The Rose Without a Thorn

by Виктория Холт

  In spite of Thomas’s refusal to admit that he had been my lover after my marriage, he had been condemned to death, and Derham was to die with him.

  It was cold December. Christmas would be with us soon. I thought sadly of other Christmasses and the excitement of planning festivities. There would be no more such Christmasses. Even if I were to experience more, they would be haunted by memories of those two young men.

  It was a long day and there was no sleep for me during the night which followed. I could think of nothing but those two young men, lying in their cells—guilty of no crime but of loving me.

  They were taken to Tyburn, there to be hanged, cut down alive, disembowelled and their inner organs burned before their heads were cut off… the most agonizing departure from this life which could have been devised.

  I was frantic with grief. Let them have my head if they must. I had been careless. I had been wanton. I found loving too easy. I was clever at nothing but that. Oh, if only I had known … if only I had been able to see into the future … if only I had not been the one to bring those two to this!

  I was greatly relieved to hear that the sentence on Thomas had been modified. Because he had noble connections, he had been given a more dignified manner of execution and had been beheaded. Not so poor Derham. He had undergone the entire cruel sentence.

  So they had died—those two men whom I had loved.

  Thomas did not betray me even in the face of death. God would forgive him the lie, I knew. It was done for love and surely that cannot be a great sin in the eyes of a God who is said to be Love.

  They told me that before he laid his head upon the block Thomas made a speech to the waiting crowd.

  “Gentlemen,” he said. “Do not seek to know more than that the King deprived me of the thing I love best in the world and, though you may kill me for it, she loves me as well as I love her, though up to this hour no wrong has passed between us. Before the King married her, I thought to make her my wife, and when she was lost to me I was like unto death. The Queen saw my sorrow and spoke kindly to me. I was tempted to beg to see her. I did. That is all, my lords, on my honor as a gentleman.”

  To the end his one thought had been to protect me. So, nobly he died.

  Poor Derham suffered the greater torture. I rejoice that he, too, is now at rest.

  * * *

  Christmas had come and gone. The heads of Thomas Culpepper and Francis Derham were rotting on London Bridge. I saw them in my nightmares. I was a little quieter at this time. Hope came and went, but life no longer seemed desirable.

  I wondered why they did not kill me. I supposed it was because the King had not chosen a new bride. He would in time, I was sure. Poor lady! The fate of Henry’s queens was not a happy one. I was sorry for her, whoever she should be, and there were times when I almost longed for the day when I should go to the block.

  I wondered about the experience. What did it feel like, to walk out to the Green? First there would be the summons to the Tower, and then the waiting. But perhaps not for long. Sometimes the thought came to me that the King would not let me go. I had meant too much to him. I had been the wife whom he had been waiting for. I shall never forget him as he stood at the altar, thanking God for giving me to him.

  Perhaps he was waiting for a time when he could forgive me. I believed he would have done so if Katherine Tylney and Margaret Morton had not told him of Thomas’s visits.

  And still there was no decision. No sentence had been passed on me, though the fact that Thomas Culpepper had been executed must have meant that the charge of adultery had been accepted. There were times when I felt indifferent. Whatever happened, I could never be happy again. Always with me would be the memory of Thomas on the rack … taken to Tyburn, the axe descending on his once-proud head.

  On the tenth of February, the deputation came to take me to the Tower, and I knew then that the end was near. My heart was sick and my fears had returned during the intervening weeks since the executions of Thomas and Francis Derham, and I had sunk into such deep melancholy that I could feel nothing but intense grief. I was at least relieved that Norfolk was not amongst those who had come to take me to the Tower.

  A cold wind was blowing along the river. I thought, is this the last time I shall see it? How familiar it had been during those days at Lambeth. I kept thinking back to them, of Francis giving me the French fennel and my delight with it. I thought I had loved him then. I remembered my grandmother’s wrath when she had discovered what had happened. My poor grandmother! Still a prisoner, fearful of death, as I was.

  London Bridge. I glanced up and wished I had not done so. It was all over in a matter of seconds, but I had seen those grisly relics … those decaying heads of the men I had once loved.

  We had reached the grim fortress. It loomed up before us. What despair had beset those who had entered it, as I was doing, but there could be no more deep and bitter anguish than that which assailed me now.

  * * *

  The next day I was visited by Sir John Gages, the Constable of the Tower. He told me that the King had given his consent to the Bill of Attainder. The death sentence had been pronounced on me and my paramours Francis Derham and Thomas Culpepper. That sentence had already been carried out on the two men. Mine had yet to be.

  So here I was—a prisoner in the Tower. This is how it had happened to my cousin. I thought of her so often, and now here I was, living out the story for myself.

  It was uncanny. There were times when I could not believe it; but now the end was near, I felt calmer than I ever had since I had first become aware of the terrible fate which was looming before me.

  I was told that Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, was at the Tower and would like to speak to me.

  When he was brought to me, I thought he looked very sad.

