“Catherine and the others will only know what they are told,” the duke answered him.
“I want to see my wife,” Varian told his grandfather. “I realize that the Howards do not stand high right now with the king, but is it possible for me to somehow see Nyssa?”
“Wait until this business with Culpeper and Dereham is settled, and then we will see. I think I can persuade Charles Brandon that there is no harm in allowing you to visit your wife for an afternoon,” the duke replied.
“What will happen to the Howards?” the earl asked.
The duke laughed harshly. “We’ll be out of favor again, perhaps forever in this king’s reign. Two Howard queens, and neither of them a good one. It does not recommend us, Varian. I think you may finally be grateful that your name is de Winter and not Howard.”
“I will always be proud of my Howard mother,” the earl said.
Thomas Howard’s eyes grew moist with unaccustomed tears. “I must go and rest while I can,” he said gruffly.
His dreams are crumbling about him, Varian realized. Then he thought of his wife. Nyssa had once told him that Duke Thomas had taken her dreams from her. Would she think it just retribution that the head of the House of Howard had just had his dreams taken from him? He thought she would. He would tell her when he saw her, but he somehow knew she would not gloat over the downfall of the Howards.
Chapter 17
Thomas Culpeper stood straight and tall before the Privy Council. He was dressed in black, his garments singularly plain, as befitted the occasion and a man in his position. His blue eyes stared straight ahead, never wavering.
“Are you in love with Catherine Howard, formerly Queen of England?” the Duke of Suffolk asked him.
“I am,” came the bold reply.
“For how long have you loved her, sir?”
“Since we were children, my lord.”
“You deliberately sought out this woman to seduce her despite the fact she was married to your king. A king who loved you, and helped to raise you. A king who trusted you. Is this so, Thomas Culpeper?”
“ ’Twas naught but a game. I pursued her for my own amusement,” he answered. “I certainly never thought that she would respond to my overtures. Indeed for some months she did not. It seemed the harder I pursued her, the more she rebuffed me, and the more determined I became to have her. Then the king grew ill last winter, and for many weeks refused to see his wife. She grew bored and lonely. I am not quite certain how it happened, but suddenly the queen was languishing with love for me. I could not believe my good fortune. The woman I had always loved finally loved me.”
“And what form did this love take, sirrah?” Suffolk demanded to know. He stared hard at the young man. Thank God the king was not here to listen to this shameless recitation of perfidy and betrayal.
“I was fearful that the king would discover our secret,” Culpeper continued. “I labored hard to be discreet, but Catherine sought every opportunity to be alone with me. It was madness, but it was wonderful!”
“Did you kiss her?”
“Aye.”
“Fondle her parts?”
“Aye.”
“Did you have carnal knowledge of each other, sir?”
“My lord, if I did or did not, I should certainly never admit to it,” Thomas Culpeper said. “It would not be honorable.”
Norfolk exploded with anger. “You call yourself honorable, you hopped-up piece of turd? You admit to kissing and fondling my niece, a married woman, the wife of your king, and you dare to call yourself honorable? If you address this council thusly in the belief that you are protecting Catherine Howard, be advised that Jane Rochford has already testified that she was a witness to your foul and disgraceful fornications!”
“Lady Rochford, I regret to say,” Culpeper responded stiffly, “has all the morality of a London Bridge bawd ingrained into her soul. It matters to me not a single whit what she said to you. I will admit to nothing that would harm a hair upon the queen’s head, my lords. You are, I fear, wasting your time questioning me further.” He stared defiantly at them.
Thomas Culpeper was immediately removed from the hearing, for it was obvious that for now they would not get what they wanted from him.
“A little torture would wring the truth from him,” said Lord Sadler sternly. “We need his confession.”
“You can torture him to the point of death,” Lord Russell remarked, “but you will not get him to say he committed adultery with the queen.”
“His very silence, this arrogant refusal to admit to it, is in itself an admission of his guilt,” Lord Audley noted.
“Aye,” the Earl of Southampton replied. “He is in love with her, poor fellow, and men in love are more often the fools than not.”
