Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 (175 page)

She will never please him, poor child, not in a lifetime, not in a thousand years. I am amazed that his ambassadors did not warn him, they have been thinking entirely of making a league against France and Spain, of a Protestant league against the Catholic kings, and thinking nothing of the tastes of King Henry.

There is nothing she can do to become the sort of woman that pleases him. His preference runs to quick-witted, dainty, smiling women with an air that promises everything. Even Jane Seymour, though she was quiet and obedient, radiated a docile warmth that hinted at sensual pleasure. But this one is like a child, awkward like a child, with a child's honest gaze and an open, friendly smile. She looks thrilled when someone bows low to her, and when she first saw the ships in the harbour she seemed about to applaud. When she is tired or overwhelmed she goes pale like a sulky child and looks ready to weep. Her nose goes red when she is anxious, like a peasant in the cold. If it were not so tragic this would be the highest of comedies, this gawky girl stepping into the diamond-heeled shoes of Anne Boleyn. What can they have been thinking of when they imagined she could ever rise to it?

But her very awkwardness gives me a key to her. I can be her friend, her great friend and ally. She will need a friend, poor lost girl, she will need a friend who knows the way around a court such
as ours. I can introduce her to all the things she will need to know, teach her the skills she must learn. And who should know better than I, who have been at the heart of the greatest court that England ever had, and seen it burn itself up? Who better than me to keep a queen safe, who watched one destroy herself and destroy her family with her? I have promised to be this new queen's friend and I can honour that promise. She is young, only twenty-four years old, but she will grow. She is ignorant but she can be taught. She is inexperienced but life will correct that. I can do much for this quaint young woman, and it will be a real pleasure and an opportunity to be her guide and mentor.

My uncle is coming to see my grandmother and I must be ready in case he sends for me. We all know what is about to happen but I am as excited as if I were waiting for a great surprise. I have practised my walk towards him and my curtsey. I have practised my look of astonishment and my delighted smile at the wonderful news. I like to be prepared, I like to be rehearsed, and I have had Agnes and Joan play the part of my uncle until I am step-perfect in my approach, my curtsey and my genteel cry of joy.

The maids' room is sick of me, sick as if they had eaten a glut of green apples, but I tell them it is only to be expected, I am a Howard, of course I will be called to court, of course I will serve the queen and, sadly, of course they will be left behind; what a pity.

They say I will have to learn German, and there will be no dancing. I know this is a lie. She will live like a queen and if she is dull, I shall only shine more brightly in contrast. They say it is well-known that she will live in seclusion, and the Dutch eat no meat but only cheese and butter all day. I know this is a lie – why else would the queen's apartments at Hampton Court have been repainted but for her to have a court and guests? They say that all her ladies have already been appointed and half of them have already left to meet her in Calais. My uncle is coming to tell me that I have missed my chance.

This, finally, frightens me. I know that the king's nieces, Lady
Margaret Douglas and the Marchioness of Dorset, have agreed to be the chiefest of her ladies and I fear it is too late for me. ‘No,' I say to Mary Lascelles, ‘he cannot be coming to tell me I must stay here. He cannot be coming to tell me that I am too late, that there will be no place left for me.'

‘And if he does then let it be a lesson to you,' she says firmly. ‘Let it be a lesson to you to mend your ways. You don't deserve to go to the queen's court as light as you have been with Francis Dereham. No true lady should have you in her chambers when you have played the slut with such a man.'

This is so unkind that I give a little gasp and feel the tears coming.

‘Now don't cry,' she says wearily. ‘Don't cry, Katherine. You will only make your eyes red.'

Instantly, I hold my nose to stop the tears coming. ‘But if he tells me I am to stay here and do nothing I shall die!' I say thickly. ‘I will be fifteen next year, and then I will be eighteen, and then I will be nineteen and then I will be twenty and too old for marriage and I will die here, serving my grandmother, never having been anywhere, and never seen anything, and never danced at court.'

‘Oh, nonsense!' she exclaims crossly. ‘Can you never think of anything but your vanity, Katherine? Besides, some would think you have done quite enough already for a maid of fourteen.'

‘Duthing,' I say, with my nose still pinched. I let it go and press my cool fingers against my cheeks. ‘I have done nothing.'

