Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford (43 page)

All that was missing to complete the king’s domestic happiness, and to ensure a permanent a residence at court for Jane, was the news that Catherine was pregnant. The impotence that he had endured with Anne of Cleves now a distant memory, Henry entertained hopes that Catherine would produce a Duke of York. Then the succession would be completely secure. Rumors of her pregnancy abounded, with Marillac’s reporting in the spring of 1541 that Henry intended to have her crowned as a reward and that preparations for a coronation were already in hand. “The young lords and gentlemen of this Court are practicing daily for the jousts and tournaments to be then made,” he said. It was not to be, or not on that occasion anyway, but Catherine and her ladies all grasped that Henry would never discard her if she could give him the spare heir he craved. In time, perhaps, with stamina on his part and courage on hers, his wish might be granted.

Maybe they did make a slightly incongruous couple, however: he, tall, stout, and almost fifty; she, less than half his age and size. Catherine was brimming with vitality and exuberance while Henry was starting to feel his years. He had grown much fatter with the passage of time, so dragging his vast frame around was becoming a chore. The handsome young king that Jane remembered from the Field of Cloth of Gold had a waist measurement of thirty-five inches. When she saw him now, his waist was fast approaching the fifty-four inches we have recorded for 1545 and he was in almost constant pain from horribly ulcerated legs. Sometimes the sores oozed pus, in which case he usually felt a little better, but sometimes they closed up and the pain almost drove him mad. “For ten or twelve days the humors which had no outlet were like to have stifled him, so that he was sometime without speaking, black in the face, and in great danger,” a French envoy had written in 1538. Then, Henry had recovered but he was constantly terrified that the wounds would close again and that he would be in the same condition as before; once this had happened, and he had had to undergo the agony of having them reopened. This was not the image that he wanted to portray to the youthful Catherine. He wanted her to view him simply as a man in his prime. Already, however, stairs were becoming awkward for him. When Sir John Russell, with whom the king and queen stayed, undertook building works in preparation for their visit to his Buckinghamshire mansion, he arranged for a special state bed, complete with cloth of gold and silver hangings and with Henry’s arms upon it, to be placed in the “lower chamber” allocated to the king. Fortunately, Henry was usually able to ride and hunt but sometimes he resorted to enclosing deer and watching greyhounds tear them to pieces rather than expending his precious energy in chasing them. He had discovered more pleasurable ways of utilizing that energy, especially if he was to impregnate his jewel of womanhood.

Until that happy announcement could be proclaimed, there were court events and festivities for Henry and Catherine to attend, escorted, naturally, by their favorite attendants. Jane was probably one of the party who accompanied Catherine as she savored the triumphant river procession that the mayor and officials in London laid on as their customary welcome for a new queen. The decorated barges came out again, the pennants flew, Anthony Anthony supervised the Tower gunners who fired their weapons in salute as Henry showed off his fifth wife to his subjects. It was a repeat experience for Jane but a novelty to Catherine. She probably loved it, and mindful that it was a queen’s responsibility to beg for mercy, she knelt sweetly before her husband to plead for the release from the Tower of Anne’s old flame, Sir Thomas Wyatt, no stranger to trouble, and for that of Sir John Wallop, who had also displeased his king. Unable to refuse her, Henry pardoned both in a display of genial magnanimity.

Shortly afterward, Jane joined her queen in a summer progress, as Henry was determined to visit the northern parts of his kingdom, territories that he had never seen before. When she mounted her horse at the end of June 1541, Jane understood that the journey would be important for the king. He could quell any bad feelings in areas still reeling from the effects of the Pilgrimage of Grace and he was due to meet his Scottish nephew, James V, for discussions. He would be at his most majestic, magnificent, and awesome. The rationale for his chosen itinerary was commonly known at court. Of the ultimate significance of the progress for herself and the queen, Jane had no conception.

