Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (84 page)

“Bess Brooke is a mere child,” Lucy protested.

“Only a year younger than you are,” Dorothy shot back.

“Old enough to be wedded and bedded, but her virginity has been strictly guarded.” Anne lowered her voice. “My sister tells me that there is a bill before Parliament to require that any woman who agrees to marry the king must declare, on pain of death, that no charge of misbehavior can be brought against her.”

“What if a prospective queen reveals her past and confesses all her sins and the king still wants to marry her?” Dorothy asked.

“I do not believe Parliament considered that possibility, but they did have sense enough to realize that a woman in such a situation might lie. Another provision in the law states that anyone else who knows the truth about the king’s intended bride must come forward with it if the would-be queen is not forthcoming. The penalty for failing to do so is imprisonment for life.”

“If they are found out,” Dorothy said.

“It is never wise to deceive the king.” Lucy ignored the marchpane but took a handful of nuts from a nearby bowl, slanting a look at Anne as she did so. “Your sister is Lady Latimer, is she not? Did she come to London with her husband when the lords gathered for Parliament?”

Anne nodded. “They have taken a house in Blackfriars. I hope she will soon be able to visit me here at court.”

“No children yet?” Lucy asked.

Anne’s face fell as she shook her head. “Kathryn has been unable to give her husband an heir. She did not conceive during her first marriage, either.”

“Lord Latimer already has an heir.” Lucy’s sharp tone drew every eye her way. She blushed.

“I had forgotten. Lord Latimer has children by his first wife.” Anne’s lips twitched as she fought a smile. “As I recall, the eldest son is a toothsome lad.”

It would be a good match, Nan thought. Lucy was the younger daughter of an earl, and young John Neville, Latimer’s heir, would one day be a baron. In the not-so-distant past, Nan would have been jealous of Lucy’s prospects, but during the last few months she had become ambivalent about many things. If the king wanted her for his mistress, she’d have to force herself to comply. What choice would she have? Only by pleasing King Henry in bed could she ever hope to secure her own future.

A sigh escaped her. The ambitions she’d had when she left Calais had died a slow death in the years since. Now there were times when she almost wished that Queen Jane had chosen Cat to serve her.

Shaking off her self-pity, Nan began to attend to the babble of feminine voices around her. Lucy had been teased into admitting a romantic interest in John Neville and the conversation had moved on to news of marriages and births and deaths. Nan had little to contribute. She was glad when it was time to leave for the king’s supper.

T
WENTY-SIX LADIES SAT
at King Henry’s table and thirty-five at a
second one close by. The seating was arranged by precedence, so that the highest-born ladies were closest to the king. Nan, whose status remained uncertain so long as Lord Lisle was a prisoner in the Tower, was placed next to a young woman she’d never seen before, a pretty girl with blond hair and blue eyes and a vivacious manner.

She reminded Nan of Catherine Howard.

“Have you tried this syllabub?” the young woman asked. “It is most delicious.”

Nan spooned up a small portion, tasted, and agreed, all the while studying her companion. The girl wore a copper-colored gown, richly embroidered. “Mistress Brooke?” Nan guessed. “Lord Cobham’s daughter?”

The girl’s smile was brilliant. “I am. And you are Mistress Bassett, are you not?”

Nan agreed that she was and thawed a bit in the face of Bess Brooke’s friendliness. They chatted amiably throughout the meal.

At the banquet, which was much less formal, the king made a point of speaking to each of his guests. He did not linger long with any of them until he came to Lucy Somerset. By the time he moved on, there were already whispers that he had singled her out to be his next queen.

Nan watched uneasily as King Henry made his way in her direction. He stopped to talk to this one and that, but it was clear he was headed straight for her. She sank into a curtsy as he closed the distance between them.

“My dear Nan,” he said as she rose. “You are thriving in my daughter’s household.”

“She is a most kind mistress, Your Grace.”

“And you value kindness?”

“I do, Your Grace.” She dared meet his eyes, expecting to find a sensual invitation there, or at the least a spark of admiration. Instead she found speculation, as if he were considering a matter of grave importance.

“I can be surpassing … kind,” the king said after a moment. “But I expect kindness in return.”