‘Of course, you will serve the queen,' she says scornfully. ‘Your uncle is not likely to miss such a place for one of his family, however badly you have behaved.'

‘The girls said …'

‘The girls are jealous of you because you are going, you ninny. If you were staying they would be all over you with pretend sympathy.'

This is so true that even I can see it. ‘Oh, yes.'

‘So wash your face again and come to my lady's chamber. Your uncle will be here at any moment.'

I go as fast as I can, pausing only to tell Agnes and Joan and Margaret that I know full well I am going to court and that I never believed their spite for a moment, and then I hear them shouting: ‘Katherine! Katherine! He is here!' and I dash down to my lady's own parlour and there he is, my uncle, standing before the fire and warming his backside.

It would take more than a fire to warm this man through. My grandmother says that he is the king's hammer; whenever there is hard and dirty work to do it is my uncle who leads the English army to batter the enemy into submission. When the North rose up to defend the old religion just two years ago when I was a little girl, it was my uncle who brought the rebels to their senses. He promised them a pardon and then cozened them to the gallows. He saved the king's throne and he saved the king the trouble of fighting his own battles and putting down a great rebellion. My grandmother says that he knows no other argument but the noose. She says he strung up thousands even though inwardly, he agreed with their cause. His own faith did not stop him. Nothing will stop him. I can see by his face that he is a hard man, a man not easily softened; but he has come to see me and I will show him what sort of niece he has.

I dip down into a deep curtsey, as we have practised over and over again in the maids' chamber, leaning a little forwards so that my lord can see the tempting curve of my breasts pressed at the top of my gown. Slowly I look up at his face before I rise, so that he sees me almost on my knees before him, giving him a moment to think about the pleasure of what I could be doing down there, my little nose almost against his breeches. ‘My lord uncle,' I breathe as I rise, as if I were whispering it in his ear in bed. ‘Give you a very good day, sir.'

‘Good God,' he says bluntly, and my grandmother gives a little ‘Huh' of amusement.

‘She is a … a credit to you, ma'am,' he says as I rise without wobbling and stand before him. I clasp my hands behind my back
to present my breasts to their full advantage, and I arch my back too so that he can admire the slimness of my waist. With my eyes modestly cast down I could be a schoolgirl except for the thrust of my body and the little half-hidden smile.

‘She is a Howard girl through and through,' says my grandmother, who has no great opinion of Howard girls, known as we are for beauty and forwardness.

‘I was expecting a child,' he says as if he is very pleased to find me grown.

‘A very knowing child.' She gives me a hard look to remind me that nobody wants to know what I have learned while in her care. I widen my eyes innocently. I was seven years old when I first saw a maid bedding a pageboy, I was eleven when Henry Manox first got hold of me. How did she think I would turn out?

‘She will do very nicely,' he says, after he has taken a moment to recover. ‘Katherine, can you dance and sing and play the lute and so on?'

‘Yes, my lord.'

‘Read, write, in English and French, and Latin?'

I shoot an anguished look at my grandmother. I am tremendously stupid, and everyone knows it. I am so stupid that I don't even know if I should lie about it or not.

‘Why would she need that?' she asks. ‘The queen speaks nothing but Dutch, doesn't she?'

He nods. ‘German. But the king likes an educated woman.'

The duchess smiles. ‘He did once,' she says. ‘The Seymour girl was no great philosopher. I think he has lost his taste for argument from his wives. Do you like an educated woman?'

He gives a little snort at this. The whole world knows that he and his wife have been parted for years, they hate each other so much.

‘Anyway, what matters most is that she pleases the queen and pleases the court,' my uncle rules. ‘Katherine, you are to go to court and be one of the new queen's maids in waiting.'

I beam at him.

‘You are glad to go?'

‘Yes, my lord uncle. I am very grateful,' I remember to add.

‘You have been placed in such a position of importance to be a credit to your family,' he says solemnly. ‘Your grandmother here tells me you are a good girl and that you know how to behave. Make sure that you do, and don't let us down.'

I nod. I dare not look at my grandmother, who knew all about Henry Manox, and who caught me once in the upper hall with Francis, with my hand down the front of his breeches and the mark of his bite on my neck, and called me a whore in the making and a stupid slut, and gave me a cuff that made my head ring, and warned me off him again at Christmas.

