The Catherine Howard Conspiracy

by Alexandra Walsh

  “How’s the dancing coming along?” asked Jane Boleyn to break the silence.

  “Very well,” replied Catherine, relieved to be back on a safe topic. “I’m teaching the queen the gavotte this afternoon.”

  “Perhaps she should dance it for the king, get him excited,” quipped Margaret, as they filed into the chapel, only to be heavily shushed by Katherine Willoughby, the duchess of Suffolk.

  They danced face-to-face. One taller, dark curls flying, the other smaller, auburn hair glowing like fire, calling instructions as she took the lead. Neither were aware they were being watched.

  “The girl with the red hair,” the king whispered. “Who is she?”

  “She is one of the queen’s maids, your majesty,” his servant, Thomas Culpepper replied. “Her name is Catherine Howard, the niece of the duke of Norfolk.”

  “How long has she been teaching the queen to dance?”

  “Some weeks now, sire.”

  “She is beautiful,” he sighed. “So pure, so innocent, yet the way she dances shows she is ripe for a husband. Is she betrothed?”

  “Not that I’m aware, your majesty.”

  The king watched, leaning forward, his eye pressed eagerly against the spy hole. He often sat on the hidden balcony watching the ladies practise their dancing. Now, he followed Catherine’s every move, leering as she whirled across the brightly tiled floor, her cheeks flushed, her hair flying as she and the queen danced, laughing, unaware anyone could see them.

  “Summon her uncle to me immediately, I wish to send Mistress Howard a gift,” said the king. “He can tell me whether there is an annoying betrothal in the balance. If not, then I will dine with Mistress Howard tomorrow.”

  “And the queen, sire?”

  “What of the queen?” snapped Henry. “We are illegally married. She was betrothed to another and it was never annulled, as such God in his infinite mercy and wisdom has seen me impotent with her. However, God has pointed me towards a more suitable match and, even now, is proving my impotence is with the queen alone.”

  Culpepper averted his eyes as Henry’s hand slid inside his clothing, his face growing redder as his excitement increased. Down below, the dance reached a crescendo, as did the king. As the queen forgot all etiquette and hugged Catherine, Henry groaned.

  “Oh yes,” he sighed. “God has shown me the way and she will be mine.”

  The king nodded for Culpepper to open the door of the hidey-hole. As they walked into the king’s privy chamber, Henry turned to him.

  “Send for a whore with red hair, small, but not a child,” the king breathed. “One that is clean but won’t be missed if I become careless.”

  With a sinking heart, Culpepper nodded. This was not the first time the king had made such a request, and Culpepper knew it would not be the last.

  Chapter Four

  Catherine had been waiting for a summons from her uncle, Thomas Howard, the duke of Norfolk, for some time. Although he had greeted her when she had first arrived at court the previous year, he had since been occupied with matters of state, namely, the issue of ridding the king of yet another wife who displeased him. The duke was one of the great men in Henry VIII’s court: powerful, cunning and, when necessary, ruthless. Yet, to Catherine, he had always been kind. In a life of being shoved from home to home, always the penniless relative living on the charity of others, his small crumbs of solicitude had been enough to earn her loyalty and affection. Now, as she approached his door, she felt a small thrill of excitement at seeing him again.

  A tall man in Howard livery guarded the entrance. She bobbed a curtsey, then waited for the herald to announce her arrival.

  “Mistress Catherine Howard,” his voice rang out and she walked into the luxurious rooms that befitted her uncle’s standing at court.

  “Come in, my dear,” he called.

  “Thank you, Uncle,” she said, dropping into a curtsey. She waited, aware he was watching her, but did not move until he bade her rise. He was the head of their family and therefore certain etiquette had to be observed.

  A fire roared in the grate and piles of paperwork were stacked on his desk. Nearer the fire on a smaller table rested a jug and two wine goblets; it was towards this that Thomas Howard ushered his niece. She settled into one of the chairs and watched as he poured her wine.

  “No servant, Uncle?” she asked.

