Hampton Court
The dog days” they had always called them, the long and muggy summer months of July and August when the royal and noble fled to country refuge and the poor of the towns and populous cities prayed that they would be spared. The dreaded sweating sickness hung like a curse over Tudor England as it had many summers since it had first broken out among Henry VII’s victorious troops at Bosworth Field. Now this curse, this quick seizing death, was the only thing which terrified the present powerful king on whom his father’s power had been bestowed—save for the fact he had no true and legitimate male heir with whom to leave his kingdom. His Grace and chosen courtiers hid from the long reach of the sweat in the deep forests of Eltham.
But Eltham was a smaller refuge than long-armed Greenwich or sprawling Hampton Court or great walled Windsor. Only a fragment of the massive court could bed and board at the beamed hunt hall for the weeks the palaces nearer the city might be unsafe. So nobles of the court with country homes had taken to them in haste, and others shifted as best they could in the nearly deserted cavernous halls of the palaces. Tensions and terrors were great, for it seemed that control of one’s own life was in the hands of some grim, invisible specter.
“Damn it, Mary. Six months of my patient work and now we are left here because His Grace still cannot bear to have you around. I know that is it. I have seen him look at you. He thinks your presence here helps to keep his darling Anne away even though everyone knows he has given her a promise he will forsake all others for her if she will yield to him.”
“You know that is not true, Will. We are not here because I keep Anne from him. It does not matter to Anne that I am here. She thinks if she would come to live at the palace the walk to the royal bed is too short. She fears she would lose him then and her power would be gone.”
“We all fear that, dear wife. And now all my careful planning, my work to earn the Carey way back has gone for nothing thanks to the meddling of the greedy Bullens!”
She wanted to hit out at him, to grab that constant bitter look from his face and smash it, but she controlled herself and touched his slumped shoulder. “I think you are over-reacting, reading too much into the fact His Grace did not choose to take you to Eltham for the summer. He only took one fifth of the court and only four of ten Esquires. Does that mean that the other six are all in disfavor? I think not.”
“I think not,” he mocked. “Is that your clever reasoning or Staff’s?”
“Please, Will, try...”
“I am trying, madam. But he took Stafford, did he not? He took six of the twelve Gentlemen Ushers, our dear Staff included. The king is unwise to favor him because he is a fine sportsman and it amuses him to have someone who will challenge him, stand up to him at tennis or butts, and tell him the truth.”
He shrugged her hand off his shoulder and rose to face her across the tall-backed chair. “When I heard that His Grace had said he would take Staff, I told myself that it is because Staff is dependent on him and has no country seat to flee to, as do others. But Stafford told me he inherited a farm and manor at Wivenhoe near Colchester from a great aunt while we were rotting away at Plashy last year. It is that terrible little place with the ghosts, I think. So you see, he has a place to go and one not so far at that.” He squinted to see her clearly even though she stood so close. The hour was still early, but he had managed to work himself into a heavy sweat. “Did you know that Stafford has lands now, Mary?”
She sat in the narrow windowseat and leaned against the protruding wooden sill. “He told me.”
“Yes, he would have. How foolish of me to ask.”
“The king knows we have Plashy to go to, or even farther into the country to the parklands if we really thought to flee London by a good distance. And, Will, everyone knows that Wolsey built Hampton here on this stretch of river because the air is so healthy and the water supply...”
“Is that why four died here of the sweat last July? Everyone knows that well enough. Oh, you have no worries, I realize. Little Catherine is safe at Hever with your mother and Anne, Stafford is off at Eltham, though I am certain you will miss his company, and you—well, the Bullens live charmed lives anyway. That is rather obvious!”