“That seems only fair,” Nan murmured, but she was confused. It was not like the king to speak in riddles.

“I mean to pardon your mother and stepfather,” he said.

Nan caught her breath in surprise. “That … that would be a most kind act indeed, Your Grace.”

He chuckled, patted her hand in an almost avuncular way, and moved on to Bess Brooke. “And who is this beautiful blossom?”

The king’s question, issued in a booming voice, caught the attention of everyone in the hall. Nan was able to retreat unnoticed and slip away soon after to her own small chamber in the Lady Mary’s apartments. Did His Grace really mean to free Lord and Lady Lisle? And if he did, she wondered, what “kindness” did he plan to demand in return?

The King had never been merry since first hearing of the Queen’s misconduct, but he has been so since, especially on the 29th, when he gave a supper and banquet with twenty-six ladies at the table, besides gentlemen, and thirty-five at another table adjoining. The lady for whom he showed the greatest regard was a sister of Lord Cobham. … She is a pretty young creature, with wit enough to do as badly as the others if she were to try. The King is also said to fancy a daughter … by her first marriage, of the wife of Lord Lisle, late deputy of Calais.

—Eustace Chapuys, imperial ambassador to England, to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, 9 February 1542

17

Although Nan had told the king that his daughter was a kind mistress, she lived on the periphery of the Lady Mary’s household. She had no official position and few duties. She was puzzled when Bess Jerningham told her that Mary wanted a word with her and even more bemused when Mary, who was walking for exercise in a long indoor gallery, sent her other attendants away.

“You may wonder why I asked for you.” The princess set off at a brisk pace. As she walked two or three miles every day after breakfast, Nan had to scramble to keep up.

“It is not my place to wonder, Your Grace.”

Mary laughed. “I doubt that stops any of my ladies from speculating
in the privacy of their own minds. No matter. I have observed you for some time now, Nan Bassett, ever since Lady Kingston first presented you to me.”

Nan remembered that day. Queen Jane had been struggling to give birth to Prince Edward.

“Why did the king, my father, send you to me?”

The blunt question took Nan aback, but she had her answer ready. It was nothing but the truth. “I had nowhere else to go, Your Grace. My stepfather is still in the Tower and my mother is held prisoner in Calais. Two of my sisters are dependent upon my widowed sister-in-law and the third serves the Lady Anna of Cleves.”

“Did His Majesty send you to spy on me?”

“No, Your Grace.” Nan was genuinely shocked.

“Then perhaps he wished us to become friends. It is no secret that my father intends to marry again, or that he is encouraged to do so by his advisors, who want him to produce more sons to secure the succession.”

Nan remained silent. She knew enough of Mary’s history to understand that, until King Henry had divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn, Mary Tudor had been heiress presumptive. She had been raised by her mother to rule England. Then she had been disinherited and declared illegitimate. The king might someday restore her to the succession, but in the meantime it must gall her to contemplate the prospect of yet another stepmother, yet another rival for the throne.

“A few days ago, you were summoned to a banquet at Whitehall, Nan Bassett.”

“I was, Your Grace.”

“I am told by the imperial ambassador that the king was particularly attentive to three of his guests. You were one of them.”

Mary strode purposefully along and Nan had to walk quickly to keep pace with her. She was beginning to tire.

“He was kind enough to say that he means to release my stepfather from the Tower, Your Grace.” He had not yet done so.

Mary paused to stare at Nan with her nearsighted squint as she
considered that information. “There is more, I think, to His Grace’s interest in you. There are some who believe he considers that you would make him a most excellent queen.”

“I do not think such an outcome is likely, Your Grace.”

“Why? Because you were once his mistress?”

Nan shrank back before the vehemence of the question. She was not physically afraid of Mary. The other woman was small and spare, almost delicate looking, and very thin, while Nan, for the most part, enjoyed robust good health. But Mary had an air of authority about her. A sense of power as yet unleashed. There was no safe reply Nan could make. She could not deny that she had been intimate with the king, but telling his daughter that they’d coupled only once did not seem like a good idea.

