by Jean Plaidy
“I am unworthy…” she faltered.
Henry looked momentarily stern. “A King is the best judge of a subject’s worthiness.”
She was really frightened. He who was accustomed to speaking with the ministers of his own government and the ambassadors of others knew how to imbue his words with deep meaning. He was telling her that it was not for her to say whether or not she would have him. He was the best judge, and he it would be who made the choice.
“We have been lenient with you and yours, have we not?” he said on a softer note.
“Your Majesty is a great and good King to all his subjects.”
He nodded, smiling. “That is so. But to some subjects he is known to be over-merciful at times.”
“I am but a foolish woman, Sire.”
“You’re a very pretty one, Kate—which is all your King asks you to be.”
She could only repeat nervously: “Your Grace is too kind to me.”
“And, did I not tell thee, ready to be kinder? Latimer was a traitor to his King.”
“Oh, no, Sire…never that.”
The King lifted his stick and rapped the floor with it. Katharine drew away from him, flinching.
“We like not contradictions,” he growled. “Your husband was a traitor. Why did I not have him in chains? Do you know?” He laughed and she detected the return of that indulgence which disturbed her more than his anger. “No, you do not know, Kate. You’re too modest a woman to know the reason for that. Latimer deserved to go to the block, and I pardoned him. And why, think you?” He slapped his healthy thigh. “Because I liked his wife. That’s the answer. By God, that’s the answer. I said to myself, ‘Latimer’s wife…she’s a good wife to Latimer. Would to God there were more like her in our kingdom!’ That’s what I said, Kate. Here. Come nearer. Look at me. Don’t be afraid of me. Look at your King.”
She obeyed him and looked into his face, noting the cruel little mouth, the pouchy cheeks that had once been ruddy and were now purple; she saw the knotted veins at his temples, and those eyes which suggested shrewdness and a certain refusal to face the truth. She read there, mingling sensuality and primness; she saw the hypocrisy, the refusal to see himself except as he wished to be. There, in his face, were the marks of those characteristics which were at the very root of his nature and which had made him the man he was, the man who had sent thousands to their death, the murderer who saw himself as a saint. And she was terrified because she knew that he was inviting her to take that place from which it was an easy step to the block. Inviting her? If only that were true! He was commanding her.
“There!” he continued. “Now you see we speak sincerely. Don’t be afraid, Kate. Don’t hold back. ‘Would to God,’ I said, ‘that there were more like her in our kingdom. Would to God I was blessed with a wife like Latimer’s.’ Oh, Kate, you were another man’s wife.” His voice had dropped to a whisper; the little mouth seemed to grow smaller, tighter, more prim. “And though I be a King of this realm, to pluck where I will, I said to myself. ‘A man’s wife is his wife.’” His mouth slackened; the shrewd eyes traveled slowly from the neck of her velvet gown to her feet. The sensualist had taken the place of the moralist. “Well, Kate, Latimer’s dead now.”
“Your Grace, he is so lately dead.”
“Long enough for a wench like you to lay aside her mourning. You are too fair to spend your time in mourning. Time won’t wait, Kate. How are you going to give your husband all those fine sons he will ask of you if you spend your nights crying for a husband who is dead and gone?”
Oh God, help me, she prayed silently. Now he talks of sons. Thus must he have talked to the first Queen Katharine, to Anne Boleyn, to Jane Seymour. And then those continuous disasters. Two girls and one sickly boy was all he had in spite of his endeavors. Here was a tragic pattern starting again. A son! A son! I want a son. And if you cannot provide one, there is always the ax or the sword to remove you, to make place for another who will give me sons.
“You are overcome,” she heard the King say gently. “The honor is too great for you. You are too modest, Kate.”
“My Lord…my Lord…” she began desperately. “I understand not….”
“Over-humble, that is what you are, sweetheart. You have been the wife of those two old men—men of some position it is true, but they have made you humble.”
