Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

by Jean Plaidy

  He clung to the glorious memory of unconsciousness which must inevitably follow an excess of pain. There was another joy he knew, and it was this: He had not betrayed Catherine. They might kill Catherine, but not a drop of her blood should stain his hands. He had loved her; his intentions towards her had been ever honest. In the depth of his passion he had been unable to resist her; but that was natural; that was no sin. He had called her wife and she had called him husband, and it had been the dearest wish of his life that he should marry her. Now, here at Tyburn with the most miserable ordeal yet before him, he could feel lightness of spirit, for his end could not be far off, however they would revive him that he might suffer more. These men, whose cruel eyes were indifferent to his suffering, these monsters who were but hirelings of that spiteful murderer who stood astride all England and subdued her with torture and death, were to be pitied, as was Henry himself. For one day they must die, and they would not die as Derham died; they would not know his agony of body, but neither would they know his peace of mind.

  The noose was about his neck; he swung in midair. There was a brief jolting pain, and the next he knew was that he was lying on hard wood and he could not breathe; he was choking; but they were tending him solicitously, that he might return to life and suffer more pain.

  Now he was sufficiently recovered to smell the Tyburn crowd, to hear a faint hum of voices, to feel a man’s hands on his body, to see a flash of steel, to be aware of agony. He felt the knife cold against his flesh. A searing hot pain ran through him. He writhed and screamed, but he seemed to hear a voice close to his ear murmur: “Soon now, Derham. Not long now, Derham. It cannot last. Remember they are helping you out of this wicked world.”

  He could smell the smoke. “Oh, God!” he moaned, and twisted and groaned afresh in his agony. He could smell his burning entrails. A thousand white hot knives were surely being plunged into him. He tried to raise himself. He tried to sob out to them to have pity. He could not speak. He could do nothing but endure, but give his tortured body up to a million gnawing devils. He had touched pain’s depth, for there was never agony such as that endured by men who were hanged by the neck, and then revived that they might feel the knife that ripped their bodies, that they might feel the agony of their burning entrails.

  Blessed blackness closed in on him, and the stroke of the axe which severed his head was like a gentle caress.

  Jane Rochford was back in the Tower. She had been calm enough when they took her there, but now her eyes were wild, her hair hung loose about her face; she did not know why she was there; she talked to those who were not there.

  “George! You here, George!” She went into shrieks of crazy laughter. “So we meet here, George. It is so just that we should...so just.”

  She paused as though listening to the conversation of another; then she went into wild laughter that was followed by deep sobbing. Lady Rochford had gone mad.

  She looked from her window and saw the Thames.

  She said, “Why should you come in your pomp and I be here a prisoner? You have everything; I have nothing. The King loves you. George loves you. Oh, George, do not stand there in the shadows. Where is your head, George? Oh, yes, I remember. They took it off.”

  There was none who dared stay with her. It was uncanny to hear her talking to those who were not there. It was eerie to watch her eyes as she looked into space.

  “Is it the ghost of George Boleyn she talks to?” it was whispered. “Is he really there and we see him not? Is he haunting her because she sent him to his death?”

  Her shrieks terrified all those who heard them, but after a while a calmness settled on her, though the madness was still in her eyes.

  She said quietly, “He has come to mock me now. He says that all my wickedness has but led me to the block. He puts his hands to his head and lifts it off to show me that he is not really George but George’s ghost. He says the axe that killed him was wielded by me and it was called vindictiveness. And he says that the axe that will kill me will be wielded by me also and it is called folly. He says I am twice a murderess because I killed him and now I kill myself.”

  She flung herself against the window seat, her hands held up in supplication to an empty space.

  Her attendants watched her fearfully; they were frightened by the uncanny ways of the mad.

  Out of Sion House and down the river to the Tower passed the Queen’s barge. She was composed now and looked very beautiful in her gown of black velvet. She thanked God that darkness had fallen and that she might not see the decomposing, fly-pestered heads of the men who had loved her. The suspense was over. Thomas was dead; Francis was dead; there but remained that Catherine should die. She thought with deep compassion of her poor old grandmother who was suffering imprisonment in the Tower. She thought of Manox and Damport and Lord William, who, with members of her family and her grandmother’s household, had come under suspicion through her. She had heard that Mary Lassells had been commended for her honesty in bringing the case against the Queen to light; she had heard that the King, whose grief and rage had been great, was now recovering, and that he was allowing himself to be amused with entertainments devised by the most beautiful ladies of the court.

  Catherine felt calm now, resenting none except perhaps her uncle Norfolk, who now, to save himself, was boasting that it was due to him that the old Dowager Duchess had been brought to her present state. For him, Catherine could feel little but contempt; she remembered her grandmother’s telling her how cruel he had been to Anne Boleyn.

  Lady Rochford was with Catherine; her madness had left her for a while though it would keep returning, and it was never known when she would think she saw visions. But there was some comfort for Catherine in having Jane Rochford with her, for she had been a witness of, and participator in, Anne’s tragedy. She would talk of that sad time which was but six years ago, and Catherine gained courage in hearing how Anne had nobly conducted herself even to the block.

  Sir John Gage, who had taken the place of Sir William Kingston as Constable of the Tower, came to her on the second day in the fortress.

  “I come to ask that you prepare yourself for death,” he told her solemnly.

  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 befo
re 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 Cather
ine 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!