Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

No Other Will Than His

THE DOWAGER DUCHESS of Norfolk was in bed and very sad. A new queen reigned in the place of her granddaughter; a pale-faced creature with scarcely any eyebrows so that she looked forever surprised, a meek, insipid, vapid woman; and to put her on the throne had the King sent beautiful Anne to the block. The Duchess’s dreams were haunted by her granddaughter, and she would awaken out of them sweating and trembling. She had just had such a dream, and thought she had stood among those spectators who had watched Anne submit her lovely head to the Executioner’s sword.

She began to weep into her bedclothes, seeing again Anne at court, Anne at Lambeth; she remembered promised favors which would never now be hers. She could rail against the King in the privacy her bedchamber offered her. Fat! Coarse! Adulterer! And forty-five! While Anne at twenty-nine had lost her lovely head that that slut Seymour might sit beside him on the throne!

“Much good will she do him!” murmured the Duchess. “Give the King a son quickly, Mistress Seymour, or your head will not stay on your shoulders more than a year or two, I warrant you! And I’ll be there to see the deed done; I swear it!” She began to chuckle throatily, remembering that she had heard but a week or so after his marriage to Jane had been announced, the King, on meeting two very beautiful young women, had shown himself to be—and even mentioned this fact—sorry that he had not seen them before he married Jane. It had not been so with Anne. She had absorbed his attention, and it was only when she could not produce a son that her enemies had dared to plot against her. “Bound to Serve and Obey.” That was the device chosen by Jane. “You’ll serve, my dear!” muttered the Duchess. “But whether you produce a son or not remains to be seen, and if you do not, why then you must very meekly obey, by laying your head on the block. You’ll have your enemies just as my sweet Anne did!” The Duchess dried her eyes and set her lips firmly together as she thought of one of the greatest of those enemies, both to Anne and herself, and one with whom she must continually be on her guard—her own stepson and Anne’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk.

Some of the Duchess’s ladies came in to help her dress. Stupid girls they were. She scolded them, for she thought their hands over-rough as they forced her bulk into clothes too small for it.

“Katharine Tylney! I declare you scratch me with those nails of yours. I declare you did it apurpose! Take that!”

Katharine Tylney scowled at the blow. The old Duchess’s temper had been very bad since the execution of the Queen, and the least thing sent it flaring up. Katharine Tylney shrugged her shoulders at Mistress Wilkes and Mistress Baskerville, the two who were also assisting with the Duchess’s toilet. When they were beyond the range of the Duchess’s ears they would curse the old woman, laughing at her obscenity and her ill-temper, laughing because she who was so fat and old and ugly was vain as a young girl, and would have just the right amount of embroidered kirtle showing beneath her skirt, and would deck herself in costly jewels even in the morning.

The Duchess wheezed and scolded while her thoughts ran on poor Anne and sly Jane and that absurd fancy of the King’s, which had made him change the one for the other; she brooded on the cunning of that low-born brute Cromwell, and the cruelty of Norfolk and Suffolk, until she herself felt as though she were standing almost as near the edge of that active volcano as Anne herself had stood.

She dismissed the women and went slowly into her presence chamber to receive the first of her morning callers. She was fond of ceremony and herself kept an establishment here at Lambeth—as she had at Norfolk—like a queen’s. As she entered the chamber, she saw a letter lying on a table, and going to it, read her own name. She frowned at it, picked it up, looked at the writing, did not recognize this, unfolded it and began to read; and as she read a dull anger set her limbs shaking. She re-read it.

“This is not true!” she said aloud, and she spoke to reassure herself, for had she not for some time suspected the possibility of such a calamity! “It is not true!” she repeated fiercely. “I’ll have the skin beaten off the writer of this letter. My granddaughter to behave in this way! Like some low creature in a tavern!”

Puffing with that breathlessness which the least exertion aroused in her, she once more read the letter with its sly suggestion that she should go quietly and unannounced to the ladies’ sleeping apartments and see for herself how Catherine Howard and Francis Derham, who called themselves wife and husband, behaved as such.

“Under my roof!” cried the Duchess. “Under my roof!” She trembled violently, thinking of this most sordid scandal’s reaching the ears of her stepson.

She paced up and down not knowing what it would be best for her to do. She recalled a certain night when the key of the ladies’ apartment had not been in its rightful place, and she had gone up to find the ladies alone, but seeming guilty; she remembered hearing suspicious creaking noises in the gallery. There had been another occasion when going to the maids’ room she had found Catherine and Derham romping on the floor.

She sent for Jane Acworth, for Jane had been present and had had her ears boxed in the maids’ room for looking on with indifference while Catherine and Derham behaved so improperly.

Jane’s eyes glinted with fear when she saw the wrath of the Duchess.

“You know this writing?”

Jane said she did not, and a slap on her cheek told her that she had better think again; but Jane Acworth, seeing Catherine’s and Derham’s names on that paper, was not going to commit herself. The writing, she said, was doubtless disguised, and she knew it not.

“Get you gone then!” said the Duchess; and left alone once more began her pacing up and down. What would this mean? Her granddaughter, Catherine Howard, had been seduced by a young man, who, though of good family, being a connection of the Howards, was but a member of an obscure branch of theirs. Catherine, for all her illiteracy, for all that she had been allowed to run wild during her childhood, was yet the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard; and she had been so reckless and foolish, that she had doubtless ruined her chances of making a good marriage.

“The little slut!” whispered the Duchess. “To have that young man in her bed! This will cost him his life! And her...and her...” The Duchess’s fingers twitched. “Let her wait till I lay hands on her. I’ll make her wish she had never been so free with Mr. Derham. I’ll make her wish she had never been born. After all my care of her. . . ! I always told myself there was a harlot in Catherine Howard!”

Jane Acworth sought Catherine Howard and found her on the point of going to the orchard to meet Derham.

“A terrible thing has happened,” said Jane. “I would not care to be in your shoes!”

“What mean you, Jane?”

“Someone has written to Her Grace, telling her what you and Derham are about.”

Catherine turned pale.

“No!”

“Indeed yes! Her Grace is in a fury. She showed me the letter and asked if I knew the handwriting. I swore I did not, nor could I be sure, but to my mind...”

“Mary Lassells!” whispered Catherine.

“I could not swear, but methought. Let us not waste time. What do you think is going to happen to you and Derham and to us all?”

“I dare not think.”

“We shall all be brought into this. I doubt not but that this is the end of our pleasant days and nights. The Duchess cannot ignore this, much as she may wish to do. I would not be you, Catherine Howard; and most assuredly I would not be Derham.”

“What dost think they will do to him?”

“I could not say. I could only guess. They will say what he has done to you is criminal. Mayhap he will go to the Tower. Oh, no, it will not be the block for him, because then it would be known that he had seduced Catherine Howard. He would be taken to the dungeons and allowed to rot in his chains, or perhaps be tortured to death. The Howards are powerful, and I would not be in the shoes of one who had seduced a member of their house!”

“Please say no more. I must go!”

“Yes. Go and warn Derham. He must not stay here to be arrested and committed to the Tower.”

Fear made Catherine fleet; tears gushed from her eyes and her childish mouth was trembling; she could not shut from her mind terrible pictures of Francis in the Tower, groaning in his chains, dying a lingering death for her sake.

He was waiting in the orchard.

“Catherine!” he cried on seeing her. “What ails thee, Catherine?”

“You must fly,” she told him incoherently. “You must wait for nothing. Someone has written to Her Grace, and you will be sent to the Tower.”

He turned pale. “Catherine! Catherine! Where heard you this?”

“Jane Acworth has seen the letter. Her Grace sent for her that she might tell her who wrote it. It was there...all about us...and my grandmother is furious.”

Bold and reckless, very much in love with Catherine, he wished to thrust such unpleasantness aside. He could not fly, and leave Catherine?

“Dost think I would ever leave thee?”

“I could not bear that they should take thee to the Tower.”

“Bah!” he said. “What have we done? Are we not married—husband and wife?”

“They would not allow that to be.”

“And could they help it? We are! That is good enough for me.”

He put his arms about her and kissed her, and Catherine kissed him in such desire that was nonetheless urgent because danger threatened, but all the more insistent. She took his hand and ran with him into that part of the orchard where the trees grew thickest.

“I would put as far between us and my grandmother as possible,” she told him.

He said: “Catherine, thou hast let them frighten thee.”

She answered; “It is not without cause.” She took his face into her hand and kissed his lips. “I fear I shall not see thee for a long time, Francis.”

“What!” he cried, throwing himself onto the grass and pulling her down beside him. “Dost think aught could keep me from thee?”

“There is that in me that would send thee from me,” she sighed, “and that is my love for thee.”

She clung to him, burying her face in his jerkin. She was picturing his young healthy body in chains; he was seeing her taken from him to be given to some nobleman whom they would consider worthy to be her husband. Fear gave a new savor to their passion, and they did not care in those few moments of recklessness whether they were discovered or not. Catherine had ever been the slave of the moment; Derham was single-minded as a drone in his hymeneal flight; death was no deterrent to desire.

The moment passed, and Catherine opened her eyes to stare at the roof of branches, and her hand touched the cold grass which was her bed.

“Francis...I am so frightened.”

He stroked her auburn hair that was turning red because the sun was glinting through the leaves of the fruit tree onto it.

“Do not be, Catherine.”

“But they know, Francis. They know!”

Now he seemed to feel cold steel at his throat. What would the Norfolks do to one who had seduced a daughter of their house? Assuredly they would decide he was not worthy to live. One night at dusk, as he came into this very orchard, arms mayhap would seize him. There would be a blow on the head, followed by a second blow to make sure life was extinct, and then the soft sound of displaced water and the ripples would be visible on the surface of the river at the spot where his body had fallen into it. Or would it be a charge of treason? It was simple enough for the Norfolks to find a poor man guilty of treason. The Tower...the dreaded Tower! Confinement to one who was ever active! Living a life in one small cell when one’s spirit was adventurous; one’s limbs which were never happy unless active, in heavy chains.

“You must fly from here,” said Catherine.

“Thou wouldst have me leave thee?”

“I shall die of sorrow, but I would not have them hurt thee. I would not have thee remember this love between us with aught but the utmost delight.”

“I could never think on it but with delight.”

She sat up, listening. “Methought I heard...”

“Catherine! Catherine Howard!” It was the voice of Mistress Baskerville calling her.

“You must go at once!” cried Catherine in panic. “You must leave Lambeth. You must leave London.”

“And leave you! You know not what you ask!”

“Do I not! An you lose me, do I not lose you? But I would rather not keep you with me if it means that they will take you. Francis, terrible things happen to men in the Tower of London, and I fear for you.”

“Catherine!” called Mistress Baskerville. “Come here, Catherine!”

Her eyes entreated him to go, but he would not release her.

“I cannot leave you!” he insisted.

“I will come with you.”

“We should then be discovered at once.”

“An you took me,” she said sagely, “they would indeed find us. They would search for us and bring me back, and oh, Francis, what would they do to you?”

Mistress Baskerville was all but upon them.

“I will go to her,” said Catherine.

“And I will wait here until you come back to me.”

“Nay, nay! Go now, Francis. Do not wait. Something tells me each moment is precious.”

They embraced; they kissed long and brokenheartedly.

“I shall wait here awhile and hope that you will come back to me, Catherine,” he said. “I cannot go until we are certain this thing has come to pass.”

Catherine left him and ran to Mistress Baskerville.

“What is it?” asked Catherine.

“Her Grace wants you to go to her at once...you and Derham. She is wellnigh mad with rage. She has had a whip brought to her. Some of us have been questioned. I heard Jane Acworth crying in her room. I believe she has been whipped...and it is all about you and Derham.”

