The Secret Keeper: A Novel of Kateryn Parr

EIGHTEEN

Winter: Year of Our Lord 1549

Seymour House, London

Syon House, London

Barbican House, London

Lord Thomas entertained lavishly that winter, well beyond what he’d done whilst the queen was alive, though I was sure that it was her fortune that was paying for the entertainments. One afternoon he held a post-hunting banquet, complete with whole roasted boar, and his guest of honor was Sir William Sharington. After the meal, Sharington came to find me. Though he was long married, he endeavored to hold my attention all evening. He had meat betwixt his teeth and he smelt of spent ale and had not been a familiar during the queen’s lifetime, so I did not know why he was there now. In desperation, I threw a look to Lord Thomas, who came and spoke a word into Sharington’s ear. Lord Thomas was pulled away by the arrival of a messenger and departed for the receiving chamber. Afore he left me Sharington said, leering, “Thomas keeping you for himself before joining with the Lady Elizabeth, eh? Can’t blame him.” I pulled myself away, revolted by both the man and his accusation. He dressed beyond his station but spoke and acted beneath it, and I wondered who he was. As I took my leave and went back to Mary’s rooms I passed by the receiving chamber, where Sir Thomas spoke loudly to the messenger.

“I care not whether my brother commands my presence. He may ask for it or I shall not respond. I am not his to command.” He handed over the document to the messenger and then returned to his guests.

Late that night, Lucy helped Mrs. Marwick bathe Mary whilst I organized the child’s clothes and made a note to order some in larger sizes as she was quickly growing. Then Lucy joined me in my chamber an hour later to assist me as I prepared for bed.

“Do ye know of Sharington?” she asked me.

“No,” I replied. “And that is a most peculiar question, as I was only today wondering when and how he and Lord Thomas came to be such fast friends.”

Lucy shook out my dress. “Gerald was drinkin’ ale wi’ some of the serving men in tha stables today after tha hunt. After they was in their cups one a them let slip that Sharington is making money for Lord Thomas.”

“Making money? Do you mean gathering money?”

She shook her head. “Making it. He’s tha treasurer of some sort of a mint outsida London, and Lord Thomas asked a hi’ to make enough money ta hire soldiers for a revolt. Sharington readily agreed.”

My joints jellied and I sat down in the nearest seat. “Be you sure of this?” I asked. If it were true, he was doomed.

“I be sure it was said,” she answered.

On January 17, Lord Thomas was arrested and sent to the Tower along with Sharington.

As soon as Lord Thomas was arrested, the household panicked like a clattering of jackdaws, which, appropriately, nest in ruins. Lady Tyrwhitt, and her husband, who had stayed on only due to Kate’s presence and for the sake of Lady Jane Grey, were called to present themselves immediately at Hatfield, where the Lady Elizabeth resided. ’Twas an ominous sign. Lady Jane had been returned to her parents, who had been told by Lord Thomas, wrongly, that his mother was present at Seymour Place and managing the household. Most of the rest of the household scattered, though Mary’s stayed intact—for the time being—as they’d been paid through March and I was there to take charge.

We were, however, to take our leave to Syon House, unbelievably as it was the residence of the lord protector, Lord Thomas’s chief persecutor, and his wife, Lady Seymour. She was none too glad to see us; she knew I was close to Kate and of course, so was the babe, and she and Kate had not loved one another at all whilst the queen lived. Lady Seymour made room for us in a lesser wing of her sumptuous estate and left word that she would be back to speak with Mary’s household staff directly. She did not arrive for days, though we were fed and housed.

Soon after, my brother, Hugh, came to see me. I abandoned the game of peek-fingers I’d been playing with the delighted Mary and greeted him in her reception chamber. Lucy stirred the fire for us, greeted Hugh with warmth and affection, and then took her leave.

“Things go badly,” he said. “I remain with Cecil, as you know, and Cecil with the protector, though for how much longer I know not. There is rude murmuring against the lord protector, who continues to alienate friends by his high-handedness. And I have heard of the proceedings against Lord Thomas.”

