The Boleyn Inheritance

Katherine, Syon Abbey,
February 1542

It is a morning like every other morning, quiet, nothing to do, no entertainment, no amusement, no company. I am so bored with everything and with myself that when I hear the tramp of feet on the path outside my window, I am absolutely delighted at the thought of something happening – I am beyond caring what. I run like a child to the tall window, and I look out, and there is a royal escort marching up the path through the garden from the river. They have come by barge, and there is my uncle the duke’s standard, and there are the men in his livery, and there he is himself, looking powerful and bad-tempered as always, at the head of them, and half a dozen Privy Councillors with him.

At last! At last! I am so relieved that I could weep to see them. It is my uncle returned to me! My uncle come back to tell me what to do. At last I am to be freed. At last he has come for me, and I am to be released. I should think I shall be taken by my uncle to one of his houses in the country, which will not be very amusing, but better than here. Or perhaps I shall have to go far away, perhaps France. France would be wonderful, except I cannot speak French, or at any rate only “voilà!” but surely they must mostly all speak English? And if not, then they can learn?

The door opens and the warden of my household comes in. His eyes are filled with tears. “Madam,” he says,“they have come for you.”

“I know!” I say jubilantly. “And you needn’t pack my gowns either, for I don’t care if I ever see them again. I shall order new. Where am I going?”

The door opens a little wider, and there is my uncle himself, looking stern as he must, for this is obviously to be a very solemn scene.

“Your Grace!” I say. I can hardly stop myself giving him a wink. So we have got through, have we? Here we are again. Him, looking stern; and me, waiting for my orders. He will have some plan to have me back on the throne and forgiven within a month. I thought I was in grave trouble and that he had deserted me; but here he is, and wherever he goes, prosperity always follows. I take a good look at his face as I come up smiling out of my curtsy, and I see he is looking terribly solemn, so I look serious, too. I cast my eyes down, and I look wonderfully penitent. I am quite pale from being indoors all the time, and I really think that with my eyes down and my lips slightly pouting I must look utterly saintly.

“Your Grace,” I say in a soft, mournful tone.

“I bring you news of your sentence,” he says.

I wait.

“The king’s parliament has consulted and has passed a Bill of Attainder against you.”

If I knew what this is, I would know better how to respond. As it is, I think it best just to widen my eyes and look agreeable. I suppose that a Bill of Attainder is some kind of official forgiveness.

“The king has given his assent.”

Yes, yes, but so what? What does this mean for me?

“You will be taken to the Tower, and you will be executed in private on Tower Green as soon as may be. Your lands and goods are forfeit to the Crown.”

I really have no idea what he is talking about. Besides, thanks to his poor protection of my royal fortune, I now have no lands and goods to speak of anyway. I haven’t forgotten Thomas Seymour taking my own jewels away from me as if they were still belonging to his sister.

The duke looks a bit surprised at my silence. “Do you understand?”

I say nothing but still look saintly.

“Katherine! Do you understand?”

“I don’t know what attainted means,” I confess. It sounds like a joint of meat that has gone off.

He looks at me as if I am a half-wit. “Attainder,” he corrects me. “Not attainted. Attainder.”

I shrug. Who cares how it is said? Does it mean that I go back to court?

“It means that parliament has sentenced you to death and that the king has given his assent,” he says quietly. “It is to be done without trial. You are to die, Katherine. You will be beheaded on the green in the Tower.”

“Die?”

“Yes.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

I look at him. He must have a plan. “What should I do?” I ask him in a whisper.

“You should acknowledge your sins and ask for forgiveness,” he says promptly.

I am so relieved I could almost weep. Of course I will be forgiven if I say I am sorry. “What should I say?” I demand. “Tell me exactly what I must say.”

He produces a rolled sheet of paper from the pocket of his jacket. He always has a plan. Thank God for him, he always has a plan. I unroll it and look at him. It is dreadfully long. He nods to me; apparently I have to read it all. I start to read out loud.

The first paragraph is me acknowledging my very great crime against the king, against the most high God and the whole English nation, which I think is rather an exaggeration since all I did was what hundreds of other young women do every day, especially when they are married to old, disagreeable men; and in my case I had been very unkindly treated. Anyway, I read the words on the paper and the duke nods and the councillors with him nod, too, so it is obviously the right thing to say, and everyone is pleased with me, which is always the best way to be. I wish he had given me a copy of this earlier to practice with. I like to do things right when people are watching. I unroll the scroll to the next section and I say that I implore His Majesty not to impute my crime to my kindred and family but to extend his unbounded mercy and benevolence to them all so that they don’t suffer for my faults.