  “Your Majesty,” he said. “I am very concerned. You know there is a Bill of Attainder against you, and you know what this means?”

  “Yes, I know,” I replied. “And I have been expecting it for a long time.”

  He nodded. “I have come to tell you that there may be an escape from your tragic situation.”

  An escape? Could I be hearing correctly? What escape could there be? Was he suggesting I could step out of the Tower to where a barge would be waiting to take me away—to France perhaps? It was to France most people usually escaped. I must be dreaming. The Archbishop could not be suggesting such a wild plan.

  “If you would agree that there had been a precontract between you and Francis Derham, then it could be said that you were never married to the King.”

  I stared at him, trying to assess the meaning of this. So, if it were agreed that there were a precontract, it would be as in the case of Catherine of Aragon. I would never have been married to him. Henry could go ahead and marry someone else when he wished. I could see it might be a way of saving my life.

  There was a kindness in this Archbishop. He was trying to show me a way of escaping the axe, for, if I would not agree, there was only one way for Henry to marry again. This was my death—as in the case of my cousin.

  Betrothed to Derham! It was what we had said, but there had been no betrothal. Was I going to buy a possible reprieve in such a way?

  I said slowly: “My Lord Archbishop, I was never betrothed to Francis Derham. It was talked of, but there was no true betrothal.”

  He shook his head sadly. “’Tis a pity. If it were so, there might be a way.”

  He was looking at me almost appealingly. He wanted me to tell him I had been betrothed.

  All kinds of thoughts were rushing through my head. Did the King want it? It must be so, or it would not have been suggested. Was it because he could not bear to think of the head he had so often caressed falling to the executioner’s axe?

  There was another thought. Two Queens beheaded in a few short years! Two divorces … or as good as! And the other dead in childbirth! There had once been a rumor that, at the time of Jane’s death, there had been a chance to s
ave either her life or that of the newly born Prince, and when the King had been asked to decide, he had replied that, while it was hard for him to get a son, wives were easily come by. That may not have been true, but the fact that there had been a rumor meant that the thought must have been in someone’s mind. People were already whispering about the unfortunate lives of Henry’s queens. Was that the reason why he was not eager to behead another of them? Would some people call it murder?

  But there had been no betrothal, and I had done with lies. I did not want to live … without Thomas. So I said: “It is not true. I was never betrothed to Francis Derham.”

  “My lady, Your Majesty, I am sure that if you agreed, there might be a way out of your trials.”

  “There may or may not. I do not know. But I cannot say there was a betrothal between myself and Francis Derham.”

  He looked at me mournfully and went away.

  The Last Day

  I HAD ASKED that my good friend, the scribe, might come to me and that I might be alone with her. Close by, Jane Rochford was sleeping. They had given her something to quieten her, for a wild mood was on her.

  She came and we talked in the way we had done while I told her the story of my life and relived all that had led me to this room in the Tower.

  I said to her: “My dear friend, you have listened and you have written it down, as I could not have done. Thus I have lived it all again. This is the last time we two shall be together, for tomorrow I shall be no more.

  “They have sent Jane to me. She is in the cell nearby. Tomorrow she is to lead me to the scaffold, and when they have cut off my head, they will do the same to her.

  “Poor Jane! She is in a sorry state. It is the guilt, you see. Perhaps I should feel guilty, but strangely enough, I cannot. I loved too readily. There are some of us who are like that. They call it sin. Yet it was love. I loved them both. Francis cared for me. We had beautiful moments together. He went to Ireland to make a fortune, and it was all that he might marry me. His face was soft and gentle when he gave me the French fennel and other gifts. But Thomas was my true love. We would have been happy together. I even thought Manox was handsome once, and he was a beguiling musician. And the King … he was old and not handsome when I knew him, but he was so powerful, and power is such that it can have an effect on a woman’s senses. I loved them all. I wonder who decided that love was a sin?

  “But enough of this. There is little time left. This will be my last day on Earth, for tomorrow I shall be with my Maker. It is strange that I can say that with a certain calm. I could not have done so two months ago.

  “It all changed when Thomas and Francis died.”

  * * *

  Jane came to me during the day. There was a certain madness in her eyes. She was fearful of death; she thought it was retribution for what she had done. How terrible for Jane to have that on her conscience, but it had worried her very little until she was facing death. I suppose she was thinking that it might have been so different. If George Boleyn had been her devoted husband, he would not have ended his days on the scaffold. What she had implied about the relationship between brother and sister would not have affected Anne. The King had wanted Anne out of the way so that he might many Jane Seymour—so she was doomed.

  I wondered who would be the next wife when I had gone. But there was no time to waste in such speculation.

  Jane said to me, as she had said twenty times before: “I have brought myself to this end because of what I did to my husband and his sister. This is God’s punishment, the vengeance of the Lord.”

  I thought she was going off into one of her fits of madness, and that was when I made them take her to her cell and give her something to quieten her.

  Thus I was left alone for my last talk with my friend.

