Six Wives (91 page)

    Preceded by the newly knighted Lord Mayor carrying the mace, the King, the Queen and the Lady Mary then rode from Whitehall through the City of London. The streets were freshly gravelled, from Temple Bar to the Southwark end of London Bridge, and were hung with cloth of gold and arras. The four orders of Friars stood in Fleet Street in cloth of gold copes, 'with crosses and candlesticks and censers to cense the King and Queen as they rode by'. At the West Door of St Paul's, where the young Henry had led Catherine to her marriage with Arthur, there was yet more incense, as the Bishop of London, two Abbots and the whole choir greeted Henry and Jane. Thence, the sweet smoke, the rustle of copes, and the glint of crosses and candlesticks continued the whole way to London Bridge.
⁴⁶

    The chronicler Wriothesley, who was both religiously conservative and a lover of ceremony, was delighted. '[It] was a goodly sight to behold', he concludes. Richard Lee, writing to the equally conservative Lady Lisle, was even more impressed. 'The like sight', he wrote, 'hath not been seen here since the Emperor's being here [in 1522].' He particularly noted the presence of Chapuys, 'the ambassador to the Emperor', with the royal party, and concluded, like Wriothesley, that 'it rejoiced every man wondrously'.
⁴⁷

    Chapuys, at least, knew better. As early as 5 November he had reported his suspicions that Henry intended to double-cross the rebels. And he could only watch as, over the next few months, his gloomy prophecy was fulfilled.

    Did Jane in her golden cage feel the same?

* * *

If she did, she was wise enough not to show it. According to Husey, she, like Henry, was 'never merrier' as they settled down to celebrate Christmas with 'as great mirth and triumph as ever was'. Aske arrived between the 25th and the 31st and was lionised. Henry gave him 'a jacket of crimson satin'. And he was even more prodigal with promises. He was Aske's gracious sovereign lord. He reaffirmed his liberal pardon to all the north. He intended to hold his next Parliament in the north at York and to have Jane crowned there. He 'tendereth the Commonwealth of his subjects and extends his mercy from his heart'.
⁴⁸

    It was a consummate performance. And Aske swallowed it. On the 5th, he left the Court in haste and the utmost secrecy for the north. His mission was to broadcast Henry's message of forgiveness. Naturally, he placed heavy emphasis on its two most dramatic elements: the promised Parliament and coronation at York. Parliament had last met there over two centuries previously, in 1322. And no King or Queen had been crowned there since the Conquest.

    Aske was not heard uncritically. But his mission had the desired effect of dividing and disarming opposition. In February, a few disgruntled elements launched a new revolt. Henry now had his opportunity. The revolt was crushed easily and the King regarded himself as being exonerated from his promises. The rebel leaders, headed by Aske, Hussey and Darcy, who had played the same ambiguous role in Yorkshire as Hussey in Lincolnshire, were arrested, tried and condemned, along with dozens of others. They included Sir Robert Constable, who trusted to his family relationship with Jane to obtain his pardon. He trusted in vain.
⁴⁹

    Aske's last request was to be spared the full horror of execution for treason. 'Let me [be] full dead ere I be dismembered,' he begged. Henry, who, like the Mikado, had a bizarre taste in executions, granted his wish. Instead, Aske 'was hanged in the City of York in chains till he died'.
⁵⁰

    Probably, as he twisted there in agony for hour after hour, he wished for the swifter death of the knife.

* * *

Jane had a final part to play in this 'pacification' of the north by fair words and deceit. On 23 May her pregnancy was known at Court, and on the 27th, as a welcome change from the executions which had disfigured the City for months, a
Te Deum
was celebrated in St Paul's. Audley and Cromwell attended and Latimer of all people preached the sermon.
⁵¹

    What, a quizzical observer must have wondered, had changed since the days of Queen Anne?

    Henry took swift advantage of the Queen's pregnancy to put off, yet again, his planned Progress to the north. It was the only one of his plethora of promises to Aske to have survived. Now it, too, was broken.

    Ungallantly, in his letter of justification to Norfolk, who was mopping up in the north, he blamed the cancellation on Jane's womanish fears. Normally, the King conceded, Jane was a good and obedient wife: 'of that loving inclination and reverend conformity, that she can in all things well content . . . herself with [what] we shall think expedient and determine'. Nevertheless, if he were so far from her, and in such an unsettled country, even she, in the condition that she was, might take fright, with disastrous consequences: '[to the] no little danger . . . to that wherewith she is now pregnant'.
⁵²

* * *

    In mid-July, Jane, then six months pregnant, was eating quails for dinner. The quails had been sent by Lady Lisle, and the Countesses of Rutland and Sussex, who were serving the Queen, took advantage of the fact. They reminded her of Lady Lisle's suit for her daughters by her previous marriage, Anne and Catherine Basset, to be taken into the Queen's service. The birds were delicious and the Queen was disposed to be gracious. But not too much. Let both girls be sent for, she decreed, and she would take her pick of one of them.
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    The girls arrived and Jane chose Anne. There was an immediate problem about what she should wear. Lady Lisle had equipped her in the latest French fashion. But that, with its associations with her predecessor, was anathema to Jane. However, as a special concession, she agreed that 'Mrs Anne shall wear out her French apparel'. But two things were nonnegotiable. Anne had to have an English-style bonnet or headdress and a frontlet or bodice. Husey provided them for her, but was not happy with the results. 'Methought [the bonnet] became her nothing so well as the French hood,' he wrote to her mother. 'But the Queen's pleasure must needs be fulfilled.' A few weeks later, even the remnants of Anne's French attire were banished, at the Queen's express insistence.
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    In one respect at least, she would be different from 'that woman'.

