The Catherine Howard Conspiracy

by Alexandra Walsh

  “I favour Margaret’s plan,” said Kathy Knollys, speaking for the first time. “Keep Catherine here until the child is born, then arrange for its placement with people we can trust. The Devereux family is not far from here at Lamphey. I’m sure they could be persuaded to help. Then, if there comes a moment when we have to reveal the child’s identity and claim the throne, so be it.”

  Sir Francis gave his wife a warm smile. There was silence as they all contemplated their difficult decision. Eventually, Edward, with his years of experience at the Henrician court, spoke, his words delivered in a reasonable tone but with a certain finality.

  “We must make plans for all eventualities,” he began. “And whether we like it or not, we must inform the duke of Norfolk.” He held up his hand to quell the flow of interruptions and protests the others began to muster, continuing: “If the child is a boy, we must protect him and the duke is one of the most powerful men in the country, we will need his influence. If it’s a girl, she will need to be found suitable care too. She would also be a legitimate Tudor heir, and at present, many would consider her claim greater than that of the princesses Mary and Elizabeth. An Act of Parliament has declared them both bastards, so a princess of legitimate birth would also be second in line to the throne. Whether male or female, this child is in danger.”

  “And Catherine? After she’s given birth? What about her safety?” asked Isabel. “She is aware of the danger she’ll be in if anyone ever finds out she’s still alive.”

  “But how will they?” said Charles.

  “If we reveal there is a Tudor heir, we would need to prove its legitimacy. At some point, this would mean Catherine appearing in public,” retorted Isabel.

  “No,” said Margaret Douglas. “We can always say she died in childbed. Who would question it? Then she could stay safely hidden for the rest of her life.”

  They were silent as they considered this possibility.

  “If the king wanted to marry again, it would be bigamy,” pointed out Francis.

  Isabel shrugged. “No one would ever know.”

  Charles dropped his head in his hands. “If we were ever discovered, we would be executed for treason.”

  “It’s either that or hand Catherine back and stand by to watch her be murdered…” began Lady Arundell, but Edward cut across her.

  “When is the child likely to arrive, Isabel?”

  “In the winter, before the Yuletide celebrations,” she replied.

  “Then there is time to make decisions,” he said wearily.

  “We still have safe passage to Scotland and my brother’s court,” Lady Douglas reminded them. “But if we were to travel there, then the sooner the better for Kitten’s sake. She’s already quite large even though there are still many months to go.”

  It was becoming difficult to disguise Catherine’s condition, even with looser, more flowing summer clothes. She was growing far more quickly than Isabel had imagined.

  “It’s because she is so small,” said Lady Arundell. “It looks as though she is carrying heavily.”

  “Unless, of course, she bears more than one child,” suggested Francis. They all looked at him, startled. “Although it’s rare, we all know these things happen. Men of science and learning are discovering extraordinary things every year, and for a woman to have more than one child in a single pregnancy is unusual but it can happen. Perhaps that is why Kitten has bloomed so quickly.”

  “In that case,” said Charles, “we should definitely tell the duke. One Tudor heir we could disguise, two could cause a new war.”

  “And you would be uncle to two heirs to the throne instead of one, which would improve your status considerably,” snapped Margaret Douglas. “Do you work for your own ends, Charles, or to protect us from the wrath of the king?”

  “I work to protect us all from being attainted for treason,” he shouted, his fear finally breaking free.

  There was a tense silence. Edward and Francis, the two most senior courtiers, exchanged a glance.

  “Charles, contact your uncle,” said Edward, “but be circumspect. Nature often resolves these issues for us and we would be fools to put anything incriminating in writing.”

  He allowed the significance of his words to be absorbed before taking Isabel’s arm and leaving the room, followed by Sir Francis and Lady Kathy and Lady Margaret Arundell.

  Charles turned to Margaret Douglas, reaching out, his eyes beseeching, but her fury was apparent,

  “I would never hurt Kitten,” he implored but her eyes were narrowed in anger.

