Jean Plaidy - [Queens of England 04]

by The Lady in the Tower

  He was afraid of what he had done. He feared Heaven’s wrath; and in case God had forgotten he had to remind Him of the real culprit.

  There was cold hatred in his eyes as they surveyed me. “You are the cause of this man’s death,” he said, and left the table.

  I felt death very close then. I saw him more clearly than I ever had… this man who could be so ruthless and had the power to work his will on us all.

  Thomas More’s body was buried in the church of St. Peter in the Tower, but his head, as was the custom with traitors’ heads, was placed on a pole and set up on London Bridge, that all who passed beneath it could reflect on the fate of traitors.

  A shiver ran through the Court when news came that the head had disappeared. It seemed like Divine interference. Henry was in a state of great nervousness. He had always thought of himself as being on good terms with Heaven; and now this looked like a sign of disapproval.

  It was not his fault that More had been executed, he reiterated. He had been forced to sign the death warrant. Others were to blame. The Parliament had conferred the title of Supreme Head on him and ordered that those who did not accept this were traitors and should be dealt with accordingly. He had loved More; he had suffered when the sentence had been passed on him. He had merely taken the advice of his ministers.

  There was great relief when it was discovered that More’s daughter Margaret had taken down her father’s head. The King declared that she must be allowed to do what she would with it. He would hear no more. The whole affair had been a great sorrow to him.

  Strangely enough, he turned to me for comfort and, stranger still, I was able to subdue my feelings of contempt and give him what he sought.

  “He was a traitor, Anne.”

  I took his hand and said: “As all who disobey you must be.”

  “He was a good man…”

  “It seems good men can sometimes act traitorously.”

  “He was not against me … only the Act. At the end he thought of me.”

  “You had been good to him, Henry.”

  His expression lightened. That was the right note. He said: “Yes, I would go to Chelsea… would sit at his humble table. I asked for no ceremony. I walked in his gardens with him and watched his children feed the peacocks.”

  “You did him great honor.”

  I soothed him; and we were together again.

  WE HAD TO BE MERRY… outwardly. There was a great outcry on the Continent about the death of Sir Thomas More. Rome was shocked by the death of Fisher. He had recently been made a Cardinal, and no Cardinal had ever been executed in England before. This was further defiance of Rome. Henry was called the Monster of England. The Emperor Charles said that the execution of Sir Thomas More was an act of folly. “Had we been master of such a servant,” he was reputed to have commented, “we would rather have lost the fairest city in our domain than such a counselor.”

  Henry’s anger was intense. There should be no weakness. Those who opposed the King should face the penalty.

  There were more deaths. Monks must acknowledge the King as Supreme Head of the Church, and for those who would not there was death. There were some who preferred it.

  Death was not easy for them. There was no quick stroke of the ax. They died as had the Carthusian monks, dragged through the city on hurdles, hanged, taken down alive and cut open, that their entrails might be burned. People congregated to watch these grisly spectacles in fascinated horror.

  They said it was all due to the goggle-eyed whore.

  The most disturbing news was that Pope Paul—no vacillating Clement—was so outraged by the deaths of Fisher and More and the monks that he was contemplating waging a holy war against England. The Emperor would lead the army of invasion with the help and blessing of the Pope. They were seeking an alliance with France.

  Oddly enough, I had ceased to be as worried as I had been. This was a threat against Henry. Before, I alone had been in danger. It is easier to accept a universal danger than a personal one.

  I tried to shut myself away from events by taking an even greater interest in the new religion. There were several Protestant bishops in the Church now—chief of them Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester. They were strong men and my friends, because I was known to support the new ideas.

  Henry was still at my side. I told him that he was right in what he had done. Those who thought otherwise were ill advised. The Catholic Church had many faults. It had diverged from the teachings of Christ. I believed I was beginning to make him see that his escape from the bondage of Rome was the best thing that could have happened to him. Providence had set me in his path that it might be achieved. He only had to consider the wealth of the monasteries, much of which had found its way to Rome. Now it was his. He was no man’s slave. When he considered all, he would see that he was the richest Prince in Christendom. Through him the Church was to be reformed. He had done a great service to himself and all Englishmen.

  He listened and was comforted.

  And once again I was pregnant. This time all must go well. I must have my son who would make me safe forever.

  During the last months of that year England stood alone, fearing that at any time we might be invaded. I knew from what I gleaned from the spies that Katharine’s hopes were high. I heard there was a plot to oust Henry from the throne, set Mary up in his place and marry her into France so that England would become a vassal of that country.

  I pointed out to Henry that I had been right to recognize Katharine and Mary as enemies. It was true that they had never deceived him in their attitudes; they had remained staunchly Catholic and had never accepted me as the Queen. That was understandable; but nevertheless they were a danger and a threat to the throne and were plotting against him. He was turning over in his mind some way of ridding himself of them.

  All through the autumn we waited for some attack from Rome. It did not come. Katharine was ill and frustrated. We understood that the Pope could not act without the Emperor, and the Emperor was at this time heavily engaged in Africa, where he was achieving some resounding victories.

