by David Field
Then there was Thomas Culpepper, one of Henry’s favourite Gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber. He was in regular attendance during Queen Catherine’s afternoon audiences, and Jane was reminded of how Richard Ashton had suddenly appeared from nowhere, in the service of the now dead Master Secretary, and how easy it had been to seduce him.
Before long Jane was being required by her mistress to pass notes back and forth between Catherine and Thomas Culpepper. She never read them, nor was she ever advised of their contents, but there could be little doubt that they were lewd. But although the likes of Mannox and Dereham came and went in the small hours, there was no sign of Thomas Culpepper creeping up the back stairs for as long as the King was in residence.
Then came the day when the Archbishop of Canterbury was announced as Jane sat in her private room at Whitehall Palace, embroidering a small gown that she hoped would fit Grace, insofar as she could picture in her mind how much her beloved child might have grown during their separation.
Thomas Cranmer bowed perfunctorily, and Jane indicated for him to take a seat.
‘Have I become religious without knowing it?’ Jane asked sarcastically, and Cranmer bowed his head once again.
‘I can only hope for that happy day, my lady, but I come to ask if you have retained any fond memory of Master Secretary.’
Jane snorted quietly. ‘He went the same way as the man whose memory he was seeking to restore in the King’s eyes. He failed to appreciate the extent of Henry’s lust, and the inconstancy of his loyalties.’
‘Were I to repeat those words, you would be his next victim. But I come instead to seek confirmation of information that has come into my hands regarding the prior behaviour of our new Queen.’
‘And why would that be of interest to a man of the cloth?’
Cranmer smiled in embarrassment. ‘I seem to have caught the disease of my former confidante Master Cromwell. I seek justice for his death.’
‘Against Henry? That would indeed be a dangerous road to tread, as Cromwell’s death and Richard Ashton’s confinement at Bradgate can attest.’
‘Not Henry — Catherine and Norfolk.’
‘I would have no qualms about ridding myself of Uncle Norfolk, but you are asking me to betray my mistress?’
‘Merely to confirm what others have alluded to. I have reason to be suspicious of the tales they tell, since they themselves speak out of revenge, because when Catherine became Queen they did not secure the preferment they hoped for, having served her in her previous residences. They speak in particular of Henry Mannox, her former music tutor, and Francis Dereham, former Secretary to the Dowager Duchess, both of whom have joined her at Court.’
‘What gain is there to me, should I confirm these tales?’
‘If Catherine goes the same way as Henry’s other wives, Norfolk’s undoubted hold over you and Richard Ashton would be at an end, and you could be reunited with both him and your daughter. And not before time, I am sad to relate — it seems that Sir Richard has taken up with your daughter’s nurse of late.’
‘Kate? That inconsequential piece of servitude? If she has become his whore, so much the better. While he is going to it with her, he is not being ensnared by someone more worthy of his rank.’
‘But do you wish to remain in servitude yourself, to Salome reincarnate?’
‘Of course not. And if it will gladden your heart, and suit whatever devious purpose you pursue, I can confirm that Queen Catherine has more than once confided in me — although it sounded more like a boast — that she had allowed both the men that you mentioned the benefit of her favours. Does that satisfy you?’
‘Indeed,’ Cranmer confirmed with a grateful smile, ‘although it may prove to be only the start. A prior carnal relationship is hardly something that Henry himself can deny, and not always within the sanctity of marriage. It may be that she can explain those away simply as the irresponsible and largely uncontrollable bodily urges of youth. But if these intrigues are ongoing...’
‘They are, my lord Archbishop, be in no doubt of that. She creeps from Henry’s bed almost nightly in order to have to do with either Mannox or Dereham, but most usually Dereham. But she aims higher, I believe.’
‘How high?’ Cranmer asked eagerly.
‘To the Privy Chamber, no less. Thomas Culpepper.’
Cranmer’s eyes widened slightly as he nodded. ‘If you could but bring me evidence of transgressions between the Queen and Culpepper, that would most certainly be an end to her.’
‘And Culpepper, no doubt.’
‘Most certainly.’
‘Leave it with me, my lord Archbishop, and I shall send you word when I have the necessary evidence.’
Fate played into all their hands when Henry decided to take a trip to Dover, leaving Catherine behind at Hampton Court. The entire Queen’s Court remained with her, and when Thomas Culpepper excused himself from journeying south with Henry, and appeared at the next afternoon audience, Catherine slid a small note from her bodice and handed it to Jane with a whispered instruction. ‘See that Master Culpepper receives this ere the afternoon is out.’
An hour later Culpepper rose to leave, and Jane accompanied him to the doors. Then, as she had once done with Richard Ashton, she guided him a few yards down the hallway and handed him the note.
As he read it his eyes lit up and his smile broadened. ‘Tell your mistress eleven of the clock.’
He had just signed his own death warrant.
