“Perhaps my good fortune will cancel out her misfortunes.”
“It would take more good fortune than any one woman could have in a lifetime to cancel Anne’s bad luck,” she said vehemently. “Besides, whatever you do reflects on us all. The Howard name must be honored in all things, especially now that we have come into our own. Most of the royal offices are held by our family now.”
“Thanks to me,” I said bluntly.
“Thanks to your dead mother, you mean. You are only her shadow, her echo in the king’s mind.”
“And heart.”
Grandma Agnes shook her head. “Has he a heart? If so, it is a shrunken, withered thing.” I thought this an odd sentiment, coming from my grandmother, the woman who had carried a whip when chastising us at Horsham and Lambeth. The woman who had struck me and starved me.
I dismissed her, much to her displeasure, and called for the tailor Master Spiershon and his seamstresses. I required new gowns and robes for my coronation, and they were being sewn and fitted, which took a good deal of my time.
The king’s decision to order my coronation had come suddenly, as had so many other events that spring. While recovering from his illness, he once again allowed me into his privy chamber, and the first time he saw me, he seemed delighted. As it happened, I was wearing a bodice of thick double Milanese velvet, which made me look heavier than I was, and my stomacher was loose—purely for comfort’s sake. Also I wore at my waist the relic Tom had found for me, the small silver reliquary with the tear of the Virgin, hanging from a silver chain.
“Catherine! Sweetheart! How happy you have made me this day!”
I realized at once that he imagined, from my bulk and loose stomacher, that I was carrying a child—and I decided immediately not to correct him. It was not impossible, after all, merely unlikely. He had not entirely stopped trying to make love to me, right up until his decision to bar me from his privy chamber and the long frightening week of his illness.
He asked about the reliquary hanging at my waist, and I told him it had belonged to Queen Jane, and that it had brought her the good fortune of giving birth to Prince Edward.
“Yes! Of course,” he cried. “Now it has brought you—that is, it has brought us—good fortune as well. Ah, Catherine, I have been waiting for this day! And now we must have you crowned.”
The chosen day of my coronation, June the second, was only weeks away and there was a great deal to do in the meantime. I had to have a splendid gown for my procession through the streets of the capital, when I would be acclaimed by the people, a white gown for my entry into the Tower, robes of purple velvet for my entry into Westminster on coronation day, a magnificent gown for the coronation feast—not to mention new petticoats and underclothes. My coronation regalia and jewels had to be brought from the Jewel House in the Tower, not only the venerable crown but the jeweled circlet I would wear when entering the Tower and the heavy scepter I would carry, and the royal heirlooms the king wanted me to wear, including his mother’s necklaces and his grandmother’s long loop of pearls.
I was quite overwhelmed by all that I had to learn and all that there was to do. The coronation ritual was long and had many parts. I had to memorize where to go and what to do in each long section of the ceremony, as there would be no one to prompt me or guide me on the coronation day itself. I kept being interrupted by the women of my chamber, who, like me, had to have new gowns and who were to take part in the coronation itself. They fussed about their gowns, and worried over their assigned tasks and roles. Charyn demanded that I give her precedence over the others, and there was much squabbling and bickering.
But as it turned out, the commotion in my apartments was as nothing compared to the disputes that arose among the peers. My Howard relations demanded that they be given the premier roles in the coronation ceremony—which caused all the others to complain and make demands of their own, and to threaten not to participate at all. Some were bold enough to say that I was unworthy to be queen. Tom repeated some of the harsh words he overheard when the fractious nobles were quarreling among themselves.
“This king changes wives as often as other men change their hose and doublet,” Lord Morley said. “Why should we take part in a solemnity that will not endure above a year?”
“We did not crown the last one,” Lord Abergavenny remarked with a sniff. “Why should we crown this one?”
Even those who were eager to take part in the ceremony were disgruntled over the way it was to be carried out, and fought with one another over who had the privilege of supporting my right hand when I carried the scepter, and who would be given the honor of carrying my crown.
The northern lords were in revolt, and refused to take part in the coronation at all. On hearing this my husband, fed up with all the petty wrangling, shouted that he was surrounded by jackals and stomped off, limping, to inspect his new tiltyard.
In the end he lost patience with the entire undertaking, convinced as he became that the choice of Whitsun was indeed inviting bad luck, because Queen Anne had been crowned then. His master of the works brought news that repairs were needed at Westminster and in the White Tower, and that they could not possibly be completed by the second of June. But what weighed on him most, I suspect, was his growing fear that the Londoners would not rejoice when my open litter passed through the narrow streets on the day of my coronation procession. Like the insolent few who had harassed us when the royal barge passed along the river, there would be Londoners who would cry out insults, throw offal, and perhaps even attack me.
He confided his worries to me as we lay together in the ample pearl bed.
“I fear the crowds might agitate you too much, sweetheart, especially now, when you are in a delicate state. Who knows what frightening things they might do?”
“I am told that the Londoners mocked Queen Anne when she rode through the streets in her litter, and called out insults. And she was carrying her child at the time.” It was true. My cousin Anne had been crowned when she was pregnant with her one and only surviving child, the Princess Elizabeth.
