Katharine of Aragon (89 page)

At that moment a page appeared at the door. Katharine looked at him in surprise, because she had given orders that she was not to be disturbed.

The page's look was apologetic, but before he could speak he was thrust aside and a red-clad figure came into the room.

“My lord Cardinal!” cried the Queen.

“Your Grace…Your Excellency…I come on the King's orders.”

“What orders are these?” demanded Katharine haughtily.

“He requests the Imperial Ambassador to come to his apartment without delay.”

“His Excellency called to see me…,” the Queen began.

The Cardinal smiled at her whimsically. “The King's command,” he murmured.

“His Excellency will call on the King within an hour.”

“The King's orders are that I shall conduct him to his presence with all speed.”

Katharine felt exasperation. She turned to the Ambassador and said rapidly in Spanish: “You see how it is. I am constantly overlooked.”

But there was nothing to be done and the Ambassador must leave at once for the King's apartment, having achieved nothing by his visit to the Queen.

Katharine, with resignation, watched him go, knowing that future meetings between them would be difficult to arrange, and that when they talked together they would never be sure who overheard them; they must remember that anything they wrote to the Emperor would almost certainly be first censored by the Cardinal.

TWO WONDERFUL EVENTS
befell the Princess Mary.

It was strange, she reflected afterwards, that she should have waited for these things to happen and that they should have followed so swiftly on one another.

She was in one of her favorite haunts on a tower looking out over the battlements. The country was so beautiful that she found great peace merely by looking at it. She enjoyed riding in the woods with a party from her suite; during the warm days they had picnicked on the grass, and that was pleasant; but one of the most pleasurable occupations was kneeling up here on a stone seat inside the tower and looking out over the hills. This was her favorite view, for below in all its beauty was the valley of the Teme with the Stretton Hills forming a background.

She had been here so long that she was beginning to believe she would never leave the place; and yet every day she awoke with the thought in her mind: Will it be today?

Sometimes she let her fancy wander, imagining that a party of riders appeared in the valley, that she watched as they came nearer; and seeing the royal standard, knew that her mother had come.

It was nearly eighteen months since they had been parted.

How fortunate that I did not know how long it would be! she thought. If I had, I should never have been able to endure it.

But all through those months hope had been with her, and she often prayed that whatever happened to her she would always be able to hope.

She had grown considerably in the months of separation. Her mother would see a change. She had learned a great deal; she could write Greek and Latin very well now, and could compose verses in these two languages. As for her music, that had improved even more.

One day, as she knelt in her favorite position, she did see a party of riders in the valley. She stared, believing in those first moments that she was dreaming, so often she had imagined she saw riders.

She kept her eyes on the party and as it came nearer she saw that it was a
group of men and that they were making straight for the Castle. She watched until they were within its walls before she turned from the battlements and went to her own apartments, knowing that she would soon be told who the newcomers were.

It was the Countess herself who came into Mary's apartment and, in all the eighteen months during which they had been in Ludlow Castle, Mary had never seen the Countess so radiant.

“Your Highness,” she cried, “I have wonderful news. There is someone who is most eager to meet you. I want your permission to present him to you at once.”

And there he was, in the room; tall, handsome, obviously of the nobility, austerely dressed though not in clerical robes, he seemed godlike to Mary.

“My son Reginald,” went on Margaret, “who is also your humble servant.”

He knelt before Mary and she smiled at him as she bade him rise. “Welcome,” she said. “I feel I know you already because we have talked of you so often, your mother and I.”

“Yes,” agreed Margaret. “Her Highness insisted on hearing tales of my family.”

“I found those tales interesting,” said Mary. She turned to Margaret. “I trust they are busy in the kitchens preparing a welcoming banquet.”

In that moment she felt grown up, the mistress of the Castle, Margaret noticed, and a wild hope was born in her mind.

She said: “I will leave my son with you while I go to the kitchens. I want to give orders myself for, as Your Highness says, this is a special occasion and we wish everyone within the Castle to know it.”

Mary scarcely noticed that she had left. She went to the ornate chair which was kept especially for her and sat down, signing for Reginald to be seated too.

“We live somewhat simply here,” she told him, “when compared with my father's Court. I pray you tell me about your stay on the Continent.”

“It has been a very long one,” he answered. “It is five years since I left England. A great deal can happen in five years; I have lived in Padua and Rome, and I have now come to complete my studies at Sheen…in the Carthusian monastery there.”

“How wonderful! Your life is dedicated to God.”

“All our lives are dedicated to some purpose,” he replied. “I was fortunate to be able to choose the way I should go. My mother wanted me to go into the Church. I was very happy to do this but I have not yet taken Holy Orders.”

“Have you come straight here from Rome?”

“Oh no, I visited London first and presented myself to Their Graces.”

“You have seen my mother!”

“Yes, I saw her and when I told her that I should visit my mother at Ludlow she begged me to commend her to you and to tell you that she sends her dearest love.”

Mary turned away for a moment, overcome by her emotion. Even the arrival of this man who had played a part in her dreams could not stifle her longing for her mother.

She asked questions about the Court. He did not tell her of the plans for a French marriage, nor of the speculations as to the efforts the Queen and the new Spanish ambassador would make to prevent this. He thought her charming, but a child; and yet during that first interview he was made aware of her serious turn of mind and that she had long ago put away childish things.