I give my uncle a hard look at this, for it is clear to me that he is making sure that he does not suffer for my troubles. His expression is perfectly bland. Then I ask the king to give my clothing to my maids after my death as I have nothing else to give them. This is so sad that I find I can hardly read it aloud. Fancy that! Me, with all I have owned, with nothing to give! Fancy me giving my clothes away because I will never wear them again! And how ridiculous to think that I would care a groat about what happens to those vile six gowns, six pairs of sleeves, six kirtles, and six French hoods without a single jewel, in the most miserable colors I can imagine. They can burn them on a bonfire for all I care.

But despite the gowns and my uncle saving his own skin, by the time I have finished my speech I am weeping at the sadness of it. All of the councillors look very grieved, and it is a poignant scene that they can report to the king; I have no doubt but that he will be moved at the thought of my begging pardon for others and giving away my little wardrobe. It is so sad that it makes me cry, although I know that it’s all make-believe. If I thought it was true, I would break down altogether.

My uncle nods. I have done what he wants, and now it is up to him to persuade the king that I am utterly penitent and ready for death. That should be all anyone can ask for, I should think. They all troop off the way they came and I have to sit myself down in my one chair, in my dull gown, and wait for them to come back and tell me that since I am so very sorry I am quite forgiven.

I am waiting for the barge this time, I am up at the window from terribly early in the morning. Usually, with nothing to get up for and nothing to do, I try to sleep through breakfast all the way till dinner, but today I am certain that they will come with my royal pardon and I want to look my best. As soon as it is light I ring for my maid to come and lay out my dresses. Hmm, such a choice I have before me! I have a gown of black, two of very dark blue, almost black, a gown of dark green that it is almost black, a gown of gray, and just in case I need two, another gown of black. So what shall I wear? However shall I choose? I take the gown of black, but I wear it with the dark green sleeves and a dark green hood that will symbolize my penitence and my love of Tudor green to those who take an interest in these things. It makes my eyes look beautiful as well, which is always a good thing.

I don’t know how this will be done, and I always rather like to be prepared for these ceremonies. My Master of the Household always used to tell me where I should stand and how I should look, and I like to practice. It comes from being made queen while still quite young, and not really brought up to it. But as far as I know, no queen has ever been forgiven for adultery and treason and all the rest of it, so I suppose we shall just have to make it up as we go along. At any rate, that old wolf my uncle will no doubt guide me through it all.

I am dressed and waiting by nine in the morning, but nobody comes. I hear Mass and take breakfast in sulky silence, and still nothing. But then, just before noon, I hear the welcome tramp of feet on the stones of the path, and I dash to the window, see my uncle’s black square hat bobbing along, the staves of office in the hands of the other councillors, the royal standard before them, and I rush back to my seat and sit down, put my feet together, my hands in my lap, and cast down my eyes in great penitence.

They open the double doors, and everyone comes trooping in, dressed in their best. I rise to my feet and curtsy to my uncle as I should, since he is head of my house, but he no longer bows to me as his queen. I stand and wait. I am surprised he doesn’t look more relieved that this is all over.

“We have come to take you to the Tower,” he says.

I nod. I had thought we would go to Kenninghall but perhaps this is even better; the king often uses the Tower as his London palace, perhaps I am to meet him there. “As you wish, my lord duke,” I say sweetly.

He looks a little surprised at my demure tone. I have to try very hard not to giggle.

“Katherine, you are to be executed,” he says. “You will go to the Tower as a condemned traitor.”

“Traitor?” I repeat.

“I told you last time,” he says impatiently. “You were convicted by a Bill of Attainder. I told you. You are not required to stand trial; you understood that. You confessed your sins. That confession has been entered against your name. Now the time has come for the sentence.”

“I confessed so that I would be forgiven,” I point out.

He looks at me quite exasperated. “But you have not been forgiven,” he says. “All that was left to agree was the sentence.”

“And?” I say a little pertly.

He takes a deep breath as if to dispel his irritation. “His Grace has agreed that you shall be put to death.”

“He will forgive me when I get to the Tower?” I suggest.

