Katheryn Howard, the Scandalous Queen

by Alison Weir

  “The city fathers are already gathering in Lincoln, your Majesties,” Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, the High Sheriff for Lincolnshire, told them, as they seated themselves in their tent for the feast. Katheryn felt some trepidation. Lincoln had risen against the King in the Pilgrimage of Grace and been savagely punished into submission. Would there be demonstrations, riots, even? But Henry did not look perturbed. He was tucking into his food with gusto.

  After they had eaten their meal and the local worthies had dispersed, Henry and Katheryn prepared for their reception in Lincoln. He changed into a glittering suit of cloth of gold; her gown was of cloth of silver. When they emerged, they found their ladies and gentlemen waiting for them with six children-of-honor, dressed in cloth of gold and crimson velvet. Tom was in attendance on the King and Katheryn could not help but notice how handsome he looked in his outfit of dark red damask.

  A procession of dignitaries was advancing toward them, headed by the Dean of Lincoln and the cathedral clergy. An archdeacon made a speech in Latin and presented a basket of local delicacies: sage sausages, haslet, gingerbread, and plum loaf, for which Henry thanked him heartily. Then he and Katheryn mounted their richly trapped horses. Lord Hastings walked ahead, bearing the sword of state, the King following, his mount led by the Master of Horse. Then came the children-of-honor riding great coursers, and, after them, the Earl of Rutland, then Katheryn herself and all the ladies, with the King’s guard bringing up the rear.

  At the gates of Lincoln, they were received by the Mayor and his brethren, who fell to their knees, crying, “Jesus save your Grace!” The Recorder read a speech from a scroll, which he presented to the King, who handed it to the Duke of Norfolk. Katheryn was watching the citizens, some of whom were regarding her uncle with ill-concealed hostility; God knew they had no reason to love him. The knot of tension in her stomach tightened. But the Mayor was presenting the sword and mace, while the chief citizens and the knights and gentlemen of the county were taking their places at the front of Henry’s train. Then the great cavalcade set off again and, as the King and Queen entered Lincoln, all the church bells began pealing.

  They ascended the steepest hill Katheryn had ever seen. Looking around at the slope falling away behind her, she felt a little dizzy. Fixing her eyes resolutely ahead, she nodded and smiled at the crowds on each side of the road. At the top of the hill, the procession wound its way to the right and there, in front of them, stood the mighty cathedral with its magnificent arched facade. It seemed that all Lincolnshire had gathered around it to greet them.

  The Mayor and the chief citizens now knelt on the ground as Henry gazed down at them from his horse; all around, the people were falling to their knees. The Mayor cleared his throat and spoke in a ringing voice. “Your Majesty, we, your humble subjects, the inhabitants of this your Grace’s county of Lincoln, confess that we wretches, for lack of grace and of sincere knowledge of the truth of God’s word, have most grievously, heinously, and wantonly offended your Majesty in the unnatural, most odious, and detestable offenses of outrageous disobedience and traitorous rebellion. We beg your bountiful forgiveness and promise that we and our posterity will henceforth pray for the preservation of your Majesty, Queen Katheryn, and Prince Edward.”

  Henry looked down on the sea of bowed heads. “Good people of Lincolnshire, my loving subjects,” he cried in a ringing tone, “I formally pardon you for your disobedience and forgive you. I pray you all rise and depart in peace.”

  He spurred his horse and rode through the crowd with Katheryn following, beaming down at those who were calling out blessings on her for obtaining the King’s mercy. By Saint Mary, she thought, they think I interceded for them! I do not deserve this. She would not think about the other reasons why she did not deserve their acclaim.

  They had reached the west door of the cathedral and it was time to dismount. Within, the Bishop of Lincoln, who was also the King’s confessor, was waiting with his cross and his clergy to receive them. A carpet had been laid along the nave and two prayer stools with cushions of cloth of gold had been set facing the high altar. As Katheryn knelt beside Henry, she saw that crucifixes had been laid there for them. She kissed hers fervently, thankful that the day had gone so well and that there had been no trouble. The Bishop censed them; then they received the sacrament and prayed while the choir sang the Te Deum.