‘There will be young men who may pay attention to you,' my uncle warns, as if I have never met a young man before. I dart a look at my grandmother but she is blandly smiling. ‘Remember that nothing is more important than your reputation. Your honour must be without stain. If I hear any unbecoming gossip about you – and I mean anything, and you can be sure that I hear everything – then I will remove you immediately from court and send you not even here, but back to your step-grandmother's house in the country at Horsham. Where I will leave you forever. Do you understand?'

‘Yes, my lord uncle.' It comes out in a terrified whisper. ‘I promise.'

‘I will see you at court almost daily,' he says. I am almost beginning to wish that I was not going. ‘And from time to time I shall send for you to come to my rooms and tell me how you are getting on with the queen, and so on. You will be discreet and you will not gossip. You will keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. You will take advice from your kinswoman Jane Boleyn, who is also in the queen's rooms. You will endeavour to become close to the queen, you shall be her little friend. From the favour of princes comes wealth. Never forget it. This could be the making of you, Katherine.'

‘Yes, my lord uncle.'

‘And another thing,' he says warningly.

‘Yes, uncle?'

‘Modesty, Katherine. It is a woman's greatest asset.'

I sink into a curtsey, my head bowed, as modest as a nun. A laugh of derision from my grandmother tells me that she is not persuaded. But when I look up my uncle is smiling.

‘Convincing. You can go,' he says.

I curtsey again and I flee from the room before he can say anything worse. I have been longing to go to court for the dancing and young men and he makes it sound like going into service.

‘What did he say? What did he say?' They are all waiting in the great hall, desperate to know the news.

‘I am to go to court!' I crow. ‘And I am to have new gowns and new hoods and he says I will be the prettiest girl in the queen's chamber, and there will be dancing every night, and I daresay I will never see any of you ever again.'

The weather to cross the English Sea is, thank God, fair at last, after days of delay. I hoped that I would have a letter from home before we set sail, but though we have had to wait and wait for good weather for the crossing, no-one has written to me. I thought that Mother might have written to me; even if she is not missing me I thought she might have sent me some words of advice. I thought Amelia might already be hoping for a visit to England and might write me a letter of sisterly greeting. I could almost laugh at myself tonight, to think how low my spirits must be if I am wanting a letter from Amelia.

The only one I was certain of was my brother. I was sure I would have a letter from him. He never regained his temper with me, not in all the long preparation of leaving, and we parted on the terms that we have lived all our lives: on my side with a resentful fearfulness of his power, and on his side with an irritation that he cannot voice. I thought that he might write to me to appoint me with business to transact at the English court; surely I should be representing my country and our interests? But there are all the Cleves lords who are travelling with me, no doubt he has spoken or written to them. He must have decided that I am not fit to do business for him.

I thought at any rate that he was certain to write to me to lay down rules for my conduct. After all, he has spent his life dominating
me, I did not think he would just let me go. But it seems I am free of him. Instead of being glad of that, I am uneasy. It is strange to leave my family, and none of them even send me Godspeed.

We are to set sail tomorrow in the early morning to catch the tide and I am waiting in my rooms in the king's house, the Chequer, for Lord Lisle to come for me when I hear something like an argument in the presence chamber outside. By luck my Cleves translator, Lotte, is with me and at a nod from me she crosses quietly to the door and listens to the rapid English speech. Her expression is intent, she frowns, and then, when she hears footsteps coming, she scurries back into the room and sits beside me.

Lord Lisle bows as he comes into the room but his colour is up. He smooths down his velvet jerkin, as if to compose himself. ‘Forgive me, Lady Anne,' he says. ‘The house is upside down with packing. I will come for you in an hour.'

She whispers his meaning to me and I bow and smile. He glances back at the door. ‘Did she hear us?' he asks Lotte bluntly, and she turns to me to see me nod. He comes closer.

‘Secretary Thomas Cromwell is of your religion,' he says quietly. Lotte whispers the German words into my ear so that I can be sure of understanding him. ‘He has wrongly protected some hundreds of Lutherans in this city which is under my command.'

I understand the words, of course, but not their significance.

