The Confession of Katherine Howard

by Suzannah Dunn

  No one spoke until she’d gone into a stairwell. Then Mary crowed, ‘That does it.’

  Jo slammed her down: ‘Mary.’

  But Mary had a point. We were carrying Katherine’s absence and could be held to account for it. Katherine might not be destined for much, but it was for the duchess to ensure that she was destined for more than the likes of Mr Henry Manox. If we jeopardised that, we’d incur her displeasure. And we were in her household only on her sufferance. I said, ‘If the duchess finds out–’

  ‘She won’t,’ decreed Jo, marching ahead, not looking back.

  I tried again: ‘But if she–’

  ‘She won’t.’ She whirled and glared at me. ‘Will she.’

  About a week later, there was a knock at the door of our room one evening just after we’d retired for bed. Skid, we assumed; no one else would come to our door at that time. Alice was quick to call, ‘Come in!’ but the response was slow, the door opening a mere crack.

  Maggie voiced her cheerful impatience. ‘Come on in!’

  There in the doorway–but only just, only gingerly–was Henry Manox, to be greeted with a collective, horrified intake of breath. Dottie was already in her nightshirt. Maggie and Jo were down to their petticoats, and I was unpinning Mary’s kirtle. We were all bareheaded, and Dottie’s silky hair was loose. He caught no one’s eye, offering a smile that was more of a wince. Then he looked at Katherine, who was reclining on her mattress. Hood off and hair loose, she was otherwise still fully dressed: she dawdled, last thing; she liked to take her time.

  ‘Kate?’ he offered it like a reminder, but nervously.

  She stared back, and what seemed like a long time passed before she answered: ‘Not now.’ If he was waiting for her to say when, he was disappointed. Eventually, he blinked, which was when I realised he hadn’t yet done so. Then came the wincing smile again, but for her this time and even more pained. Still nothing, in response. She was staring him down. I lowered my own gaze, not wanting to see it but detecting that he dipped his head as he backed from the doorway in a kind of bowing out.

  A couple of days afterwards, I was in the little ramshackle banqueting house, drowsy in the last of the day’s sun, when I glimpsed the pair of them below in the far corner of the flower garden. It felt odd and uncomfortable to be watching them, but it would’ve been odder to turn away and face the wall. Katherine was ahead of him; she’d come to a halt by the gate and turned to him. She was standing her ground, I realised, and he was teetering on the brink of stepping into the space that had opened up between them, afraid of pushing her further into retreat. Although I couldn’t hear it, I could see that she had plenty to say: she was speaking at length and emphatically with rhythmic nods and a jut of her jaw, and this alone–her speaking at length–was enough to captivate me. He was taking it with shakes of his head–trying to shake it off, to deny or dismiss it–and the occasional truncated interjection, throwing his hands around, offering them up, open and splayed. Imploring her. Then, to my horror, he gestured towards my little banqueting house, and she did as he bade, turned and looked over, apparently giving it reluctant–if only momentary–consideration. Clearly neither of them saw me; I’d have been hidden by the oblique fall of the light. I wouldn’t be able to leave without them seeing me, though. What would I do if they clattered in downstairs? Would I–should I, could I–declare myself? But then they’d guess that I’d been watching them. To my enormous relief, Kate turned back towards the gate and walked away from him. Released from the stand-off, he leapt after her but she whirled around to catch him at it and once more he halted, his shame and resentment all too obvious. She spoke again, briefly, then continued on her way, banging through the gate. He lingered, kicking at the grass, at nothing.

  I couldn’t leave until he did. Luckily, he did so within a few minutes. That, though, was the last I ever saw of him. He didn’t turn up to tutor us the following day. No one ever gave us a satisfactory explanation for his sudden departure–just that he’d ‘moved on’–and while the other girls speculated and mourned him, Katherine said nothing and neither did I.