Catherine said: “What do you think they will do to Derham?”

“I know not. It is a matter of which one can only guess. They are saying he deserves to die.”

Catherine’s teeth began to chatter. “Please help me,” she pleaded. “Wait here one moment. Will you give me one last moment with him?”

The girl looked over her shoulder. “What if we are watched?”

“Please!” cried Catherine. “’One moment....Stay here....Call my name. Pretend that you are still looking for me. I swear I will be with you after one short minute.”

She ran through the trees to Derham. “It is all true!” she cried. “They will kill thee, Francis. Please go....Go now!”

He was thoroughly alarmed now, knowing that she did not speak idly. He kissed her again, played with the idea of taking her with him, knew the folly of that, guessing what hardships she would have to face. He must leave her; that was common sense; for if he disappeared they might not try very hard to find him, preferring to let the matter drop, since with him gone, it would be easier to hush up the affair. Besides, he might be able to keep in touch with Catherine yet.

“I will go,” said Francis, “but first promise me this shall not be the end.”

“Dost think I could bear it an it were?” she demanded tearfully.

“I shall write letters, and thou wilt answer them?”

She nodded. She could not wield a pen very happily, but that there would be those to help her in this matter she doubted not.

“Then I leave thee,” he said.

“Do not return to the house for aught, Francis. It would not be safe. Where shall you go?”

“That I cannot say. Mayhap I shall go to Ireland and turn pirate and win a fortune so that I may then come back and claim Catherine Howard as my wife. Never forget, Catherine, that thou art that.”

The tears were streaming down Catherine’s cheeks. She said with great emotion, “Thou wilt never live to say to me ‘Thou hast swerved!’”

One last kiss; one last embrace.

“Not farewell, Catherine. Never that. Au revoir, sweet Catherine. Forget not the promise thou hast made to me.”

She watched him disappear through the trees before she ran back to Mistress Baskerville. Fearfully they went into the house and to the Duchess’s rooms.

When the old woman saw Catherine, her eyes blazed with rage. She seized her by the hair and flung her against the wall, shouting at her, after first shutting the door, “You little harlot! At your age to allow such liberties! What dost think you have done! Do not look at me so boldly, wench!”

The whip came down on Catherine’s shoulders while she cowered against the wall, covering her face with her hands. Across her back, across her thighs, across her legs, the whip descended. There was not much strength behind the Duchess’s blows, but the whip cut into Catherine’s flesh, and she was crying, not from the infliction of those strokes, but for Derham, since she could know no pain that would equal the loss of him.

The Duchess flung away the whip and pushed Catherine onto a couch. She jerked the girl’s head up, and looked into her grief-swollen face.

“It was true then!” cried the Duchess in a fury. “Every word of it was true! He was in your bed most nights! And when you were disturbed he hid in the gallery!” She slapped Catherine’s face, first one side, then the other. “What sort of marriage do you expect after this? Tell me that! Who will want Catherine Howard who is known for a slut and a harlot!” She slapped Catherine’s face. “We shall marry you to a potman or a pantler!”

Catherine was hysterical with the pain of the blows and the mental anxiety she suffered concerning Derham’s fate.

“You would not care!” stormed the Duchess. “One man as good as another to you, eh? You low creature!”

The slapping began again. Catherine had wept so much that she had no more tears.

“And what do you think we shall do with your fine lover, eh? We will teach him to philander. We shall show him what happens to those who creep stealthily into the beds of their betters...or those who should be their betters....”

Down came the heavy ringed hands again. Catherine’s bodice was in tatters, her flesh red and bruised; and the whip had drawn blood from her shoulders.

The Duchess began to whisper of the terrible things that would be done to Francis Derham, were he caught. Did she think she had been severely punished? Well, that would be naught compared with what would be done to Francis Derham. When they had done with him, he would find himself unable to creep into young ladies’ beds of night, for lascivious wenches like Catherine Howard would find little use for him, when they had done with him...when they had done with him. . . !

Saliva dripped from Her Grace’s lips; her venom eased her fear. What if the Duke heard of this? Oh, yes, his own morals did not bear too close scrutiny and there were scandals enough in the Norfolk family and to spare. What of the washerwoman Bess Holland who was making a Duchess of Norfolk most peevish and very jealous! And the late Queen herself had had Howard blood in her veins and stood accused of incest. But oddly enough it was those who had little cause to judge others who most frequently and most loudly did. The King himself who was over-fond of wine and women was the first to condemn such excesses in others; and did not courtiers ever take their cue from a king! If the Duke heard of this he would laugh his sardonic laugh and doubtless say evil things of his old enemy his stepmother. She was afraid, for this would be traced to her neglect. The girl had been in her charge and she had allowed irreparable harm to be done. What of Catherine’s sisters? Such a scandal would impair their chances in the matrimonial field. Then, there must be no scandal, not only for Catherine’s sake, but for that of her sisters—and also for the sake of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. She quietened her voice and her blows slackened.

“Why,” she said slyly, “there are those who might think this thing had gone farther than it has. Why, there are those who will be ready to say there was complete intimacy between you and Francis Derham.” She looked earnestly into Catherine’s face, but Catherine scarcely heard what she said; much less did she gather the import of her words. “Derham shall suffer nevertheless!” went on the Duchess fiercely; and she went to the door and called to her Mary Lassells and Katharine Tylney. “Take my granddaughter to the apartment,” she told them, “and put her to bed. She will need to rest awhile.”

They took Catherine away. She winced as they removed her clothes. Katharine Tylney brought water to bathe her skin where the Duchess’s ring had broken it.

While Catherine cried softly, Mary Lassells surveyed with satisfaction the plump little body which had been so severely beaten. Her just desserts! thought Mary Lassells. It was a right and proper thing to have done, to have written to the Duchess. Now this immorality would be stopped. No more petting and stroking of those soft white limbs. Mary Lassells did not know how she had so long borne to contemplate such wickedness.

In her room the Duchess was still shaking with agitation. She must have advice, she decided, and she asked her son, Lord William Howard, to come to see her. When he arrived she showed him the letter and told him the story. He grumbled about mad wenches who could not be merry among themselves without falling out.

“Derham,” said Her Grace, “has disappeared.”

Lord William shrugged. Did his mother not attach too much importance to a trifling occurrence, he would know. Young men and women were lusty creatures and they would always frolic. It need not necessarily mean that although Derham had visited the girl’s sleeping apartment, there was anything to worry about.

“Forget it! Forget it!” said Lord William. “Give the girl a beating and a talking to. As for Derham, let him go. And pray keep all this from my lord Duke.”

It was sound advice. There was no harm done, said the Duchess to herself, and dozed almost serenely in her chair. But out of her dozes she would awake startled, worried by dreams of her two most attractive granddaughters, one dead, and the other so vitally alive.

Then the Duchess made a resolution, and this she determined to keep, for she felt that it did not only involve the future of Catherine Howard, but of her own. Catherine should be kept under surveillance; she should be coached in deportment so that she should cease to be a wild young hoyden and become a lady. And some of those women, whose sly ways the Duchess did not like over-much, should go.

On this occasion the Duchess carried out her resolutions. Most of the young ladies who had shared the main sleeping apartment with Catherine were sent to their homes. Jane Acworth was among those who remained, for a marriage was being arranged for her with Mr. Bulmer of York, and, thought the Duchess, she will soon be going in any case.

The Duchess decided to see more of Catherine, to school her herself, although, she admitted ruefully, it was hardly likely that Jane Seymour would find a place at court for Anne’s cousin. Never mind! The main thing was that Catherine’s unfortunate past must be speedily forgotten, and Catherine prepared to make the right sort of marriage.

It seemed to the Princess Mary that the happiest event that had taken place since the King had cast off her mother, was the death of Anne Boleyn. Mary was twenty years old, a very serious girl, with bitterness already in her face, and fanaticism peering out through her eyes. She was disappointed and frustrated, perpetually on the defensive and whole-heartedly devoted to Roman Catholicism. She was proud and the branding of illegitimacy did not make her less so. She had friends and supporters, but whereas, while Anne Boleyn lived, these did not wish to have their friendship known, they now were less secretive. The King had put it on record that not in any carnal concupiscence had he taken a wife, but only at the entreaty of his nobility, and he had chosen one whose age and form was deemed to be meet and apt for the procreation of children. His choice had been supported by the imperialists, for he had chosen Jane Seymour who was one who still clung to the old catholicism; moreover Jane was known to be kindly disposed towards Mary.

It was, as ever, necessary to tread very cautiously, for the King had changed since the death of Anne; he was less jovial; he had aged considerably and looked more than his forty-five years; he did not laugh so frequently, and there was a glitter in his eyes, which could send cold shivers down the spine of a man though he might have no knowledge of having displeased the King. His matrimonial adventures had been conspicuously unsuccessful, and though Jane had been reported to be pregnant before the death of Anne—well, Katharine of Aragon had been pregnant a good many times without much result; and Anne had had no success either. Young Richmond, on whom the King doted, as his only son, had ever since the death of Anne been spitting blood. “She has cast a spell on him,” said Mary. “She would murder him as she tried to murder me, for Richmond has death in his face if ever one had.” And what if Richmond died and Jane Seymour was without issue! Elizabeth was a bastard now, no less then Mary.

“It is time,” said her friends to Mary, “that you began to woo the King.”

“And defame my mother!” cried Mary.

“She who was responsible for your mother’s position is now herself cast off and done with. You should try to gain His Majesty’s friendship.”

“I do not believe he will listen to me.”

“There is a way of approaching him.”

“Which way is that?”

“Through Cromwell. It is not only the best, but the only possible way for you.”

The result was that Cromwell came to visit Mary at Hunsdon whither she had been banished. Cromwell came eagerly enough, seeing good reasons for having Mary taken back into favor. He knew that the King would never receive his daughter unless she agreed that her mother’s marriage had been unlawful and incestuous; and if Mary could be brought to such admission, she would cease to have the sympathy of the people. There were many nobles in the land who deplored the break with Rome; who were silently awaiting an opportunity to repair the link. If they were ever able to do this, what would happen to those who had worked for the break! And was not the greatest of them Thomas Cromwell! Cromwell could therefore see much good in the King’s reconciliation with his daughter.

Henry’s eyes were speculative regarding the prospect laid out before him by Cromwell. How he loathed that man! But what good work he was doing with the smaller abbeys, and what better work he would do with the larger ones! If there was to be a reconciliation with Mary, Cromwell was right in thinking this was the time to make it. Many people considered Mary had been badly treated; the common people were particularly ready to be incensed on her behalf. He had separated her from her mother, had not allowed her to see Katharine on her deathbed. He could not help feeling a stirring of his conscience over Mary. But if he effected a reconciliation at this moment, he himself would emerge from the dangerous matter, not as a monster but as a misguided man who had been under the influence of a witch and a scorceress. Anne, the harlot and would-be-prisoner, could be shown to have been entirely responsible for the King’s treatment of his daughter. “Why,” people would say, “as soon as the whore was sent to her well-deserved death, the King becomes reconciled to his daughter!” A well-deserved death! Henry liked that phrase. He had suffered many disturbed nights of late; he would awaken and think she lay beside him; he would find sleep impossible for hours at a time; and once he dreamed of her looking into a pool at Hever: and when he looked too, he saw her head with its black hair, and blood was streaming from it. A well-deserved death! thought Henry complacently, and he sent Norfolk to see his daughter at Hunsdon.

“Tell the girl,” he said, “that she is willful and disobedient, but that we are ever ready to take pity on those who repent.”

