by Fatal Throne- The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All (retail) (epub)
“I would that the King lives longer than any man ever lived,” she says. “Even so, he being so much older than you, it is not treason to expect that you will one day be a widow. You would best be prepared against the day, and certain alliances are more valuable than others, worth your trouble to cultivate now.”
I close my eyes.
Whether or not I give birth to an heir, as a widowed Queen I will need a champion at court—someone to protect my interests once the King is gone. Lady Rochford is intimating that a member of the powerful Culpeper family would be suitable for the role.
She is telling me to take Thomas Culpeper as a lover.
“I would know nothing of which you speak,” I say, making my voice as stern as I can. “It vexes me to repeat myself: Please see that he is dismissed.”
And at last she leaves me.
I stare at my reflection, seeing the doubt in my eyes.
I don’t want him for a lover, I don’t! It’s impossible—I mustn’t think of it, not even for a second.
And from that very moment, I can think of nothing else.
JUNE–SEPTEMBER 1541
The court will travel north towards York tomorrow, for the King’s progress. A spectacle, wherever we go. Hundreds will march in uniform and unison, archers with their bows drawn, banners and horses, glitter and pomp and huge crowds cheering.
But tonight, Thomas Culpeper will come to my privy chamber.
Lady Rochford has made the arrangements. Because of tomorrow’s early departure, the King will not want my company this evening. I feign preparing for sleep, my hair loose around my shoulders. Lady Rochford dismisses the other ladies and maids. After they’re in bed, a knock sounds. She opens the door, then slips out and stays in the next room, alone.
My plan is to speak with him, to propose that if I become a widow—without wishing for the King’s death, for that would be treason!—we might have an understanding. We have to meet alone, for if we’re overheard, someone might misinterpret our words; it could sound as if we’re plotting against the King.
I’ll say what I have to say, and then dismiss him. It will take only a few moments.
He comes into the room and bows. “Your Grace.”
Candlelight flickers. His shadow dances on the wall behind him. He’s not as tall as the King, but his physique is straight and strong, so unlike His Majesty’s heaving tottering bulk.
I’ve prepared my words carefully. I open my mouth—and nothing comes out.
I stare at him as if I’ve never seen him before.
He’s so handsome. His eyes, his lips…
I don’t know how long I’m standing there—a moment? an hour?—before I realize that he’s staring at me, too. Somehow we’ve moved until he’s within reach. He raises his hand to touch my hair, and I close my eyes.
I’m already gasping. For a desperate moment, I’m sane enough to realize my madness, and I try to take a step back, to push him away….How is it that I step forwards and pull him towards me instead?
He holds my face in his hands.
“Please.” I can barely whisper, choked by my desire.
He lowers his head and kisses me gently, almost hesitantly. At the first touch of his lips, I’m like a starving beast—I surge against him so hard that he nearly loses his balance. He backs into my dressing table and leans on it, and I step between his legs, my hands clutching at his shoulders, my mouth on his in a frenzy that I can’t control. Then he grasps my hair and pulls my head back and kisses the hollow at my throat, groaning with urgency. His lips move up the length of my neck and find my mouth again.
If the ground beneath my feet split—if there were suddenly an abyss beneath me, I wouldn’t be able to tear myself away from him.
I’d fall to my death with my tongue seeking his.
* * *
—
In Lincoln.
In Pontefract.
In York.
We find back stairs and back doors, deserted galleries, forgotten closets. We meet for a single kiss, or for entire nights of passion. The danger of being discovered sharpens the keenness of our lovemaking.
I can’t keep from him. I’m helpless, my desire a fever, raging, burning. This isn’t the same as what I felt with Francis Dereham. That was a girl’s first awakening, new and green and tender. The girl has grown into a woman who knows what she wants and needs. For all the enjoyment my girl-self felt, she could never have dreamt the ravishment I know now.
In a hidden alcove at York Castle, I bury my mouth in his shoulder to stifle my cries. Our bodies are fused with such heat and fervour, it’s as if we’re one being, and on finishing, we fall away from each other, nearly senseless.
“Zounds!” Thomas laughs ruefully as he peers at the bright beads of scarlet on his shoulder.
“Oh, no!” I’ve bitten him—hard—and never even knew it! I kiss the wound and lick away the blood, and then he kisses me again.
But despite the wildness of our rapture, I never allow him to finish inside me. Not once. For that would be treason of the worst kind against the King, to get with child and not know who fathered it.
I insist on this with Thomas, no matter how he pleads, and because I’m so steadfast, I convince myself that I’m fulfilling my duty of loyalty to His Majesty.
Who suspects nothing. As always, I dine with him, and sit with him in the evenings, and go to his bed whenever he asks. I’m still his rose, and I make sure that I’m always light and gay with him, to disguise my true state.
For though I want Thomas with a craving like an illness, I do love the King, my Henry. Truly I do!
OCTOBER—NOVEMBER 1541
We tarry in York for weeks, waiting for His Majesty’s nephew, James, King of Scotland. James never arrives, which puts His Majesty in a terrible mood.