To my increasing anxiety he shakes his head. “For God’s sake, girl, don’t be such an idiot! You cannot hope for that. There is no reason to hope for it. When he first heard what you had done, he drew his sword and said he would kill you himself. It is over, Katherine. You must prepare yourself for death.”

“That can’t happen,” I say. “I’m only sixteen. Nobody could put me to death when I’m only sixteen.”

“They can,” he says bleakly. “Believe me, they will.”

“The king will stop them.”

“It is his own wish.”

“You will stop them.”

His eyes are as cold as a fish on a marble slab. “I will not.”

“Well, somebody must stop them!”

He turns his head. “Take her,” he says.

Half a dozen men march into the room, the royal guard who used to parade so handsomely for me.

“I shan’t go,” I say. I am really afraid now. I stand to my tallest height, and I scowl at them. “I shan’t go. You can’t make me.”

They hesitate a little, and look at my uncle. He makes a quick chopping gesture with his hand. “Take her,” he says again.

I turn and run into my privy chamber, swinging the door behind me, but it delays them for only a moment; they catch it before it bangs, they are after me so quickly. I lay hold of one of the posts of the bed, and I latch my fingers around it. “I shan’t go!” I shout. “You can’t make me. You can’t touch me! I am Queen of England! Nobody can touch me!”

One of the men grabs me around the waist. The other reaches forward and unlaces my hands; as soon as my hands are free I slap the first one round the face as hard as I can, and he lets me go. But a third man grabs me again, and the second has my hands this time so though I struggle, he forces them behind my back and I hear one of the sleeves tear. “Let me go!” I scream. “You can’t hold me. I am Katherine, Queen of England. You can’t touch me, my person is sacred. Let me go!”

My uncle stands in the doorway, his face as dark as the devil. He nods to a man standing beside me, who bends down and grabs at my feet. I try to kick him, but he takes me as if I were a little bucking foal, and the three of them shuffle out of the room with me held between them. My ladies are in tears; the Warden of the Household is white with horror.

“Don’t let them take me!” I scream. Mutely, he shakes his head. I see he is clinging to the door to support himself. “Help me!” I scream. “Send for-” I break off then, for there is no one to send for. My uncle, guardian, and mentor is standing by; this is being done under his orders. My grandmother and sisters and stepmother are all under arrest; the rest of the family are frantically insisting that they hardly knew me. There is no one who will defend me, and no one has ever loved me but Francis Dereham and Tom Culpepper, and they are dead.

“I can’t go to the Tower!” I am sobbing now, the breath shaken out of me by their big, bouncy strides with me slung between them like a sack. “Don’t take me to the Tower, I beg you. Take me to the king, let me plead with him. Please. If he is determined, I’ll go to the Tower then, I’ll make a good death then, but I’m not ready yet. I’m only sixteen. I can’t die yet.”

They don’t say anything. They march up the gangplank to the barge, and I give a little wriggle thinking I might throw myself into the water and get away, but they have huge hands and they hold me tightly. They sling me onto the dais at the back of the barge, and they all but sit on me to keep me still. They have hold of my hands and my feet, and I am crying now and begging them to take me to the king, and they look away, out over the river, as if they are deaf.

My uncle and the councillors come on board, looking like men going to their own funerals. “My lord duke, hear me!” I shout, and he shakes his head at me and goes to the front of the barge, where he can’t hear or see me.

I am so afraid now that I can’t stop crying, the tears are pouring down my face and my nose is running and that brute has hold of my hands and I can’t even wipe my face. It is cold where my tears are wet on my cheeks and the disgusting taste of snot is on my lips, and they won’t even let me wipe my nose. “Please,” I say. “Please.” But nobody listens at all.

The barge goes quickly downriver; they have caught the tide just right, and the oarsmen feather their blades so they catch the safest part of the current at London Bridge. I glance up, and I wish I hadn’t; at once I see the two new heads, two fresh severed heads: Tom Culpepper and Francis Dereham, like damp, soft gargoyles, their eyes wide open and their teeth bared, a seagull struggling to find its footing on Dereham’s dark hair. They have set their heads on the spikes beside the horrible rotting shapes of so many others, and the birds will peck out their eyes and tongues, and poke sharp beaks in their ears to winkle out their brains.

“Please,” I whisper. I don’t even know what I am begging for now. I just hope that this will stop. I just want it not to be happening. “Please, good sirs… please.”