“And?”

He drank of the goblet of wine and took some meat from the cold platter Lucy had delivered before answering.

“The lord protector and the council have found that, during varied and sundry times, Lord Thomas has sought to subvert their will, and the well-being of the realm, for seditious purposes.”

Sedition! “What has occurred?” I asked.

“He is accused of arranging a marriage with the Lady Elizabeth without the permission of the council. And it is said that she has agreed. She is being interrogated even now, or will be soon.”

“That is all?”

He shook his head. “He has arranged for funds to overthrow the council.”

“Sharington,” I said.

“Yes, Sharington. And the lord protector owes Sharington a tidy sum of money—a debt that will disappear if Sharington is attainted. Even now, Lady Seymour has taken Lady Sharington’s jewelry into her possession and is shamelessly wearing it.”

I could not believe it, and yet I could! “Is that all?” I asked.

He looked at me grimly afore finishing off his goblet. “No. Though that is enough, the worst is yet to be shared. He is accused of endangering the king’s person.”

“Never!” I said.

“But he has,” Hugh told me. “Word filtered back to us that Thomas tried to reach the king, in the night, either to speak with him or to take hold of his person for ransom. But then the king’s spaniel started to bark. His Majesty awoke and shouted, ‘Help! Murder!’ alarming the household, which rushed to his side. When they arrived, they found the king safe—for now—but the dog was shot to death to quiet it.”

My hand flew to my mouth. “And they caught Lord Thomas?”

“No, he’d be a dead man already if they had. But they questioned the king’s household and many of them had been sent on various and sundry errands so they would be dispersed at the time of the offense. Lord Thomas had sent them, and paid for these errands.”

“What a fool, an unthinking fool,” I said, “who makes mischief where there need be none.”

Hugh took my hand. “Juliana, all associated with Sir Thomas scatter. And ’tis for the best, because if, or rather when, he be attainted, he will crush all those who lie close to him as he falls upon them. You must return to Marlborough. I admire your constancy to the queen in continuing on with the babe’s household. But we are so lowborn as not to be noticed if we slip away from this mayhem once and for all. I myself will take my leave of Cecil’s household soon. And Cecil himself”—he lowered his voice—“intends to leave the lord protector’s household for Dudley’s as the council grows displeased with the protector, who may follow his brother in short order, as Scotland is a mess and Boulogne all but lost.”

I could not, would not, tell Hugh why I must stay with Mary till she was safely placed. That was one relationship I was not going to taint. “If this be true—and Thomas a dead man—I suspect that the Seymours or the Herberts will take guardianship of the child, and when she is well settled I shall return to harry you and your Cecily.”

He stood and embraced me. “Do not tarry overlong.”

A week later he sent me a letter, via messenger, saying that he had located Sir Richard Hibbart, recently returned for a time from Scotland, and made his introductions. “Alas,” Hugh wrote, “when I shared with him that you were yet attached to Lord Thomas’s household he declined to pursue further interest. It grieves me to tell you. With deepest love and affections, Hugh.”

I now resigned myself to life with Hugh and his Cecily. I prayed in earnest that night for the Lady Elizabeth, that she would be able to withstand during her interrogations and would face friendly questioners, though I deeply doubted that she would.

Whilst Lord Thomas’s household was being disassembled—which when done in advance of a trial was always ominous—Mary’s household was to be placed with Lady Seymour, Edward’s wife. Lady Seymour had a word for me one day.

“Have you made the household as small as possible?” she asked me. It was unbelievable how high-handed she was. In truth, she was my aunt, and the lord protector my uncle—and both knew it. Yet they had not a vial of compassion or affection between them for me.

I coolly shared with her the number of attendants and maids, the amount set aside for clothing, for plate, for horses and litters, and for all other manner of goods.

“Fine,” she said curtly. “Sadly, there be no way to do with less for the daughter of a queen.”