  That morning I had them bring the block to me. I was not sure of the procedure, for I had never seen an execution. I wanted to be sure how I had to act. I wondered if they would blindfold me and if I should have to be led.

  There would be people there to see me, and I did not wish to do something unseemly. And there was something else. I wanted to be brave. I wanted to be calm. I wondered if my uncle would be there. I felt more angry against my uncle than any other. The only time he ever spoke kindly to me was when the King wanted to marry me and when I became Queen. My poor grandmother was in that fearsome place … sick with pain and fear. She was his stepmother. How could he care so little? His father must have loved her, and he did nothing but revile her.

  I hated him. I should not do so. One must not hate people when one is about to die.

  I put my hands on the block. This was where my cousin had lain her head in the last minutes of her life. She had been brave. She would be. I hoped I could be as she had been. They told me the same block was used for the Countess of Salisbury. And now … it is for me.

  Good-bye, my friend. Do not grieve for me when I am gone. I believe that God will judge me less harshly than my fellow men have done. He will understand that I meant no harm to any. He gave me the gift to love and it was love that destroyed me. Perhaps I shall be with Thomas, and I should be happier there, no matter where, than in any other place that could be found for me on Earth.

  The Scribe

  THE FOLLOWING DAY Katherine was taken out to the scaffold, which had been set up on Tower Green before the church of St. Peter ad Vincula.

  She was calm and dignified and there was an air of resignation about her. She looked very beautiful. A small crowd of people had come to watch her die. I noticed that the Duke of Norfolk had the grace not to be among them.

  She stood by the block on which, the previous day, she had lain her head in practice, and she turned to the headsman, who looked most disconcerted.

  She said to him firmly: “Pray hasten in what you must do.”

  He knelt before her and begged her pardon.

  She repeated: “It is what you must do.” Then she faced the crowd and said firmly: “I die a Queen, but I would rather die the wife of Thomas Culpepper. God have mercy on my soul. Good people all, will you pray for me?”

  Then she knelt and laid her lovely head upon the block and the axe descended.

  * * *

  There was a strange preoccupation throughout the country. People could not forget that this was the second Queen who had been killed at the King’s command, for, try as he might to hide behind the verdict of his Parliament, it was he who had signed the assent. There would be pity for the one who was chosen to be the next Queen of England.

  The King might give a banquet to his Council the day after Katherine’s death, and a few days later make good cheer with the ladies of the Court, but it was easy to detect that his heart was not engaged.

  He looked older. He was indeed fifty years of age. It was true that during his brief marriage he had seemed younger. He had been in high spirits then; he had ridden a great deal, and his temper did not fray as easily as before. It was different now. He looked every year of his age. He was sad and deeply depressed. Katherine had given him back his youth, and now she was gone. He was listless: he had lost his desire for revenge.

  The Duchess of Norfolk was released, and, with her, her son and daughter-in-law.

  Perhaps the King only wanted to forget the beautiful girl who had delighted his life so briefly. Many had seen his distress on hearing of her lack of chastity; they had seen the tears he could not restrain; they suspected that, if it had been possible, he would have kept her. But he could not have sly Francis jeering at him as a cuckolded husband. There are some humiliations a King cannot endure. So it was done; she was gone; and he was a most unhappy man.

  Lady Rochford was executed immediately after the Queen. She made an announcement on the scaffold to the effect that she deserved her fate because she had given false evidence against her husband and her sister-in-law. That was past history and nobody cared very much.

  The question which was being asked throughout the Court was: “Who next?”

  There were a numbe
r of ladies who might have been considered. A furtiveness crept into their manner. Some of them found excuses to leave Court. Few wanted to be chosen as the King’s sixth wife.

  The Prince of Wales was very delicate. He was surrounded by tutors and was said to be more interested in his books than in the outdoor life. His poor health caused great disquiet and there was alarm throughout the royal nurseries if he so much as caught a chill. The Lady Mary, for whom several matches were being suggested, was an unhappy lady. The Princess Elizabeth was at Hatfield and often in the company of the little Prince: she was now nine years old, with the learning of a person twice her age; she bore a striking resemblance to the King in her looks.

  It was obvious that the need for a son still existed. That was why the ladies of the Court walked in fear.

  And at last she appeared—this lady who was destined to be the next victim. She was gracious, elegant, intellectual, and twice widowed, having been married to men many years older than herself. She was well acquainted with all the royal children and a favorite with everyone. She was the perfect stepmother, sober, good-looking in a quiet way—in fact, everything that Katherine had not been. She was, in fact, ten years older than the late Queen.

  Poor woman! I wondered what her feelings could have been? She must have been in a state of shock, for she remarked to the King when he told her she had been chosen: “It would be better to be your mistress than your wife.” This, from one of the most sober and chaste of ladies, betrays the state of her fear.

  Alas for her! It was not a case of choosing, but being chosen: and on the twelfth of July of the year 1543, one year and five months after Queen Katherine Howard had lost her head, the King was married to Catherine Parr.