XXXVII
Henry rose from his first morning prayers since his return to his private chapel inside Hampton Court and finally noticed the note left on the prayer stool in front of his own. It was addressed to him, and therefore he opened it, and remained on his knees as, spellbound, he read its lengthy contents. Then with a howl of rage he shot to his feet and stormed out of the chapel and into his Audience Chamber to the side, yelling to an usher to summon the Duke of Suffolk.
Charles Brandon entered the presence cautiously, since he had been able to hear the raving and shouting halfway down the hall on his approach. He was barely through the door when Henry, his face incandescent with rage, bellowed a curt instruction. ‘Arrest Norfolk and bring him to me — by the bollocks if necessary!’
Ten minutes later, as Norfolk stood with his head bowed and surrounded by royal guards bearing halberds, trying not to look at Henry’s face twisted in a horrible combination of rage and grief, his worst fears were realised.
‘Do you breed nothing but whores in your family, Norfolk?’
‘Majesty?’
‘Don’t “Majesty” me, you lump of whore-mastering slime! Just read that, and then be prepared to argue as to why you deserve to retain your head!’
Henry handed over the note, and there seemed to be little point in Norfolk commenting that he recognised the delicate hand of Archbishop Cranmer. In any case, its contents were enough to make his stomach lurch.
It was all there. The prior carnal relationships with Mannox and Dereham, and now the latest betrayal with Culpepper, all dating back almost to the date of Catherine’s wedding to Henry. Enough to guarantee his niece’s appointment with the headsman, along with several others, but they were now lost anyway, and his best hope was to plead total ignorance.
‘This is to be regretted, Sire...’ he began, before being shouted down.
‘Regretted?!’ Henry screamed. ‘It is to be more than “regretted”, Thomas Howard! You knew that your niece was such a whore, and yet you led her to my bed nevertheless?’
‘Not I, Sire,’ Norfolk wheedled as he sank to his knees. ‘If these rumours be true, then the fault surely lies with those responsible for her supervision.’
‘And why should she need “supervision”, as you term it? If she was as pure and maidenly as was pretended to me, then she should have been allowed her freedom without other whores as her jailers! You knew, did you not?’
‘No, Sire, I swear I did not! She was strictly supervised by the Dowager Duchess before ere she came to Court, and s
ince then I had assumed that the attendance upon her of certain experienced Queen’s Ladies would be sufficient, since of course she was most nights with Your Majesty.’
‘Not for the whole night, it would seem!’ Henry spat back. ‘On my order, Culpepper has been arrested, and his chamber is being searched. Should these vile accusations be proved, I shall be keeping my headsman very busy in the coming weeks, and it behoves you to tell me now which of the Queen’s Ladies was responsible for her “supervision”, as you choose to call it.’
‘That would be Lady Rochford, Sire.’
Henry seemed to calm down somewhat on hearing this, and his face set in a sneer. ‘That would make a great deal of sense, since she was also attending upon the former Queen Anne when she betrayed me with Smeaton and all the others.’ He turned to address the guards. ‘Pass on the order for the arrest of Lady Rochford. Then she can be escorted to the Tower along with Culpepper, Mannox and Dereham. As for you, Norfolk, you would be as well quitting my sight while you still retain your head. But do not grow too attached to it while this matter is being fully investigated.’
Six months later, in March of 1542, news was relayed to Bradgate that Richard and Kate could now make plans for their wedding without fear of recrimination. Jane Rochford had gone to the same block, on the same day, as her former mistress, and former Queen, Catherine Howard. Dereham and Culpepper had suffered death in the manner of common criminals, at Tyburn, where a jeering mob had watched as Culpepper’s head flew into the dirt following its severance on a block, while Dereham suffered the traitor’s death of being hung, drawn and quartered. Two months later Catherine and Jane Rochford had been executed, one after the other, by an axe blow on Tower Green, and Jane had been obliged to lay her head on a block still smeared with the gore of the mistress she had served only too well.
Richard walked out of the house after receiving the news from his host Henry Grey, who had it by letter from his father-in-law Suffolk. It was a clear cold day in early spring, and as Richard’s eye fell on the daffodils that had bravely poked their stems out of the grass to announce their impending yellow blooming, he took it as a symbol of new life generally, and his in particular.
It was reported that Norfolk was in virtual hiding, penning one cringing letter after another to a still irate Henry, seeking to convince his monarch that he had been as badly duped by Catherine as had Henry. There was therefore unlikely to be any further risk from him, but Richard was still apprehensive that in his desperation to save his own neck Norfolk would seek to implicate Richard further in his alleged ambition to seize the throne to which he was entitled by birth. However, Suffolk had also suggested that Richard’s best option might be to play the innocent that he was, and resume his occupation of his estate at Knighton, thereby signifying that he had nothing to hide.
He had certainly gained nothing by being the great-grandson of the last Yorkist king, and indeed it had brought nothing but death and hardship to almost all of those associated with him. Cromwell had succeeded in taking his revenge on Queen Anne for the death of the Cardinal, but had reached too far in seeking to bring down that most devious, duplicitous and black-hearted villain Norfolk, who still survived to wreak more havoc throughout the realm in his vicious continued grip on power. Richard himself now had his own estate, and had been knighted by the King, but was he much further advanced for all the deaths that he had witnessed? What did he have to show for being removed from a more humble estate in Wiltshire six years ago?