“May God have mercy on both their souls,” Bishop Gardiner said piously.
“We might interrogate the queen again,” the archbishop said.
“What good will that do?” Norfolk growled. “Catherine does not have two beans worth of sense in her pretty head. She refuses to accept the seriousness of any of this. She believes the king will forgive her.”
“We could try,” Suffolk said slowly. “What harm would it do to try? If we fail, they are still condemned by the testimony of the others. Culpeper is attempting to protect her, but she need not know that. What if she thinks he turned king’s evidence to save his own miserable skin? She might tell us what we need to know in an attempt to revenge herself on him, and in an effort to save herself.”
“We need not all go,” Norfolk said, “but I should like to be among the party that does. I have to accept responsibility for her as a family member.”
“Very well,” Suffolk replied. “I will, of course, go. Gardiner, I will want you, and Southampton, and will you come also, Richard Sampson?”
Richard Sampson was Dean of the Chapel Royal. He had never been known to miss a single Privy Council meeting. He held the bishopric of Chichester, and was considered a fair man.
“Aye, I will come, my lord,” he now answered.
The five members of the Privy Council were rowed upriver to Syon House. There they found Catherine Howard among her women, strumming her lute and singing sweetly, a song the king had once written for her ill-fated cousin, Anne Boleyn.
Alas, my love, ye do me wrong, to cast me off so discourteously; for I have love-ed you so long, delighting in your company. Green Sleeves was my delight, and Green Sleeves was all my joy. Green Sleeves was my heart of gold, and who but my Lady Green Sleeves?
Catherine Howard looked up at them as they entered, smiled and continued on.
Thou couldst desire no earthly thing, but that I gave it willingly. Thy music to play and sing, and yet, thou wouldst not love me. Green Sleeves was my delight, and Green Sleeves was all my joy. Green Sleeves was my heart of gold, and who but my Lady Green Sleeves?
They listened to her, entranced, and when finally the last note of the plaintive ballad had died and the spell was broken, Suffolk bowed politely to the young woman and said, “We have come to examine you further, Mistress Howard, based upon the testimony of the others that we have heard.”
“Who has spoken ill of me? Lady Rochford? She is not important,” Catherine Howard said imperiously. “You could not believe her over me.”
“Master Thomas Culpeper has testified that he is in love with you, and has had intimate relations with you since last April,” Suffolk, Lord President of the Privy Council, told her. “Lady Rochford confirms this.”
“I have nothing to say to you gentlemen,” she told them regally.
Bishop Sampson took the former queen’s plump little hand in his. It was very cold, he noted. How frightened she must be, although you would never know it from her attitude. “My child, for your own soul’s sake, I beg you to confess to all of your faults so I may shrive you.”
“Thank you, my lord bishop, for your kindness,” Cat said, “but I will not speak with the Privy Council again.” She took back her hand, and reachin
g for her lute, began to tune it.
“You are facing death, you little fool!” Norfolk growled at his wayward niece. “Do you not realize it?”
Catherine Howard looked up from her lute. “We face death from the moment of our birth, Uncle. We are all facing death, even you.”
“Do you deny then that you had carnal relations with Master Thomas Culpeper, Mistress Howard?” the Duke of Suffolk again demanded of her.
“I deny nothing. I confirm nothing,” Catherine said stubbornly.
They departed Syon House defeated.
“She is protecting him, or thinks she is,” Southampton said.
“It is a great tragedy for all parties,” Bishop Gardiner replied.
On December first Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham were arraigned, and tried together. Dereham was tried for Presumptive Treason, for joining the queen’s service with ill intent, and for traitorously concealing his precontract with Catherine Howard. He pleaded not guilty.
Thomas Culpeper was tried for having had Criminal Intercourse with the former queen, Catherine Howard. Realizing now that there was nothing he could do to save either one of them, and anxious to clear his conscience, Thomas Culpeper, who had originally intended pleading not guilty, changed his plea to guilty. With the strong testimony of the chamberers, and of Lady Rochford, there simply was no other honorable choice.