There was little to do but wait for gossip and reports of Lord Thomas’s fall, so it was with enthusiasm that I looked forward to a visitor—Lady Fitzgerald Browne, who had written to say she was coming to stay for a day or two whilst she tended to her dower estates in London. I was not expecting the woman who accompanied her, though.

Dorothy Skipwith Tyrwhitt.

“Elizabeth.” I embraced her first, as she led. Dorothy hung back, not knowing, I supposed, how I would receive her.

“Lady Tyrwhitt, I am pleasantly surprised to see you as well,” I said, and fully embraced her. Once I did, she smiled back and embraced me with real feeling.

“Lady Tyrwhitt is visiting Hatfield; her husband’s aunt is presently the Lady Elizabeth’s governess.”

I raised my eyebrow and was about to ask after Kat Ashley when Lady Fitzgerald Browne shook her head a little. That would wait for a later time.

“I’m going to rest for a bit,” Elizabeth Fitzgerald Browne said. “And I’ll leave you two to reacquaint yourselves.”

I motioned, awkwardly, toward a richly stuffed chair in the receiving chamber. “Please.” A manservant came and stirred the coals, and Lucy brought a tray of wafers and cheese and some watered mead and then took Dorothy’s wraps from her.

“How do you fare?” I asked her.

“I fare well,” she said. “My daughter grows. And I expect another child, though it does not yet show.”

I kept a pleasant smile on my face and hoped I did not let the hurt bleed through.

“I came to see Kate’s child,” she said. “I hope ’tis meet with you. The queen had been so kind to me.”

I stood up. “Of course.” I motioned for one of the serving girls to come near. “If Lady Mary is not with Mrs. Marwick, could you please have her brought to me?”

The maid dipped and nodded her head and within a few minutes brought Mary to me. The babe wavered unsteadily in the servant’s arms—she was just now able to hold herself erect, and her pretty brown hair was swept into one long curl on the side. She broke into a gummed grin when she saw me and reached both arms out toward me. I stood and grinned back and took her in hand before kissing her cheek. I spun her about a little and then handed her to Dorothy.

Dorothy handled the babe with assurance, as she was an experienced mother. She looked her over and made some quiet trilling noises for a moment and then looked her full on in the face.

“She does look like Kate a bit. But mainly, she looks of Lord Thomas.”

I nodded. “I think that too. Same eyes.” I took the babe from her and as I did I noticed that Dorothy’s eyes went from mine, then to Mary’s, and then back again. Some kind of surprise registered, and before she could make another comparison I handed the babe back to the servant girl after quickly kissing Mary’s pink and fleshy cheek.

I sat down in the chair and took a cup of mead. It had not occurred to me that as the child grew she might look like me, which would give cause for whispers and speculation. “I am sure Kate would be pleased that you came to visit.”

“’Twas not the only reason for my visit,” Dorothy said. “I came, mainly, after I heard from Tristram’s aunt that you were here and attached yet to the household.”

I looked at her queryingly but said nothing.

“John Temple is dead,” she said. “He was run through with a sword in Scotland and died on the field cravenly fleeing the enemy.”

I set my cup down. “Be you certain?”

She nodded. “I heard it from his mother herself.”

I closed my eyes and let relief overflow my spirit. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” saith the Lord. Justice is not the domain of men, John Temple. It is the domain of God.

“I hoped that hearing this would bring you some peace,” she said. “’Tis why I truly came.”

I looked at her, and tears came unbidden, rolling down my face. So much had been taken, so little had been given in return. I had held my back and heart stiff for so long in order to assist Mary as we walked through the evil days that I had allowed myself little emotion. Now some was eagerly spent. “Thank you, Dorothy,” I said with great feeling. “It does bring me peace.”

“I daily repent that I told Tristram of the attack upon you,” she said. “Have you absolved me? Because I have never been able to absolve myself.”