‘They are heretics,' he says. ‘They deny the authority of the king as a spiritual leader, and they deny the sacred miracle of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that his wine becomes blood. This is the belief of the Church of England. To deny it is a heresy punished with death.'

I put my hand gently on Lotte's arm. I know these are most perilous matters, but I don't know what I should say.

‘Secretary Cromwell himself could be charged with heresy if the king knew that he had sheltered these men,' Lord Lisle says. ‘I was telling his son, Gregory, that these men should be charged, whoever protects them. I was warning him that I cannot look to one side, I
was warning him that good Englishmen think as I do, that God will not be mocked.'

‘I know nothing of these English matters,' I say carefully. ‘I wish only to be guided by my husband.' I think briefly of my brother who has charged me with bringing my husband away from these Papist superstitions into the clarity of reform. I think I shall have to disappoint him again.

Lord Lisle nods, he bows and steps back. ‘Forgive me,' he says. ‘I should not have troubled you with this. I just wanted to make clear that I resent Thomas Cromwell's protection of these people and that I am wholly loyal to the king and to his church.'

I nod, for what else can I say or do? And he goes out of the room. I turn to Lotte.

‘That's not quite right,' she says very quietly. ‘He did accuse the Master Cromwell of protecting Lutherans, but the son, Gregory Cromwell, accused him of being a secret Papist, and said that he would be watched. They were threatening each other.'

‘What does he expect me to do?' I ask blankly. ‘He can hardly think that I would judge on such a matter?'

She looks troubled. ‘Perhaps to speak to the king? To influence him?'

‘Lord Lisle as good as told me that in his eyes I am a heretic myself. I deny that the wine turns into blood. Anyone of any sense must know that such a thing cannot happen.'

‘Do they really execute heretics in England?' the woman asks nervously.

I nod.

‘How?'

‘They burn them at the stake.'

At her aghast expression I am about to explain that the king knows of my faith and is supposed to be allying with my Protestant brother and his league of Protestant dukes; but there is a shout at the door and the ships are ready to leave.

‘Come on,' I say with a sudden rush of bravado. ‘Let's go anyway, whatever the dangers. Nothing can be worse than Cleves.'

Setting sail from an English port on an English ship feels like the start of a new life. Most of my companions from Cleves will leave me now, so there are more leave-takings, and then I board the ship and we cast off, the rowing barges take the ships into tow out of the harbour, and they raise the sails and they catch the wind and the sails start to creak and the ship lifts up as if it would take flight, and now, at this moment, I feel truly that I am a queen going to my country, like a queen in a story.

I go to the bow and stare over the side at the moving water, at the crest of white waves on the black sea, and wonder when I shall see my new home, my kingdom, my England. All around me are the other little lights on the ships that are sailing with us. It is a fleet of ships, fifty great vessels, the queen's fleet, and I am coming to realise the wealth and power of my new country.

We are to sail all the day, they say the sea is calm but the waves look very high and dangerous to me. The little ships climb up one wall of water and then belly down to the trough between the waves. Sometimes we lose sight of the other ships in the fleet altogether. The sails billow and creak as if they would tear, and the English sailors haul on ropes and dash around the deck like blasphemous madmen. I watch the dawn break, a grey sun over a grey sea, and I feel the immensity of the water all around me and even beneath me, then I go to rest in my cabin. Some of the ladies are sick, but I feel well. Lady Lisle sits with me for some of the day and some of the others, Jane Boleyn among them. I shall have to learn the names of all the others. The day goes slowly by, I go up on deck but all I can see are the ships around us, almost as far as I can see is the English fleet, keeping company with me. I should feel proud at this attention being
paid to me, but more than anything else I feel uncomfortable at being the centre and the cause of so much trouble and activity. The sailors on the ship all pull off their caps and bow whenever I come out of the cabin, and two of the ladies always have to escort me, even if it is just to the prow of the ship. After a while, I feel so conspicuous, so restless, that I force myself to sit still in my cabin and watch the waves going up and down through the little window rather than inconvenience everyone by wandering about.

The first sight I have of England is a dark shadow on darkening seas. It is getting late by the time we come into a tiny port called Deal, but even though it is dark and raining, I am greeted by even more grand people. They take me to rest in the castle, and to eat, and there are hundreds, truly hundreds, of people who come to kiss my hand and welcome me to my country. In a haze I meet lords and their ladies, a bishop, the warden of the castle, some more ladies who will serve in my chamber, some maids who will be my companions. Clearly, I will never be alone again for another moment in all my life.

