The Last Wífe of Henry VIII

by Carolly Erickson

  One by one the worshipers came forward to receive their bit of blessed bread, following which they gazed down into Saint Agatha’s coffin and asked for her blessing. I joined the line, with Emma’s mother ahead of me and John following me. I glanced at Margaret, who lay unmoving on her pallet, her eyes closed. I could not tell whether she was still breathing, so motionless was her small form under the thick blanket.

  Emma’s mother came to Prior Wulfstan, opened her mouth to receive her morsel of bread, and moved on. I held my breath.

  As I watched, she walked the few steps to the coffin and looked down—into her daughter’s face.

  She screamed.

  A terrible, loud, wailing scream. An unearthly scream, like that of one waking from a hellish nightmare.

  I froze, as did those around me. For an instant, time stopped. Then, with an angry roar Emma’s mother rushed at Wulfstan and began to beat at his chest with her fists.

  “This is not Saint Agatha!” she shouted, loudly enough for many in the room to hear. “This is my Emma! You have stolen my daughter! My Emma!”

  Others rushed to look down into the coffin, some of them from Grundleford where Emma was well known.

  “It is true! It is true! This is Emma!”

  I was buffeted as people pushed past me, eager to confirm with their own eyes what they were hearing. There were more shouts, more screams. A woman fainted. Emma’s mother, restrained by two pilgrims in gray robes, continued to denounce Prior Wulfstan at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her face.

  I felt John clutch my hand. Becca and Jacob had been pushed away by the crush of bodies, now clustering around the altar, but I could still see them.

  All around me there were cries of alarm, murmurs of bewilderment and discontent. Who has done this terrible thing? I heard a voice say. Who has committed this sacrilege? It can’t be, surely she is mistaken, came another voice.

  Not Saint Agatha. Not Saint Agatha. Gradually the full realization spread throughout the room. Outraged, in fury, the disillusioned worshipers sought to vent their wrath. Some attempted to rush toward Prior Wulfstan, others uttered loud curses, some struck out blindly, convulsed by rage.

  Johnny leaped up onto the platform and attempted to shout above the noise and chaos, the panicked mooing and bleating of the animals, the shouts and cries. But he was drowned out and shoved aside. Prior Wulfstan jumped down off the platform and tried to push his way out of the room, but was snatched at and held by dozens of angry worshipers, demanding to know how the body of a dead village girl came to be in the saint’s coffin.

  Shoved this way and that as those around me pushed and were pushed, I was nearly knocked off my feet. I thought, we will die here. We will all die here. We will be trampled. Into Thy hands, O Lord, Into Thy hands—

  But then, just as I was feeling at my most powerless, and resigning myself to die, something very remarkable happened.

  Whether it was the setting sun breaking through the dark clouds, or whether, as it seemed at the time, a light from beyond our earthly realm began to penetrate the room, there was a sudden illumination.

  Bright light flooded in through the tall windows of the immense room, shafts of clear golden light, magnificently radiant, shining on the angry, shouting faces, the flailing arms and clenched fists, the tearstained cheeks and eyes filled with disillusionment and pain.

  To us who were witness to this seeming marvel the light appeared to gather focus on the statue of Saint Agatha, bathing it in a golden glow. To our awed eyes it appeared that the statue, her face gracious and benign, began to smile. Such a smile it was! A smile of infinite and tender kindness, of forgiveness, of holiness.

  As rapidly as the impulse of anger and violence had spread through the mass of worshipers, there now came a cessation of fury and struggle, a wave of peace.

  “It is Saint Agatha! The true saint! It is a sign from Saint Agatha!”

  In quiet reverence the pilgrims knelt and crossed themselves. Emma Hauser’s mother knelt beside the coffin where her daughter lay. Prior Wulfstan, looking up in amazed wonder at the golden statue, fell on his face before it.

  “Agatha, blessed Agatha, forgive me!”

  The animals had fallen silent, the invalids too were hushed, the wonderful light illumining their faces so that they blinked in amazement, seeming to forget their suffering.

