Six Wives (100 page)

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Authors: David Starkey

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'Now in his old days', the King felt, 'after sundry troubles of mind which have happened unto him by marriages, [he had] obtained . . . a jewel [in Catherine]'. 'For womanhood and very perfect love towards him' she would be 'to his quietness'; she was also likely to '[bring] forth the desired fruits of marriage'. And in conduct, above all, she was perfect, showing outwardly all 'virtue and good behaviour'.
52
* * *
All Saints Day was one of the Days of Estate when the King took communion publicly in the Chapel Royal. There at Hampton Court, under the splendours of the blue and gold roof of Wolsey's Chapel which depicts the angelic host blowing on trumpets in triumph, Henry offered up his grateful prayers for his new-found marital happiness with Catherine. 'He gave [God] most humble and hearty thanks for the good life he led and trusted to lead with [the Queen].' He also ordered Bishop Longland of Lincoln, his confessor, 'to make like prayer and give like thanks with him'.
    The following day, however, the Chapel witnessed a very different scene. Henry arrived in his Closet for the mass for All Souls Day. But on his seat he found a letter. He opened it and read it. It was from Cranmer and it made sensational charges against his 'jewel' of womanhood. During her time in the Duchess's Household, the letter claimed, Francis Dereham 'hath lied in bed with her in his doublet and hose between the sheets a hundred nights'. And Henry Manox also 'knew a privy mark of her body'.
53
* * *
Knowledge of Catherine's relationships with both Manox and Dereham was, as we have seen, an open secret in the Duchess's Household. But the allegations in this letter went much further than anything the Duchess or Lady Bridgewater or Lord William Howard had allowed themselves to see.
    Clearly, the information was the result of an inside job. Its source was Mary Hall
née
Lascelles, who had been a serving woman in the Duchess's Household at the same time as Catherine. She had spoken to her brother, John Lascelles, and Lascelles, in turn, had spoken to Cranmer. Lascelles claimed that the information had emerged innocently. But the fact that he was later burned as a Protestant heretic strongly suggests that he had a factional motive in denouncing the Howard Queen.
54
    Similarly, Cranmer's behaviour in the affair was complex – as Cranmer's behaviour usually was. Once the information had come to his hands, his oath as a Councillor, as well as his personal concern for Henry's honour and happiness, required him to disclose it to the King. But how unhappy was he with his task?
    One thing is clear. Cranmer was not, as used to be thought, simply pursuing a Reforming vendetta against a 'Catholic' consort. Instead, he had got on surprisingly well with Catherine. According to some reports, in the dark days of June and July 1540, she had protected him when it seemed likely that he would share the fate of Cromwell. Nor, thanks in part to her indifference to the Howard political agenda, was the persecution of Reformers in the wake of the Act of Six Articles anything like as fierce as might have been expected. On the other hand, Catherine was also indifferent to Cranmer's concerns. She had no interest in Reform. And, so long as she was Queen, there was always the possibility that her 'Catholic' relatives, the Howards, and their allies, including Gardiner, might be able to use her to initiate a fresh persecution of Reformers.
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    So, Cranmer decided, Catherine should go. His decision was reached with some regret. But, as so often in his career, he did not let regrets get in the way of stern necessity.
* * *
But even Cranmer, well as he knew Henry, must have been disconcerted by the King's reaction. For Henry at first flatly refused to believe the allegations. He, who had been willing to magnify every scrap of gossip against Anne Boleyn, loftily dismissed the denunciations against Catherine Howard as 'rather a forged matter than of truth'.
    The King did agree, however, that the charges should be investigated. But, to protect Catherine, whose reputation, he was sure, would be vindicated, from 'any spark of scandal', he ordered the investigation to be conducted in the utmost secrecy.
    It was entrusted to four confidential Councillors: Fitzwilliam, who had succeeded Cromwell as Lord Privy Seal; Russell, who was now a Baron and Lord Admiral; the Master of the Horse, Sir Anthony Browne; and Secretary Wriothesley. As instructed, they proceeded in the strictest confidentiality. Elaborate subterfuges were used to summon witnesses and suspects. And the Councillors wrote the transcripts of the examinations themselves. This resulted in some documents of rare illegibility. Which is one reason why they have been so little used by historians. The other is the sensational nature of their contents, which I reproduce here in unexpurgated form for the first time.
56
* * *
On 5 November, Fitzwilliam began with Mary Hall
née
Lascelles. She not only stuck to her story but provided shocking corroborative detail. When she had learned of the extent of Manox's affair with Catherine, she testified, she had reproached the music teacher for his folly and presumption. But he had laughed in her face. 'I know her well enough', Manox had boasted, 'for I have had her by the cunt, and I know it among a hundred.' 'And she loves me', he had continued, 'and I love her, and she hath said to me that I shall have her maidenhead, though it be painful to her, and not doubting but I will be good to her hereafter.'
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    Meanwhile, that same day, Manox himself was being interrogated at Lambeth by Wriothesley. Under the Secretary's cold questioning, the music teacher's boasts shrank to a more complex and credible story. Catherine, as we have seen, had refused him full intercourse. Manox accepted this, but demanded a token of her affection. 'Yet', he said to her, 'let me feel your secret (naming the thing plainly) and then I shall think that indeed you love me.' 'I am content', Catherine replied, 'so as you will desire no more but that.' Manox gave his word as she had required.
    A day or two later Manox and Catherine met in 'my Lady's Chapel Chamber at Horsham'. The room, dark and deserted, was a fine and secret place, and Manox took the opportunity to beg Catherine to fulfil her promise. She agreed. '[And] I', Manox testified, 'felt more than was convenient.'
    It was more than convenient indeed. But that, he insisted des perately, was as far as he had gone. 'Upon his damnation', he swore, 'and most extreme punishment of his body, he never knew her carnally.'
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And, despite brutal pressure, he refused to budge from this.
* * *
But Dereham, whom Wriothesley examined later on the 5th, could offer no such defence. 'He hath had carnal knowledge with the Queen', he admitted, 'lying in bed by her in his doublet and hosen divers times and six or seven times in naked bed with her.'
    Other ladies of the Duchess's Household, who were subsequently examined, glossed Dereham's bald account with lascivious details. Mary Lascelles testified that 'she hath seen them kiss after a wonderful manner, for they would kiss and hang by their bills [that is, lips] together and [as if] they were two sparrows'. Alice Restwood, who was legitimately sharing Catherine's bed, said that there was 'such puffing and blowing between [Dereham and Catherine] that [she] was weary of the same'. Indeed, Dereham's heavy breathing and other noises had become a running joke in the Maidens' Chamber. 'Hark to Dereham broken winded!' exclaimed another frequent gentleman-visitor after a particularly strenuous display.
59
    But it was Margaret Benet who contrived to witness the most. '[She] looked out at a hole of a door', she stated, 'and there saw Dereham pluck up [Catherine's] clothes above her navel so that [she] might well discern her body.' And Benet's ears had been as busy as her eyes. 'She heard', she told her interrogator, 'Dereham say that although he used the company of a woman . . . yet he would get no child except he listed.' And Catherine, according to Benet, had replied in a similar vein. 'A woman', she had said, 'might meddle with a man and yet conceive no child unless she would herself.'
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    Was this confident contraceptive knowledge? Or merely old-wives' tales? In either case, it explains why Catherine was prepared to have frequent sex with no apparent heed to the risks of pregnancy.
* * *