The trip was dogged by troubles from the outset. The weather was foul, so bad in fact that they had barely left London before the bitter cold and driving rain held them back. Soon the roads became so flooded and waterlogged that “the carts and baggage could not proceed without great difficulty,” and then Jane and the other ladies were called upon to care for Catherine who had become ill. With the queen recovered and Norfolk and Suffolk, braving the ferocious storms, sent ahead to prepare the route as much as practicable, the whole train eventually got going once more.

As far as the king was concerned, the corner had been turned and all was going well. He particularly relished his ceremonial entry into the city of Lincoln. The citizens had never witnessed anything like it as the king’s procession rode into their town, every bell in every church pealing to proclaim his arrival. He was dressed in cloth of gold and mounted on his “horse of estate.” Catherine, shimmering in cloth of silver, was a perfect counterpart to her husband. Behind her came her ladies, doubtless Jane among them. Slowly the long lines of gentlemen, guards, and officials made their way through the streets to the great abbey church to pray. The king and queen knelt on cushions of cloth of gold as the bishop of Lincoln gave them the crucifix to kiss, after which they both walked solemnly into the body of the church, the choir bursting forth in a glorious Te Deum as they did so.

Many towns, including Pontefract, Stamford, Scrooby, and York, were honored by a visit from their king that fateful summer. The populace decorated their streets and watched agog as the cavalcade passed by. For the royal party, it was tiring but satisfying. The king was greeted everywhere with outpourings of loyalty and thanks. Despite James’s failure to keep his appointment, Henry enjoyed himself. And so did Catherine. There were new places to see and different people to meet, and being the focus of attention and the recipient of admiring and sometimes envious glances was deliciously gratifying. At most places, she and Jane liked to seek out all the nooks, crannies, and secret places of the queen’s lodgings. Catherine loved to explore.

There were undercurrents, however. Even before the journey had started, Jane had been aware of a few unsettling occurrences. For one thing, no one could ever feel completely safe. The immediate threat of foreign invasion seemed to have receded, but disturbances at home had continued. A sudden rebellion in the north had flared up out of the blue a few months before the progress had begun. Easily quashed, it had led the king to order the execution of the aged Countess of Salisbury, although as she was almost seventy years of age it was hard to see quite why she was so dangerous. Those towns involved with the rebellion had proved pleasingly contrite when the king had arrived on his progress but it was impossible to pretend that it had never happened. Nor could anyone forget that James V was just as untrustworthy as ever or that Ireland was far from contentedly settled under Tudor rule. Fear of rebellion there was a constant dread. With so many cares of state to wrestle with, it was fortunate that Henry was so much in love with his wife, although there had been a couple of tense moments even there.

Catherine’s first scare had come within a few months of her wedding. “Feigning indisposition,” Chapuys had informed the queen of Hungary, the king “was ten or twelve days without seeing his queen or allowing her to come into his room,” fueling gossip that he was considering divorce. Nothing had come of this, and she and Henry had been reconciled swiftly but the incident had rankled the queen. Then, concerned by his bonhomie toward her predecessor, Catherine had begun to wonder whether the king intended to rekindle his fourth marriage and end hers. Anxiety about Anne of Cleves had made the queen “rather sad and thoughtful.” When Henry had noticed, Catherine had poured out her worries. Dispelling them, Henry had said that “she was wrong to believe such things of him.” Even if he had to marry again, he had comforted her, he “would never retake” Anne. That had been good for Catherine to hear, although she might have wondered why Henry might think he would ever need a sixth wife when he was married to her. The possible resurgence of Anne had been upsetting for Jane too: Anne would not have welcomed her back as a lady of the bedchamber after she had testified against her. Still, the storm clouds passed.

