The Boleyn Wife

by Brandy Purdy

  42

  Cranmer and Norfolk interrogated me several times. Sometimes I babbled nonsense, irritating and irrelevant; other times I shrieked hysterically or tossed about, wild with delirium. And in between there were moments when the veil of insanity was torn away and I told them everything. I told them all of Kat’s secrets—every confidence entrusted to me I shamelessly betrayed.

  But judge me not too harshly. By this point in my wretched tale we have all shown our true colors; we have all tried to save ourselves at the expense of friends, lovers, and kin; we have all denied culpability and pointed the finger of blame elsewhere. And any collusion that ever existed between Kat, Culpepper, and me has been lost in the shuffle.

  When she was questioned, Kat groveled for mercy and wept, trying to justify herself with her youth and wayward upbringing. Her grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, failed to give the vulnerable young girl entrusted to her care the proper guidance, and for this, she, not Katherine, should be held accountable.

  Francis Derham was a handsome rogue and a winsome devil—everyone, including the man himself, agreed upon that—but to save her life Kat could not stick to a single story. At first, she claimed there was never anything between them. Then she cried and called Derham a monster who forced his way into her innocent bed, ravaged her, and stole her virginity. Next she admitted that on more than one hundred nights they lay together as man and wife. Yet—stupid, stupid girl—even when Cranmer took pity on her and patiently and repeatedly explained that if she confessed that there had been a precontract, or any sort of informal marriage ceremony, between herself and Derham then, in the law’s eyes, this was tantamount to an actual, legally binding marriage, and thus for treasonous adultery she could not be condemned, as it would mean that she was never lawfully the King’s wife, Kat still insisted that their calling each other “husband” and “wife” was just a game.

  And when the question of Culpepper arose, Kat leveled the finger of blame at me. Yes, at me! “Lady Rochford,” she said, “was the principal occasion of the folly!”

  Poor Master Culpepper, she claimed, was struck by Cupid’s dart at the sight of her; and I, insisting that he was pining away and dying of love for her, pestered and plagued her night and day, until, out of the goodness of her heart, Kat agreed to meet with him. But there was no truth to the rumors; they were never more than just good friends who flirted and bantered a bit in gallant, courtly fashion.

  But to hear Master Culpepper tell the tale, it was something else entirely. The Queen, he claimed, relentlessly pursued him. She showered him with gifts—jeweled brooches, rings, gold chains, velvet caps, and even a fine chair. And when they searched his rooms, a letter was found wherein Kat declared, “It makes my heart die to think that I cannot always be with you,” and signed herself, “Yours as long as life endures, Katherine.”

  Ah, yes, I remember well that damning letter! It was my hand that guided hers, slow and laboriously; the only letter Kat had ever in her short life written.

  But in the end, being but a man with the usual healthy lusts and appetites, Culpepper confessed that with the greatest reluctance he gave in and met alone with Katherine. Though by God and all his saints he swore nothing of a carnal nature ever passed between them. Though they were both of a mind to, a suitable opportunity never presented itself. And all they ever did when they were alone together was talk.

  And I, I was merely a lady-in-waiting acting upon the orders of my Queen, though I did often warn her that there would be dire consequences if her naughty deeds ever were found out. And upon the question of carnal intercourse, I merely said that, considering everything that I had seen pass between Culpepper and the Queen, I was certain that they had been intimately familiar. Perhaps I said more in even greater detail when I was distraught and mad, but if I did that was not my fault. I was the only truly blameless person involved in all this!

  Henry Manox too was found and questioned. Naturally, he maintained his innocence throughout, claiming he never did more than grope beneath Kat’s petticoats. “For the corruption of her morals I blame Francis Derham!” he zealously announced. And, guilty of nothing more than playing with a maiden’s cunny, he was set free with a warning not to be so presumptuous in the future, lest that girl also someday become Queen of England.

