The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Fifth Wife (32 page)

Toward evening I heard the outer doors of my apartments open noisily and men’s voices ringing out. Without the least ceremony one of the king’s cofferers, Sir Stephen Dyer, accompanied by Master Denny and half a dozen liveried servants came into my bedchamber.

“Catherine Howard! Surrender your jewels!” the cofferer called out, making me jump.

“I believe I can locate the lady’s jewel cases,” Master Denny said. I noticed he did not refer to me as “Her Highness.” As I watched, Master Denny, who knew my chambers well, went right to the chests and coffers that held my jewels, and, having obtained the keys, began to unlock and empty them into cloth sacks the cofferer held open.

It was done quickly, and with no regard for the lovely casks and velvet mountings of the priceless jewels my husband had lavished on me. All my diamonds, my ropes of pearls, my earrings and pendants were tumbled into the sacks, one on top of another.

My pendants—

There was one pendant I needed to save.

I went to a large wardrobe and opened one of its two broad wooden doors.

“Shut that door at once!” the cofferer shouted.

“But I need a handkerchief,” I demurred, looking over at Master Denny.

He hesitated, then nodded. I reached into the wardrobe and pulled open a small drawer. The drawer where I kept my most precious possessions. My father’s gold toothpick, a rose Tom had given me, pressed between the pages of a small leatherbound book of poems, and Jocasta’s pendant, with three hearts intertwined, hanging from a thin gold chain. I slipped the pendant into the pocket of my gown and quickly pulled an embroidered handkerchief from a nearby drawer. Then I closed the wardrobe and sat down, wiping my cheeks with the handkerchief.

The emptying of my jewel coffers went forward, until every gleaming bit of finery I possessed had been put into the bulging sacks and taken away.

The fires in the hearths had nearly gone out.

“Master Denny!” I called. “Master Denny, can you please send me some firewood?”

“Only if the king orders it,” he replied, adding, in a milder tone, “I’m sorry.”

*   *   *

It was not Uncle William who came to see me late that evening, but Uncle Thomas and Archbishop Cranmer.

My scowling uncle, arrayed in furred robes and with a thick gold chain of office around his neck, barely glanced at me. The archbishop, who I had scarcely seen since my marriage ceremony, wore his clerical robes. He was an ill-favored man but soft-spoken; his small eyes, set close together, contained no anger or malice that I could detect.

“As Earl Marshal of this kingdom and ranking peer of the realm,” Uncle Thomas announced, “I am here to examine you and to report to the king the answers you give to the very serious charges brought against you in the royal council. You should know that two of your lovers, Henry Manox and Francis Dereham, have been thoroughly examined”—here he gave me a brief glance—“and have admitted to the most shameful and treasonous acts. You were a willing participant in these acts. Do you admit this?”

“I am innocent.”

“Filthy whore! Lying cunt! Admit your guilt or you will be stretched on the rack along with your lovers!”

I was shaking. I tried not to imagine Henry Manox and Francis screaming as their limbs were stretched and twisted. Of course they would have admitted anything when in such unbearable pain. I squeezed my eyes tight shut, as if to keep out the terrible images that came into my head unbidden.

“My husband would never allow me to be hurt,” I managed to say.

“You think not! You cannot imagine his rage when he learned that you had betrayed him, lied to him, dishonored him again and again! He cursed you at the top of his lungs! He called for his sword. He wanted to kill you himself!”

“But it was you, uncle, who told me to capture the king’s fancy if I could—even though you knew full well that I was handfasted to Francis Dereham!” My knees were weak, but my voice was becoming stronger. “There is no shame or treason in that! And as for Henry Manox, I swear on the cross of Our Lord that I never lay with him, though he did force me to reveal to him my nakedness. Grandma Agnes knew of this. She witnessed it.”

Uncle Thomas began to swear at me again, but the archbishop raised his hand to interrupt him.

“Do you then confess, Catherine,” he said in his strong, magisterial voice, “that you believed yourself wed to Francis Dereham, by the ancient rite of handfasting, and that knowing this, you married King Henry, committing the sin and crime of bigamy?”