  “You have seen the cruelty my uncle is capable of,” she hissed. “I do not care if it his legal right to beat his wife, his humanity should have stopped him from these terrible crimes long before now. So know this, Charles, if the duke attempts to return Catherine to the king, then I will remove her and you’ll never see either of us again.”

  And Margaret swept from the room.

  Chapter Three

  The duke of Norfolk stood by the fireplace, thinking hard as he watched the letter burn away to ash and embers, its dangerous message disappearing to the skies, piece by piece. What should he do next? There were several options and he was dimly aware that a few short months ago, he would have acted upon the one that most benefited himself and his family name without a moment’s consideration for anyone else. Now, things were different.

  He stared at the fiercely burning logs and shuddered. He would never recover from the horror of finding Catherine bleeding and broken on the floor of the king’s chamber; discarded under a cloak like a forgotten piece of rubbish. Somehow, when it had been the remains of a nameless wench, he had been able to wash away the image, leaving himself with a conscience as clean as an angel’s wing. Yet, since his niece’s beating, he had finally understood the grief he had inflicted upon another family; on how the loss of an innocent could destroy the lives of those around them.

  Looking down at his hands, he saw they were trembling. Balling them into fists, he dragged his mind away from the vivid images of brutality that haunted his every waking hour and back to the contents of Charles’s letter. Catherine was carrying the king’s child. It was all he had prayed for, a legitimate Howard heir. But now his prayers had been answered, he no longer knew how to proceed. The most obvious course of action was to return the queen to court in triumph. However, by doing this he would be placing her in terrible danger.

  He threw the last fragment of Charles’s letter onto the flames and, satisfied that every scrap of it had been destroyed, he walked across his richly decorated rooms to stare out of the window at the endlessly rolling waves of the River Thames. As he watched the hypnotic flow and listened to the calls of the boatmen, he pondered, wondering whether it would be possible to return his niece safely to Henry’s court.

  As long as he ensured enough people witnessed her arrival and saw her obvious condition, perhaps that would be enough? He could install a court of senior ladies around her and place his own household guard there as extra protection. However, if Henry decided the child she was carrying was not his, then imprisonment for treason would follow swiftly and brutally. Even if she were allowed to give birth to the child, there was a chance Henry would still have her executed afterwards and the child banished and declared a bastard. The duke was repulsed at the thought. He had already sent one niece and a nephew to their deaths, he could not bear to be responsible for the death of another Howard girl.

  The other option was to take up the suggestion of Lady Margaret Douglas and remove Catherine and her small entourage to Scotland. The legitimate Tudor heir would be raised as a ward to the Scottish king. James V was, after all, part Tudor himself, the son of Henry’s sister, Margaret. The child, male or female, would be an ideal companion for the future heir whom the Scottish queen was currently expecting. He mulled the merit of this idea for a while and despite his misgivings, he could not entirely dismiss it.

  His main concern, though, was that a legitimate claimant to the throne of England w
ould present a focal point for rebellions. The country had endured decades of war as the descendants of the sons of Edward III battled for the right to rule. Pushing another Tudor heir to the fore, especially if it was a boy, could do untold damage to the nation.

  Grimacing in frustration, he knew that whichever course he chose there would always be danger, but, as Isabel had pithily pointed out in a separate note, until they actually held a healthy child in their arms, there was very little to worry about. Even then, the child was not guaranteed to reach maturity.

  With Isabel’s words dancing around his mind, the duke made his decision. He would leave Catherine where she was until the child was born, then he would consider moving her. One or both of them might die: it was heartless but it was true. If there was no child, there was no need to endanger Catherine further by forcing her to travel to Scotland, she could remain in the sanctuary of Marquess House. If Catherine were to die, then there was no proof of whom the child’s parents really were and he could hide it in a Howard household. If it ever became necessary to reveal its birthright, then he would deal with that issue when it arose.

