for the Queen’s actions, however small, were certain not to go unnoticed—nothing was said.
There were other matters to claim the King’s attention. A certain John Neville had started a rebellion in the North of England. I was with the King when the news of this was brought to him. I had never seen him in such an angry mood, since news of the slander the priest of Windsor was uttering against me had come.
He banged his fist on the table in an excess of fury. I cried out in alarm, but on this occasion he had no thought even for me.
“This,” he cried, “is that fellow Pole’s doing!”
He was on his feet, shouting. He strode to the door. He gave orders. There was an immediate Council.
I did not see Henry all that day, and when I did, he was preoccupied. I managed to soothe him a little. I listened to him. I sympathized with him while he shouted that he would subdue those Yorkshire oafs. It was of no great moment, but he was a sad man.
He was in a mood of self-pity.
“Katherine, I have given my life to this country. Is it not an amazing thing that there should be those of my subjects who can be so ungrateful?”
“It is,” I soothed. “When you have given your life to them.”
He took my hand and held it.
“You understand, do you not? You see how I suffer through these ungrateful people?”
“Oh I do, I do.” He kissed me.
“It was the happiest moment of my life when I looked across that table and heard you singing my song,” he said.
Sir John Neville was soon suppressed
“They had not a chance,” Jane told me. “They were defeated before they started. They will soon be wishing they had never been born.”
The King said: “I have an unhappy people to govern. I could reduce them to such poverty that they would not be able to rebel.” His face hardened and took on that cruel look which always made me uneasy.
I must see the parade of the prisoners with him. As they passed, I watched that cruel smile on his face. They were taken to the Tower from whence they would be taken to Tyburn, where they would be hanged and taken down before they were dead, to suffer that which I could not bear to contemplate.
It came to my mind to ask the King to spare them, but even I knew that would be folly. I must remember that I dare not go too far. So I saved myself in time from begging for their lives.
The King was happier that night. He was quite sentimental about his care for his people and how misguided they were to attempt this rising. It was all a matter of the Church again. He was the Head of the Church now, but there would always be those who would question it … until they saw the folly of it, as these men now did.
“It is this fellow Pole who is behind it,” he railed. “I was fond of him. I cared for him. I paid for his education.” There were tears in his eyes. “It was my conscience. His mother is the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward IV; and my mother, Elizabeth of York, was the daughter of that Edward, that King. You see how closely we are linked. It was the marriage between my mother and my father that united the Houses of York and Lancaster. Alas, men are ambitious. Reginald Pole could not forget that he was descended from Edward IV and Richard III. I even suspect him of having had his eyes on the throne. A King’s lot is not always a happy one, Katherine. I know you have thought it is. You have seen the pageantry, the pomp and the feasting. But it is not always so. Then I need my Katherine to soothe me … not a woman who will argue of this and that, but one who will be there to comfort me, to take my mind away from the wearisome matter of governing. Do you understand that, wife?”
I nestled against him. “I understand that I always want to give you what you want.”
He was happy then. The rebels of Yorkshire were all in the Tower. Tomorrow there would be the spectacle of their execution.
Neville would be taken back to York. He should perish where he had started the trouble, that the people might see the fate of those who turned traitor to the King.
There was a sequel to the Yorkshire rising. The Countess of Salisbury was sentenced to death.
I was horrified. I had thought of her comfortable in her furred nightdress, and considered how delighted she must have been to receive it. And now she was to die.
I was not so foolish as to think I could plead for her. I knew the King would give me a great deal if I asked it, but I had glimpsed his rage at the very mention of Reginald Pole, and I knew I must not stretch his indulgence too far.
As was my habit, I tried to forget what I did not want to hear, but it was difficult to banish thoughts of the Countess from my mind. I felt an urge to know what she felt about the manner in which she was being treated. I talked to Jane Rochford.
“It is reported that she has declared she has committed no crime,” she told me.
“Is it true that she was not involved in the Neville rebellion?”
“It is what she says. But many will tell you that the revolt was supported by Reginald Pole, and she is his mother, so it is very likely that she helped her son. Ever since the King broke with Rome, there have been those who are for the King and others who cling to the Pope, and Cardinal Reginald Pole most naturally supports the Pope.”
“Then she is guilty,” I said
“She declares she is not. But she would, would she not?”
“But if she is innocent, she must not be executed.”
“She is certainly guilty of being in the royal line.”
“Oh, Jane, you make the most daring statements!”
“I only say them to you. It is because I speak to you as I would to myself. You must forget what I have said as soon as I say it. It is because I am so close to you.” She added, with a grin: “Your Majesty.”
“Jane, I wonder how right you are.”
“We can only wait and see.”
“Be careful, Jane.”
“Your Majesty must be so, too. Remember, what a Majesty says can mean more than the words of a simple lady-in-waiting. Forget not who sent clothes to her. That could be a rash act … more than making a remark as to whether she is guilty or not.”
But Jane did look a little subdued. I think she was wondering whether she had gone too far.