  Meanwhile Henry had instructed Cromwell to have an examination made of the monasteries; and according to Cromwell they were stews of iniquity. Rumors were circulating through the country concerning the life that went on behind monastery walls—orgies in which naked nuns danced before depraved priests. We heard of illegitimate children buried in monastic grounds, and obscenities of every kind.

  The whole country was talking about the secret life of the nuns and monks.

  Cromwell was eager for war to be avoided and was worried that if hostilities broke out this would have a disastrous effect on trade. The people would not tolerate that, and there would be insurrections.

  Moreover, the autumn was particularly wet and that resulted in a bad harvest.

  It seemed that everything was going against us.

  Then our luck turned. Sforza, the Duke of Milan, died childless; and Milan had always been a matter of contention between François and the Emperor. While the Duke lived, their dispute had been suspended. Now he was dead, the question of who should succeed him in Milan had arisen again.

  Whether François had ever intended to make war on England was questionable; but it would have suited him if the Emperor had, for then he could have given himself over to the conquest of Milan without interference. François made a complete turnabout. He needed Henry’s support, so cynically he ceased to be concerned about the schism in the Church and sought England’s friendship.

  The Pope could do little without the joint help of François and the Emperor, and although Charles might have been ready to invade England, he was not going to leave himself open to attack by François, which would have meant having a war on two fronts. The Pope had to content himself with thundering out threats against Henry. He cursed him and all those who aided him. When he died, he was to be unburied and his soul lie in hell forever. He ordered the King’s subjects to renounce
their allegiance to Henry; they were to fall under the interdict of excommunication if they continued to obey him. No true son of the Church was to hold intercourse or alliance with him on pain of sharing his damnation. The princes and people of Europe must, as they owed allegiance to the Holy See, drive him from his throne.

  The Pope’s ranting made less impression on Henry now that François was seeking his friendship and the Emperor was showing less inclination to go to war with England. He believed that, providing he showed his strength to his people, they would obey him. The executions and the terrible and humiliating sufferings of those who refused to obey him must bring the people to obedience. It was only saints and martyrs who risked a death like that.

  Henry would have his way and trample on all those who tried to prevent him—no matter how close to him they had once been.

  It should have been a warning to me that he could even contemplate murdering Katharine and Mary, for during those months I came to believe that he would have done this if he could without dire results harmful to himself. But he had come too close to war to take such a risk.

  That Christmas of the year 1535 must be a merry one. We must show the country and the world that we were unperturbed by the threats from the Continent. We stood in isolation, which made us greater than we had ever been. Henry, King of England, would bow to no one.

  My kinsman Francis Bryan came to see me some weeks before Christmas. Francis was a close friend of the King. He was one of those witty lively young men whom Henry liked to gather around him. Francis was clever, something of a poet; he had wild ideas and he could be quite outrageous. Henry was amused by him. Cromwell had dubbed him “the Vicar of Hell.”

  He told me that a week or so ago, when the King had been hunting, he had been a member of the party and they had stayed a night in Wilt-shire at Wolf Hall, the home of Sir John Seymour. Sir John had a daughter—a quiet, unassuming girl, and he was eager for her to have a place at Court.

  “I promised,” said Francis, “that I would speak to you and ask if you would allow her to join your household.”

  “But of course,” I said. “What is she like?”

  “I would not presume to ask Your Grace if she were not a good and virtuous girl. As a matter of fact, she is rather shy and retiring. Her father thinks it would do her good to come out into the world.”

  “Let her come then,” I said.

  So she came. I took very little notice of her at first. She was rather insignificant—fair-headed, neither short nor tall, with eyes a nondescript shade of water which took their color from whatever she was wearing. When I addressed her, she spoke almost in a whisper.

  For some days I forgot all about her. Then one evening, when we were dining, I realized that the King was watching her. I saw her meet his glance, blush and lower her eyes.

  No, I thought, he cannot be interested in such an… insect!

  I was alert though. And yes, he was interested in her. How strange! She was not the type I should have thought to attract him. Elizabeth Blount, Madge Shelton… they had all been exceptionally beautiful. But this girl looked dull; she was colorless, with hardly a word to say for herself.

  I suppose he just wants a change, I thought. She is, I suppose, just about as different from me as a woman could be.

  I did not expect the matter to go farther, but as the weeks passed he was still watching her. Then it occurred to me that he might have asked Francis Bryan to see that she was brought to Court. He had gone to Wolf Hall when out hunting. He must have noticed her then.

  I laughed contemptuously. I had little to fear from her, I thought.

  Christmas came. I tried to make it a merry one. Norris, Brereton, Wyatt, George, we all put our heads together to devise entertainments, and there were feasting and festivities as grand as any that had gone before.