  He settled at his desk to write a response to Charles. Isabel had stated the child would be born in late November or early December, so they had time to make their plans. There was also the matter of maintaining contact with the Scottish king, something that Lady Margaret Douglas had already begun, and he felt he should continue to manage.

  He had never condoned the engagement between his nephew and the Scottish princess, fearing her flighty and unreliable. Now, though, he was impressed at how she had shown herself to have an unexpected mettle. She was no longer the wilful girl who fell in love at the turn of a card, but an astute young woman who could hold her own in the harsh politics of courtly life. A true Tudor princess, he thought and grimaced: there were too many of them for comfort and not enough Tudor princes.

  While he was organising his correspondence, he added a suggestion to Charles to make themselves known to the priory on the island of Llyn Cel. It was a remote house and one that had so far escaped the excesses of Henry and the late Thomas Cromwell’s purges.

  “They may be of use later,” he wrote, knowing Charles would take the full weight of his meaning to heart.

  His nephew was a sensible boy under all his bravado, and he, like Lady Douglas, was proving to the duke that he was capable of standing firm in the fluctuating and dangerous tides of Henry’s court. It pleased him to know that the years he had spent on training the next generation of Howards had not been wasted. He made another mental note, George Howard, another of Catherine’s brothers, was still serving in Henry’s privy chamber. It was time he was removed too, thought the duke. He did not want any members of Catherine’s immediate family at court. Yes, he thought, George would need to go abroad, perhaps to France, while the duke tied up the loose ends of this intrigue.

  Once the note to Charles had been sent by his most trusted messenger, the duke prepared himself to take the air. Not only did he need to find George Howard to tell him he must leave as soon as possible, he wanted to judge the atmosphere at court and ascertain whether the rumours that had reached him about the king’s sudden infatuation with the widow of Lord Latimer, the beautiful and twice widowed Katheryn Parr, were true.

  If they were, then he knew he would have to tread carefully as she was a member of the extended Seymour family, not to mention the niece of Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Rumour also had it that, before the king had shown an interest in her, the Lady Latimer had allowed herself to be courted by Tom Seymour, the younger brother of the former Queen Jane. It seemed that Henry had forgotten he was married. Although, thought the wily duke, perhaps we can turn that to our advantage.

  There was an unexpected spring in his step and a look of smug satisfaction on Thomas Howard’s face as he entered the hustle and bustle of the king’s outer chamber. New strewing herbs had been laid and the smell of lavender and rosemary disguised the usual pungency of the massed members of the court. As the heralds announced him, all faces turned in his direction. But, instead, of the usual deference and the occasional flash of fear, there was curiosity and a few obvious sneers.

  Very well, he thought as he made his way through the colourful crowd of courtiers, nodding to his allies, and ignoring those who had ever shown even the faintest whiff of disloyalty, the tide is turning but for once I have no intention of trying to stem the flow. Let the flood of the Seymours’ ambition wash over me; they might think they’re dragging me down in the storm of their success, but it could solve many of my difficulties. He came to a halt beside Charles Brandon, the duke of Suffolk.

  “Your grace,” Suffolk greeted him, “we have been concerned by your absence.” Then he lowered his voice, glancing furtively over his shoulder to ensure they would not be overheard. “How fares the queen?”

  “How would it best serve me for the queen to be — bonny and on her way to recovery or on the point of death?”

  “The king has a new infatuation,” was all Brandon replied.

  “In that case, the queen’s health fails a little more each day,” Thomas Howard responded.

  “This is a sad piece of news,” replied Suffolk.

  “And does the king enquire after the queen?”

  “The king forgets he is married,” said Suffolk, the strain of the situation showing in the deeply etched worry lines around his eyes and mouth.

  “He is worse then?”

  “He runs mad,” replied Suffolk shortly. “He thinks his last wife was Queen Katherine of Aragon and that she died but a few months past. It is the mystery of his reaction to Thomas Cromwell all over again. We both know that in the months following Cromwell’s execution, the king asked for him repeatedly. He had forgotten he had sent the man to the scaffold. I had no choice but to fabricate the story the king now believes: that Cromwell went to Italy, became ill and died.” He paused, his handsome face troubled, “How is Catherine, really?”

