“My Lord Hertford does well, thank you, sire,” Henry Seymour responded.
“Your other brother,” Henry said pointedly. “Thomas.”
Kate indicated that her wine should be refilled. Her hand trembled as she picked up the golden goblet.
“He does well, sire,” the carver answered. “Always ready to serve Your Majesty.” Kate did not meet his eye nor acknowledge the subtle menace at the edge of the king’s voice.
“Good, good,” Henry said. “Kate, I have given some thought to your comments about our family, our children, and the succession, as you ever act upon our best interests. I will instruct Parliament to reinstate our daughters into the succession after the prince, this realm’s most precious jewel.” He gulped some wine and indicated for more. “Thus they will be placed ahead of the offspring of our sisters.” He winked at her, his cheeks pushing up into his eyes, his beard tufted and noticeably thinning. “Unless, of course, there are any children from you.”
That was the cue to set the remaining wine on the table and withdraw. Henry Seymour did as well, as did the other servants. Lady Tyrwhitt closed the door to Kate’s chambers behind her to the sound of her muffled laugh at some coarse jest His Majesty had just offered, seemed to often offer, far from the noble stories of the golden prince I had heard him to be in his youth.
Within the month, the king had approved the Act of Succession, in which Mary and Elizabeth were restored, in that order, after their brother. ’Twas the first time that the right for women to be sovereign was invested in English written law. How many knew that Kate had urged it, though it was always His Majesty’s will that was done? Within the month the Lady Mary sent an expensive gold bracelet to Kate. The Lady Elizabeth sent a letter overflowing with love and affection, which touched the queen even more than Mary’s bracelet had.
Edward, a child, did not indicate his pleasure or displeasure at having them included, but by the unmediated affection he showed to Kate at the Lady Margaret Douglas’s wedding festivities, he had taken Kate deep into his young heart. He referred to her as his dearest mother. And yet it was his birth mother, Thomas Seymour’s sister, the long-dead Queen Jane, who appeared next to the king when he commissioned the first portrait ever of himself with all of his family not long after the Douglas wedding affairs wound down. I suppose that was to be expected, as Queen Jane had been mother to the prince.
Queen Kateryn was painted utterly alone. I wondered if none but I saw danger in this telling isolation. If they did, they kept those thoughts to themselves, but I drew closer to Kate because of it. My affections, unlike many of those in her household, were not based upon His Majesty’s pleasure in her but in love for the queen herself.
Each year, on Maundy Thursday, the queen distributed coins to the poor and aged. Kate chose to do so in her chambers, with her ladies there to assist.
“I cannot image Queen Catherine Howard distributing monies to the poor,” Dorothy said on our way down the long hallway, “nor sinking to her knees with her ladies to wash their feet.”
“But she did,” I said. It seemed uncharitable to speculate upon the beheaded queen. Dorothy took my comment as a rebuke. And I suppose it was intended as such. We walked the rest of the way in silence.
We arrived in the queen’s chambers and they were already set up; we were to hand linens to her and take the used ones away when she had finished. Kate had chosen some of her finest herbs for the washing water and her softest linens to dry the cracked, dung-crusted feet of some of those brought to her. There would be thirty-two petitioners, who would each receive thirty-two pence, one each for every year of my lady’s life.
“Thank ye, Your Grace,” one elderly woman said, her scarf pulled loosely around her hair, which wisped upward like goose down. When we were near to the end, and wearying, a woman approached Kate and with an unruly, high voice began to jabber.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Your Grace,” she said, her shrill voice parting the calm in the room in an unseemly manner. Every eye was drawn to her. “I’m here to speak on behalf a Anne Askew,” she said. “Mayha’ you do na know of her. She is of God.”
Kate looked up at the woman and indicated that Dorothy should wash the woman’s feet whilst she listened to her. “Go on, my good woman.” Dorothy bent down and carefully wiped away the dried mud.
“Mistress Askew speaks often of holy writ,” the woman continued. “She speaks not of her own words, but the words of our Lord.”
Kate nodded, and whilst I had not heard of Askew I gathered by the look on Kate’s face that she had.
“She’s about her in preaching and teaching the Word of God. Her husband, Thomas Kyme, has turned her out because she uses her own name, and na his, and because he says she has abandoned her children and her bed by her gospelling. The bishop of Lincoln, he rebuked her, he did, for reading an English Bible.”
The Duchess of Suffolk Katherine Willoughby spoke softly. “Her sister is married to my husband’s steward.”
The old woman continued. “Askew’s husband has turned her out, he has, with nothing a’tall. If it pleases Your Grace, I will pass along these alms to her.”
Kate nodded and I was at her elbow, assisting, so I could see her give the woman a double portion, closing her hand firmly around it so as not to be seen by the others.
The older woman bowed and scraped herself out of the room whilst muttering thanks. The Duchess of Suffolk, a newly dear friend, said to Kate, “I shall look into it.” I recalled that the duchess had once dressed her dog up as a bishop and called him Gardiner, to the great amusement of all when she called him to heel, but to the everlasting enmity of the cardinal himself. There was no doubt which riverbank her loyalties washed up on.
Kate dismissed most of her women after that. Margaret Neville and I were left folding the linens. The Countess of Sussex remained behind. She looked at me and Margaret, and Kate nodded. “Speak freely.”
“I have had prophecies of Anne Askew,” she said, her voice strong and fueled with anxiety. Kate glanced at me and I rather wondered if she regretted giving the Countess of Sussex leave to speak freely. But the countess pressed on. “Although she does good, her future does not bode well. I’ve seen the rack.”
At that I sucked in my breath. A highborn woman, racked? Surely not. It had never been done.
I wondered at the countess being bold enough to speak of her prophecies. As her husband was cousin to the king, she might be safe. And then I recalled Father Gregory’s warning that none, not even the highest born, would be safe from charges of witchcraft if ’twere truly suspected.
“I shall see what I can do,” was all the queen committed. The countess nodded, knowing that her audience was over.
After she left I asked Kate, “Why do you keep some women, like Lady Temple and Lady Matthews, in your household who will seek to do you ill when they can and even spy?”
Kate smiled. “Being one of the queen’s ladies is the privilege of many noble families, Juliana. Whether or not they agree with or like me, they must be admitted. And I seek to do good for all, even mine enemies. Mayhap I can turn them from evil to good.”
Gospelling.
“They can only turn from doing ill to doing good if they want to,” I responded. “And like as not some pleasure in evil and have no desire to turn.” I had no doubt that while there were good people on both sides of the religious matter, those who acted according to conscience and firm faith, there were also those on both sides who would do ill if it best favored them. Wheat and chaff grew tightly together in both camps.