The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Fifth Wife (11 page)

“Tell her what he said to you,” Grandma Agnes prompted.

Uncle Thomas turned to me.

“‘By all that is holy,’ His Majesty said, ‘if only I had seen this girl before Crum began these damnable talks with the Clevans!’ Those were his words. And I said, ‘It is not too late, sire.’”

“But I—” I began, then closed my mouth. If I understood Uncle Thomas correctly, he was telling me that King Henry might prefer me to the mysterious Anna of Cleves. I was pledged to Francis, but Francis had made it clear that our handfasted pledge need not hold me back from becoming the king’s mistress. Or his wife.

I felt dizzy.

“Come, sit here, girl,” Grandma Agnes was saying, patting the cushioned bench beside her. Obediently I went to sit down.

“Give her some wine!” she called out. “She looks pale.”

“Perhaps we have not appreciated you up to now, Catherine,” she said, speaking in a voice I had never before heard her use. Not stern, not demanding, not shrill. An almost motherly voice.

“There are so many girls living under my roof,” she went on, “I have so many granddaughters and grandnieces, wards and orphans and babes left on my doorstep—” She waved her hand as if to dismiss them all. “I cannot see every one clearly. I cannot appreciate each one. They are a swarm, nothing more.”

As she spoke I drank thirstily from the goblet of wine that was brought to me.

“If we have neglected you, I regret it. I assure you, Lambeth will be made a much more pleasant place for you from now on. I know your father does not provide very generously for you—”

“Where is father?” I asked, holding out my goblet to the servant who stood by, who hastened to fill it.

“Shouldn’t father be here, to hear what you are telling me?”

Grandma Agnes looked uncomfortable.

“Thomas—” she began.

“He is in the North Country. He has been appointed Keeper of the Subsidies for Yorkshire and the Borders.” Uncle Thomas spoke brusquely, hurriedly.

“But he was hoping to be made second under-cellarer to the new queen!” I said. “He expected the appointment!”

“The Lord Privy Seal does not wish it,” was Uncle Thomas’s response, spoken in a low, resentful tone.

“Lord Cromwell!”

“He ordered your father to Huddleston last week. He will take up his duties there as soon as possible.”

Damnable Lord Cromwell! He was thwarting us at every turn. We Howards, whose descent was as far above his as the sky is above the earth, as I had often heard Uncle Thomas say.

“I see by the scowl on your pretty face that you share our view of the Lord Privy Seal,” Grandma Agnes said, her tone acid. “He harms and thwarts our family’s interests at every opportunity. You, on the other hand, may have the good fortune to advance our interests.”

“Uncle Thomas, can you not ask the king to give father the position he wants?” I asked bravely.

“Perhaps not,” came his answer, “but you could. And while making your request, you could feed his fancy, charm him further, nurture his love.”

“Take the monkey with you,” Grandma Agnes added. “He likes it that you chose the monkey from among all the gifts he offered. Will you do it?”

I felt no hesitation.

“If you think it would help father, yes.”

“Before you go, I must tell you that the talks with the men of law from Cleves have run into difficulties.” Uncle Thomas looked pleased. “Our own man of law here believes that Anna entered into a marriage contract with another man, and is still bound by that contract. And our theologians maintain that there are worrisome differences in doctrine between the Lutheran belief of Cleves and our English church as reformed by Parliament. Unless these differences can be removed, the Lady Anna cannot marry King Henry. She must conform to our ways in all things.”

Both the lawyer and the priest were clearly eager to speak, but Uncle Thomas held up his hand to silence them.

“So it appears that the king may not be able to marry the lady Lord Cromwell has chosen for him after all.”

Both Uncle Thomas and Grandma Agnes were smiling at me, expecting me to be pleased at all I had been hearing. Yet something held me back, some nagging sense that all was not as it seemed. Something unspoken hung in the air. I was uneasy. I looked at Uncle William, who had remained silent through everything that had been said, hoping for—what? Reassurance perhaps—or even a welcome touch of humor. But his kind face was grave.

“It is a lot for you to take in, all at once,” he said. “But you must see the advantage to our family. Think of it! We Howards, who were disgraced by the scandals of Queen Anne, the daughter of a Howard mother, may now be cleansed of that taint by having another Howard gain the royal favor. Of course you would hardly be the first,” he went on, half musing to himself. “There was your mother, your beautiful, beautiful mother, Jocasta—”

“William!” My grandmother’s voice was sharp.

