Jean Plaidy - Murder Most Royal - The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

These people were the hope of those Catholics who longed for reunion with Rome, and Henry was watching his people closely to see what effect their arrest was having. He had had enough of troubles within his own domains, and with trouble threatening from outside he must tread very cautiously. At this time, he selected as his victim a scholar named Lambert whom he accused of leaning too far towards Lutheranism. The young man was said to have denied the body of God to be in the sacrament in corporal substance but only to be there spiritually. Lambert was tried and burned alive. This was merely Henry’s answer to the Catholics; he was telling them that he favored neither extreme sect. Montague and Exeter went to the block as traitors, not as Catholics. Catholic or Lutheran, it mattered not. No favoritism. No swaying from one sect to another. He only asked allegiance to the King.

Francis thought this would be a good moment to undermine English commerce which, while he and Charles had been wasting their people’s energy in war, Henry had been able to extend. Henry shrewdly saw what was about to happen and again acted quickly. He promised the Flemish merchants that for seven years Flemish goods should pay no more duty than those of the English. The merchants—a thrifty people—were overjoyed, seeing years of prosperous trading stretching before them. If their Emperor would make war on England he could hardly hope for much support from a nation benefiting from good trade with that country on whom Charles wished them to make war.

This was a good move, but Henry’s fears flared up afresh when the Emperor, visiting his domains, decided to travel through France to Germany, instead of going by sea or through Italy and Austria as was his custom. This seemed to Henry a gesture of great friendship. What plans would the two old enemies formulate when they met in France? Would England be involved in those plans?

Cromwell, to whose great interest it was to turn England from the Catholics and so make more secure his own position, seized this chance of urging on Henry the selection of a wife from one of the German Protestant houses. Cromwell outlined his plan. For years the old Duke of Cleves had wanted an alliance with England. His son had a claim to the Duchy of Guelders, which Duchy was in relation to the Emperor Charles very much what Scotland was to Henry, ever ready to be a cause of trouble. A marriage between England and the house of Cleves would therefore seriously threaten the Emperor’s hold on his Dutch dominions.

Unfortunately, Anne, sister of the young Duke, had already been promised to the Duke of Lorraine, but it was not difficult to waive this. Holbein was dispatched; he made a pretty picture of Anne, and Henry was pleasurably excited and the plans for the marriage went forward.

Henry was impatient. Anne! Her very name enchanted him. He pictured her, gentle and submissive and very very loving. She would have full awareness of her duty; she was no daughter of a humble knight; she had been bred that she might make a good marriage; she would know what was expected of her. He could scarcely wait for her arrival. At last he would find matrimonial happiness, and at the same time confound Charles and Francis.

“Anne!” he mused, and eagerly counted the days until her arrival.

Jane Acworth was preparing to leave.

“How I shall miss you!” sighed Catherine.

Jane smiled at her slyly. “It is not I whom you will miss but your secretary!”

“Poor Derham!” said Catherine. “I fear he will be most unhappy. For I declare it is indeed a mighty task for me to put pen to paper.”

Jane shrugged her shoulders; her thoughts were all for the new home she was to go to and Mr. Bulmer whom she was to marry.

“You will think of me often, Jane?” asked Catherine.

Jane laughed. “I shall think of your receiving your letters. He writes a pretty letter and I dare swear seems to love you truly.”

“Ah! That he does. Dear Francis! How faithful he had always been to me.”

“You will marry him one day?”

“We are married, Jane. You know it well. How else...”

“How else should you have lived the life you did together! Well, I have heard it whispered that you were very lavish with your favors where a certain Manox was concerned.”

“Oh, speak not of him! That is past and done with. My love for Francis goes on forever. I was foolish over Manox, but I regret nothing I have done with Francis, nor ever shall.”

“How lonely you will be without me!”

“Indeed, you speak truthfully.”

“And how different this life from that other! Why, scarce anything happens now, but sending letters to Derham and receiving his. What excitement we used to have!”

“You had better not speak of that to Mr. Bulmer!” warned Catherine; and they laughed.

It was well to laugh, and she was in truth very saddened by Jane’s departure; the receiving and dispatching of letters had provided a good deal of excitement in a dull existence.

With Jane’s going the days seemed long and monotonous. A letter came from Francis; she read it, tucked it into her bodice and was aware of it all day; but she could not read it very easily and it was not the same without Jane, for she, as well as being happy with a pen, was also a good reader. She must reply to Derham, but as the task lacked appeal, she put it off.

The Duchess talked to her of court matters.

“If the King would but take him a wife! I declare it is two years since Queen Jane died, and still no wife! I tell you, Catherine, that if this much-talked-of marriage with the Duchess of Cleves materializes, I shall look to a place at court for you.”

“How I wish I could go to court!” cried Catherine.

“You will have to mind your manners. Though I will say they have improved since...since...” The Duchess’s brows were dark with memory. “You would not do so badly now at court, I trow. We must see. We must see.”

Catherine pictured herself at court.

“I should need many new clothes.”

“Dost think Lord William would allow you to go to court in rags! Why even His Grace the Duke would not have that! Ha! I hear he is most angry at this proposed marriage. Master Cromwell has indeed put my noble stepson’s nose out of joint. Well, all this is not good for the Howards, and it is a mistake for a house to war within its walls. And so...it may not be so easy to find you a place at court. And I know that the King does not like the strife between my stepson and his wife. It is not meet that a Duke of noble house should feel so strongly for a washer in his wife’s nurseries that he will flaunt the slut in the face of his lady Duchess. The King was ever a moral man, as you must always remember. Ah! Pat my back, child, lest I choke. Where was I? Oh, yes, the Howards are not in favor while Master Cromwell is, and this Cleves marriage is Cromwell-made. Therefore, Catherine, it may not be easy to find you a place at court, for though I dislike my lord Duke with all my heart, he is my stepson, and if he is out of favor at court, depend upon it, we shall be too.”

On another occasion the Duchess sent for Catherine. Her old eyes, bright as a bird’s, peered out through her wrinkles.

“Get my cloak, child. I would walk in the gardens and have you accompany me.”

Catherine obeyed, and they stepped out of the house and strolled slowly through the orchards where Catherine had lain so many times with Derham. She had ever felt sad when she was in the orchards being unable to forget Derham, but now she scarcely thought of him, for she knew by the Duchess’s demeanor that she had news for her, and she was hoping it was news of a place at court.

“You are an attractive child,” wheezed the Duchess. “I declare you have a look of your poor tragic cousin. Oh...it is not obvious. Her hair was black and so were her eyes, and her face was pointed and unforgettable. You are auburn-haired and hazel-eyed and plump-faced. Oh, no, it is not in your face. In your sudden laughter? In your quick movements? She had an air of loving life, and so have you. There was a little bit of Howard in Anne that looked out from her eyes; there is a good deal of Howard in you; and there is the resemblance.”