  “It may surprise you to hear, Catherine, that occasionally even I, the great duke of Norfolk, am capable of pouring my own drink.”

  “How very modern of you,” she teased, her fingers unconsciously going to the beautiful silver locket around her neck, sliding it backwards and forwards along its chain. He smiled as he handed her the goblet.

  “That’s very pretty.”

  “It was a gift from Isabel and Edward,” she replied, sipping the goblet of rich, sweet wine. “Would you like to hear about my dancing lessons with the queen?”

  “At some point, yes, but there are other, more important things to discuss first,” the duke replied, and Catherine was surprised to see the sudden bleakness in his expression.

  “Uncle, has something happened?” she asked, fixing him with a stare of such intensity, he nearly flinched. No one else at court would have dared to challenge the terrifying duke of Norfolk in such a way, yet Catherine knew she was on safe ground. He had always singled her out for special attention: nothing untoward, she had always felt he had her best interests at heart.

  “Yes, my dear, something quite unanticipated,” he sighed, finishing his wine and pouring himself a second. The grey pallor of his face caused Catherine to pause, her voice took on a nervous timbre.

  “Has something happened to my Howard brothers, Henry, Charles or Edward? Or my sisters, Margaret and Mary? Or my Leigh half-brothers and sisters?”

  “No, they are quite well. In fact, Charles will be delighted with the news,” he sighed, draining his second goblet of wine before continuing in a low, tense voice: “Tomorrow evening, I am to take you to Bishop Gardiner’s house on the other side of the river and you are to dine…”

  “What?” she exclaimed. Bishop Gardiner’s house was notorious for the group of prostitutes he maintained there, known as his geese.

  “If you would let me finish,” he thundered, fear and disgust at what he was about to say making him angry. Catherine cowered back into her chair. “I am to take you there to dine with the king!”

  “Why would the king wish to dine with me?” she gasped. “How does he even know who I am?”

  Her voice faltered as her heart raced. This must be a mistake. She was nobody, Kitty Howard, a penniless orphan, an unimportant member of an admittedly important family, but she was not someone who was summoned to dine with the king.

  “He is very aware of who you are. He has watched you dancing with the queen and was most struck by your beauty and your grace,” replied Norfolk. “In fact, shortly after he watched you, he summoned me to his chambers and gave me a gift to prove his intentions are honourable.”

  Thomas Howard closed his eyes as though trying to protect both himself and Catherine from the memory of his recent interview with the king. The monarch had been in a state of high excitement when he had asked whether Catherine was betrothed. When the duke had assured the monarch that Catherine was tied to no such contract, the forty-nine-year-old king had shouted in glee. The conversation that followed had startled even Thomas Howard as the king explained he wanted to marry Catherine immediately. As far as he was concerned, his marriage to Anne was a mere inconvenience and he boasted how, only that afternoon, he had proved that his impotence was caused by Queen Anne by bedding a prostitute who looked like Catherine.

  “But not so sweet as your niece will be,” he had snarled. “This one was a common dog who deserved all I gave her and more.”

  Thomas Howard had found his eyes drawn to the bloodstain on the floor, which the king’s gentleman of the privy chamber, Thomas Culpepper, was scrubbing hard to remove. The duke had heard rumours about
the king’s growing violence, but he had chosen not to believe them; now, with the evidence before his eyes, even he, a man not unused to the barbarity of the court, could not bring himself to ask whether the girl had left the king’s chamber alive. The thought that this man, who had already executed one of his nieces, now wanted to marry another Howard girl, made even the battle-hardened duke want to weep. Worse, he wanted to marry Catherine, the duke’s favourite niece.

  “No,” exclaimed Catherine. “The queen is my friend. She’s trying so hard to please the king. This would be a complete betrayal of her trust.”

  “And the king is your sovereign lord, your duty is to do as he commands, as I am head of your family and must be obeyed,” he snapped. He placed his goblet on the table, then rose from his chair and stalked across the room. From his desk, he took a small velvet pouch and a scroll of parchment sealed with the king’s private crest. “If you don’t want the king to think you’re a whore, you must refuse both,” he said, handing them to Catherine.

