The Confession of Katherine Howard

by Suzannah Dunn

  What? How did that happen? I hadn’t realised that could happen: that a queen could stop being a queen. Could it happen, then, to the king, too? The queen had been queen forever, or so it seemed to me: longer, anyway, than I’d been alive.

  ‘Why can’t she?’ asked Alice.

  Katherine was looking down at her hands and fiddling with one of her rings, but she was listening: that was how she listened, looking down. Mary and Maggie looked confused and concerned: Mary quiet for once, Maggie unusually circumspect.

  Skid pushed on, but still barely audible over the grumble of the runners: ‘There was a mistake.’ Adding, ‘That’s what the king says. The king says she shouldn’t ever have been made queen.’

  A pretty big mistake, then: the wrong queen, for all this time.

  ‘Why?’ asked Maggie, wide-eyed. ‘Was she bad?’

  ‘Oh!’ Skid laid a hand to her chest, as if to steady herself. ‘No, no. Oh no, no, not at all. She’s a good–’ She stopped herself, returned to the point: ‘It’s just that–the king says, and his lawyers say–there was a problem because she’d been married before. To the king’s brother.’

  Dottie was incredulous: ‘Didn’t he know?’

  Skid half-laughed, taken aback. Her face was blotchier than usual. ‘Well, yes, he did know, but he didn’t realise it was a problem. It’s since come to light that it’s a problem. So, anyway–’ keen to move on–‘she’ll be going to live in a castle in the countryside–perhaps she’ll end up going back to Spain again after all these years, and wouldn’t that be nice for her!–and the king has to start all over again with a new queen.’ She added, ‘This one’s an English lady.’

  English: blonde, I saw in my mind’s eye, and polite-looking. I asked, ‘What happens to Princess Mary?’ The queen’s daughter. The king’s daughter. Like me, an only child.

  Skid turned to me. ‘Well, Catheryn, I’m glad you brought that up, because from now on we’ll be calling her The Lady Mary.’

  Maggie was thrown. ‘Not Princess Mary?’

  ‘No, because she’s no longer a princess. Just as her mother is no longer queen, she’s no longer a princess.’ Were those tears in Skid’s eyes? She’d been prone to tears since the baby–nicknamed Lilyflower–had been born.

  ‘She was, though, wasn’t she?’ said Maggie, puzzled.

  Skid opened her mouth to say something, then closed it but started again in that over-bright tone: ‘Our new queen–Queen Anne–is a Howard! Well, her mother’s a Howard, the duchess’s stepdaughter, the sister of our own good duke. The duke’s niece is our new queen! Isn’t that marvellous? And–’ she beamed at Katherine–‘Katherine, here, is her cousin!’

  Katherine glanced up, but expressionless, giving nothing away, merely acknowledging the mention. I had a strong sense that it was all news to her. Of course, though, was what I was thinking, as if I’d been missing something which was now in my grasp: Katherine would have something to do with this lamentable state of affairs, even if she didn’t know it. I pictured the new queen again but this time she was freckled and had a glint in her eyes.

  ‘Do you know her?’ Mary demanded of Katherine.

  ‘No.’

  But Mary, of course, didn’t leave it. ‘Have you ever seen her?’

  ‘No.’ Impatient, now.

  ‘Oh,’ Skid stepped in, conciliatorily, ‘the Howard family is a very big family, there are a lot of–’ she paused, here, to consider–‘different parts to it.’

  Mary persisted. ‘Do you think you’ll be called to court, to serve her?’

  Skid shushed her; but there’d been something, I felt, to her question. Katherine was too young to serve at court but she wouldn’t always be. I could see it: I could definitely see Katherine at court, sitting around in attendance with a lot of other ladies, putting that composure of hers to perfect use. I pitied her. Court would never be an option for me and I recognised this for the liberation that it was. Confirmed for me was something I’d always suspected: that Katherine was of an entirely different ilk, that the two of us belonged to separate worlds and quite soon we’d be going our own ways. I didn’t know how I’d lost sight of it, but one day, one day quite soon, I was going to be free of Katherine.

  The coming of the new queen wasn’t marked in any way in the duchess’s household–but, then, nothing much ever was. We were informed of the new queen’s coronation, the obligatory prayers being said for her on the day. She was heavily pregnant, by that time, not that we girls would know that for years to come. We knew only what we’d been told, which was that there’d been a mistake about queens that had been corrected. We believed what we were told; why wouldn’t we? The king–had he known–would’ve been proud of us. How he must’ve been wishing that everyone could be as accommodating.

