Chapter Twenty-Five
Where many one shall rue, that never made offence:
Thus your refuse against my power shall boot them no defense.
And for revenge thereof I vow and swear thereto,
A thousand spoils I shall commit I never thought to do.
~Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
January 21, 1542
They were going to execute her.
A bill of attainder had been passed that made concealment of past sexual relationships of a queen consort, as well as committing adultery, treason and therefore punishable by death.
“Edward, you have to let me see her.” Guilt ate away at my insides. I thrust Beau back into the arms of his nurse and walked to the hearth on the pretext of warming my hands. Wulfhall was so drafty in the dead of winter.
“Why, Anne? ’Twill only sadden you. You were never close with the girl. Why would you wish to see her on death’s door? She will be executed in three weeks. ’Tis over, leave it alone.”
I turned around to face Edward, who was eating a late dinner after arriving to tell me the news. “But there must be something we can do! I told her to admit to a pre-contract. Why hasn’t she done so? If only I’d not encouraged her and Jane Rochford.”
“Anne, there is nothing that can be done—even if she were to suddenly admit to a pre-contract. The king is set on having an example made of her. His ego is bruised and he wants revenge. She acted as a harlot. Whether or not you told her to, she was wicked before you ever met her. Was it your idea for her to write a letter to Culpeper stating how her heart would die if she could not be with him? I think not.”
I shook my head, chewing on my lip, pacing the length of the great hall. I gazed at all the tapestries of great Seymour accomplishments and portraits of Edward’s family and ancestors.
“Then you must let me see Jane Rochford.”
“Do you wish to join them in death? Do you wish to be buried with your head held in your hands?” He stood abruptly from the table, upsetting his goblet of wine. I watched the dark ruby liquid seep between the slats of the wooden table and onto the floor. The dripping wine, so like blood dripping on the scaffold, only emphasized his words. “Forget about court for now, Anne. Forget about the king, his wives and his children. Forget about our position. Forget about our rank and growing the coffers for our children. Just for one moment. Think about your family, me. We need you. Not them.”
He came to stand before me, lifted my chin with his fingers and leaned down to place a kiss on my lips. I closed my eyes and let the warmth of his mouth on mine seep through me. I tried to let the worries of every day slip away. Some of the guilt melted off my shoulders, and I opened my arms to Edward, to the love we’d once shared. How long ago it seemed we’d fallen for each other. How long ago it seemed I’d relied on him for support. I ran my fingers up and down the muscles of his back.
“Let us forget together,” he breathed. I nodded, and he took my hand, leading me up to my bedchamber.
He stripped me slowly of my clothes, kissing my shoulders, kneading the tight tension-filled knots until I was loose and languid. My body sang from his touch. I gave in to his supplication, let him take me away, my body humming. Passion ignited, we fell together to the bed, joining together in an embrace that was emotional, powerful. My eyes rolled back into my head as pleasure took over. Edward was slow, purposeful in his mission.
Never had we made love like this. It shook me to my core, to my very soul. I vowed not to scare him again, for that was what I thought had happened. I’d scared him that I had dropped the fa?ade of observer and claimed to be a player in the game of court intrigue. A momentary lapse of what was in sight. I could have truly had my head cropped.
I prayed to never lapse in such a way in the future.
February 12, 1542
“Save me, Anne.”
Snow fell outside my window at Whitehall Palace. I sipped a warm cup of tea, grateful for the roaring fire that heated the room. The sky was a blanket of white, as was the land as far as you could see. Smoky swirls came out of chimneys on top of the castle roofs, and in the courtyard below, servants trudged to and fro.
“What is it I shall save you from?” I turned from my view of winter wonderment to gaze at the young Anne Bassett, whose use of my name so informally I ignored.
“The king has started to talk of marriage. I cannot marry him.”
“Why is that? Is that not what I brought you here for years ago? Is that not what you wished for once?”
“Is it? I thought merely to be a mistress.”
“Yes, but you have grown on him. Think on it. You have been the one constant woman in his life for the last four years. He still calls for you. Never has he kept a woman so long who was not his wife. Why not make it official?”
“But I have no desire to die! And I want children!”
“Who says you shall die? And why not children?”
“Five times he’s married, four of his wives have died and one is set aside! Only three children alive, the rest dead…”
I stood abruptly and marched toward Anne, who lowered her head, almost cowering in my presence. “Do not speak that way, girl. ’Tis treason, and these walls have ears. Want to die for only speaking?”