“They did—and she bore it well enough. She was one who always gave as good as she got. But look what happened! She did not have a son, only a daughter!”
The coronation was cancelled, and the royal household was told to prepare for a great summer progress to the north country, where the king hoped to meet with King James of Scotland and reassert his power and authority over the rebels once and for all.
* * *
Uncle William was about to leave us. The king was sending him to the French court, to be his ambassador there. It was time, my husband thought, to strengthen old alliances that were tottering and build new ones. Sending the queen’s uncle was a sign of special favor.
Before Uncle William left he came to see me. He embraced me and kissed the top of my head. We sat together in a window embrasure.
My uncle looked older than when I had seen him last. His kind face was creased and lined, his grey hair sparse. He was still rosy-cheeked and benign, but there were pouches under his eyes and they were a more faded blue than in the past.
“What’s this I hear? There is to be no coronation after all?”
I shook my head. “It would not have been a happy occasion, uncle. Half the peers were in revolt and the other half were fighting over who had the right to hold the train of my gown.”
He smiled. “I thought it was the queen’s ladies who always held the train.”
“They were fighting too.”
“Do you think it may happen in the fall? Your coronation, I mean.”
“I don’t know. The king is so changeable, no one can say what he will do from one minute to the next.”
“It was ever thus with monarchs, so they say.” He smiled again. “When is the baby coming?”
I looked at him, and could not hide the truth. I shook my head, trusting that I would not have to say the words, to confess that I was now certain I was not pregnant. My monthly flux had come as usual
.
“But he believes—”
“I know.”
He sighed and sat back against the cushions. “Ah Catherine, you are indeed in trouble. Your uncle Thomas is feeling the weight of the king’s expectations. You have already had one miscarriage, so the court believes. Should this pregnancy not come to fruition—”
“I know. My husband’s wrath would fall on Uncle Thomas, for being the one who brought me to court, put me in the way of his notice. He is so quick to blame! And then to punish.”
All at once Uncle William sat upright, his face alert. “You must seize the moment, Catherine. You must! Heed what I say, for you must be serious about this, if about nothing else.”
He reached over and took my small face in his two large hands.
“You must produce a child. If it cannot be the king’s child, then let it be someone else’s. What about your beloved, Tom Culpeper? He has the king’s high coloring, he is tall, though not as strong as our sovereign. Still, Tom’s son could pass as the king’s son. Tell me, Catherine, would Tom be willing to have a child with you, and tell the world it was the king’s son?”
“We have talked about it. We have wondered what would happen if—”
“But you have never had to find out. Now, Lord willing, you need to hope for a desirable outcome. Otherwise…” He did not need to say what he was thinking, what we were both thinking.
“But you and Tom must be aware of the high risk you would be taking. If you were to be found out, if the king discovers that you are lovers, he will show you no mercy. And there would be no mercy for your child either, an unwanted bastard, proof of the queen’s faithlessness—” He shook his head. “But if you go on as you are, your future is equally uncertain. The king believes you to be pregnant now. The child he believes you are carrying must be born. You cannot risk a second miscarriage, or he will believe what Dr. Chambers is saying, that you cannot bear a living child.”
Now it was my turn to sigh. “Oh, Uncle William, if only I could go with you to France!”
“You will, one day, my dear. When you have done your duty and given the king children, children he has no doubt are his own. Think on that, look forward to the best outcome.”
“Dear Uncle William.”
We sat together quietly for a time, each thinking our own thoughts.
“I did not imagine, when you married the king, that you would ever have to risk his disapproval. I thought that his love for your mother would protect you, no matter what.”
I got to my feet and looked out at the gardens, the fruit trees in bloom, the beds of pink and purple and blue flowers, the deep green lawns where gardeners were laboring in the hot sun. All the beauties of the spring were within my reach, indeed at my command, as queen. Yet I was married to an aging man who could no longer bring forth fruit, and whose heart, as Grandma Agnes said, was as withered as the weeds the gardeners were uprooting.
“I doubt whether anyone is safe from him. He grows more moody and irascible by the day, he seems almost to take pleasure in destroying people. Though at times he can show gentleness—toward his horses, for instance. I cannot solve the riddle of his mind.”
“It is the riddle of his soul, Catherine. A dark place, the king’s soul.”
“Only a few days ago,” I confided, “two archers of the royal guard were brought before him, accused of robbing his treasury. They were Uncle Thomas’s men, who had been loyal to him for years. They were innocent of robbery, I’m sure of it. Their accusers were some of the late Lord Cromwell’s men, still trying to take vengeance on the Howards for having opposed their master. I spoke up for them, but I could see by the glare in my husband’s eyes that he had already made up his mind to have their blood. Both men were tortured and killed, cruelly and wrongfully.”
“And you took a risk in defending them. It was a risk you ought not to have taken. You must learn prudence. Remember the old saying, ‘Around the throne, thunder rolls.’”
I looked at my dear uncle. He was in earnest. I trusted him to give sound advice. But I felt myself trembling.