  November 6th

  Francis and I were woken before first light by a series of raps on the door. Francis stumbled from the bed, snatched at the door and had a brief, subdued exchange with someone on the staircase. I didn’t hear what was said. Returning, having closed the door, he whispered to me: ‘More questions.’ My scalp crawled, icy. His whisper and his haste with his clothes made it clear that whomever he’d spoken with was waiting for him. Leaving, he ducked to my side of the bed and dropped a kiss on to the top of my head.

  I couldn’t bear to stay in that room without him, and I knew that I had to give some kind of warning to Kate, so, despite the early hour and the risk of disturbing Alice, of incurring her ever-ready disapproval, I went back to my own room to brave waking Thomasine for her help with a wash and a change of clothes. Then–still early, Alice still resolutely shut-eyed–I made my way over to Kate’s apartment.

  I was barely through the doorway of the Presence Chamber when Maggie bolted over, wide-eyed and pinch-faced, to break the news that Kate was with Archbishop Cranmer; he’d sent his secretary for her.

  The archbishop? And, ‘Now?’ Before seven.

  She hadn’t even been dressed, Maggie burbled; Anne Basset, who’d been on sleep-in duty, had had to do her best, alone and fast, to help her dress. Anne was nowhere in evidence, now: Maggie was on her own in the room, except for a couple of duster-brandishing chamberers. No one else in the queen’s retinue was ever up for six o’clock prayers, but Maggie looked awake enough to have been to Lauds at three.

  ‘Is Anne with her?’

  ‘No.’ Maggie sounded scared. ‘The man said she should go alone.’

  ‘And she did?’ Kate, queen, who took orders from no one. She’d have gone without a backwards glance, though, it occurred to me, because the oddness of the request–Cranmer, before seven in the morning–would’ve had her thinking there was bad news of the king. It was Maggie’s assumption, too, I realised; and had I not known that something else was going on, it would also have been mine.

  ‘What did he say?’–the man who’d come for her.

  Maggie bit her lip, apologetic. ‘I didn’t hear, he was very quiet.’ And she whispered, ‘What d’you think’s happened?’

  I wanted to tell her, I really did: my old friend, Maggie. I would’ve loved to pour all my uncertainties down into those deep blue eyes of hers. If Kate had never come to the duchess’s, Maggie would’ve been my mainstay. How simple life might’ve been, and how good I might’ve been. What, though, could I tell her? It made no sense. If this had anything to do with Francis’s questioning about Kate’s past, why on earth would the archbishop be involved? The investigation was Wriothesley’s project. And the archbishop, of all people, wouldn’t be interested in the romances of a girl-queen back in the days before she was queen. He had no interest in her, whatsoever. He was a man of ideas–reformist ideas, moreover–and Kate, for all that she was queen, was just a girl, and a traditional girl at that. They were, of course, perfectly respectful in each other’s company, but Kate made no secret among us of her scorn for him–needing precious little encouragement to mimic his studious, doleful expression–and I doubted he felt much more charitable towards her, with her ever-expanding wardrobe and constant partying. Kate would’ve much preferred his rival, Bishop Gardiner, to be archbishop, not only because Bishop Gardiner was a good old-fashioned Catholic but because, as she said, He’s got balls. Bishop Gardiner was unpleasant but in a way that was open to teasing–or from Kate, anyway. No one could ever tease the fair-minded, even-handed Archbishop Cranmer.

  Likewise, though, I told myself, it was impossible to imagine the archbishop giving anyone a hard time–or anything but a deeply understanding time. If he was indeed required to persuade her to unburden herself to him, he’d probably called her early so that she could be back before most of her ladies arrived for duties and no one would ever be any t
he wiser. Kate wouldn’t come to any harm in the care of that mild-mannered man. On the contrary, he was probably the safest person of all for her to be with. If this was indeed about her youthful excesses, he’d be doing his utmost best to look understanding and, instead of worrying, I should be smirking at the prospect of his discomfort. So, I told Maggie that I couldn’t think why he’d have called her, and perhaps even half-believed it. We took ourselves to a corner of the room and settled down with our embroidery while we waited for news.