  Margaret too opened her eyes, blinked and looked around her. As I watched, too overjoyed to speak, half afraid that I was only imagining what I thought I saw, she slowly sat up. Seeing John, she held out her bare arms to him—arms which, I saw clearly, no longer bore the red rash of the Sweating Sickness.

  “Father!” John went up to her, the kneeling pilgrims parting to let him by, and lifted her in his arms.

  This was our moment. I felt it. I looked at John, and he seemed to understand. Instead of coming toward me he made his way toward the outer door of the banqueting hall, Margaret in his arms. I followed him. Together we passed through the door and into the courtyard where Jacob, anticipating our departure, soon met us with horses.

  Taking only what we had with us, and hoping we would not encounter any brigands or suspicious pilgrims on the road, we spurred our horses along the highroad toward the south and safety, surrounded by the glowing golden light of the setting sun.

  17

  WHEN I SAW KING HENRY RIDING IN FULL ARMOR AT THE HEAD OF his army I was quite overawed by the sight. Here, coming up over the brow of the hill, was a force of men—pikemen, bowmen, spearmen, strong and fit and girded for war—with a tall, resolute commander on a fine Barbary stallion in the forefront, banners with the Tudor coat of arms flying at his side.

  Henry rode in his golden armor, which gleamed and shone and flashed in the sunlight. His feet were in golden spurs, the trappings of his mount were of red and white and gold and even the tail of his splendid horse was braided with gold.

  We had known for several days that he was coming, determined to reclaim the rebellious North Country for his own and to punish those who had risen against him. But we were not prepared for the overwhelming impact of him, our sovereign king and lord, riding in his might and glory, with all the thunderous power of a thousand men-at-arms at his heels.

  For two weeks we had been at Briarknoll, an estate near Gadbury, where we had taken refuge from the turmoil that followed the collapse of the pilgrim revolt. Margaret was recovering wonderfully (thanks be to Saint Agatha!). Johnny, sobered and even contrite after his discovery that he and the other pilgrims had been deceived and led astray by Prior Wulfstan, was preparing to join the Calais Spears, my uncle William’s troop of fighting men who guarded the king. John, weakened by the ordeal of his capture and looking pallid and frail, kept to his bed and rested, while I read to him from his favorite books of romance.

  But we all, even John, went up on the roof of the manor house to watch the approach of the royal army, with King Henry in the vanguard, and we all cheered and waved as the men passed by, on their way to St. Mary’s Abbey which was to become the king’s headquarters, and we were delighted when some of the men raised their hands to us in acknowledgment, and shouted “Down with the rebels! Down with the filthy pigs of rebels!” and other oaths and curses which I will not record here.

  I had not seen the king since he became a widower, since word reached us that he had accused his queen, Anne Boleyn, of adultery and ordered her executed.

  We were not altogether surprised by this news, though it made me shudder when I heard it and cross myself. Visitors from the south had kept us informed of the king’s marriage to Anne and the turbulent, often bruising course it had taken. How the king had married Anne and had paraded his new pregnant bride before the Londoners. How she had borne his child, only to have that child turn out to be a princess, Princess Elizabeth, instead of a prince. And how Queen Anne, as many said, lay under a curse from that day forward and had been unable to give Henry a son.

  Then a messenger had come to John from the court with a letter from the
royal council, informing him that Queen Anne had been charged with treason and would lose her life. Swift on the heels of the first messenger came a second, bearing happier news: King Henry had married one of the late queen’s ladies, Jane Seymour.

  He must be content with his new wife, I thought as I watched the royal army pass with the king riding in all his magnificence in the vanguard. She must please him. I pray she gives us a prince.

  Soon after the royal army arrived John and I were invited to a banquet at the abbey. I wore my most becoming gown of peach-colored silk trimmed in saffron lace, with undersleeves of gold brocade. It was a very elaborate gown; it took my maids half an hour just to fasten me into the undershift, overskirt and tied-on sleeves, which were fastened at the wrist with rubies. I had an English hood to complement the gown, for I knew that our new queen Jane preferred the old-fashioned peaked English hood to the round French hoods Queen Anne used to wear.

