Jane Seymour, the Haunted Queen

by Alison Weir

  Jane felt her cheeks burning. “He made me sound like a brood mare!”

  Edward shook his head. “It was the right thing to say. The succession must be assured, and everyone in that chamber appreciated that. There was great applause, and the Lord Chancellor, on behalf of the Lords and Commons, thanked the King for his selflessness and the care he had shown for his subjects. He called you a right noble, virtuous and excellent lady.”

  She was still warm with embarrassment when Henry arrived, in high good humor, and she had to dissemble her discomfiture and smile as he told her how Parliament had rejoiced at their marriage.

  In the afternoon, she watched from the oriel window in the King’s Gate as Henry jousted at a tournament held in her honor—the first since that fateful one on May Day. Then it had been Anne in the place of honor—and the next day she had been a prisoner in the Tower. Had she had any inkling of what was to come? Or of how devastatingly the wheel of fortune could turn?

  Jane realized that her ladies were clapping. The King had won. “Bravo!” Margery cried, almost jumping up and down in excitement. Jane smiled at her, and into that smile she put all the regret she could muster that they could not be friends as before. To her great relief, Margery smiled back. Belatedly Jane joined in the applause.

  She had not wanted Henry to joust. She had asked if his leg would permit it, and he had insisted that it was much better, and even if it was not, he would not let it stop him. But what would happen, she had wondered, if he took a fall, as he had in January, and was killed? He had no certain heir. There would be civil war, without a doubt. She thanked God now for his victory, and his delivery from danger. One day soon, he would have to accept the fact that, at nearly forty-five, he was no longer a young man, and too old for jousting.

  When Henry joined her in the gallery, she and her ladies congratulated him, much to his gratification. Then he led her to his chamber and gave her a paper granting her a property called Paris Garden, which lay on the Surrey shore of the Thames.

  “As ever, you are so good to me,” she said, and kissed him.

  “Mary has written to me,” he informed her, and she was surprised that his mood was still benign. “It seems she has received good advice from Chapuys and the Emperor, and has finally seen sense. She begs me to pardon her offenses, and says she will never be happy until I have forgiven her. She wants to prostrate herself humbly before my feet to repent of her faults, and prays that Almighty God will preserve us both, and shortly send us a prince, which she declares shall be gladder tidings to her than she can ever express.”

  “This is the happiest news you could have given me!” Jane exclaimed, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “I knew she would do the right thing in the end.” Of course, it had not been the right thing as far as Mary was concerned, but she would soon see the benefits.

  Henry did not appear to share her joy. He seemed thoughtful. “Is she sincere?” he asked. “I expressed my doubts to Cromwell this morning, and he assured me she is. But I wonder.”

  “I am sure that her submission was the result of much heart-searching,” Jane said, “and that Master Cromwell is right.” Was Henry now demanding sovereignty over his subjects’ inner thoughts? What mattered was that Mary had begged pardon for defying him. He had bullied and threatened her, and she had capitulated. What more did he expect? Again, she felt that disconcerting dislike for him.

  “I want her to sign a declaration that her mother’s marriage was incestuous and unlawful, and that she recognizes me as Supreme Head of the Church,” he said. “Nothing less will persuade me that she loves me.”

  Despairing of him, Jane imagined how Mary must feel, bereft of her mother, hounded by her father, alone and frightened. She must sign. They were only words on a paper, after all. God would know that she did so under duress.

  * * *

  —

  “She has signed it!” Henry cried, bursting into Jane’s chamber without any ceremony and thrusting the document into her hands. She saw Mary’s signature by each article, written, as she declared, freely, frankly and for the discharge of her duty toward God, the King and his laws. By a few strokes of the pen, she had repudiated everything she held sacred.

  “I am very glad,” she said at length, then read the covering letter in which, in groveling terms, Mary begged Henry’s forgiveness for having so extremely offended him that her heavy and fearful heart dared not presume to call him father.

  She looked up. “I hope this satisfies your doubts. Surely there is now no bar to your reconciliation.”

  “It is most gratifying,” Henry said. “She should have come to her senses long since. I should not have been made to wait for her to obey me. I am not only her father, but her King!” He spoke in an injured tone.

  “But you will forgive her?”

  “Presently. First, I am sending Sir Thomas Wriothesley of my Council to Hunsdon, to obtain a fuller declaration of her faults in writing. If she complies, he will ask her to name those ladies she would like appointed to her service, should I decide to increase her household pending her return to favor.”

  This was taking it too far! He was so suspicious! “But what more can she say, other than that she is sorry and repents of her offenses?”

  “She can account for her faults.”

  And so she did. Wriothesley reported to Henry and Jane that Mary had been pathetically grateful for his assistance. And Cromwell showed them her long letter acknowledging her faults and thanking him for his kindness in furthering her cause with the King. Henry read it, looking pleased. “She has shown herself a dutiful daughter at last,” he said. “I am happy to extend my paternal love to her once more.”

  Jane did not know how she kept her silence. Love was not conditional upon people behaving as you wanted them to. Love was something you felt, instinctively, naturally and often unbidden. She could not doubt that Henry loved his daughter; but he loved his kingly authority more, and she herself was now under no delusions that it would take precedence over his love for her too, should she defy him in any way.

