Katheryn Howard, the Scandalous Queen

by Alison Weir

  Katheryn held up a pendant to her breast. “That doesn’t begin to describe it. She is so zealous in the matter. She clearly adores Mr. Culpeper herself, yet she is urging me to love him.”

  “Doesn’t she realize how dangerous that could be?” Meg asked.

  “If she does, it doesn’t deter her. She says she will protect us.”

  “Do you know what I think, Madam?” Meg hesitated. “I think she gets her pleasure from imagining you and Mr. Culpeper together. I believe she has a wicked imagination. What else could account for her conduct?”

  Katheryn pondered this notion. She had come near to thinking the same herself. Had it not been for Jane’s many small kindnesses and her warm interest in Katheryn, she would have dismissed her, and wondered about doing so now, but Henry might ask questions. No, it was too risky. She must just speak firmly with Jane and put a stop to this foolishness.

  Her opportunity came the next day when Jane approached her as she was sitting on a window seat strumming her lute. Her ladies were playing a very noisy card game and she was feeling irritated because they were drowning out the music.

  “Your Grace, I would speak with you again about Mr. Culpeper,” Jane said in a low voice, so that Katheryn had to strain to hear her.

  “I want to talk to you about him!” she replied.

  “Madam, I think you have misunderstood. He desires nothing more than to speak with you, and I would swear upon a holy book that he means nothing but honesty.”

  It occurred to Katheryn that it might be worth meeting with Tom, if only to get him to stop Jane pestering her on his behalf. “Look, I will see him,” she said. “And I will put an end to this.”

  Jane’s face lit up. “I will tell him,” she said. “I will bring him to my chamber at midnight.”

  Katheryn had grave misgivings. What if Henry came to her bed that night? Well, then, Tom would just have to wait until another time!

  But Henry did not come. When all was dark and Hampton Court lay sleeping, Katheryn rose from her bed, put on her damask night robe with the high stand-up collar, and crept along the gallery to Jane’s room. When she opened the door, Tom was waiting for her, alone. She recoiled. She had expected Jane to be there.

  She dared not stay out in the gallery, so she stepped into the room and closed the door quietly behind her.

  “Katheryn, you came!” Tom breathed, looking at her with longing.

  She had vowed to be impervious to his charisma, but it was not easy. “I cannot stay. I came to tell you that you must stop making Lady Rochford press your suit on me.”

  “I must stop? I assure you, Katheryn, she provokes me often to love you; she keeps telling me how much you love me.” He was plainly nonplussed.

  “I have never told her that I love you. She does nothing but urge me to see you. Be honest, Tom—have you put her up to that?”

  “Well, I suppose I have,” he confessed. “Can you blame me if I am gripped with a kind of madness?”

  “This must stop right now!” Katheryn said firmly. “That is what I came to say. I would not hurt you for the world, but there is no future for us, and we are putting ourselves in danger by meeting like this.”

  “I know,” he said, looking anguished. “But I love you, Katheryn, and I would risk all for you.”

  “And I am the King’s wife!” she reminded him.

  “Do you think I can forget it, attending on him daily as I do? He never stops talking about you. It galls me to hear it. Just let me kiss you, please—”

  “No,” she answered, stepping back. “I must go. There cannot be anything between us, Tom. Now fare you well.”

  “Katheryn…”

  But she had gone, her heart beating wildly.

  Jane was waiting for her in the gallery. Katheryn could just make out her shape in the darkness. “Did it go well?” she whispered.

  “I finished it,” Katheryn told her.

  “But you can’t!” Jane was vehement.

  “Alas, will this never end?” Katheryn hissed. “I pray you, bid him trouble me no more and be done with it!”

  She was angry about Jane’s reluctance, but the next day, she found out that Jane had done as she was bidden.

  “He will not take no for an answer,” she murmured, joining Katheryn in her privy garden, where the blossom was now in full bloom. “He bids you remember what you meant to each other and that you might have been his wife.”

