The Boleyn Inheritance

Katherine, Norfolk House, Lambeth,
December 1539

My uncle is coming to see my grandmother, and I must be ready in case he sends for me. We all know what is about to happen, but I am as excited as if I were waiting for a great surprise. I have practiced my walk toward him and my curtsy. I have practiced my look of astonishment and my delighted smile at the wonderful news. I like to be prepared, I like to be rehearsed, and I have had Agnes and Joan play the part of my uncle until I am step-perfect in my approach, my curtsy, and my genteel cry of joy.

The maids’ room is sick of me, sick as if they had eaten a glut of green apples. But I tell them it is only to be expected: I am a Howard, of course I will be called to court, of course I will serve the queen, and, sadly, of course they will be left behind; what a pity.

They say I will have to learn German, and there will be no dancing. I know this is a lie. She will live like a queen, and if she is dull, I shall shine only more brightly in contrast. They say it is well known that she will live in seclusion, and the Dutch eat no meat but only cheese and butter all day. I know this is a lie – why else would the queen’s apartments at Hampton Court have been repainted but for her to have a court and guests? They say that all her ladies have already been appointed and half of them have already left to meet her in Calais. My uncle is coming to tell me that I have missed my chance.

This, finally, frightens me. I know that the king’s nieces, Lady Margaret Douglas and the Marchioness of Dorset, have agreed to be the chiefest of her ladies, and I fear it is too late for me. “No,” I say to Mary Lascelles, “he cannot be coming to tell me I must stay here. He cannot be coming to tell me that I am too late, that there will be no place left for me.”

“And if he does then let it be a lesson to you,” she says firmly. “Let it be a lesson to you to mend your ways. You don’t deserve to go to the queen’s court as light as you have been with Francis Dereham. No true lady should have you in her chambers when you have played the slut with such a man.”

This is so unkind that I give a little gasp and feel the tears coming.

“Now don’t cry,” she says wearily. “Don’t cry, Katherine. You will only make your eyes red.”

Instantly, I hold my nose to stop the tears coming. “But if he tells me I am to stay here and do nothing, I shall die!” I say thickly. “I will be fifteen next year, and then I will be eighteen, and then I will be nineteen and then I will be twenty and too old for marriage, and I will die here, serving my grandmother, never having been anywhere, and never seen anything, and never danced at court.”

“Oh, nonsense!” she exclaims crossly. “Can you never think of anything but your vanity, Katherine? Besides, some would think you have done quite enough already for a maid of fourteen.”

“Duthing,” I say, with my nose still pinched. I let it go and press my cool fingers against my cheeks. “I have done nothing.”

“Of course, you will serve the queen,” she says scornfully. “Your uncle is not likely to miss such a place for one of his family, however badly you have behaved.”

“The girls said-”

“The girls are jealous of you because you are going, you ninny. If you were staying, they would be all over you with pretend sympathy.”

This is so true that even I can see it. “Oh, yes.”

“So wash your face again and come to my lady’s chamber. Your uncle will be here at any moment.”

I go as fast as I can, pausing only to tell Agnes and Joan and Margaret that I know full well I am going to court and that I never believed their spite for a moment, and then I hear them shouting: “Katherine! Katherine! He is here!” and I dash down to my lady’s own parlor and there he is, my uncle, standing before the fire and warming his backside.

It would take more than a fire to warm this man through. My grandmother says that he is the king’s hammer; whenever there is hard and dirty work to do, it is my uncle who leads the English army to batter the enemy into submission. When the North rose up to defend the old religion just two years ago when I was a little girl, it was my uncle who brought the rebels to their senses. He promised them a pardon and then cozened them to the gallows. He saved the king’s throne, and he saved the king the trouble of fighting his own battles and putting down a great rebellion. My grandmother says that he knows no other argument but the noose. She says he strung up thousands even though inwardly, he agreed with their cause. His own faith did not stop him. Nothing will stop him. I can see by his face that he is a hard man, a man not easily softened; but he has come to see me, and I will show him what sort of niece he has.

I dip down into a deep curtsy, as we have practiced over and over again in the maids’ chamber, leaning a little forward so that my lord can see the tempting curve of my breasts pressed at the top of my gown. Slowly I look up at his face before I rise, so that he sees me almost on my knees before him, giving him a moment to think about the pleasure of what I could be doing down there, my little nose almost against his breeches. “My lord uncle,” I breathe as I rise, as if I were whispering it in his ear in bed. “Give you a very good day, sir.”