It was Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who pronounced them both guilty. “You are hereby sentenced to be drawn on the hurdles to Tyburn, and there hanged. You will be cut down alive, disemboweled, your innards burnt before your eyes. Finally you will be beheaded, and quartered. May God have mercy on your souls,” he intoned, his long face grave, his eyes sad.
On the sixth day of December, Francis Dereham was tortured in an attempt to wring a confession of adultery with the queen from him. As an already condemned man he had nothing to lose by confessing. The fact that he did not seemed to satisfy the Privy Council as to his innocence in that matter.
The families of both men were desperate to get their sentences commuted to a more merciful death. Culpeper’s family succeeded. His full punishment was remitted because he was a gentleman. Although he would be dragged to Tyburn on a hurdle, once there, he would simply be beheaded. Francis Dereham would not be so fortunate. He was not considered a gentleman. His family had no influence, nor were there powerful relations to speak for him. He would suffer the full punishment.
The following day, December tenth, both men were taken to Tyburn. The day was cold and gray, yet the streets were full of people come for the execution. They pelted the condemned prisoners with garbage and offal as they were dragged along. At Tyburn it was discovered that there was no block. Thomas Culpeper knelt upon the hard ground, bowing his head, his lips moving in prayer. The headsman was swift and merciful.
Francis Dereham was not so lucky. He was hung upon the gallows until his face turned blue, and his tongue began to loll from his mouth. Cut down, he was stretched upon the ground, and held down as the executioner sliced his belly open, and dragged the long length of his innards from him. He shrieked in agony while the crowd that had come for his execution pressed around him cheering the gory spectacle. The smell of his burning bowels barely registered upon his dying brain. He was almost unconscious as they rolled him over, pulled him into a half-standing position, and lopped his head from his shoulders. Dead at last, it mattered not to him that his body was then cut into four pieces, each piece to be buried in unhallowed ground at each of the four different compass points. His head and that of Thomas Culpeper were then placed upon pikes, and carried in procession to the London Bridge where they were then set up, their eyes quickly plucked from their heads and devoured by the carrion crows.
At Syon House, Catherine Howard knew nothing of the executions that had taken place that icy December day, nor did she know of the arrests made in the following days of any Howard who could be found. Lord William Howard and his wife Margaret—her uncle and aunt—were taken, as were her brother, Henry Howard, his wife Anne, their children, and the aunt for whom Cat was named, the Countess of Bridgewater. All were incarcerated in the Tower of London, arrested for Misprision of Treason. The dowager duchess, remembering the Countess of Salisbury’s unfortunate end but several months before, attempted to forestall the arrest warrant issued for her by pretending to be sick. The Privy Council brought a respected physician unannounced to Lambeth, and when he pronounced the lady Agnes fit, she was taken off, protesting mightily. Varian de Winter, Earl of March, Duke Thomas’s grandson, was also imprisoned with his relations, although his wife did not know it.
Duke Thomas, however, had fled London after pronouncing sentence upon Culpeper and Dereham. Safe in his own stronghold, he sent the king an extraordinary letter in which he apologized for his relations, in particular his two nieces, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. He begged to be allowed to retain the king’s favor, telling Henry Tudor that he “groveled at the king’s feet.” As angry as the sovereign was with the Howards, he valued Duke Thomas, and grudgingly forgave him, although he never allowed the duke to regain his former preeminence. Henry Tudor was not about to be stampeded into losing a valuable servant, and Thomas Howard was an excellent Lord Treasurer. The lesson of Cromwell was still burned in his memory.
The Christmas season was now upon England. At court it was a gloomy affair. No one’s heart was really in the celebration. The king was suddenly looking and behaving like an old man. There was no queen, and many of the court’s most prominent people had either been jailed or had discreetly requested permission of the king’s secretary to leave for their own homes. Each day was the same. The king would hunt in the morning in the New Forest, and spend the rest of the day into the evening sitting slumped in his throne on the high board, drinking, belching, and noisily passing wind.
