But now he wondered…that delicious stirring…his queen no longer excited him as she had once done. It must be faced. He tried; he honestly did. He would fondle and stroke, touch and feel, but all to no avail. He simply could not perform with the queen any longer. But perhaps with this Catherine…
Chapter 24
“Among other things I have heard of her is that she knows how to conceal her accomplishments, and surely that is no small proof of wisdom.”
– Pedro de Gant – Secretary to the Duke of Najera
Westminster Abbey, January, 1546
The gentle rocking of the barge and the monotonous sound of the water lapping at the hull had sent the boatman into a doze. It was a penance in itself being boatman to the Bishop of Winchester; one must be at the ready at all hours to ferry the bishop wherever he was called, whenever he was called. But Master Richard knew how to take care of himself and so did his Missus; she always sent him out with a tin of hot broth, double wrapped in woolen cloth and sealed tight with a pig’s bladder to keep in the heat.
The bishop was singing Prime in the abbey; there was plenty of time to cadge a nap. And so in the cold darkness of a January dawn, Master Richard drank his broth, took a goose-down pillow and a soft quilt from the bishop’s comfortable inner cabin, and lay down on the deck to gaze at the stars. It was one of his favorite pastimes; he had always dreamt of being a ship’s captain, out on the high seas, standing at the prow of his mighty ship, the sun at his back and the sea-spray in his face. But he must needs had to settle for being merely boatman to the bishop, the calm river his milieu, the only movement that of the tide. The only thrill he ever got was when he had to shoot London Bridge at the flooding tide; a rare event which happened only when the bishop’s business was so urgent that the danger was outweighed by the king’s temper at being kept waiting.
He must have dozed, for suddenly he was awakened, but he was unsure by what; all seemed quiet. He looked to his right and saw the dawn just blushing the eastern sky a rosy pink; to his left the western sky was purple and the last stars were still twinkling. He wondered where the stars went in the daytime. He knew that seafaring men, such as he dreamed of being, used the stars to tell them where they were and how to get where they were going, and back again. He wished that he knew such secrets! And how did the daring sea captains know where to go when the stars disappeared at dawn, as they were rapidly doing now?
His musings were interrupted by the sound of voices. That must have been what had awakened him from his slumber. He arose quickly, returned the pillow and quilt to the bishop’s cabin, and ran to the edge of the barge. He peered intently in the half-light, and then he saw them. Had he not known that it was the bishop, he would have been making the sign of the cross and muttering “God between me and all evil!” The bishop, in his gray robes, looked for all the world like an apparition gliding through the fog. The sky was clear, but an ethereal mist had risen just above the ground. Just behind His Excellency two dark voids trailed, their existence only discernable by the absence of what they blotted out as they moved. Some sort of argument, some frantic debate was taking place; the men were whispering but their voices carried on the wind that had stirred with the coming of dawn. The sky was rapidly growing lighter; the sun peeked up over the horizon and suddenly the finely clipped lawn of the abbot’s little garden across which the three men walked towards the water steps began to sparkle as though it had been baptized in glittering dew. The breeze that had come with the sunrise chased the insubstantial mist away as rapidly as it had arisen. As the men neared, Master Richard slipped away and took his place, out of sight, at the helm.
“And what of your oarsmen?” said a voice that Master Richard could now hear quite clearly.
The bishop’s soft, soothing voice replied, “We need none. They were dismissed for the day when I arrived. The tide will be flooding, and for that we need only my helmsman.”
“Well, then,” said a rasping, irritated voice. “What of him, then? Can he be trusted?”
“He may be trusted absolutely,” Bishop Gardiner replied. “He is my son.”
“Your son?” asked Lord Chancellor Wriothesley incredulously. “Forsooth, do you speak truth?”
Master Richard smiled, unseen, from the helm. It was true; he was the son of the bishop.
Bishop Gardiner lifted the last hawser from the starboard bollard and rapped smartly on the gunwale to indicate to his son that they were ready to embark. “A peccadillo of my youth,” replied Bishop Gardiner. “As a young man, I experienced some difficulty with my vow of chastity. Master Richard was the result of an encounter with a serving wench in the home of my patron.”
Both Chancellor Wriothesley and John Russell, the Lord Privy Seal, regarded each other in astonishment. Many prelates had bastard children, but rarely die they employ them in the bosom of one’s household!
“Before you ask,” laughed Gardiner, “God may have forgiven me, but my patron never did; he set me a penance that was most effective for deterring any recurrence of my transgression. I was to keep my son with me always as a reminder of my sinfulness; and I must care for him all his days. That I have done, and all his family are in my employ. He has proven to be a most trustworthy servant; you need have no worries.”
With that, the lords passed into the bishop’s well-appointed cabin, and after that Master Richard could hear only the tenor of their voices. He could discern nothing of what they said, nor had he any desire to do so. The day was light now; he had his work cut out to steer the barge.
“I confess that I expected to see my lord of Norfolk included in this cabal,” said Lord Russell. “He is a good Catholic, is he not? Why is he excluded?”