  * * *

  —

  They were lodged in the adjacent Bishop’s Palace, a very old building, but much embellished over the years. That evening, Bishop Longland hosted a feast in their honor in the great hall.

  Late that night, when she was certain that Henry was not coming to sleep with her, Katheryn stole out of her chamber, fully dressed, intending to go up to Jane’s room and ask her to summon Tom. She was climbing the two short flights of stairs when she heard Kat’s voice behind her: “I’m so sorry, Madam, we did not hear you call us.” She looked around to see Kat and Meg standing in the gallery.

  “I’m just going up to see Lady Rochford,” she told them.

  “We should be attending your Grace,” Meg said, and they came after her. She did not dare deter them, lest they smelled a rat. When they got upstairs, she smiled at them.

  “You can go to bed now. I will call you if I need you.”

  They went back downstairs and Katheryn slumped in relief as she opened Jane’s door. Jane had her plans laid. “We have arranged that he shall wait below my window for a signal,” she explained. “If I don’t appear by midnight, he will go to bed.”

  When Tom arrived, Katheryn went into his arms and he kissed her as if he would never stop. Their need for each other sated a little, they stood talking for over an hour in a little gallery at the stairhead, because Jane was tired and Katheryn had felt obliged to send her to bed. At one point, they thought they heard someone on the stairs below, but, when Katheryn went down to look, there was no one there. She fell into bed around two o’clock, thoughts of Tom filling her head.

  The next day, she accompanied Henry when he was shown around Lincoln Castle and the ancient city. He was in fine spirits and especially interested to see some Roman remains and the tomb of his ancestress, Katherine Swynford, in the cathedral.

  “She was the mother of the Beauforts, my grandmother’s family,” he told Katheryn, gazing at the brass. “She was much beloved by John of Gaunt, who made her his mistress and then married her. It was an extraordinary thing for a royal duke to do, but then love makes fools of the best of men!” He winked at Katheryn. “She was very beautiful, it says here.” He was reading the Latin epitaph. “As are you, my love.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

  She thought he would come to her that night, but his leg was playing him up; he had walked for too long, he told her. Eleven o’clock found her standing with Jane just inside the back door of her lodgings, waiting for Tom. They were peering out when one of the watch came with a light, and drew back inside just before he locked and bolted the door from the outside. They stared at each other in dismay.

  “How will Tom get in?” Katheryn whispered. But presently they heard someone fiddling with the lock and the sound of footsteps retreating. Soon afterward, the door opened, and Tom stood there grinning. Jane pulled him inside and hastened to shut the door.

  “My man picked the lock,” he told them. “Don’t worry, he’s gone.” Katheryn marveled at how resourceful he had been.

  “Go on up and wait for me in Lady Rochford’s chamber,” she said, and hastened to her bedchamber, where her women were waiting to prepare her for bed. “Ladies, you may retire,” she said.

  “Does your Grace not need help to undress?” Kat asked.

  “You may attend me in due course,” Katheryn said hastily. It would not do for anyone to suspect that something was amiss. “But I will be late to bed, so you must wait.” Judging that Jane would now have smuggled Tom into her chamber, she led Kat Tilney up the stairs and bade her wait
on the landing with Jane’s maid. “I have private business to discuss with my Lady Rochford,” she said. “Do not disturb us.”

  Tom was waiting in the bedchamber with Jane.

  “I’ve just thought that you could be private in your stool chamber,” Jane said. “No one can hear you or discover you there. I will stand guard outside in the bedchamber.”

  Needing to be alone with Tom, Katheryn agreed without hesitation. When all was clear, the three of them slipped downstairs and Jane dismissed the maids who were waiting to assist Katheryn to bed.