She thought longingly of them now. Kindly Lord Borough; gentle Lord Latimer. They had been old, but they had not looked at her as the King was now looking; they had not disgusted her, nauseated her. She had dreamed of a third marriage—to the man she loved. She dared not think of him now; she was afraid that if she did she would be compelled to cry out: “I love Thomas Seymour.”
He could be so malignant, this man, so cruel. If she spoke those words, not only she, but Thomas, would be sent to the Tower. It was so easy, for a woman whom the King had chosen for his wife, to commit treason.
“Too humble,” he was murmuring, “so that you dare not consider the prize which is held out to you. Do not be affrighted, Kate. Listen to what your lord the King tells you. I am no longer in the first sweet flush of youth. Ah, youth! Do you know, Kate, when I was a young man I would hunt all day, tire out six horses and be as fresh as when I started? Then I had that accursed accident, and my leg broke out in ulcers…and none of the cures in Christendom have been able to take them away. I was a King among men then, Kate. Had God not chosen me to rule this realm, then would men have pointed at me and said, ‘There goes a King!’”
“I doubt it not, my Lord.”
“You doubt it not! You doubt it not! That is good, Kate. Ah, did you but know what your sovereign has suffered, you would long to comfort him.”
“I would not dare presume…”
“We give our permission for the presumption. Think of your King’s poor sick leg, Kate, and weep for him.”
“Weep for Your Majesty, who is both great and glorious!”
“Tush! You think of matters of state. A king is a man as well as a king. You know I married my brother’s widow. Twenty years, Kate—twenty years of marriage that was no marriage. For twenty years I lived in sin…with my own brother’s widow. Unintentional sin, though. I was tricked. I was cheated. And England all but robbed of an heir! You know our story, Kate.”
“I know of Your Majesty’s sorrows.”
Henry nodded. He was passing into that mood of sentimentality and self-pity which contemplation of the past brought with it. He took a lace kerchief and wiped a tear from his eye. He could always weep for the injustices that had come to him through his marriages. “To some men it would have been simple,” he said. “I was happily married. I had one daughter. Suffice it that I had given England a future Queen, though a son had been denied me. Then, Kate, I understood. It was my conscience, my most scrupulous conscience that told me I could no longer risk England’s security by continuing with a marriage that was no marriage. No marriage, Kate! Can you realize what that meant? The King of England was living in sin with his brother’s widow. Small wonder that God did not grant us a son! So I wrestled with myself, and my conscience told me that I must end that marriage. I must take a new wife.”
Henry had stood up; he now seemed unaware of the shrinking woman, who immediately rose, as she must not be seated while the King stood. Katharine realized that it was not to her that he was talking now. He began to shout and his fist was clenched.
“I took to wife a black-browed witch! I was cajoled by sorcery. She would have poisoned my daughter, the lady Mary. My son, Richmond, died soon after she laid her wicked head on the block…died slowly, lingeringly. That was the result of the spells she laid upon him. The devil had made her beautiful. I was entrapped by sorcery. She should have burned at the stake.” He began to speak more softly. “But I was ever merciful to those that pleased me…and she pleased me…once.”
There was silence in the chamber but for the rustling of the silken curtains as they moved in the draft. The King’s face was gray, and his eyes went
to the curtains as though he looked for someone there.
He turned suddenly and saw Katharine standing beside him. He seemed startled to find her there.
“Ah, yes,” he sighed. “Kate…Kate…Sit down, Kate.”
“Your Grace,” she said, “was most unhappy in his marriages.”
“Aye!” He spoke softly now, and all the self-pity was back in his voice. “Most unhappy. And then came Jane…poor gentle Jane, Jane whom I loved truly. She gave me my son and then she died. The most cruel blow of all!”
Katharine began to pray again silently and fervently. Oh God, save me. Save me from this man. Save me from the King.
She knew more of him than he realized. In her country house she had heard how he had received the news of Jane Seymour’s death. Bluntly he had told his ministers that the death of his wife meant little to him beside the great joy he had in his newborn son.