  For a while, I was bracing myself for Katherine to make something of her connection to the new queen, but she didn’t. In fact, I never heard her mention it. Once, though, during a verbal skirmish with the pages, Dottie’s unwise parting shot was a puffed up, ‘Anyway, Katherine’s cousin is the queen,’ to which Jay-jay retorted, ‘–is a slut.’ It was a breathtakingly bad thing to say about the queen, of course, which, fortunately for him, neither Dottie nor Alice seemed to have heard: they were already bustling off with an air of vindication, Alice in the lead and Dottie pattering behind. What struck me, though, was not only that he’d dared voice it aloud, but the ring that it had had to it: of confidence, of authority. This, I suspected, was something that was being said: incredibly, this was something that people might well be saying.

  Katherine, too, was walking away, eyes down, but at this she looked up, although the habitual half-amused expression didn’t falter; the insult might’ve knocked her gaze upwards, but this was no flinch. Rather, she looked as if something was occurring to her. It was news to her, too, I saw, what people were saying about the queen, and she was taking stock. But there was no surprise in that taking stock, nor indignation. And, I saw, she wasn’t to be cowed by it.

  That midsummer, we had our own big change with which to contend, when a girl called Jo Bulmer came to live with us. She arrived escorted by her mother, who was clearly desperate to see inside the duchess’s house and didn’t appear dismayed by what she found, her boggling eyes silvered with reflection of the duchess’s tableware. Mother and daughter stood side by side in Hall to be introduced to us, both of them fussily dressed in taffeta and in every other respect, too, strikingly alike. The angular face–all nose and chin–was odd on a twelve-year-old, as was the smile: broad and brash, fully expectant of a response in kind. Neither of them showed the slightest understanding that we girls might be too shy, initially, to rise to it.

  Jo Bulmer’s apeing of her mother extended to her conversation. Viewing our room, she kept up a commentary bristling with opinions and pronouncements, all of them adult in content and tone.

  This room could do with a bit of time and money spent on it.

  At least the servants look smart.

  I’m sure this’ll be an excellent place to be brought up.

  With the exception of Mary, none of us said much. What was there to say? It was indeed an excellent place to be brought up: it was true, but not our kind of talk. Mary embarked on her questions, to which Jo Bulmer replied fulsomely, firmly, evidently embracing the challenge: No, Mary, absolutely not, because…

  Her own burning question had already been asked, immediately after supper, with her very first step across the threshold from Hall: ‘Which of you is the Howard girl?’ Katherine hadn’t been first to respond, although her reticence hadn’t held the contempt that it would’ve if the question had come from Mary. It had been shiny-eyed Dottie who’d piped up, ‘That’s Katherine, here!’

  Jo Bulmer smiled at Katherine as if this were good news for both of them, ‘Ah, yes,’ and nodded as if concluding a business deal, ‘It’s you, is it, Kate?’

  The following day, she persisted in subjecting us to her mother’s views. On the way to the duchess’s closet, she sta
rted on saints, the worship of whom, she informed us, had just been banned. She relished the word ‘banned’, nostrils flaring with disapproval, then used the word ‘idolatory’. Mary asked her what ‘idolatory’ was, for which I was grateful because I knew nothing of any religious changes. ‘False idols,’ Jo Bulmer answered. ‘Don’t worship them, is what we’re being told. Get on with worshipping God Himself. Don’t be distracted by saints. It’s a lot of fuss about nothing,’ she pronounced, ‘because saints are a comfort to people, and where’s the harm in that?’ Then, ‘Our parish priest is a nice man but he spends rather too much time on the poor.’

  All that day, she berated herself as readily and cheerfully as she tackled everyone else–Manners, Miss Bulmer!–and even declared herself, a couple of times, a bossy so-and-so, but none of it helped: all of it blared her mother’s approval and drove home our helplessness in the face of it. The back of my head was feeling heavy. Alice was even more grim-faced than ever, Dottie glowered, and Mary’s colour was rising to dangerous heights. Maggie had seemed for a while to appreciate the new company, which, for her, took the form of being chivvied–Look lively, little one!–but by mid-afternoon she was despondent. Even the dogs were fractious, Pippin snapping at Ace on their afternoon walk. Only Katherine appeared unbothered, as poised and unreadable as ever.

