by Alison Weir
Of course, the Duke of Norfolk agreed, and Mary and I left Hampton Court almost immediately. Fortunately, the weather was kind to us on our journey.
‘My father is grateful to be of service to the King by offering you shelter under his roof,’ Mary said, as we took the road to London, our small escort trailing behind. ‘He was grieved to see the King so sad and feels responsible.’
‘His Highness loved the Queen so much,’ I said.
‘We were all taken in by her,’ Mary said, her lips pursed. ‘My father said it was his misfortune to have two nieces offend the King. He feared the Queen’s crimes would rebound on him. Several members of our family are in the Tower on her account.’
‘Then I am glad that my uncle has looked kindly on him,’ I said, reining in my steed to avoid a great puddle.
‘It will be good to have you at Kenninghall,’ Mary said, reaching over and squeezing my arm.
I found Kenninghall to be a magnificent brick house. There were fourteen tapestries in the great chamber alone, and numerous family portraits on display in the long gallery. Costly Turkey carpets adorned the tables and even the floors. I was given the best apartment, which was reserved for honoured guests. Now I sit here, in my window seat, looking out upon the wintry gardens, filled with a sense of having been very lucky, after reflecting on the extraordinary course of my life so far. If this was my punishment for involving myself with a scoundrel, it was by no means onerous. And it was far, far more lenient than what happened to poor Queen Katheryn.
Discover
A naive young woman at the mercy of her ambitious family.
At just nineteen, Katheryn Howard is quick to trust and fall in love.
She comes to court. She sings, she dances. She captures the heart of the King.
Henry declares she is his rose without a thorn. But Katheryn has a past of which he knows nothing. It comes back increasingly to haunt her. For those who share her secrets are waiting in the shadows, whispering words of love . . . and blackmail.
Katheryn Howard. The fifth of Henry’s queens. Her story.
History tells us she died too soon.
This mesmerising novel brings her to life.
Chapter 1
1528
Katheryn was seven when her mother died. She would never forget being led by her nurse into the dim, musty bedchamber where Father was kneeling beside the bed, his head in his hands and his shoulders heaving, and the chaplain was saying prayers. It was shocking having to kiss the cold forehead of the still figure lying in the bed, which looked so unlike the mother she knew.
Why had she died? She had been up and about only yesterday. Yet she had heard her mother screaming in the night, and somehow knew that the little stranger lying in the next room had something to do with it.
‘You must be brave,’ her half-sister Isabel murmured. ‘Our lady mother is now in Heaven, watching over you.’ It was hard to understand that when Mother was clearly lying here.
When Katheryn started wailing, Isabel took her hand and led her out.
‘Hush, sweeting,’ she said, sounding choked herself. ‘Let us go and see our new sister.’
Katheryn stared down at the snuffling infant lying in the cradle. Mary had plump pink cheeks and a pouting mouth. She was tightly swaddled and wore a close-fitting bonnet. It would be ages before she was old enough to play with Katheryn.
‘You must be a mother to her now,’ Isabel said. Katheryn wasn’t sure about that. Babies held little appeal for her; they didn’t do anything. She would far rather be romping with her brothers, Charles, Henry and George, even though they were much older and did not always want to be encumbered by a needy little girl.
She had even older brothers and sisters too, Mother’s children by her first husband. In the days after Mother died, they came down from Stockwell to pay their respects, headed by John Leigh, Katheryn’s eldest half-brother, whom she adored. All the Leighs doted on her, especially Isabel. Isabel was lovely: tall, very fair and still pretty, even though she was thirty-two, which seemed ancient. She was being very kind to Katheryn and had offered to stay on to help Father. It was a mercy that Isabel had been at Lady Hall when Mother died, for Father had now disappeared behind his chamber door, being too sunk in his own grief to heed his children’s misery. It was Isabel who clutched Katheryn to her flat velvet bosom, dried her tears and came hastening when she woke screaming from a nightmare. Isabel had come to help with the new baby. Katheryn thought Isabel should have babies of her own, since she loved them so much, but Isabel was not yet married.