“Had Jane but lived!” he was saying. “Ah, had Jane but lived!” He turned to Katharine and she felt the hot hand on her knee, caressing her thigh. She longed to beg him to desist, but she dared not.
“You are cold, Kate,” he said. “You tremble. ’Tis all this talk of my miseries. Sometimes I wonder if I have paid for my most glorious reign with my most miserable domestic life. If that be so, Kate, I must be content. A king oft-times must forget he is a man. A king is the slave of his country as is never the humblest citizen. You know the rest of my sad story?”
“I do, my lord.”
“I am young enough to enjoy a wife, Kate.”
“Your Grace has many happy years before him, I trust and pray.”
“Well spoken. Come nearer, Kate.”
She hesitated, but he had had enough of reluctance.
“Hurry! Now! Here, help me up. This accursed leg gives me much pain.” He stood beside her, towering above her. She felt his hot, sour breath on her cheek. “Do you like me, Kate?”
How to escape him she did not know. She fell on her knees.
“I am the most obedient of your subjects, Sire.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Henry testily. “But enough of kneeling. Get up. Be done with maiden modesty. You have been twice a wife. It becomes you not to play the reluctant virgin.”
“I am overwhelmed,” said Katharine, rising.
“Then you need no longer be. I like you, Kate, and you shall be my Queen.”
“No, no, Sire. I am too unworthy. I could not…”
“It is for us to say who is or who is not worthy to share our throne.” He was losing patience. Now was the time for kissing and fondling, for that excitement which should chase away the ghosts he had conjured up.
“I know it, my lord King, but…”
“Know this also, Kate. I choose you for wife. I am tired of the celibate state. I was never meant to bear it. Come, Kate, give me that which I found but once and held so short a while before death intervened. Give me married happiness. Give me your love. Give me sons.”
Katharine cried: “I am too unworthy, Your Majesty. I am no longer in my prime….”
Henry stopped the words with a loud kiss on her mouth. “Speak up!” he cried. “Speak up. What’s all this you are saying?”
Katharine cried in desperation: “If you love me then…then you must needs love me. But ’twould be better to be your mistress than your wife, an it please Your Grace.”
He was overcome with horror. The little mouth was tight with outraged modesty. “It pleases me not!” he shouted. “It pleases me not at all to hear such wanton talk. You are shameless.”
“Yes, Sire, indeed yes, and unworthy to be your wife.”
“You said you would be our mistress and not our wife. Explain yourself. Explain yourself.”
Katharine covered her face with her hands. She thought of two women who had knelt on Tower Green, who had laid their heads on the block at the command of this man. They had been his wives. Already she seemed to sense the executioner beside her, his ax in his hand, the blade turned toward her.
Henry had taken her by the shoulder and was shaking her.
“Speak up, I said. Speak up.” His voice had softened. He was seeing himself now as he wished to see himself—the mighty, omnipotent King, whom no woman could resist, just as they had been unable to resist him in the days of his youth when he had had beauty, wealth, kingship and all that a woman could desire.
“It is on account of mine own unworthiness,” faltered Katharine.
He forced her hands from her face and put an arm about her. He kissed her with violence. Then, releasing her, he began to roar: “Here, page! Here, man! Call Gardiner. Call Wriothesley…Surrey…Seymour…call them all. I have news I wish to impart to their lordships.”
He smiled at Katharine.
“You must not be afraid of this great honor,” he said. “Know you this: I can take you up and lift you to the greatest eminence…and I will do it.”
She was trembling, thinking: Yes, and you can cast me down. You can marry me; and marriage with the King, it is said with truth, may be the first step toward the Tower and the block.
The courtiers came hurrying back to the chamber. The King stood smiling at them.
He looked at them slyly, all those gentlemen who, a short time before, he had dismissed that he might be alone with Katharine.
“Come forward!” he cried. “Come and pay your respects to the new Queen of England.”