“Good God,” he says bluntly, and my grandmother gives a little “Huh” of amusement.

“She is a… a credit to you, ma’am,” he says as I rise without wobbling and stand before him. I clasp my hands behind my back to present my breasts to their full advantage, and I arch my back, too, so that he can admire the slimness of my waist. With my eyes modestly cast down I could be a schoolgirl except for the thrust of my body and the little half-hidden smile.

“She is a Howard girl through and through,” says my grandmother, who has no great opinion of Howard girls, known as we are for beauty and forwardness.

“I was expecting a child,” he says as if he is very pleased to find me grown.

“A very knowing child.” She gives me a hard look to remind me that nobody wants to know what I have learned while in her care. I widen my eyes innocently. I was seven years old when I first saw a maid bedding a page boy, I was eleven when Henry Manox first got hold of me. How did she think I would turn out?

“She will do very nicely,” he says, after he has taken a moment to recover. “Katherine, can you dance and sing and play the lute and so on?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Read, write, in English and French, and Latin?”

I shoot an anguished look at my grandmother. I am tremendously stupid, and everyone knows it. I am so stupid that I don’t even know if I should lie about it or not.

“Why would she need that?” she asks. “The queen speaks nothing but Dutch, doesn’t she?”

He nods. “German. But the king likes an educated woman.”

The duchess smiles. “He did once,” she says. “The Seymour girl was no great philosopher. I think he has lost his taste for argument from his wives. Do you like an educated woman?”

He gives a little snort at this. The whole world knows that he and his wife have been parted for years, they hate each other so much.

“Anyway, what matters most is that she pleases the queen and pleases the court,” my uncle rules. “Katherine, you are to go to court and be one of the new queen’s maids-in-waiting.”

I beam at him.

“You are glad to go?”

“Yes, my lord uncle. I am very grateful,” I remember to add.

“You have been placed in such a position of importance to be a credit to your family,” he says solemnly. “Your grandmother here tells me that you are a good girl and that you know how to behave. Make sure that you do, and don’t let us down.”

I nod. I dare not look at my grandmother, who knew all about Henry Manox, and who caught me once in the upper hall with Francis, with my hand down the front of his breeches and the mark of his bite on my neck, and called me a whore in the making and a stupid slut, and gave me a cuff that made my head ring, and warned me off him again at Christmas.

“There will be young men who may pay attention to you,” my uncle warns, as if I have never met a young man before. I dart a look at my grandmother, but she is blandly smiling. “Remember that nothing is more important than your reputation. Your honor must be without stain. If I hear any unbecoming gossip about you – and I mean anything, and you can be sure that I hear everything – then I will remove you immediately from court and send you not even here, but back to your step-grandmother’s house in the country at Horsham. Where I will leave you forever. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lord uncle.” It comes out in a terrified whisper. “I promise.”

“I will see you at court almost daily,” he says. I am almost beginning to wish that I was not going. “And from time to time I shall send for you to come to my rooms and tell me how you are getting on with the queen, and so on. You will be discreet, and you will not gossip. You will keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. You will take advice from your kinswoman Jane Boleyn, who is also in the queen’s rooms. You will endeavor to become close to the queen; you shall be her little friend. From the favor of princes comes wealth. Never forget it. This could be the making of you, Katherine.”

“Yes, my lord uncle.”

“And another thing,” he says warningly.

“Yes, uncle?”

“Modesty, Katherine. It is a woman’s greatest asset.”

I sink into a curtsy, my head bowed, as modest as a nun. A laugh of derision from my grandmother tells me that she is not persuaded. But when I look up, my uncle is smiling.

“Convincing. You can go,” he says.

I curtsy again and I flee from the room before he can say anything worse. I have been longing to go to court for the dancing and young men, and he makes it sound like going into service.

“What did he say? What did he say?” They are all waiting in the great hall, desperate to know the news.

“I am to go to court!” I crow. “And I am to have new gowns and new hoods, and he says I will be the prettiest girl in the queen’s chamber, and there will be dancing every night, and I daresay I will never see any of you ever again.”