It was the day after the King had announced his intention to marry her that Seymour came secretly to her apartments.
Nan let him in. Nan was terrified. She had been so happy serving Lady Latimer. Life, she realized now, had been so simple in the country mansions of Yorkshire and Worcester. Why had they not returned to the country immediately after the death of Lord Latimer? Why had they stayed that the King’s amorous and fickle eyes might alight on her lady?
There was danger all around, and Sir Thomas made that danger more acute by coming to her apartment. Nan remembered the stories she had heard of another Thomas—Culpepper—who had visited the apartments of another Catharine; and remembering that bitter and tragic story she wondered if the story of Katharine Parr would be marred by similar events. Was she destined for the same bitter end?
“I must see Lady Latimer,” said Sir Thomas. “It is imperative.”
And so he was conducted to her chamber.
He took her hands in his and kissed them fervently.
“Kate… Kate… how could this happen to us?”
“Thomas,” she answered, “I wish that I were dead.”
“Nay, sweetheart. Do not wish that. There is always hope.”
“There is no hope for me.”
He put his arms about her and held her close to him. He whispered: “He cannot live for ever.”
“I cannot endure it, Thomas.”
“You must endure it. We must both endure it. He is the King. Forget not that.”
“I tried,” she said. “I tried…. And, Thomas, if he knew that you were here…”
He nodded, and his eyes sparkled with the knowledge of his danger.
“Thus do I love you,” he told her. “Enough to risk my life for you.”
“I would not have you do that. Oh, Thomas, that will be the most difficult thing that faces me. I shall see you…you whom I love. I must compare you. You…you who are all that I admire… all that I love. He…he is so different.”
“He is the King, my love. I am the subject. And you will not be burdened with my presence. I have my orders.”
“Thomas! No …not… the Tower?”
“Nay! He does not consider me such a serious rival as that. I depart at sunrise for Flanders.”
“So…I am to lose you, then?”
“’ Twere safer for us, sweetheart, not to meet for a while. So thinks the King. That is why he is sending me with Dr. Wotton on an embassy to Flanders.”
“How long will you be away?”
“Methinks the King will find good reason to keep me there… or out of England… for a little while.”
“I cannot bear it. I know I cannot.”
He took her face in his hands. “My heart, like yours, is broken, sweetheart. But we must bear this pain. It will pass. I swear it will pass. And our hearts will mend, for one day we shall be together.”
“Thomas, can you believe that?”
“I believe in my destiny, Kate. You and I shall be together. I know it.”
“Thomas, if the King were to discover that you had been here…”
“Ah, perhaps he would give me this hour, since he is to have you for the rest of his life.”
“For the rest of my life, you mean!” she said bitterly.
“Nay. He is an old man. His fancy will not stray to others as once it did. One year… two years… who knows? Cheer up, my Kate. Today we are broken-hearted, but tomorrow the future is ours.”
“You must not stay here. I feel there are spies, watching my every movement.”
He kissed her and caressed her afresh; and after a time he took his leave, and on the next tide sailed for Flanders.
IN THE QUEEN’S closet at Hampton Court, Gardiner performed the ceremony. This was not hurried and secret as in the case of Anne Boleyn; this was a royal wedding.
The Princesses Mary and Elizabeth stood behind the King and his bride, and with them the King’s niece, the Lady Margaret Douglas. Lady Herbert, the Queen’s sister, and other great ladies and gentlemen were present.
The King was in excellent humor on this his marriage morning. The jewels flashed on his dalmatica; the shrewd eyes sparkled and the royal tongue licked the tight lips, for she was a comely creature, this bride of his, and he was a man who needed a wife. He felt, as he had said that morning to his brother-in-law, Lord Hertford, that this marriage would be the best he had ever made.
The July sun was hot and the bride felt as though she would faint with the oppressive atmosphere in the room and the fear within her.
A nightmare had sprung into life. She was here in Hampton Court being married to the King, here in a palace surrounded by gardens which Henry had planned with Anne Boleyn, on whose walls were the entwined initials, the H. and A. which had had to be changed hastily to H. and J. Along the gallery which led to the chapel, the youthful Catharine Howard had run one day, screaming for mercy. It was said that both Anne and Catharine haunted this place. And here, in the palace of hideous memories, she, Katharine Parr, was now being married to Henry the Eighth.
There was no longer hope of escape. The King was close. His breath scorched her. The nuptial ring was being put on her finger.
No. No longer hope. The King in that tragic moment had made Katharine Parr his sixth wife.
CHAPTER
II
THE KING WAS NOT DISPLEASED WITH HIS NEW WIFE. She had the gentlest hands that had ever wrapped a bandage about his poor suffering leg, and in the first few weeks of his marriage he discovered that he had not only got himself a comely wife, but the best of nurses. Nervous and timid she was during those first weeks, as though feeling herself unworthy to receive the great honors which were being showered upon her.
“Why, bless your modest heart, Kate,” he told her, “you have no need to fear us. We like you. We like your shapely person and your gentle hands. We know that you have been raised to a great position in this land, but let that not disturb you, for you are worthy, Kate. We find you worthy.”
She wore the jewels—those priceless gems—which had been worn by her predecessors.
“Look at these rubies, Kate.” He would lean heavily on her and bite her ear in a moment of playfulness. Why had she thought that elderly men were less interested in fleshly pleasures than the younger ones? She realized that the experience afforded her by Lords Borough and Latimer had taught her little. “You’ll look a Queen in these! And don’t forget you wear them through the King’s grace. Don’t forget that, my Kate.”
And she herself, because she was by nature kindly and gentle and looked for that good in others which was such an integral part of her own character, was more quickly resigned to this marriage than others might have been.
Yet there were nights when she lay awake in the royal bed, that mountain of diseased flesh beside her, thinking of her new life as Queen of England. Of the King she knew a good deal, for the affairs of kings are watched closely by those about them, and this man was a supreme ruler whose slightest action could send reverberations through the kingdom.
What sort of man was he whom she had married? First, because she had been the victim of this quality, she must think of him as the sensualist. Indeed, his sensuality was so great that it colored every characteristic he possessed. But he was far more than a man who delighted in pandering to his senses with fair women, good food and the best of wine; he was a King, and for all his selfindulgence, he was a King determined to rule. When he had been a young man, his delight in his healthy body had proved so great that he had preferred to leave the government of state affairs to his able Wolsey. But he had changed. He was the ruler now. And through that selfishness, that love of indulgence, that terrifying cruelty, there could be seen the strong man, the man who knew how to govern in a turbulent age, a man to whom the greatness of his country was of the utmost importance because he, Henry the Eighth, was synonymous with England. But for his monster conscience and a surprising primness in the sensualist, he would have resembled any lusty man of the times. But he was apart. He must be right in all things; he must placate his conscience; and it was those acts, demanded of him by the conscience, which made him the most cruel tyrant of his age.