The Boleyn Inheritance Read online

  She could go to France; she would be a delight to that court, who would find her vanity and her prettiness a pleasure to watch. Or perhaps she could be persuaded to live in the country as I do, and call herself another sister to the king. She might even come to live with me, and we could be friends as we used to be in the old days when I was the queen he did not want, and she was the maid he did. She could be sent away to a thousand different places where she could do the king no harm and where her folly might make people laugh, and where she might grow into a sensible woman. Surely, everyone agrees that she cannot be executed. She is simply too young to be executed. This is not an Anne Boleyn, who schemed and contrived her way to the throne over six years of striving, and was then thrown down by her own ambition. This is a girl with no more judgment than one of her kittens. Nobody could be so harsh as to send a child like this to the block. Thank God, the king is sad and not angry. Please God, the parliament will advise him that the marriage can be annulled, and pray heaven that Archbishop Cranmer is satisfied with the disgrace of the queen on the basis of her childhood amours, and does not start to investigate her follies since her marriage.

  I don’t know what goes on at court these days, but I saw her at Christmas and the New Year, and I thought then that she was ready for a lover, and hoping for love. And how could she stop herself? She is a girl coming into womanhood with a man old enough to be her father as her husband, a sickly man, an impotent man, perhaps even a madman. Even a sensible young woman in those circumstances would turn for friendship and comfort to one of the young men who gather round her. And Katherine is a flirt.

  Dr. Harst comes riding out from London to see me, and the moment that he arrives, he sends my ladies away so that we can talk alone. I know from this that it is grave news from the court.

  “What news of the queen?” I ask him as soon as they have gone from the room and we are seated, side by side, like conspirators before the fire.

  “She is still being questioned,” he says. “If there is any more to be had, they will get it out of her. She is kept close in her apartments at Syon; she is allowed to see no one. She is not even allowed out to walk in the garden. Her uncle has abandoned her, and she has no friends. Four of her ladies are locked up with her; they would leave if they could. Her closest friends are under arrest and being questioned in the Tower. They say she cries all the time and begs them to forgive her. She is too distressed to eat or sleep. She is said to be starving herself to death.”

  “God help her, poor little Kitty,” I say. “God help her. But surely they have evidence for the annulment of her marriage to the king? He has enough to divorce her and let her go?”

  “No, now they are seeking evidence for worse,” he says shortly.

  We are both silent. We both know what he means by that, and we both fear that there may be worse to discover.

  “I have come to see you for something even more grave than this,” he says.

  “Good God, what worse could there be?”

  “I hear that the king is thinking of taking you back as his wife.”

  For a moment I am so stunned that I cannot say anything, then I grip the carved arms of my chair and watch my fingertips go white. “You cannot mean this.”

  “I do. King Francis of France is keen that the two of you shall remarry and that your brother and the king join with him in a war against Spain.”

  “The king wants another alliance with my brother?”

  “Against Spain.”

  “They can do that without me! They can make an alliance without me!”

  “The King of France and your brother want you restored, and the king wants to rid himself of the memory of Katherine. It is to be just as it was. It is to be as if she never existed. As if you have just arrived in England, and everything can go as planned.”

  “He is Henry of England, but not even he can turn back the clock!” I cry out, and I push myself up from my chair and stride across the room. “I won’t do it. I daren’t do it. He will have me killed within a year. He is a wife killer. He takes a woman and destroys her. It has become his habit. This will be my death!”

  “If he were to deal with you honorably-”

  “Dr. Harst, I have escaped him once; I am the only wife of his to come out from the marriage alive! I can’t go back to put my head on the block.”

  “I am advised that he would offer you guarantees-”

  “This is Henry of England!” I round on the ambassador. “This is a man who has been the death of three wives and is now building the scaffold for a fourth! There are no guarantees. He is a murderer. If you put me in his bed, I am a dead woman.”

  “He will divorce Queen Katherine, I am certain of it. He has laid it before parliament. They know that she was no virgin when she married him. The news of her scandalous behavior has been released to the ambassadors at the European courts for them to announce. She is publicly named as a whore. He will put her aside. He will not kill her.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “There is no reason for him to kill her,” he says gently. “You are overwrought; you are not thinking clearly. She married him under false pretenses; that is a sin, and she is wrong. He has announced that. But since they were not married, she has not cuckolded him; he has no reason to do anything other than let her go.”

  “Then why is he seeking more evidence against her?” I ask. “Since he has enough against her to name her as a whore, since he has enough against her to bring her into shame and divorce her? Why does he need more evidence?”

  “To punish the men,” he replies.

  Our eyes meet; neither of us knows what we dare to believe.

  “I fear him,” I say miserably.

  “And so you should; he is a fearsome king. But he divorced you, and he kept his word to you. He made a fair settlement on you, and he has kept you in peace and prosperity. Perhaps he will divorce her and make a settlement on her; perhaps this is his way now. Then he may want to marry you again.”