“No,” she murmured.
“You shall do as requested, but if you’d rather not become his wife, tell me of a woman you want to exact revenge on, and I shall see her married to him.”
Anne looked up at me abruptly, her mouth dropping open, and then I realized what I had said. My words had been more treasonous than anything that had come from her mouth.
“Do not worry on it, ’Nan. I shall see you safe. Pack your bags, go and visit your family. When you return, his attentions shall be otherwise engaged.”
She nodded, curtsied and left without another word.
The more I thought on it, the more my own words made sense. I could very easily place a name in his ear of a woman I abhorred. I could place my revenge on two such people at once. Two people who had secretly planned to marry once her ailing and aging husband had finally succumbed to death.
Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour.
Catherine would suffer the king, and Tom would watch painfully as his love was wed to another, and not just any other, but the tyrant himself. Catherine Parr was a pious woman. She would do the king’s bidding and never fall from grace. Two aging husbands in her life already, she knew just how to care for an ailing man. Also, she was not a part of the Howard faction, but aligned more to us, with Tom as her lover, despite how much she disliked me.
A perfect plan. Now how to go about it?
The door to the solar opened, and Edward’s tall, lithe body came through the frame.
“It appears Lady Katheryn Howard wants to be remembered in a different way than how she left court.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s requested the block. She practices on it now.”
“The block?”
“The warden tells me she requested the block this morning after her confession, so she might know how to place herself. Her maid reported that after it was delivered, she has been practicing kneeling and then placing her head upon the block, arms out. She is murmuring prayers while doing it, says she does not want to make a mistake.”
The vision that came from his words was haunting, eerie. I could imagine the poor, broken girl, just seventeen summers, as she knelt and, with shaking hands, placed her head against the cold wooden block. The very one that she would lay her head on when she was executed the following morning.
“The king has passed another bill.”
My head snapped up at that as I tried to push the thoughts of Katheryn and her block from my mind. The foreboding sound in Edward’s voice worried me. “What bill?”
“He now has the ability to order a person of unstable mental capacity to be executed.”
“Jane Rochford.” I pressed my lips together and shook my head. How much the king wanted her gone was clearly evident. He’d had a special bill passed just so he could see it done. Even sadder still that her death was a benefit to me that my part in Katheryn Howard’s downfall would never be known. At least I could ease my conscience that what had happened had begun before I had become involved.
“Yes. She will be executed just after Katheryn Howard tomorrow.”
I nodded solemnly. So much for the king being merciful. But I should have known. He was violent man, murdering anyone he pleased. Satisfied and solicitous one moment, ordering your head on a platter the next.
Lord, I pray to thee, do not make me next to be served.
February 13, 1542
The Tower cannons boomed loudly. My walls felt as though they were shaking, and I imagined little pieces of dust and rock shaking loose of the mortar and crumbling down.
Rain pelted the windowpanes, and a little trickle of water came down my wall. Every once in a while chunks of ice pinged against the glass, and I was startled, thinking it would break.
The room was cold despite the roaring fire, and my breath came out in little foggy puffs before dissipating into thin air.
In just a few minutes, Edward would arrive to collect me for Katheryn Howard’s execution.
I did not want to go.
I did not want to watch another person die.
Especially not a young and stupid girl who’d been placed in a situation she could never have lived up to. She was a lamb to the sacrifice, paying the ultimate price. But to what end? What had her marriage to the king gained? Nothing… There were no children born of it. The Howards had gained nothing. Norfolk—her uncle—had kept himself well away from the fray, and in so doing, the king still looked on him with respect. Edward had done his job and found out all the secrets of Katheryn Howard, laying them out on display for all to see and fondle.
So a girl was used, abused and now would die for it. Perhaps some of the blame lay at her feet, for was she really so unintelligent to think she could get away with an affair? Had someone, such as Jane Rochford, told her the king would absolutely never know? Had she been so taken up by the love she’d felt for Culpeper, that beyond reason and dignity, she had gone to him time and again? I’d known. I could have warned her but I’d stayed silent. I was just as much to blame.
I had only felt a love once in my life that would have overruled my sensibilities at all costs, and it had been for my Eddie. What I’d felt for Anthony, and sometimes still felt, I was not clear if that was love… and I’d been punished greatly for it. Was God telling us that to love so deeply and unequivocally was wrong?