Wriothesley and Gardiner exchanged glances. Lord Russell, the earl of Bedford, had been included in the secret meeting because, as Lord Privy Seal, he had the king’s ear, and was a good Catholic; but there his power ended. Indeed, the same could be said of them all. Only their combined power could accomplish the goal of removing the queen…for that was what must be done if the realm of England was not to fall forever under the evil of Reform. But such was not true of the Howards; their power, due to their Plantagenet blood and standing as first family of the realm behind the Tudors, was seemingly infinite.
“My Lord of Norfolk is, as you say, a good Catholic,” said the bishop carefully. “But one must consider…” He paused, pursed his lips, sucked in his cheeks. Then he drew a deep breath and exhaled. “It is high treason to even imagine the king’s death. Did I not know for certain…if I did not believe…”
“You may trust us,” said Wriothesley. “Our goals are the same.”
Lord Russell nodded his agreement and his reassurance.
Bishop Gardiner nodded. “Very well, then. The king will not even consider what would happen should he…” Again Gardiner paused; the habits of a lifetime were hard to break. He began again. “If it were necessary for there to be a regency…the king has not, he will not, broach the matter, and the Council’s hands are tied. We dare not even suggest to the king…”
Wriothesley longed to interrupt the bishop; he was a young man compared with the other two, with the impatience of youth. Both Gardiner and Russell were old men, careful men. But the time for such caution was past. Wriothesley was not religious; he simply thrived on intrigue. He had been instrumental in bringing about the downfall of two queens; Anne of Cleves had him to thank, did she but know it, for the swiftness of her release from the clutches of a murderous king. Wriothesley had likewise engineered the swift execution, without trial, of Katherine Howard. He was a man of action; the dithering of the bishop and the obtuseness of the earl irritated him.
“Here it is,” said Wriothesley. “Prince Edward has not yet seen nine summers. The king’s health is failing. Whether His Grace will own the truth or not, facts must be faced, and eventualities planned for. If that be treason, then so be it.” He stopped and eyed the two men sitting before him. The sun was up now and they could see each other quite clearly.
They neither shrunk nor blanched at such plain speaking; Wriothesley’s words were exactly what the bishop had been trying to say, and Lord Russell agreed wholeheartedly. “The real question is this.” Again Wriothesely paused for effect. “If a regency were to be mandated, whom would it best serve England to perform the task?”
“Allow me to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment,” said the bishop. “The queen enjoyed a most successful regency whilst the king was in France. And the prince holds her in great esteem and affection. Mayhap there will be many who would favor such a regency.”
“Pah!” expostulated Wriothesley. “A woman! Even were she not a heretic, it would be unthinkable. Even the Reformers should balk at such an idea.”
“Let us hope that is so,” said Gardiner. “For I am most deeply concerned about the queen’s influence on the king and the prince. It is most disturbing. Simply because Queen Catherine ties a good knot about the king’s bandages, she is given free rein to twist and warp the impressionable minds of Prince Edward and the Lady Elizabeth. Can you imagine the consequences if such should be allowed to continue unabated?”
Wriothesley grunted. “Such must not be allowed,” he said. “But with the queen’s recent tenure as regent, the prince has now had occasion to observe a woman wielding power over the Council, and would have no reason to think that the queen would not be able to do so again. He would be king, and she would, I believe, have his full support. The only question for us is how to prevent such a calamity from ever becoming a possibility.”
Master Richard was impervious to the cold for the most part, but not so his father and master; when he returned the pillow and quilt to the cabin, he had lighted the charcoal brazier. The coals now glowed invitingly, and the three men held their hands out to the warmth. Gardiner placed a pewter jug on the grate; a little mulled ale would go down nicely on their journey to Greenwich, where the king was expecting him.
“It seems to me,” said Lord Russell, with a still-wary glance up to the ceiling, above which Master Richard steered the barge on the flooding tide, “that we have only to await an opportunity to discredit the queen in the king’s eyes.”
The cabin was small, and the heat from the candles, along with the glowing brazier, was making the cabin quite comfortable against the chill. Bishop Gardiner loosened his robe and leaned back against the cabin wall. “I have observed,” he said with a smug curling of his lip, “that the king may be thinking about a new queen altogether.”
Lord Russell’s brows arched. “Say you so? Of whom do you speak?”
“Why, the Duchess of Suffolk, of course,” Gardiner replied. “Have you not noticed that His Grace has all but ceased his daily visits to the queen? And he has gone back to abusing his doctors and apothecaries to have his legs seen to.”
“It is true,” added Wriothesley. “The king has been seeing much of the duchess since the duke’s death, and seems to be neglecting the queen.”
“The moment is ripe then, gentlemen, to put a word in the king’s ear about the queen.” Having planted his seed, Gardiner leaned forward and removed the pewter jug from the brazier, where it had been warming. He filled three sturdy mugs with the steaming brew, and handed them about.
“A word, you say,” said Wriothesley. “What mean you?”
Gardiner set his mug down on the table between them and leaned forward. “It is time someone informed the king that the queen is a Protestant heretic who intends, when the time is right, to reform the church and topple the government.” Wriothesley and Russell stared wide-eyed at the bishop.