  “I cannot,” I say quietly. “Believe me, Dr. Harst, even if you are right and he treats Katherine with forgiveness, even with generosity, I would not dare to marry him. I cannot bear to be married to him again. I still thank God on my knees every morning for my good fortune in escaping last time. When the councillors ask you, or my brother asks you, or the French ambassador asks you, then you must tell them that I am settled to the single state – I believe myself to be precontracted as the king himself said. Just as he said: I am not free to marry. Persuade them that it cannot be done. I swear I cannot do it. I will not put my head back on the block and wait to hear the whistle of the falling axe.”

  Katherine, Syon Abbey,

  November 1541

  Now, let me see, what do I have now?

  I have to say, I’m not doing very well at all.

  I have six French hoods edged with gold. I have six pairs of sleeves, six plain kirtles, six gowns; they are in navy blue, black, dark green, and gray. I have no jewels, I have no toys. I don’t even have my kitten. Everything that the king gave me has been taken from my rooms by Sir Thomas Seymour – a Seymour! taking a Howard’s goods! Think how we shall resent that! – to be returned to the king. So, as it turns out, all the things I counted before were never really mine. They were loans and not gifts at all.

  I have three rooms with very poor tapestries. My servants live in one, and I live in the other two with my half sister Isabel, Lady Baynton, and two other ladies. None of them speaks to me for resentment at the position they find themselves in through my wickedness, except Isabel, who has been told to bring me to a sense of my sin. I have to say that this makes for very poor company in a confined space. My confessor is ready for my call should I be such a fool as to wish to hang myself by confessing to him what I have denied to everyone else, and twice a day Isabel scolds me as if I were her servant. I have some books of prayers and the Bible. I have some sewing to do, shirts for the poor; but surely they must have enough shirts by now? I have no page boys
, or courtiers, or jesters, or musicians, or singers. Even my little dogs have been taken away, and I know they will pine for me.

  My friends are all gone. My uncle has disappeared like the mist in the morning, and they tell me that most of my household – Lady Rochford and Francis Dereham, Katherine Tylney and Joan Bulmer, Margaret Morton and Agnes Restwold – are in the Tower being questioned about me.

  But even worse than all of this, I heard today that they have taken Thomas Culpepper to the Tower also. My poor, beautiful Thomas! The thought of his being arrested by some ugly man at arms is a horror, but the thought of my Thomas being questioned makes me fall to my knees and lay my face against the rough cloth of my bed and weep. If only we had run away when we first knew that we were in love. If only he had come for me before I even went to court, when I was still a girl at Lambeth. If only I had told him that I was his, only his, when I first came to court, before all of this went wrong.

  “Do you want your confessor?” Lady Baynton says coldly as she finds me weeping. They will have told her to say this; they are eager for me to break down and tell everything.

  “No,” I say quickly. “I have nothing to confess.”

  And what is so horrid is that these rooms are Lady Margaret Douglas’s rooms, where she was kept on her own in silence for the crime of falling in love. Fancy that! She was here, just like me, wandering from one room to the other and back again, under arrest for loving a man, not knowing what the charge could be, nor what the sentence could be, nor when the blow would fall. She was here all on her own, in disgrace for thirteen months, hoping that the king would forgive her, wondering what was going to happen. She was taken away just a few days ago to make room for me – I can’t believe it! – they took her to Kenninghall, where she will be imprisoned again until the king forgives her, if he ever forgives her.

  I think of her, a young woman only a little older than me, locked up and alone just like me, imprisoned for the crime of loving a man who loved her back, and I wish now that I had gone down on my knees to the king and begged him to be kind to her. But how was I to know that one day I should be in just the same state? In the very same rooms? Suspected of being a young woman in love, just as she is? I wish I had told him that she is only young and perhaps silly and she should be guided – not arrested and punished. But I didn’t speak up for her, nor did I speak for poor Margaret Pole, nor for all the men and women at Smithfield. I didn’t speak up for the men of the North who rose up against him. I didn’t say a word for Thomas Cromwell, but I got married on the day he died without even a moment of pity. I didn’t speak up for the king’s daughter Princess Mary, but worse: I complained of her. I didn’t even speak up for my own mistress and queen, Anne, whom I loved. I promised her my loyalty and friendship, and yet when they asked me, I signed a paper against her without bothering to read it. And now there is nobody who will go down on their knees and ask for mercy for me.

  Of course, I don’t know what is going on. If they have arrested Henry Manox along with Francis Dereham, then he will tell them whatever they want to hear. We did not part on good terms, and he has no love for Francis. He will tell them that he and I were all but lovers, and then he is certain to tell them that I dropped him and went on to Francis Dereham. My name will be quite sullied, and my grandmother will be furious.