Mary saw that she was expected to deny all that she had previously upheld, and was frightened by the storm that she had aroused.

“My mother was the King’s true wife,” she insisted. “I can say naught but that!”

She was reminded ominously that many had lost their heads for saying what she had said. She was not easily frightened and she tried to assure herself that she would go to the block as readily as More and Fisher had done.

Mary could see now that she had been wrong in blaming Anne for her treatment. Norfolk was brusque with her, insulting even; she had never been so humiliated when Anne was living. It was Anne who had begged that they might bury their quarrel, that Mary should come to court, and had told her that she should walk beside her and need not carry her train. Lady Kingston had come to her with an account of Anne’s plea for forgiveness and Mary had shrugged her shoulders at that. Forgiveness! What good would that do Anne Boleyn! When Mary died she would look down on Anne, burning in hell, for burn in hell she assuredly would. She had carried out the old religious rites until her death, but she had listened to and even applauded the lies of Martin Luther and so earned eternal damnation. Mary was not cruel at heart; she knew only two ways, the right and the wrong, and the right way was through the Roman Catholic Church. No true Catholic burned in hell; but this was a fate which those who were not true Catholics could not possibly escape. But she saw that though Anne would assuredly burn in hell for her responsibility in the severance of England from Rome, she could not in all truth be entirely blamed for the King’s treatment of his elder daughter. Mary decided that although she could not forgive Anne, she would at least be as kind as she could to Anne’s daughter.

Henry was furious at the reports brought back to him. He swore that he could not trust Mary. He was an angry man. It was but a matter of days since he had married Jane Seymour and yet he was not happy. He could not forget Anne Boleyn; he was dissatisfied with Jane; and he was enraged against Mary. A man’s daughter to work against him! He would not have it! He called the council together. A man cannot trust those nearest to him! was his cry. There should be an inquiry. If he found his daughter guilty of conspiracy she should suffer the penalty of traitors.

“I’ll have no more disobedience!” foamed Henry. “There is one road traitors should tread, and by God, I’ll see that they tread it!”

There was tension in court circles. It was well known that, while Anne lived, Mary and her mother had had secret communications from Chapuys; and that the ambassador had had plans for—with the Emperor’s aid—setting Katharine or Mary on the throne.

The King, as was his custom, chose Cromwell to do the unpleasant work; he was to go secretly into the houses of suspected persons and search for evidence against the Princess.

The Queen came to the King.

“What ails thee?” growled the newly married husband. “Dost not see I am occupied with matters of state!”

“Most gracious lord,” said Jane, not realizing his dangerous mood, “I would have speech with you. The Princess Mary has ever been in my thoughts, and now that I know she repents and longs to be restored in your affections...”

Jane got no further.

“Be off!” roared the King. “And meddle not in my affairs!”

Jane wept, but Henry strode angrily from her, and in his mind’s eye, he seemed to see a pair of black eyes laughing at him, and although he was furious he was also wistful. He growled: “There is none I can trust. My nearest and those who should be my dearest are ready to betray me!”

Mary’s life was in danger. Chapuys wrote to her advising her to submit to the King’s demands, since it was unsafe for her not to do so. She must acknowledge her father Supreme Head of the Church; she must agree that her mother had never been truly married to the King. It was useless to think that as his daughter she was safe, since there was no safety for those who opposed Henry. Let her think, Chapuys advised her, of the King’s last concubine to whom he had been exclusively devoted over several years; he had not hesitated to send her to the block; nor would he hesitate in his present mood to send his own daughter.

But the shrewd man Henry had become knew that the unpopularity he had incurred, first by his marriage with Anne and then by his murder of her, would be further increased if he shed the blood of his daughter. The enmity of the people, ever a dark bogey in his life since he felt his dynasty to be unsafe, seemed as close as it had when he broke from the Church of Rome. He told Cromwell to write to her telling her that if she did not leave all her sinister councils she would lose her chance of gaining the King’s favor.

Mary was defeated, since even Chapuys was against her holding out; she gave in, acknowledged the King Supreme Head of the Church, admitted the Pope to be a pretender, and agreed that her mother’s marriage was incestuous and unlawful. She signed the papers she was required to sign and she retired to the privacy of her rooms where she wept bitterly, calling on her saintly mother to forgive her for what she had done. She thought of More and Fisher. “Ah! That I had been brave as they!” she sobbed.

Henry was well pleased; instead of a recalcitrant daughter, he had a dutiful one. Uneasy about the death of Anne, he wished to assure himself and the world that he had done right to rid himself of her. He was a family man; he loved his children. Anne had threatened to poison his daughter, his beloved Mary. Did his people not now see that Anne had met a just fate? Was not Mary once more his beloved daughter? It mattered not that she had been born out of wedlock. She was his daughter and she should come to court. With the death of the harlot who had tried to poison his daughter, everything was well between her and her father.

Jane was jubilant.

“You are the most gracious and clement of fathers,” she told Henry.

“You speak truth, sweetheart!” he said and warmed to Jane, liking afresh her white skin and pale eyelashes. He loved her truly, and if she gave him sons, he would love her all the more. He was a happy family man.

Mary sat at the royal table, next in importance to her stepmother, and she and Jane were the best of friends. Henry smiled at them benignly. There was peace in his home, for his obstinate daughter was obstinate no longer. He tried to look at her with love, but though he had an affection for her, it was scarcely strong enough to be called love.

When Jane asked that Elizabeth should also come to court, he said he thought this thing might be.

“An you wish it, sweetheart,” he said, making it a favor to Jane. But he liked to see the child. She was attractive and spirited, and there was already a touch of her mother in her.

“The King is very affectionate towards the young Elizabeth,” it was said.

When his son the Duke of Richmond died, Henry was filled with sorrow. Anne, he declared, had set a spell upon him, for it was but two months since Anne had gone to the block, and from the day she died, Richmond had begun to spit blood.

Such an event must set the King brooding once more on the succession. He was disturbed because young Thomas Howard, half brother to the Duke of Norfolk, had dared to betroth himself, without Henry’s permission, to Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Henry’s sister Margaret of Scotland. This was a black crime indeed. Henry knew the Howards—ambitious to a man. He was sure that Thomas Howard aspired to the throne through his proposed marriage with Henry’s niece and he was reminded afresh of what a slight hold the Tudors had upon the throne.

“Fling young Howard into the Tower!” cried Henry, and this was done.

He was displeased with the Duke also, and Norfolk was terrified, expecting that at any moment he might join his half brother.

If the Howards were disturbed so was Henry; he hated trouble at home more than trouble abroad. The Henry of this period was a different person from that younger man whose thoughts had been mainly occupied in games and the hunting of women and forest creatures. He had come into the world endowed with a magnificent physique and a shrewd brain; but as the former was magnificent and the latter merely shrewd, he had developed the one at the expense of the other. Excelling as he did in sport, he had passed over intellectual matters; loving his great body, he had decked it in dazzling jewels and fine velvets and cloth of gold; for the glory of his body he had subdued his mind. But at forty-five he was well past his active youth; the ulcer in his leg was bad enough to make him roar with pain at times; he was inclined to breathlessness, being a heavy man who had indulged too freely in all fleshly lusts. His body being not now the dominating feature in his life, he began to exercise his mind. He was chiefly concerned in the preservation and the glorification of himself, and as this must necessarily mean the preservation and the glorification of England, matters of state were of the utmost interest to him. Under him, the navy had grown to a formidable size; certain monies were set aside each year for the building of new ships and that those already built might be kept in good fighting order; he wished to shut England off from the Continent, making her secure; while he did not wish England to become involved in war, he wished to inflame Charles and Francis to make war on one another, for he feared these two men; but he feared them less when they warred together than when they were at peace. His main idea was to have all potential enemies fighting while England grew out of adolescence into that mighty Power which it was his great hope she would one day be. If this was to happen, he must first of all have peace at home, for he knew well that there was nothing to weaken a growing country like civil war. In severing the Church of England from that of Rome, he had done a bold thing, and England was still shaking from the shock. There were many of his people who deplored the break, who would ask nothing better than to be reunited with Rome. Cleverly and shrewdly, Henry had planned a new religious program. Not for one moment did he wish to deprive his people of those rites and ceremonies which were as much a part of their lives as they were of the Roman Catholic faith. But their acceptance of the King as Supreme Head of the Church must be a matter of life and death.

Peace at home and peace abroad therefore, was all he asked, so that England might grow in the best possible conditions to maturity. Wolsey had molded him into a political shape very like his own. Wolsey had believed that it was England’s task to keep the balance of power in Europe, but Wolsey had been less qualified to pursue this than Henry. Wolsey had been guilty of accepting bribes; he could never resist adding to his treasures; Henry was not so shortsighted as to jeopardize England’s position for a gift or two from foreign powers. He was every bit as acquisitive as Wolsey, but the preservation of himself through England was his greatest need. He had England’s treasures at his disposal, and at this moment he was finding the dissolution of the abbeys most fruitful. Wolsey never forgot his allegiance to Rome; Henry knew no such loyalty. With Wolsey it was Wolsey first, England second; with Henry, England and Henry meant the same thing. Cromwell believed that England should ally herself with Charles because Charles represented the strongest Power in Europe, but Henry would associate himself with neither Charles nor Francis, clinging to his policy of preserving the balance of power. Neither Wolsey nor Cromwell could be as strong as Henry, for there was ever present with these two the one great fear which must be their first consideration, and this was fear of Henry. Henry therefore was freer to act; he could take advantage of sudden action; he could do what he would, without having to think what excuse he should make if his action failed. It was a great advantage in the subtle game he played.

Looking back, Henry could see whither his laziness had led him. He had made wars which had given nothing to England, and he had drained her of her strength and riches, so that the wealth so cautiously and cleverly amassed by his thrifty father, had slowly dwindled away. There was the example of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, on which he could now look back through the eyes of a wiser and far more experienced man, and be shocked by his lack of statecraft at that time. Kings who squandered the treasure and the blood of their subjects also squandered their affections. He could see now that it was due to his father’s wealth that England had become a power in Europe, and that with the disappearance of that wealth went England’s power. By the middle of the twenties England was of scarcely any importance in Europe, and at home Ireland was being troublesome. When Henry had talked of divorcing his Queen, and was living openly with Anne Boleyn, his subjects had murmured against him, and that most feared of all calamities to a wise king—civil war—had threatened. At that time he had scarcely been a king at all, but when he had broken from Rome he had felt his strength, and that was the beginning of Henry VIII as a real ruler.

He would now continue to rule, and brute strength would be his method; never again should any other person than the King govern the country. He was watchful; men were watchful of him. They dreaded his anger, but Henry was wise enough to realize the wisdom of that remark of his Spanish ambassador’s: “Whom many fear, must fear many.” And Henry feared many, even if many feared him.

His great weakness had its roots in his conscience. He was what men called a religious man, which in his case meant he was a superstitious man. There was never a man less Christian; there was never one who made a greater show of piety. He was cruel; he was brutal; he was pitiless. This was his creed. He was an egoist, a megalomaniac; he saw himself not only as the center of England but of the world. In his own opinion, everything he did was right; he only needed time to see it in its right perspective, and he would prove it to be right. He took his strength from this belief in himself; and as his belief was strong, so was Henry.

One of the greatest weaknesses of his life was his feeling for Anne Boleyn. Even now, after she had died on his command, when his hands were stained with her innocent blood, when he had gloated over his thoughts of her once loved, now mutilated body, when he knew that could he have her back he would do the same again, he could not forget her. He had hated her so violently, only because he had loved her; he had killed her out of passionate jealousy, and she haunted him. Sometimes he knew that he could never hope to forget her. All his life he would seek a way of forgetting. He was now trying the obvious way, through women.