  Yet he had been unhappy about the rift, she was sure of it, and his unhappiness had made him cruel. She was beginning to understand why he acted as he did. Always there would be this dichotomy between the King and the man. He feared anything that smacked of disloyalty or treason, so much so that he could think the worst even of those who were closest to him. It explained why it had been easy for him to believe the charges against Anne.

  * * *

  —

  As soon as she could, Jane sent for Chapuys. When he arrived, she sent her women into the inner chamber. “You know that the Princess has made a full declaration of her faults,” she began.

  “Madam, she has never done a better day’s work. I assure you, I have relieved her of every doubt of conscience. The Pope will himself grant her absolution.”

  “We and our friends have good cause to rejoice at her submission,” she told him. “We have worked for months toward a reconciliation, and I am now looking forward to receiving the Princess at court. She will be a friend and companion to me.”

  “You may be assured of that, for she bears the greatest love and goodwill to your Grace. Many here at court welcome the prospect of her return to favor, and the common people will rejoice when they hear of it, for they have always loved her.”

  “It is the first step toward what we both hope to achieve,” she told him. “And I am comforted to know that you have salved her conscience. It was a dreadfully difficult thing for her to do. But already her circumstances are improving. The King has sent his officers to Hunsdon to see that she has everything she needs, and they are to tell her that it will not be long before he brings me to visit her. I cannot tell you how glad I am.”

  “I rejoice to hear it!” Chapuys declared, sounding quite emotional. “I never thought to see this day. The good Queen will
be celebrating in Heaven.”

  * * *

  —

  On the feast of Corpus Christi, attired in a low-cut gown of cloth of gold, Jane mounted her richly caparisoned horse and rode beside the King the short distance from York Place to Westminster Abbey, with the lords preceding them and her ladies following on horseback. In the cool of the church, the bishops and clergy preceded the nobles and the King up the nave, and Jane followed, with Margaret Douglas bearing her train.

  As High Mass was celebrated, she knelt in reverence, aware that, with the coming of autumn, she would be enthroned in this great abbey, and Archbishop Cranmer would place that glittering crown on her head.

  * * *

  —

  The royal barge was filled with minstrels playing for the King and Queen as they made their journey from Greenwich to York Place. The balmy summer days had brought no new hope of a child, but they had seen many jousts and triumphs, all in Jane’s honor, and pageants on the river, and now it was back to Whitehall for St. Peter’s Night, which was always marked by a parade of the Marching Watch of the City of London.

  In the afternoon, they watched from the privy garden at York Place as a water battle was staged on boats bouncing on the Thames, cheering as loudly as everyone else as the mariners fired guns and tried to board the other vessels. But in the shouting and confusion, one man toppled into the river with a splash, and two others were shot by mistake. As the crowds gasped, Henry raised an arm. “Stop!” he roared. “Cease your fighting!”

  Two of the sailors had dived into the water after their fellow, but when they surfaced, he was not with them. Meanwhile, one boat had taken the wounded away, making its way toward St. Thomas’s Hospital in Southwark. Jane felt sick, and close to tears.

  “I will not stop your sport,” Henry was shouting, “but you must continue with wooden swords and stuff your guns with wool and leather.”

  The mariners obeyed, and battle was resumed, but in a more subdued fashion. Jane was glad when it was over and she and Henry were able to proceed to the gatehouse to watch yet another tournament in honor of their marriage.

  That evening, they stood in a window in the Mercers’ Hall in Cheapside, looking out on the torchlit procession of the scarlet-clad Marching Watch, who appeared very proud and brave in their liveries. Afterward, Henry and Jane attended a reception hosted by the Lord Mayor, and then their barge took them back to Greenwich. It was dark when they approached the palace, and torches had been lit all along the quayside. Lights shone too from various windows, and from one, smaller than the rest, very high up. It took a moment or two for Jane to realize that it was not shining from the palace at all, but further away, from Mireflore, the tower on top of the hill.

  A chill raced through her. What business had anyone to be there at night? Maybe someone was using the tower as a secret trysting place. But why would they leave a light shining?

  It troubled her, that light. Irrationally, she could not help connecting it to what she had seen at Mireflore in April. And then, lying awake long after Henry had taken her and fallen asleep, she began to wonder if the tower was haunted.

  In the morning, she was able to shrug off her fears, especially when Mary Monteagle told her that Margaret Douglas would come late to attend her, having overslept after a late night. It occurred to her that Margaret might have been meeting Thomas Howard at Mireflore. Well, she would satisfy her curiosity.

  “Ladies, we are going for a walk in the park,” she said. “We can explore that old tower.”

  Mary Norris paled. “But it’s haunted, Madam!”

  Jane felt a tremor. “Haunted?”

  “Yes. Lights have been seen, and noises heard.”

  “It’s true, Madam,” Joan Ashley said. “Margery has seen the lights.”

  “When?” Jane asked, more sharply than she intended.

  “About two weeks ago,” Margery replied. “There was a light moving from window to window, as if someone was walking about with a candle.”