With admirable calm, Mary resumed her daily exercise. At the end of the gallery, she stopped and turned, framed by a wall of glass and a view of the snow-covered garden beyond. “You were at the king’s banquet and I was not. You were singled out for His Grace’s attention. I have no doubt that you took note of which other ladies he favored.”

“He took care to speak with each of his guests, Your Grace.”

Mary made an impatient gesture. “The ambassador tells me that His Grace showed the greatest regard for Lady Wyatt. How is that possible?”

Nan blinked at her in confusion. “Lady … Wyatt?” She did not recall meeting anyone by that name.

“Sir Thomas Wyatt’s wife, a woman he put aside some years ago with the claim that she’d committed adultery.”

Nan frowned. “The king would never consider marrying a woman with such a scandal in her past. Besides, her husband is still alive.” And, ironic as it seemed, given the reason for the rift, it was nearly impossible to dissolve a marriage in England now that King Henry had broken away from the church of Rome.

“She was described to me as a pretty young thing,” the Lady Mary said.

“That cannot be Sir Thomas’s wife.” Nan remembered a little about the old scandal now. “She has a son older than I am.”

“But who else could she have been? The imperial ambassador told me that the woman in question was Lord Cobham’s sister, Elizabeth Brooke.”

Nan stifled a laugh. “Your Grace, there is a second Elizabeth Brooke, a girl of fifteen or so. She is the current Lord Cobham’s daughter. Lady Wyatt is her aunt.”

“Ah, I see.” Mary’s thin lips twitched and there was laughter in her bright brown eyes. “Yes, that makes more sense.”

His Grace
should
consider an older woman, Nan mused. Someone who could nurse him as he himself advanced into old age. She did not express that radical thought aloud.

“Who was the third?” Mary’s abrupt question brought Nan back to her surroundings.

“The third lady in whom he is interested? I am not certain, Your Grace.”

The princess’s expression was rueful. “I fear the ambassador is not always reliable when it comes to English names, his native language being Spanish. He identified her as the daughter of Madam Albart, but I know of no such woman. And he said she was Sir Anthony Browne’s niece.”

Nan struggled to recall if the king had paid special attention to anyone in particular. After a moment, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “I believe, Your Grace, that he meant Lady Lucy Somerset, the Earl of Worcester’s daughter. Worcester’s secondary title is Lord Herbert of Ragland.” Herbert and Albart, she reasoned, sounded enough alike to cause a foreigner to err.

“And is she Sir Anthony Browne’s niece?”

“Her father’s second wife, Lady Lucy’s stepmother, is Sir Anthony’s sister.” Nan was grateful for her mother’s coaching in the relationships between courtiers. It was often useful to know who was kin to whom.

“You have been most helpful. I am in your debt, Mistress Bassett.”

“I wonder, Your Grace …”

“Yes.”

“How was I described that you could identify me?”

“That is no mystery. The ambassador called you a daughter by her first marriage of the wife of the former deputy of Calais. Who else could you be?”

Philippa, Cat, or Mary,
Nan thought.

The princess dismissed her with further expressions of gratitude, leaving Nan with no duties to take her mind off the implications of what she’d just been told. She’d denied the king’s interest in her as a potential wife when the suggestion came from her friend Anne, but if even King Henry’s daughter believed it was a possibility …

Nan told herself this was another mistake on the part of the imperial ambassador, akin to identifying the wrong Elizabeth Brooke, but she did not believe it. That night she tossed and turned, unable to sleep, unable to stop worrying about the future.
Did
the king want to marry her? Was that why, even though she had been given her own small chamber, he had not sent for her? Was that why he planned to release her mother and stepfather—so that he would not be marrying a traitor’s daughter?

She
was
young and pretty. And His Grace had known her longer than he had known Lucy or Bess. Perhaps he felt more comfortable with her. No doubt that made her more attractive to him.

“But I do not want to be queen,” she whispered into her pillow.

K
ING
H
ENRY HELD
another banquet a week after Catherine Howard’s execution. Once again, he flirted openly with Nan and set tongues wagging. Nan put on a brave face and flirted back, but inside she was quaking. Only the fact that this gathering, on the twenty-first of February, was right before Lent kept her from yielding to panic and fleeing the court.