The examinations of Manox and Dereham established, beyond doubt, the truth of Mary Lascelles's charges against Catherine. Henry was badly shaken. He had believed. And he had been proved wrong. 'His heart was so pierced with pensiveness', the Council reported, 'that long it was before his Majesty could speak and utter the sorrow of his heart unto us.' And when he did so, he wept freely 'which was strange in one of his courage'.
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Were his tears for Catherine? Or the loss of his own illusions?
* * *
Whatever his state of mind, Henry acted quickly. A summons was sent to the senior members of the Council, including Catherine's uncle, Norfolk, at about midnight on Saturday the 5th. The following day, Henry 'on the pretext of hunting', dined in a little pleasure-house in one of the parks around Hampton Court. Then, under the cover of night, he left secretly for London.
    Catherine never saw him again. As always with Henry, the break with an about-to-be-discarded wife was clean and clinical. There was no time for hysterics or for her supposed last, desperate attempt to see him in the Chapel Gallery. Indeed, when her husband left the palace, she was aware neither of his departure nor that anything was wrong.
    The King arrived at Whitehall late at night. Soon after his arrival, the Council met at midnight and remained in session till 4 or 5 a.m. on Monday morning. 'These lords have been ever since in Council morning and evening', Marillac reported, 'the King assisting, which he is not wont to do.' 'They show themselves very troubled', the ambassador added, 'especially Norfolk, who is esteemed very resolute, and not easily moved to show by his face what his heart conceives.'
    While these urgent debates continued, Catherine, the occasion of them all, remained at Hampton Court with her women. She was in a sort of limbo. No one had yet told her anything officially. But the King's unexplained absence made clear that something was amiss. Confused and unsure, she abandoned her usual round of pleasure. 'She has taken no kind of pastime', the very well-informed Marillac reported, 'but kept in her Chambers.' 'Before', he added, 'she did nothing but dance and rejoice [but] now when the musicians come, they are told there is no more time to dance.'
62
* * *
The blow fell on Monday the 7th. In the evening, a powerful delegation of Councillors, headed by Cranmer, was despatched to Hampton Court to confront Catherine with her misdeeds. Her first reaction was to brazen it out. But, as the evidence against her was rehearsed, her resistance collapsed. She had another interview with Cranmer that night and made, it was thought, a full written confession. She begged the King's mercy, which she had so often procured for others; she pleaded her youthful frailty and the wicked ways of young men; and she acknowledged that she had been so 'blinded with desire of worldly glory that I could not, nor had grace, to consider how great a fault it was to conceal my former faults from your Majesty'.
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    Cranmer handled her with tact and real kindness. For her condition was pitiable. 'I found her', he reported to Henry, 'in such lamentation and heaviness as I never saw no creature, so that it would have pitied any man's heart to have looked upon her.' Indeed, her 'vehement rage' was such that he really feared for her sanity. Fortunately, he was able, when he saw her next, to give her the news that Henry, softened by her confession, had decided to show her mercy. This quietened her. But then her paroxysms resumed, worse even than before. Gently, Cranmer questioned her to discover their cause. It was the King's mercy, she said through sobs, which more brought home to her the enormity of her conduct than her previous fear of death.
    After that, she continued in a calmer state till about 6 o'clock (probably on the 8th or 9th) when she had 'another like pang, but not so outrageous as the first was'. The explanation was, she told Cranmer, 'for remembrance of the time'. For six was the hour when 'Mr Heneage was wont to bring her knowledge of your Grace'.
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    It was the prettiest picture of female repentance which could be desired. But was it real? Or the work of a quick-witted actress?
* * *