We go in by the watergate; it rolls up silently as soon as the guards see us coming, and the oarsmen ship their oars and our boat glides into the dock inside the dark shadow of the wall. The Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Edmund Walsingham, is standing at the steps, waiting to greet me as if I were arriving to stay in the royal apartments, as if I were still queen and a pretty new queen at that. The portcullis splashes down behind us as the chains roll it down, and they lift me out of the barge and take both my arms and heave me up the steps, my feet stumbling.

“Good day, Lady Katherine,” he says, as polite as ever. But I say nothing because I cannot stop sobbing, little gasping sobs that come and go with every breath. I look back, and my uncle is standing on the barge, waiting to see me go. He will be out of the watergate like a wherry shooting the rapids the moment his duty is done. He will be desperate that the shadow of the Tower does not fall on him. He will be rushing back to the king to assure him that the Howard family has given up their bad girl. It is me who is going to pay the price for the Howard ambition, not him.

I scream, “Uncle!” but he just gives a gesture of his hand as if to say, “Take her away,” and they do. They lead me up the stairs, past the White Tower, and across the green. The workmen are building a platform on the lawn, a little wooden stage standing about three feet high, with broad steps going up to it. Others are fencing off the paths. The men on either side of me walk a little faster and look away, and this makes me absolutely certain that this is my scaffold, and the fence is to hold back the crowd who will come to see me die.

“How many people will come?” I ask; the little coughing sobs make it hard for me to breathe.

“A couple of hundred,” the warden says uncomfortably. “It is not open to the public. Just to the court. As a favor to you. The king’s own orders.”

I nod; it is not much of a favor, I think. Ahead the door of the tower opens before us, and I go up the narrow stone stairs with one man slightly ahead of me hauling me up and the other pushing from behind. “I can walk,” I say, and they let go of my arms but stay close beside me. My room is on the first floor; the large glazed window overlooks the green. There is a fire in the grate, there is a stool by the fire and a table with a Bible, and beyond that there is a bed.

The men let me go and stand by the door. The warden and I look at each other. “Shall you be wanting anything?” he asks.

I laugh out loud at this most ridiculous question. “Like what?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Some delicacy, or some spiritual comfort?”

I shake my head. I don’t even know if there is a God anymore, for if Henry is special in the sight of God and he knows God’s will, then I suppose God wants me to die, but in private as a special favor. “I should like to have the block,” I say.

“The block, my lady?”

“Yes, the executioner’s block. Can I have it here in my room?”

“If you wish… but… what do you want it for?”

“To practice,” I say impatiently. I go across to the window, and I look down. The green will be filled with people who were proud to be at my court, people who were desperate to be my friend. Now they will be watching me die. If I am to do it, I had better do it properly.

He gulps. Of course he doesn’t understand what I mean; he is an old man, and he will die in his bed with his friends watching his last breath. But I shall be watched by hundreds of critical eyes. I want to do it gracefully if I have to do it.

“I shall have them bring it at once,” he says. “And will you see your confessor now?”

I nod. Though if God knows everything already, and already has decided that I am so bad that I should die before my seventeenth birthday, it is hard to know what the point of confession might be.

He bows and goes from the room. The soldiers bow and close the door. The key turns in the lock with a great clunk. I go and look out of the window at the workmen and the scaffold below. It looks as if they will be finished by tonight. Perhaps they will be ready tomorrow.

It takes two of them to bring in the block with much huffing and puffing as if it is heavy, and many sideways glances at me as if I am rather peculiar in needing to practice. Really, if they had been Queen of England like me, when I was still a girl, then they would know what a comfort it is to get the ceremonies right. There is nothing worse in the whole world than not knowing what you are supposed to do and looking foolish.

I kneel before the great thing and put my head down on it. I can’t say it’s very comfortable. I try it with my head turned one way and then the other. There’s no vast improvement in either direction, and no change of view anyway as I will be blindfolded, and underneath the blindfold I shall have my eyes tight shut, hoping like a child that it isn’t happening. The wood is smooth, cool under my hot cheek.

I suppose I really do have to do this.

I sit back on my heels and look at the damned thing. Really, if it were not so dreadful, I could laugh. All along I thought I had the Boleyn inheritance of grace and beauty and charm, and it turns out that all I have inherited is this: her block. This is the Boleyn inheritance for me. Voilà: the executioner’s block.