  I ceased to worry. I was pregnant. I felt sure that I could not be disappointed again. I was more like my old self. I looked attractive, I knew; I detected that serenity in my face which comes to some women when they are pregnant. I felt that we had come through the worst. I would have to accept Henry’s infidelities. But did I care? If I had a son, he and Elizabeth would be the main care of my life. It would not matter much what Henry did as long as I and my children were safe. It was not as if I loved him. I knew him too well for that—though sometimes I felt a kind of contemptuous affection for him. He was such a strange man that one could not help marveling at him. It was that cruelty and selfishness alongside the sentimentality, the conscience which did in truth plague him, even though he manipulated it and set it going in the direction best suited to his needs. I feared him, yes. I knew how ruthless he could be. When I considered how passionately he had pursued me I could now only think that his persistence had been due largely to his need to prove to himself that he was omnipotent. I had been mistaken in thinking it was love for me. One could not love such a man; but one could live with him. I could accept his philandering. I had never had great sexual desires myself, and at this time they were nonexistent. That was why I could adopt a flirtatious manner toward the men about me, for I knew there could be no culmination. I merely liked to have them about me, admiring me.

  I had a very talented musician in my household, Mark Smeaton, a pleasant young man who still could not believe in his good fortune in being employed at the Court. He was very good-looking and would have made a wonderful subject for one of our painters, with his small oval face, large dark eyes, and hair which curled about his head. He was delicate-looking, with the most beautiful hands and long, white, tapering fingers. He could dance gracefully. He was a charming boy.

  I talked to him about music, and at first he was overcome by shyness because I had noticed him. That endeared him to me, and I told him he must not be shy for I admired his playing very much. Sometimes, when I felt depressed and uneasy, I would make him play for me.

  I encouraged him to talk about himself, about his humble home where he had lived with his parents. His father had been a carpenter, and people had brought their chairs for him to mend. Mark had helped him but his heart was in music. Being exceptional, he was noticed by the local squire, who had quickly discovered his musical talents and had brought him into his house to teach music to his daughters. When the daughters married and went away, a visitor to the house, who had been impressed by Mark’s playing on the virginals, brought him to Court; and as I liked to gather the best musicians about me, he was soon in my household.

  He could never grow accustomed to his good fortune, and he had a feeling for me which I can only call adoration.

  When I complimented him on his playing, he would almost swoon with delight. I found him amusing. His clothes were shabby, so I ordered them to make some velvet suits for him. Then I gave him a ruby ring to wear with them. He was overcome with joy.

  I was something of a musician myself. Very few people played the virginals better, and I had always had a good singing voice; so Mark and I had a good deal in common.

  Such adoration was balm to me in those days when I had to accept the fact that Henry had a mistress—so Mark had become a great favorite. He was a good boy and never gave himself airs. He was always incredibly humble, constantly implying his worship for one so far above him.

  The others laughed at him sometimes.

  “Yet another admirer,” said Henry Norris. “Your Grace attracts them like bees to the lavender blooms.”

  Norris was often in my party. Now a widower, he was supposed to be courting Madge Shelton, but the courtship did not progress very quickly. I really believed it was because he was in love with me.

  So that Christmas was a merry one. I looked forward to the New Year. How fortunate it is that we cannot see into the future! And when that Christmas I anticipated the coming years with such pleasure, I did not know it was to be the most disastrous one of my life.

  I would have a son. I had come to terms with my relationship with the King. I would pretend not to see his infidelities. I would accept what I had—which was a
good deal—and be thankful for it. I would devote myself to promoting my children.

  I had suffered certain qualms of conscience over Mary. I had a daughter myself now and knew a mother’s feelings. Katharine was heartbroken; not only was she a repudiated wife but she was deprived of her daughter’s company. But Katharine was obstinate; she would have removed me if she could, and I doubted whether she would have been overnice in the method. She was a strong woman determined to hold on to her rights; but Mary was not so very old, not so very knowledgeable in worldly matters. One should have been more tolerant with her.

  So I had written to her, telling her that if she would stop being obstinate and be a good daughter to her father, I would be her good friend. She could come to Court and I should not insist that she should bear my train. She should walk by my side.

  I had gone as far as that, and I would have kept my word.

  But Mary would not give way. She replied that she wished for nothing more than to be her father’s good daughter, but she could not for-swear the principles for which Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More had died.

  It was hopeless to try to get Mary to see good sense, but having done what I could, I did feel a little better.

  Christmas passed and the New Year was with us.

  News came from Kimbolton where Katharine had been sent, that she was very ill indeed. We heard this through Eustace Chapuys, which infuriated the King. He sent for Cromwell. Poor Cromwell, he seemed to be blamed for everything, and yet the King knew that he could not do without him.

  “Why is it that I first hear news of what is going on in my castles from foreigners?” he demanded.

  Cromwell humbly said he would take Sir Edmund Bedingfeld, who was in charge of Katharine’s household, to task.

  He came back with Bedingfeld’s report, which was that, because he was the King’s servant, the Dowager Princess Katharine concealed everything from him. He had known she was ill but not how dangerously ill.

  Katharine begged Henry to let her see Mary.