  Queen Anne! I was only too aware, as John and I were escorted to our places of honor at the king’s banqueting table, that I must not mention her name or allude to her in any way. She had been swept from the face of the earth, and all that remained of her was her child, Elizabeth, the child no one dared speak of and no one at court ever saw.

  The king was munching on a sweetmeat when we were brought up to the table. Apparently he had begun dining before his guests arrived.

  “Ah, Lord and Lady Latimer! Our honored guests!”

  The king motioned to us to sit down, waving us toward two high-backed carved chairs, a welcoming smile on his fleshy face. I saw now what had not been apparent when I admired him from a distance, on horseback: that he had grown very fat.

  The slender, athletic hero-king I had seen on the tiltyard when I was a girl was no more; instead, here was a heavy, jowly warrior-king, muscular and strong but ponderous in his movements. The Henry I remembered was handsome and full of seductive charm. The man I saw before me now was middle-aged and had a sour droop to his mouth. Though he was being gracious to John and me his small eyes, sunken in their puffy sockets, were suspicious. And I noticed that the men around him were afraid of him. Their fear revealed itself in small ways, in the restlessness and slight trembling of their hands, in the way they stiffened to attention when he spoke, in the sidelong glances they gave him, as if watching for sudden unexpected movements, when he was silent and preoccupied.

  “Here is the lady who saved the North for the crown,” Henry was saying, his loud voice carrying easily throughout the large abbey refectory where we and a hundred or more others were about to dine. “Had she not acted to prevent the rebel march on York, we might be fighting today, instead of hanging rebels from every tree between here and the marches!”

  I was acknowledged with enthusiastic applause.

  “And here is her stalwart husband, Lord Latimer!”

  Acclamation for John was hesitant (for it was well known that he had been about to lead the rebels into York, albeit under duress) until the king began clapping loudly. Then the noise rose in a crescendo. John smiled wanly in response. He knew that by sending the rebels into confusion and turning them against Prior Wulfstan I had saved his life; had he led the pilgrims into York he would have been executed by the king as a traitor.

  Servants brought in the first course, shields of brawn and frumenty with venison, salted hart and a rich bruet. Musicians played as we ate, and for a moment I felt I was back in London, a young girl again, sitting beside my mother as she waited on Queen Catherine. But then I reminded myself that Queen Catherine was dead, she had died alone in her lonely exile at Kimbolton Castle. And that we had a new queen on the throne now, Queen Jane.

  For some three hours the banqueting went on, with course after steaming course brought in and abundant wine to drink. The king, as ever the focus of all attention, talked on and on. But I couldn’t help feeling tense, for there was such a strong undercurrent of fear and uncertainty in the room.

  John grew tired and nodded over his plate of jellies and Lombard Milk.

  “Rooms are prepared for you,” the king said to me. “I hope you and Lord Latimer will stay the night.”

  I wondered for a moment whether King Henry was inviting us to stay the night so that he could visit my bedroom. He had always been seductive with me. But I saw no lechery in his expression. And it would be better for John if he did not have to ride back to Briarknoll until the following day.

  “Thank you, your majesty.” I got up and helped John to his feet. We were shown to a suite of small rooms, formerly monks’ cells, and John lay down on one of the narrow hard beds.

  There was a light tap on the door and when I opened it, a servant bowed and handed me a note.

  “Walk with me in the garden, Cat,” was all it said.

  Of course I knew it was the king’s message. I threw a coarse brown blanket from one of the beds over my thin gown and made my way to the inner courtyard where the king, with several tall guardsmen, was waiting.

  The chill night was moonlit, and the air, though still wintry, smelled of damp earth and moss and pungent animal scents. There were no signs of spring yet, but they would arrive soon. Already the frost, when it came, left a thinner rime on the grass and melted in the early morning sun.

  As soon as I came up to King Henry and his escort, he sent the guards away.

  “I don’t think I need to worry about any pilgrim assassins lurking in the shrubbery tonight, do I?” He smiled, and I smiled back, a tentative smile. “Do I need protection from you?”

  “I am your majesty’s loyal subject.”

  “Ah, but you are far more than that, and I think you know it. You realize I came within a hair’s breadth of losing this northern region.”