  I suppose they will ask the Lambeth girls all about me. Agnes Restwold and Joan Bulmer are no great friends of mine in their hearts. They liked me well enough when I was queen with favors to give, but they won’t defend me or lie for me. And if they dig up half a dozen of the others from whatever little lives they are living, they will say anything for a trip to London. If they ask Joan Bulmer anything about Francis, she will tell them everything, I don’t doubt. Every single one of the girls at Norfolk House knows that Francis called me wife, and I answered to it. That he bedded me as if we were husband and wife, and I didn’t know – to be honest – whether we were married or not. I never really thought about it. Katherine Tylney will tell them all about Lambeth, quick enough; I just hope that they don’t ask her about Lincoln, or Pontefract, or Hull. If she starts telling them about the nights I was missing from my room, then that will lead them to Thomas. Oh, God, if only I had never laid eyes on him. He would be safe now, and so would I.

  If they talk to Margaret Morton, she will tell them that I had words with her when she tried the door of my bedroom and found it locked. I had Thomas, darling Thomas, in bed with me, and I had to fly across the room and shout at her to show more respect, with the door half closed to keep him hidden. She laughed in my face; she knew that someone was inside. Oh, God, if only I had not quarreled with them all so often. If I had kept them sweet with bribes and dresses, then perhaps now they would be lying for me.

  And, now I think of it, Margaret was outside in the presence chamber when Thomas was with me in my privy chamber, one day at Hampton Court. We spent the whole afternoon by the fire, kissing and touching, laughing at the courtiers just outside the door. I was excited by our daring then; now I pinch my own palms till my skin is red and swollen at the thought of what a fool I was. But even now, I can’t regret it. Even if I were to die for that afternoon, I would not regret having had his mouth on mine and his touch on me. Thank God we had that time, at least. I won’t wish it away.

  They will bring me another tray of food in a moment. I shan’t touch it. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t do anything but walk around these two rooms and think that Lady Margaret Douglas walked here too, missing the man she loved. She didn’t have half her friends telling the world about her. She didn’t have every enemy of the Howards turning the king against her. She is the most unfortunate woman I know, and she is lucky compared to me.

  I know Lady Rochford will stay my friend; I know she will. She knows what Thomas is to me, and I to him. She will keep her head. She’s been in danger before, and she knows how to answer questions. She is an older woman, a person of experience. Before we parted she said to me, “Deny everything,” and I shall. She knows what should be done. I know she will keep herself safe, and me with her.

  She knows everything, of course; that’s the worst of it. She knows when I fell in love with Thomas, and she managed all the secret meetings and the letters and the times we could steal together. She hid him for me behind wall hangings, and once in the shadows on the stairs at York. She smuggled me to him down winding corridors in strange houses. He had a room of his own at Pontefract, and we met there after hunting one afternoon. She told me where we might meet, and one night when the king himself tried the outer door, thinking he would come to my bed, she kept her nerve and called out that I was ill and was asleep and sent him away. She did that! She sent the King of England away, and her voice did not quaver for one second. She has such courage; she will not be crying and confessing. I daresay even if they rack her she will just look at them with her cold face and say nothing. I am not afraid of her betraying me. I can trust her to deny everything they ask. I know I can trust her to defend me.

  Except… except I keep wondering now that she could not save her husband when he was accused. She never likes to talk about him, and that makes me wonder, too. I always thought it was because she was so very sad about him, but now I wonder if it was something worse than that. Catherine Carey was certain that she had not given evidence for them but against them. How could that be? And she said that she had saved their inheritance, and not them. Yet how could they die and she get off scot-free if she had not made some kind of agreement with the king? And if she betrayed one queen – and that her own sister-in-law – and condemned her own husband, why should she save me?

  Oh, I get these fearful thoughts because of the situation I am in, which is not an easy one. I know that. Poor Margaret Douglas must have gone half mad walking from one room to another and not knowing what would become of her. Fancy spending a year here, walking from one room to another and not knowing if you will ever be released. I can’t bear the waiting, and at least, unlike her, I am sure to be r
eleased soon. I am sure everything will come out right, but I do worry about things, about everything really. And one of the things I worry about is how come Anne Boleyn was killed, and George Boleyn was killed, and Jane his wife just walked away? And how come nobody ever said anything about it? And how come she could save his inheritance, but her evidence couldn’t save him?

  Now I must stop this, for I start to think that she might give evidence for me, and it might take me to the same place as Anne Boleyn. That is ridiculous, for Lady Anne was an adulteress and a witch and guilty of treason. And all I have done is go a bit too far with Henry Manox and Francis Dereham when I was a girl. And since then, nobody knows what I have done, and I will deny everything.

  Dear God, if they take Thomas for questioning, I know he will lie to protect me, but if they rack him…

  This is no good. The thought of Thomas on the rack makes me howl out like a baited bear as it goes down before the dogs. Thomas in pain! Thomas crying out as I am crying out! But I won’t think of it. It cannot happen. He is the king’s beloved boy; the king calls him that: the beloved boy. The king would never hurt Thomas, and he would never hurt me. He has no reason to suspect him. And I daresay, if he did know that Thomas loves me and I him, he would understand. If you love someone, you understand how they feel. He might even laugh and say that after my marriage to him is ended we can be married. He may give us his blessing. He does forgive people, especially his favorites. It’s not as if I were Margaret Douglas and married without his permission. It’s not as if I defied him. I would never do that.