Cor Rotto: A novel of Catherine Carey (14 page)

I awoke in the early twilight to a light rap at the door. Francis was snoring softly beside me. I got up and threw my shift over my head and padded across the floor. I opened it slowly so as not to wake Francis. The doorway was empty. I started to step out into the hall, but fortunately, I looked down first. A tray laden with food was sitting on the floor. I laughed quietly to myself. It seems our family had thought better of bothering us after so many months apart.

I carried the tray in, breathing in deep the sharp, smoky smell of the cheese that had been sliced and paired with bread still warm from the ovens, and a couple of sliced apples. I ate a piece of the apple, its crisp tartness made my tongue tingle and my mouth water. I set the tray down before the fire and tore off a bit of bread. The rain was coming down hard and the night was getting darker. As I chewed my bread, I gazed out of the window, watching the rain splash in fat drops against the glass. Glancing over at the bed, I saw that Francis was still sound asleep, so I cracked open the window as quietly as I could. The rain-soaked air filled my lungs with a fresh clean scent. I could smell the leaves and the dirt and the perfume of the flowers from our garden. As I stood basking in the cool air, I thought of Calais. When I closed my eyes, it was as if the rain splashing my face was the salty sea spray I felt so many times when I lived in the garrison. The lavender, creeping its way in from the south garden, was the scent of my mother coming in to comfort me from my nightmare. I had always taken great comfort from the rain and for an instant I felt my mother beside me letting me know that everything would be all right.

Francis had begun to stir so I closed the window and tiptoed back over to the bed. I sat on the edge of the mattress as he raised himself up to a sitting position against the headboard.

“I smell food,” he murmured.

“Of course you do, my love. You always smell food!”

He leaned forward to nuzzle me, but pulled back quickly.

“Catherine, why is your face wet?” he said, wrinkling his nose.

I began wiping furiously at my face with the sleeve of my shift. “Sorry, I had the window open,” I muttered.

He reached up and stopped my scrubbing hands.

“Stop that, you are going to irritate your face. I was just a bit startled, that is all. I don’t care what is on your face, as long as I may kiss it,” he said, planting a kiss on my forehead.

“I was just breathing in the rain and thinking of my mother.”

Francis’s eyes softened. “I am so sorry, my love.”

I looked up at him and shook my head. “You have nothing to be sorry for Francis. You have been so good to me and have given me such beautiful children. I am so happy in our marriage and would not change it for anything.”

He took my small hands in his. “Catherine, you do not need to hide your hurt from me. I know how much you have lost since you came over from Calais. You claim happiness, but deep down you must be so ...” he trailed off as if he did not know how to finish.

After a moment of silence I said, “
Cor Rotto
.”

“
Cor Rotto
?”

“It is Latin for broken-hearted. Princess Elizabeth signed her letter with it and I have been turning the words over and over in my head. Yes, sometimes I do feel broken-hearted, but then you come home to me and I feel your love filling in those cracks and making me whole again.”

Francis leaned forward and wrapped his arms around me. After a long embrace he pulled back and took my hands in his again. He regarded me very seriously and I knew instinctively that he had something to tell me and he did not want to. I let him simmer and work up the courage on his own. Finally, he heaved a great sigh.

“Catherine, I have some very sad news for you. After Richard delivered your message from me, he went home to Hatfield as he said he would, but by the time he arrived, he was delirious with fever. He lasted a few days, but they were unable to break the fever and he died.” He paused to allow me to absorb his words. “I know it has been months since it happened, but I wanted to be the one to tell you. I know you two shared love for each other and that you would take it hard. I wanted to be with you when you found out.”

My eyes began to fill with tears. My first love was gone and though I had always assumed I would never see him again, now it was a certainty. I thought of his new wife, Susannah, and the pain she must be feeling. Suddenly, the last part of Francis’s revelation hit me and I looked up, startled, into his eyes. I had believed all this time that Francis was unaware of my past feelings for Richard. I could feel the panic rising in my throat.

Seeing the alarm in my face, Francis squeezed my hands reassuringly.

“Catherine, it is all right.” He soothed. “I have always known of your feelings for Richard. I was at Court for a very long time before we were married and I saw the way you looked at him during your riding lessons and how you sought him out whenever you were in the gardens at the palace. And I know he felt the same. Before I asked for your hand, I assured him that you would always be beloved and that I would give you the kind of life you deserved to have. I am sure it killed him inside, but he gave me his blessing and I am eternally grateful. Please do not try to hide your feelings from me, I could never be angry at you for mourning the loss of someone you loved so dearly.”

Francis’s words opened the dam that had been holding back the tears. I threw myself into his arms and as I laid there sobbing, he stroked my hair and planted kisses on my skin. Once I had exhausted myself I began to doze off curled against his warm body.

