The Boleyn Inheritance

Katherine, King’s Manor, York,
September 1541

Well, it is as I could have predicted, an utter disappointment. King James of Scotland is not coming, and there is to be no jousting and no rival courts. I am queen only of the little English court, and nothing special is happening at all. I shall not see my darling Thomas joust, and he will not see me in the royal box with my new curtains. The king swears that James is too afraid to show his face this far south of the border; if that is true, then it can be only because he does not trust the king’s own honorable word of truce. And though nobody dare say it, he is quite right to be cautious. For the king promised to the leaders of the northern revolt a truce and his friendship, and all manner of changes that they wanted; he swore it on his royal name. And then, when they trusted him, he caught them and hanged them. Their dead heads are still stuck on the walls all around York, and I must say it is most disagreeable. I remark to Henry that perhaps James fears being hanged, too, and he laughs a lot and says that I am a clever little kitten and that James might well be afraid. But actually, I don’t think it’s very good if people can’t trust you. Because if James had been able to trust the king’s word, then he would have come and we would all have had a merry time.

Also, this is a very fine house and newly done for us, and yet I can’t help but notice that it was a beautiful abbey before it was the King’s Manor, and I should think that since the people of York are great sympathizers for the old faith (if not secret Papists) that they would very much resent our dancing about where the monks used to pray. I don’t say this of course; I am not quite an idiot. But I can imagine how I might feel if I had come here for help and prayer and now find the place quite changed, with a great fat greedy king sitting in the middle of it all calling for his dinner.

Anyway, what matters most is that the king is happy, and even I, amazingly enough, don’t mind about missing the joust nearly as much as I should. I am a little disappointed by the lack of handsome Scotsmen, and being so far from the London goldsmiths; but I cannot really be troubled about it. Astoundingly, it doesn’t even seem that important. For I am in love. For the first time in my life, utterly and completely, I have fallen in love, and I cannot believe it myself.

Thomas Culpepper is my lover, he is my heart’s desire, he is the only man I have ever loved, he is the only man I ever will love. I am his and he is mine, heart and soul. All the complaints I have ever made about having to bed a man old enough to be my father are now forgotten. I do my duty by the king as a form of tax, a fine I have to pay; and then the moment he is asleep, I am free to be with my love. Better even than that, and far less risky, is that the king is so wearied by the celebrations on this progress that he often does not come to my rooms at all. I wait until the court is quiet, and then Lady Rochford creeps down the stairs, or opens the side door, or unlocks a hidden door to the gallery and in steps my Thomas and we can have hours together.

We have to be careful; we have to be as careful as if our very lives depended on it. But every time we move to a new place Lady Rochford finds a private way to my rooms and tells Thomas how it is to be done. Without fail he comes to me; he loves me as I love him. We go to my room and Lady Rochford guards the door for us, and all night I lie in his arms and we kiss and whisper and make promises of love that will last forever. At dawn she makes a little scratch on the door; I get up and we kiss, and he slips away like a ghost. Nobody sees him. Nobody sees him come, and nobody sees him go. It is a wonderful secret.

Of course the girls talk; this is a most unruly crowd. I cannot believe that they would dare to chatter such gossip and scandal if Queen Anne were still on the throne. But because it is only me and most of them are older than me, and so many are from the old days at Lambeth, they have no respect at all, and they laugh at me, and they tease me about Francis Dereham. I am afraid that they watch what time I go to bed and wonder that my only companion is Lady Rochford, and that the door to my bedroom is locked and no one can come in.

“They know nothing,” she assures me. “And they would tell nobody, anyway.”

“They should not be gossiping at all,” I say. “Can you not tell them to keep their tongues off my business?”

“How can I, when it was you laughing about Francis Dereham with Joan Bulmer, yourself?”

“Well, I never laugh about Thomas,” I say. “I never mention his name. I don’t even say his name in the confessional. I don’t even say his name to myself.”

“That is wise,” she says. “Keep it a secret. Keep it a complete secret.”

She is brushing my hair, and she gives a little pause and looks at me in the mirror. “When is your course due?” she asks.

“I can’t remember.” I never keep count. “Was it last week? Anyway, it hasn’t come.”

There is a sort of bright alertness in her face. “It has not come?”

“No. Brush at the back, Jane, Thomas likes it smooth at the back.”