He heard a small voice behind him calling ‘Dadda!’, and he turned to smile at the little girl who ran down the slope towards him, arms flailing and feet stumbling slightly on the uneven grass. She was being hastily followed by the smiling woman she had taken to calling ‘Momma’, the woman who had been the closest to a mother she had ever known, who loved her as her own, and would no doubt love her no less when in a few months’ time she gave birth to the burgeoning lump inside her own belly.
Surely this answered his question? Despite the many deaths he had witnessed — most of them unjust — there was hope for his own future, if he kept well away from Courtly politics. There was no future in seeking to claim a lost crown in which he had no interest anyway.
All that he wanted from life was heading down the slope towards him, and there was a lot to be said for being a virtual nobody in this world.
*****
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A NOTE TO THE READER
Dear Reader,
Thank you for joining me in this romp through the bawdy tumultuous middle years of the reign of Henry VIII.
As Henry lurched from one wife to another, rivals for power fought between themselves behind his throne, but even these senior Courtiers seem to have eluded the searchlights that subsequent historians and novelists focused on the leading players. This makes the middle Tudor period a fertile land for writers like myself, seeking to delve more deeply into this whirlwind period of English history.
There can be little doubt that Anne Boleyn was the architect of her own downfall, allowing rumours of her infidelity to be employed against her when Henry grew tired of her shrill tongue. The first blush of lust and romance had faded to a mere memory by the time that the more docile Jane Seymour caught Henry’s eye, and it’s a matter of historical record that the largely false charges against Anne proved highly convenient for the husband who was seeking to put her aside.
But rumours require willing distributors, and what could be more feasible than the suggestion that the most eager of these should be the man devoted to the memory of his mentor Cardinal Thomas Wolsey? It had been largely Anne, with the active encouragement of her uncle the Duke of Norfolk, who had hounded Wolsey to his death by pouring falsehoods into Henry’s ear, and it was poetic justice for Anne to fall by the same sword when Thomas Cromwell sensed that the time was ripe for revenge. I am by no means the first to spot his hand on the scabbard.
But whereas Anne was laughably easy to dispose of, her uncle proved to be altogether a different challenge. He was more devious than Cromwell, and in many important ways better connected, and he hadn’t survived for all of his sixty odd years in the clash of battle and the intrigue of Privy Council only to be brought down by an upstart public servant whose father had been a blacksmith in an obscure London suburb.
Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk, was an ‘old school’ Catholic who was not only appalled when Henry led the Church of England away from Rome, but was well connected to the last remaining vestiges of Yorkist pretensions to the throne of England, the Pole family. His grandfather and father had fought for Richard of Gloucester, and not even the mercy shown to them by the incoming Henry VII had sufficed to sweeten their bitterness against Tudor rule. Again it’s a matter of recorded history that the Pole family were behind a last-ditch attempt to put a scion of York where Henry VIII was now seated, but not so obvious who that person was intended to be.
The fictitious Richard Ashton who dominates much of this novel is on the one hand the figment of my imagination, but on the other a suggested solution to the age old mystery of the Princes in the Tower. The first Tudor had his doubts when Perkin Warbeck was produced at his Court, and even though Warbeck was put to death by false rumour of his intended escape, by then his wife Catherine Gordon was safely installed in the service of Queen Elizabeth of York, who would have been Warbeck’s sister had he indeed been the long-lost Richard, Duke of York, as he asserted at the time.
Catherine is known to have had a son by Warbeck, but little to nothing is known of his subsequent fate. It’s not beyond the bounds of credulity that he also sired a son — the Richard Ashton of this novel — who would therefore be the last remaining legitimate York descendant of Edward IV.
To Cro
mwell, Ashton is simply a means of acquiring inside intelligence of the loose talk and bawdy innuendo surrounding Anne Boleyn, but to Norfolk and the Poles he is the icon around which they might create a credible challenge to the current Tudor. The stage is set for flights of imagination in a new ‘take’ on this well worked period of English history that does not sacrifice or misrepresent a known fact unearthed by serious historians of that era.
I cannot let Richard Ashton rest on his laurels, and he is a main character in the next novel in the series, The Uneasy Crown, in which his daughter Grace becomes the lifelong friend and companion of the doomed Lady Jane Grey.
As ever, I look forward to receiving feedback from you, whether in the form of a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Or, of course, you can try the more personal approach on my website, and my Facebook page: DavidFieldAuthor.
Happy reading!
David
davidfieldauthor.com
MORE BOOKS BY DAVID FIELD
The Tudor Saga Series:
Tudor Dawn
The King's Commoner
An Uneasy Crown
Esther & Jack Enright Series:
The Gaslight Stalker
The Night Caller
The Prodigal Sister
The Slum Reaper
The Posing Playwright
The Mercy Killings
The Jubilee Plot
The Lost Boys
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