She had been certain that she was to die along with the very instrument of her own imprisonment. It was Cromwell who had authored the new law allowing the crown, in certain circumstances, to arrest and attainder, and if necessary, execute, without a trial or any of the other trappings of due process of law. She had watched horrified as they had led Cromwell out, dirty, ragged, unshaven and utterly pitiful.
Lady Gertrude had been so terrified of her own fate that she had barely listened to Cromwell’s speech. In not very much time from when they had led him out, he was kneeling and placing his head on the block. He thrust out his arms, and the axe fell. She had never witnessed an execution before; but Cromwell’s head did not drop, as she thought it was supposed to do. And then she heard the most dreadful sound she had ever heard, issue forth from Cromwell’s lips. It was an inhuman sound, a high keening, fraught with shock from what must be the most excruciating pain. For the axe-man had miscalculated, or perhaps Cromwell himself had, in his final extremity, moved or jumped. The axe had fallen not on his neck, but had lodged itself into his shoulder. Blood spurted everywhere, and after a second of stunned amazement, all was pandemonium. To Cromwell’s screeching and shrieking was added the horrific screams of the crowd. And all this while the frantic headsman was trying to pry the axe loose from Cromwell’s shoulder blade, where it had stuck fast and refused to be dislodged.
At this Lady Gertrude had fainted dead away, and when she awoke, she found herself lying on the stone floor of her cell, where she had evidently been flung some little time before, judging by how stiff she was.
She had been released from the Tower the next day without explanation. She managed to make her way the short distance to Blackfriars, where she was known, and where she was able to get a message to Mary.
Mary had begged leave to be absent from the king’s wedding to Katherine Howard, which had taken place on the same day as Cromwell’s execution, pleading illness. She suspected that her father was only too glad to oblige; he seemed uncomfortable in Mary’s presence now that his wife was younger than his own daughter. It was true that she and Anne of Cleves were only six months apart, but that was on the right side, and Anne seemed so much older than her years. Katherine, if anything, seemed younger than hers.
# # #
When Mary removed from Whitehall Palace for Tittenhanger, she had taken the shaken Lady Gertrude with her.
Now Lady Frances, Lady Kingston and Mary all gathered around Lady Gertrude, administering pats and soothing words.
Mary said, “But Lady Gertrude, could it not be that your release is a hopeful sign for Mother Pole? After all, you were imprisoned at the same time, and for the same reason; since you have been released, surely Lady Margaret’s own release cannot be long delayed?”
Mary’s words seemed to act on Lady Gertrude like a tonic; she dropped her hands, ceased her keening, and said, “Oh, if only it could be true! I am so worried about her!” She dried her eyes, blew her nose, and said, “Your Grace, I trow that you are right! It is a hopeful sign!”
Suddenly Mary felt an overwhelming urge to get out of the house. The out-of-doors had always been her refuge. To ride, to walk for miles, always lifted her spirits and made her feel better. Perhaps it would be the same for Lady Gertrude, after so many months in the dreadful Tower. “The day is very fine,” she said. “Pray, let us walk.”
Elizabeth, who had eaten sparsely as was her wont and then had repaired to a little desk by the window to study her Greek, said, “May I come, too, please?”
Mary held out her hand, which Elizabeth took, and the little party soon found itself on the path that led past the house and onto a track well-worn by others who had sought solace in the wild beauty of Hertfordshire.
Soon Elizabeth was skipping ahead, picking wildflowers as she ran, and Mary walked arm in arm with Lady Gertrude, trying to imagine how desolate she must feel. She had lost her husband, her young son was still in the Tower, as was her great friend, the Countess of Salisbury. Mary recalled the dark days of her mother’s illness, when she had not been allowed to see her, to take care of her, or in the end, to even bid her farewell. She understood only too well Lady Gertrude’s anguish.