I nodded. “I have absolved you, do not dwell upon this matter any longer. And you were right. I was haughty from time to time. You were right about Sir Thomas in many ways, though I would not hear it. I thought I knew much about all, and in fact, I knew little about much. I hope you’ll absolve me too.”

“’Tis nothing near the same as my sins, but of course.” She reached out and took my hand in hers and we both smiled. I felt, for a moment, that in spite of all that had transpired we were young women again, and great friends. “What came of your Irishman?”

“He left much of the business of his shipping in the hands of his brother and returned to Ireland to marry,” I said.

“I’m sorry.”

“I too.”

We spent the evening talking about old friends, now married, some no longer with us, and of her children, born and not yet born. Before the night came to a close I gave her one of Kate’s necklaces, a thin filigree of gold with a carefully wrought Tudor rose, of which Kate had two, for Dorothy’s daughter. I would save the other for Mary. Kate, ever generous, would have wanted Dorothy’s child to have it.

I found that I wanted her to have it too.

Dorothy left the next day to visit another relative, and whilst Lady Fitzgerald Browne was gone during the day she came back to Syon to spend one more evening with me.

We took our dinner privately, in my chambers, where I inquired as to the Lady Elizabeth’s household.

“And now, what of Kat Ashley?” I asked. “Is it true that she and Parry are in the Tower?”

“Yes,” Lady Fitzgerald Browne answered. “As I heard it, and I heard it from those who were there, shortly after Lord Thomas’s arrest, Lord Denny and William Paulet arrived at Hatfield.” She pointed to her plate of food. “After stuffing themselves like geese with the Lady Elizabeth’s hospitality, they arrested Kat and Mr. Parry and had them sent to the Tower for questioning! Then they faced the Lady Elizabeth. Sir Tyrwhitt eventually became the inquisitor in chief—after first trying to trick her into believing him to be a friend and disclose all.”

“Robert Tyrwhitt? Who was Kate’s master of horses?”

She nodded. “The very same. And Lady Tyrwhitt, his wife, was right sharp with the Lady Elizabeth, implying in all manner that she had carnal knowledge of Lord Thomas and the sooner she admitted to it, the easier it would go for her. Sir Robert, of course, reported all back directly to the lord protector.”

I set down my knife. “Kate would be horrified to hear that they were treating the Lady Elizabeth thusly.”

“Indeed,” Lady Fitzgerald Browne said. “And then they soon sent for me—to come and stay with the household and spy upon her.”

“Why you?” I asked.

“Mayhap because I remain Catholic they think I am no friend to her, or mayhap because of the way her father ill used my family. But they forget that I was long in the Lady Elizabeth’s household afore my marriage to Anthony Browne. I told them, rightfully, that I had never seen her in a compromising position with Lord Thomas, nor with any man.”

I sent up a silent prayer of thanksgiving that it had been Elisabeth Brooke and not Elizabeth Fitzgerald Browne who had witnessed Lord Thomas’s ill-conceived bedside pranks at Seymour House, though the Lady Elizabeth bore no responsibility for them.

“One night I heard her declare to Tyrwhitt that neither she, nor Parry, nor Kat had ever considered any man, not the admiral or anyone else, for marriage, but that it would have been approved firstly by the king’s council. And then she dictated a letter to the lord protector, which her secretary wrote down whilst I was still in the room. In it, she said, ‘Master Tyrwhitt and others have told me that there goeth rumors abroad which are greatly both against mine honor and honesty, which above all other things I esteem … that I am in the Tower and with child by my lord admiral. My lord, these are shameful slanders, for the which, besides the great desire I have to see the king’s majesty, I shall most heartily desire your lordship that I may come to the court after your first determination, that I may show myself there as I am.’”

“And did the lord protector allow her to speak with her brother, the king?”

“Nay, not by any means, and you mark me, he will not allow Thomas to speak with His Majesty, either.”

“Is the Lady Elizabeth safe, then?” I asked. “No matter what comes of Lord Thomas?”

