She entered, plump, and plainer than Katherine Tylney, if such a thing was possible. She was very excited to be testifying, and filled with self-importance. She curtsied to the Privy Council.
“How may I serve you, my lords?” she asked, without waiting to be invited to speak. She seemed not to realize her error.
“Mistress Tylney has testified to the queen’s odd behavior on the progress, her nocturnal wanderings and such. Did you notice anything you wish to tell the council about?”
“Oh, aye,” Mistress Morton said. “Her Grace and the Rochford woman were up to something all right, ’tis certain. All those whispered conversations, the messages back and forth, and not one of them intelligible. Then there was the letters that Rochford was always getting from the queen and running off with, as well as those she brought back to Her Grace.”
“You went out late with the queen, in secret, at Lincoln,” the Duke of Suffolk encouraged the witness.
“Aye, and at York, and Pontefract too, my lords. We serving women are always used to running in and out of the queen’s chamber, but at Pontefract Her Grace got into a shouting match with Mistress Lufflyn for coming into her bedchamber without knocking. She chased her right out, and forbade any of us to enter her bedchamber ever again without her express permission. Later that night the queen locked herself in the room with only Rochford in attendance. That in itself was very odd, my lords,” she said with heavy meaning. “The door was not only locked, ’twere bolted from the inside to boot! Well, my lords, didn’t the king himself come to visit his wife? He obviously expected to spend the night in her bed. There he was, no disrespect intended, sirs, in his dressing gown, his nightshirt, and his nightcap, and the door was barred to him.” She looked about to see what effect her story was having, and obviously satisfied by what she saw, continued.
“Well, my lords, we banged upon the door, and Lady Rochford’s voice finally asks us what we want. The king is here to see the queen, we told her. Then, for I was nearest to the door, I could hear a fierce scuffling going on inside, and Rochford saying she was having trouble with the lock, and the king getting more impatient by the minute. Finally, at long last the door is opened a crack, and Rochford’s face pops out. The queen, she says, is suffering with a tremendous headache, and begs the king’s leave to continue her rest alone that she might be well enough to join the hunt the next day. Of course, His Grace acquiesces, being the kind gentleman that he is. God forgive me for saying it, my lords, but I thought to myself at the time, there’s a man in there with her.”
The room was very still. Here was the thing they sought, yet had feared, finally voiced aloud.
“Did your suspicions, Mistress Morton, perhaps give you an idea of who might have been with the queen?” Suffolk asked her.
“I would stake my life that ’twas young Tom Culpeper, my lords,” she told them frankly. “It could be no one else.”
“Not Dereham?”
“What, that bad-tempered, crude blowhard? Nay! ’Twas Tom Culpeper if it was anyone, my lords. I knew last spring, April, it was, that she was drawn to him. At Hatfield she stood at her window and cast loving looks upon him standing below. He too looked with love upon her, and blew kisses to her with his fingertips. Once, at Hatfield, she was alone with Master Culpeper for some six hours, locked in her privy chamber. When they emerged, they each looked like the cat who had swallowed the canary. You did not have to guess to know what they had both been about,” Margaret Morton concluded archly.
“And you told no one?” Norfolk growled, as he had with Tylney.
“I am a chamberer,” Margaret Morton said. “ ’Twas not my place to inform upon my mistress. If I did such a thing, I should never be able to get a good place in a decent household again.”
“Thank you, Mistress Morton,” Suffolk said smoothly. “You are dismissed. Your testimony has been most helpful to us.”
She bustled from the room under guard, and when the door closed behind her, the Duke of Suffolk said, “That was most enlightening, my lords, was it not? It seems, my lord archbishop, that your hunch is about to pay off quite handsomely.”
“This is a great tragedy, my lords,” the archbishop said quietly. “I take no joy in any of this. The queen is barely eighteen. If these charges are proved further, then she will end her days shortly on Tower Green as did her relative, Anne Boleyn, God assoil her soul.” Thomas Cranmer had greatly admired Anne Boleyn, and tried to save her.