  Francis Derham, his handsome body needlessly ruined by the rack, admitted freely to the past as he had always done. He said they were lovers first, and then man and wife, but he swore that except in the matter of employment he never presumed upon their past relationship once Kat and the King were wed. Culpepper, he claimed, had succeeded him in the Queen’s affections. When asked why he did not inform the King of Kat’s unchaste past, he said that he was in Ireland when they married. Furthermore, how was he to know what Kat had and had not told the King? “When I was her husband she told me everything!”

  Handsome Roger Damporte, Derham’s best friend, who had also known Kat since those wild nights in the Maids’ Chamber, confirmed Derham’s story even after he had been racked and had every tooth and nail torn out.

  All Kat’s old friends from the Maids’ Chamber were rounded up and questioned, and all the naughty deeds and doings of the past came out. All of them have been shamed, pointed the finger of blame at Katherine and her lovers, and absolved themselves completely. “She was not my daughter, niece, or sister,” every last one of them insisted. “She was not my responsibility!”

  Are we not all a sorry lot?

  But now it is too late to unwind the tangled threads of truth and lies. Derham and Culpepper are two months’ dead, both their beautiful bodies ruined by the rack. They were carted off to Tyburn on the 10th of December.

  Derham, for unknowingly passing his used goods off on King Henry, suffered the full horror of being hanged, disemboweled, and quartered. While he still lived the organ that had dallied so intimately and often between Kat’s thighs was hacked off and cast into the fire before his eyes.

  But at the last moment, fond memories of Culpepper’s tender ministrations to his bad leg, persuaded Henry to be merciful and commute his sentence to a simple beheading.

  Even now, Derham’s rotting limbs are on display in the four corners of London, with his torso in the center. But his head rots gray and sightless, being nibbled by the ravens, alongside Culpepper’s, high on Tower Bridge so that all whose barges pass beneath can look up and see what fate awaits any man who dares to cuckold a king.

  43

  It is the 10th of February 1542 and I am now to leave this cell and go to the Queen’s Lodgings, the rooms that Anne Boleyn occupied before both her coronation and execution. There I shall await Katherine. We will be together until the end, which Master Kingston says will come very soon.

  We have both been condemned to die by Act of Attainder. There was no trial for us—Henry had learned his lesson with Anne Boleyn—so this time the public were not treated to any titillating and embarrassing revelations; instead the evidence was presented quietly and discreetly before Parliament, and they then rendered the expected verdict—guilty.

  When Kat arrived we eyed each other warily, both of us fully aware of our inconstancy, our betrayals, lies, and treachery. Then, with a heartrending cry, she flung herself into my arms and I hugged her tight and forgave her everything, for the moment at least.

  That was two days ago.

  She weeps constantly and tries vainly to convince herself—and me—that our lives will be spared. Every time she hears footsteps her face lights up and she runs to the door, in happy expectation of a messenger come bearing a reprieve to restore her to her former glory. She bites her nails, twists and twirls her hair, and fidgets with her skirts and sleeves, endlessly complaining that they have taken away all her jewels and finery, leaving her with only four plain gowns, two of them black and the other two brown.

  “I tell you he will not kill me, Jane! He loves me more than any! Am I not his ‘Rose Without a Thorn’?”

  “No, poppet,” I tell her truthfully,
“that was but an illusion. You deceived him, and Henry also deceived himself.”

  But Kat does not want to hear the truth; stubbornly she persists, as if I had never even spoken.

  “I tell you he will not kill me! He loves me more than any. You will see. Hark! Footsteps! See? A messenger comes!” And again she runs to the door, waits, and when no one comes her face falls and hope dies, only to spring to life again next time there are footsteps in the corridor.

  In the many hours I have had to think since I entered the Tower, I have often pondered this question: Does love ever truly make anyone happy?