She took a piece of manchet, ate it, and considered. “Yes, I believe so. They searched her rooms and found no trace of the lord admiral. And Kat and Parry say exactly as she does. ‘They sing the same song,’ Tyrwhitt has said, ‘and she sets the note.’ I believe she will come through safely, though just.”

I was fervently glad that I had not left Thomas’s miniature with her, nor his letters.

“But this may not be the last of it,” she said, selecting a sugared plum. “In some respects, I wish I could smuggle the Lady Elizabeth to Ireland, as we did my brother, for safety.”

Especially if, as the Countess of Sussex had predicted, King Edward died in but a few years—according to Sussex, his reign was half-over. The Lady Mary held little affection for the girl she believed to be the daughter of a concubine who had usurped her mother’s place.

A few moments passed in comfortable silence as we ate and drank.

“I wonder,” I began quietly, not looking at her, but still at my plate, “do you know of the Hart family? I thought perhaps you might, as they’re Irish.”

“Of course,” she said. “I don’t see much of Jamie, as he’s oft up north in Sligo, I hear, or at sea. But Oliver and his wife, when they come to England, yes, I’ve seen them a time or two. We keep watch on one another against the English.” She looked at me strangely. “Why do you ask after the Harts?”

“Jamie and I were … friends,” I said. “I wondered how he fared … if he’d married.” I could not stop the blush upon my cheek so I tried to cover it by quickly cutting another piece of meat.

She grinned knowingly. “I do not know, but I could surely ask. ’Twould not be difficult to get a letter to him. Or to his brother.”

I shook my head. “Nay, but thank you.” I leaned back in my chair and quickly changed the topic. “I am relieved for the Lady Elizabeth.”

“I too,” she said. “But I fear that Lord Thomas will not have such an outcome.”

On February 25, 26, and 27 the bill of attainder against Thomas Seymour was read out in the House of Lords. On the third day it passed and was sent to the House of Commons. The bill was strongly objected to there, mainly because Seymour had been denied the right to speak for himself and much of the supposed evidence was hearsay; it was not seemly to attaint him without a trial. It was sent to the king for his consideration and on March 4, someone responded in the king’s name that he did not think it necessary for Seymour to see the king. In the end, they even accused Lord Thomas of hastening Kate’s death.

I wrote to Lady Seymour, on behalf of her granddaughter, Mary, and requested she come to London during this difficult time. I knew a messenger left often from Syon to Wulf Hall and I was surprised she was not already present. She did not respond to me directly, but had her secretary respond that Lady Seymour was too ill to travel and, in any case, had no interest in the present proceedings nor in Lord Thomas’s child. It was ambiguous enough that I knew not whether she referred to me or to Mary. I was indignant for us both.

In March, Lord Thomas was found to be guilty of treason and sentenced to death by beheading. The warrant was signed by all of the king’s councilors, but the first, and largest, name writ on the document was that of his brother, Edward Seymour. Thomas requested that his execution be delayed, that he have some of his own servants attend to him, and that his daughter, Mary, be left in the care of the Duchess of Suffolk.

His last two requests were granted, but not the first. On March 20, my father, Thomas Seymour, died by the harsh bite of the axe. Gerald later told me that it had taken two arcs of the headsman to fully sever his head and that when it rolled away his jaw was clenched shut with distress, a grim and terrible picture I knew I should not ever banish from my thoughts and dreams.

I dismissed all of Mary’s servants that day and kept her to myself. After singing to her, I played quietly with the child and tried to ignore the pressing recollections of the hideous death of Anne Askew, the only execution I’d witnessed, which helped me envision Seymour’s all too well.

I’d had, in my lifetime, two fathers and two mothers, and now I had none. Mary had had one of each and yet she was an orphan afore she had lived one year.

“What shall become of you?” I whispered as she slept, her warm neck tipped back into the crook of my arm. For six months earlier Kate had left all her money to Thomas. And Thomas, as a traitor, had been relieved by the council of every shilling. There was nothing left.