  Only a little later, Alice arrived. She asked us where Kate was, but clearly suspected nothing.

  Maggie let her in on it: ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Alice was baffled.

  ‘She’s with the archbishop,’ I corrected, ‘but–’ girding myself against the half-truth–‘we’ve no idea why.’

  Alice’s frown deepened. ‘Cranmer?’

  ‘Well, he was archbishop, last I heard.’

  Putting me in my place with a long look, she turned her attention to the sewing basket, rummaging for her own needlework.

  ‘I imagine it’s nothing,’ I offered, conciliatorily but cringing at my dishonesty.

  She flashed me a frown, her scepticism quite plain, but said nothing and I appreciated her caution.

  ‘We hope so,’ Maggie chirped.

  Well, we’ll see, won’t we, said Alice’s look.

  The ladies began arriving for the day: Lady Margaret, first, trailed by Anne Basset who’d evidently gone to find her. Coming in, they both looked tense but, spotting the three of us, instantly adopted bland expressions. Neither passed comment on the queen’s glaring absence, Lady Margaret going to busy herself with the writing of a letter and Anne Basset embarking on virginals practice: the tedious and, soon, maddening repetition of particular phrases. Any minute now, I kept thinking, it would be Kate who came through that door, with Francis following, and it’d all be over, it would all have been cleared up. Any minute now.

  More ladies turned up, often in pairs, sometimes with flurries of little dogs at their feet. In they sailed, those ladies, their good cheer and ease startling me anew, each and every time. They’d be fussing over each other and the dogs, smoothing raindrops from their hoods and releasing dogs from leads when Lady Margaret succeeded in catching their eye and instantly they were cowed, glancing around to see it for themselves: no queen. I pitied them, in a way, because they knew nothing: only that something was amiss. Even to think of the king’s death was treason, so they’d be guarding hard against that. Whereas me: at least I had no concerns in that respect. I might not know much, but I knew that much.

  The ladies who’d served under previous queens seemed to have an idea of what to do under the circumstances, immersing themselves in the most subdued of pursuits: needlework, book-reading, letter-writing. No board or card games, nor any music except Anne Basset’s. Perhaps Lady Margaret permitted it of her because she’d been the one to suffer the shock of the archbishop’s man coming for the queen. Lady Margaret, Anne Basset, the Lizzies Fitzgerald and Seymour, the Parr sisters: these ladies were old hands and they knew, it struck me, how to await bad news. They were practised at it. They’d served under previous queens, and knew not to ask questions nor give anything away of any unease or suspicion. As for the ladies who, by contrast, owed their position simply to being Howards: well, until that morning, I’d rather envied their kinship to the queen, but seeing them huddled together–her sister and cousin, her stepmother and aunt–I realised that they were as out of place as we three maids were, and as dependent on Kate for their safety.

  The old hands resented the Howard-ladies. They were too well bred to show it, but the disapproval was always there. Understandable, in a way, because they’d been born to the potential of a position in the queen’s household but their kin had had to work hard to secure each actual place–petitioning, bartering and buttering up, calling in favours and promising others–whereas the Howard-ladies had simply come along with Kate, instantly elevated from a period of disgrace for which the family had as yet paid no dues.

  As for we maids, Alice and Maggie and me: we’d neither been born to a life in the service of the queen, nor earned it. We’d been personally favoured by Kate, and she’d continued to shower us with favours. Any time that she was free to spend as she wished, she’d spend with us. At the dining table, she had the three of us occupy those sought-after places that were closest to her, and there we’d sit, dressed in her cast-offs: hoods, cauls, shawls, furs, gloves, sleeves, and the kirtles and gowns that had been capable of being adapted to fit us, most of them barely if ever worn, many of them having come to her as gifts and been passed directly on to us.