  At that moment, Margaret walked in. “Your Grace, I am sorry to be so tardy,” she apologized.

  “I hear you were late to bed last night,” Jane said.

  Margaret’s cheeks flamed almost as brightly as her hair. She hesitated. “Yes, Madam,” she admitted.

  “You weren’t in the old tower, by any chance?”

  “No, I wouldn’t go there,” she said. “It’s a bad place. They say sgàiles walk there. It’s what we Scots call the shadows of the dead.”

  “That’s nonsense,” Jane said, with more confidence than she felt. “We shall go and lay these so-called ghosts to rest.” Margaret looked at her dubiously.

  They followed her with marked reluctance as, armed with the key, she led them out to the park, Noble racing ahead, delighted to be out for a run. There was little of the usual chatter and laughter that attended such expeditions. As they ascended the hill and approached the tower, she caught their mood and was filled with increasing foreboding.

  The door creaked as she pushed it open. There were the stark, gloomy paintings and the cobwebs, just as before.

  Anne Parr squeaked and fled.

  “Forgive me, Madam, but I cannot enter here,” Margaret declared, and hurried after Anne. The other women huddled by the door. Even Noble would not come when he was called, but stood barking from what he evidently considered to be a safe distance.

  “I am surprised you educated ladies pay heed to the tales you have heard,” Jane admonished them. “They are stories to frighten children.” But she herself was resisting the urge to run. “Will no one accompany me upstairs?”

  They looked at one another. No one volunteered.

  “Very well,” she said, “I shall go by myself. There is nothing to fear up there.”

  She ran up the spiral steps, wishing she had not come on this foolhardy escapade, yet knowing she must not lose face before her inferiors. She reminded herself that it was broad daylight, and that ghosts favored the dark!

  In the first-floor chamber, the dust lay more thickly now. She could see no footprints. No one had been there in weeks.

  Holding her skirts high so as not to dirty them, she continued to the upper chamber, and was suddenly enveloped in such a shroud of misery and yearning that it took her breath away. The sadness and longing were like a physical presence, suffocating her, cutting her off from all happiness and all hope. It was like being in a long, dark tunnel with no end to it.

  With a cry, she flung herself back down the stairs. On the spiral below the first floor she had to stop to catch her breath and compose herself. The wave of misery had vanished as soon as she had left the upper chamber, but the memory of it was vivid, and she was shaken to her core.

  This had not happened to her when she had visited that room on the day Anne and Norris had been there. The despair she had felt was theirs; she was as sure of that as she was of her own existence, and was now able to guess what had really happened here on that April day. The love that had been between those two had been hopeless; she understood that now, and doubted very much that they had succumbed to their longing for each other. She thanked God and all the saints that she had not given voice to her suspicions.

  Strangely comforted, she joined her ladies, who looked mightily relieved to see her. Noble fawned around her skirts.

  “Are you all right, Madam?” Margery asked.

  “I almost fell down the stairs,” she said, “but I am all right.”

  * * *

  —

  The celebrations continued. Had ever honeymoon been so prolonged? They watched a firework display; early in July, they attended the magnificent celebrations for the triple wedding of the Earl of Westmorland’s son and two daughters, with Henry riding in procession from Whitehall in disguise as the Sultan of Turkey—although everyone knew who it was—and Jane basking in the people’s acclaim. She was relieved when
he said he was not taking part in the jousts. His leg was playing up, and he made little of it, but she could sense his frustration.

  All this time, Parliament was in session. One evening, Henry invited Master Cromwell to join them for supper, and spoke of the new Act of Succession that was to be passed on the morrow.

  “As things stand, Jane, Elizabeth is legally my heir, under the Act of Succession passed after I married Anne. But a bastard cannot inherit the crown. And so this new Act will ratify the annulments of my pretended marriages with the Lady Katherine and the Lady Anne, and vest the succession in our children.”

  Cromwell smiled, spearing a piece of beef on his knife. Jane shrank from him these days; it felt as if she were eating supper with a snake.

  She wondered if he sensed her suspicions of him. “Madam,” he said, “Parliament understands the great and intolerable perils that the King has suffered as a result of two unlawful marriages. It recognizes the ardent love and fervent affection he feels for his realm and his people, which impelled him to venture upon wedlock a third time. Everyone is agreed that your marriage is so pure and sincere, without doubt or impediment, that your issue, when it shall please Almighty God to send it, can never lawfully be deprived of the right to the succession.”

  Everything depended on her bearing a son. She could almost feel her womb cramping inside her. Pray God she would conceive this month!

  “And what happens if, God forfend, his Grace and I have no issue together?” she asked.

  Henry stared at her in dismay. “We will!”

  “In that case,” Cromwell said, “Parliament has granted his Grace the power to appoint any person he chooses to be his successor, including the issue of any other lawful marriage.”

  She trembled at that. Already they were providing for what would happen in the event of her death, and while her rational self told her that was sensible, the part of her that remained acutely sensitive over Anne’s fate was sounding all kinds of alarms. What if she failed to bear a son? Would they do to her as they had done to Katherine and—God forbid!—Anne?