I reached up and put my arm on Francis’s chest and whispered, “I love you.”

The next morning, I sent a page to Hatfield with a few sovereigns and a parcel of baby clothes and quilts for Richard’s wife. By my calculation, the baby had already come or was well on its way and I knew that she would be in need without her husband. I wished that I had known sooner so I could have gone myself, but there was no way that Francis would let me leave now that he was home. Winter would be coming soon and there were dangers on the road.

Francis fell back into his routine, helping his brother care for the animals and land during the day and then spending his evenings reading and writing by candlelight. He had plenty of correspondence to attend to now that he was back from the continent and I suspected many of those letters were plans for their next move now that Queen Mary had proclaimed us reconciled with Rome. Francis had sounded so indignant when he told me 30
th
November was to be named The Feast of Reconciliation. I had to hide my smile behind my hand.

Harry was now old enough to be sent to school. We packed up his belongings and after Christmas and New Year celebrations, he and Francis set off to Magdalen College. Though I was sad to watch him go, I silently rejoiced that Magdalen was in Oxford and while Harry would be living there, it was not far from his home.

During their absence, a piece of good news finally came from the Court, in the form of a letter from my beloved Nan. She had finally found her love. Nan and Walter Hungerford had married in the queen’s chapel at Richmond and Walter had recently been knighted. I rejoiced at the revelation that she was pregnant with their first child.

Francis returned home in a huff. While at Magdalen, he received word that the queen had reinstated the acts for burning heretics.

“Probably because she feels so secure with the child of that Spanish scoundrel growing in her womb,” he shouted, fist in the air, as he paced his study.

We had all been worried once news made its way to us that the queen was with child, but now you could cut the tension with a knife. Once the act had been passed, six Protestants were tried in quick succession.

It was during this turmoil that I told Francis that the queen was not the only one with child. His spirits were lifted for a few days, but then the dark mood returned as he planned and plotted to keep our family safe.

Francis’s urgency reached a fever pitch when, on 4
th
February, John Rogers was burned at the stake in Smithfield. He and Henry were closeted in his study, as they were so often now, discussing the matter. I stood quietly outside the door eavesdropping, but I needn’t have bothered. I could hear Henry shouting about doves flying overhead at Smithfield and the burnings of Laurence Saunders at Coventry, Rowland Taylor at Hadleigh, and John Hooper at Gloucester in the days following that first burning. For the first time since my half-sister took the throne, I was terrified.

I looked back in sadness and wondered where the Princess Mary I had known had gone. She had been replaced with a ruthless queen I didn’t quite recognise. Mary had not always been this way. Though she often carried a dour face and judgment upon every one, before my half-sister ascended the throne she had treated every soul she met with kindness. Yes, she had been as stubborn as a mule, but she had also been the young lady who had practically raised poor, motherless Elizabeth. In addition, she had gone out of her way to pay the highest respects to Lady Anne of Cleves, even though Anne hailed from the reformed Low Countries and, I am sure, was considered tainted according to Mary’s Catholic sensibilities. Whatever animosity Mary had held towards her enemies, she had always kept it to herself, and chose instead to show grace and temperance.

I blamed our father for this change in her. His arrogance and pride had overshadowed the love and affection he held for his eldest daughter and he had treated her no better than if she were mud he had scraped off his shoe. Mary was proof that neglect and harsh treatment could have lasting effects.

Francis had known that the horror I would witness on that wet October morning was coming, but I had refused to believe that my half-sister could condone such a thing. Burning people at the stake for disagreeing with her! If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would still never believe it of her. Queen Katheryn Parr was a reformer and yet when Mary served her at Court, they laughed and danced together. They happily worked together on their sewing and read by firelight in the queen’s rooms. I am certain Mary would never have thought of ordering Katheryn’s execution. I made up my mind that even though Francis had chosen the path of fear, I would choose to believe in the goodness I knew in Mary until I witnessed otherwise.

As I bumped along in the coach on the rutted road to Dover, I thought about that dreadful day.

I was awakened at dawn on the morning of 16th October. Francis knelt down next to my face and shook me awake. I lazily opened my eyes and stretched my legs.

“It is a bit early in the morning for coupling, my love,” I yawned.

Francis shook his head and I could tell by the seriousness in his dark eyes that I was in for something that held far less joy.

I scrambled to sit up quickly. “What is the matter? Are the children all right?”

He patted my arm. “Yes, Catherine, the children are fine. I have something else I want you to see. Please dress warmly and remember to bring your woollen muff. It is very cold outside.”