  The stool chamber, which led off the Queen’s bedchamber, was spacious, having space for hanging clothes, and it had been cleaned and aired. The close stool stood in a corner, upholstered in padded red velvet secured by brass studs. Tom dragged a bench in, and they sat down and talked, oblivious to the passing of time. They spoke of their lives before they had met at court, and of their loves. Katheryn played down the feelings she had had for Francis and said nothing about their plans to marry or how close they had been.

  “They made me do things I did not want to do,” she said. “I could not tell the King about them because I was too frightened to, but I am being honest with you because I truly love you and want there to be no secrets between us.”

  “Did you bed with them?” Tom asked sharply.

  “Only with Francis,” she said, “but I was careful. He only went as far as I let him.” Let Tom think it had not been that far.

  “They took advantage of you, those knaves,” Tom seethed. “You were young and naive. Manox was your tutor! He betrayed everyone’s trust. He should have been horsewhipped!”

  Katheryn did not like to say that she had encouraged him. “Let it be. It’s all in the past now. I hope you don’t think any the worse of me for it.” She looked at him pleadingly.

  “How could I? You were more sinned against than sinning. Forget it, sweet Katheryn. We shall never speak of it again.” He drew her to him and began kissing her; and all the while she was thinking that she had not been wholly honest with him. But what he did not know could not hurt him.

  “You must have fancied many young ladies in your time,” she said, deftly changing the subject.

  Tom kissed her again. “A few,” he said, still looking annoyed. “Before I loved you.”

  “Did you love any of them?”

  “I thought I did at the time, but most, like Bess, meant little to me. I only pursued her because I couldn’t have you. I haven’t seen her since March.”

  That was when Bess had left Katheryn’s service.

  “Did you tell her you had tired of her?” she asked.

  “I fear I did, and that I hurt her,” he admitted.

  Loving him as much as she did, Katheryn suddenly felt sympathy for one who had loved and lost him. She wished she had been kinder to Bess back in March.

  “She left court because of you?”

  He nodded. “I knew then that I still loved you and that no one could replace you. It wasn’t fair to lead her on anymore.”

  “I will send her a gown,” Katheryn said impulsively. “As compensation for her loss. I feel sorry for her.”

  “That’s more than generous!” Tom was surprised. “I should be giving her the gown.”

  “Oh no, you shouldn’t! I shall send it to her and say that I hope all is well with her now.”

  There was a noise in the bedchamber beyond. Katheryn held her breath. It would be Jane, of course. But what if Henry woke in the night and took it into his head to visit his wife? He had been in an affectionate mood today, caressing and kissing her quite publicly. Yet he had never arrived to see Katheryn so late.

  She put her head around the door. There was only Jane there, sewing in the candlelight, thanks be to God!

  Another sound, from the stairwell this time! Katheryn jumped. Jane looked up questioningly as she crept across the room, opened the door a crack then peered down the stairs. No one.

  “It was probably a mouse,” Tom said, when she returned. “There’s no need to look so frightened.”

  “I must indeed love you,” she told him, “to risk all for you.”

  “I am taking risks, too,” he reminded her. “But you have bound me to you, as you did before, so that I must love you again above all creatures!”

  They fell to kissing once more, but sprang apart in terror when there came a loud banging from outside.

  “Wait here,” Katheryn whispered. She peeped into the bedchamber, to see an ashen-faced Jane standing in the middle of the room. Someone was knocking loudly on the outer door. Katheryn’s blood froze.

  “Open it!” she hissed, diving back into the stool chamber and closing the door. She and Tom stood there, holding their breath.

  She heard the latch being lifted and the voice of Mrs. Luffkyn, the chamberer. “The Queen is not abed yet, my lady. Do you know where she is?”

  “She’s in the stool chamber,” Jane replied.

  “Oh. That’s a relief! We were wondering where she had gone. Do you know what time it is?”

  “I heard the watch calling three o’clock,” Jane said.

  “It’s nigh four now.”

  “Her Grace would not have expected you to wait up this late for her. Tilney is waiting to put her to bed.”

  “Tilney is asleep on the stairs.”