  “You don’t need to tell me that. I may only be fifteen years old, but I’m not a fool,” she replied, equally as tense and snappy. “And when he’s bored with me? What then — another pair of boots for the executioner? Or are you going to promise to protect me, as you once did my cousin, Anne Boleyn, before sentencing her to death?”

  The fury on her uncle’s face matched her own and, knowing his history of violence towards his wife, Elizabeth, the duchess of Norfolk, she braced herself, expecting him to strike her. Instead, he recoiled as though she had struck him. She was shaking as the horror and revulsion at what she was being told to do was sinking in. The king was old enough to be her father, her grandfather even, and she found him repulsive. The romantic prince who had inherited the throne was now a corpulent and terrifying tyrant. She had watched him from afar, revelling in her anonymity as she observed this larger-than-life king who held all their lives in the balance.

  With each passing day, she had pitied the new queen more intensely. Shuddered at the thought of the sweet Lady Anne having to share a bed with the rotting, pus-filled monster that was the king. No wonder Anne had been so horrified at that first fateful meeting. Yet, Catherine had come to admire Anne too. Despite the unhappiness of her marriage and the dislike she felt for her husband, Anne knew her duty was to be a good queen.

  Catherine had been impressed with Anne’s ability to put aside her own feelings in order to fulfil her royal demands: her determination to learn English, her obvious care for the motherless prince and the two princesses, her good-natured tolerance of the rumours that abounded concerning the state of her virginity. No matter what she encountered, she rose above it all with dignity and yet now, she, Catherine, the queen’s friend, was being asked to betray her. She could not believe it.

  “Send the jewel, or whatever it is, back with the letter, unopened,” she said turning away from her uncle. “Give him my thanks but say as I am unwed, and as a member of the queen’s court, it would be unseemly of me to accept them, generous though his majesty has been.”

  “You will not be expected to bed the king tomorrow,” her uncle said coldly.

  “Good!” retorted Catherine.

  “It will be a small affair. I will be there, as will your sister Isabel and her husband, Edward, your brother Charles and the king’s niece, Lady Margaret Douglas.”

  Unsure whether she was pleased to have her family and her friend witness her humiliation, Catherine spoke her next words with deliberate intent.

  “And where is your hand in all this, Uncle?” she asked. “Did you offer me up as bait? Is that the real reason you brought me here, to flaunt me before the king? Am I to follow in the footsteps of Mary and Anne? One bore him bastards; the other lost her beautifully crowned head. Which is to be my fate — Mary’s or Anne’s? After all, it was you and their father, Thomas Boleyn, who arranged those matches.”

  She was deliberately goading him. In her fear, she wanted him to lose control too, to lash out so she could retaliate, vent her growing panic and hysteria on him.

  “You have neither Mary’s sweetness of nature nor Anne’s intelligence and wit. You will dance your way into the king’s heart and give him the reason to push through the divorce to the queen. Do you honestly think she’ll mind, Kitty? She hates him probably more than he despises her. It’s nothing personal, they are incompatible. If he were not king, they would do their duty, have a child and then live separately…”

  “Like you and my aunt of Norfolk?” Catherine interrupted spitefully. “How is your concubine, Lady Elizabeth Holland?”

  “Yes,” he seethed, “like me and my wife. We do our duty, then we leave each other alone and enjoy other distractions. However, it’s not so easy when you’re king and queen. He needs another heir. He will never have one with Anne. He wants to have one with you.”

  “The heir to the throne?”

  “If you are queen, your children will carry royal Tudor blood. There will be no question about their legitimacy, they will outrank the princesses Mary and Elizabeth, both of whom are now declared bastards. If you have a son, he will be the duke of York, the spare to the Seymour brat. If young prince Edward were to die, your son, a Howard prince, would be king of England.”

  “And what, my lord, if the king is incapable of getting a baby on me?” she said. “He is old, infirm and his body does not work well. What if he is the problem and not his blameless wives? Like my cousin, Anne Boleyn, will I end my days on the block on trumped-up charges of witchcraft and adultery?”