“And whom, may I ask, would have the audacity to do that?” asked Wriothesely. Plainly it would not be himself!
Lord Russell sought anonymity in his mug of ale, which he studied so intently one might have thought he had never before seen such a strange device.
Gardiner leaned back once more. “I am an old man,” he said. “I have no wish to leave this earth before God calls me. But I have the ear of the king. I will tell him.”
“But if the king has conceived a passion for the duchess you must needs be very careful whom you implicate,” said Lord Russell. “It is rumored that all of the queen’s ladies are Reformers to some degree, including the duchess.”
Gardiner waved an impatient hand. “The duchess concerns me not in the least,” he said. “The king’s infatuation with her is not likely to come to anything, and even if it were to do so, she has not the influence at court that the queen has. Despite her youth, my lady of Suffolk is a brash harridan who would have no influence over the prince; methinks rather the opposite. And I seriously doubt that she is the stuff of which martyrs are made. She is vain and loves too well her earthly pleasures.”
“True, true,” replied Lord Russell. “Yes, it is a good plan. Discredit the queen, remove her from influence, which is half done already if the king’s eye is wandering. But we were speaking of my lord of Norfolk and the Howards. Even if we were to succeed in removing the queen, we still have them to deal with. Norfolk and Surrey are insufferable in their arrogance. I cannot conceive of a regency under their aegis! And it would be difficult to discredit them as heretics.”
Bishop Gardiner blew on his mug, took a careful sip, smacked his lips in satisfaction and then said, “Methinks that the Howards are likely to be the instruments of their own destruction. We must needs only be patient on that score.”
“One thing at a time,” cautioned Wriothesley. “I agree with what you say about the Howards. The Seymours are much more likely to be amenable to…shall we say…advice, in the instance of a regency. The prince’s blood uncles they may be, but our pavenu Earl of Hertford and his cocky brother know nothing of ruling a kingdom. In fact, the very thought is ridiculous. What we need to convince His Grace to agree to is a Council of Regency.”
Lord Russell looked up from his mug; Bishop Gardiner clasped his white hands together. The great amethyst in his bishop’s ring glowed in the soft light of the brazier and the muted light of the sun peeking through the thick velvet curtains of the cabin.
“Ye-es,” said Gardiner slowly. “An excellent notion. An excellent notion indeed. But only food for thought until we can convince the king to allow us to discuss the matter with him.” He paused; he pushed aside one of the velvet curtains with his finger. He peered outside for a moment and then let the curtain fall back into place. “It should be a fine day for January. But first things first, my lords. And first we must find a way to rid ourselves, and England, of the queen.”
Wriothesley himself was a master of the fine art of persuading others to do his dirty work; his relief at the suggestion that the bishop himself would speak to the king about the queen was enormous. “Whatever will you say to His Grace?” he asked.
“It is simple,” replied Gardiner. “The king is determined to quell the rising tide of heresy in England. And His Grace, while pretending to be proud of the queen and pleased at the success of her recent religious publications, is in fact bitterly jealous of the popularity of her writings. His Grace told me himself that she has exceeded mere support for Erasmian theology. The king’s meaning is clear, regardless of the churlishness of his motives.”
At last! thought Wriothesley. Action instead of words. “Then we must strike while the iron is hot,” he said. “And if the king is indeed wooing the Duchess of Suffolk, we must strike while the king himself is hot. But we must be very careful.” He looked at Bishop Gardiner. “We must be subtle. What is your plan, my lord?”
The Bishop of Winchester leaned back once again. He spread his arms across the back of the cabin’s bench, and tilted up his chin. This posture caused his heavy-lidded eyes to narrow to mere green slits. “Leave that to me,” he said. And again he smiled his secret smile. “Ah! We must be approaching the bridge.” The roar of the pent-up waters of the flooding tide was clearly audible. The wide pier bases and narrow arches of the bridge, coupled with the water-wheels installed by ambitious millers, severely restricted the flow of the water; when the tide was flooding, this
produced ferocious rapids between the piers, making navigating the river extremely dangerous. The prudent simply cast anchor and waited. But the king was waiting, and his temper was far more dangerous than shooting between the piers at high tide. Gardiner cast his eyes upwards to where his son, above them at the helm, steered the barge against the now surging tide. Suddenly he smiled and exclaimed, “Master Richard will be pleased!”
Oatlands, Surrey, February 1546
The winter days closed in early, and even though it was still midafternoon, the king’s sitting room at Oatlands was very dim. Henry squinted at the chessboard; it was his move and he was taking his time. He need not have worried…Bishop Gardiner fully intended to let the king win. It was not that the king was a poor chess player, far from it; but Gardiner wanted there to be no reason, beyond the king’s generally foul mood, for him to balk at what the bishop was going to suggest to His Grace before the day was done. Gardiner caught the eye of a bored, silent page, who stood behind and to the right of the king’s chair should the king need anything. He waved a hand at the candelabra and the page instantly pulled a twig from the fire beside which the two men sat, rugs on their laps and goblets of steaming mulled wine at their elbows.
The Baker's Daughter Volume 1 Page 77