At Syon House, however, it was a far merrier holiday. Lord Baynton, a kind-hearted man, could see no harm in allowing his prisoner and her ladies to go out into the wood near their abode to gather the traditional Christmas greens. The day of their excursion was gray. There was snow upon the ground, which was already hard with frost. Escorted by several men-at-arms, Catherine Howard, Nyssa, Kate, and Bessie made their way from the house into the wood.
“I hope the king does not learn of this,” Lady Baynton fretted.
“What harm is there in it, my dear?” her husband replied. “She is not yet convicted of anything, though surely this is her last Christmas upon the earth. I have not the heart to deny her such a small thing as gathering greens.” He watched the young women, their dark cloaks fluttering about them as they moved among the leafless trees which were silhouetted black against the gray-white sky. There would be snow again quite soon, he thought, watching the lowering clouds piling up on the horizon.
“I do not understand Catherine Howard at all,” Lady Baynton said. “Lady de Winter says she is aware of everything that is happening to her, but simply does not wish to face it. Do you really think it is so? I find the queen, er, Mistress Howard, quite a frivolous woman.”
Her husband did not answer her question, but instead said, “Tell Lady de Winter that her husband has been arrested in the sweep and search for Howards. He is in the Tower, but quite safe, as are the rest of them. The king is seeking scapegoats, and Duke Thomas has quite prudently fled to Leddinghall. The duke is as sly as an old fox, and has as many lives, I’ll vow, as a tomcat.” Then he smiled at his own pun, which brought a small chuckle from his wife.
“Poor Lady de Winter,” Lady Baynton said. “She is a fine young woman, and wishes nothing more than to go home. She has not seen her infants in over four months, my dear. Why, her husband is not even a Howard! Why would they arrest him?” She sighed. “It is really quite unfair.”
“Duke Thomas is Varian de Winter’s grandfather. The duke is very fond of him, and I suspect this is the king’s way of getting at him. The duke’s son, the Earl of Surrey, has fled with his father, and is as a consequence also out of the king’s reach. Varian d
e Winter was at Whitehall awaiting his wife. It was inevitable that he would be caught up.” Turning, Lord Baynton gazed back out the window to watch the greens gatherers.
Cat was exuberant in the chilly air. She frolicked in the snow like a little girl, her auburn curls unbound and flying about. Her girlish behavior brought smiles to the faces of her guards. “Look! Look!” she called to her companions. “There is a holly bush over there, and see! It is filled with berries.” A guard held a basket while Cat cut several large branches of holly.
“There is everything that we need!” Nyssa cried excitedly. “Bay! Laurel! Boxwood! And over here a whole stand of evergreen!”
The greens were cut, and soon the baskets were completely full to overflowing. The guards gallantly took the heavy baskets from the young women as they walked back to the house. Below the slight rise upon which they stood they could see the river Thames. The banks were iced over, but the yellow river grasses made the wintry scene seem somehow less harsh. Snow began to fall again as they reached the house and hurried inside, eager for the fire in their quarters. Nyssa’s toes were quite frozen.
“I wish to make candles,” Catherine told Lord Baynton. “We cannot have a proper Christmas without candles aplenty. I will need the best beeswax, molds of all sizes, cotton wicks, rose oil, lavender oil, and bayberries, my lord. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”
Lady Baynton swallowed her amazement when her husband replied calmly, “Of course, madame. I shall see to it myself.”
“Are you mad?” she demanded of her husband as they lay abed that night. “Where will you obtain such items?”
“That, my dear,” he said with a small smile, “you will leave to me. Catherine Howard will have what she needs to make her candles. Have you told Lady de Winter of her husband’s fate yet?”
“I must find the right moment,” she answered him.
The following day they made candles in all sizes and shapes, scenting them with rose and lavender oils, and with the bayberries they had been given. The candles cooled on a table set out in the kitchen gardens. Within a very few hours they were hardened and ready. In that time Cat Howard and her ladies decorated the three rooms assigned to the former queen with sweet-smelling pine branches and garlands of holly, boxwood, laurel, and bay that they had made up the evening before. The freshly made candles were then brought in and set about on every flat surface that could be found. When lit, the candles represented the Star of Bethlehem.
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