The men began to moan and cry immediately and I closed my eyes and prayed for them, the words formed upon my silent, moving lips. Askew herself did not scream until the fires hit her face. Instead, till the end, she corrected Shaxton on his Scripture. “Yes, he’s got that right,” she’d boldly call out of a passage, or, “No, there he misseth and speaks without the book.” I was strengthened by her courage and forced open my eyes in order to honor her.
At the end, she too began to scream, and then the gunpowder blew small bits of sticky wood and flesh onto the crowd, which had held itself at a shouting distance. Some pieces struck my cloak and I patted them out in horror, and tried to hold back the rising gorge in my throat but could not contain the tears running down my cheeks. I now understood why the garments of someone who tended fire had been chosen for me.
Take them quickly, Lord Jesus.
Justice at court belongs to men, not women, John Temple had said, leering, and his bitter comments came back to me among the wailing of those around me, which echoed the wailing in my own heart.
If I had been more devout, I would have prayed for mercy upon the souls of the men who sent Mistress Askew to the stake, and for John Temple. But I did not want mercy for them. I coveted justice, instead, for myself, and for Anne Askew and those burning with her, and for all others who are harmed at the hands of ruthless men.
I rode home in shock, my horse, thankfully, mostly guiding herself, and she made her way quickly. I did not eat or drink or sleep that night, fasting from all, grateful that Mistress Askew was now at peace but sickened at how she’d died.
Within the week all of the highborn reformers, including Bishop Cranmer, fled the court for the safety of the countryside and even for France, leaving Her Grace alone and undefended at court.
ELEVEN
Summer: Year of Our Lord 1546
Palace at Westminster
The queen’s chambers were quiet that season, and the air held the awkward tension of those picking their way through the forest whilst avoiding trap holes, leafed and twigged over.
“I am glad that the Lady Mary was here to visit with you earlier,” I said, making polite conversation whilst Kate and her sister, Lady Herbert, sewed linens for the poor. “She has oft been away.”
“Yes,” Kate said. “She has drawn closer to me now that the king is oft given to melancholy. He is tired afore the day begins. He does not walk in the gardens as was his habit during the afternoon. He eats but little, compared to his former appetite.”
All knew the king was ill unto death. ’Twas only a matter of time, though none knew if that would be weeks or a year. And as he grew sicker, he grew more troublesome and impatient.
“Perhaps you might send him a physic,” Kate’s sister suggested, “as a show of your continuing concern for his health?”
Kate brightened at that. “Yes, yes, that is an excellent idea.” She called her secretary to her and dictated a quick note. “Juliana, will you please deliver this to the king’s physician and wait for a response?”
I nodded, glad to be of help. I took the letter and made my way past the king’s chambers and down the long hallway where I knew Dr. Wendy might be found. I knocked upon his door, but his associate told me that he was already with His Majesty. I left the letter for him to deliver upon his return and began to make my way toward the hall back to the queen’s suite. As I did, I saw another figure, blocky and bold, just ahead of me. He seemed to have just come from the king’s chambers.
It was Sir Richard Rich. I wondered if he’d washed Anne Askew’s blood from under his nails.
A certain dreaminess overtook me. I saw a scroll drop out of his leather bag and fall toward the rushes. I knew it was the one in my vision, with the queen’s name written and dripping blood, and that I was to act and take the scroll in hand.
Rich stopped for a moment, but I dared not move lest he hear me and discover his loss and turn back afore I reached it. I knew I was in danger by taking what clearly belonged to him. He hastened to his destination and seemed unaware of the fallen document. I picked it up, tucked it into the fold in the front of my gown, and held it there with my hand whilst making my way back to Her Grace. As I did, the words spoken in the book of Esther whispered to me.
Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
I quickly made my way to the queen’s chambers.
“Did you find the doctor?” she asked.
“No, lady. But as I was returning, Sir Richard Rich was leaving the king’s chambers. He dropped a scroll. I did not read it,” I said, my hand and voice trembling. “But the scroll had not been waxed and has slightly unrolled.”
“Hand it to me,” Kate said. She opened the scroll. Her face went from rose to ash and then she quickly spoke high and loud. I had never seen her so vexed.
“’Tis an arrest warrant! For me!” She began to cry.
This could not be true! I did not know whether to give her margin or to come alongside for comfort.
Immediately her sister raced to her side. “Surely not,” she said, taking the scroll from Kate’s hands. Kate, meanwhile, was close to shrieking.
“It’s not stamped!” she said, making no sense. “It’s not stamped!”
I brought my arm around her but she nearly flung me off.
“What do you mean,” one of her ladies asked, “by ‘It’s not stamped’?”
“It is signed in his own hand!” Kate shouted afore falling to the floor. “Woe to me. I am undone.” She continued to bewail and babble and her sister helped her to a comfortable chair, but Her Grace would not, or could not, sit still.
“I am like as dead,” she said. And then she wept in a loud voice. It was loud enough that I knew it could be heard in the corridors but none could calm her.
I was shocked and horrified that I had been the woeful messenger of this terrible news. A warrant for her arrest, signed in his own hand. And the king did not shy from executing his wives.
Kate glanced at her little dogs, scrambling about her feet, but did not reach for them. Instead, she wailed, “The companies of the wicked bark at me. They beset my hands and feet round about.” And then she began crying again.
“Fetch His Majesty’s physician,” Lady Herbert told me.
I stumbled to the king’s rooms and, shaking, babbled to one of his men that the queen required the doctor, if the king could spare him, as she had taken ill. I returned to Kate’s chamber, where she was still completely disassembled. You could hear her pitiful cries in the hallway, through the closed doors, and I waited but a moment before the doctor arrived.
I echoed those pitiful cries, as did many of her ladies.
“What is it?” he asked Kate once he entered. She, knowing that he shared her religious sympathies, told him about the arrest warrant and how she was undone.
Of a sudden, the king, having heard from his man that the queen had taken ill, appeared in her chamber. I silenced myself, curtseyed deeply, and did not look up at him because I did not want to meet his terrible gaze.
“Kate, what be the matter?” he demanded. “We are concerned for your health and well-being.”
She stood up and then fell to her knees in front of him. “Oh, sire, I have had ill tidings delivered to me. I do not know who would besmirch my affections for you, but I have heard that you, my sweet husband and lord, are displeased with me.”