Katheryn was not now interested in practicalities. All she knew was that Mother was gone and that her world had been shattered. She understood what death was, for the household chaplain had explained that it was like going to sleep, although you never woke up because you had gone to Heaven to be with God, and that was something to rejoice over. But no one seemed to be rejoicing at all, and Katheryn thought that God was very selfish, taking her mother away when she loved her so much.
There came the day when Katheryn was kneeling on the floor of the hall, playing shovelboard with Isabel as her nurse looked on, and Father summoned her to his private closet with its dark panelled walls. To the child, Lord Edmund looked wild-eyed and haggard in the candlelight.
‘Come here, Kitty,’ he said. It was his pet name for her. ‘I have something for you.’ He held out his hand and there in his palm lay a glittering ruby ring. ‘Your mother left it to you,’ he went on. ‘She wanted you to have it. You must take great care of it.’
Katheryn picked it up, gazing at it in wonderment. She had never owned such a beautiful object; indeed, she owned barely anything at all, save for her clothes and a few playthings. They were poor; she had grown up knowing it, just as it had been drummed into her that, despite their poverty, she was a Howard and a member of one of the greatest and most noble families in England. The Duke of Norfolk himself was her uncle.
The ring gleamed at her, then its image blurred as tears welled at the memory of her mother wearing it. She would treasure it; it was all she had left of her.
‘Give it to Isabel to keep safely for you until you are older,’ Father said. ‘You will be going away soon; this house is no place for children.’
‘Going away? Where, Father?’ Katheryn asked, alarmed. She did not want to leave Lady Hall.
‘Your Aunt Margaret Cotton has gladly agreed to take you. Your brothers will go to the Duke to be trained for knighthood, and Mary will live with her wet nurse in the village. You will leave for Oxon Hoath on Monday.’ Monday was just three days hence.
The tears spilled over. ‘Are you coming too?’ Katheryn whispered.
Lord Edmund laid his hand on her head and sighed. ‘No, Kitty. Isabel will go with you. I have to stay here and attend to my affairs. God only knows what the future holds, for there is no money left. Be grateful that your aunt is a woman of true Christian charity and is willing to look after you.’
Katheryn did not think she had ever met Aunt Margaret Cotton, and did not wish to do so now. ‘I want to stay here with you,’ she said.
‘Alas, Kitty, I am not fitted to rearing children,’ Father said. ‘It is better you grow up in comfort than starve with me.’
‘Are you going to starve?’ Katheryn asked.
‘Well, probably not,’ her father said. ‘But I cannot give you the life you deserve, and Aunt Margaret can.’
Katheryn cried again at that. She had not dreamed that losing Mother would mean losing Father as well. He had never loomed large in her life, yet he was part of that familiar world that was now crumbling. He patted her head again and called for Isabel. It was she who comforted the child, shaking her head in sorrow at the nurse.
Katheryn sat in the litter, wrapped in blankets against the November chill, with Isabel beside her. She was sunk in misery as she watched her father waving farewell and Lady Hall va
nishing in the distance, and craned her head through the window for a last glimpse of it, until Isabel told her to sit back and pulled down the blind.
‘It’s freezing, sweeting,’ she said.
Katheryn sat there trying to remember her mother’s face. It was horrible knowing that she would never see it again. She might never again play with her boisterous brothers in the field that lay between Lady Hall and the church at Moreton. Her head was full of memories: the Christmas gatherings at Lambeth, receiving a cloth doll made by Mother at New Year, getting her brothers to carry her pig-a-back and Father reprimanding them for being too rough with her, and her nurse grumbling because there was no money for new clothes. But her most cherished memories were those of her mother. Mother sewing by the fire, or making cordial in the still room, Mother teaching her how to make daisy chains, Mother kissing her good night, her gentle hand stroking her hair. Tears welled.
‘You’ve not met your Culpeper kinsfolk, have you, sweeting?’ Isabel said. ‘They are my family too. Our mother was a Culpeper before she married. Aunt Margaret is her sister. You will come to love her, I am sure.’