But these episodes had illustrated the root of Catherine’s own dilemma. As long as the king worshipped her, she was safe and secure, but as Jane was in a position to know, Henry was capricious. Just a few years earlier, he had recklessly risked the vengeance of the greatest power in Europe, together with the wrath of the pope, for the sake of one woman, only to destroy her without a qualm, on the flimsiest of grounds, when his ardor had cooled. Queen Jane, of course, would never have been discarded: she had produced his precious heir, Edward. Even had Henry become bored with her simpering goodness and amused himself elsewhere, the mother of his son would have been secure until her dying day. As she was. At least Catherine aroused her husband sexually as Anne of Cleves had not, but she could never rest entirely easily unless she could give him that Duke of York to grace the nursery.

There was still time, though. Catherine was young, healthy, and active and Henry optimistic. With the misgivings of the previous year that Chapuys had sensed now a thing of the past, Henry settled down in the weeks after his return from what he had thought was a highly successful progress to his blessed domestic life with his jewel. He was so happy that he ordered the bishop of Lincoln to thank God for the “good life” he had with his wife “and hoped to have with her.”

Henry’s nightmare began the following day, on Wednesday, November 2, All Soul’s Day. As the king went to the chapel to pray, Cranmer handed him a letter. The archbishop had received information so heinous about Catherine’s morals that he felt that the king had to be told, but since “he had not the heart to tell it by word of mouth,” he had written it down instead. Unable to conceive that his jewel could be flawed, Henry ordered a discreet investigation in order to root out those who had dared to slander her. Assuming the issue was under control, he simply got on with his usual routine while he waited for the results of the enquiry which would, he was certain, exonerate his queen. He would then punish the perpetrators of such wicked lies.

For the time being, life continued as normal. The court was at Hampton Court, perhaps relaxing after the long progress. Catherine and her ladies sewed, danced, listened to her musicians, chatted, walked in her gardens, all blissfully unaware that soon, for some, life would never be normal again. And all the while, Henry’s most trusted councilors were rounding up witnesses, listening to their stories, writing out statements, and uncovering more and more scurrilous details as the days slipped by. The first inkling anyone had that something was wrong was when Henry attended a special council meeting on the following Saturday morning and remained closeted away until noon. That in itself was not unheard of, although Henry was not usually prone to spend quite so long on state business. At midnight, he instructed messengers to fetch Audley and Norfolk. Even then, Jane and Catherine knew nothing. Both could sleep soundly in their beds.

Matters came to a head the next day. Henry pretended to be going hunting so that he was well away from the main body of the palace. There in the fields, unobserved by his courtiers, he could talk over the shocking facts with his councilors. Action would have to be taken. There was proof positive that Catherine had been no virgin on her wedding day: she was damaged goods and had betrayed her gentle prince. So, after supper that evening, and without bidding farewell to the queen, the king suddenly ordered his small barge to be made ready. He left immediately, his oarsmen taking him to Westminster. If he chose, he could spend the night at York Place, although the place where he would pass the night was not uppermost in his mind. That, of course, was his disappointment in his queen, the woman whom he would never see again. Once back in London, he went straight into another council meeting, which went on through much of the night. And still Catherine slept peacefully.

On Monday it was a different story, however. The king’s abrupt departure had become common knowledge but the cause was a mystery. Catherine could only sit within her luxurious apartments, waiting for news. No one told her anything as the hours dragged by, but unlike the French ambassador who repeated to Francis the initial rumors that such feverish activity was caused by trouble with Scotland or Ireland, she was in a position to know that the meetings might well be about other issues entirely. For Catherine had secrets, one of which concerned events that were very recent, which Jane shared. She knew that the architectural explorations she had undertaken with the queen while on the progress were designed for a specific purpose, one that was far from innocent. If Catherine’s escapades in the north and the Midlands ever came to light, Jane’s world would be shattered even more devastatingly than it had been when George had been arrested. Then, as the two women sat, time almost suspended, there came a knock on the door of Catherine’s chambers. Archbishop Cranmer had arrived with serious questions to put to her.

CHAPTER
30

In the Maidens’ Chamber