Whatever their nature, Catherine's agonies of grief were enough to win Henry's mercy. Probably, he was inclined to extenuate her misbehaviour as the result of a poor education, and to blame those who had brought her up more than Catherine herself. Moreover, it was far from clear whether Catherine and Dereham had committed any offence. The fall of Catherine's predecessor, Anne Boleyn, had established that adultery by a Queen was certainly treason – both for the Queen and her paramour(s). But Dereham and Catherine had enjoyed their nights of passion
before
Catherine became Queen. Neither had been married then; and, while fornication was a sin, it was not a crime.

    Catherine had been shameless. She had been deceitful. But that was all.
    The Duchess, who had a sharp forensic brain, was quick to grasp all this. She had spoken to her step-son, Norfolk, on the night of Sunday 6 November, on his return to Lambeth from Hampton Court, and again after the marathon session of the Council in the small hours of the Monday morning. And the upshot of these conversations was that she was confident Catherine would escape. 'The Duchess', one of her servants testified, 'said that if it were done while [Catherine and Dereham] were here [at Lambeth], neither the Queen nor Dereham should die for it.' 'But', she added, 'I am sorry for the King, for he taketh the matter very heavily.'
    The Duchess's optimistic reading of events seemed to be vindicated when, on 11 November, the Council at Court wrote to inform Cranmer at Hampton Court of Henry's decision about the Queen's immediate fate. She was to be moved to the former nunnery of Syon, 'there to remain, till the matter be further resolved . . . [and] furnished moderately, as her life and conditions hath deserved'. She would have the use of three Chambers, 'hanged with mean stuff, without any cloth of state', and the services of four gentlewomen and two chamberers.

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