  “Shh!” Katheryn hissed. “No one must ever know that.”

  But she remembered. She could think of little else, and of how she had hurt him. She was utterly torn. She kept reminding herself that they had got away with meeting in secret last night, and that it had easily been achieved. Dare she…? Could she do it? Possibilities opened out to her. The temptation was great. Henry would never know. No one apart from Jane need ever know.

  No, it would be risking too much. It was madness to contemplate it.

  But she wanted Tom so much. She had been sleeping alone for weeks now. She yearned to touch him and have him pleasure her. Imagining him inside her made her feel faint with desire.

  She must resist. She could not betray Henry, dear Henry, who loved her so and was good to her way beyond what she deserved. And—she must never lose sight of this—he was not only her husband, but her King. In betraying him with Tom, she would be committing not just adultery, but treason.

  But Henry might never find out…

  * * *

  —

  Tom had ignored her warning. Still he was asking Jane to urge her to at least see him and talk with him, and Henry, whose leg was still keeping him largely confined to a chair, went on playing an unsuspecting Cupid, often suggesting that Tom look after Katheryn for him. This evening, as he watched them fondly from the dais, Tom was partnering the Queen in the dancing the King had ordered. Katheryn was making a tremendous effort to act in a regal manner and suppress her feelings for him, but, when he clasped her hand, she felt him press something into it. It was a folded paper, which she quickly slipped into her pocket, hoping that no one had seen.

  She could not wait to get back to her chamber. The evening seemed to drag on interminably. But at last—at last—she was alone and could read it. He had written of his love for her, how it had been born when she was but a little girl, and how it had deepened when he first saw her at court. Could they not meet? he begged. He would ask nothing of her but her friendship.

  Again, she was tempted. She wrote a reply. “Have patience, and I will find a way to comply with what you wish.”

  There was to be dancing again the following evening and it was inevitable that Tom partner her. She managed to pass her note to him and saw that he was overjoyed beyond measure and barely concealing the fact. She prayed no one would notice. “I am so glad to hear the good news about your brother, Mr. Culpeper!” she said in a loud voice.

  She noticed Thomas Paston watching them. She had almost forgotten meeting him on the day she had first realized that Tom saw her as more than his little cousin. Jane had said recently that Paston still bore her, Katheryn, favor, and it was probably true, for he was looking daggers at Tom. Well, you can look! she thought. She had never fancied him.

  Two days later, at supper, Henry was grumbling that some servants of Tom and Thomas Paston had been brawling. “They made a riotous and unlawful affray in Southwark, over God knows what!” I think I do, Katheryn thought. “I’ve sent Paston to the Fleet prison for inciting it.”

  At least it wasn’t Tom’s fault. Henry could see no wrong in Tom.

  Jane was eager to arrange another meeting, but still Katheryn held back. She was not sure that she wanted to take any more risks.

  * * *

  —

  The court moved to Whitehall for Easter, and Henry was much his old self again, happily making plans for Katheryn’s official reception in London. He ha
d said nothing about her being crowned, and she did not like to ask. Maybe he could not afford it, or maybe he was waiting for her to earn the privilege by bearing him a son.

  He had decided that she was to be presented to the citizens of London in a river pageant. As she made her preparations, choosing what gown she was to wear, she was thinking of Queen Anne’s river pageant seven years earlier and how splendid that had been. She hoped that hers would be the same.

  The evening before, as she returned to her apartments after Vespers, she found her cousin Surrey waiting for her in the gallery.

  “Good evening, my lord,” she said.

  “I have a favor to ask of your Grace,” he told her, his eyes dark and brooding. “I need your help.”