  Catherine of Aragon loved Henry steadfast and true for more than twenty years, only to be thrown out and discarded in the end. Henry threw all her love and devotion away with less regard than a London housewife displays when she throws the contents of her chamber pot out the window into the street below. Catherine died, longing for Henry to the last, vowing that above all things her eyes desired him most, while Henry donned gaudy yellow to celebrate her demise.

  Anne Boleyn—my nemesis, my enemy—fascinated and captivated the King for seven years. He changed the world to wed and bed her, only to kill her in the end when his grand, soul-devouring passion burned out and hate flared up to take its place.

  Jane Seymour was the third woman to wear Henry’s ring, but did he truly love her, or only as a man loves an antidote to a deadly poison? She died before the truth could ever take off its mask and show its face.

  Kat claimed not to believe in love. I think she played it as a game, and was herself in turn played by the men who were her partners in it—Manox, Derham, Culpepper, and the unwitting Henry. She was a shallow, giddy, beautiful butterfly, not destined to live a great span. In truth, I have never been able to imagine Katherine old.

  And I, with all my heart, body, and soul, loved George Boleyn. I loved him so much that there were moments when I actually hated him because I loved him so much.

  And George…George never loved anyone as he loved Anne. They were each the love of each other’s life. Anne never loved another man the way she loved her brother. He read that accursed paper aloud because it was the surest path to the scaffold. “I cannot imagine my life without you in it”—with my own ears I heard him tell her why he had thrown away his life. He gave his life for Anne, and I know she would have done the same for him.

  I ask again: Does love ever truly make anyone happy? Look back; there is not one happy story in the lot! There is passion, yes, and pomp and pageantry, but every story ends with blood and tears. Only Henry endures; only he will go on and mayhap love again, if he even truly knows what love is. Who will be wife number six, I wonder, and will her story also end in blood and tears? I will not be here to see; my days as a lady-in-waiting are almost done. Now I wait only for the headsman’s axe that will end my life.

  It is the night of the twelfth now, and tomorrow, Master Kingston says, we shall die.

  Kat has made a most unusual request. She wants the block brought here so she can practice kneeling and laying her head upon it gracefully.

  “I want to make a good death, like my cousin Anne,” she says.

  Master Kingston is of a mind to humor her, and while we await its delivery she hums and paces, and dithers about which of her equally plain black gowns she should wear for her rendezvous with Death.

  When the block is brought in, she stares down at it for a very long time; then her body starts to quake and tears spring to her eyes.

  “I die the wife of a King, but I would rather die the wife of Culpepper!” she wails, before falling to her knees and bathing the wooden block with her tears.

  Dispassionately, I watch her back heave and her shoulders shake. But by it all I am strangely unmoved.

  She is like a thief who is not the least bit sorry that she stole, only that she was caught and must endure the punishment. And I daresay Culpepper went to his death feeling exactly the same way.

  It is Katherine’s fault that we are here, in spite of the spirits’ taunting, whispering from the shadows and stone walls about Justice and Divine Retribution. “He who sows the whirlwind must expect to reap the storm.” But I have sown no whirlwind! The fault is not mine! The truth is inescapable; it is Katherine’s fault that we are both condemned to die. But if I must point the finger of blame then I must go back further, to a time before Katherine was even born, to the one who began it all, the one upon whose shoulders all the blame belongs.

  If it had not been for Anne, I am certain George would have loved me. Had it not been for Anne, surely I would have had a daughter of my own to love, and would not have had to pretend that that wanton little harlot Kat was mine and, out of love for her, go along with her folly. Had it not been for Anne, George would not have gone to the block. And oh, what pride he would have taken in having such a loving, devoted, dutiful wife! But there was an Anne, and she ruined my life; because of her my marriage was over before it had even begun. She destroyed me, so I do not regret having helped destroy her. Even though tomorrow I must die, and Cranmer urges me to clear my conscience so that I may die shriven of all my sins, of that I will never repent! Vengeance was mine and I did repay!

  Kat is sleeping now, with her head cradled upon the block—a hard, morbid pillow—spent from grief and hope that is now as dead as Henry’s love for her.