Jane! He was fond enough of Jane. What egoist is not fond of those who continually show him he is all that he would have people believe he is! Yes, he liked Jane well enough, but she maddened him; she irritated him because he always knew exactly what she would say; she submitted to his embraces mildly, and he felt that she did so because she considered it her duty; she annoyed him because she offered him that domestic peace which had ever been his goal, and now having reached it, he found it damnably insipid; she angered him because she was not Anne.

Moreover, now she had disappointed him. She had had her first miscarriage, and that very reason why he had been forced to get rid of Anne so speedily, to resort to all kinds of subterfuge to pacify his subjects, and to tell his people that it was his nobles who had begged him to marry Jane before Anne’s mutilated body was cold, had proved to be no worthwhile reason at all. He could have waited a few months; he could have allowed Cromwell and Norfolk to have persuaded him; he could have been led self-sacrificingly into marriage with Jane instead of scuffling into it in the undignified way he had done. It was irritating.

It was also uncanny. Why did all his wives miscarry? He thought of the old Duke of Norfolk’s brood, first with one wife, then with another. Why should the King be so cursed? First with Katharine, then with Anne. Katharine he had discarded; Anne he had beheaded; still, he was truly married to Jane, for neither of these two had been living when he married Jane; therefore he could have done no wrong. If he had displeased God in marrying Anne while Katharine was alive, he could understand that; but he had been a true widower when he had married Jane. No, he was worrying unduly; he would have children yet by Jane, for if he did not...why, why had he got rid of Anne?

In his chamber at Windsor, he was brooding on these matters when he was aware of a disturbance in the courtyard below his window; even as he looked out a messenger was at his door with the news that certain men had ridden with all speed to the King as they had alarming news for him.

When they were brought in they fell on their knees before him.

“Sir, we tremble to bring such news to Your Majesty. We come hot speed to tell you that trouble has started, so we hear, in Lincoln.”

“Trouble!” cried Henry. “What mean you by trouble?”

“My lord, it was when the men went into Lincoln to deal with the abbeys there. There was a rising, and two were killed. Beaten and roughly handled, please Your Majesty, unto death.”

Henry’s face was purple; his eyes blazed.

“What means this! Rebellion! Who dares rebel against the King!”

Henry was astounded. Had he steered the country away from civil war, only to find it breaking out at last when he had been congratulating himself on his strength? The people, particularly those in the north, had been bewildered by the break with Rome; but by the pillaging of the abbeys, they had been roused to action. Already bands of beggars were springing up all over the country; they who had been sure of food and shelter from the monks were now desolate, and there was but one sure way for a destitute man to keep himself fed in Tudor England, and that was to rob his fellow men. Over the countryside there roamed hordes of desperate starving men, and to their numbers were added the displaced monks and nuns. There was more boldness in the north than in the south because those far removed from his presence could fear Henry less. So they, smarting from the break with Rome, sympathizing with the monks, resenting the loss of the monasteries, decided that something should be done. They were joined by peasants who, owing to the enclosure acts, and the prevailing policy of turning arable into pasture land, had been rendered homeless. Lords Darcy and Hussey, two of the most powerful noblemen of the north, had always supported the old Catholic faith; the rebels therefore could feel they had these men behind them.

Henry was enraged and apprehensive. He felt this to be a major test. Should he emerge from it triumphant, he would have achieved a great victory; he would prove himself a great King. Two ways lay before him. He could return to Rome and assure peace in his realm; he could fight the rebels and remain not only head of the Church but truly head of the English people. He chose the second course. He would risk his crown to put down the rebels.

It meant reconciliation with Norfolk, for whenever there was a war to be fought, Norfolk must be treated with respect. He would send Suffolk to Lincoln. He stormed against those of his counsellors who advised him against opposing the rebels. Fiercely he reminded them that they were bound to serve him with their lives, lands and goods.

Jane was afraid. She was very superstitious and it seemed to her that this rising was a direct reproach from heaven because of Cromwell’s sacrilegious pillaging of the monasteries.

She came to the King and knelt before him, and had her head not been bent she would have seen her danger from his blazing eyes.

“My lord husband,” she said, “I have heard the most disquieting news. I fear it may be a judgment on us for ridding ourselves of the abbeys. Could not Your Most Gracious Majesty consider the restoring of them?”

For a few seconds he was speechless with rage; he saw Jane through the red haze in his eyes, and when he spoke his voice was a rumble of thunder.

“Get up!”

She lifted terrified eyes to his face and stood. He came closer to her, breathing heavily, his jowls quivering, his lower lip stuck out menacingly.

“Have I not told you never to meddle in my affairs!” he said very slowly and deliberately.

Tears came into Jane’s eyes; she was thinking of all those people who were wandering homeless about the country; she thought of little babies crying for milk. She had pictured herself saving the people from a terrible calamity; moreover, her friends who longed for the return of the old ways would rejoice in the restoration of the monasteries, and would be very pleased with Queen Jane. Therefore she felt it to be her duty to turn the King back to Rome, or at least away from that wickedness which had sprung up in the world since Martin Luther had made himself heard.

The King gripped her shoulder, and put his face to hers.

“Dost remember what happened to your predecessor?” he asked meaningfully.

She stared at him in horror. Anne had gone to the block because she was guilty of high treason. What could he mean?

His eyes were hot and cruel.

“Forget it not!” he said, and threw her from him.

The men of the north had followed the example of the men from Lincolnshire. This was no mob rising; into the ranks of the Pilgrimage of Grace went sober men of the provinces. The most inspiring of its leaders was a certain Robert Aske, and this man, whose integrity and honesty of purpose were well known, had a talent for organization; he was a born commander, and under him, the northern rebels were made into a formidable force.

Henry realized too well how very formidable. The winter was beginning; he had no standing army. He acted with foresight and cunning. He invited Aske to discuss the trouble with him.

It did not occur to Aske that one as genial as Henry appeared to him could possibly not be as honest as Aske himself. On the leader, Henry unloosed all his bluffness, all his honest down-to-earth friendliness. Did Aske wish to spread bloodshed over England? Aske certainly did not. He wanted only hardship removed from the suffering people. Henry patted the man affectionately. Why then, Aske and the King had the same interests at heart. Should they quarrel! Never! All they must do was to find a way agreeable to them both of doing what was right for England.

Aske went back to Yorkshire to tell of the King’s oral promises, and the insurgents were disbanded; there was a truce between the north and the King.

There were in the movement less level-headed men than such leaders as Aske and Constable, and in spite of Aske’s belief in the King’s promises he could not prevent a second rising. This gave Henry an excuse for what followed. He had decided on his action before he had seen Aske; his promises to the leader had meant that he wished to gain time, to gather his strength about him, to wait until the end of winter. He had never swerved from the policy he intended to adopt and which he would continue to follow to the end of his reign. It was brute strength and his own absolute and unquestioned rule.

He decided to make a bloody example and show his people what happened to those who opposed the King. Up to the north went Norfolk and the bloodletting began. Darcy was beheaded; Sir Thomas Percy was brought to Tyburn and hanged; honest men who had looked upon the Pilgrimage of Grace as a sacred movement were hanged, cut down alive, disembowelled, and their entrails burned while they still lived; then they were beheaded. Aske learned too late that he had accepted the promises of one to whom a promise was naught but a tool to be picked up and used for a moment when it might be useful and then to be laid aside and forgotten. In spite of his pardon, he was executed and hanged in chains on one of the towers of York that all might see what befell traitors. Constable was taken to Hull and hanged from the highest gate in the town, a grim warning to all who beheld him.

The King licked his lips over the accounts of cruelties done in his name. “Thus shall all traitors die!” he growled, and warned Cromwell against leniency, knowing well that he could leave bloody work in those ugly hands.

The Continent, hearing of his internal troubles, was on tiptoe waiting and watching. Henry’s open enemy Pope Paul could state publicly his satisfaction; Henry’s secret enemies, Charles and Francis, though discreetly silent, were nonetheless delighted.

The Pope, deeply resenting this King who had dared set an example which he feared others might follow, began to plan. What if the revolt against Henry were nourished outside England? Reginald Pole was on the Continent; he had left England for two reasons; he did not approve of the divorce and break with Rome; and he being the grandson of that Duke of Clarence who was brother to Edward IV, was too near the throne to make residence in England safe for him. He had written a book against Henry, and Henry feigning interest suggested Pole return to England that they might discuss the differences of opinion. Pole was no careless fly to walk into the spider’s web. He declined his sovereign’s offer and went to Rome instead where the Pope made him a Cardinal and discussed with him a plan for fanning the flames which were at this time bursting out in the North of England. If Pole succeeded in displacing Henry, why should he not marry the Princess Mary, restore England to the papacy and rule as her king?

Henry acted with cunning and boldness. He demanded from Francis Pole’s extradition, that he might be sent to England and stand his trial as a traitor. Francis, who did not wish to defy the Pope not to annoy Henry, ordered Pole to leave his domains. Pole went to Flanders, but Charles was as reluctant as Francis to displease the King of England. Pole had to disguise himself.

The attitude of the two great monarchs showed clearly that they were very respectful towards the island lying off the coast of Europe, for never had a papal legate been so humiliated before.

Henry could purr with pleasure. He was treated with respect and he had crushed a revolt which threatened his throne. The crown was safe for the Tudors, and England was saved from civil war. He knew how to rule his country. He had been strong and he had emerged triumphant from the most dangerous situation of his reign.

There was great news yet. The Queen was paler than usual; she had been sick; she had fancies for special foods.

Henry was joyful. He once more had hopes of getting a son.

While Henry was strutting with pleasure, Jane was beset with fear. There were many things to frighten Jane. Before her lay the ordeal of childbirth. What if it should prove unsuccessful? As she lay in those Hampton Court apartments which the King had lovingly planned for Anne Boleyn, she brooded on these matters. From her window she could see the initials entwined in stonework—J and H, and where the J was there had once been an A, and the A had had to be taken away very suddenly indeed.

The King was in high humor, certain that this time he would get a son. He went noisily about the place, eating and drinking with great heartiness; and hunting whenever his leg was not too painful to deter him. If Jane gave him a son, he told himself, he would at last have found happiness. He would know that he had been right in everything he had done, right to rid himself of Katharine who had never really been his wife, right to execute Anne who was a sorceress, right to marry Jane.

He jollied the poor pale creature, admonishing her to take good care of herself, threatening her that if she did not, he would want to know the reason why; and his loving care was not for her frail body but for the heir it held.

The hot summer passed. Jane heard of the executions and shuddered, and whenever she looked from her windows she saw those initials. The J seemed to turn into an A as she looked, and then into something else, blurred and indistinguishable.

Plague came to London, rising up from the fetid gutters and from the dirty wash left on the riverbanks with the fall of the tide. People died like flies in London. Death came close to Jane Seymour during those months.

She was wan and sickly and she felt very ill, though she dared not mention this for fear of angering the King; she was afraid for herself and the child she carried. She had qualms about the execution of Anne, and her dream became haunted with visions. She could not forget an occasion when Anne had come upon her and the King together. Then Anne must have felt this sickness, this heaviness, this fear, for she herself was carrying the King’s child at that time.

Jane could not forget the words the King had used to her more than once. “Remember what happened to your predecessor!” There was no need to ask Jane to remember what she would never be able to forget.

She became more observant of religious rites, and as her religion was of the old kind, both Cranmer and Cromwell were disturbed. But they dared not approach the King with complaints for they knew well what his answer would be. “Let the Queen eat fish on Fridays. Let her do what she will an she give me a son!”