“Why should you care?” Norfolk snapped at him. “If my niece is convicted, then you can find a good reformed church-woman to place by the king’s side. Is not that what you and your allies really want, sir?”
“If you had not been in such a hurry to get your niece married off to the king so the Howards might be all-powerful, Thomas Howard,” the archbishop thundered, “the king should not have been joined with such an unsuitable wife. None of this would have happened but for your ambition. This girl’s death will be on your conscience forever.”
“You would believe chamberers over a Howard?”
“Do you think it, then, a plot by the queen’s chamberers to discredit her, and why would they do such a thing?” Cranmer asked.
“Women are difficult creatures at best,” Norfolk muttered. “Who knows why they do any of the things that they do?”
“My lords, this bickering is getting us nowhere,” the Duke of Suffolk interposed. “We have other witnesses to hear today.”
Mistress Alice Restwold was brought in, and she was followed by Joan Bulmer. Both of them said essentially the same thing that Katherine Tylney and Margaret Morton had said. Each added small details that the others had perhaps forgotten, overlooked, or not been privy to, but basically their testimony was identical. They were thanked and dismissed to go back to their confinement in the Tower.
The final piece of evidence that day was a letter found among Tom Culpeper’s possessions. It had been written in the spring of the year in the queen’s own hand. It was dreadfully composed, badly spelled, and ended with the tender words, Yours as long as life endures, Catherine.
There was now no doubt in any of the Privy Council’s minds that Catherine Howard was involved in an adulterous relationship with Thomas Culpeper. No one wanted to tell the king, but Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, knew that the duty would fall to him. He was not only the king’s best friend, but Lord President of the Privy as well.
The king was wild with anger over the discovery of his wife’s infidelity. Suffolk tempered the blow as best he could, but there was really no gentle way in which to impart such news.
“Give me a sword!” Henry shouted. “I will go to Syon and kill her myself, Charles! Ahh, the false bitch, and I loved her! Never again! Catherine! Catherine!” Then he began to weep.
The council took it upon themselves to issue communiqués to their ambassadors in key courts in Europe explaining the latest events in the king’s ongoing marital woes. The queen’s behavior was referred to as abominable.
François I, France’s king, and a renowned lecher, sent his dear brother Henry a most sympathetic letter of condolence.
I am sorry to hear of the displeasure and trouble which has been caused by the lewd and naughty behavior of the Queen. Albeit, knowing my good brother to be a prince of prudence, virtue and honor, I do require him to shift off the said displeasure and wisely, temperately, like myself, not reputing his honor to rest in the lightness of a woman, but to thank God of all, comforting himself in God’s goodness. The lightness of women cannot bend the honor of men.
Privately François I said to the English ambassador, Sir William Paulet, of Catherine Howard, “She hath done wondrous naughty,” and then he chuckled with a great appreciation of the queen’s sexual behavior.
On the twenty-second day of November the Privy Council voted to take away Catherine Howard’s title of queen. She was now simply Mistress Howard again. Two days later she was indicted for “having led an abominable, base, carnal, voluptuous, and vicious life before marr
iage, like a common harlot with divers persons, maintaining however the outward appearance of chastity and honesty.” She was further accused of having led the king on, and having married him under false pretenses, and for having imperiled the crown with the possibility of bastards.
The indictment, read to the former queen at Syon House, elicited far less response than the knowledge that she was no longer queen. When the members of the council had gone, Cat looked to Nyssa and asked, “Will they kill me?”
Lady Baynton looked startled by the young woman’s frankness, while Kate and Bessie began to cry.
“If you are found guilty,” Nyssa said, “aye, I think they will. For a queen to cuckold her king is treason.”
“Oh,” Cat replied, then she grew more cheerful. “They have but the word of my chamberers,” she said. “Surely they will not believe them if I deny it? I am a Howard.”
“They have others to question, Cat. There is Lady Rochford, and Masters Dereham and Culpeper as well. How could you trust old Lady Ferretface, Cat? Particularly after what she did to your cousin Anne. I never understood why Duke Thomas tolerated her after that.”