  With no group, that morning, as on any other, was Jane Rochford: not a family member nor girlhood friend, but not quite accepted either by her fellow old hands. While we waited for Kate, she reclined on cushions, absently stroking Lizzie Seymour’s little dog. I recalled the rumour that her well-placed and fictitious hint of her husband’s intim ate relationship with his sister, Queen Anne Boleyn, had secured his execution. In the four years since then, no man had come along to relieve her of her widowhood and she remained, unique among us, neither maid nor married lady.

  At nine, Lady Margaret led us, as usual, to prayers. She looked drawn, but that was nothing new. At eleven, dinner was delivered up from Kate’s private kitchen, the centrepiece a roast swan which, dressed for a queen, eyed us accusingly. No one dared make a start on it, turning instead to the side dishes, although soon those delicacies had subsided into their sauces and grown puckered skins. Eventually, the swan was taken away, untouched.

  Kate’s unexplained absence had cast a spell whereby no mention was made of it, but no one, I knew, would be linking Francis’s disappearance to hers. If she wasn’t here, then neither would he be: in the minds of everyone else, there’d be nothing mysterious or sinister in Francis’s prolonged non-attendance, and I was grateful for that. Soon, this would be cleared up and the ladies need never know anything of his and Kate’s shared past.

  I’d been indoors all morning and, despite the warmth of the braziers clinging to me like a fever, I wouldn’t leave the room: I was going to stay until Kate and Francis returned. Francis would know to find me there. The afternoon hung drizzling at the windows and, on the riverbank, a wind bullied the trees. By mid afternoon, I simply couldn’t believe that there were any more questions for anyone to ask of either Francis or Kate, or any other way to ask them. Perhaps the pair of them, having been released, had gone for a bracing walk together to clear their heads? Perhaps they’d even met up with Henry Manox and–who knew?–were at this moment laughing hysterically together, swapping stories and strenuously making light of their individual humiliations at the hands of their interrogators.

  Supper was served at five and while some of the ladies–glad of the distraction–now ate hungrily, I didn’t even join Alice and Maggie in going to the table. At six, evening prayers were conducted as usual in the queen’s closet and, as usual, we all had to be seen to attend. Lady Margaret left the door open, I noticed: listening for any arrival back in the Presence Chamber. Nothing, though. But then, at last, a little after the strike of eight, the door opened and in came Kate, bursting free of the men who escorted her. No Francis behind her, but he’d have gone to his room. Kate’s eyes were lowered but she failed to hide that they were tear-swollen. She’d have hated it to be seen–even I, her oldest friend, had never seen her cry–and I felt desperately for her. We all scrambled to our feet, dizzied after the day’s inactivity, and Lady Margaret started forwards but Kate looked instead to me and my heart shrank because I was certain, then, that her absence had been related to Francis’s and that there was no good news. The knowing, accusing look made it all too clear. With a switch of her gaze to the far door, she indicated that I was to follow her.

  Ahead of me, she stormed into her private day room. It was unlit–Lady Margaret had neglected to have it prepared–and she retreated a step or two, dism
ayed and disoriented. I grabbed a candle and rushed to her, but by then she’d taken the plunge and was already across the room, shadowy. I dashed behind her, across the golden room and through the airlock–that confusion of doors–into her bedroom, where she stood at the window. Putting the candle down on to a chest, I pushed shut the door then leaned back against it, only too aware of everyone’s intense curiosity piling up on the other side. The candlelight bounced, precarious, and the air was so cold as to feel adversarial. My heart seemed to be trying to bump me from my body.

  The enormous bed had been stripped–presumably by the lone, put-upon Anne Basset, in the morning–and Lady Margaret hadn’t had it re-made. Kate left the window and came to sit on the edge of the bare mattress. If she’d had any doubts, my silence confirmed for her that I’d known she was being investigated.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Faced with her fury, the last of my resilience dissolved and tears burned into my eyes. ‘Would it have made any difference?’

  ‘I’d’ve been forewarned.’ She was incredulous: a forewarning would’ve done, it would’ve been something.

  ‘I know,’ I wailed, ‘and I’m sorry, but Wriothesley said it’d be worse for Francis if he told anyone.’ And God knows it was bad enough already.