All over the country, people waited to hear of the birth of a son. What would happen to Jane, it was asked, if she produced a stillborn child? What if she produced a girl?

Many were cynical over Henry’s matrimonial affairs, inclined to snigger behind their hands. Already there were Mary and Elizabeth—both proclaimed illegitimate. What if there was yet another girl? Perhaps it was better to be humble folk when it was considered what had happened to Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.

The Dowager Duchess of Norfolk waited eagerly for the news. Her mouth was grim. Would Jane Seymour do what her granddaughter had failed to do? That pale sickly creature succeed, where glowing, vital Anne had failed! She thought not!

Catherine Howard fervently hoped the King would get a son. She had wept bitterly at the death of her cousin, but unlike her grandmother she bore no resentment. Let poor Queen Jane be happy even if Queen Anne had not. Where was the good sense in harboring resentment? She scarcely listened to her grandmother’s grim prophecies.

Catherine had changed a good deal since that violent beating her grandmother had given her. Now she really looked like a daughter of the house of Howard. She was quieter; she had been badly frightened by the discovery. She had received lectures from Lord William who insisted on looking on the episode as a foolish girlish prank; she had received a very serious warning from her grandmother who, when they were alone, did not hide from her that she knew the worst. Catherine must put all that behind her, must forget it had happened, must never refer to it again, must deny what she had done if she were ever questioned by anyone. She had been criminally foolish; let her remember that. Catherine did remember; she was restrained.

She was growing very pretty and her gentle manners gave a new charm to her person. The Duchess was ready to forget unsavory incidents; she hoped Catherine was too. She did not know that Catherine was still receiving letters from Derham, that through the agency of Jane Acworth, whose pen was ever ready, the correspondence was being kept up.

Derham wrote: “Do not think that I forget thee. Do not forget that we are husband and wife, for I never shall. Do not forget you have said, ‘You shall never live to say I have swerved.’ For I do not, and I treasure the memory. One day I shall return for you....”

It appealed strongly to Catherine’s adventure-loving nature to receive love letters and to have her replies smuggled out of the house. She found it pleasant to be free from those women who had known about her love affair with Derham and who were forever making sly allusions to it. There were no amorous adventures these days, for the Duchess’s surveillance was strict. Catherine did not want them; she realized her folly and she was very much ashamed of the freedom she had allowed Manox. She still loved Francis, she insisted; she still loved receiving his letters; and one day he would return for her.

October came, and one morning, very early, Catherine was awakened by the ringing of bells and the sound of guns. Jane Seymour had borne the King a son.

Jane was too ill to feel her triumph. She was hardly aware of what was going on in her chamber. Shapes rose up and faded. There was a huge red-faced man, whose laughter was very loud, drawing her away from the peaceful sleep she sought. She heard whispering voices, loud voices, laughter.

The King would peer at his son anxiously. A poor puny little thing he was, and Henry was terrified that he would, as others of his breed before him, be snatched from his father before he reached maturity. Even Richmond had not survived, though he had been a bonny boy; this little Edward was small and white and weak.

Still, the King had a son and he was delighted. Courtiers moved about the sick room. They must kiss Jane’s hand; they must congratulate her. She was too tired? Nonsense! She must rejoice. Had she not done that which her predecessors had failed to do, given the King a son!

Fruit and meat were sent to her, gifts from the King. She must show her pleasure in His Majesty’s attentions. She ate without knowing what she ate.

The ceremony of the christening began in her chamber. They lifted her from her bed to the state pallet which was decorated with crowns and the arms of England in gold thread. She lay, propped on cushions of crimson damask, wrapped in a mantle of crimson velvet furred with ermine; but Jane’s face looked transparent against the rich redness of her robes. She was exhausted before they lifted her from the bed; her head throbbed and her hands were hot with fever. She longed to sleep, but she reminded herself over and over again that she must do her duty by attending the christening of her son. What would the King say, if he found the mother of his prince sleeping when she should be smiling with pleasure!

It was midnight as the ceremonial procession with Jane in its midst went through the drafty corridors of Hampton Court to the Chapel. Jane slipped into unconsciousness, recovered and smiled about her. She saw the Princess Mary present the newly born Prince at the font; she saw her own brother carrying the small Elizabeth, whose eyes were small with sleepiness and in whose fat little hands was Edward’s crysom; she saw Cranmer and Norfolk, who were the Prince’s sponsors; she saw the nurse and the midwife; and so vague was this scene to her that she thought it was but a dream, and that her son was not yet born and her pains about to begin.

Through the mist before her eyes she saw Sir Francis Bryan at the font, and she was reminded that he had been one of those who had not very long ago delighted in the wit of Anne Boleyn. Her eyes came to rest on the figure of a gray old man who carried a taper and bore a towel about his neck; she recognized him as Anne’s father. The Earl looked shamefaced, and had the unhappy air of a man who knows himself to be worthy of the contempt of his fellowmen. Was he thinking of his brilliant boy and his lovely girl who had been done to death for the sake of this little Prince to whom he did honor because he dared do nothing else?

Unable to follow the ceremony because of the fits of dizziness which kept overwhelming her, Jane longed for the quiet of her chamber. She wanted the comfort of her bed; she wanted darkness and quiet and rest.

“God, in His Almighty and infinite grace, grant good life and long, to the right high, right excellent, and noble Prince Edward, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester, most dear and entirely beloved son of our most dread and gracious Lord Henry VIII.”

The words were like a rushing tide that swept over Jane and threatened to drown her; she gasped for breath. She was only hazily aware of the ceremonial journey back to her chamber.

A few days after the christening, Jane was dead.

“Ah!” said the people in the streets. “His Majesty is desolate. Poor dear man! At last he had found a queen he could love; at last he has his heart’s desire, a son to follow him; and now this dreadful catastrophe must overtake him.”

Certain rebels raised their heads, feeling the King to be too sunk in grief to notice them. The lion but feigned to sleep. When he lifted his head and roared, rebels learned what happened to those who dared raise a voice against the King. The torture chambers were filled with such. Ears were cut off; tongues were cut out; and the mutilated victims were whipped as they were driven naked through the streets.

Before Jane was buried, Henry was discussing with Cromwell whom he should next take for a wife.

Henry was looking for a wife. Politically he was at an advantage; he would be able to continue with his policy of keeping his two enemies guessing. He would send ambassadors to the French court; he would throw out hints to the Emperor; for both would greatly fear an alliance of the other with England.

Henry was becoming uneasy concerning continental affairs. The war between Charles and Francis had come to an end; and with these two not at each other’s throats, but in fact friends, and Pole persisting in his schemes to bring about civil war in England with the assistance of invasion from the Continent, he had cause for anxiety. To be able to offer himself in the marriage market was a great asset at such a time and Henry decided to exploit it to the full.

Although Henry was anxious to make a politically advantageous marriage, he could not help being excited by the prospect of a new wife. He visualized her. It was good to be a free man once more. He was but forty-seven and very ready to receive a wife. There was still in his mind the image of Anne Boleyn. He knew exactly what sort of wife he wanted; she must be beautiful, clever, vivacious; one who was high-spirited as Anne, meek as Jane. He reassured himself that although it was imperative that he should make the right marriage, he would not involve himself unless the person of his bride was pleasing.

He asked Chatillon, the French ambassador who had taken the place of du Bellay at the English court, that a selection of the most beautiful and accomplished ladies of the French court be sent to Calais; Henry would go there and inspect them.

“Pardie!” mused Henry. “How can I depend on any but myself! I must see them myself and see them sing!”

To this request, Francis retorted in such a way as to make Henry squirm, and he did not go to Calais to make a personal inspection of prospective wives.

There were among others the beautiful Christina of Milan who was a niece of Emperor Charles. She had married the Duke of Milan, who had died, leaving her a virgin widow of sixteen. Henry was interested in reports of her, and after the snub from Francis not averse to looking around the camp of the Emperor. He sent Holbein to make a picture of Christina and when the painter brought it back, Henry was attracted, but not sufficiently so to make him wish to clinch the bargain immediately. He was still keeping up negotiations with the French. It was reported that Christina had said that if she had had two heads one should be at the English King’s service, but having only one she was reluctant to come to England. She had heard that her great-aunt Katharine of Aragon had been poisoned; that Anne Boleyn had been put innocently to death; and that Jane Seymour had been lost for lack of keeping in childbirth. She was of course at Charles’s command, and these reports might well have sprung out of the reluctance of the Emperor for the match.

Henry’s uneasiness did not abate. He was terrified that the growing friendship between Charles and Francis might be a prelude to an attack on England. He knew that Pope Paul was trying to stir up the Scots to invade England from the North; Pole was moving slyly, from the Continent.

Henry’s first act was to descend with ferocity on the Pole family in England. He began by committing Pole’s young brother Geoffrey to the Tower and there the boy was tortured so violently that he said all Henry wished him to say. The result was that his brother Lord Montague and his cousin the Marquis of Exeter were seized. Even Pole’s mother, the aging Countess of Salisbury, who had been governess to the Princess Mary and one of the greatest friends of Katharine of Aragon, was not spared.

These people were the hope of those Catholics who longed for reunion with Rome, and Henry was watching his people closely to see what effect their arrest was having. He had had enough of troubles within his own domains, and with trouble threatening from outside he must tread very cautiously. At this time, he selected as his victim a scholar named Lambert whom he accused of leaning too far towards Lutheranism. The young man was said to have denied the body of God to be in the sacrament in corporal substance but only to be there spiritually. Lambert was tried and burned alive. This was merely Henry’s answer to the Catholics; he was telling them that he favored neither extreme sect. Montague and Exeter went to the block as traitors, not as Catholics. Catholic or Lutheran, it mattered not. No favoritism. No swaying from one sect to another. He only asked allegiance to the King.

Francis thought this would be a good moment to undermine English commerce which, while he and Charles had been wasting their people’s energy in war, Henry had been able to extend. Henry shrewdly saw what was about to happen and again acted quickly. He promised the Flemish merchants that for seven years Flemish goods should pay no more duty than those of the English. The merchants—a thrifty people—were overjoyed, seeing years of prosperous trading stretching before them. If their Emperor would make war on England he could hardly hope for much support from a nation benefiting from good trade with that country on whom Charles wished them to make war.

This was a good move, but Henry’s fears flared up afresh when the Emperor, visiting his domains, decided to travel through France to Germany, instead of going by sea or through Italy and Austria as was his custom. This seemed to Henry a gesture of great friendship. What plans would the two old enemies formulate when they met in France? Would England be involved in those plans?

Cromwell, to whose great interest it was to turn England from the Catholics and so make more secure his own position, seized this chance of urging on Henry the selection of a wife from one of the German Protestant houses. Cromwell outlined his plan. For years the old Duke of Cleves had wanted an alliance with England. His son had a claim to the Duchy of Guelders, which Duchy was in relation to the Emperor Charles very much what Scotland was to Henry, ever ready to be a cause of trouble. A marriage between England and the house of Cleves would therefore seriously threaten the Emperor’s hold on his Dutch dominions.

Unfortunately, Anne, sister of the young Duke, had already been promised to the Duke of Lorraine, but it was not difficult to waive this. Holbein was dispatched; he made a pretty picture of Anne, and Henry was pleasurably excited and the plans for the marriage went forward.

Henry was impatient. Anne! Her very name enchanted him. He pictured her, gentle and submissive and very very loving. She would have full awareness of her duty; she was no daughter of a humble knight; she had been bred that she might make a good marriage; she would know what was expected of her. He could scarcely wait for her arrival. At last he would find matrimonial happiness, and at the same time confound Charles and Francis.

“Anne!” he mused, and eagerly counted the days until her arrival.