No, I did not think to love so was wrong, but to take up action that could damage that love—that was wrong. If I’d never been with Anthony, maybe Eddie would still have been alive—although Beau would not. If Katheryn had never consummated her relationship with Culpeper, had not allowed her past to come to her future, then she, too, would have lived and been able to bestow her love freely on others—or would she have been?
Loving Eddie had made me a better person, and out of his existence I took away a piece of that perfect angel and remembered love and sweetness.
Katheryn Howard, she would have died no matter what, so at least she had been able to feel the love and euphoria that came with it, once in her lifetime.
My thoughts were a jumbled mess, and I too confused to sort them.
Edward entered the room quietly and summoned me forward. We made our way to Tower Green with the other courtiers. The king was not here, but I had hardly expected him to be.
Lady Katheryn Howard, seventeen years old and queen for just under two years, was led out. She wore a plain, black velvet gown, dirty, stained. No one had given her a pretty ermine cloak like the one her cousin had worn to her execution. No spicy red petticoats swished from under her gown. No jewels adorned her neck. This girl could have been anyone and yet she represented no one. Her lips were blue from cold or fear or both.
Blazing bonfires were placed throughout the courtyard to warm spectators, but we felt it not. At least the rain had stopped, but the freezing temperatures had left the ground slick with patches of ice. Katheryn Howard slipped, but the one maid who had accompanied her caught her elbow as the guard caught her on the other side.
Suffolk came to stand beside us. His wife, Catherine, came to my side and gripped my hand. Her mouth was turned down in both sadness and distaste, a mirror of my own expression.
The men mumbled to each other, but I could not have cared less what they were saying. I only squeezed Catherine’s fingers tight.
“She is such a young thing,” Catherine murmured.
“Yes.”
“We should all pray forgiveness for her death.”
“Why all of us?” Catherine had played no part.
“There are so many points at which this madness could have been avoided.” Catherine’s voice was a monotone as we watched the former queen being led up the thin and uneven stairs of her hastily made scaffold. When she reached the top, she slipped off the black wool cloak she wore and handed it to her maid. “From the very beginning. The duchess could have watched her further, made certain she grew up properly. When she was sent to court so young and the king eyed her like a fresh strawberry to be plucked from the vines, someone should have said, ‘Ah, not that one, too green still.’ Or told His Majesty of her upbringing before it was too late. When he married her still, she should have been coached not to take a lover, not to make eyes with another man, not to write of her dying heart.”
Guilt consumed me. I could have done more than one of those things. Her death was on my shoulders.
Katheryn Howard, girl queen, knelt to her knees, chin up, head steady. She was no longer the appearance of gaiety as she had been at court. Her hair was thin and dull, cheeks sallow and gaunt.
The executioner mumbled to her.
She gazed out over the top of the crowd, not meeting eyes with anyone. “Pray God have mercy on me! To Jesu, I commend my soul!” Then she did appear to lock eyes with several people. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Whatever she’d been about to say, she thought better of it. She placed her hands—unshaking—onto the block. Then turning her head to the left, she laid it down. For several moments, she stayed that way. The executioner told her twice to put her arms out, but she held on. When he stepped forward, motioning for the guards to hold her, her arms came out straight at her sides of her own accord, and she closed her eyes.
The executioner’s ax sliced through the air and cut off her head with one chop. I did not blink. Could not. My eyes stared intently at the blood spilling from her neck. She was picked up and placed into an unmarked crate, just as her cousin before her. The maid covered Katheryn with her cloak and followed the groomsmen who carried the body away. Her death over just as swiftly as her life.
“Where will Katheryn be buried, Edward?” I asked.
“Buried in an unmarked grave at St. Peter ad Vincula, same as her cousin, the first Howard queen.”
Before I had time to react to his words, Jane Rochford appeared, walked out by two guards who eyed her warily. But for once in the last months she appeared completely calm and lucid.
She walked up the stairs, not a break in her stride, and stood before the crowd. Her eyes met mine for a brief moment, and her lips twitched, almost in a smile. She mumbled her prayers so quietly, I could not hear from where I stood. Guilt washed over me anyway for having wished her downfall. ’Twas one of the reasons I hated to attend the executions. Invariably, I was guilt ridden, because at some point during their lives I had wished them gone. And now here I stood, watching as the life was struck from their bodies—and I not only wished this time, but had had a play in it.