Her hand moves, but she does not do it very carefully. “Do you feel at all sick?” she asks. “Are your breasts any bigger?”

“No,” I say. Then I realize what is in her mind. “Oh! Are you thinking I might be with child?”

“Yes,” she whispers. “Please God.”

“But that would be dreadful!” I exclaim. “Because, don’t you see? Don’t you think? Lady Rochford, it might not be the king’s child!”

She puts down the brush and shakes her head. “It is God’s will,” she says slowly, as if she wants me to learn something. “If you are married to the king and you conceive a child, then that is God’s will. It is God’s will that the king has a child. So it is the king’s child; as far as you are concerned, it is the king’s own child, whatever has happened between you and another.”

I feel a little muddled by this. “But what if it is Thomas’s child?” At once I have a picture of Thomas’s little son, a brown-haired, blue-eyed rascal like his father, a strong boy from a young father.

She sees my face, and she guesses what I am thinking. “You are the queen,” she says firmly. “Any child you bear will be the king’s child, as God wishes. You cannot think for one moment anything different.”

“But-”

“No,” she says. “And you should tell the king that you have hopes of being with his child.”

“Is it not too early?”

“It’s never too early to give him cause for hope,” she says. “The last thing we want is to have him discontented.”

“I will tell him,” I say. “He is coming to my room tonight. You will have to fetch Thomas to me later. Then I will tell him, too.”

“No,” she says. “You won’t tell Thomas Culpepper.”

“But I want to!”

“It would spoil everything.” She speaks very fast, persuasively. “If he thinks you are with child, he will not lie with you. He will find you disgusting. He wants a mistress, not a mother of his children. You say nothing to Thomas Culpepper, but you can give the king hope. That’s the way to handle this.”

“He would be pleased…”

“No.” She shakes her head. “He would be kind, I am sure, but he would not come to your bed again. He would take a mistress. I have seen him talking to Catherine Carey. He would take a mistress until your time was over.”

“I couldn’t bear that!”

“So tell him nothing. Tell the king you have hopes, but tell Thomas nothing.”

“Thank you, Lady Rochford,” I say humbly. If it were not for her advice, I don’t know what I would do.

That night the king comes to my rooms, and they help him into my bed. I stand by the fire while they labor to heave him in, and they leave him tucked up with the sheets under his chin like an enormous baby.

“Husband,” I say sweetly.

“Come to bed, my rose,” he says. “Henry wants his rose.”

I grit my teeth on the stupidity of his calling himself Henry. “I want to tell you something,” I say. “I have some happy news.”

He heaves himself up, so that his head with the nightcap askew bobs up a little.

“Yes?”

“I have missed my course,” I say. “I may be with child.”

“Oh, rose! My sweetest rose!”

“It is early days,” I warn him. “But I thought you would want to know at once.”

“Before anything else!” he assures me. “Dearest, as soon as you tell me it is true, I shall have you crowned queen.”

“But Edward will still be your heir?” I query.

“Yes, yes, but it would be such a weight off my mind if I knew that Edward had a brother. A family cannot be safe with only one son: a dynasty needs boys. One small accident and everything is finished; but if you have two boys, you are safe.”

“And I will have a grand coronation,” I specify, thinking of the crown and the jewels and the gown and the feasting and the thousands of people who will come out to cheer me, the new Queen of England.

“You will have the greatest coronation that England has ever seen, for you are the greatest queen,” he promises me. “And as soon as we get back to London I shall declare a day of national celebration for you.”

“Oh?” This sounds rather wonderful, a day to celebrate my existence! Kitty Howard: voilà indeed! “A whole day for me?”

“A day when everyone will go to church and say prayers of thanksgiving that God has given you to me.”

Just church, after all. I give a faint, disappointed smile.

“And the Master of the Revels will prepare a great feast and celebration at court,” he says. “And everyone will give you presents.”

I beam. “That sounds lovely,” I say with satisfaction.

“You are my sweetest rose,” he says. “My rose without a thorn. Come to bed with me now, Katherine.”

“Yes.” I make sure I do not think of my Thomas as I go to the bloated figure in the big bed. I have a wide, happy smile on my face, and I close my eyes so I need not look at him. I cannot avoid the smell of him or the feel of him, but I can make sure that I do not think of him at all while I do what I have to do, and then lie beside him and wait for the little snuffles of satisfaction to turn to wheezy snores as he goes to sleep.