Uncle William was flustered.

“Yes, of course. I forgot. I should not have mentioned her. I’m sorry.”

There it was again. My mother’s name mentioned, her existence acknowledged, then a silence imposed. I looked from Grandma Agnes to Uncle William to Uncle Thomas, whose dark face was turned away.

“Father will not tell me what happened to my mother. No one is ever allowed to mention her name or recall her memory. I loved her. What can she have done that was so terrible? And how did she die? I must know.”

After a time Grandma Agnes spoke.

“If Catherine is going to see the king, it might be well to tell her what she wants to know.”

Uncle Thomas shook his head and looked sour. Uncle William sighed, then, after a moment, got to his feet.

“Come with me, Catherine. Let us go out into the garden where we can breathe the fresh air and smell the first of the lilacs. Let me tell you a story.”

*   *   *

A chill breeze was blowing, I had to ask one of the grooms to bring me a shawl. I sat on a stone bench under a cherry tree that was just coming into bud. Uncle William stood nearby. From our patch of lawn and garden we could see the wherries coming up and down the river, with now and then a barge or a towed flatboat heaped with barrels and chests.

I watched Uncle William, waiting for him to begin.

“Imagine, Catherine,” he said at length, “that your lovely mother was just about the age you are now. She had only been married to your father for a year or so. All the men of the court envied your father, because Jocasta was so beautiful, so lively and charming. I suppose I was a little in love with her myself. She had the grace of a butterfly, a face like a flower, she could make people laugh and she also had a generous heart. She didn’t belong in a royal court, courts are sordid places, full of decadence and selfish pleasures. I know, I have served King Henry and his father before him since I was a boy.

“Jocasta saw through the pretense and sugared rivalries. She was too gentle a spirit to survive amid the clawing for power, the destructiveness of life lived in the shadow of a king. She deserved better.

“It was no wonder King Henry fell in love with her. But she was married to your father, and she was fond of him, partly because he was such an inept courtier. He fumbled and bumbled and could not seem to grasp how to rise in the hierarchy of power. Not for him the sordidness and decadence of the others. People laughed at him. His own stepmother was ashamed of him—she still is. He was not worldly, or greedy, he took no pleasure in others’ pain.

“Yet though Jocasta was fond of Edmund, she truly loved the king. In his younger years he was every woman’s perfect gentle knight, or so my wife—your aunt—always told me. Handsome, dashing, charming, a champion in the lists, a musician who wrote songs to his beloved and sang them in his strong, true voice.

“And though the king was married, his union with Queen Catherine was a tragedy. She was a noble character, to be sure, a valiant woman with the strength and valor of her mother, the great Isabella of Castile. We all saw it in her, and admired her for it. But Henry did not love her. He loved Jocasta, and the queen knew it. She also knew, by that time, that she could never give the king a son to succeed him. All her babies but one had died, and that one, as you know, was a girl, Princess Mary.

“The king took Jocasta to live in the Maidens’ Bower, where he kept his mistresses. Edmund did not object, he knew it would do no good, and besides, King Henry gave him an estate and made him royal lieutenant for Sark, which more than satisfied him, even though it meant that he would be far from home for long stretches of time.

“As King Henry’s mistress, Jocasta brought shame on our family. It could not have been otherwise. Yet secretly all the women envied her, for her beauty and for being loved by the king. Before long she knew she was carrying the king’s child, and he was overjoyed. He felt sure she would have a son, and he meant to make that son his heir. He confided to his closest friends that he hoped Queen Catherine would either fall ill and die or decide to take the veil, leaving him free to marry. He was sure a way could be found to free Jocasta from Edmund.

“When her time was near Henry sent his beloved into the country, to the convent of St. Frideswide. He sent Mary Lascelles with her, to attend her. He hired a skilled midwife, Anys Cockerell, to deliver her child. Nothing was wanting in the birth chamber, Mary Lascelles saw to that.”

Uncle William paused, unable to go on. I saw that he was overcome with sorrow and I thought, yes, it was as he said, he must have loved her. After a time he continued his tale, his voice hoarse with emotion.