KATHARINE WAS IN her own apartments. With dry, tragic eyes she stared before her; she was trying to look into a future which she knew would be filled with danger.
There was no escape; she knew that now.
Nan, her faithful woman, had wept openly when she had heard the news. Katharine’s own sister, Anne Herbert, had come quickly to court. They did not speak of their compassion, but they showed it in their gestures, in the very intonations of their voices. They loved her, those two; they prayed for her and they wept for her; but they did not let her hear their prayers, nor see their tears.
It was the day after the King had announced his intention to marry her that Seymour came secretly to her apartments.
Nan let him in. Nan was terrified. She had been so happy serving Lady Latimer. Life, she realized now, had been so simple in the country mansions of Yorkshire and Worcester. Why had they not returned to the country immediately after the death of Lord Latimer? Why had they stayed that the King’s amorous and fickle eyes might alight on her lady?
There was danger all around, and Sir Thomas made that danger more acute by coming to her apartment. Nan remembered the stories she had heard of another Thomas—Culpepper—who had visited the apartments of another Catharine; and remembering that bitter and tragic story she wondered if the story of Katharine Parr would be marred by similar events. Was she destined for the same bitter end?
“I must see Lady Latimer,” said Sir Thomas. “It is imperative.”
And so he was conducted to her chamber.
He took her hands in his and kissed them fervently.
“Kate…Kate…how could this happen to us?”
“Thomas,” she answered, “I wish that I were dead.”
“Nay, sweetheart. Do not wish that. There is always hope.”
“There is no hope for me.”
He put his arms about her and held her close to him. He whispered: “He cannot live for ever.”
“I cannot endure it, Thomas.”
“You must endure it. We must both endure it. He is the King. Forget not that.”
“I tried,” she said. “I tried…. And, Thomas, if he knew that you were here…”
He nodded, and his eyes sparkled with the knowledge of his danger.
“Thus do I love you,” he told her. “Enough to risk my life for you.”
“I would not have you do that. Oh, Thomas, that will be the most difficult thing that faces me. I shall see you…you whom I love. I must compare you. You…you who are all that I admire…all that I love. He…he is so different.”
“He is the King, my love. I am the subj
ect. And you will not be burdened with my presence. I have my orders.”
“Thomas! No…not…the Tower?”
“Nay! He does not consider me such a serious rival as that. I depart at sunrise for Flanders.”
“So…I am to lose you, then?”
“’Twere safer for us, sweetheart, not to meet for a while. So thinks the King. That is why he is sending me with Dr. Wotton on an embassy to Flanders.”
“How long will you be away?”
“Methinks the King will find good reason to keep me there…or out of England…for a little while.”
“I cannot bear it. I know I cannot.”
He took her face in his hands. “My heart, like yours, is broken, sweetheart. But we must bear this pain. It will pass. I swear it will pass. And our hearts will mend, for one day we shall be together.”
“Thomas, can you believe that?”
“I believe in my destiny, Kate. You and I shall be together. I know it.”
“Thomas, if the King were to discover that you had been here…”
“Ah, perhaps he would give me this hour, since he is to have you for the rest of his life.”
“For the rest of my life, you mean!” she said bitterly.
“Nay. He is an old man. His fancy will not stray to others as once it did. One year…two years…who knows? Cheer up, my Kate. Today we are broken-hearted, but tomorrow the future is ours.”
“You must not stay here. I feel there are spies, watching my every movement.”
He kissed her and caressed her afresh; and after a time he took his leave, and on the next tide sailed for Flanders.
IN THE QUEEN’S closet at Hampton Court, Gardiner performed the ceremony. This was not hurried and secret as in the case of Anne Boleyn; this was a royal wedding.
The Princesses Mary and Elizabeth stood behind the King and his bride, and with them the King’s niece, the Lady Margaret Douglas. Lady Herbert, the Queen’s sister, and other great ladies and gentlemen were present.
