The Fifth Queen

by Ford Madox Ford

  With his face pressed against his cousin’s furred side, Thomas Culpepper swore he would cut the man’s throat.

  ‘Aye, come back again,’ he answered. ‘They call me Sir Christopher Aske.’

  The red jerkins of the King’s own guards came in a heavy mass round the end of the wall amid shrieks and curses. Their pike-staves rose rhythmically and fell with dull thuds; with their clumsy gloved hands they caught at throats, and they threw dazed men and women into the space that they had cleared before the wall. There armourers were ready, with handcuffs and leg-chains hanging like necklaces round their shoulders.

  The door in the wall opened silently, the porter called through his niche: ‘These have leave to enter.’ Thomas Culpepper shouted ‘Coneycatcher’ at the captain before he pulled the mule’s head round. The beast hung back on his hand, and he struck it on its closed eyes in a tumult of violent rage. It stumbled heavily on the threshold, and then darted forward so swiftly that he did not hear the direction of the porter that they should turn only at the third alley.

  Tall and frosted trees reached up into the dim skies, the deserted avenues were shrouded in mist, and there was a dead and dripping silence.

  ‘Seven brawls y’ have brought me into,’ the woman’s voice came from under her hood, ‘this weary journey.’

  He ran to her stirrup and clutched her glove to his forehead. ‘Y’ave calmed me,’ he said. ‘Your voice shall ever calm me.’

  She uttered a hopeless ‘Oh, aye,’ and then, ‘Where be we?’

  They had entered a desolate region of clipped yews, frozen fountains, and high, trimmed hedges. He dragged the mule after him. Suddenly there opened up a very broad path, tiled for a width of many feet. On the left it ran to a high tower’s gaping arch. On the right it sloped nobly into a grey stretch of water.

  ‘The river is even there,’ he muttered. ‘We shall find the stairs.’

  ‘I would find my uncle in this palace,’ she said. But he muttered, ‘Nay, nay,’ and began to beat the mule with his fist. It swerved, and she became sick and dizzy with the sudden jar on her hurt arm. She swayed in her saddle and, in a sudden flaw of wind, her old and torn furs ruffled jaggedly all over her body.

  IV

  THE KING WAS PACING the long terrace on the river front. He had been there since very early, for he could not sleep at nights, and had no appetite for his breakfast. When a gentleman from the postern gate asked permission for Culpepper and the mule to pass to the private stairs, he said heavily:

  ‘Let me not be elbowed by cripples,’ and then: ‘A’ God’s name let them come,’ changing his mind, as was his custom after a bad night, before his first words had left his thick, heavy lips. His great brow was furrowed, his enormous bulk of scarlet, with the great double dog-rose embroidered across the broad chest, limped a little over his right knee and the foot dragged. His eyes were bloodshot and heavy, his head hung forward as though he were about to charge the world with his forehead. From time to time his eyebrows lifted painfully, and he swallowed with an effort as if he were choking.

  Behind him the three hundred windows of the palace Placentia seemed to peer at him like eyes, curious, hostile, lugubrious or amazed. He tore violently at his collar and muttered: ‘I stifle.’ His great hand was swollen by its glove, sewn with pearls, to an immense size.

  The gentleman told him of the riot in the park, and narrated the blasphemy of the German Lutheran, who had held up a putrid dog in parody of the Holy Mass.

  The face of the King grew suffused with purple blood.

  ‘Let those men be cut down,’ he said, and he conceived a sorting out of all heresy, a cleansing of his land with blood. He looked swiftly at the low sky as if a thunderbolt or a leprosy must descend upon his head. He commanded swiftly, ‘Let them be taken in scores. Bid the gentlemen of my guard go, and armourers with shackles.’

  The sharp pain of the ulcer in his leg gnawed up to his thigh, and he stood, dejected, like a hunted man, with his head hanging on his chest, so that his great bonnet pointed at the ground. He commanded that both Privy Seal and the Duke of Norfolk should come to him there upon the instant.

  This grey and heavy King, who had been a great scholar, dreaded to read in Latin now, for it brought the language of the Mass into his mind; he had been a composer of music and a skilful player on the lute, but no music and no voices could any more tickle his ears.

