The Confession of Katherine Howard

by Suzannah Dunn

  And that was how my mother found me, late one simmering August afternoon. Halting in the doorway, swallowing her all-too-obvious irritation, she refrained from comment. She, herself, had become uncharacteristically unkempt under the desperate circumstances; the black of her gown–dust-frosted–had turned sloe-like. In her grimy hand was a letter and even from across the room, prone on my bed, I recognised my aunt’s distinctive handwriting.

  She said, ‘That Howard girl who was with you at the duchess’s…’

  Oh God, what’s happened?

  ‘…wasn’t she Katherine?’

  I’d been living for news of Kate but now that it was here, I was afraid to hear it. My exhausted mother sniffed her disbelief. ‘Well, would you believe it, but she’s our queen now.’

  November 7th

  That desolate morning in the queen’s bedchamber, lying alongside Kate, I was awake before I knew it; I’d never properly been asleep. Kate was awake, too: I knew, even though I didn’t know how I knew. Her stillness, probably: the wariness and dread in it. Playing dead. I gave no indication of my own wakefulness and was fairly sure she remained unaware of it. Uninterested, moreover, I suspected: I had a sense that she’d take no account of me, this morning, for as long as she could get away with it. I was to be avoided, along with everyone else. Well, I was glad.

  I lay listening for clues as to the time. The apartment was distant from workaday areas of the palace and usually the only activity detectable at dawn was that of the first few arrivals, the earliest-rising chamberers, still sleep-addled and clumsy: a shutter let swing, a door let slam. But I heard nothing, and evidently we were between clock-strikes.

  Eventually, Kate rose, her brief parting of the bedhangings flinging cold air at the little of me that was exposed. Still I didn’t let on that I was awake: easier not to. And anyway I wished I weren’t. She busied herself at the brazier. It would’ve been a long time since she’d had to light a fire for herself. I lay there and let her get on with it, pretending even to myself that I was dozing.

  I was thinking of Francis, of how unassuming was his beauty, of how he made nothing of it, wearing it slung over his bones as if he might mislay it somewhere if that were possible, or shrug it off should it prove any kind of hindrance, and then scamper away unburdened and ordinary. Now that he was in the Tower, that perfection of his might be suffering a different kind of disregard from his captors in their search for places to bruise or stretch, tear or burn.

  There was a knock on the door and Kate’s tinkering ceased. My own breathing, too, momentarily. Lady Margaret was the most likely visitor, and how I dreaded her: she, whose lover had died in the Tower. Kate called for her to come in; and hidden though I was, I sat up to attention, hauling the bedcovers with me, to eavesdrop on Lady Margaret’s apologies for Kate having to tackle her own fire, and her assurances that she’d be sending someone immediately. Kate was brusque, to imply that a fuss was being made about nothing. Then Lady Margaret said that Kate’s uncle, the duke, had arrived. She said it so quietly that I barely heard; and no wonder, because the duke’s arrival–anywhere, for anyone–was never news for joyful declaration. He had a nose for trouble and while he might come proclaiming an intention to help Kate–and certainly he was a practical, no-nonsense man–he’d be here to sniff out the situation to his own advantage. Lady Margaret’s pity was audible, and I knew, without having to see, that Kate would be bridling at it.

  Lady Margaret finished by saying she’d send some ladies to dress Kate–ignoring me behind the hangings, although she’d have known I was there. Kate was specific at length about what she required to be fetched from The Wardrobe, no doubt aiming to frustrate any efforts to get her ready quickly for her uncle and also to make sure that when she did grace him with her presence, she’d appear at her most regal.

  Having sent Lady Margaret on her way with the detailed instructions, she climbed back into bed to wait and warm up while a chamberer tiptoed into the room to see to the fire. I’d given up the subterfuge of being asleep.

  ‘What’s he here for?’ was all Kate said in reference to her uncle, but it was complaint rather than speculation. Speculation was to be avoided where the duke was concerned. Only a fool would try to second-guess him.