They had come some little distance when Mary stopped and turned to look back at the house. The weather was still very hot and dry; there had been no rain for over two months now. Not a breath of air stirred. Looking at the warm red brick of the manor, she was suddenly transported back in time to the summer of 1528, when the Sweating Sickness had raged throughout London, and the king had fled, taking his queen and his daughter with him, to Tittenhanger. It had been a summer very like this one, so hot and dry. And while the sickness ran rampant with a fury that defied all remedy, her father had fiddled with his potions and written love letters to Anne, who had taken the sickness and was not expected to live.
But she had lived; and what a tortuous road they had all traveled since that time. The path through time to this day was littered with the bodies and the blood, the tears and the sorrow, of the innocent.
Mary shrugged off these evil thoughts and stole a glance at Lady Gertrude, who had turned her face up to the sun, and was almost smiling. The walk had been a good idea.
They crested a rise and below them the hillside was purple with heather, that most hardy and drought-resistant of plants, all the way to the valley floor. An army of small blue butterflies hovered over the purple mass, making the field seem as if it were moving. On the valley floor, banking the edges of the stream, were clumps of oxeye daisies, upon which green hairstreak butterflies roamed. Skylarks called their strident, unceasing song from the forest, and sedge warblers competed with their persistent peeping as they swooped for insects on the water’s edge.
Mary started to make her way back down the hill, but suddenly she perceived a buzzing in her ears, which at first she thought was simply the hum of the insects. The day was bright, almost menacingly so, and the light hurt her eyes. She was perspiring, but only because the day was so very hot; and then all of a sudden she felt cold, and shivered. A wave of nausea overcame her and she stumbled. The last thing she remembered before the world went black was looking incredulously at Lady Gertrude.
# # #
“Poor poppet,” said Lady Gertrude, shaking her head, and laying a hand upon Mary’s fevered brow. “I am afraid all this has been too much for her.” She drew the bed curtains back as far as they would go, but the room still seemed airless. By Mary’s bedside lay a fan with a heavy golden handle, fledged with peacock feathers. She took it up and drew it back and forth, trying to create at least the illusion of a breeze.
“Indeed,” said Lady Frances dryly. “If anyone were to swoon, I had thought it would be yourself!”
Lady Gertrude knew what Frances meant; she needed no mirror to tell her that where she had once been sleek and plump, always so sure of herself, a commanding presence, as it were, now she was gaunt, hollow, a wraith, her eyes dull and her step uncertain. She would never be the same again. But at the center of her being was a hard core that could not be eroded. She would survive. But about Mary, she was not so sure.
Elizabeth had run all the way back to the house to fetch Master Dodd and the wagon to carry Mary home. She now sat on the bed at her sister’s feet, regarding her worriedly.
Lady Frances caught Lady Kingston’s eye and flicked a glance at Elizabeth. Her meaning was clear.
“My Lady,” Lady Kingston said. “You had best be at your studies.”
Elizabeth arose without a word and left the room.
Lady Kingston waited for the door to close and then she said, looking down at Mary, “Her Grace will never get a husband this way. I had it from Bess Holland’s own lips that the French suspect, due to her frequent bouts of illness, that Her Grace cannot bear children.”
“Humph!” snorted Lady Frances. “There is more to it than that. I trow that my cousin suffers from nothing more damaging than melancholia. My uncle the king will not restore her to the succession. That is what prev
ents a match with the dauphin, and to the emperor himself, for that matter.” She squeezed the water from the clout that had lain on Mary’s brow and replaced it.
Lady Gertrude blinked. “The emperor, you say?”
Frances shrugged. “Of course, the emperor. Her Grace was betrothed to him when she was a child, was she not? The match is still viable. But even if the king were to restore my cousin to the succession, it would make no difference. His Grace wants no foreigner to succeed him, nor one of the reformed faith. Edward is healthy but he is only one son; should Mary succeed, it would be her husband who would rule.”
“Then why not marry her at home, to an Englishman?” asked Lady Kingston.