My curiosity was piqued, but I knew better than to ask questions when Francis was in a hurry. I waited until he left the room and got out of the warm comfort of my bed. I glanced out of the window and saw the web of frost in the corner. Winter would be early this year. I called for Matilda and she bustled in to help me. She brought out the warmest gown I had, black velvet and damask, and dug out my oldest
hood,
the one with the gable. I had not worn that hood since my days in Calais, but I knew it would keep me warm and I was fairly certain this was not going to be a social call.

Francis returned to fetch me and we met his brother, Henry, in the great hall.

“Francis?” I finally worked up the nerve to ask. “Where are we going?”

Without looking at me Francis grabbed my hand and as we walked out the door, he said, “I am taking you to see the work that is being done in your sister’s name.”

A crowd had gathered in the middle of the city. We had to push our way through the bundled up bodies to get a good look at what was going on. Two pyres stood next to each other, a pile of logs gathered beneath them. I frowned at Francis. What had he brought me to see?

He gazed into my eyes and mouthed the word, “Watch.”

Soon, we were being jostled around to make way. Two men wearing bedraggled, filthy rags were being led to the pyres by men I assumed were the queen’s guards.

Henry bent down and whispered in my ear. “That is Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer.”

I knew Nicholas Ridley. He had been a chaplain to old King Henry and the Bishop of London under Edward and I had seen him and heard his sermons many times. But I no longer recognised him in this form. The charismatic preacher I remembered had been replaced by a scrawny weak man. The name Hugh Latimer did not sound familiar to me, but he looked as desperate as Ridley did. They made their way slowly to the pyres, stopping for a moment so another man could tie two small bags around their necks, then the guards took their time tying them up. The men murmured prayers and the fires were lit.

Both men tried to remain stoic, biting their lips until they bled to keep from calling out, but as the flames grew higher and licked at their legs, Ridley cried out.

“Into thy hands, Oh Lord! I commend my spirit!”

But the Lord did not help him. The wood was green and wet and the fire could grow no higher than his waist. While Ridley cried out in agony, the fire grew stronger around Latimer.

When the flames began to curl their hot fingers towards his face, Latimer shouted to Ridley, his voice dry and gravelly, “Be of good comfort Master Ridley and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

Francis’ s quiet amen was almost drowned out by the sharp crack of gun powder. It was then that I realised what was in the bags tied around their necks.

As Ridley screamed out, “Lord have mercy on me! I cannot burn!” I began to silently pray. Please God let his suffering be over. The smell of charred flesh was overwhelming and my stomach began to churn. I closed my eyes against the falling ash blowing in the breeze. Charred piles of it had already
begun to pile
up on the shoulders of Francis’s cloak, but I reined in my instinct to brush it off. That pile of ash was symbolic. It represented the death of my ignorance.

Mercifully a man stepped out of the crowd and lifted a burning stick to the top of the pyre. After the bang of the gunpowder, a blanket of silence fell upon us all. We all kept our eyes to the ground and shuffled away from the scene as the guards cleaned up the mass of charred remains. I felt the bile rising in my throat as we returned in silence to Greys.

The carriage stopped abruptly, bringing my thoughts back to the present. The door banged open and Henry’s face came into view.

“Lady sister, we have decided to stop for the night. The horses are weary and I think it would be best to give them a bit of a rest before we carry on. We have only arrived at Horsham so it shall be a few more days until we reach Dover.” he said, anxiously awaiting my response.

I nodded. “That is fine, Henry. I will rouse the children and get them in the inn for the night. Thank you for keeping me informed.”

Henry tipped his hat and closed the door. I heard him barking orders at the servants. I glanced around the carriage. Elizabeth was propped up on one side of Matilda, and Richard was lying with his head in her lap noisily sucking his thumb. All three were soundly sleeping. Little Francis was curled up on the seat beside me, snoring softly, and I could see baby Anne’s little feet starting to move in the basket I had laid her down in. I chuckled softly to myself. I guess Anne was not really a baby any more. She would be two years old in a couple of months. Anne was the result of Francis’s joyous return home that autumn of 1554. She came during the suffocating heat of July and the moment I looked at her deep amber eyes and rosy pink lips, I thought of my Aunt Anne. I only wished that she was alive to see her namesake.

I leaned over, kissed my son’s flushed cheek and whispered, “Francis, time to wake up.”

He emitted a louder snore in reply.

“Francis,” I whispered a bit louder this time.

His eyes fluttered open. “Are we there, Mama?”

I tucked a sweaty curl behind his ear

“No baby, we are going to stop here for the night. Can you help Mama wake the others?”

He sat up and grinned.

Francis and I managed to get the other children and Matilda up. I wrapped Anne against my chest and we piled out of the carriage. My son, Robert, who was now six and old enough to help, was filling the trough with water for the horses. Henry dragged a trunk behind him and beckoned us to follow him into the inn.