  Women he had loved well in his day. Now, when he desired rest, music, good converse and the love of women, he was forced to wed with a creature whose face resembled that of a pig stuck with cloves. He had raged overnight, but, with the morning, he had seen himself growing old, on a tottering throne, assailed by all the forces of the Old Faith in Christendom. Rebellions burst out like fires every day in all the corners of his land. He had no men whom he could trust: if he granted a boon to one party it held them only for a day, and the other side rose up. Now he rested upon the Lutherans, whom he hated, and, standing on that terrace, he had watched gloomily the great State barges of the Ambassadors from the Empire and from France come with majestic ostentation downstream abreast, to moor side by side against the steps of his water-gate.

  It was a parade of their new friendship. Six months ago their trains could not have mingled without bloodshed.

  At last there stood before him Thomas Cromwell, unbonneted, smiling, humorous, supple and confident for himself and for his master’s cause, a man whom his Prince might trust. And the long melancholy and sinister figure of the Duke of Norfolk stalked stiffly down among the yew trees powdered with frost. The furs from round his neck fluttered about his knees like the wings of a crow, and he dug his Earl Marshal’s golden staff viciously into the ground. He waved his jewelled cap and stood still at a little distance. Cromwell regarded him with a sinister and watchful amusement; he looked back at Privy Seal with a black malignancy that hardened his yellow features, his hooked nose and pursed lips into the likeness of a mask representing hatred.

  This Norfolk was that Earl of Surrey who had won Flodden Field. They all then esteemed him the greatest captain of his day—in the field a commander sleepless, cunning, cautious, and, in striking, a Hotspur.

  A dour and silent man, he was the head of all the Catholics, of all the reaction of that day. But, in the long duel between himself and Cromwell he had seemed fated to be driven from post to post, never daring to proclaim himself openly the foe of the man he dreaded and hated. Cranmer, with his tolerant spirit, he despised. Here was an archbishop who might rack and burn for discipline’s sake, and he did nothing.… And all these New Learning men with their powers of language, these dark bearded men with twinkling and sagacious eyes, he detested. He went clean shaved, lean and yellow-faced, with a hooked nose that seemed about to dig into his chin. It was he who said first: ‘It was merry in England before this New Learning came in.’

  The night before, the King had sworn that he would have Privy Seal’s head because Anne of Cleves resembled a pig stuck with cloves. And, shaking and shivering with cold that penetrated his very inwards, with a black pain on his brow and sparks dancing before his jaundiced eyes, the Duke cursed himself for not having urged then the immediate arrest of the Privy Seal. For here stood Cromwell, arrogantly by the King’s side with the King graciously commanding him to cover his head because it was very cold and Cromwell was known to suffer with the earache.

  ‘You are Earl Marshal,’ the King’s voice drowned Norfolk’s morning greeting. He veered upon the Duke with such violence that his enormous red bulk seemed about to totter over upon the tall and bent figure. A searing pain had shot up his side, and, as he gripped it, he appeared to be furiously plucking at his dagger. He had imagined Chapuys and Marillac, the Ambassadors, coming upon guards with broken heads and sending to Paris letters over which Francis and his nephew should snigger and chuckle.

  ‘You are Earl Marshal. You have the ordering of these ceremonies, and you let rebels and knaves break heads within my very park for all the world to see!’

>   In his rage Norfolk blurted out:

  ‘Privy Seal hath his friends, too—these Lutherans. What man could have foreseen how insolent they be grown, for joy at welcoming a Queen of their faith,’ he repeated hotly. ‘No man could have foreseen. My bands are curtailed.’

  Cromwell said:

  ‘Aye, men are needed to keep down the Papists of your North parts.’

  The two men faced each other. It had been part of the Duke’s plan—and Cromwell knew it very well—that the City men should meet with the Lutherans there in the King’s own park. It would show the insolence of the heretics upon whom the Privy Seal relied, and it might prove, too, the strength of the Old Faith in the stronghold of the City.

  Henry rated violently. It put him to shame, he repeated many times. ‘Brawling beneath my face, cries in my ears, and the smell of bloodshed in my nose.’

  Norfolk repeated dully that the Protestants were wondrous insolent. But Cromwell pointed out with a genial amusement: ‘My Lord Duke should have housed the City men within the palace. Cat will fight with dog the world over if you set them together.’