After the queen’s execution, King Henry went into a state of melancholy. There had been no feasting, no music, no laughing. His mood was bleaker than it had been when Jane Seymour had died.
His health was fading, and his ego had taken a beating. But true to form, the king bounced back and this time ordered a party of twenty-nine ladies to come and dine with him so he might charm them and make merry with them.
I had every intention of declining my invitation, but Edward forbade it. And so after a long-awaited lengthy visit with my dear friend Gertrude, who languished in her own type of misery—one that came from poverty and widowhood, which I tried to improve on by giving her coin and gifts—I returned to Hampton Court, where Henry planned to have his harem for the evening.
Every room in the castle was drafty except this one. The king had seen to it that the room was comfortable for the ladies who would attend him this evening. The windows were shuttered and covered with lavish tapestries. A roaring fire was constantly monitored by two groomsmen. Cloth of gold draped from the ceiling, and velvet curtains were hung on the walls between the tapestries. The floor was covered in a rush woven mat, sprinkled with herbs and spices, large wool and fur carpets placed atop.
Candles lit up the room, so even though the sun had not shone for hours, inside this room it was bright, cheerful. Minstrels strolled, playing songs and singing sweet ballads. Wine flowed from casks, and delicious fruits, candied nuts, and tasty tarts were only an arm’s length away.
The king sat upon his throne, already surrounded by women who fawned on him.
“Lady Anne,” he breathed, taking me in. I had the distinct feeling of being weighed, measured and indeed found acceptable. “Come and sit here.” He shooed away a couple of women and patted the seat beside him.
“How long have we known each other, Countess?”
“Seems like a lifetime, Majesty.”
He laughed. “And for some it may have been.” I ignored the fact that I had known him for as long as his last wife had lived. He tapped his chin, now grown full of a reddish-gray beard. “I like you still.”
“I am fond of you also, Majesty.” The lie left my lips with ease.
“I have languished too long in misery, and I am glad you’ve come to celebrate my escape from melancholy.”
“As it pleases, Majesty.”
“So formal you are, my lady. A constant, that is what you are. Everyone knows what to expect from you. You shall surprise us all one day.”
I smiled and inclined my head, ready to leave the room, for its warmth was now making me uncomfortably hot.
“Where have you sent my little ’Nan?” he asked.
At this, my ears prickled. “She has gone home to the country for a time. She wishes to marry.”
“As it happens, I am in need of a wife,” he said with a sly grin.
I smiled indulgently. “Might I suggest one then?”
“Is it not the one whom I have just been speaking of?”
“Another, Majesty. She will please you infinitely more, I should think.”
He leaned closer, intrigued with what I had to say. “Who?”
“Lady Catherine Parr.” Her name left my lips in a bitter, guilt-riddled, rush.
At this, the king sat back and scanned the room until his eyes alighted on her. “Yes…” he drawled. “She is beautiful and mature, a woman I could have a conversation with.”
“Indeed, Majesty.”
“Albeit, she is married to Lord Latimer.”
“Yes, but he is ailing. I do not wish ill or death on the man, but I am only suggesting… Should Your Majesty feel inclined, she is a prize worth waiting for.”
“Indeed, my lady, you are correct. It is settled then.” He smiled as he watched his future bride. Another lamb to be brought forth. “I shall begin courting her.”
“It may take some wooing, Majesty, but she will be amendable to it.”
“Who would not want to marry the king?” His voice was filled with confidence, much changed from the man I had sat and talked with months ago who’d sounded so dejected after a number of women had in fact not wanted to marry him.
“There is not a woman I know who would not—and not just because you are king, either.”
“You flatter m—” The king lurched forward, his hands pressed to his leg. His eyes bulged, and a gurgling sound came from the back of his throat.
“The king!” I leapt from my chair and grabbed a goblet of wine, offering it up to his lips.
Groomsmen rushed forth, managing to pick up the hefty load of a man and carry him from the room. I rushed along with them but did not immediately follow. Instead, I ran to Edward’s study to summon him.
When we reached the king’s chambers, Edward was allowed to enter. The people in the presence chamber whispered of the king’s ulcerous leg. The physicians were summoned, and they drained the leg, made poultices and brews. In just a short time, the king had begun to rage with fever.
Dear Lord our God, save the king!