Jane Acworth was preparing to leave.

“How I shall miss you!” sighed Catherine.

Jane smiled at her slyly. “It is not I whom you will miss but your secretary!”

“Poor Derham!” said Catherine. “I fear he will be most unhappy. For I declare it is indeed a mighty task for me to put pen to paper.”

Jane shrugged her shoulders; her thoughts were all for the new home she was to go to and Mr. Bulmer whom she was to marry.

“You will think of me often, Jane?” asked Catherine.

Jane laughed. “I shall think of your receiving your letters. He writes a pretty letter and I dare swear seems to love you truly.”

“Ah! That he does. Dear Francis! How faithful he had always been to me.”

“You will marry him one day?”

“We are married, Jane. You know it well. How else...”

“How else should you have lived the life you did together! Well, I have heard it whispered that you were very lavish with your favors where a certain Manox was concerned.”

“Oh, speak not of him! That is past and done with. My love for Francis goes on forever. I was foolish over Manox, but I regret nothing I have done with Francis, nor ever shall.”

“How lonely you will be without me!”

“Indeed, you speak truthfully.”

“And how different this life from that other! Why, scarce anything happens now, but sending letters to Derham and receiving his. What excitement we used to have!”

“You had better not speak of that to Mr. Bulmer!” warned Catherine; and they laughed.

It was well to laugh, and she was in truth very saddened by Jane’s departure; the receiving and dispatching of letters had provided a good deal of excitement in a dull existence.

With Jane’s going the days seemed long and monotonous. A letter came from Francis; she read it, tucked it into her bodice and was aware of it all day; but she could not read it very easily and it was not the same without Jane, for she, as well as being happy with a pen, was also a good reader. She must reply to Derham, but as the task lacked appeal, she put it off.

The Duchess talked to her of court matters.

“If the King would but take him a wife! I declare it is two years since Queen Jane died, and still no wife! I tell you, Catherine, that if this much-talked-of marriage with the Duchess of Cleves materializes, I shall look to a place at court for you.”

“How I wish I could go to court!” cried Catherine.

“You will have to mind your manners. Though I will say they have improved since...since...” The Duchess’s brows were dark with memory. “You would not do so badly now at court, I trow. We must see. We must see.”

Catherine pictured herself at court.

“I should need many new clothes.”

“Dost think Lord William would allow you to go to court in rags! Why even His Grace the Duke would not have that! Ha! I hear he is most angry at this proposed marriage. Master Cromwell has indeed put my noble stepson’s nose out of joint. Well, all this is not good for the Howards, and it is a mistake for a house to war within its walls. And so...it may not be so easy to find you a place at court. And I know that the King does not like the strife between my stepson and his wife. It is not meet that a Duke of noble house should feel so strongly for a washer in his wife’s nurseries that he will flaunt the slut in the face of his lady Duchess. The King was ever a moral man, as you must always remember. Ah! Pat my back, child, lest I choke. Where was I? Oh, yes, the Howards are not in favor while Master Cromwell is, and this Cleves marriage is Cromwell-made. Therefore, Catherine, it may not be easy to find you a place at court, for though I dislike my lord Duke with all my heart, he is my stepson, and if he is out of favor at court, depend upon it, we shall be too.”

On another occasion the Duchess sent for Catherine. Her old eyes, bright as a bird’s, peered out through her wrinkles.

“Get my cloak, child. I would walk in the gardens and have you accompany me.”

Catherine obeyed, and they stepped out of the house and strolled slowly through the orchards where Catherine had lain so many times with Derham. She had ever felt sad when she was in the orchards being unable to forget Derham, but now she scarcely thought of him, for she knew by the Duchess’s demeanor that she had news for her, and she was hoping it was news of a place at court.

“You are an attractive child,” wheezed the Duchess. “I declare you have a look of your poor tragic cousin. Oh...it is not obvious. Her hair was black and so were her eyes, and her face was pointed and unforgettable. You are auburn-haired and hazel-eyed and plump-faced. Oh, no, it is not in your face. In your sudden laughter? In your quick movements? She had an air of loving life, and so have you. There was a little bit of Howard in Anne that looked out from her eyes; there is a good deal of Howard in you; and there is the resemblance.”

Catherine wished her grandmother would not talk so frequently of her cousin, for such talk always made her sad.

“You had news for me?” she reminded her.

“Ah, news!” The Duchess purred. “Well, mayhap it is not yet news. It is a thought. And I will whisper this in your ear, child. I doubt not that the stony-hearted Duke would give his approval, for it is a good match.”

“A match!” cried Catherine.

“You do not remember your dear mother, Catherine?”

“Vaguely I do!” Catherine’s large eyes glistened with tears so that they looked like pieces of topaz.

“Your dear mother had a brother, and it is to his son, your cousin, whom we feel you might be betrothed. He is a dear boy, already at court. He is a most handsome creature. Thomas Culpepper, son of Sir John, your mother’s brother...”

“Thomas Culpepper!” whispered Catherine, her thoughts whirling back to a room at Hollingbourne, to a rustle of creeper, to a stalwart protector, to a kiss in the paddock. She repeated: “Thomas Culpepper!” She realized that something very unusual was about to happen. A childhood dream was about to come true. “And he...?” she asked eagerly.

“My dear Catherine, curb your excitement. This is a suggestion merely. The Duke will have to be consulted. The King’s consent will be necessary. It is an idea. I was not to tell you yet...but seeing you so attractive and marriageable, I could not resist it.”

“My cousin...” murmured Catherine. “Grandmother...when I was at Hollingbourne...we played together. We loved each other then.”

The Duchess put her finger to her lips.

“Hush, child! Be discreet. This matter must not be made open knowledge yet. Be calm.”

Catherine found that very difficult. She wanted to be alone to think this out. She tried to picture what Thomas would be like now. She had only a hazy picture of a little boy, telling her in a somewhat shamefaced way that he would marry her.

Derham’s letter scraped her skin. The thought of Thomas excited her so much that she had lost her burning desire to see Francis. She was wishing that all her life had been spent as she had passed the last months.

The Duchess was holding her wrists and the Duchess’s hands were hot.

“Catherine, I would speak to you very seriously. You will have need of great caution. The distressing things which have happened to you...”

Catherine wanted to weep. Oh, how right her grandmother was! If only she had listened even to Mary Lassells! If only she had not allowed herself to drift into that sensuous stream which at the time had been so sweet and cooling to her warm nature and which now was so repulsive to look back on. How she had regretted her affair with Manox when she had found Francis! Now she was beginning to regret her love for Francis as her grandmother talked of Thomas.

“You have been very wicked,” said her grandmother. “You deserve to die for what you have done. But I will do my best for you. Your wickedness must never get to the Duke’s ears.”

Catherine cried out in misery rather than in anger: “The Duke! What of him and Bess Holland!”

The Duchess was on her dignity. She might say what she would of her erring kinsman, not so Catherine.

“What if his wife’s washerwoman be his mistress! He is a man; you are a woman. There is all the difference in the world.”

Catherine was subdued; she began to cry.

“Dry your eyes, you foolish girl, and forget not for one instant that all your wickedness is done with, and it must be as though it never was.”

“Yes, grandmother,” said Catherine, and Derham’s letter pricked her skin.

Derham continued to write though he received no answers. Catherine had inherited some of her grandmother’s capacity for shifting her eyes from the unpleasant. She thought continually of her cousin Thomas and wondered if he remembered her, if he had heard of the proposed match and if so what he thought of it.

One day, wandering in the orchard, she heard the rustle of leaves behind her, and turning came face to face with Derham. He was smiling; he would have put his arms about her but she held him off.

“Catherine, I have longed to see thee.”

She was silent and frightened. He came closer and took her by the shoulders. “I had no answer to my letters,” he said.

She said hastily: “Jane has married and gone to York. You know I was never able to manage a pen.”

“Ah!” His face cleared. “That was all then? Thank God! I feared...” He kissed her on the mouth; Catherine trembled; she was unresponsive.

His face darkened. “Catherine! What ails thee?”

“Nothing ails me, Francis. It is...” But her heart melted to see him standing so forlorn before her, and she could not tell him that she no longer loved him. Let the break come gradually. “Your return is very sudden. Francis...”

“You have changed, Catherine. You are so solemn, so sedate.”

“I was a hoyden before. My grandmother said so.”

“Catherine, what did they do to thee?”

“They beat me with a whip. There never was such a beating. I was sick with the pain of it, and for weeks I could feel it. I was locked up, and ever since I have scarce been able to go out alone. They will be looking for me ere long, I doubt not.”

“Poor Catherine! And this you suffered for my sake! But never forget, Catherine, you are my wife.”

“Francis!” she said, and swallowed. “That cannot be. They will never consent, and what dost think they would do an you married me in actual fact?”

“We should go away to Ireland.”

“They would never let me go. We should die horrible deaths.”

“They would never catch us, Catherine.”

He was young and eager, fresh from a life of piracy off the coast of Ireland. He had money; he wished to take her away. She could not bear to tell him that they were talking of betrothing her to her cousin, Thomas Culpepper.

She said: “What dost think would happen to you if you showed yourself?”

“I know not. To hold you in my arms would suffice for anything they could do to me afterwards.”

Such talk frightened her. She escaped, promising to see him again.

She was disturbed. Now that she had seen Derham after his long absence, she knew for truth that which she had begun to suspect. She no longer loved him. She cried herself to sleep, feeling dishonored and guilty, feeling miserable because she would have to go to her cousin defiled and unclean. Why had she not stayed at Hollingbourne! Why had her mother died! What cruel fate had sent her to the Duchess where there were so many women eager to lead her into temptation! She was not yet eighteen and she had been wicked...and all so stupidly and so pointlessly.

She determined to break with Francis; there should be no more clandestine meetings. She would marry Thomas and be such a good wife to him, that when set against years and years of the perfect happiness she would bring him, the sinful years would seem like a tiny mistake on a beautifully written page.

Francis was hurt and angry. He had come back full of hope; he loved her and she was his wife, he reminded her. He had money from his spell of piracy; he was in any case related to the Howards.

She told him she had heard she was to go to court.

“I like that not!” he said.

“But I like it,” she told him.

“Dost know the wickedness of court life?” he demanded.

She shrugged her shoulders. She hated hurting people and being forced to hurt Francis who loved her so truly was a terrible sorrow to her; she found herself disliking him because she had to hurt him.

“You...to talk of wickedness...when you and I...”

He would have no misunderstanding about that.

“What we did, Catherine, is naught. Thou art my wife. Never forget it. Many people are married at an early age. We have done no wrong.”

“You know we are not husband and wife!” she retorted. “It was a fiction to say we are; it was but to make it easy. We have sinned, and I cannot bear it, I wish we had never met.”

Poor Derham was heartbroken. He had thought of no one else all the time he had been away. He begged her to remember how she had felt towards him before he went away. Then he heard the rumor of her proposed betrothal to Culpepper.

“This then,” he said angrily, “is the reason for your change of heart. You are going to marry this Culpepper?”

She demanded what right he had to ask such a question, adding: “For you know I will not have you, and if you have heard such report, you heard more than I do know!”

They quarreled then. She had deceived him, he said. How could she, in view of their contract, think of marrying another man? She must fly with him at once.

“Nay, nay!” cried Catherine, weeping bitterly. “Francis please be reasonable. How could I fly with you? Dost not see it would mean death to you? I have hurt you and you have hurt me. The only hope for a good life for us both is never to see each other again.”

Someone was calling her. She turned to him imploringly. “Go quickly. I dare not think what would happen to you were you found here.”

“They could not hurt me, an they put me on the rack, as you have hurt me.”