  Just before supper, Skid sent us to the laundry to fetch the necessary items for the following day. Jo Bulmer was ahead of us through the door. ‘Kate and I’ll see to these petticoats, and Mary–’ she indicated some shirts–‘you help Dottie with those. Catheryn, hosiery; Alice and Maggie, tablecloths.’

  Mary, you help Dottie with those: this was more than Mary could take, but unfortunately, Dottie was the one to suffer for it. Mary raced her for the shirt on top of the pile, snatching it and letting fly with invective that had little Maggie turn back in the doorway, horrified, clamping her hands to her ears. Frazzled, Dottie did something I’d never before seen her do: she flailed at Mary in retaliation, deflected only by a deft move from Alice. Jo Bulmer stepped up to say her piece but Mary wasn’t having it: she whirled around and slammed her against the wall. A stunned silence ensued, probably because each of us had longed all day to do exactly that. All of us except Katherine, perhaps, who’d already begun folding the petticoats and continued as if nothing had happened. Dusting herself down, Jo Bulmer then made it worse with a mere, motherly, ‘No need for that, Mary.’

  Mary stormed from the laundry and it was me who ended up folding the shirts with Dottie while Jo Bulmer took her self-appointed place beside Katherine. She’d latched on to Katherine–literally, positioning herself as right-hand girl–on her first evening, at the first opportunity, shouldering Alice aside on our way into chapel for prayers, and there, clearly, she was determined to stay.

  As time passed, I was increasingly dismayed that Katherine never tried to shake her off. Jo Bulmer was tenacious but Katherine could’ve done it: she’d never shrunk from putting Mary in her place. Jo Bulmer’s grating deference did hold one benefit for us, though: she shut up, sharp, whenever Katherine had something to say. It was only a pity that Katherine said so little–although that had a compensation of its own, showing up Jo Bulmer’s deference for the misjudgement that it was because an aside isn’t an aside when it’s heralded with a fanfare.

  Jo Bulmer’s principal misjudgement, though, was to fall for Katherine being a Howard, to fail to grasp that she was a nobody-Howard. Katherine herself was wise enough never to make anything of her lineage. Her father was the second son: a hard-enough position for any titled man–inheriting nothing save expectations and obligations–but one of which, I’d learn in the future, he made a spectacular hash. Edmund Howard was a miserable failure: he failed to ingratiate himself with the king, failed to make friends, failed to make a living. Reduced to begging for money or favour, he put everyone’s backs up. When, on a trip home, I’d reported Katherine’s arrival to my mother, she’d wrinkled her nose and said, ‘Oh, she’ll be one of that Edmund’s children,’ but she didn’t know how many children–ten?–from how many wives–three?–and, if she was to be believed, few people did. Katherine’s was an embarrassing mess of a family. So, more fool Jo Bulmer.

  Maddening, too, though, was the sheer gall of the appropriation. It surprised me to feel it, but I did, very much: Who is she, this Jo Bulmer, to come in like this and take over Katherine? Katherine, who, for all her faults, I was beginning to feel, was ours.

  At the end of my first summer at the duchess’s, England gained a new princess. Or, officially, a first, as the previous one–‘The Lady Mary’–no longer counted. Skid came to tell us. We were in the orchard, filling baskets with apples while Oddbod reclined in the long grass with the dogs and endured the toddlers’ pummelling. It was a stunning afternoon, extravagant with ermine-bright cloud and there was a blue sheen to the air itself. Skid had stayed at the house to rest–pregnant, again–but then there she was, barrelling through the flower garden towards us, cheeks bright, calling ahead that a messenger had just arrived: a princess–Elizabeth–had been born.

  ‘No prince!’ wailed Mary.

  Skid laughed: the birth of any healthy baby being, in her view, I suspect, a cause for celebration. ‘Not this time, no.’ She was struggling to catch her breath, screwing up her eyes against the sun, fending off children and dogs but then capitulating to the crawler, Bobo, and hoisting him into her arms. ‘Soon, though, I’m sure.’

