The Complete Tudors: Nine Historical Novels

by Jean Plaidy

  She tried to be brave but she could not. She was not quite twenty years old, so young, so beautiful and in love with life; she was overtaken with hysteria, and wept continually and with such violence as was verging on madness.

  In the streets people were murmuring against the King.

  “What means this? Another Queen—and this time little more than a child to go to the block!”

  “It is whispered that she has never done aught against even her enemies.”

  “Is it not strange that a man should be so cursed in his wives?”

  Gage returned to her and told her she would die the next day.

  She said: “I am ready!” And she asked that they should bring the block to her that she might practice laying her head upon it.

  “My cousin died most bravely I hear. I would follow her example. But she was a great lady and I fear I am not, nor ever were. What she could do naturally, I must practice.”

  It was a strange request but he could not deny it, and the block was brought to her room, where she had them place it in the center thereof, and graciously she walked to it, looking so young and innocent that it was as though she played some child’s game of executions. She laid her head upon it, and kept it there a long time so that the wood was wet with her tears.

  She said she was tired and would sleep awhile, and she fell into a deep, peaceful sleep almost as soon as she lay down. In sleep, her auburn hair fell into disorder, her brow was smooth and untroubled; her mouth smiling.

  She dreamed she saw her cousin Anne who caressed her as she had done when she was a baby, and bid her be of good cheer for the death was easy. A sharp subtle pain and then peace. But Catherine could not be reassured, for it seemed to her that though she was innocent of adultery, she was in some measure to blame because of what had happened before her marriage. But her cousin continued to soothe her, saying: “Nay, I was more guilty than you, for I was ambitious and proud, and hurt many, while you never hurt any but yourself.”

  She was comforted, and clung to her dream. She knew now that she, like Anne, was innocent of any crime deserving of death. Anne had been murdered; she was about to be. But the death was quick and there was nothing to fear.

  In the early morning, when they aroused her, she said almost calmly: “I had forgotten what the day was. Now I know. Today I am to die.”

  She walked with that slow dignity, which she had rehearsed last evening in her room, to the spot before the church where, six years before, Anne had died. She was dressed in black velvet, and was very pale. Her eyes were wide, and she tried to believe she saw her cousin, smiling at her from beyond the haze through which she herself must step. She thought as she walked, I must die like a queen, as Anne died.

  She was accompanied by Jane Rochford, who was to die with her. Jane’s dignity was as complete as that of the Queen. Her eyes were calm, and all the madness had passed from her now; she could face death gladly, for it seemed to her that only by dying could she expiate the sin she had committed against her husband.

  The early February air was cold and river-damp; the scene was ghostly. Catherine looked for her uncle’s face among those of the people who gathered there to see her die, and felt a rush of gratitude to know she would be spared seeing him there.

  She muttered a little prayer for her grandmother. She would not pray for Thomas and Francis for they were now at peace. Had Anne felt this strange lightening of the heart when her death had been but a moment away; had she felt this queer feeling which had a touch of exultation in it?

  She said she would speak a few words. Tears were in the eyes of many who beheld her, for she had none of that haughtiness which had characterized her tragic cousin. In her black velvet gown she looked what she was, a very young girl, innocent of any crime, whose tragedy was that she had had the misfortune to be desired by a ruthless man whose power was absolute. Some remembered that though Anne had been found guilty by a picked jury, she had had an opportunity of defending herself, and this she had done with a clarity, dignity and obvious truthfulness so that all unprejudiced posterity must believe in her innocence; but little Catherine Howard had had no such opportunity; contrary to English law she would be executed without an open trial, and there was but one word for such an execution, and that the ugly one of murder. Some must ask themselves what manner of man was this King of theirs, who twice in six years had sent a young wife to the block! They remembered that this Henry was the first King of England to shed women’s blood on the block and burn them at the stake. Was the King’s life so moral, they must ask themselves, that he dared express such horror at the frailty of this child?

  But she was speaking, and her voice was so low that it was difficult to hear her, and as she spoke tears started from her eyes and ran down her smooth cheeks, for she was speaking of her lover Culpepper, the grisly spectacle of whose head all might see when crossing London Bridge.

  She was trying to make these people understand her love for that young man, but she could not tell them how she had met and loved him when at Hollingbourne he had first come into her lonely life.

  “I loved Culpepper,” she said, and she tried to tell them how he had urged her not to marry the King. “I would rather have him for husband than be mistress of the world…. And since the fault is mine, mine also is the suffering, and my great sorrow is that Culpepper should have to die through me.”

  Her voice faltered; now her words grew fainter and the headsman looked about him, stricken with sorrow at what he must do, for she was so young, but a child, and hardened as he was, it moved him deeply that his should be the hand to strike off her head.

  She turned her brimming eyes to him and begged he would not delay. She cried, “I die a queen, but I would rather die the wife of Culpepper. God have mercy on my soul. Good people…I beg you pray for me…”

  She fell to her knees and laid her head on the block not so neatly as she had done it in her room, but in such a way as to make many turn away and wipe their eyes.

  She was praying when the headsman, with a swift stroke, let fall the axe.