  The Duke answered malignantly:

  ‘It was fitting the citizens should wait to enter. I would not cumber his Highness’ courtyards. We know not yet that this Lady cometh to be welcomed Queen.’

  ‘Body of God,’ the King said with a new violence: ‘do ye prate of these matters?’ His heavy jaws threatened like a dog’s. ‘Hast thou set lousy knaves debating of these?’

  Norfolk answered darkly that it had been treated of in the Council last night.

  ‘My Council! My Council!’ The King seemed to bay out the words. ‘There shall some mothers’ sons rue this!’

  Norfolk muttered that he had spoken of it with no man not a Councillor. The King’s Highness’ self had moved first in this.

  Henry suddenly waved both hands at the sky.

  ‘Take you good order,’ he said heavily into the lean and yellow face of the Duke. ‘Marshal these ceremonies fitly from henceforth. Let nothing lack. Get you gone.’ An end must be made of talk and gossip. The rumour of last night’s Council must appear an idle tale, a falsehood of despairing Papists. ‘The Queen cometh,’ he said.

  With the droop of the Duke’s long arms his hat seemed to brush the stones, his head fell on his chest. It was finished.

  He had seen so many things go that he loved. And now this old woman with her Germans, her heresies—her children doubtless—meant the final downfall of the Old Order in his day. It would return, but he would never see it. And under Cromwell’s sardonic gaze his head hung limply, and his eyes filled with hot and blinding drops. His face trembled like that of a very old man.

  The King had thrust his hand through Cromwell’s arm, and, with a heavy familiarity as if he would make him forget the Council of last night, he was drawing him away towards the water-gate. He turned his head over his shoulder and repeated balefully:

  ‘The Queen cometh.’

  As he did so his eye fell upon a man tugging at the bridle of a mule that had a woman on its back. He passed on with his minister.

  V

  IN TURNING, Norfolk came against them at the very end of the path. The man’s green coat was spotted with filth, one of his sleeves was torn off and dangled about his heel. The mule’s knees were cut, and the woman trembled with her hidden face and shrinking figure.

  They made him choke with rage and fear. Some other procession might have come against these vagabonds, and the blame would have been his. It disgusted him that they were within a yard of himself.

  ‘Are there no side paths?’ he asked harshly.

  Culpepper blazed round upon him:

  ‘How might I know? Why sent you no guide?’ His vivid red beard was matted into tails, his face pallid and as if blazing with rage. The porter had turned them loose into the empty garden.

  ‘Kat is sore hurt,’ he mumbled, half in tears. ‘Her arm is welly broken.’ He glared at the Duke. ‘Care you no more for your own blood and kin?’

  Norfolk asked:

  ‘Who is your Kat? Can I know all the Howards?’

  Culpepper snarled:

  ‘Aye, we may trust you not to succour your brother’s children.’

  The Duke said:

  ‘Why, she shall back to the palace. They shall comfort her.’

  ‘That shall she not,’ Culpepper flustered. ‘Sh’ath her father’s commands to hasten to Dover.’

  The Duke caught her eyes in the fur hood that hid her face like a Moorish woman’s veil. They were large, grey and arresting beneath the pallor of her forehead. They looked at him, questioning and judging.

  ‘Wilt not come to my lodging?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye, will I,’ came a little muffled by the fur.

  ‘That shall she not,’ Culpepper repeated.

  The Duke looked at him with gloomy and inquisitive surprise.

  ‘Aye, I am her mother’s cousin,’ he said. ‘I fend for her, which you have never done. Her father’s house is burnt by rioters, and her men are joined in the pillaging. But I’ll warrant you knew it not.’

  Katharine Howard with her sound hand was trying to unfasten her hood, hastily and eagerly.

  ‘Wilt come?’ the Duke asked hurriedly. ‘This must be determined.’

  Culpepper hissed: ‘By the bones of St Nairn she shall not.’ She lifted her maimed hand involuntarily, and, at the sear of pain, her eyes closed. Immediately Culpepper was beside her knees, supporting her with his arms and muttering sounds of endearment and despair.