“At Uncle Thomas’s bidding, and under the king’s command, yes.”

“And are you willing to confess to the same in writing?”

“If my uncle and my grandmother will confess to their part in the deceit, yes.”

Uncle Thomas stepped toward me as if to strike me, shouting “Brazen strumpet! Foul daughter of a fouler mother! Jezebel! You dare to accuse your own relations of taking part in your lecherous scheming! Lying trollop!”

The archbishop stepped deftly between us. His face registered no emotion. He remained calm.

“You are the liar, Uncle Thomas! You are the guilty one! I never wanted to be the king’s wife! Never!”

“Be careful what you say, Catherine,” the archbishop cautioned me calmly. “Not all truths are welcome.” He spoke in an undertone to my uncle, who after giving me a contemptuous look, swept out of the room.

“Now then, come and sit at this desk, Catherine, and write out all that you have told me. I don’t want to give you false hope, but I believe there may be a way for you to cease being the king’s wife and still retain your honor—or at least some shreds of it. I would not want to see a young girl like yourself racked and tortured, much less facing the executioner like your cousin Anne Boleyn, when all she really did was love a young man and pledge herself to him.”

“I want my uncle and my grandmother to confess that they all but forced me to marry the king.”

“I have no doubt the royal council will call them to account for their actions.”

I was not satisfied, but I did not have the strength or energy to insist. I certainly did not want to encounter Uncle Thomas again. I sat at the desk as the archbishop asked, and began to record my relations with Henry Manox and Francis Dereham, leaving out nothing. Writing was not easy for me, I formed my letters slowly and clumsily. But at last I finished and gave my confession to the archbishop to read.

“Yes, that is sufficient,” he said when he had puzzled his way through my statement. “Now I would advise you to write a little more. Plead for the king to be merciful to you. Ask him to consider how young you were when your music master tried to seduce you. Say that Francis Dereham deceived you, and led you astray. And be sure to say that you loved Master Dereham and were faithful to him—as faithful as the true wife you believed yourself to be.”

I did as he asked, and produced a satisfactory confession. By this time it was after midnight. I was very tired.

“You see, Catherine,” the archbishop said as he folded my document and put it into the inner pocket of his robe, “I believe you and Master Dereham had a precontract. That meant that when you married the king, the royal marriage was not a valid one.”

“Just as when Anna of Cleves had a precontract with the Duke of Lorraine’s son.”

“Precisely so. I believe that the king would be overjoyed to be able to say your marriage to him was null. Then he would not have to punish you. You see, when your uncle told you that the king was furious, and called for his sword to slay you, that was only part of the truth. I was there, I saw what he said and did when he learned of your relations with Master Manox and Master Dereham. He wept, Catherine. That strong, fierce bull of a man actually wept for sorrow. He wept like a heartbroken child, he loves you so much. I believe he could find it in his heart to forgive you, once he knows of this precontract.

“You must pray for forgiveness,” he went on, “and for divine mercy. You must be shriven. You must appear penitent, not defiant. It may well be true that your uncle and grandmother and others in your family encouraged you to inspire the king’s lust, and even to satisfy it—all the while knowing full well that you were not chaste. But it is not for you to accuse them, it is for God to judge them according to their deeds.”

He left me after giving me his blessing, and I got undressed quickly and went to bed in my cold bedchamber, with no supper and no one to attend me. Before I got into bed I knelt and confessed my sins and prayed for forgiveness, asking the Lord to bless my husband and those who accused me, to spare me the rack and the pains of hell and above all, to keep Tom safe.

*   *   *

“Catherine!”

I thought I heard someone whisper my name. The candle by my bedside had gone out, and the room was dark, as I had no fire.

The whisper came again. “Catherine!”

I sat up and looked into the darkness. Faint moonlight illuminated the windows. With a start I saw a man’s form outlined against the lighter glow. A large man.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Uncle William, Catherine. I could not come any earlier. They are questioning me. I only managed to get away by bribing the guards. I wanted to warn you. Your lovers have confessed.”