  ‘Or so hopes the queen,’ a knife-edge to Katherine’s muttered aside, startling me. Surely this new queen had no fears? She was the right queen: that was what was important. That was what we’d been told. All she had to do was be the right queen; and she was, because the king said so and no one could know more about queens than a king. Besides, he’d already made one mistake, so he’d be unlikely to make another. The queen just needed to be the queen, didn’t she, and eventually God would grant her a baby prince.

  Skid was keen to make something of the news–back in the house, unbeknown to us, the baby would’ve been dismissed as a bastard half-Boleyn–and we were her ideal audience. ‘Think of her nursery!’ She nuzzled Bobo’s neck. ‘Imagine all those riches for that little tiny girl…’ Prompting speculation among us about the densely carved cradle and its silk-lavish embroidered canopy, its swan-down pillows and fur coverlets. We imagined a room furnished with solid gold jugs and bowls, and, stealthy in a corner, a jewel-studded clock. From the velvet-hushed windows there would be a river-view; and underfoot, a wool-warm floor. This princess would have her own astrologer, we decided, and her own confectioner, and a dozen white horses caparisoned in purple. ‘Won’t the christening be marvellous,’ enthused Skid, reminding us that the king and archbishop would be there, and dukes and duchesses, and lords and ladies, telling us that the nave-long train of the baby’s gown would rattle with pearls while bells roared from the Tower. ‘She’ll be married one day soon to some very important king,’ she said, and we contemplated her stationed somewhere across the sea, her skin as luminous and fragranced as English summer rain.

  When the speculation had run its course, Skid dutifully praised our harvest (Girls, you have worked hard! Yes, Mary, that’s an impressive haul you have there!), and tried, even, to interest her babies (Oh, look, Maribel! Mmmm, don’t these look delicious!), before trudging off back towards the house, unrelinquished by Bobo, lumbered with Mary, and pursued by the dogs, who were anxious not to miss anything, their pace picking up as Maribel–left with her brother and stepsister–began screaming her indignation.

  Jo Bulmer lugged her basket beneath a new tree. ‘So, no prince: that’ll be a curse from the old queen.’

  Wearied by the job in hand, none of us responded. I glanced at Katherine: it was her cousin, after all, whom Jo Bulmer had just deemed cursed. Katherine’s gaze was upturned, running along apple-ribboned branches.

  ‘I mean, it’s all very well, marrying for love,’ Jo Bulmer said, although actually she sounded disapproving. ‘It’s very laudable, I’m su
re.’ ‘Laudable’ being, presumably, one of her mother’s words. ‘But not–’ on to tiptoe, grabbing an apple–‘if you’re king,’ plonking down on to her heels, ‘because if you’re king–’ she chucked the apple upwards, to have it slap back into her palm–‘you have to be above all that, don’t you. For the sake of your country.’ Having deposited the apple in her basket, she straightened with a sigh. ‘Anyway, “marrying for love”–I don’t think we should be dignifying it with that, because, in this case, it was rather more basic than that.’ She looked pleased with herself for this particular judgement, which I suspected to have come from her mother, not least because it was beyond me.

  Katherine yawned. ‘It always is, isn’t it?’

  Batting away a wasp, Jo didn’t acknowledge that Katherine had spoken. I hadn’t understood Katherine; but neither, I was pleased to see, had she.

  That autumn, a music teacher was finally appointed, the son of a neighbour. ‘Young Mr Manox,’ according to the duchess, who’d accompanied him into the day room to give a personal introduction. She had a twinkle in her eye. He’d have been young and fresh-faced to her, but to us he was old enough to be interesting. Probably around twenty. Tawny-blond, tousled. Head dipped and hands clasped, a picture of deference but for the smile. And oh what a smile: a big, bashful beauty of a smile.

  When the duchess left him alone with us, he addressed us not as everyone else did, as ‘girls’, but as ‘ladies’ and he sat among us, squeezing on to the bench across the table from mine. First of all, he asked us our names.

  ‘Miss Bulmer.’ Jo smiled, politely.

  Next to her, inexpressively, Alice said, ‘Miss Restwold.’

  Maggie’s turn: ‘Maggie,’ she said.

  ‘Maggie!’ He was gratified.

  ‘Jo,’ corrected Jo, quickly.

  He laughed, warmly, and gave her a nod of his head, a little bow. ‘Jo.’

  ‘Alice.’

  ‘Alice,’ and the same, and then so on until we’d finished and he could express his consternation at two of us having the same name.