In the Shadow of the Crown - Plaidy Jean (книги хорошем качестве бесплатно без регистрации .txt) 📗
This much she did remember. He became thoughtful. He said that they were well matched. He was no longer young; he was looking for peace, and she brought him that. He had been deceived by those he had loved; his marriages had failed when all he had sought was a loving and happy family. All he had wanted from a wife was fidelity, love… and obedience.
It was the last word which was significant. It was where Katharine had failed.
At this stage her hysteria was fading. Death was receding. There is an urge in all of us to cling to life, and Katharine must have realized that here was a chance to save hers. She had to forget that bold signature on the mandate. She must remember how quickly his moods changed.
He then raised a theological point concerning the scriptures. She believed that more should be translated into English so that many people could understand them. He wanted her to tell him if there was still disagreement with him. Here was the crux of the matter. He was swaying toward her, giving her a chance to save herself in a way which would be easy for him.
“Your Majesty,” she said, “it is not for a woman to have an opinion. Such matters should be passed to the wisdom of her husband.”
I could imagine his little eyes watching her shrewdly. He would know of the state to which she had been reduced. He would want to make absolutely sure that this was a mood of true repentance and not merely a desperate, frightened woman fighting for her life.
He replied, “Not so, by Mary. You are become a doctor, Kate, to instruct as we take it, not to be instructed by us.”
She assured him that he had mistaken her intentions. She had taken a different view now and then only to amuse him, to divert him, to take his mind from the terrible pain he suffered. She had believed he found their talk entertaining, and she had sometimes taken a view opposed to his own, for if she had not, there would have been nothing to discuss. That had been her sole intention—to divert, to amuse, to entertain. Moreover, she wanted to profit from his learned discourse. She wanted to hear him express his views with more vehemence than he would, perhaps, if she agreed with him.
The words were widely chosen. He was placated. After all, he had intended to be. He needed her. She was the best possible nurse, and there was no one who could replace her.
He had said, “Is that so, sweetheart? Then we are the best of friends.”
The battle for her life was over. But she must have asked herself: For how long?
THE SEQUEL WAS AMUSING. She had returned to his apartments with him, removed the clumsily applied bandages in her skilful way, dressed his leg and talked to him.
The next morning they were in the garden together, and it was there that Sir Thomas Wriothesley came with his guards to arrest her.
There were several to witness this scene, so I had an accurate report of what happened.
“What means this?” demanded the King.
Wriothesley replied that he came with forty halberdiers on the King's orders. “We have come to take the Queen to the Tower, Your Majesty. My barge is at the privy steps.”
One would have thought my father would have felt some embarrassment. He may have done but he let it erupt in anger against Wriothesley.
“Make sure it is not you who are sent to the Tower,” he growled.
“Your Grace…Your Majesty …” stammered Wriothesley. “The mandate…Your Majesty has forgotten… the Queen was to be arrested at this hour…”
“The Queen is where she belongs… with the King!” shouted my father.
“The order was to arrest her wherever she might be, Your Majesty.”
My father lifted his stick and would have struck Wriothesley if the man had not quickly dodged out of the way.
“Get you gone!” he shouted.
Katharine must have been in a state of terror. The King's mood might have changed. He might have remembered the order and decided to carry it out after all. She had only to say one thing of which he did not approve and which might have sounded to him like arrogance, making a doctor of herself to instruct him…
The King turned to Katharine.
“The knave,” he grumbled.
“Methinks he believed he was obeying Your Majesty's orders.”
“Don't defend him, Kate. Poor soul, you do not know how little he deserves grace at your hands.”
So for this time she was saved. She had seen death very close, and now there was a reprieve. But still there must be the eternal question: For how long?
IT SEEMED CLEAR to everyone except the King that his end could not be far off. His legs were now in such a state of decay that they could scarcely support him. He needed constant attention, and the Queen was essential to his comfort. We did not say it, but it was in everyone's mind that she was the luckiest woman on Earth, for it seemed possible that she was going to outlive him. He was beyond sexual desire now—another point in her favor.
Yes, said the Court—and, I have no doubt, the country—Katharine Parr is a very fortunate woman.
He was irritable in the extreme and his anger could boil up in an instant, so it was still very necessary to take care. As for Katharine she looked blooming, younger than she had for some time; she could see the end in sight.
Intrigue was rife. There would be a young King, and he was already in the hands of his Seymour uncles, who were supporters of the Reformed Faith. This was not at all to the liking of the Howards, who must have cursed fate which gave the heir to the Seymours and not the Howards, who had had two chances, one with Anne Boleyn and one with Catharine Howard.
The more feeble the King grew, the greater was the arrogance of the Seymours. Young Edward doted on them, and in particular on the younger uncle, Thomas; and everyone knew that the Seymour brothers were the two most ambitious men in the country.
The Duke of Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey, stood on one side, and the Seymours on the other. I watched with interest. They were like carrion crows, fighting over the carcass before it was dead, while the King, who had always hated even to talk of death, went on pretending to himself that he had years before him.
It was certainly an anxious time. Edward would be King, and he was not ten years old. No wonder the uncles were rubbing their hands with glee. The government of the country—by grace of their sister Jane—would be in their hands.
Surrey was one of the most reckless men I have ever known. He was extremely handsome, proud, arrogant, a poet of some ability, a scion of a family which considered itself the highest in the land—so great, he implied, that the Tudors were upstarts in comparison.
On the other hand there were the Seymours, and Edward Seymour was, without doubt, one of the cleverest men at Court. I could not say the same for Thomas. Like Surrey, he was exceptionally attractive—and well aware of it. He had charmed Edward and, I fancy, little Jane Grey and even Elizabeth. He was very ambitious but a little lacking in wisdom, I always thought.
The younger Seymour was often in my thoughts, because I knew that the Queen was in love with him. Poor lady, had the King's eyes not alighted on her, she might have been Thomas Seymour's wife by now. I fancied I had seen his eyes on Elizabeth. I could not believe that he fancied her as a possible wife for himself. She was, after all, the daughter of the King, and she would be Protestant or Catholic, whichever the people desired. Seymour would recognize her qualities, and her position could be considered promising.
Uneasy days they were, with all eyes on the King. Serious-minded people willed him to live until his son was just a little older. It was not good for a country to be left with a minor for a king and a divided people.
Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, with John Dudley, Lord Lisle, and Cranmer were preparing to rule through the new King. They—with the help of the Queen—had managed to instill in him a fondness for the New Learning. On the other hand there was Norfolk, with Surrey, and the Catholic supporters such as Gardiner and Wriothesley who might even attempt to return to papal authority.
