The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Fifth Wife

by Erickson, Carolly

  Nights in the Paradise Chamber were full of discomforts. We were awakened by the barking of the watchdogs in the courtyard, or by the moans and coughs of the sick girls among us, or by the cries of others awakened by nightmares.

  Some girls wept. One night not long after I arrived at Horsham I was awakened by the sound of sobbing from a bed near mine. The fire in the hearth had burned low and the few candles in the room gave little light, but when I sat up and looked for the source of the sobbing I quickly realized that it was coming from the bed directly across the room from mine. The bed where Alice Restvold slept. Like nearly all the girls in the room, Alice was a distant relation of mine, a few years older than I was, a red-headed girl with a pinched face and large staring blue eyes.

  The noise of her sobbing and sniffing annoyed me, I did not like being awakened. But at the same time I was curious to know what was causing her such distress. I got out of bed and, taking a candle, went to her.

  “Alice!” I whispered. “What is it, Alice?”

  “He—has—gone away,” she managed to say.

  “Who has gone away?”

  “My John.”

  “He is—your betrothed?”

  “No!”

  “Then who is he?”

  “My—beloved!”

  Her beloved, I thought. But not her betrothed. I had never known love, but I had seen it, often. I had seen lovers walking hand in hand, lying together in the warm wet grass on May Day, exchanging glances in church or at table—even embracing in darkened hallways. Father Dawes lectured us sternly about lust, the devil’s temptation of the flesh, but young as I was, I knew that love was a thing apart, nobler far than lust. A treasure to be cherished. I did not yet understand how the two can be entangled, how confusing the urges and pleasures of the body can be.

  “Why would your beloved ever leave you?” I whispered to Alice.

  But my question only made her sob more freely and more loudly. Several of the other girls tossed irritably in their beds and tried to shush her.

  “She’s at it again!” I heard one of them say. “Why can’t she just forget him! He’s gone!”

  Presently I heard a disturbance behind me and in a moment another girl had come up to Alice’s bed. A girl I didn’t recognize. In the dim light I could tell only that she had long dark hair, loosely braided, and that she wore around her shoulders a thick woolen shawl embroidered in a pattern of deep blue and sparkling silver.

  “Stop that noise, foolish chit!” the newcomer said tartly. “You’re keeping us all awake!” She did not bother to keep her own voice low, but barked out her words as she reached swiftly under the blanket and took Alice by the hand.

  “Come with me!” she said. “I’ll give you something to put you to sleep, so we can all sleep through the night.” And pulling the weeping Alice out of bed she fairly dragged her to a door at the opposite end of the long room and, taking a key that she wore around her neck, unlocked the door.

  “You may as well come along,” she said to me as she pulled Alice through the door after her.

  We were in a small chamber furnished with two beds, a chest and a low table. It had a sloping roof and a little barred window, beneath which was a brazier full of red coals. The room smelled of smoke and of something else, something heavy and sweet. A scent I had never smelled before.

  “You are both new to this house,” the girl with the braid said. “You are Catherine, whose mother no one mentions because she was the king’s whore. And you are the sniveling Alice, whose lover has married another.”

  “What?” The shock of the girl’s words made Alice stop crying. “What did you say?”

  “I said your lover, John Brockley, the gentleman usher, has married another woman. He never told you he was betrothed, did he.”

  Alice, her eyes wide, shook her head.

  “What other woman?”

  The girl with the braid went to the wardrobe and began pouring what looked like wine into a goblet. To this she added powder from a jar and stirred the concoction.

  “It matters not. When next you see him, he will have a wife.”

  She handed the goblet to Alice.

  “Here. Drink this.”

  Alice sniffed the liquid, made a sour face, then looked at us. She flinched, but obeyed and drank the liquid in a single gulp. When she finished she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand—something we were admonished never to do—and handed the goblet back.

  I stood watching, somewhat dazed.

  “Who are you?” I asked the girl with the braid. “And how dare you speak ill of my mother?”

  She regarded me coolly. “I am Joan. My father is William Bulmer, Lord Mannering. And everyone in this household knows about your mother, the ill-famed Lady Jocasta.”

  Alice was staring at me.

  “My mother was beautiful. Others were envious of her beauty, and so they defamed her.”

  Joan smiled. “If you like,” she said. “The truth is known, whatever you may say. And besides, she is long dead.”

  I needed no reminder that my mother had been laid to rest long before, when I was a very small child, barely old enough to remember her. My memory of her was of a great sadness, of something warm and loving that had suddenly vanished from my life, leaving only sorrow behind.

  “You guard your tongue about my mother, Joan Bulmer! Or I will whip you!”

  “Indeed? I would not advise it. The last girl who struck me was found much bruised and broken, beside the malt-house door.”

  The menace in her tone made me wary. I knew little of the workings of my grandmother’s large household, but I was aware that every large noble household had its share of ruffians, its cliques, its back-stairs brawls. It had been that way in my father’s much smaller establishment. Things went on behind the backs of the stewards—deeds that were never brought to light. Sometimes quite violent deeds. Until I knew more about the ways of my grandmother’s establishment I would not provoke this brazen girl further.

