In the Shadow of the Crown - Plaidy Jean (книги хорошем качестве бесплатно без регистрации .txt) 📗

The tangle of his matrimonial affairs would be discussed for many a year, and I suspected there would always be different opinions. He was aware of this, and it irritated him… just as did the conflict in his realm which had in so many ways resulted from his involvement with his wives.

My father was infuriated by rebellion. He wanted his people to love him and when they showed signs of not doing so, he was more hurt than alarmed.

The John Neville rebellion had enraged him. He uttered threats against Reginald Pole—that devilish mischief-maker, as he called him—roaming the Continent stirring up trouble. He gnashed his teeth because he could not lay his hands on him and do to him what he had done to other members of his family.

He decided to go to Yorkshire to settle matters for himself. The Council he left in London to take care of affairs was well chosen—Cranmer, Audley and one of Jane Seymour's brothers—all men who accepted the King's supremacy in the Church and enemies of Rome.

Seymour had gained a good deal of power; not only was he the brother of the King's late wife—the only one not to be discarded—but also the uncle of Edward, the future King. I think the Howards were casting suspicious eyes on the Seymours, as undoubtedly the Seymours were on the Howards. The Howards were at the moment in the ascendancy, having just provided the delectable Catharine for the King's pleasure.

Chapuys had said we must be watchful of the growing power of the Seymours and the Howards.

Everywhere on his travels the King was received with acclaim. How much of it was genuine, I did not know. The people had seen so many dead men hanging in chains; they had caught a whiff of the smell of burning flesh. They would be careful how they acted toward this powerful monarch.

Meanwhile my father became more and more enamored of his Queen. He was an uxorious, adoring husband; she soothed him and pleased him in every way. If only his people would stop being contentious, he remarked, he could be a very contented man.

It is strange how one does not recognize important events when they occur. The Court was at Pontefract Castle when Catharine admitted a new secretary into her household. This was a goodlooking young man of rather dashing appearance. His name was Francis Dereham.

Poor Catharine! She would have been quite unaware of the storms which were blowing up around her. She would know nothing of the intrigues which were commonplace in the life of the Court. She was the adored Queen of an ageing King; she would not have believed that any harm could come to her.

She did not know that there were men watching the King's besotted attitude toward her; she did not know that the Catholic Howards were rubbing their hands with glee; she did not guess that the ambitious Protestant Seymour brothers were furiously noticing the King's devotion to the Howard Queen. The Seymours had risen from obscurity because their sister had married the King; now it was the turn of the Norfolk Howards.

It could not go on.

By the time the Court returned to Windsor, the plot was in progress. From Windsor the Court went to Hampton Court, and it was there that the storm broke.

I joined my brother's household at Sion, where Elizabeth was also. It was ironic but the day we arrived—it was the 30th of October, I remember—the King and Queen went to church to receive the sacrament, and my father made a declaration in the church. There were many to hear it, and it expressed his utter contentment with the Queen.

“I render, O Lord, thanks to Thee,” he announced in ringing tones at the altar, “that after so many strange accidents that have befallen my marriages, Thou has been pleased to give me a wife so entirely conformed to my inclination as her that I have now.”

How many wives had received such public acclamation of their virtues? She stood beside him, smiling with pleasure, acting in just the way he wished her to. He was a man of some intellect, a man of foresight, and of all the clever women who surrounded him it was this nonentity who pleased him!

Of course, he had always been one to deceive himself. Therein lay his weakness. He had a conscience but that conscience worked according to his will, so he was completely in control of it. He saw everything in the light of what good it could bring to Henry Tudor. And this little girl who said “Yes, my lord,” “Yes, my lord,” all the time, who titillated his ageing senses and aroused in him the desire of a young man pleased him because he drew on her dazzling youth and felt young again.

How deeply he must have felt about her for, having made that public declaration at the altar, he asked the Bishop of Lincoln to prepare a public ceremony. It would be a thanksgiving to Almighty God for having at last blessed him with a loving, dutiful and virtuous wife.

Fate is ironic. It was the very next day when the blow was delivered.

Susan told me about it.

“The King was in the chapel, my lady. The Queen was not with him. It may be that that was why Cranmer chose that moment. He handed a paper to the King and begged him to read it when he was alone.”

“Why? What was in this paper?”

“They say that it is accusing the Queen of lewd behavior before her marriage.”

I was astounded, yet I suddenly realized what it was about her that I had noticed. It was wrapped up in the fascination she had for the King. Of course, she was pretty—but so were others; there was something more than that about Mistress Catharine Howard. She was lusty, and lustiness such as she had, accompanied by fresh, youthful, dainty prettiness was irresistible. Before anything was proved, I guessed the accusations against her were true.

“What do they say?” I asked.

“That she had lovers.”

“They will never prove it. The King won't believe it.”

“The King, they say, is very unhappy.”

“Then if he does not want to believe it, he will not.”

“It may not be as easy as that. There are strong men surrounding him… determined men.”

“So you think it is a matter of politics?”

“Is that not generally the case?”

I had to agree.

We waited for news. These cunning men had collected evidence against her. They could produce her lovers; they had an account of what her life had been like in the household of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. There were young people… all sleeping together in one large room, living intimately. The Dowager Duchess herself was too old or too lazy to care what was happening to her wayward granddaughter. A girl like Catharine Howard, brought up in such a household, could hardly be expected to emerge as an innocent maiden.

I had not liked her and I had thought my father had demeaned himself by doting on her so blatantly. Perhaps I was angry because he had treated my own mother so shamefully, humiliating a great princess of Spain and becoming so foolishly enslaved by this ill-bred little girl. But when I heard the state the poor child was in and how she had taken the news, I felt an overwhelming pity for her.

She had almost gone into a frenzy. She had seen the axe hanging over her head. It was what all my father's wives must have felt when they offended him. The ghost of Anne Boleyn would haunt them all as long as they lived.

And this one was really only a child, in spite of her knowledge of the needs of men. She would not know how to defend herself. She would only think of what had happened to her own beautiful, clever cousin who had found herself in a position similar to that which now confronted her. The difference might be that Anne Boleyn had been innocent; but was Catharine Howard? On the other hand, the King had wished to be rid of Anne that he might marry Jane Seymour. He certainly did not wish to be rid of Catharine Howard.

The shadow of the axe would hang over every bride of my father's from the day of her wedding. Catharine must have felt secure in his love—so petted, so pampered, she was the pretty little thing who knew so well how to please. Had it never occurred to him that she might have learned her tricks through practice?