Matilda and I settled into our room with the little ones, filled their bellies and tucked them into bed. After all was quiet, we sat down to our own dinner. The bread was stale, but the wine was delicious and it warmed me after the frosty day on the road.

Matilda was quietly picking at her food. After an interminable silence she turned to me, “Do you think things would be different if the queen had truly been pregnant?”

I considered her question. Around the time I realised I was pregnant with Anne, rumours had begun to seep out of the court that the Queen was with child as well. It was not formally announced until later in the spring, but the countryside had been abuzz with rumours that we could expect a prince come early summer. When I received a letter from the Princess Elizabeth that she had been summoned to Court for Easter festivities and the queen’s lying-in, I knew the queen was indeed pregnant.

We had all waited with bated breath, but word never came that the queen had been delivered of a child. By the time the leaves began their seasonal change, the queen was out of confinement with no baby to show for it. Without even being in the queen’s presence, I felt her heartbreak. The only thing Mary had ever wanted was a husband and an heir. Now, both were out of her reach. King Philip had run back to his own lands leaving his wife to take out her disappointment on the reformers. At the time, I did not know that the burnings had ramped up, but all was finally clear to me that October when I saw Ridley and Latimer.

“Truth told, Matilda, I really do not know. Maybe things would be worse because the queen would have her heir. She would need to make her kingdom safe for her child. It would do no good to have challenges to the church.” I paused and then went on. “There is no way to be certain. All that we can do is trust in Francis and do what he thinks is best until it is safe for us to come back.”

I saw the glint of tears in her eyes and felt a wave of compassion. Matilda was only older than me by five years, but already she had strands of grey in her chestnut hair. She had given up her life to help me in mine. What a shame it was that Matilda would probably never have children. She would be a wonderful mother. I thought about my own children, the ones who had been left behind.

As if reading my thoughts, Matilda whispered, “They will be just fine, Lady Knollys.”

I tried to force a smile. “I hope so, Matilda, I miss them terribly.”

Lettice was now thirteen, vivacious and full of life. I did not want her to be like me, naïve to the ways of the court, coddled by her mother until she was fifteen. So we had sent her to Hatfield. Princess Elizabeth was back in some form of favour thanks to King Philip and I figured that if any household could teach Lettice some courtly manners, it would be Elizabeth’s. The princess was overjoyed to have Lettice in her care. I also knew that if anything happened to the queen and Elizabeth came to the throne, Lettice would be well-placed to find a position at Court.

Our boys William and Edward, now twelve and ten, were living under the care of Ambrose Dudley. Ambrose’s ill-fated father had been executed for his part in helping Jane Grey onto the throne, but Ambrose and his brothers had been released from the Tower in the past few years and had come under the protection of King Philip. Ambrose was given back some of his lands, but none of them were truly welcomed back at Court. Ambrose’s brother, Robert, had been close friends with Francis during Edward’s reign and they were one of the few families that Francis truly trusted. They were all on their best behaviour for the queen, so their household seemed the safest and I had agreed to let my boys stay there until we returned from the Low Countries.

I missed my children, but in my heart, I knew they were in the safest homes possible while the rest of us made this journey. It was for our daughter, Mary, that I mourned. Sickness had run rampant in the countryside during the spring of 1556. All of the children had caught the fever and all were spared except my Mary. We fought back with everything in our arsenal, even bringing in the doctor to bleed her, but in the end her body gave up. We buried our sweet daughter on Easter Sunday. Mere weeks after her death, Francis was on his way back to the Low Countries.

The burning of the Archbishop of Canterbury had sealed his resolve. He knew that once a man of that high position had been burned, there was no going back. The archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, had been one of King Henry’s closest advisers. Not only had he secured the king’s divorces, he had been instrumental in many of the changes in Henry’s version of the English church. It was no secret that Queen Mary hated him for it. She believed that if it had not been for Cranmer, then her mother would have died in comfort at her bed at Court and not suffering in the cold, banished from her husband. It came as no surprise when Cranmer was locked in the Tower. When he was moved to Bocardo prison in Oxford with Ridley and Latimer, we were certain he too would be burned. But as we watched Ridley and Latimer go up in flames, Cranmer watched on from a tower overlooking the grounds.

After the burnings, Cranmer was sent to Christ Church, where he proceeded to sign his name to five recantations.

“Five! Five times he forsakes the true religion!” Francis had shouted when he found out. “He even recognised the pope as the leader of the church! This is an abomination!”

I tried to comfort him and reminded him that Cranmer was only trying to save his own life, but Francis would not hear it. He locked himself up in his study for days, furiously writing letters to other reformers in his circle.