  Moments later, a tray was delivered–ale, and warm, soft white bread with cheese, and dishes of spiced preserved pears, figs, quinces. At least while we were eating we didn’t have to speak to each other. I wondered if Francis was having anything to eat. Sitting in that bed with that tray of luxuries across our knees, I couldn’t fathom if we were there of our own free will or were incarcerated. Eventually, the Parr sisters turned up laden with a fabulous array of clothes and a hearty pretence of cheeriness to set about the business of preparing Kate, while I stood to one side and dressed in what I’d worn the previous day.

  By the time we arrived in the Presence Chamber, the duke and his two attendants had been kept waiting for well over an hour. Despite the fire and his furs, he looked so cold that I imagined there’d be a dew-drop on the end of his beaky nose. He spoke–spoke first, before being addressed by his queen–when we were barely through the door: ‘Good morning, Katherine,’ in that deceptively easy-going manner of his.

  Katherine: no title. As if she were just, once again, his little nobody-niece. A slap in the face, those casual words: a big, bold slap in the face performed for the benefit of everyone in the room. She took it without so much as a flinch, standing her ground in her amethyst silk and ermine: a glorious, glowing queen, staring him down. It was a good move, showing him up as the worm that he was. For all her composure, though, she’d be trying frantically to make sense of what he’d just done. We all were, I knew: me, Maggie and Alice, both of whom were standing there awkwardly, tired-looking, and Lady Margaret, Jane Rochford, the Lizzies and the Annes. Because no one–not even the country’s highest nobleman, not even the closest family member–would address the queen in the presence of others as if she were a mere girl.

  Was this rudeness some kind of trick, or joke, or a miscalculation? But he was a shrewd calculator and a coward, not given to jests or misjudgements. What could he possibly know, though, that would have him publicly addressing his queen as a nobody? She was still queen, wasn’t she? There was no way, was there, that she could have stopped being queen, as the first queen had? But the setting-aside of the first queen had taken years of court-hearings. As for the second queen, she’d been arrested, but she’d been an adulteress, or so people said, whereas the only accusation against Kate was that she’d had a couple of boyfriends before she was married. Tiny though Kate was, standing at my side, she was so very much the queen. A queen confined to her rooms, but–and this, surely, was the point–the queen’s rooms. Firm on her finger was her wedding ring, and dazzling on her bodice was the lover’s knot that, only two days beforehand, her adoring husband had given her.

  The duke spoke again: ‘I’m here to collect the queen’s jewels.’ The ‘queen’s jewels’, the crown jewels, those which were not her own. And so he made it clear: the queen was not who Kate was. And again in that conversational tone, as if it were nothing much: as if, in his view, this was only to have been expected. Game’s over, hand back the bounty. There was a collective intake of breath, and I glimpsed the faintest, most fleeting buckle in Kate’s stance, the absorption of a body-blow. She could’ve demanded, On whose authority? But there was only one possible answer–the king’s–because no one, surely, would arrive at the queen’s rooms to strip her of her crown jewels unless on the order of the king himself. I dreaded her speaking up, dreaded having to hear it spelt out for her.

  From the duke, though, I did want more. We all did: all of us hanging on his next words, craning for them, desperate for some explanation. Because what was this? Was it, perhaps, a temporary measure? An emergency measure until this muddle, or whatever it was, could be resolved and Kate reinstated.

  But he said nothing more. Nor did she, which, I detected, he’d failed to anticipate; he’d imagin
ed that she’d kick up a fuss, protesting and pleading, all of which he–never one to bother courting popularity–could make a show of brushing off. But she stood there–so small, not that her kinsman was much taller–with a challenge in her eyes: Go on, then. She stepped aside with a flourish, and he was revealed to be at a loss. He was the one who was looking foolish. She’d allow him to do whatever he’d come to do, but he’d have to do it in the face of her intransigence.

  So, it wasn’t going to be his show, after all. I watched him wondering what to do. He wasn’t a man to throw his weight around, insignificant as it was; he was a man of words, few and unembellished though those words were. He was a needler, a wheedler. If the situation wasn’t to degenerate to his disadvantage, he was going to have to make a bid for assistance, but it wasn’t clear that any of us, having witnessed this disgraceful little scene so far and been emboldened by Kate’s spirited stance, could be persuaded or even ordered to give it.