  But before I could decide how to reply, or what to do, I saw that Alice was slipping down in a faint. To my surprise, Joan reached down and tried to pick her up.

  “Help me,” she said, and together we lifted Alice onto one of the small room’s two beds. She lay there, still and pale, her eyes closed. Frowning, Joan picked up a candle and held it close to Alice’s white face.

  “Has she been spewing?” she asked me.

  “I don’t know.”

  She set the candle back down and felt Alice’s stomach and belly, making her moan.

  I heard Joan swear under her breath.

  “By the bones of Christ, not another one!”

  I looked at Joan questioningly, our quarrel and clashing words for the moment forgotten.

  “These girls! These rich, protected girls, who know nothing of the world, who come here to this lustpit of a house, and get themselves with child, and then—”

  “She’s carrying a child? Are you sure?”

  Joan gave me a withering look, then slapped Alice’s cheek. “Wake up girl!”

  Alice protested, pushing Joan away feebly with one hand.

  “Don’t hurt her!” I objected.

  “Hurt her? I’m helping her! I’m going to help her get rid of this unwanted encumbrance! Before we all are whipped till our backs are raw!”

  What I was seeing and hearing confused me. This forceful, unsparing girl Joan, with her threats and her slaps and her insult to my mother’s memory, seemed to be saying that Alice’s disgrace reflected on us all. That we were living in what she called a pit of lust, not a noble household—my grandmother’s noble household. How could she say such a thing? And how could she be certain that Alice was carrying a child?

  As the night wore on, my confusion lessened. At Joan’s insistence (“Do you really want the wrath of the old duchess to come down on all our heads?” she demanded) I stayed on in the small room while Joan administered another drink to the drowsy Alice. This one took longer to make, and smelled so fo
ul that I thought I would retch. The stench of it filled the room.

  Poor Alice admitted that she had not had her monthly flux for many weeks and that she had often been sick, that whatever she ate would not stay in her stomach.

  “Did no one ever tell you that if you let a man have his pleasure with you there would be a child? Did no one ever show you what to do to make sure no child would be born?”

  Alice shook her head.

  “Then I will tell you.” With a sigh Joan went to the wardrobe and brought out a lemon, which she cut in half.

  “Here,” she said, handing one of the halves to Alice. “Take this and put it inside you.”

  Alice, groggy from the drinks she had been given, stared at Joan, incomprehending.

  “Stupid girl!” Joan spat out. Then, taking the other half of the lemon, she lifted her skirts, spread her legs, and packed the dripping fruit up into her honeypot.

  So quickly did she do this that I hardly had time to be surprised. Alice, after fumbling a bit, managed to imitate her.

  “Do this whenever you are with a lover. If you have no lemons, use a bit of sponge. Dip it in vinegar first. Or if you have no vinegar, dip it in sour milk.”

  “How do you know this? How can you be sure it will work?” I wanted to know. “You are no midwife or wise woman.”

  “I know,” Joan responded, “because I have lain with boys and men since I was younger than you, and I am eighteen now, and I have never yet been with child. I learned what I know from other girls, of course. Older girls. How else?”

  She looked over at Alice, who was holding her stomach with both hands.

  “She’s going to need the chamber pot,” Joan told me. “Don’t be alarmed. The drink I gave her—the second one—was very strong. The juice of tansy and pennyroyal. It will cause her to expel her child. The pain will be great, but it will not last long.”

  Alice was doubled over, grimacing and moaning. She squatted over the chamber pot to relieve herself but could only grunt and emit little shrieks. Her forehead shone with perspiration. She reached for my hand, and when I offered it, she squeezed it so hard it hurt.

  “Help me,” she whispered, then let out a piteous moan.

  What happened over the next hour is best left unrecorded, except to write that when Alice’s pain was finally past, she was no longer carrying her lover’s child. And I, having witnessed her suffering, and done my best to help her through it with soothing words and encouragement, was left exhausted and in need of rest.

  But the lessons of that long night stayed with me. If, as Joan Bulmer said, we were living in a lustpit, then I was determined to avoid its pitfalls. I had no lover, but I vowed that, should a lover come to me, I would keep plenty of lemons nearby, and would be wary and prudent in making use of them. I did not yet know how perilous the ways of love could be, and how even the most prudent of girls could fall prey to its perplexing tangles.

  TWO

  I did not grow much taller, alas! When I turned sixteen I was no taller than I had been at fifteen, and the clothes I brought with me when I first came to Horsham still fit me many months later. They still fit me—but I had worn them so often that they were full of holes and rips and I had been forced to patch them again and again. I had no money to pay a dressmaker to make me new gowns and petticoats, or to buy stockings and trims from the peddlers who came to my grandmother’s estate every few weeks.

  How I envied my pretty cousin Charyn, who not only grew taller and more attractive but became more and more sure of her loveliness the older she became. I saw her looking with satisfaction at her own reflection, smiling at herself in the long pier glass in the Paradise Chamber, or gazing into a pond in the garden in search of her own face. She noticed the admiring glances of the household servants and the gentlemen ushers who served my grandmother the duchess. The envious glances of other girls she pretended to ignore, but I could tell that secretly they pleased her.