“That he cannot do,” said Frances, shaking her head. She picked up her wine cup and drained it, wiping her hand across her mouth. “No single faction would be satisfied no matter who was chosen. It could mean civil war.”
“And there are those,” said Lady Gertrude, and then she checked herself; one never knew who might be listening at doors. Such was what had landed her in the Tower! For she would never believe that Sir Geoffrey had betrayed them all. She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “There are those who believe that Edward cannot be legitimate, having been born after the king broke with Rome. So there is every possibility that…”
Frances held up her hand. “Stop,” she said. “This goes too far. There is no need to say what we all know.”
Lady Gertrude nodded her agreement. A change of subject was needed. “What of the Duchess of Cleves, then?” She realized that she had stopped fanning Mary, and resumed the task.
“The Lady Anne hass gone on a Progress off her own. Methinks dat der ‘Kink’s Sister’ vould not haff been velcome on der kink’s progress viss hiss new bride!” said Frances, mimicking Anne’s strange accent. The king had taken his new queen on a Royal Progress from which the court had been excused; he was apparently making a honeymoon of it.
Mary had awakened, but had not the strength to make herself known. She had not intended to eavesdrop, but she was loath to betray her consciousness lest the ladies should all begin to fuss about her. But she had to agree with Frances; her ailment was not so much physical as it was stress of mind. The realization that she seemed doomed to a useless life was making her ill again. She lived now on the sidelines of the court, relegated even further from the center of things now that her father was married again and enthralled with his young wife. The king had his son and heir; he hoped to get more heirs on his stupid little queen. There was little place for her now either in court politics or at her father’s side. She had her music, her studies, her books, her friends…but would it be enough?
Her heart still ached for Philip, and how she missed him! The very idea of marrying anyone else was repugnant to her now, so she was secretly glad that any sort of marriage for her was stalemated, if not checkmated.
But her heart went out to Anne, even though she seemed to be in much better spirits than she had been previously. Mary had visited her just before the court broke up for the summer. Mary could tell how relieved most of the courtiers were to be excused from the Royal Progress; most were going home to see to matters long neglected. Anne had made her own plans; she had been almost childlike in her excitement about making a tour of her newly acquired lands.
“Yah,” said Anne. “Now I go to Bletch-ink-ly,” her tongue stumbled over the clumsy name, “und den to Hever. Hever, dat wass der oder Anna’s house, yah? I do better dan her, to keep my headt, yah?” She smiled and placed her hand about her neck.
Mary had regarded Anne searchingly. She seemed to be taking it all in much better heart; she was remarkably resilient, and Mary, for a moment, envied her that. “Yes,” Mary replied. “You did very well.” Mary had advised Anne that day when she had been distraught to agree to everything the king and council demanded, without demur, but to try to strike a better bargain than she was offered. There must be a delicate balance between compliance and reluctance to part with the king’s grace. Not to put too fine a point on it, Mary had told her to get what she could and get out. It was the safest way. It was a paradox that the king had been slightly miffed at the alacrity with which Anne had given up both king and crown. After what he had been through with Katharine, perhaps he felt it was almost too good to be true; but Katharine had loved him and had put up a fight to keep him. Whereas Anne… And men called women contrary!
“Der kink, he come to vissit me, didt you know dat?” asked Anne. “Yah, he come der day before he marry viss der Howardt. Vee eat, vee talk…yah, he like me yuss fine now dat I am not his vyfe! He iss strange man, der kink.”
Well, thought Mary, there was no arguing that point. She found it strange indeed that her father had decided to remarry so quickly. But she found it positively bizarre that he had chosen for his new bride such an empty-headed half-wit as Katherine Howard. But to her, Katharine was worse than just a silly, frivolous, vacuous girl; she was a Howard and therefore, an enemy of the highest degree.