“I know. Uncle Thomas and the archbishop were here for hours. I wrote out my confession. But the archbishop says the king wants to spare me. He may be able to put me aside as he did the lady Anna, because I was handfasted to Francis Dereham.”

“Yes, I believe he could do that, if he chose. Just as he can pardon me—not that I am guilty of any crime. But I am frightened, Catherine. For myself as well as for you.”

I got out of bed and found my gown, which I had laid across a bench. I took my mother’s pendant from the pocket.

“Can you find a way to get this pendant to the king, and say that I sent it?” I held out the pendant and Uncle William took it from me. His hand was cold.

“This will touch him to the quick. I will do my best to have it taken to him. Good fortune to you, dear Catherine,” I heard him murmur as he slipped out of the room.

“And to you, Uncle William. May the Lord protect us both.”

*   *   *

In the morning I was awakened by a scraping noise in the hearth. A lad was making a fire for me. Firewood was piled in the box, and as I waited, relieved, for the room to warm up more servants were brought in: two chamberers, a groom, and three of my ladies–Joan, Mary Sidford, and—much to my surprise, my cousin Charyn.

“Archbishop Cranmer has appointed us to serve you, Lady Catherine,” Joan said. “We may not call you Your Highness any more. Malyn wanted to join us but the duke forbade it. Charyn has asked if she could take her place.”

“Thank you all,” I said, and held out my hand to the women, who curtseyed and, one by one, took my hand and kissed it.

“Charyn,” I began when she knelt before me—but then I saw that she had begun to cry.

“I want to serve you, Catherine,” she said. “Please forget all the unkind things I have said in the past. I was your friend when we were children. Let me be your friend again.”

We embraced then, and my own eyes filled with tears. It was some time before I was able to dress and compose myself and sit down to the good meal that was brought to me, with my ladies around me and a warm fire crackling in the hearth.

But there was much worse to come.

A few days after this, four men entered my apartments and, without saluting me or acknowledging me, placed a bench before me and told me to sit down. After the four men came a dozen soldiers. My ladies were ordered into an antechamber. Two of the men sat at a table and wrote down everything that was said, their pens scratching across the paper before them. From time to time they looked up at me, frowning, and then began to write again.

A third man drew a folded paper from his doublet, unfolded it and began to read from it. “‘My own Tom, dearer to me than life,’” he began, and I felt my stomach clench. “‘I cannot bear to be without you. I miss you, my own, my sweet little fool.’ And so on. Catherine Howard, did you write this letter? I caution you, the recipient of the letter has already confessed to being your lover during your marriage to the king. Now, I ask you again, did you write this letter?”

All I could think of to say was, “I want Archbishop Cranmer.”

“The archbishop cannot help you now. Answer my question!”

I hung my head. “I believe you already know the answer.”

“The king demands your answer!” he shouted. “You must say the words. You must also confess in
writing
to adultery with Thomas Culpeper while married to the king. You must confess to treason!”

The terrible words resounded in my ears. You must confess to treason. You must confess to treason. The room spun. I felt myself droop on the bench. Then I felt arms supporting me—ungently.

“Where did you get my letter?” I whispered when I had begun to recover myself. I was not able to speak aloud.

“From the torturer. He found it on the person of Francis Dereham. The wretch Dereham meant to bargain with it. To assure the condemnation of Culpeper, in hopes of saving his own life.”

“But not mine,” I said softly. Then a thought struck me. “That letter does not prove anything against me.”

“But when your sweet little fool Tom was tortured, he confessed to being your lover. His confession is more than enough to convict you. And then there is the confession of Lady Rochford.”

Once again I felt my stomach constrict.

“She told us much about your meetings with your lover Culpeper. She said you forced her to serve as your go-between, to seek out private places for your loathsome treasonous meetings with your lover. That you met him again and again, at Lincoln and at Pontefract, and—”

“Yes, yes.”

“Do you confess to having met your lover at these places? Do you confess to having lain with him adulterously, to the peril of the succession?”

“I will confess to Archbishop Cranmer.”

My interrogator pounded on the bench I sat on with his fist, making me jump. “You will confess to me! Here! Now! Or your women will be tortured, as your lovers were!”

“No! No!”