  Knowing that others were admiring her, she carried herself proudly, her head held high on her slender neck, her back straight, a tight smile on her face. Frowns were unbecoming, so she seldom frowned. One of her teeth was crooked—her only visible flaw—but she was careful not to let that tooth show when she smiled. And her manner toward others was reserved, her gestures restrained. She never raised her voice, never appeared to quarrel.

  Grandmother Agnes, who was all but impossible to please, gave a slight nod of satisfaction when Charyn passed by, or when she came to our dancing class—something she rarely did—and observed Charyn hopping daintily to the music, never out of step, never disheveled at the end of a long intricate dance.

  Though Charyn and I were friends, and had been friends since we were very young, her father’s estate being near ours, we could hardly have been less alike, and the older we grew, the more dissimilar we became. I liked to giggle and tell jokes—anything to make the other girls laugh. If I could make them laugh, they might not notice that my nose was too big and my eyes were set too far apart for beauty—flaws Charyn was forever pointing out to me. I liked to romp and play games and go for long walks, even in the rain sometimes. Walking lifted my spirits, though I was often bedraggled by the time I got back to the Paradise Chamber, my torn skirts ever more torn, my petticoats muddy. I was not careful to walk in a certain way or keep a certain expression on my face. And I hardly ever looked in the pier glass. Seeing my appearance made me glum, and reminded me that my nose was too big and long. If I thought about it, I realized that my lack of beauty might keep me from ever marrying.

  Charyn was desirable as a wife, because she was a Howard and her father could provide a generous dowry, and because of her youth and beauty. She boasted that discussions were already under way between Grandma Agnes and several highborn, well-to-do men seeking brides. These discussions made my cousin more prideful than ever, and more quick than ever in reminding me that no match might ever be made for me.

  “There is a reason why I am soon to be betrothed and you are still a maid, with no suitors for your hand.”

  “You are two years older than I am,” I countered. “I am too young to be betrothed.”

  “Many girls are married at twelve,” Charyn snapped, her usual reserve cast aside, her usually low voice raised.

  “Your age is not the reason. The fact is, we are very unalike. I have the fine breeding of a nobleman’s daughter, and you do not.

  “When a litter of pups is born, one is always the most desirable. The handsomest, with the best and thickest coat, the keenest sense of smell, the most skillful at the hunt. But one or two of the pups are always runts—small, like you. They are inferior whelps, to be discarded. They cannot be allowed to breed. Their inferior sire and dam condemn them.

  “You, Catherine, are an inferior whelp and it is time you realized it, as everyone else does. You cannot be allowed to breed. You will never marry.”

  Charyn’s cutting words brought out all my defiance.

  “At least I am not going to be sent to a convent, like Margery Pounder.” Margery, a sullen girl cursed with a clubfoot and with an unsightly birthmark on her forehead, was ridiculed by the other girls and even more cruelly by the grooms and valets. She had not been at Horsham long before we heard that she was going to be sent to live with the Sisters of Charity. It was understood that she would not marry.

  “Not yet,” Charyn was saying. “But that may be your fate before long, if you do not grow any taller.”

  “Perhaps my feet will sprout stumps,” I joked. “Or perhaps my head will expand—as yours has.”

  Charyn gave me one of her rare frowns, then stalked off, her back very straight.

  I had deflected her barbs, yet her words worried me. Was I indeed to be sent away if I failed to grow? Would I never know love? Would I be denied the pleasure of a happy marriage, children of my own, all of us living in a fine house with spacious grounds, and perhaps other manors and estates besides?

  Could it not happen? I was the niece of the mighty Duke of Norfolk, th
e granddaughter of the dowager duchess. Why shouldn’t I have a wealthy husband, just because I was not very tall?

  Inferior whelp indeed!

  * * *

  I was musical and liked to pick out tunes on the virginals. I could play almost any tune I heard, at least I could find the melody easily enough on the wooden keys. There were two virginals kept in one of the upper rooms at Horsham, one quite old with a beautiful case painted with cupids and blue gillyflowers and the other one newer with a plain case but keys that responded more easily to the touch. I sometimes sat playing tunes for an hour or more, making up melodies of my own and amusing myself by singing them.

  One afternoon I was startled when my grandmother Agnes came into the room. With her was my uncle William Cotton, benign and pleasant as always. His belly seemed rounder than ever, and his hair thinner and more sparse. He looked as though he had a priest’s tonsure. But his face was jolly and smiling, and his eyes were bright with pleasure at the sight of me.

  “So that was you banging away on the keys,” my grandmother said. “I would hear more.”

  I thought for a moment, then played “Into the Greenwood Go,” a song I had often heard the musicians play at my father’s house.

  “Good girl,” my uncle said. “Clever girl. She has always played well, you know. Ever since she was very small. Catherine dear, can you give us a sacred melody?”

  I played a hymn the choir sang at Easter and sang along with my playing, and when I finished I heard my grandmother saying, “Well now, at least she can do something!”