“Yah, I am happy now,” said Anne waving an expansive hand at the grandeur that was Richmond Palace. “I haff my palace viss no kink to pleasse, no legk to smell, and it smells badt, yah? I am…vat is vort…free. I stay in der Enklandt, viss my money und my castles, I pleasse myself. No more kink for me. Der Howardt, she iss velcome to him!” It was as if she had been standing on the edge of a precipice, tottering, looking down into a chasm so deep one could not see the bottom of it, and all of a sudden she had been yanked back. She even had the king’s permission to visit the royal children whenever she wanted to, a privilege denied her when she had been queen.
Mary had smiled and hugged her, satisfied that she had done her best. And even though Anne’s English was improving daily, it was still not up to subtle humor; or she would have shared with her the delicious irony that the Princess Christina, she who had derided the king of England’s proposal and refused to marry him, was now betrothed to that very Duke of Lorraine whose pre-contract with Anne had been one of the grounds for the annulment of her marriage. Perhaps God did have a sense of humor after all.
While she had been deep in thought the ladies had all left Mary to her rest, and with one last thought for Anne and her apparent happiness, she slept.
Chapter 18
“The Princess Mary has a pleasing countenance and person.”
– The Duke of Najera, a Spanish diplomat at the court of Henry the Eighth
The More, Hertfordshire, October 1540
The king was lying on his back, and when he did so, which was practically all the time because of his sore leg, he snored abominably. He usually fell asleep immediately after he exploded, and he nearly always slept through the night, so Katherine got very little sleep. The king had business to see to during the day, which he reluctantly saw to without her; thank God for that or she would never have gotten any sleep. If he had had his way, she would have accompanied him even into the council chamber, so reluctant was he to part with her company. He would not hear of sleeping in separate chambers, so here she was, stuck in his bed, with hours of time before she would be set free for a little while.
She always looked forward to morning, though, because that was when she got to see Thomas. He was a member of the king’s privy chamber staff, and entered the room each morning with a touching little ceremony. She sometimes, but not too often lest she should spoil him, made sure that her gown slipped just a little as he went about his bedchamber duties, revealing a milk-white, rose-tipped breast.
Thomas Culpeper was her cousin on her mother’s side. She had not seen him since she was a little girl, when her mother was still alive. When she was six, he had been a lordly fifteen, but he had always found time for her. Even then she was a comely little thing, in full possession of the Howard allure; she had, even at that age, worked her magic on him. He had in his turn intrigued her with his black hair, pale skin, yellow eyes and serious manner; but now he was a manly six-and-twenty, tall, handsome… she simply must have him. It was true that so far
he had rebuffed her advances, but she knew the power of her charm; had she not snared the king on the strength of a single meeting? She closed her eyes and conjured up Thomas’s face. Oh, what joy it would be to explode with such as him!
She had first learned about exploding when she was twelve. Just after her mother died, she had been placed in the care of her step-grandmother, Agnes Tilney, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. There she had lived with dozens of her other cousins, likewise placed in the duchess’s care. The Duchess took her duties seriously; the children were well-treated, and educated to the extent of their desire or capabilities. Like many Howards, Katherine had early shown a talent for music, and she could sing like a bird; a music teacher had been engaged for her and she had lessons daily.
Mannox, her music teacher, had fallen instantly in love with her, she could always tell. Men, boys even, seemed to be drawn to her. Mannox often sat close to her; on the window seat he would sometimes put his arms around her, ostensibly to show her where to put her fingers on the lute. One day as they sat side by side on the bench in front of the clavichord, she felt his hand on her leg. Intrigued, she kept on playing. His hand crept up and up; curious now, she kept on playing, wondering what he was about. And then she felt a sensation that was completely new to her. She kept on playing. And then she exploded. It was an unbelievable feeling. She had never known anything like it. When she asked Mannox what it was, he told her that it was an explosion, just like when the Tower cannons boomed. That had amused her.
She began to look forward with enthusiasm to her music lessons.
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