When we get back to London, I’m relieved to learn that we’ll go to Hampton Court in November. The King loves that palace, smaller and warmer and more inviting than many of the others, and it’s my favourite, too. I hope we’ll stay to celebrate the holidays there.
One night shortly after our arrival at Hampton, Lady Rochford makes what are by now the usual preparations for a visit from Thomas. The other ladies are dismissed, and she herself will stand guard. If the evening grows too long for her, she’ll wake either Joan or Kate to take her place.
I twist my hair and pin it in place, for I plan to unpin it and let it tumble free at the right moment, as part of our lovemaking. Lady Rochford is preparing the bed. I turn from the mirror to speak to her.
“Why do you do it?” I ask. I’ve been wondering about her for some time now.
“What?” She pretends not to know what I mean.
“Why do you help me and Mr. Culpeper?”
She risks almost as much as we do, if anyone ever finds out. I think I know the answer. She collects gossip the way a magpie collects shiny things. Having more news or knowledge than anyone else makes her feel special. Or powerful, maybe. Or both.
I wonder if she’ll admit this.
A pillow in her hands, she stops what she’s doing and looks at me. I’m stunned to see her face—sunken in lines of pain and shadows of sadness.
“You must know, Your Grace, that everyone believes me a traitor since—since the death of Queen Anne,” she says. “I would like to have married again, but no one would have me. No one will ever have me. My only life is here at court.”
She places the pillow on the bed and pulls its slip free of wrinkles. “What would become of me if I were to be turned out? It cannot happen. I must do all I can to ensure my place here. You, Your Grace, being so very young—you are my best chance. If I should serve you well, you will one day become Dowager Queen, and keep me in your household for the rest of my days.”
A moment’s pause. I nod. “And so I shall,” I say.
; We might be fools, both of us. But I’m absolutely certain that we’re telling each other the truth at that moment—the truth as we believe it.
Thomas knocks then, and she leaves us.
* * *
—
The first snow falls at Hampton—only a few flakes, not enough to whiten the ground. But the air is crisp and clear, and those tiny bits of icy lace seem to promise a festive holiday season.
My ladies and maids are merry. We’re in my presence chamber learning a dance. The Spanish ambassador has a new courtier who brought with him the latest dances popular at the court in Aragon and Castile. This one is called a canary.
It’s my favourite kind of dance, with lots of lively, intricate steps. Lady Lucy was first to learn it and is trying to teach the rest of us. One-and-two, hop clap! One-and-two, skip clap!—we’re all laughing at our bumblings and mistimed claps.
Then Lady Nan rushes into the room. “Your Grace!”
One look at her face, and I stop giggling. She looks truly alarmed! I take a step towards her.
“Nan, what is it?”
She glances over her shoulder, and before she can speak, two of the King’s guards burst in without knocking. Their faces are like stone. One comes forwards while the other stays at the door.
The air in the room changes, tightens.
What is this?
“Good morning, sirs,” I say. “We did not expect you—we have been dancing.”
“It is no time for dancing,” says the nearer guard. “We have come at the behest of His Majesty. You are to remain here in your rooms at his pleasure, until such time as he deems.”
“Remain here—what can you mean?” I ask. “I am shortly to dine with His Majesty. I will speak to him of this.”
I hurry to my dressing chamber to arrange my hair and my hood, slightly askew. Then I make for the door.
The guard will not let me pass. My confusion flickers into the beginnings of fear.
“I would see the King,” I say. I’m trembling, but I give him my best Queen stare.
“My orders are to detain you here.”
“I am sure you have misunderstood your orders!” My fear makes me shrill.
Thomas. Could the King have found out about Thomas? It must be—what else could it be?
Panic rises in my gorge. I whirl around and catch sight of Lady Rochford, who gives me a look so quick I might have imagined it.
She cries out and staggers towards the guard at the door, then goes into a swoon so he has to catch her before she falls. A ruse! It gives me the chance to throw open the door and rush from the room.
I run.
I know where His Majesty will be. It’s time for him to hear Mass, as he always does, in the small chapel next to his apartments.
“Henry!” I shriek.
—enry enry enry echoes in the cold stone corridor.
My skirts swirl around my feet; I grab the fabric with one hand so I can run faster. I have to see him! I have to tell him that I love him!
“Henry! Henry, my lord and King!”
Behind me I hear the pounding of boots on the stone floor. I’m gasping, I can’t breathe, I can hardly see.
“HENRY!”
I trip on the trailing edge of my skirt and nearly fall. The guards reach me and grab my arms, one on either side. They lift me off my feet. I writhe and twist, kick and scream.
“No, no! I must see him! I must see the King!”
They begin dragging me back towards my chambers.
“You cannot! I am the Queen! You must— HENRY! HENRY!”
* * *
—
My ladies are already at work.
Lady Rochford tends to me in bed. Lady Nan goes and returns. When I am recovered enough to sit up, she tells me what she’s learned.
“A letter,” she says, “left for the King in his pew at chapel.”
“What of this letter?” I whisper.
“Its sender is unknown. It tells of a woman named Mary Hall, who knew you as a ward of the Dowager.”