  Her attendants, their eyes blinded with tears, rushed forward to cover the mutilated little body with a black cloth, and to carry it away where it might be buried in the chapel, close to that spot where lay Anne Boleyn.

  There was none to feel much pity for Lady Rochford. This gaunt woman was a striking contrast to the lovely young Queen. Jane mounted the scaffold like a pilgrim who has, after much tribulation, reached the end of a journey.

  She spoke to the watching crowd and said that she was guiltless of the crime for which she was paying this doleful penalty; but she deserved to die, and she believed she was dying as a punishment for having contributed to the death of her husband by her false accusation of Queen Anne Boleyn. Almost with exultation she laid her head on the block.

  “She is mad,” said the watchers. “None but the insane could die so joyfully.”

  Jane was smiling after the axe had fallen and her blood gushed forth to mingle with that of the murdered Queen.

  In his palace at Greenwich, the King stood looking over the river. He felt himself to be alone and unloved. He had lost Catherine. Her mutilated body was now buried beside that of another woman whom he had loved and whom he had killed as he had now killed Catherine.

  He was afraid. He would always be afraid. Ghosts would haunt his life…myriads of ghosts, all the men and women whose blood he had caused to be shed. There were so many that he could not remember them all, although among their number there were a few he would never forget. Buckingham. Wolsey. More. Fisher. Montague. Exeter and the old Countess of Salisbury. Cromwell. These, he could tell his conscience he had destroyed for England’s sake. But there were others he had tried harder to forget. Weston. Brereton. Norris. Smeaton. Derham. Culpepper. George Boleyn. Catherine…and Anne.

  He thought of Anne, whom he had once loved so passionately; never had he loved one as he had her; nor ever would he; for his love for Catherine had been an old man’s selfish love
, the love of a man who is done with roving; but his love for Anne had had all the excitement of the chase, all the urgency of passionate desire; all the tenderness, romance and dreams of an idyll.

  A movement beside him startled him and the hair was damp on his forehead, for it seemed to him that Anne was standing beside him. A second glance told him that it was but an image conjured up by the guilty mind of a murderer, for it was not Anne who stood beside him, but Anne’s daughter. There were often times when she reminded him of her mother. Of all his children he loved her best because she was the most like him; she was also like her mother. There were times when she angered him; but then, her mother had angered him, and he had loved her. He loved Elizabeth, Elizabeth of the fiery hair and the spirited nature and the quick temper. She would never be the dark-browed beauty that her mother had been; she was tawny-red like her father. He felt sudden anger sweep over him. Why, oh, why had she not been born a boy!

  She did not speak to him, but stood quite still beside him, her attention caught and held, for a great ship—his greatest ship—was sailing towards the mouth of the river, and she was watching it, her eyes round with appreciation. He glowed with pride and warmed further towards her because she so admired the ships he had caused to be built.

  To contemplate that ship lifted his spirits. He needed to lift his spirits, for he had been troubled, and to think one sees a ghost is unnerving to a man of deep-rooted superstitions. He found himself wondering about this man who was Henry of England, who to him had always seemed such a mighty figure, so right in all that he did.

  He was a great king; he had done much for England, for he was England. He was a murderer; he knew this now and then; he knew it as he stood looking over the river, Anne’s daughter beside him. He had murdered Anne whom he had loved best, and he had murdered Catherine whom he had also loved; but England he had begun to lift to greatness, because he and England were one.

  He thought of this land which he loved, of April sunshine and soft, scented rain; of green fields and banks of wild flowers; and the river winding past his palaces to the sea. It was no longer just an island off the coast of Europe; it was a country becoming mighty, promising to be mightier yet; and through him had this begun to happen, for he would let nothing stand in the way of his aggrandizement, and he was England.

  He thought backwards over bloodstained years. Wales subdued; but a few weeks ago he had assumed the title of King of Ireland; he planned to marry his son Edward to a Scottish princess. As he reached out for treasure so should England. He would unite these islands under England and then…

  He wanted greatness for England. He wanted people, in years to come, when they looked back on his reign, not to think of the blood of martyrs but of England’s glory.

  There were dreams in his eyes. He saw his fine ships. He had made that great navy into the finest ever known. He had thought of conquering France, but he had never done so. France was powerful, and too much of England’s best blood had been shed in France already. But there were new lands as yet undiscovered on the globe. Men sailed the seas from Spain and Portugal and found new lands. The Pope had drawn a line down the globe from pole to pole and declared that all lands discoverable on the east side of that line belonged to Portugal and west of it to Spain. But England had the finest ships in the world. Why not to England? War? He cared not for the shedding of England’s blood, for that would weaken her and weaken Henry, for never since Wolsey had left him to govern England did he forget that England was Henry.

  No bloodshed for England, for that was not the way to greatness. What if in generations to come England took the place of Spain! He had ever hated Spain as heartily as he loved England. What if English ships carried trade to the new lands, instead of war and pillage, instead of fanaticism and the Inquisition! He had the ships…If Spain were weak…. What a future for England!

  He thought of his pale, puny son, Jane’s son. No! It should have been Anne’s son who carried England through these hazy dreams of his to their reality. He looked at Anne’s girl—eager, vital, with so much of himself and so much of Anne in her.