“When word reached King Henry that she had died he gave forth such a howl as I had never heard from any creature, animal or human. He shut himself away for three days, eating nothing, speaking to no one. The physicians were worried about him, they had no idea why he was acting as he did.

“Then, at last, he emerged from his seclusion. He was haggard and white-faced. I had never seen him so ravaged. He staggered like a wounded deer. No one dared to speak to him, he raged in his sorrow. Finally he told those few of us who were closest to him what had happened. Jocasta and the baby had both died. He ordered the midwife to be hunted and executed, but she was never found. Mary Lascelles pleaded for her life and he forgave her, because he knew Jocasta had been fond of her.”

He reached into an inner pocket of his doublet and brought out a velvet pouch. He handed it to me.

“I have kept this ever since she died. It was with the few possessions of hers that Mary Lascelles returned to the family. She was wearing it all through her labor, Mary said. I want you to have it.”

Moved by his words, and the emotion in his voice, I opened the pouch and took out a golden pendant. The design was simple: three hearts entwined.

“The king wears a brooch of this same design,” Uncle William said. “I know he still grieves for his lost love. He visits her grave. She is buried in a private chapel at Greyfriars here in London. The duke would not permit her body or the body of her son to be buried in the Howard family tomb in Norfolk.”

He shook his head. “She was the best of us all, your mother. And yet she was shunned, even in death.”

For a time we were silent, watching the boats come and go. The sun had sunk lower as Uncle William told his tale, and the wind off the river had grown colder.

“I look like her, don’t I,” I said finally.

Uncle William nodded. “Very much like her. And the light in your eyes, your laughter, your grace—it is as if she had been reborn.”

“When the king first saw me, that day when the eight of us went to the palace, he was startled, dismayed by the sight of me. I knew then there was some reason.”

“He sees her in you. Part of him imagines that she has come to life again in you.”

“But he must have known, all these years, that she had a daughter.”

“Of course. Yet he had no wish to see you, or even know whether or not you survived your childhood. It was all much too painful, the thought that Jocasta’s child by Edmund might be living, while his boy died.”

Uncle William sat down beside me and put his arm around me.

“You are shivering. We must go back inside.”

“No, please, uncle. Let’s just sit quietly here awhile.”

“Of course, if you need to, dear child.” He stroked my hair. “I wish you could have been spared all this. But you had to know. Otherwise the king’s interest in you would make no sense.”

How long we sat there I don’t remember, but I heard the bells ringing in the church tower as we got up to leave, and my feet felt heavy as we walked together out of the fragrant garden, the sound of the chiming bells still echoing in my ears.

*   *   *

Quarrels erupted at Lambeth that spring, violent quarrels that left many injured. Two of Grandma Agnes’s household sergeants challenged a French dueling master to a contest of arms; one was killed, the other badly wounded. Two servants fought over a kitchen maid; both bled in the courtyard until a surgeon was found to bind up their wounds. (The kitchen maid jumped into the river and was never seen again.) Every time Uncle Thomas went to the royal court, it seemed, his guardsmen had words with the king’s gentlemen, and swords were drawn.

But the quarrel that concerned me most nearly began when twenty of Lord Cromwell’s serving men were set upon just at nightfall by men sent from our Lambeth household. The melee that resulted went on for an hour or more, and when it was over twelve men were dead and a score of others—among them my Francis—lay bleeding.

It was his arm, his sword arm, that had to be bound up with linen bandages. He had a cut over one eye, and a tooth came loose, but it was his head that hurt him most. He lay on the bed in our cupboard, full of the physick Joan gave him to dull his pain, halfway between sleep and waking. Edward Waldegrave, who had fought alongside Francis, had a deep wound in his side and tossed and moaned with fever for many days.

Joan and I were kept busy watching over them both. I was still coming to terms with all that I had learned in recent days, and it left me in a state of puzzlement.

Nothing was as I had thought it to be: I had thought I was married to Francis, now I discovered that I was a favorite of the king, and my marriage did not matter. I had thought my mother died of disease or in an accident; now I discovered that she had been the king’s great love and had died bearing his son. I had believed I was my mother’s only child; now I discovered that I had had a brother—briefly—who if he had lived, could have become King of England.