  ‘Right–’ This was ineffectual, intended as a prompt for the pair of men he’d brought with him, but they were hired hands with no initiative and so they stood, eyes down, awaiting specific instructions.

  Kate folded her arms, her rigidity defying anyone to step forward to his assistance. Duly, no one shifted nor even, it seemed to me, breathed. A lightning-quick glance around showed me that everyone’s eyes were resolutely lowered. There was a distracting fizz in my stomach, a buzzing in my ears, a tingling in my fingertips. A few more excruciating moments passed before Lady Margaret stepped into the breach with obvious reluctance–a noisy sigh–and indicated that he should follow her into Kate’s private chamber. Kate made no move save a slide of her gaze in their wake. Because she didn’t move, nor did anyone else: not a hair. But then, at the last moment, as they were shuffling through the door, she sprang after them, yanking me with her.

  She didn’t venture far into her golden room, just far enough to be able to close the door behind us, and from there we watched Lady Margaret gather the three leather cases that held the crown jewels which weren’t in storage over at the Jewel House. Every movement was pointed, to signal that she was acting under duress. I was startled by the openness of her contempt, although her outrage, I suspected, wasn’t at heart on Kate’s behalf: I’d long suspected that, for all her apparent eagerness to serve, she regarded Kate as a bit of a nobody and a nuisance. She was making clear, though, that no man–of however high a rank–was going to get away with pushing his way into the queen’s rooms and behaving disrespectfully while she was head of the ladies. I doubted the duke was much bothered, though, if he even noticed. He was more than accustomed to ladies’ indignation. I, though, was impressed. Not for want of trying, I’d never before managed to catch a glimpse of the Lady Margaret who’d suffered imprisonment for an unsanctioned love affair, but suddenly, I felt, I was seeing something of the girl she’d been, blazing and awesome in her fury. I envied her. Me, I was having difficulty breathing; I was utterly useless. I didn’t even know how to breathe, let alone how I might be helpful to Kate.

  The duke stood back while the cases were surrendered, sniffing occasionally and unproductively as if compelled to break the silence. Lady Margaret didn’t open the cases; she left that to the men, but they made no move, they’d had no order to make a move and these were men who followed orders. She asked Kate an anguished, ‘May I?’ and inclined her head towards the bedroom door. Kate would’ve understood that it was either Lady Margaret or the duke who’d be going in there, so, although she didn’t dignify the request with a verbal response, she nodded to permit it.

  Lady Margaret disappeared into the airlock and in her brief absence the rest of us were suspended, no one looking at anyone else. She returned with a fourth case, then stood aside, hands clasped, white-lipped. The duke turned and stepped close to Kate. ‘This?’ he indicated her throat. I felt her shock and her shame: she’d tried so hard to keep one step ahead of him but here he was, catching her out, because she’d overlooked what she was already wearing.

  He’d stopped short, of course; he hadn’t dared touch her, but it was obvious he was itching to. If there’d been no one there to witness it, he’d probably have snatched at her throat.

  ‘Cat,’ she said, icily: summoning me to do the deed, to unfasten the necklace. I fumbled, and impatience rose like heat from her skin. I was mortified: I didn’t want to be participating in this, to be easing it in any way, but, seeing as I had to, I wanted to get it over for her. When it tumbled free of its catch and fell into my hand, I was momentarily snared by its brilliance and intricacy. Just stones, I had to remind myself, and just metal. A necklace didn’t matter, however much it insisted with its trickery that it did. What mattered was our lives: we should hand over these jewels and get away with our lives.

  All the same, I couldn’t quite stomach handing it to him so I offered it to her–her eyes flared with the diamond-light as I raised it–but with a switch of those eyes she indicated that I should give it to him. He affected nonchalance, didn’t even glance down at it in his hand but passed it to one of his men who then headed with it to the leather cases. He gestured in his wake: Open the cases. And so the two men set to work, one of them opening a case and removing the items, laying them on a bench, while the other man noted the contents, peering and biting his lip to consider the description before scratching away with his quill.