  When her uncle struck her, Catherine was not surprised. She knew what she said was treason but she could not help herself. She did not want to die because a vain old man was no longer capable of having children. She would rather take a beating from her uncle and be sent from court in disgrace than succumb to the king’s decaying flesh. She waited for the next blow but it never came. Instead, her uncle pulled her into his arms, holding her tight, tears streaming down his face.

  “I give you my word,” he gasped, finally releasing her. “I will protect you with my life. If I could take you away from court and keep you safe, I would, but the king has fallen in love with you and nothing will stop him marrying you. I’m so sorry, Kitten, there’s nothing we can do to stop this.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, then turned and walked from the room, leaving him ashen-faced and ashamed.

  Catherine stormed down the corridor, fear and fury making her fly. She could feel the curious glances like knives in her back and wondered: do they know? Were they eyeing her as a potential queen or were there already plots afoot to discredit and remove her from the king’s affection? She shuddered at the thought. She may only have been at court a few months but she had observed the endlessly shifting factions as families jostled for power and position, switching allegiances and enemies as often as the sun rose in the east and set in west.

  She was desperate to reach the safety of her room and slam the door firmly shut before the bitter ache in her throat and the tears that threatened to well from it became too hard to resist. Such was her intent upon her destination that, as she entered the corridor to the queen’s court, she was almost upon the kissing couple hidden in the shadows before she realised they were there.

  “Charles, what are you doing?” she exclaimed as her elder brother hastily disentangled himself from the embrace.

  “Oh, bugger off, Kitty,” he snapped. The woman in the shadows giggled and Catherine’s eyes widened.

  “Margaret Douglas? Are you insane? Why would you want to kiss my brother?”

  “Because he’s very pretty and extremely good with a lance,” laughed Margaret. “Now, run along, Kitty, there’s a precious little chicken.”

  “Yes, leave us to get on with grown up things while you go back to your dolls and your sewing,” smirked Charles.

  Catherine, however, was near breaking point.

  “Don’t you dare speak to me that way,” she shouted, the tears she had been fighting finally breaking
free. “You have no idea what you’re doing…” The rest of the sentence was lost as she choked trying to hold back her terror.

  “Kitten, what’s the matter?” Charles said, sounding genuinely distressed that he might have upset his sister so much. “I was only teasing.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Charles,” said Margaret. “This isn’t because of us. What’s happened, Kitty?”

  “Uncle Norfolk…” she began but now the tears had started she could not stop them or speak through their ferocity.

  “We’ll take her to Isabel and Edward,” said Margaret, her pretty face full of concern. “They’ll know what to do,” and walking either side of her, they escorted Catherine along the corridor.

  Charles had barely knocked when Isabel flung open the door and hauled them into the room before slamming the door behind them and turning the key in the lock. Catherine, Margaret and Charles looked at her ashen face.

  “Uncle Howard has sent word, Kitty,” Isabel said, steering her sister to a chair by the fire. “Edward, fetch Catherine a brandy,” she added to her husband. “This is an unexpected turn of events.”

  “Will someone please explain what has happened?” said Charles, bemused at the seriousness of the expressions on Isabel and Edward’s faces. “Has somebody died?”

  “No, worse,” said Isabel, passing a drink to Catherine before accepting her own glass of brandy from her husband. “The king wishes to dine with Kitty tomorrow. We are all invited, along with Uncle Norfolk.”

  “What?” Margaret Douglas gasped. “How does he even know Kitty?”

  “He saw her teaching the queen to dance and has fallen in love with her,” replied Isabel.

  “No, he can’t love me,” choked Catherine. “He can’t!”

  There was an ominous silence, then Isabel’s husband Edward took charge, his years at Henry’s court and his great experience as a courtier coming into play. He had been vice-chamberlain to Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour’s Master of the Horse. He held the post of vice-chamberlain again now and, having survived the turbulent court for many years, he was a skilled diplomat.