  The Duke, hearing behind him the swish pad of heavy soft shoes, as if a bear were coming over the pavement, faced the King.

  ‘This is my brother’s child,’ he said. ‘She is sore hurt. I would not leave her like a dog,’ and he asked the King’s pardon.

  ‘Why, God forbid,’ the King said. ‘Your Grace shall succour her.’ Culpepper had his back to them, caring nothing for either in his passion. Henry said: ‘Aye, take good care for her,’ and passed on with Privy Seal on his arm.

  The Duke heaved a sigh of relief. But he remembered again that Anne of Cleves was coming, and his black anger that Cromwell should thus once again have the King thrown back to him came out in his haughty and forbidding tone to Culpepper:

  ‘Take thou my niece to the water-gate. I shall send women to her.’ He hastened frostily up the path to be gone before Henry should return again.

  Culpepper resolved that he would take barge before ever the Duke could send. But the mule slewed right across the terrace; his cousin grasped the brute’s neck and her loosened hood began to fall back from her head.

  The King, standing twenty yards away, with his hand shaking Cromwell’s shoulder, was saying:

  ‘See you how grey I grow.’

  The words came hot into a long harangue. He had been urging that he must have more money for his works at Calais. He was agitated because a French chalk pit outside the English lines had been closed to his workmen. They must bring chalk from Dover at a heavy cost for barges and balingers. This was what it was to quarrel with France.

  Cromwell had his mind upon widening the breach with France. He said that a poll tax might be levied on the subjects of Charles and Francis then in London. There were goldsmiths, woolstaplers, horse merchants, whoremasters, painters, musicians and vintners.…

  The King’s eyes had wandered to the grey river, and then from a deep and moody abstraction he had blurted out those words.

  Henry was very grey, and his face, inanimate and depressed, made him seem worn and old enough. Cromwell was not set to deny it. The King had his glass.…

  He sighed a little and began:

  ‘The heavy years take their toll.’

  Henry caught him up suddenly:

  ‘Why, no. It is the heavy days, the endless nights. You can sleep, you.’ But him, the King, incessant work was killing.

  ‘You see, you see, how this world will never let me rest.’ In the long, black nights he started from dozing. When he took time to
dandle his little son a panic would come over him because he remembered that he lived among traitors and had no God he could pray to. He had no mind to work.…

  Cromwell said that there was no man in England could outwork his King.

  ‘There is no man in England can love him.’ His distracted eyes fell upon the woman on the mule. ‘Happy he whom a King never saw and who never saw King,’ he muttered.

  The beast, inspired with a blind hatred of Culpepper, was jibbing across the terrace, close at hand. Henry became abstractedly interested in the struggle. The woman swayed forward over her knees.

  ‘Your lady faints,’ he called to Culpepper.

  In his muddled fury the man began once again trying to hold her on the animal. It was backing slowly towards a stone seat in the balustrade, and man and woman swayed and tottered together.

  The King said:

  ‘Let her descend and rest upon the seat.’

  His mind was swinging back already to his own heavy sorrows. On the stone seat the woman’s head lay back upon the balustrade, her eyes were closed and her face livid to the sky. Culpepper, using his teeth to the finger ends, tore the gloves from his hands.

  Henry drew Cromwell towards the gatehouse. He had it dimly in his mind to send one of his gentlemen to the assistance of that man and woman.

  ‘Aye, teach me to sleep at night,’ he said. ‘It is you who make me work.’

  ‘It is for your Highness’ dear sake.’

  ‘Aye, for my sake,’ the King said angrily. He burst into a sudden invective: ‘Thou hast murdered a many men … for my sake. Thou hast found out plots that were no plots: old men hate me, old mothers, wives, maidens, harlots … Why, if I be damned at the end thou shalt escape, for what thou didst thou didst for my sake? Shall it be that?’ He breathed heavily. ‘My sins are thy glory.’

  They reached the long wall of the gatehouse and turned mechanically. A barge at the river steps was disgorging musicians with lutes like half melons set on staves, horns that opened bell mouths to the sky, and cymbals that clanged in the rushing of the river. With his eyes upon them Henry said: ‘A common man may commonly choose his bedfellow.’ They had reminded him of the Queen for whose welcome they had been commanded.