When I was a ward…Another life, another world.
“But I don’t know this Mary Hall!”
“It tells, too, of her brother, a man called John Lascelles,” Nan says, her brow knit in thought. “Hall would be her married name, then. You may have known her as Mary Lascelles.”
“Mary Lascelles?”
Mary, the chambermaid! Who slept in the dormitory with us—who gave the key to Francis and the other young men—but it makes no sense. I’ve had nothing to do with her for years. She can’t possibly know anything.
I start to cry again, my distress and confusion blotting out all thought.
* * *
—
For two days I’m so worried that my whole body aches. I don’t sleep for a single second—I lie in bed with my eyes wide, my jaw sore from gritting and grinding my teeth. I send message after message to the King, with no reply.
Finally, on the third day, I get word that Bishop Cranmer will be coming to see me. He’s a Reformist, in favour of the Great Bible, so he’s already against my family. And me.
Oh, why can’t it be Bishop Gardiner instead?
My ladies dress me carefully, in a gown of grey silk. It’s modestly cut but has black sarcenet sleeves. It says that I’m sober, not frivolous—and that I’m still Queen. I decide to enter my presence chamber after the Bishop is admitted. It’s a small thing—I won’t make him wait, I don’t want to anger him—but it will be another reminder of who I am.
He arrives in the forenoon. He doesn’t bow, just tilts his head, more a twitch than a bow, as if his neck pains him. Then he nods without smiling.
Now I know for certain that this isn’t a friendly visit.
“If you wish, Queen Catherine, you may choose one of your ladies to remain in the room. However, she may not speak.”
I look immediately to Lady Nan. The others leave the chamber. The Bishop’s man brings him a chair. We sit, and I lace my fingers in my lap.
He begins. “Do you know Mary Hall, née Lascelles?”
“Yes. She served the Dowager during my years as a ward.”
“Do you know Master Henry Manox?”
“Yes.” I tighten my fingers against each other. “He—he was the music teacher at Chesworth. And Lambeth.”
“Mary Hall sends word through her brother, John Lascelles, that Manox was your lover.”
“No!”
“You deny it?”
“He was never my lover! We kissed a few times, that is all.”
“You are certain? Mary Hall alleges more than kissing.”
I look away from him.
“Well? Was it more than kissing?”
I clear my throat. “There may have been—a time or two when I—when he touched—when he put his hand beneath my shift.” I find strength in the truth. “But no more than that. He was not my lover. I was barely more than a child.”
He blinks at that, and I feel I’ve won a small victory. But his next question makes my spine stiffen with worry.
“Do you know Francis Dereham?”
“Y-yes.”
“In what way?”
“He—he was a courtier. For the Dowager.”
“And he was your lover.”
My thoughts are suddenly like snakes, hissing, slithering, poisonous. Yes, he was my lover, but is that a crime? It was long before I even met the King. Is Francis Dereham the reason I’m locked in my rooms?
“He—” I look at the Bishop in confusion.
“And you brought him here to court, to continue your liaison?”
“No!” I shout. Now I’m not confused at all, and I want him to know it. “Mr. Dereham came to court at the behest of the Dowager—I’ve hardly spoken to him since his arrival!”
> He presses his lips together for a moment before he speaks again. “You should know, Queen Catherine, that we have spoken to Dereham at—at some considerable length. He has made a full and frank confession. From you we are merely seeking confirmation of what is already known.”
At some considerable length. His meaning is clear: Francis Dereham confessed after being tortured.
“We were—yes.” My voice drops to a whisper. “We were once lovers. A very long time ago.”
“Were you also husband and wife?”
I jerk my head up. “No!”
“Dereham says otherwise.”
“We were never married!”
The Bishop stares at me sternly. “Queen Catherine, are you aware that if a man and a woman promise themselves in marriage and commit acts of fornication, they are considered married under the law, even if no priest be present?”
My heart beats in a wild panic. If it can be proved that I was married before, with a husband still alive and well, it would mean that I had no right to marry the King. Hiding a marriage from His Majesty—this must be the crime I’m accused of!
“Dereham says that you were promised to wed, and that he bedded you many times. He also says that before he went abroad, he left with you the whole of his life’s savings. With whom would a man do that, save his wife?”
I remember Francis asking me to call him husband, and him calling me wife. I thought it was nothing but a lover’s game.
“No, I swear to you, we were not married!”
“You were! You were espoused under the law, and you continued your liaison when he came to court!”
“No!” I’m on my feet now, my fists clenched in frustration. “If he says it, he lies! I will allow that I lay with him, but there was no marriage!”
“He gave you money, he married you—”
“No! He was not my husband. I was not his wife!”
I don’t know how many hours we spend at this. Again and again, the Bishop accuses me of a prior marriage contract. Again and again, I deny it. The sun is nearly gone from the sky, and he hasn’t stopped asking the same question.
I’m weeping now, in a state of exhausted despair. “No, no, no! I must speak to my King! Please tell him—tell him I beg him to see me. I have married no man but him, he is my only husband!”