  But I shall not sleep. I shall pass this, my last night, in wakefulness. George is with me now. And I have so much to tell him. I want him to know that even though he is now nothing more than a headless, heartless phantom that comes out of my prison walls to torment me, he still fills my world.

  I bid him come and sit by me and let me tell him of a dream I have; it is my most precious dream, the hope I cherish more than any. He refuses. But I shall tell him just the same. And soon there will be time aplenty, a whole eternity, for us to sit side by side, hand in hand, as we never did in life.

  For many years I have had this dream. I dream that when I stand humbly before God’s throne, He will summon George to stand beside me. And then He will forgive us both, for everything; all our foibles, flaws, mistakes, imperfections, tiny and great, and errors of judgment. Together in Heaven’s bliss we shall forevermore dwell in everlasting love and finally be husband and wife as we were meant to be, but never were in life; while Anne Boleyn roasts in the fiery pit of Hell, being turned slowly on a spit for all eternity by a fire-belching, sulfur-farting demon, and the Devil looks on, laughing to behold his concubine’s fate. It is a dream I have that I hope with all my heart will come true when my soul from this life takes flight.

  But what shall I say when I stand upon the scaffold before the people who have come to watch me die? That is what most worries and perplexes me. George will not help me. I shall not crib my dying speech from him, he says, nor will that bitch Anne deign to help me either, though both of them know I have not their wit for words. I shall have to do it all myself.

  Shall I say what they expect of me? Shall I say this, George? Shall I say:

  “God has permitted me to suffer this shameful doom as punishment for having contributed to my husband’s death when I falsely accused him of loving in an incestuous manner his sister, Queen Anne Boleyn. And for this I deserve to die. But I am guilty of no other crime!”

  Do you like that, George? No, of course I do not mean it! Except that I am guilty of no crime, every word of it is a lie! But shall I say it just for you, George? You see, my beloved, how great my love is for you? I am willing to die with a lie upon my lips. I will clear your name and besmirch my own, all for love of you!

  I hope I shall die well. I am trying very hard to compose myself. If only George and Anne would stop laughing at me! They think it so amusing that having falsely accused one wife of adultery, Henry now has one who is guilty indeed, and that I, having helped send them to their deaths with my false and malicious testimony, am now condemned to suffer the same fate. Divine Retribution! Justice! He who sows the whirlwind must expect to reap the storm! I wish they would shut up! I cannot
compose myself with them laughing and making such cruel sport of me! Oh, how their laughter rings! It is a wonder no one else can hear it! But when I ask, all shrink back from me with a strange and wary look in their eyes. I would try to deafen myself with a needle or a hairpin, but the vigilant Lady Kingston has taken all such things away from me. When I eat I must sip and slurp my soup like a peasant, and my meat arrives already cut, as if I were a babe. They will not allow me even a spoon! Even when I write, someone must be present to make sure I attempt no mischief, like drinking the ink or trying to puncture my eardrums with a quill. Yes, I am tempted to attempt this last; even though the tip is blunt, it might still do the deed and give me a blessed reprieve from the cacophony of the damned. I cannot bear their laughing at me! Will they never cease?

  POSTSCRIPT

  February 13, 1542

  At seven o’clock on that frigid February morning, Katherine Howard, almost too weak to speak or stand, was led to the scaffold, begging for her life to the last. For Henry’s fifth queen there was no French executioner, only an English headsman and his axe. She made a brief speech in which she begged the King’s forgiveness and admitted that she deserved death. Then she knelt and laid her head upon the block.

  Lady Jane Rochford was executed immediately after Katherine. Those who witnessed the event were of the opinion that she was “quite mad.” On her way to the scaffold she carried on a frenzied, one-sided conversation with phantoms that only she could hear and see. Before she knelt in the straw, still wet with Katherine’s blood, she gave the speech quoted in these pages.