Such words pierced like knives into the soft heart of Catherine Howard. She could not be happy, knowing she had hurt him so deeply. Was there to be no peace for her, no happiness, because she had acted foolishly when she was but a child?

The serving-maid who had called her told her her grandmother would speak to her at once. The Duchess was excited.

“I think, my dear, that you are to go to court. As soon as the new queen arrives you will be one of her maids of honor. There! What do you think of that? We must see that you are well equipped. Fear not! You shall not disgrace us! And let me whisper a secret. While you are at court, you may get a chance to see Thomas Culpepper. Are you not excited?”

Catherine made a great effort to forget Francis Derham and think of the exciting life which was opening out before her. Court...and Thomas Culpepper.

Henry was on his way to Rochester to greet his new wife. He was greatly excited. Such a wise marriage this was! Ha! Charles! he thought. What do you think of this, eh? And you, Francis, who think yourself so clever? I doubt not, dear Emperor, that Guelders is going to be a thorn in your fleshy side for many a long day!

Anne! He could not help his memories. But this Anne would be different from that other. He thought of that exquisite miniature of Holbein’s; the box it had arrived in was in the form of a white rose, so beautifully executed, that in itself it was a fine work of art; the carved ivory top of the box had to be unscrewed to show the miniature at the bottom of it. He had been joyful ever since the receipt of it. Oh, he would enjoy himself with this Anne, thinking, all the time he caressed her, not only of the delights of her body, but of sardonic Francis and that Charles who believed himself to be astute.

He had a splendid gift of sables for his bride. He was going to creep in on her unceremoniously. He would dismiss her attendants, for this would be the call of a lover rather than the visit of a king. He chuckled. It was so agreeable to be making the right sort of marriage. Cromwell was a clever fellow; his agents had reported that the beauty of Anne of Cleves exceeded that of Christina of Milan as the sun doth the moon!

Henry was fast approaching fifty, but he felt twenty, so eager he was, as eager as a bridegroom with his first wife. Anne was about twenty-four; it seemed delightfully young when one was fifty. She could not speak very much English; he could not speak much German. That would add piquancy to his courtship. Such a practiced lover as himself did not need words to get what he wanted from a woman. He laughed in anticipation. Not since his marriage to Anne Boleyn, said those about him, had the King been in such high humor.

When he reached Rochester, accompanied by two of his attendants he went into Anne’s chamber. At the door he paused in horror. The woman who curtseyed before him was not at all like the bride of his imaginings. It was the same face he had seen in the miniature, and it was not the same. Her forehead was wide and high, her eyes dark, her lashes thick, her eyebrows black and definitely marked; her black hair was parted in the center and smoothed down at the sides of her face. Her dress was most unbecoming with its stiff high collar resembling a man’s coat. It was voluminous after the Flemish fashion and English fashions had been following the French ever since Anne Boleyn had introduced them at court. Henry started in dismay, for the face in the miniature had been delicately colored so that the skin had the appearance of rose petals; in reality Anne’s skin was brownish and most disfiguringly pock-marked. She seemed quite ugly to Henry, and as it did not occur to him that his person might have produced a similar shock to her, he was speechless with anger.

His one idea was to remove himself from her presence as quickly as possible; his little scheme, to “nourish love” as he had described it to Cromwell, had failed. He was too upset to give her the sables. She should have no such gift from his hands! He was mad with rage. His wise marriage had brought him a woman who delighted him not. Because her name was Anne, he had thought of another Anne, and his vision of his bride had been a blurred Anne Boleyn, as meek as Jane Seymour. And here he was, confronted by a creature whose accents jarred on him, whose face and figure repelled him. He had been misled. Holbein had misled him! Cromwell had misled him. Cromwell! He gnashed his teeth over that name. Yes, Cromwell had brought about this unhappy state of affairs. Cromwell had brought him Anne of Cleves.

“Alas!” he cried. “Whom shall men trust! I see no such thing as hath been shown me of her pictures and report. I am ashamed that men have praised her as they have done, and I love her not!”

But he was polite enough to Anne in public, so that the crowds of his subjects to whom pageantry was the flavoring in their dull dish of life, did not guess that the King was anything but satisfied. Anne in her cloth of gold and rich jewelry seemed beautiful enough to them; they did not know that in private the King was berating Cromwell, likening his new bride to a great Flanders mare, that his conscience was asking him if the lady’s contract with the Duke of Lorraine did not make a marriage between herself and the King illegal.

Poor Anne was deliberately delayed at Dartford whilst Henry tried to find some excuse for not continuing with the marriage. She was melancholy. The King had shown his dislike quite clearly; she had seen the great red face grow redder; she had seen the small eyes almost disappear into the puffy flesh; she had seen the quick distaste. She herself was disappointed, such accounts had she had of the once handsomest prince in Christendom; and in reality he was a puffed-out, unwieldy, fleshy man with great white hands overloaded with jewels, into whose dazzling garments two men could be wrapped with room to spare; on his face was the mark of internal disease; and bandages bulged about his leg; he had the wickedest mouth and cruelest eyes she had ever seen. She could but, waiting at Dartford, remember stories she had heard of this man. How had Katharine met her death? What had she suffered before she died? All the world knew the fate of tragic Anne Boleyn. And poor Jane Seymour? Was it true that after having given the King a son she had been so neglected that she had died?

She thought of the long and tiring journey from Dusseldorf to Calais, and the Channel crossing to her new home; she thought of the journey to Rochester; until then she had been reasonably happy. Then she had seen him, and seeing him it was not difficult to believe there was a good deal of truth in the stories she had heard concerning his treatment of his wives. And now she was to be one of them, or perhaps she would not, for, having seen the distaste in his face, she could guess at the meaning of this delay. She did not know whether she hoped he would marry her or whether she would prefer to suffer the humiliation of being sent home because her person was displeasing to him.

Meanwhile Henry was flying into such rages that all who must come into contact with him went in fear for their lives. Was there a previous contract? He was sure there was! Should he endanger the safety of England by producing another bastard? His conscience, his most scrupulous conscience, would not allow him to put his head into a halter until he was sure.

It was Cromwell who must make him act reasonably, Cromwell who would get a cuff for his pains.

“Your Most Gracious Majesty, the Emperor is being feted in Paris. An you marry not this woman you throw the Duke of Cleves into an alliance with Charles and Francis. We should stand alone.”

Cromwell was eloquent and convincing; after all he was pleading for Cromwell. If this marriage failed, Cromwell failed, and he knew his head to be resting very lightly on his shoulders, and that the King would be delighted to find a reason for striking it off. But Henry knew that in this matter, Cromwell spoke wisely. If Henry feared civil war more than anything, then next he feared friendship between Charles and Francis, and this was what had been accomplished. He dared not refuse to marry Anne of Cleves.

“If I had known so much before, she should not have come hither!” he said, looking menacingly at Cromwell, as though the meetings between Charles and Francis had been arranged by him. Henry’s voice broke on a tearful note. “But what remedy now! What remedy but to put my head in the yoke and marry this...” His cheeks puffed with anger and his eyes were murderous. “What remedy but to marry this great Flanders mare!”

There followed the ceremony of marriage with its gorgeously appareled men and women, its gilded barges and banners and streamers. Henry in a gown of cloth of gold raised with great silver flowers, with his coat of crimson satin decorated with great flashing diamonds, was a sullen bridegroom. Cromwell was terrified, for he knew not how this would end, and he had in his mind such examples of men who had displeased the King as would make a braver man than he was tremble. The Henry of ten years ago would never have entered into this marriage; but this Henry was more careful of his throne. He spoke truthfully when he had said a few hours before the ceremony that if it were not for the sake of his realm he would never have done this thing.

Cromwell did not give up hope. He knew the King well; it might be that any wife was better than no wife at all; and there were less pleasant looking females than Anne of Cleves. She was docile enough and the King liked docility in women; the last Queen had been married for that very quality.

The morning after the wedding day he sought audience with the King; he looked in vain for that expression of satiety in the King’s coarse red face.

“Well?” roared Henry, and Cromwell noticed with fresh terror that his master liked him no better this day than he had done on the previous one.

“Your Most Gracious Majesty,” murmured the trembling Cromwell, “I would know if you are any more pleased with your Queen.”

“Nay, my lord!” said the King viciously, and glared at Cromwell, laying the blame for this catastrophe entirely upon him. “Much worse! For by her breasts and belly she should be no maid; which, when I felt them, strake me so to the heart that I had neither will nor courage to prove the rest.”

Cromwell left his master, trembling for his future.

Catherine Howard could not sleep for excitement. At last she had come to court. Her grandmother had provided her with garments she would need, and Catherine had never felt so affluent in the whole of her eighteen years. How exciting it was to peep through the windows at personages who had been mere names to her! She saw Thomas Cromwell walking through the courtyards, cap in hand, with the King himself. Catherine shuddered at the sight of that man. “Beware of the blacksmith’s son!” her grandmother had said. “He is no friend of the Howards.” Always before Catherine had seen the King from a great distance; closer he seemed larger, more sparkling than ever, and very terrifying, so that she felt a greater urge to run from him than she did even from Thomas Cromwell. The King was loud in conversation, laughter and wrath, and his red face in anger was an alarming sight. Sometimes he would hobble across the courtyards with a stick, and she had seen his face go dark with the pain he suffered in his leg, and he would shout and cuff anyone who annoyed him. His cheeks were so puffed out and swollen that his eyes seemed lost between them and his forehead, and were more like the flash of bright stones than eyes. This King made Catherine shiver. Cranmer she saw too—quiet and calm in his archbishop’s robes. She saw her uncle and would have hidden herself, but his sharp eyes would pick her out and he would nod curtly.

Catherine was enjoying life, for Derham could not pester her at court as he had done at the Duchess’s house, and when she did not see him she could almost forget the sorrow that had come to her through him. She loved the Queen, and wept for her because she was so unhappy. The King did not love her; he was with her only in public. The ladies whispered together that when they went to the royal bechamber at night the King said good night to the Queen and that nothing passed between them until the morning when he said good morning. They giggled over the extraordinary relationship of the King and Queen; and Catherine was too inexperienced and too much in awe of them not to giggle with them, but she was really sorry for the sad-eyed Queen. But Catherine did refrain from laughing with them over the overcrowded and tasteless wardrobe of the Queen.

“Ah!” whispered the ladies. “You should have seen the other Queen Anne. What clothes she had, and how she knew the way to wear them! But this one! No wonder the King has no fancy for her. Ja, ja, ja! That is all she can say!”

Catherine said: “But she is very kind.”

“She is without spirit to be otherwise!”

But that was not true. Catherine, who had been often beaten by the hard-handed Duchess, was susceptible to kindness; she sat with the Queen and learned the Flemish style of embroidery, and was very happy to serve Anne of Cleves.

There was something else that made Catherine happy. Thomas Culpepper was at court. She had not yet seen him, but each day she hoped for their reunion. He was, she heard, a great favorite with the King himself and it was his duty to sleep in the royal apartment and superintend those who dressed the King’s leg. She wondered if he knew she was here, and if he were waiting for the reunion as eagerly as she was.

Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, gave a banquet one evening. Catherine was very excited about this, for she was going to sing, and it would be the first time she had ever sung alone before the King.

“You are a little beauty!” said one of the ladies. “What a charming gown!”

“My grandmother gave it to me,” said Catherine, smoothing the rich cloth with the pleasure of one who has always longed for beautiful clothes and has never before possessed them.

“If you sing as prettily as you look,” she was told, “you will be a successful young woman.”

Catherine danced all the way down to the barge; she sang as they went along the river; she danced into the Bishop’s house. Over her small head smiles were exchanged; she was infectiously gay and very young.