“You must do as I say, Catherine. This is a risk you must take. With Tom, if he will, or with another. Any man with fair hair and blue eyes, tall and strong. And do not delay! There must be a child in the pearl cradle by the first snowfall. If there is not, I cannot answer for your safety—or the succession!”
What he was urging me to do clearly involved grave risk. Yet what would happen if winter came, and the pearl cradle was still empty? Would I end my days like my husband’s discarded fourth wife Anna, reduced to being, like her, a beloved sister, sent away to a palace of my own, with my marriage declared null? Would I ever see Tom again?
My trembling increased as another, far graver thought struck me. What if I proved to be barren, just as Dr. Chambers said. Would the king’s thunder roll, mighty and terrible, and would no place ever be safe for me again?
THIRTEEN
IT was the largest traveling court anyone among the servants could ever remember, the vast assemblage of thousands that prepared to go northward with the king in that June of 1541.
At least five thousand horses were seized from the stables in and around the capital. Hundreds of carts were brought together in the palace courtyards and outbuildings to hold folding tents, provisions, chests of clothing and hangings and carpets, plate and linens, candles and lanterns—everything to create not only comfort but elegance while on our journey. For no town could hold us all, not while there were so many of us. The large moving court would take shelter in temporary structures, set up each evening and dismantled each morning in a flurry of activity. We were a moving town of tents.
Because the men of the northern shires had been in a state of disorder and resistance for months, with open revolt in some places and lawlessness nearly everywhere, we had to take armed knights and archers, halberdiers and pikemen and guardsmen, a thousand soldiers in all, along with their mounts and draft horses and chests of arms. The cannon went northward by ship, but the huge warhorses, twice the size of my mare and larger even than the horses in the tiltyard, required many carts just to carry their fodder and trappings, and the entire armed force had its drummers and trumpeters and heralds, its banner-carriers and grooms, cooks and farriers and laundresses and camp-followers whose nightly activities no one could ignore.
But what made this royal progress unlike any other was that my husband had determined to send not one but two traveling groups north: our horde many thousands strong, and a second set of laborers and servants and carts, horses and guards bound directly for York. These York-bound journeyers were to prepare what the king called a great lodging, a temporary royal residence where he would meet his young nephew James V of Scotland.
The king talked on and on about this meeting, how it would be the first of its kind ever, the kings of England and Scotland meeting in concord instead of in battle. How he looked forward to conversing with his nephew, and to embracing and conversing with his sister Margaret, James’s mother, whom he had not seen in twenty-five years.
“Much can be accomplished,” he told me. “We can come to an understanding. We can strengthen our family bonds.” I knew that my husband was taking a chest of gold coins to present to his sister, who claimed she never had enough money and had even tried to flee the country in order to have an easier and more comfortable life, free of responsibility.
“She is nearly fifty-two years old,” Henry said. “She needs her warm fire and her cushions. Perhaps James will let me bring her back south with me, to live in London. I think she would like that.
“Once before I arranged a meeting with a fellow-monarch,” the king mused aloud. “Many years ago, when I was young and strong. A champion in the tiltyard.”
“And the most handsome king in Christendom,” I put in, smiling.
“More handsome than my brother-monarch King Francis, that was certain. Everyone said so. Though he had a devilish look about him, and the women liked him. We met in terrible weather, near the
French coast. People called it the Field of Cloth of Gold for all the glitter and splendor of it. I had a tent all lined with gold. Quite magnificent. And I won all the prizes of arms.
“King Francis is an old man now, but we still compete. Oh, yes. Now we compete for the loyalty of other rulers, like my nephew. Ah! What a grand thing it would be if the three of us, myself and nephew James and old King Francis, could all meet at York! I could still beat the old man in the tiltyard. I’m sure I could!”
I indulged him, I always laughed at his lighthearted joking, whether it amused me or not. I was determined not to lose his favor again, never again to find myself shut out of his privy chamber. I did not want to risk his anger or even his mildest irritation. I needed to keep up the illusion that we were closer than ever, bound together by our hope for a son. And there were times when he was very affectionate toward me, kissing my cheek, patting me on the arm and hand, even patting my belly and humming to the baby he was sure I was carrying. He joked with the guardsmen and privy chamber gentlemen about how lusty I was, and how he enjoyed having me beside him in the pearl bed.
On the eve of our progress, it seemed to all at court that whatever had divided us had been put behind us, and that we would look forward to the birth of our child united in married happiness.
* * *
At last the immense train of horses and carts got under way, cannon booming a farewell salute and the lowering skies dripping rain. The carts and wagons trundled along the rutted road, our carriage, surrounded by archers and guardsmen, bounced through the thickening mud as showers became downpours and, toward evening, a storm broke and by the time the tents were struck everyone in the traveling party was drenched.
My husband, who earlier in the day had been filled with enthusiasm, now turned glum. He complained about his sore leg. He shouted at the valets who were hurriedly bringing in the furnishings of our dripping tent. He grumbled about his age, the rain, the long journey ahead.
The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Fifth Wife Page 21