  Oh, Anne, why did you not give me a son! he thought. Oh, had this girl but been a boy!

  What should scholarly Edward do for England? Would he be able to do what this girl might have done, had she been a boy? He looked at her flushed face, at her eyes sparkling as she watched the last of the ship, at her strong profile. A useless girl!

  He was trembling with the magnitude of his thoughts, but his moment of clarity was gone. He was an old and peevish man; his leg pained him sorely, and he was very lonely, for he had just killed his wife whose youth and beauty were to have been the warm and glowing fire at which he would have warmed his old body.

  He reminded his conscience—better preserved than his body—that Anne had been an adulteress, a traitress, that her death was not murder, only justice.

  He scowled at Elizabeth; she was too haughty, too like her mother. He wished he could shut from his mind the sound of screaming, mingling with the chanting voices in the chapel. Catherine was a wanton, a traitress, and adulteress, no less than Anne.

  The ship was passing out of sight, and he was no longer thinking of ships, but of women. He pictured one, beautiful and desirable as Anne, demure and obedient as Jane, young and vivacious as Catherine. His hot tongue licked his lips, and he was smiling.

  He thought, I must look for a new wife…for the sake of England.

  Murder Most Royal

  A Novel

  Jean Plaidy

  A READER’S GROUP GUIDE

  About the Book

  The wives of Henry VIII are a famously unlucky bunch. From the long-suffering Katharine of Aragon, to the haughty and stunning Anne Boleyn, to the passionate coquette Catherine Howard, each enjoys favor in her turn according to Henry’s needs—and is as quickly discarded when the royal eye roves elsewhere. Henry’s deadly whims require a cadre of supporters whose considerable gifts as politicians are at times almost farcically absorbed by the king’s romantic needs, as the increasingly cruel monarch sacrifices one wife to the next in bloody succession. One of the most fascinating characters in Henry’s saga is Henry himself, whose once-popular image as a robust and jovial prince devolves into something much more sinister during his reign. His worsening physical infirmities are as frustrating to him as are his enemies abroad. Worse still, his wives cannot provide the healthy son who would secure his legacy. Angry at one of the few circumstances that seems entirely out of his control, Henry rails against his enemies, declaring himself submissive to the one thing he can and does meticulously control: his own conscience. Reassured of his own righteousness, Henry is able to wreak havoc on those he loves with a conscience not clean, but ever subservient to its king.

  Questions for Discussion

  1. Henry’s romance with Anne Boleyn is described as the first time he has truly been in love. Why do you think he was so easily led to condemn her?

  2. Catherine Howard’s early romances and her flirtation with Culpepper provided ample grounds for Henry to find fault with her. Were it not for these transgressions, do you think Henry could have remained happily married to her, or would he have been able to find other faults? Should Catherine have admitted her affairs before marrying the king? What do you think would have happened if she had?

  3. Who is the wisest of Henry’s wives and why?

  4. In planning his divorce from Katharine and pursuit of Anne, Henry mused, “The girl was there, and it pleased him to think of her in his arms, for such reflections were but natural and manly; and how she was to be got into that position was of small consequence, being a purely personal matter, whereas this great question of divorce was surely an affair of state.” This separation of state and personal matters, while contrived, does make some effort to mediate the cruelty he is to inflict on his wife by casting the divorce as a purely political matter. How much does this division and decisive (if deluded) reasoning carry through in Henry’s future marriages? Does this way of th
inking conflict with Henry’s later identification of himself with England as one and the same?

  5. Plaidy writes of Wolsey, “The Cardinal’s true religion was statecraft.” Discuss Wolsey’s adherence to statecraft as opposed to his allegiance to the church of Rome. How does this “religion” work? What can he hope to achieve through it? What is his endgame?

  6. Before she agrees to marry him, Anne tells Henry that she must have the chance to love him as a man as well as a king. She thinks: “Love first, power second. Ah, could I but love this man!” Do you think Anne has real hope that she could grow to love Henry, or is this merely a way of buying time before she is forced to succumb? Do you think she grows to love him? How would you describe their relationship as king and queen?

  7. After More’s death, the powers of Europe mourn the execution of a great thinker and leader. The English people mourn a brave martyr. Henry’s reaction is to cast blame on Anne. The author paints More’s execution as the point at which Henry is revealed as a tyrant, a “cold, cruel, implacable, relentless egoist.” Why is this moment so significant?

  8. Though Henry is often irrational and irascible, he does have certain predictable impulses and patterns of behavior that are observed and manipulated by his counselors and confidantes. What traits of Henry’s make this type of manipulation possible? What would you consider the most important things for his close counselors to understand about the king if they are to survive their posts?

  9. Though Henry’s negative traits grow more menacing through his reign, his powers as statesman also increase as he grows to appreciate his father’s frugalness and shows an awareness of his duty to England as a European power. Do you see any significant signs that Henry is developing as a ruler? What experiences lead him to develop as he does?

  10. Discuss the reaction of the “sentimental” and “superstitious” people to the serial dismissal of Henry’s wives. Do their loyalties appear fickle, or do you recognize any constants in their opinions?