  “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  Surrey fell, rather dramatically, to his knees before her and clutched her hand, pressing it to his lips. “You may have heard that my friends Sir Thomas Wyatt and Sir John Wallop are in the Tower. Malicious persons have persuaded his Majesty that Sir Thomas is a Lutheran and that Sir John has praised the Pope, and that both are guilty of treason. But I know them well, Madam, and I can say, hand on heart, that none of it is true. Poor Wyatt is being held in a foul prison. Of your charity, will you intercede with the King for them?”

  “Of course,” she said, thinking that on the day of her triumph, Henry would be inclined to grant her request.

  “May God bless your Grace for your goodness!” Surrey cried, kissing her hand again.

  She smiled at him. “Get up, cousin. I’m happy to help. Now, walk with me to my lodgings and tell me something more of the circumstances.”

  * * *

  —

  Wearing white damask and cloth of gold, she carried herself as a queen should when she entered the King’s barge at Whitehall stairs and seated herself beside him in the cabin.

  “You look beautiful!” he told her, taking her hand and holding it on his knee. The oarsmen pulled away and they were carried along the Thames toward Greenwich, past riverbanks crammed with cheering, waving crowds. Henry was in his element, smiling broadly from left to right, acknowledging the acclaim. At three o’clock, they passed under London Bridge and found waiting for them, in barges hung with tapestry and banners, the Lord Mayor and all the aldermen and craftguilds of the City. They escorted the royal barge past the Tower, where there were great salvoes of artillery, and, when they arrived at Greenwich, all the ships docked there let off their guns in salute. The noise was deafening.

  “A great triumph, darling,” Henry commented. “My people love you.”

  “Sir, I have a favor to ask.”

  “What is your wish, sweetheart?”

  “Might I entreat your Grace for the release of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Sir John Wallop? My cousin Surrey has explained all to me, and has convinced me that they have been slandered by false persons.”

  “Hmm.” Henry looked doubtful.

  “Please, for me? I beg of you, Henry!” She tried to get down on her knees, but he pulled her back.

  “You’ll have the boat over, Katheryn!” Suddenly, they were laughing. “All right, I will pardon them both. I have come to have doubts myself about their guilt. And, on this day of all days, I cannot refuse you.”

  “Oh, Henry, I am so grateful!” she cried. “You have such a godly nature and are always inclined to pity and mercy. Thank you!”

  He beamed at her, basking in her praise. “But there is one condition,” he said, “which is that Wyatt should return to his wife, from whom he has been separated for many years. It is not fitting that spouses live apart.” His lips pursed in that prim way he had. “And he will be warned that he must be true to her henceforth on pain of death.”

  She was aghast. “But, Henry, from what I’ve heard from my cousin of Surrey, she was unfaithful to him.”

  “He has been living in adultery with Bess Darrell, who used to serve the Princess Dowager, and it has to stop. Two wrongs can never make a right. He must return to his wife and follow the path of virtue.”

  “Sir, I beg you to reconsider! I doubt he has seen his wife for many years.”

  But Henry was immovable. There was no more that she could do.

  * * *

  —

  Many people came to congratulate her on securing the pardoning of Wyatt. Henry himself was clearly impressed by her compassion for the prisoners and seemed to revel in the role of indulgent husband and merciful sovereign. In the wake of her successful intercession, Katheryn seized her moment and gathered her courage to beg him again to release her half-brother John Leigh, who was still in the Tower. Henry had not responded to her last pleas, but now he readily granted her request, and Katheryn had the pleasure of seeing John reunited with their sister Isabel, who cried tears of joy. Prison had subdued him; he was no longer the ebullient man Katheryn had known in her younger years, but it was heart-warming to be embraced by him and thanked for her wonderful kindness.

  “Could you spare your good lady to be my gentlewoman?” she asked him.

  His drawn face lit up. “Elizabeth will be honored, Madam!” Katheryn liked his wife, who was a warm, kindly soul.

  “Then it is settled,” she said. “She shall come to me when you have had some time together.”