When Margaret returned and found them, absorbed in each other, and saw her son's interest in the child and Mary's in him—for Mary was unable to disguise the change his coming had made, and during the whole of her stay at Ludlow she had not looked so joyous—she said to herself: “Foreign matches seem to come to nothing. Why should not Mary marry my son?”

Oh, but how handsome he was! Twenty-seven years old, yet he looked younger; his gentle, noble nature had left his face unlined. There was in him the nobility of the Plantagenets, and the resemblance to his ancestor, Edward IV, was at times marked. It would strengthen the crown if Tudor and Plantagenet were joined together, thought Margaret. And she was glad that Reginald had not yet taken Holy Orders.

During the next days the two of them were continually together. They rode out of the Castle, surrounded by the Princess's attendants naturally, but they were always side by side, a little apart from the rest of the cavalcade. She played on the virginals for his pleasure; and there were balls and banquets as well as masques in Ludlow Castle.

The Princess Mary was growing pretty, for the sternness and slight strain, which had prevented her being so before, had left her; her pale cheeks were flushed and she was less absorbed in her lessons than she had been.

It was not possible, thought Margaret, for an eleven-year-old child to be in love with a man of twenty-seven, but Mary's feelings were engaged and she was ready to idealize the man who for so long had figured in her reveries.

And as though the tide of Mary's fortune had really turned, a week or so after the arrival of Reginald Pole, Margaret came to her apartment one day holding a letter in her hand.

Mary's heart leaped with excitement because she saw that it bore the royal seal.

“I have news from Court,” she said. “We are to prepare to leave at once for London.”

“Oh…Margaret!”

“Yes, my love. We have waited so long, have we not. But did I not tell you that if we were patient it would come? Well, here it is.”

Mary took the letter and read it. Then she said slowly: “And Reginald… will he come with us?”

“There would be no point in leaving him in Ludlow. He will surely accompany us on the journey.”

Mary looked as though she were about to dance round the room; then she remembered her dignity, and smiling she said in a clear, calm voice: “I am well pleased.”

EACH MORNING WHEN CARDINAL WOLSEY AWOKE, HE WOULD
immediately be conscious of a black cloud of depression. He was not quite certain what it meant, but it was no phantom left over from a nightmare. It was real and it was hanging over him; each day it seemed to take him a little longer to assure himself that he could overcome any difficulties which might present themselves.

On this morning he awoke early and lay listening to the birds singing their songs in the trees of Hampton Court Gardens.

Once he could have said to himself: All this is mine. Those trees, that grass, this magnificent palace and all it contains. But that glory was of the past. He had lost some of his treasures; he must hold firmly to what he had.

Each day, it seemed to him, he was more and more unsure of the King's temper.

Yesterday Henry had looked at him slyly and murmured that he had heard from Mistress Anne Boleyn's lips that she had no love for My Lord Cardinal.

Why should he care for the malicious words of a careless girl? He would know how to deal with Anne Boleyn if she were ever important enough to demand his attention. At the moment she was amusing the King.

“Let be, let be,” murmured Wolsey. “I like the King to amuse himself with women. While he does so it keeps him from meddling in state affairs.”

And it was true that of late the King was paying less attention to state
affairs; although of course, in a manner characteristic of him, he would think the “secret matter” the biggest state affair of all. To rid himself of Katharine, to take a new French Princess to be his bride…a French bride for the King; a French bridegroom for the Princess Mary… what heavier blow could be struck at the Emperor?

The King was eager that they should begin working out the details of his separation from Katharine. The difficulty was that, if the King's marriage was no true marriage, what then of the Princess Mary? A bastard? Would François Premier want to betroth his son to a bastard?

The situation was full of dangers. Not that he did not believe he could overcome them; but he wished the attitude of the King had not changed towards him.

He had thrown Hampton Court to his master, and one would have thought that such a gift was something to remember for as long as they both should live; but the King did not seem to think so, for although he now proudly referred to “my palace at Hampton,” his attitude to the Cardinal had not grown more kindly.

There was no doubt about it; the King must be placated. And what he was demanding was the end of his marriage.

Wolsey rose from his bed and within an hour of his rising he was receiving Richard Wolman, who had been Vicar of Walden in Essex and Canon of St. Stevens in Westminster until the King, recently, had made him his chaplain, since when he had lived at Court.

When Richard Wolman stood before the Cardinal, Wolsey said: “I have sent for you that we may discuss the delicate matter of the King's conscience.”

Wolman bowed his head.

“You know of this matter,” stated Wolsey.

“His Grace has mentioned it to me on several occasions.”

“Then you should go to him and accuse him of living in sin. Tell him that you think that as a sinner of nearly eighteen years' standing he should put himself before his Archbishop and the ecclesiastical Court to answer the charges which you have brought against him.”

Richard Wolman turned pale. “Cardinal…you cannot mean…Why, the King would…”

Wolsey laughed, and lately his laughter was tinged with bitterness. “The King will frown at you, stamp his feet and show rage. But he'll not forget those who serve him…as he wishes to be served. Go now and be thankful that you have been chosen to serve the King… and yourself.”

Wolman bowed his head. “You can be assured of my obedience,” he said.

“That is well,” answered Wolsey. “Lose no time. The King grows impatient.”