“Because she was vulnerable, and he could use her,” Cat said bluntly. “Lady Ferretface.” She giggled. “Is that what you called her? She does look rather like a ferret, doesn’t she?”
“My brothers called her that,” Nyssa said.
“Is that adorable cherub Giles still with the lady Anne?” Cat was once again turning the subject away from the unpleasant.
“Aye, he is,” Nyssa told her.
“We must really begin to think of Christmas,” Cat said. “There is a most marvelous stand of trees just beyond the house to the north. Lady Baynton, do you think we will be allowed to gather branches? And we must have candles, and a Yule log as well.”
The subject of death, of treason, of all things unpleasant, was now closed. And why not? thought Nyssa. She understands even if she will not admit to it. This may be her last Christmas, and she wants to make it merry. Why shouldn’t she? “We must have a wassail bowl, and roasted apples too,” Nyssa told Cat. “We always have them at RiversEdge.”
“Do you think we will have a boar with an apple in its mouth?” Kate Carey wondered aloud. “I always love it when the boar is brought in!”
“And will there be music, do you think?” Bessie asked.
“Oh, I hope so!” Cat said.
“She is mad to be planning for a festive Christmas,” Lady Baynton told Nyssa softly. “Does she not care that her reputation is gone? That her marriage will be dissolved? That she is ruined?”
“She cares, but she will never allow you to see her innermost thoughts and feelings. She is too proud,” Nyssa answered. “Besides, it is all unpleasant, and Cat has never been one to bravely face that which displeases her. She will not change now. So she plans for Christmas. Who knows what will lie beyond Christmas?”
“They say,” Lady Baynton said confidentially, “that the king will go back to the lady Anne. ’Twould be a good thing if he did. She is a most charming and gracious lady.” Lady Baynton liked Nyssa. She too was a married woman with children, and certainly more than sensible. Besides, there was no one else to talk with, for the other two girls were so young.
“I would not count upon the king and lady Anne reuniting, madame. They are the dearest of friends, and have the greatest respect for one another; but they do not like being married to each other, I fear.”
“What a pity,” Lady Baynton replied. She accepted Nyssa’s opinion on the matter, for she knew that Nyssa was friendly with the lady Anne, and that her brother was one of the princess’s pages.
“Do you know when Lady Rochford will be examined?” Nyssa asked.
“The council told my husband they will do so tomorrow,” Lady Baynton said. “I cannot understand why a woman of her years and her experience, particularly given her past background, did not guide the queen better. It would almost appear as if she encouraged her in her perfidy, if indeed the chamberers are to be believed, and I do not know why they wouldn’t be. If I were in her position, I should be terrified.”
Lady Rochford, however, was not terrified. Solitude had helped her to regain her senses, if only for a brief time. She came before the Privy Council in the Tower wearing her finest gown of black velvet. Her French hood was encrusted in pearls. She stood stiffly before them, her back straight, her eyes staring straight ahead.
“She is drawn as tightly as a lute string,” Lord Audley whispered to Sir William Paulet, who had returned to England with the King of France’s letter for Henry Tudor. Sir William glanced at Lady Rochford and nodded his agreement.
“To the best of your knowledge, madame,” the Duke of Suffolk began, “when did this intrigue with the queen start?”
“In the spring,” she answered him calmly.
“And was it the queen who approached Master Culpeper, or was it Maser Culpeper who approached the queen?”
“At first ’twas he who pursued her,” Lady Rochford said. “He had always been mad for her, since they were children. He thought to marry her, but then she wed with the king. Still, he was a bold young man, and he wanted her. The queen was very put out with him for his pursuit of her, but he persisted. Then the king put himself away from her, and she succumbed to Master Culpeper’s charms.”
“You are certain this was in the spring, madame? I would get our dates correct.”
“Aye, in the spring. April, I believed. Aye, ’twas April.”
“Where did they meet?” Suffolk inquired.