  “Just go to bed, Luffkyn!” Jane snapped. They heard the door shut.

  “I’d better go,” Tom said. “I don’t want to, but it does grow late.” He kissed Katheryn on the lips. “May God give you good rest.”

  “I need it, in truth.” Staying up late so often had left her tired and drained, and she had even found herself falling asleep in the saddle. Isabel had inquired whether she was well, and Henry himself had told her she looked peaky. She must get some sleep!

  * * *

  —

  Two days later, they left in procession for Gainsborough, with the Earl of Derby bearing the sword of state before the King. Katheryn loved Gainsborough Old Hall, where they stayed, even if she was a little daunted by their host, the red-faced, plain-spoken, and frankly terrifying Lord Burgh. Flanked by his numerous children and his nervous wife, he received the King as if he were the one bestowing the favor. Lecherously, he eyed Katheryn up and down.

  “A good breeder her Grace’ll prove, eh?” He chuckled, oblivious to the dangerous flush creeping up from Henry’s collar. But congenial relations were restored when his lordship led them into his lofty, timbered great hall and offered them goblets of his best wine, then pressed them to accept large refills. Lady Burgh showed Katheryn to the chamber that had been prepared for her at the top of the tower that led off the great hall. It was obvious as they climbed the narrow spiral stairs that Henry would never manage them, and Katheryn sent up a prayer of thanks when her hostess said that his Majesty was being accommodated in the best chamber on the ground floor.

  Tom, however, would have no difficulty in negotiating the stairs. As soon as the bedchamber door closed behind her that night, Katheryn was seized with longing for him. It was a longing both emotional and physical and would not be denied.

  “Send Lady Rochford to me,” she ordered her maids, then dismissed them.

  Jane came, puffing up the stairs. She was not as nimble as Katheryn.

  “Can you arrange for Mr. Culpeper to come here in secret?” Katheryn asked.

  “I’m not sure where he is lodged,” Jane said doubtfully.

  “You must get a message to him, then. Tell him I am pining for him. No, say I am dying of love for him—and for his person!”

  Jane gave her a searching look. “You know what you are saying? I mean, what he might take dying to mean?”

  “It’s how I want him to take it.”

  “Madam, I did not realize that the two of you had gone so far.”

  “We have not—that’s
why I’m dying for him!”

  “Be careful, I beg of you.” Jane looked frightened. “What if he gets you with child?”

  “We won’t go that far! But there are other ways of giving pleasure.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Jane’s voice was bitter.

  “What do you mean?” Katheryn realized she knew very little about her friend.

  “My late husband did things to me I could never bring myself to describe, and never will,” Jane muttered. Rarely did she mention Lord Rochford to Katheryn, and it was now easy to see why. “Of course, Mr. Culpeper is not like that,” she said hastily. “All I ask is that you be prudent. I would not deny you your pleasures.” Her voice turned brisk. “I will go and find Mr. Culpeper. If the coast is clear, I will bring him to you.”

  * * *

  —

  That night, Katheryn let Tom discover the secrets of her body and pleasure her. The ecstasy he aroused in her was such that it was almost like a spiritual experience, consuming her whole being. She was tempted to give herself to him, but she had retained some vestige of reason and made him desist before they both got completely carried away.

  Afterward, they lay together on her bed. How long would they have to go on like this? she asked herself. How long before she could be his completely?

  Then she realized what that would mean, and guilt flooded her. It was something she was growing accustomed to living with daily.

  * * *

  —

  At Hatfield, near Doncaster, a week later, they stayed in an ancient Norman manor house that afforded them little beyond the spartan comforts of another age. But the hunting at Hatfield Chase was excellent: Henry and his companions shot nearly four hundred deer in two days.

  Katheryn had not gone with them. She was suffering menstrual pains and had to lie down for a while with a hot brick wrapped in flannel pressed to her belly. Another month gone with no sign of a child. How long would Henry’s patience last? He had been so loving to her lately—but he might not continue so if she failed him in the one thing that counted.