  I shook my head. “It was a sort of madness, this rebellion. A contagion. People got caught up in the excitement of marching, and killing, and believing in the cause of defending the old faith.”

  “And attacking the evil Mouldwarp. Oh yes, I know what they say about me. Some of them really do want me dead.”

  “Only because they think you want to destroy their faith.”

  “To destroy their faith? Is that what I am doing? Or am I liberating them from the corruption and superstition of the church of Rome?”

  We walked slowly through the old garden, the trees bare-branched and the shrubs leafless and low to the earth, as if clinging to the bare ground for comfort in this season of cold and darkness.

  “I have great plans for this place,” the king said as we rounded the corner of the herb garden and entered an orchard. “Oh yes, great plans. I need a strong fortress here in the North Country. St. Mary’s Abbey will be dissolved. There will be no more St. Mary’s Abbey. These grounds, these buildings will become my new palace. My Imperium.” He waved one arm in a sweeping gesture.

  “No king of England has ever built such a palace, on such a scale. I have ordered twelve hundred workmen hired. It will be magnificent. A monument to Tudor greatness.” He stopped walking, paused in his talk, and looked over at me. “If only God is gracious, and gives me a son to inherit it.”

  “Yes. I was very sorry to learn of the Duke of Richmond’s death.” Henry’s bastard son had died the previous summer, only the death had been kept secret for months. John and I had only learned of it recently. The king had ordered a quietly obscure burial for poor Henry Fitzroy, the boy who had never been good enough at sports to satisfy his father.

  Henry shrugged. “I was fond of him, at one time I had hopes for him, but he was an embarrassment. Besides, my little Jane is pregnant. We will have a boy. I feel it.” He reached into an inner pocket of his doublet and pulled out a silver-backed miniature. He handed it to me. The moonlight shone on the palm-sized painting of a woman’s face, her hair hidden under her severe cap, her small brown eyes solemn, her small mouth held tight and rigid, as if she was making an effort to hold her tongue. It was the face of a girl, I thought, not a woman. And a girl no one would look at twice.

  “She’s very plain, as you can see
. Nothing like the Witch.” He looked over at me, his gaze searching. I did not know what, if anything, to say. He had brought up the unmentionable subject: Queen Anne. And he was looking to see how I felt about what had happened to her.

  I dared not tell him, of course. I dared not say, you are a murderer. You tired of your shrill, demanding Queen Anne, and you grew angry at her when she did not give you the son you wanted. So you lied about her, and accused her of adultery, and forced her own uncle to serve as her judge and put her to death. I dared not say, you did something ugly and wrong, and you are a murderer.

  I looked back at Henry, and saw, at that moment, the ruthless, calculating gaze of a man capable of putting a woman he had once loved to death. There was ice in his glance, ice in his heart.

  “I am told that Queen Jane has a very sweet nature, and kind affections.”

  “She has, she has. Not like the Witch.”

  Once again there was only silence, as we walked on under the bare trees. I pulled my blanket around me. An owl hooted twice, and then I heard the beat of wings and the scream of a small rodent as the owl swooped down and caught his prey.

  “She was one, you know,” Henry was saying, his voice low and slightly tremulous. “No matter what anyone says. She put me under a spell. She forced me to love her.” At the word “forced,” the king’s voice broke. “All that I did that was wrong, I did because she forced me.”

  I stopped walking, turned and looked up at him. “You don’t really believe that. You are far too intelligent a man to believe that.”

  He laughed, and for a moment his somber mood lifted. “That’s what I love about you, Cat. You have fortitude. Nothing frightens you.”

  “A great deal frightens me. You frighten me.” I looked up into his face. A smile still hovered at the edges of his lips but his eyes were hard and glittering in the moonlight, the line of his jaw set and firm. Suddenly I felt the weight of my fear. I had an urge to run from him, yet I knew that if I ran, he would catch me before I had gone more than a few steps. I thought, we are like the owl and the poor creature it caught, the creature whose dying shriek I had heard only minutes ago. Wherever I go, whatever I do, he will always have the power to swoop down on me and catch me in his sharp talons, and I will be at his mercy.