“In my rooms,” Lady Rochford said with a smile. “They knew that they were safe there. I stood guard outside myself.”
“She is totally mad,” the Earl of Southampton said softly.
“But she is calm, and speaks the truth,” Suffolk said. “It is as if she is eager to tell us her part in this matter. As if she is proud of it.” He looked at Lady Rochford. “What else, madame?”
“I carried letters and messages between them, but then, of course, the chamberers have already told you that. Did you know that the queen called Master Culpeper her sweet little fool?” She laughed bitterly. “She was surely the bigger fool, but she was clever. Whenever she wanted her own way, and Culpeper would not give over to her, she would remind him that there were others waiting for her favors; behind the door, she would say. It drove him wild with jealousy.”
“To your knowledge,” Suffolk said, “did Catherine Howard have carnal intercourse with Thomas Culpeper?”
“Aye,” Lady Rochford replied. “I was generally in the room when it took place on the progress last summer. She could not send me away when she was in my rooms without arousing suspicion. I was witness to their passion on many occasions.”
The Duke of Norfolk felt as if he had been dealt his death blow. “Why did you not try to stop her?” he demanded of Lady Rochford. “To turn her from her dangerous folly? Why did you not come to me if you feared coming to anyone else?”
“Why should I have stopped her?” Jane Rochford said coldly. She fixed them with a fierce look. “Do you remember the last time I appeared before this council, my lords? You took my testimony, and twisted it. Then you executed my husband. You did so in order that the king might be rid of his wife so he could marry another.” She laughed, and the sound had a hysterical edge to it. “Now, let Henry Tudor’s heart be broken as my heart was broken! Nay, I did not stop that silly child, Catherine Howard, as she blithely tripped down the path to her own destruction. Why would I have done a thing like that? Even had I not been there to encourage her in her naughtiness, she would have betrayed the king. She is a trollop at heart.”
For several long moments the Privy Council sat stunned by Lady Rochford’s vitriolic words, and then, to their combined horror, she began to laugh. The laughter had the strong ring of madness to it, and sent a chill up the spine. It rang out, filling the chamber, growing in its intensity, seeming to have a life of its own, its evil sinking into the very walls of the room.
> “Take her away,” the Duke of Suffolk wearily told his guards, and when they had led the madwoman from the palace, he turned back to the council and said, “Other than the testimony needed to convict the former queen of adultery, nothing else of what Jane Rochford said is to be repeated, my lords. I think we can all agree to that, can we not?” He glanced about at the others, and they nodded.
The Duke of Norfolk, not a man to show what he was thinking, looked gray with weariness and disillusionment. It was over. It did not matter what anyone else said. Lady Jane Rochford had hammered the last nail into Catherine Howard’s coffin. Indeed she had hammered the last nail into the coffin of the House of Howard, and Thomas Howard was too beaten for the moment even to fight back.
“I think we have heard enough for today,” the Duke of Suffolk said quietly. “We will meet here tomorrow at the same time to take the testimony of Thomas Culpeper. Are we agreed, my lords?”
They nodded, and leaving the chamber, hurried to gain their barges. Thomas Howard was quick to note that no one wanted to be near him, or to share his vessel. He smiled grimly to himself, and ordered his bargemen to pull hard for Whitehall. Arriving, he went quickly to his own apartments, and finding his grandson there, he said, “It’s over. Rochford has finished it.” Then he went on to tell Varian everything that had happened, even Rochford’s claim of revenge on the king.
“How long does Catherine have?” the Earl of March asked.
“Culpeper has to be heard from, and then he and Dereham must be arraigned and tried. They will be found guilty, of course, and will be sentenced. They’ll be executed as quickly as possible, and then I think everything will be quiet for the holidays. After Twelfth Night, however, it will begin again. It will not end until Catherine is slain upon Tower Green. Rochford will die too.”
“What of my wife, and the others with Cat?” he asked.
“They’ll serve her until her death, Varian,” Duke Thomas said.
“Do they know what’s happening here?” he wondered.
Love, Remember Me Page 42
