“Dearest Catherine!” His greeting was warm as ever, his smile wide and comforting. I led him into my bedchamber where I knew we would not be disturbed.
“Do you think we could have some of your good calming poppy broth?” he asked as we seated ourselves comfortably near the warm fire. “I feel the need of a soothing posset. I don’t know whether the news has reached you yet, but I was caught in a very bad storm—the worst I’ve ever encountered—coming back from France.”
“But how terrible!” Pausing just long enough to ask my chamberer for the poppy broth, I fixed my attention on my uncle, who was describing the crippling of his vessel in the high waves and fierce winds.
“We didn’t sink, though it seemed for a time as though we would. The vessel was badly damaged. I confess to you, Catherine, I was lucky to escape alive. Unfortunately, everything I had with me—most of my possessions, other than the furnishings of Oxenheath—was lost. Even some of my treasured family heirlooms.”
He took a long breath and, in expelling it, seemed to shrink down, as if in unburdening himself about the loss of his possessions he had lost something of his girth.
The broth arrived and we both sipped it, anticipating its calming effect.
“At least you survived. That is all that matters.”
He nodded. “Of course, only—”
“Only what?”
“The terror of it all lingers. Some of the fear has stayed with me, maybe because I’m old.” He grinned. “Old and fat—but lucky.”
“Like Jonah here,” I said, picking up the monkey. “You know I named him after Jonah in the Bible, who was lucky too.”
“Thrown into the sea during a terrible storm, as I recall—but then rescued by a whale. I saw no whales while enduring that alarming crossing.”
As we sat together, sipping our broth, I saw a further change come over Uncle William. His look was, as always, benign, but tinged with concern.
“I fear there is another storm coming, Catherine,” he said after a time. “And I must be the one to tell you about it.”
I stopped petting Jonah and put him down.
Uncle William licked his lips and set down his cup of broth. He took a deep breath.
“The king has left Hampton Court, Catherine. He left last night, in haste and in secret. He went to London to meet with his councilors.” He paused, then took another breath and went on. “I’m very much afraid, my dearest girl, that the king is about to set you aside.”
I felt my knees turn to water. I thought I was going to faint. I reached out to Uncle William, who took my hand in his two strong warm hands, which felt slightly moist.
“You must be brave, and listen carefully to what I am going to tell you. Can you do that?”
My head felt muzzy. I could not think clearly.
“I will try.” My words were so soft I could hardly hear them.
“That’s my girl. This is what you must understand, Catherine. We Howards are under assault. All of us. I was summoned back from France because our family is being attacked on all sides. I have been accused of stealing funds from the royal treasury. Your uncle Thomas is accused of conspiring against the throne, and concealing treason. Your grandmother is accused of treason, of stealing valuable papers and burning them. And you—you are being made the center of it all, I’m sorry to say.”
“I?”
He nodded gravely.
“Because I am Jocasta’s daughter.”
“No, dear. Because you are—to use Archbishop Cranmer’s words—unchaste.”
I began to cry then. There was no help for it. I could not even try to conceal from Uncle William what was well known to Grandma Agnes and no doubt to Uncle Thomas and Uncle William as well. That Francis had been my lover and Henry Manox my would-be seducer, my partner in lechery.
After a few moments I managed to wipe my eyes and look into Uncle William’s kind face once again.
“But I never allowed Henry Manox to take my maidenhead,” I said softly. “And I was handfasted to Francis Dereham. We were husband and wife. At least I believed we were.”
“Your crime, Catherine, was in concealing what you have just confessed to me. Your unchastity made you unfit to become queen. Also your untruthfulness about it. You betrayed the king every day that you continued to conceal your past.”
I pulled my hand out of Uncle William’s grasp and buried my head in my hands. I could bear no more.
I felt him pat me on the shoulder, meaning to comfort me.
“Drink your poppy broth,” he said. “I will be back later to talk to you further.”
* * *
I did not know what to do. As soon as Uncle William left me, I rushed, panic-stricken, into the corridor outside my apartments. But there were guardsmen there, a dozen or more, and they blocked my path. I was told, firmly but courteously, that it was the king’s command that I keep to my own rooms.
My women had disappeared. Even the boy who came in to bring my firewood did not come as he usually did. Where was Joan? Where was Lady Rochford? And all my other maids of honor and ladies? I looked out of my bedchamber window at the river, and saw the royal barge, moored near the river stairs.
Had my husband returned? Could I appeal to him for mercy? I watched the barge, but saw no one enter or leave it. I was hungry. How was I to eat if there were no servants to bring me food from the kitchens?
I found some apples one of the servants had left behind, and fell on them hungrily. I tried to sleep, but could not. I was far too worried. When would Uncle William return? Where were my women? As if to echo the turmoil I was feeling, the skies began to darken and soon a dismal rain began to fall.
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 offi
ce 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, relieve
d, 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 Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Fifth Wife Page 25