They jolted through Epping Forest, passing through the villages of Chipping Ongar and Kelvedon Hatch. Presently, Katheryn fell asleep, and only woke up when Isabel shook her shoulder at Tilbury. Here they were to catch the ferry across the Thames to Gravesend. Down by the jetty there was a man selling hot pies, and Isabel bought three, one each for her and Katheryn and one for the groom, and some hot spiced ale.
It was a short journey by boat to the Kent coast. Isabel folded Katheryn in her cloak as they stood on deck and watched Gravesend looming near.
‘Is it far to Oxon Hoath?’ Katheryn asked as the vessel rocked on the tide.
‘About sixteen miles. We’ll break our journey and stay overnight at Meopham. That’s about five miles from Gravesend.’
But they found nowhere suitable to stay at Meopham and had to ride on a further six miles until they arrived, exhausted, at the Bull Inn at Wrotham, which looked inviting. Isabel paid for a private chamber and asked for food to be brought up to them. They had the daily ordinary, a bowl of rich beef stew and slices of apple pie. Then Isabel put Katheryn to bed and sat sewing in a chair by the fire. It all seemed so strange, after the known and the familiar, and Katheryn started crying into her pillow. Instantly, Isabel was there, holding her in her arms.
‘I know, I know, sweeting. She was my mother too and I miss her dreadfully.’ Clutching each other, they wept together until Katheryn fell asleep.
Aunt Margaret Cotton was waiting for them at the door of a big old house with uneven walls and stout timbers. She was a plump matron in her forties with ruddy cheeks and a brisk manner, but Katheryn could see warmth and sympathy in her eyes.
‘Oh, the poor mite!’ she pronounced. ‘I’m glad you brought her to me, Isabel.’
‘So am I, dear aunt,’ said Isabel, and the women embraced each other.
‘William!’ Aunt Margaret called, and a kindly-looking man appeared. He greeted Isabel with a kiss and patted Katheryn’s head.
‘You’re a pretty little thing,’ he told her. ‘I hope we’re going to be friends.’ Katheryn ventured a tentative smile.
‘Come in the warm, child,’ Aunt Margaret instructed. ‘Let’s get some decent food into you.’ In the hall, she stood back and appraised Katheryn. ‘I can see you’re my sister Joyce’s child; you look just like her, dear, apart from your hair. That auburn hair comes from the Howards. Joyce was fair, like me.’ She dabbed her eyes with a kerchief. ‘I can’t believe she’s gone. I hope he had her buried decently!’
Katheryn saw Isabel frown at Aunt Margaret. ‘Of course he did,’ she said. ‘She’s at Lambeth, in the Howard chapel.’
That seemed to satisfy Aunt Margaret. ‘Now, Katheryn,’ she said, ‘you shall meet your cousins.’ She led them into a parlour where four children in her very image were sitting at a table. They all rose and bowed or curtseyed as their mother introduced them. ‘This is Thomas; he’s eight, and John, who is seven. Joan’s our eldest; she’s fourteen, and Anne is twelve. Joan and Anne are both to be wed soon. We shall miss them when they leave the manor.’
The children all seemed friendly. Thomas was a mite shy at first, but Katheryn thought he might be interesting and kind when you got to know him, whereas John had a mischievous look about him, and would not sit still, to his parents’ exasperation. The girls were sweet things and made much of Katheryn, who was eager to point out that she had brothers too and loved to play games with them.
‘Do you play catch and ninepins?’ John asked.
‘I can play anything!’ Katheryn boasted.
‘So can I!’ he countered.
The adults left them to it and went off to unpack Katheryn’s things. Anne suggested a game of hide-and-seek and pulled Katheryn along with her to show her the many hiding places the old house afforded.
‘It’s an ancient place,’ she told her. ‘It’s two hundred years old!’
There were lots of corners and crannies within the numerous stairs and chambers, and cupboards and closets galore; soon Katheryn was racing about and shrieking with the rest. By the time they were called to dinner in the parlour, she was feeling a lot happier.