As soon as we have eaten we are all to move on, there is a strict plan as to where we shall stay and where we shall dine, but they ask me very courteously, am I ready to travel now? I learn quickly that this does not mean, in truth, would I like to leave? It means, that the plan says we should go now, and they are waiting for me to give my assent.

So even though it is evening and I am so tired I would give a fortune to rest here, I climb into the litter that my brother equipped for me at such begrudged expense, and the lords mount their horses and the ladies mount theirs and we rattle on the road in the darkness with soldiers before us and behind us as if we were an invading army, and I remind myself that I am queen now, and if this is how queens travel and how they are served then I must become accustomed to it, and not long for a quiet bed and a meal without an audience watching my every move.

We stay this night in the castle in Dover, arriving in darkness. The next day I am so weary I can hardly rise, but there are half a dozen maids holding my shift and my gown and my hairbrush and my hood, and maids in waiting standing behind them, and ladies in waiting behind them, and a message comes from the Duke of Suffolk as to whether I would like to journey on to Canterbury once I have said my prayers and broken my fast? I know from this that he is anxious that we should leave and that I should hurry to say my prayers and eat, and so I say that I shall be delighted, and that I myself am keen to press on.

This is clearly a lie since it has been raining all the night and now it is getting heavier and it is starting to hail. But everyone prefers to believe that I am anxious to see the king, and my ladies wrap me up as well as they can and then we trudge out of the courtyard with a gale blowing, and we set off up the road they call Watling Street to the town of Canterbury.

The archbishop himself, Thomas Cranmer, a gentle man with a kind smile, greets me on the road outside the city, and rides alongside my litter as we travel the last half a mile. I stare out through the driving rain; this was the great pilgrim road for the faithful going to the shrine of St Thomas à Becket at the cathedral. I can see the spire of the church long before I can see even the walls of the town, it is built so high and so beautiful, and the light catches it through dark clouds as if God was touching the holy place. The road is paved here and every other house alongside was built to accommodate pilgrims, who used to come from all over Europe to pray at this most beautiful shrine. This was once one of the great holy sites of the world – just a few short years ago.

It's all changed now. Changed as much as if they had thrown the church down. My mother has warned me not to remark on what we had heard of the king's great changes, nor on what I see – however shocking. The king's own commissioners went to the shrine of the great saint and took the treasure that had been offered at the shrine.
They went into the vaults and raided the very coffin that held the saint's body. It is said that they took his martyred body and threw it on the midden outside the city walls, they were so determined to destroy this sacred place.

My brother would say it is a good thing that the English have turned their backs on superstition and Popish practices, but my brother does not see that the houses for pilgrims have been taken over by bawdy houses and inns and there are beggars without anywhere to go all along the roads into Canterbury. My brother does not know that half the houses in Canterbury were hospitals for the poor and sick and that the church paid for poor pilgrims to stay and be nursed back to health and that the nuns and monks spent their lives serving the poor. Now our soldiers have to push their way through a murmuring crowd of people who are looking for the holy refuge that they were promised; but it has all gone. I take care to say nothing when our cavalcade turns through great gates and the archbishop dismounts from his horse to welcome me into a beautiful house that was clearly an abbey, perhaps only months ago. I look around as we go into a beautiful hall where travellers would have been freely entertained, and where the monks would have dined. I know that my brother wants me to lead this country still further away from superstition and papacy, but he has not seen what has been spoiled in this country in the name of reform.

The windows, which were once made of coloured glass to show beautiful stories, have been smashed so carelessly that the stone is broken and the tracery of stonework is all crushed. If a naughty boy did such a thing to windows he would be whipped. High in the vaulting roof were little angels and, I think, a frieze of saints, which has been knocked out by some fool with a hammer who cared for nothing. It is foolish, I know, to grieve for things of stone; but the men who did this godly work did not do it in a godly way. They could have taken the statues down and made good the walls after. But instead, they just knocked off the heads,
and left the little angel bodies headless. How this serves the will of God, I cannot know.