  There they were: the diamonds and pearls that had graced her collarbone on Christmas Eve, the emeralds that had spilled over her bodice one evening in York, the rubies she’d slung around her neck before an assignation with Thomas Culpeper. The two of us stood watching, unsure what else to do. Lady Margaret alone radiated a sense of purpose, bearing witness.

  Then the duke turned again to Kate, this time indicating her brooch. Kate drew breath audibly, as if wounded. ‘Mine,’ she snapped, ‘from the king,’ and whirled to me. ‘Tell him,’ she insisted. ‘The king gave me this.’

  ‘He did,’ I squeaked, rushing before I could clear my throat; and then, when I’d cleared it, there was no need, he’d taken her at her word and lost interest.

  But now she’d started, she couldn’t stop, and she raised her voice: ‘There was no pre-contract with Francis Dereham.’ Again, to me, and just as loud: ‘Tell him!’

  As a reflex, I opened my mouth to do it but she was already shouting over me, ‘There was no pre-contract!’

  Lady Margaret winced–I detected the dip of her head–and the two men froze mid-plunder. The duke alone looked unruffled; replying, with the air of a friendly, intimate offer of advice, ‘Go quietly, Katherine.’

  Kate spluttered an outraged laugh, the sound of which flipped my stomach and drove my nails into my palms. She lifted her chin–that Norfolk chin, a match for his–and reiterated, ‘There was no pre-contract.’ As you’ll soon discover.

  But he sidled closer to her and, in a voice lowered to keep it from Lady Margaret and the men, said, ‘It doesn’t matter. Because the king doesn’t want you any more.’ He spoke tonelessly, merely relating the fact. ‘Because you’re not who he thought you were.’ Still nothing on his face: no surprise or dismay or disappointment. It was fact, his tone suggested, and no point regretting it.

  But that did it. ‘I am!’ Kate shouted at no one in particular. ‘I am!’ she pleaded, screamed to the room. ‘I’m me!’

  And my heart flew to her, because, yes, nothing could be more true, she was always so utterly herself, and she should never have been made to be queen. How on earth had it happened–that she’d married the king? It was absurd, it’d been a terrible mistake and not of her own doing, and now look…

  We had to get out of there while we could, as if none of it had ever happened. I needed to get Francis and get us back to where we’d come from. It was all over, and I was glad, I was really, truly glad of it. The duke turned from her, walked away, towards the leather cases. ‘Katherine–’ he sounded bored, I have a job to do. As an after-thought: ‘Just count your blessings that this is as bad as it gets.’
r />   Anne Boleyn: the reference was unmistakeable.

  ‘Just go quietly,’ he offered again, almost kindly.

  ‘Where?’ she demanded. I was surprised she’d asked, but she’d managed to load it with malice so that, marvellously, it chased him across the room like a threat.

  He dealt with it, though, without even looking round. ‘Probably to a nunnery,’ adding, ‘arrangements are being made,’ as if she were thereby being done a favour.

  After he’d gone, we heard no more for most of that day, and I didn’t know whether to believe him. The king’s men–Wriothesley, Cranmer, the duke–let Kate be, left her to stew. She had something to say–that there’d been no pre-contract with Francis–but they didn’t seem to want to hear it. Let go, she was thrown back on her ladies, none of whom–it was obvious–knew quite how to regard her. No one had any idea what she was supposed to have done. The crown jewels had been confiscated, which was drastic, but was that the extent of it? Had the problem been the jewels themselves–misappropriation, perhaps, accidental or otherwise? Or was the confiscation a punishment for something else? The ladies who were old hands had seen queens come and go, they knew it could happen, and they knew how quickly, but they’d also have seen queens in trouble and then forgiven. They didn’t yet know if they should be distancing themselves from her, and how far and how fast. As for the Howard ladies: they could only hope and pray for the best.

  Kate was careful to give nothing away. What, though, could she have given away? She and I knew as much as there was to know, but were little wiser than anyone else in that room. We did know that the trouble stemmed from how she’d behaved with boys at the duchess’s–but as to why that should matter, we remained mystified.