  “Catherine is healthy and bears the king’s child,” he said, speaking softly so no one would overhear.

  The duke of Suffolk’s face froze, all colour draining from it until he was as white as a corpse. “No, no, this cannot be, not now.”

  “It is so. The child will arrive in the winter. A legitimate Tudor heir conceived in wedlock,” Thomas Howard continued. Suffolk swayed and for a moment, Norfolk wondered if the man was about to faint. Brandon breathed deeply then took charge of himself and gave a curt nod.

  “I see,” he murmured. “You are making plans?”

  Thomas Howard nodded, then continued in the same low tone, “What does the court make of the queen’s absence?”

  “Most people believe Henry has tired of her and put her aside,” said Brandon. “The word is that he can’t be seen to execute another wife, so she has been sent to a nunnery and the marriage annulled. When the French ambassador asked after Queen Catherine, the king assumed he meant his first queen. I spoke your Catherine’s full name in Henry’s presence and he had no recollection of her,” he paused, glancing over Thomas Howard’s shoulder. “Edward Seymour approaches, we must be cautious.”

  The duke of Norfolk inclined his head in response, then with a contemptuous expression, turned to greet Seymour.

  “Gentlemen, you are engrossed in a secret conversation, tell me, what intrigue do you spin?” sniggered Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford, as he drew level. His usually pinched and miserly features were, for once, expansive as he gloated over the two dukes, a sardonic smile playing on his pouty, wet lips, his entire demeanour exuding pomposity.

  “We were discussing the health of Queen Catherine, my niece,” replied the duke of Norfolk, his voice icy with disdain.

  “Ah yes,” said Hertford, “the little queen. How does she fare? Such a shame the king has put her aside. I don’t imagine there were many suitable nunneries left to place her, not since Henry and his bully boy Cromwell destroyed them all.”

  “You are too seasoned a courtier to bel
ieve the gossip of the court, Hertford,” sneered Norfolk. “The queen has not been banished, she is ill but with God’s good grace we are still hopeful of a full recovery.”

  “And if she rallies, will she return to court?”

  Norfolk did not deign to reply, he merely nodded at Suffolk before throwing a glance of utter contempt at Hertford, then turned on his heel and marched from the room. While he had no intention of returning Catherine to court, he would not allow any member of the Seymour family to try to take a position of superiority over him. As he arrived back at his rooms, he wondered whether Katheryn Parr would be a suitable consort. She was older and childless, so had Henry given up on the idea of another heir? Perhaps. Another Seymour to replace a Howard: even he had to smile at the irony.

  We are so entwined, he thought. The two families who already have heirs — our Howard girl, Princess Elizabeth, and the Seymour boy, Prince Edward — both our families so determined to see their blood on the throne of England. But at what cost? He suddenly saw himself in his true light. A life of scheming and plotting, of lying and cheating and yes, he was a wealthy and powerful man but, if the king chose, it could all vanish in an instant. Suffolk’s words came back to him — that the court believed Henry had put Catherine aside, that he could not be seen to execute another a wife.

  An idea suddenly struck him and, taking a small piece of parchment, he wrote out two names, one underneath the other, then smiled. Perhaps, he thought, it could work. Catherine Howard. Katherine Tilney — the same number of letters. He wrote another name: Joan Bulmer and paused, then inspiration struck and he carefully formed the letters “Jane Boleyn”. Why not? he thought. She was of a high enough rank to accompany a queen to the scaffold, and poor Jane and her family would never know what he had done. She herself would never be able to complain as she had died some months earlier.

  Thomas Howard stared at the names, wondering if such an audacious plan could succeed. The longer he thought about it, the more convinced he became that this was the solution. It’s not as though this will be the first time official documents have been changed to hide the truth, he thought.