Within a week, she felt quite at home at Oxon Hoath, where everyone was so kind to her. She could see in Aunt Margaret comforting resemblances to her mother, and Uncle William was a very merry fellow who had an endless store of jokes. There was a litter of kittens in the barn, and a host of dogs about the place. Above all, she was struck by how well the Cottons lived, what good food they had, and their fine clothes. She had never known such plenty at Lady Hall or at her father’s town house in Lambeth. She felt drawn into the bosom of the Cotton family, who treated her as one of their own. Only at night did she weep for her mother.
The young Cottons enjoyed a lot of freedom and the run of the house and its surrounds. It stood in the middle of a great deer park and had been in the Culpeper family for generations. There were lots of Culpeper relations living nearby, at places called Bedgebury, Wakehurst and Preston Hall, many of whom came visiting while Katheryn was at Oxon Hoath. Later, she learned that her grandfather had been the last of his particular line, and that his estates had been divided between his two daughters, her mother Joyce and Aunt Margaret. How different life might have been if Mother had inherited Oxon Hoath!
One day, as Margaret and Isabel were overseeing the boiling of plum puddings for Christmas, Katheryn was sitting under the kitchen table, playing with a kitten and listening to her elders conversing. Much of what they said went over her head, but her ears pricked up at one point.
‘You did better for yourself than Mother,’ Isabel said. ‘She married the son of a duke, but you’ve had the happier life.’
‘Aye,’ Aunt Margaret agreed. ‘I still have the house and much of the property left me by your grandfather. Edmund squandered all Joyce’s inheritance on his extravagances and gambled the rest away at cards. Now there is nothing left but what the Howards have given him. I daresay he’d wager the very roof over his head if he thought it could bring him a fortune. And him an educated man, who has learned Latin, French and logic and God knows what else. He ought to know better!’
‘It cannot be easy being a younger son with no inheritance to look for,’ Isabel said, ever the pacifist. ‘Edmund is one of nine, you know.’
‘All the more reason not to be such a spendthrift with Joyce’s money!’ Aunt Margaret retorted. ‘He told me last Christmas that he’s deeply in debt. I didn’t sympathise, for he had only himself to blame. Those poor children have nothing; the girls will have no marriage portions. What is to become of them, I don’t know! Think how well your father provided for you and your brothers and sisters. I know you haven’t been found a suitable husband yet, but the dowry is there. It gets my goat, how those Howards are so stuck-up and high-and-mighty, and yet so wanting where
it matters. We Culpepers are descended from King Edward the First too, you know!’
Katheryn was surprised to hear the glorious Howards, and her father, spoken of so unkindly. Clearly her aunt had got it wrong. Father had always been nice, if distant, although he was prone to disappearing mysteriously for weeks on end and people often seemed to get angry with him. Perhaps, when he was away, he was playing cards. Katheryn had not known there was anything wrong with playing cards, or that she did not have a marriage portion, whatever that was. She was more worried about her finger, which the kitten, fed up with being pulled about and bedecked with ribbons, had just scratched. She crawled out from under the table with the protesting animal in her arms.
‘Mercy me!’ exclaimed Aunt Margaret, and Isabel said something about little pitchers.
‘My finger hurts,’ said Katheryn, holding it up. Isabel fetched a damp cloth and dabbed at it. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, smiling. ‘Be brave.’
‘Culpeper’s a funny name,’ Katheryn observed.
‘I’m told our ancestors were spice merchants,’ Aunt Margaret said. ‘They were called pepperers.’ Katheryn giggled. She had forgotten about what she had just heard. But that night, lying in her comfortable feather bed in the beamed chamber she shared with Isabel, she remembered and was glad that she didn’t have to be poor any more. Father had been right. Coming to Aunt Margaret’s was the best thing that could have happened to her.
Of all the Culpeper relations who came to stay, Katheryn liked her distant cousin Tom best. He was one of the Bedgebury Culpepers, the senior branch of the family. He came that winter with his parents and six siblings. At eighteen, Tom was eleven years older than Katheryn, but so debonair with his dark good looks, and so kind to a motherless little girl. He took the time to sit with her and admire the kittens, winning her heart completely.
‘We have lots of animals at Bedgebury,’ he told her.