  * * *

  —

  On March 21, Henry rode off to Dover to inspect the fortifications, leaving Katheryn and her ladies at Greenwich.

  “I’ll be back by Palm Sunday,” he told her, as she handed him the stirrup cup and bade him farewell. “It won’t be long before we are together again.”

  Her flowers did not appear that month. She said nothing to Henry when he returned; she did not want to raise his hopes, only to dash them again. As the days wore on, she spent an increasing amount of time in her closet or the chapel, praying that God would send her a son. I will never see Tom Culpeper again! she vowed. Jane was still badgering her to meet him, reminding her that she had promised to do so, but she was now taking care to avoid being alone with Jane.

  Her flowers did not come in April either. When Henry came to her bed, for the first time in weeks, and started caressing her, she had to tell him.

  “We ought not,” she said. “I think I am with child.”

  He gathered her in his arms and held her tightly. She could sense the emotion in him. “Oh, darling,” he breathed, “if that is so, it will be a very great joy to me. And I will have you crowned at Whitsuntide.”

  The very next day, he announced it. Her coronation was to take place on June 5. Suddenly, everyone was astir, making preparations for it. An army of embroiderers were set to making furniture and tapestry for Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall, where the coronation banquet was to be held. Copes and ornaments were borrowed from churches. The young lords and gentlemen of the court began practicing for the jousts and tournaments Henry was planning.

  Suddenly, Katheryn was gripped with fear. Someone mentioned Queen Jane, and she was forcefully reminded that Jane had died in childbed, like her own mother. She had never forgotten that terrible loss or the still figure on the bed. At a stroke, all her joy in her pregnancy was gone. If she could have wished the child away, she would.

  And then…

  She lay on her bed, weeping bitterly, reproaching herself. She had lost the baby. It lay, a tiny, curved blob of matter, no bigger than her fingertip, in a dish in her stool chamber. And it was all her fault. God had sent her a child in response to her prayers and He must be angry with her for wishing it away. She was not fit to be a mother.

  Her ladies gathered around, trying to soothe her, but she would not be comforted, for Henry had yet to be told. Someone must have sent for him, for he came in a hurry.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “Hush now, Katheryn,” he said in a shaky voice. “It is God’s will. Maybe He does not intend for us to have children.”
/>
  That just made her cry more. It sounded like a death knell, as if he had given up hope. But she was still young. Surely God would let her conceive again.

  “Rest now,” he said. “I will come to you later.” But he did not. And soon she realized that all preparations for her coronation had ceased.

  1541

  Henry’s love for her had cooled, she knew it. She had disappointed him. Isabel tried to comfort her, saying that he had doubtless ceased coming to her bed because she was not yet over her miscarriage.

  “But he could hold me, couldn’t he, and reassure me that he still loves me!” she burst out. She could not bear to think that she had lost his love and his favor.

  “Some men don’t think like that,” Isabel said, patting her hand.

  “If only he would come to dine with me!” Katheryn sobbed. “I haven’t seen him for three days.”

  “He will come soon, I’m sure,” Isabel soothed. “Now try to rest, so that you look your best for him when he does. Let me put some drops of distilled lavender on your pillow. That will help to calm you.” She sprinkled the bolster and drew the curtains against the daylight, then left, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Inhaling the sharp scent of lavender, Katheryn lay there fretting. Please come, Henry! she prayed. God, please make him come. At the root of her distress was the fear that he would cast her away.

  There was a soft tap, and someone entered the room. She sat up and saw Jane Rochford smiling at her in the dim light.

  “I do hope your Grace is feeling better,” she said. “I’m sure the King is grieving, too, for your sad loss, and that when he is himself again he will visit you.”

  “I do hope so,” Katheryn whispered.

  “But here is some good news,” Jane said, sitting down uninvited on the bed. “His Grace has granted Mr. Culpeper four manors in Gloucestershire and one in Wiltshire, as a reward for good service. Our friend is becoming quite the man of property!”