“Mind you do not forget your words.”

“Oh, what if I do! I feel sure I shall!”

“Committed to the Tower!” they teased her, and she laughed with them, her cheeks aglow, her auburn curls flying.

She sat at the great table with the humblest of the ladies. The King, at the head of the table, was in a noisy mood. He was eating and drinking with great heartiness as was his custom, congratulating the Bishop on his cook’s efforts, swilling great quantities of wine, belching happily.

Would His Most Gracious Majesty care for a little music? the Bishop would know.

The King was ever ready to be entertained, and there was nothing he liked better, when he was full of good food and wine, than to hear a little music. He felt pleasantly sleepy; he smiled with benevolent eyes on Gardiner. A good servant, a good servant. He was in a mellow mood; he would have smiled on Cromwell.

He looked along the table. A little girl was singing. She had a pretty voice; her flushed cheeks reminded him of June roses, her hair gleamed gold; she was tiny and plump and very pretty. There was something in her which startled him out of his drowsiness. It was not that she was the least bit like Anne. Anne’s hair had been black as had her eyes; Anne had been tall and slender. How could this little girl be like Anne? He did not know what could have suggested such a thought to him, and yet there it was...but elusive, so that he could not catch it, could not even define it. All he could say was that she reminded him. It was the tilt of her head, the gesture of the hands, that graceful back bent forward, and now the pretty head tossed back. He was excited, as for a long time he had wanted to be excited. He had not been so excited since the early days of marriage with Anne.

“Who is the girl now singing?” he asked Gardiner.

“That, Your Majesty, is Norfolk’s niece, Catherine Howard.”

The King tapped his knee reflectively. Now he had it. Anne had been Norfolk’s niece too. The elusive quality was explained by a family resemblance.

“Norfolk’s niece!” he said, and growled without anger, so that the growl came through his pouched lips like a purr. He watched the girl. He thought, By God, the more I see of her the more I like her!

He was comparing her with his pockmarked Queen. Give him English beauties, sweet-faced and sweet-voiced. He liked sonorous English on the tongue, not harsh German. Like a rose she was, flushed, laughing and happy.

“She seems little more than a child,” he said to Gardiner.

Norfolk was beside the King. Norfolk was cunning as a monkey, artful as a fox. He knew well how to interpret that soft look in the royal eyes; he knew the meaning of the slurring tones. Norfolk had been furious when the King had chosen Anne Boleyn instead of his own daughter, the Lady Mary Howard. Every family wanted boys, but girls, when they were as pleasant to the eye as Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, had their uses.

“We liked well your little niece’s playing,” said the King.

Norfolk was beside the King. Norfolk murmured that His Majesty was gracious, and that it gave him the utmost delight that a member of his family should give some small pleasure to her sovereign.

“She gives us much pleasure,” said the King. “We like her manners and we like her singing. Who is her father?”

“My brother Edmund, sir. Your Majesty doubtless remembers him. He did well at Flodden Field.”

The King nodded. “I remember well,” he said kindly. “A good servant!” He was ready to see through a haze of benevolence, every member of a family which could produce such a charming child as Catherine Howard.

“Doubtless Your Most Gracious Majesty would do my little niece the great honor of speaking to her. A royal compliment on her little talents would naturally mean more to the child than the costliest gems.”

“Right gladly I will speak to her. Let her be brought to me.”

“Your Majesty, I would humbly beg that you would be patient with her simplicity. She has led but a sheltered life until recently she came to court. I fear she may seem very shy and displease you with her gauchery. She is perhaps too modest.”

“Too modest!” the King all but shouted. “How is it possible, my lord, for maidens to be too modest!” He was all impatience to have her close to him, to study the fresh young skin, to pat her shoulders and let her know she had pleased her King. “Bring her to me without delay.”

Norfolk himself went to Catherine. She stopped playing and looked at him in fear. He always terrified her, but now his eyes glittered speculatively and in the friendliest manner.

Catherine stood up. “Have I done aught wrong?”

“Nay, nay!” said his Grace. “Your singing has pleased His Majesty and he would tell you how much. Speak up when he talks to you. Do not mumble, for he finds that most irritating. Be modest but not shy.”

The King was waiting impatiently. Catherine curtseyed low and a fat, white, jeweled hand patted her shoulder.

“Enough!” he said, not at all unkindly, and she rose and stood trembling before him.

He said: “We liked your singing. You have a pretty voice.”

“Your Majesty is most gracious....” she stammered and blushed sweetly. He watched the blood stain her delicate cheeks. By god, he thought, there never has been such a one since Anne. And his eyes filled with sudden self-pity to think how ill life had used him. He had loved Anne who had deceived him. He had loved Jane who had died. And now he was married to a great Flanders mare, when in his kingdom, standing before him so close that he had but to stretch out his hands and take her, was the fairest rose that ever grew in England.

“We are glad to be gracious to those who please us,” he said. “You are lately come to court? Come! You may sit here...close to us.”

“Yes, please Your Majesty. I...I have lately come...”

She was a bud just unfolding, he thought; she was the most perfect creature he had ever seen, for while Anne had been irresistible, she had also been haughty, vindictive and demanding, whereas this little Catherine Howard with her doe’s eyes and gentle frightened manner, had the beauty of Anne and the docility of Jane. Ah, he thought, how happy I should have been, if instead of that Flemish creature I had found this lovely girl at Rochester. How I should have enjoyed presenting her with costly sables; jewels too; there is naught I would not give to such a lovely child.

He leaned towards her; his breath, not too sweet, warmed her cheek, and she withdrew involuntarily; he thought this but natural modesty and was enchanted with her.

“Your uncle has been talking to me of you.”

Her uncle! She blushed again, feeling that the Duke would have said nothing good of her.

“He told me of your father. A good man, Lord Edmund. And your grandmother, the Dowager Duchess is a friend of ours.”

She was silent; she had not dreamed of such success; she had known her voice was moderately good, nothing more, certainly not good enough to attract the King.

“And how do you like the court?” he asked.

“I like it very much, please Your Majesty.”

“Then I am right glad that our court pleases you!” He laughed and she laughed too. He saw her pretty teeth, her little white throat, and he felt a desire to make her laugh some more.

“Now we have discovered you,” he said, “we shall make you sing to us often. How will you like that, eh?”

“I shall find it a great honor.”

She looked as if she meant this; he liked her air of candid youth.

He said, “Your name is Catherine, I know. Tell me, how old are you?”

“I am eighteen, sir.”

Eighteen! He repeated it, and felt sad. Eighteen, and he close to fifty. Getting old; short of breath; quick of temper; often dizzy; often after meals suffering from diverse disorders of the body; his leg getting worse instead of better; he could not sit his horse as once he had done. Fifty...and eighteen!

He watched her closely. “You shall play and sing to us again,” he said.

He wanted to watch her without talking; his thoughts were busy. She was a precious jewel. She had everything he would look for in a wife; she had beauty, modesty, virtue and charm. It hurt him to look at her and see behind her the shadow of his Queen. He wanted Catherine Howard as urgently as once he had wanted Anne Boleyn. His hunger for Catherine was more pathetic than that he had known for Anne, for when he had loved Anne he had been a comparatively young man. Catherine was precious because she was a beacon to light the dark days of his middle age with her youthful glow.

Sweetly she sang. He wanted to stretch out his hands and pet her and keep her by him. This was cold age’s need of warm youth. He thought, I would be a parent and a lover to her, for she is younger than my daughter Mary, and she is lovely enough to make any but the blind love her, and those she would enchant with her voice.

He watched her and she played again; then he would have her sit with him; nor did she stir from his side the evening through.

A ripple of excitement went through the court.

“Didst see the King with Mistress Catherine Howard last night?”

“I declare I never saw His Majesty so taken with a girl since Anne Boleyn.”

“Much good will it do her. His mistress? What else since he has a Queen?”

“The King has a way with queens, has he not?”

“Hush! Dost want to go to the Tower on a charge of treason?”

“Poor Queen Anne, she is so dull, so German! And Catherine Howard is the prettiest thing we have had at court for many years!”

“Poor Catherine Howard!”

“Poor, forsooth!”

“Would you change places with her? Remember...”

“Hush! They were unfortunate!”

Cromwell very quickly grasped the new complications brought about by the King’s infatuation for Catherine Howard, and it seemed to him that his end was in sight. Norfolk could be trusted to exploit this situation to the full. Catherine was a Catholic, a member of the most devout Catholic family in England. Continental events loomed up darkly for Cromwell. When the Emperor had passed through France there were signs that his friendship with Francis was not quite as cordial as it had been. Charles was no longer thinking of attacking England, and it was only when such plans interested him that he would be eager to take Francis as an ally. Trouble was springing up over Charles’s domains and he would have his hands tied very satisfactorily from Henry’s point of view if not from Cromwell’s. When the Duke of Cleves asked for help in securing the Duchy of Guelders, Henry showed that he was in no mood to give it.

Cromwell saw the position clearly. He had made no mistakes. He had merely gambled and lost. When the marriage with Anne of Cleves had been made it was necessary to the safety of England; now England had passed out of that particular danger and the marriage was no longer necessary, and the King would assuredly seize an excuse to rid himself of his most hated minister. Cromwell had known this all the time. He could not play a good game if he had not the cards. With Charles and Francis friendly, he had stood a chance of winning; when relations between these two were strained, Cromwell was unlucky. On Cromwell’s advice Henry had put a very irritating yoke about his neck. Now events had shown that it was no longer necessary that the yoke should remain. And there was Norfolk, making the most of Cromwell’s ill luck, cultivating his niece, arranging meetings between her and the King, offering up the young girl as a sacrifice from the House of Howard on that already bloodstained altar of the King’s lusts.

Henry’s mind was working rapidly. He must have Catherine Howard. He was happy; he was in love. Catherine was the sweetest creature in the world, and there was none but Catherine who could keep him happy. She was delightful; she was sweetly modest; and the more he knew her, the more she delighted him. Just to see her skipping about the Hampton Court gardens which he had planned with her cousin Anne, made him feel younger. She would be the perfect wife; he did not want her to be his mistress—she was too sweet and pure for that—he wanted her beside him on the throne, that he might live out his life with none other but her.

She was less shy with him now; she was full of laughter, but ready to weep for other people’s sorrows. Sweet Catherine! The sweetest of women! The rose without a thorn! Anne had perhaps been the most gorgeous rose that ever bloomed, but oh, the thorns! In his old age this sweet creature should be beside him. And he was not so old! He could laugh throatily, holding her hand in his, pressing the cool, plump fingers against his thigh. He was not so old. He had years of pleasant living in front of him. He did not want riotous living, he told himself. All he had ever wanted was married happiness with one woman, and he had not found her until now. He must marry Catherine; he must make her his Queen.

His conscience began to worry him. He realized that Anne’s contract with the Duke of Lorraine had ever been on his mind, and it was for this reason that he had never consummated the marriage. So cursed had he been in his matrimonial undertakings, that he went cautiously. He had never been Anne’s true husband because of his dread of presenting another bastard to the nation. Moreover the lady was distasteful to him and he suspected her virtue. Oh, he had said naught about it at the time, being over-merciful perhaps, being anxious not to accuse before he was sure. He had not been free when he entered into the marriage; only because he had felt England to be defenseless against the union of Charles and Francis had he allowed it to take place. England owed him a divorce, for had he not entered into this most unwelcome engagement for England’s sake? And he owed England children. He had one boy and two girls—both of these last illegitimate; and the boy did not enjoy the best of health. He had failed to make the throne secure for Tudors; he must have an opportunity of doing so. Something must be done.