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

Meanwhile Henry was flying into such rages that all who must come into contact with him went in fear for their lives. Was there a previous contract? He was sure there was! Should he endanger the safety of England by producing another bastard? His conscience, his most scrupulous conscience, would not allow him to put his head into a halter until he was sure.

It was Cromwell who must make him act reasonably, Cromwell who would get a cuff for his pains.

“Your Most Gracious Majesty, the Emperor is being feted in Paris. An you marry not this woman you throw the Duke of Cleves into an alliance with Charles and Francis. We should stand alone.”

Cromwell was eloquent and convincing; after all he was pleading for Cromwell. If this marriage failed, Cromwell failed, and he knew his head to be resting very lightly on his shoulders, and that the King would be delighted to find a reason for striking it off. But Henry knew that in this matter, Cromwell spoke wisely. If Henry feared civil war more than anything, then next he feared friendship between Charles and Francis, and this was what had been accomplished. He dared not refuse to marry Anne of Cleves.

“If I had known so much before, she should not have come hither!” he said, looking menacingly at Cromwell, as though the meetings between Charles and Francis had been arranged by him. Henry’s voice broke on a tearful note. “But what remedy now! What remedy but to put my head in the yoke and marry this...” His cheeks puffed with anger and his eyes were murderous. “What remedy but to marry this great Flanders mare!”

There followed the ceremony of marriage with its gorgeously appareled men and women, its gilded barges and banners and streamers. Henry in a gown of cloth of gold raised with great silver flowers, with his coat of crimson satin decorated with great flashing diamonds, was a sullen bridegroom. Cromwell was terrified, for he knew not how this would end, and he had in his mind such examples of men who had displeased the King as would make a braver man than he was tremble. The Henry of ten years ago would never have entered into this marriage; but this Henry was more careful of his throne. He spoke truthfully when he had said a few hours before the ceremony that if it were not for the sake of his realm he would never have done this thing.

Cromwell did not give up hope. He knew the King well; it might be that any wife was better than no wife at all; and there were less pleasant looking females than Anne of Cleves. She was docile enough and the King liked docility in women; the last Queen had been married for that very quality.

The morning after the wedding day he sought audience with the King; he looked in vain for that expression of satiety in the King’s coarse red face.

“Well?” roared Henry, and Cromwell noticed with fresh terror that his master liked him no better this day than he had done on the previous one.

“Your Most Gracious Majesty,” murmured the trembling Cromwell, “I would know if you are any more pleased with your Queen.”

“Nay, my lord!” said the King viciously, and glared at Cromwell, laying the blame for this catastrophe entirely upon him. “Much worse! For by her breasts and belly she should be no maid; which, when I felt them, strake me so to the heart that I had neither will nor courage to prove the rest.”

Cromwell left his master, trembling for his future.

Catherine Howard could not sleep for excitement. At last she had come to court. Her grandmother had provided her with garments she would need, and Catherine had never felt so affluent in the whole of her eighteen years. How exciting it was to peep through the windows at personages who had been mere names to her! She saw Thomas Cromwell walking through the courtyards, cap in hand, with the King himself. Catherine shuddered at the sight of that man. “Beware of the blacksmith’s son!” her grandmother had said. “He is no friend of the Howards.” Always before Catherine had seen the King from a great distance; closer he seemed larger, more sparkling than ever, and very terrifying, so that she felt a greater urge to run from him than she did even from Thomas Cromwell. The King was loud in conversation, laughter and wrath, and his red face in anger was an alarming sight. Sometimes he would hobble across the courtyards with a stick, and she had seen his face go dark with the pain he suffered in his leg, and he would shout and cuff anyone who annoyed him. His cheeks were so puffed out and swollen that his eyes seemed lost between them and his forehead, and were more like the flash of bright stones than eyes. This King made Catherine shiver. Cranmer she saw too—quiet and calm in his archbishop’s robes. She saw her uncle and would have hidden herself, but his sharp eyes would pick her out and he would nod curtly.

Catherine was enjoying life, for Derham could not pester her at court as he had done at the Duchess’s house, and when she did not see him she could almost forget the sorrow that had come to her through him. She loved the Queen, and wept for her because she was so unhappy. The King did not love her; he was with her only in public. The ladies whispered together that when they went to the royal bechamber at night the King said good night to the Queen and that nothing passed between them until the morning when he said good morning. They giggled over the extraordinary relationship of the King and Queen; and Catherine was too inexperienced and too much in awe of them not to giggle with them, but she was really sorry for the sad-eyed Queen. But Catherine did refrain from laughing with them over the overcrowded and tasteless wardrobe of the Queen.

“Ah!” whispered the ladies. “You should have seen the other Queen Anne. What clothes she had, and how she knew the way to wear them! But this one! No wonder the King has no fancy for her. Ja, ja, ja! That is all she can say!”

Catherine said: “But she is very kind.”

“She is without spirit to be otherwise!”

But that was not true. Catherine, who had been often beaten by the hard-handed Duchess, was susceptible to kindness; she sat with the Queen and learned the Flemish style of embroidery, and was very happy to serve Anne of Cleves.

There was something else that made Catherine happy. Thomas Culpepper was at court. She had not yet seen him, but each day she hoped for their reunion. He was, she heard, a great favorite with the King himself and it was his duty to sleep in the royal apartment and superintend those who dressed the King’s leg. She wondered if he knew she was here, and if he were waiting for the reunion as eagerly as she was.

Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, gave a banquet one evening. Catherine was very excited about this, for she was going to sing, and it would be the first time she had ever sung alone before the King.

“You are a little beauty!” said one of the ladies. “What a charming gown!”

“My grandmother gave it to me,” said Catherine, smoothing the rich cloth with the pleasure of one who has always longed for beautiful clothes and has never before possessed them.

“If you sing as prettily as you look,” she was told, “you will be a successful young woman.”

Catherine danced all the way down to the barge; she sang as they went along the river; she danced into the Bishop’s house. Over her small head smiles were exchanged; she was infectiously gay and very young.

“Mind you do not forget your words.”

“Oh, what if I do! I feel sure I shall!”

“Committed to the Tower!” they teased her, and she laughed with them, her cheeks aglow, her auburn curls flying.

She sat at the great table with the humblest of the ladies. The King, at the head of the table, was in a noisy mood. He was eating and drinking with great heartiness as was his custom, congratulating the Bishop on his cook’s efforts, swilling great quantities of wine, belching happily.