* * *

The day after Anne Basset had been sworn as one of Jane's servants, she accompanied her new mistress when she took to her Chamber at Hampton Court on Sunday, 16 September. But, despite the short time she had been at Court, Henry, with his keen eye for the ladies, had already spotted that she was 'far fairer' than her rejected sister.

    Jane's confinement lasted over three weeks. Meanwhile, the plague struck in the vicinity and some courtiers were infected. Henry himself withdrew to Wolsey's old house at Esher for four days, 'so that [there should be] less resort' to Hampton Court. As the time went by the tension mounted. 'We look daily for a Prince,' Thomas Wriothesley wrote to his friend, Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was now ambassador in Spain. 'God send what shall please him.' Jane went into what turned out to be a prolonged labour. On Thursday, 11 October, a solemn general procession was made at St Paul's, 'to pray for the Queen that was then in labour of child'. At 2 a.m. on Friday morning she was safely delivered. It was the eve of the Feast of St Edward, England's royal saint. And the baby was a boy.
⁵⁵

    Straight away, the pre-signed letters were sent out, in which 'Jane the Queen' proudly announced the birth of 'a Prince, conceived in most lawful matrimony between my lord the King's Majesty and us'.
⁵⁶

    Cromwell received his copy early and wrote immediately to Wyatt. 'Here be no news', he began teasingly, 'but very good news, which for surety I have received this morning.' 'That it hath pleased Almighty God,' he continued, 'of his goodness, to send unto the Queen's Grace deliverance of a goodly Prince, to the great comfort, rejoice, and consolation of the King's Majesty, and of all us his most humble, loving and obedient subjects.'
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    It would be interesting to know Wyatt's reactions.

* * *

Immediately, the celebrations began. By 8 o'clock, the
Te Deum
was being sung in every parish church in London. The bells were rung and there were bonfires in the street. At 9 a.m. a solemn
Te Deum
began in St Paul's, in the presence of the Council, the judges and the mayor and citizens. Then the King's waits and the City waits joined forces with a shrill display on the shawms, and the guns of the Tower fired a salute.

    The celebration resumed in the evening, with more bonfires and music and free food and wine. Two thousand guns were shot off in the Tower and the ringing of church bells continued until 10 o'clock.
⁵⁸

    On Monday, 15 October, the baby was christened in the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court. Cranmer officiated, Mary was his godmother and Elizabeth carried the chrisom-cloth. He was christened 'Edward', and Garter King of Arms proclaimed his titles: 'EDWARD, son and heir to the King of England, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester'. Then, with Mary and Elizabeth supporting his train, he was carried back to the Queen's apartments, where his proud parents were waiting to greet him.
⁵⁹

    Despite her lengthy labour, Jane seemed to make a good recovery and plans were put in hand for her churching, which would mark her return to ordinary life after the purdah of her confinement. Anne Basset, her mother was informed, would have to have a 'new satin gown' for the occasion. Meanwhile, in another splendid ceremony, Jane's brother Edward and Treasurer Fitzwilliam were both made earls. There was a rumour that Cromwell would be created an earl too. But he had to wait.
⁶⁰

* * *

A few days later, however, Jane's condition suddenly worsened. On Friday the 19th, there was another general procession at St Paul's for 'the health of the Queen'. By Tuesday the 23rd, 'the bruit [rumour] was her Grace was departed'. But Jane pulled round. 'If good prayers can save her life', Lady Lisle was informed, 'she is not like to die, for never lady was so much plained [lamented] with everyman, rich and poor.'
⁶¹

    At first, the prayers seemed to work. On the Tuesday afternoon, she had a natural 'lax' or discharge and she seemed to improve. But she was very ill all night, and, so her doctors reported, 'doth rather appair [worsen] than amend'. Her confessor was with her from dawn and, at 8 a.m., was preparing to administer Extreme Unction.
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    Henry's reaction was curious. 'The King was determined', Russell informed Cromwell a little later on the 24th, 'as this day to have removed to Esher.' But because the Queen was very sick, he had stayed. However, he was determined to be in Esher on the 25th. 'If she amend, he will go,' Russell wrote, 'and if she amend not, he told me this day, he could not find it in his heart to tarry.'
⁶³

    What was Henry doing? Was he grief-stricken and seeking solitude? Or did he find Jane's death, like other unpleasant things, distasteful and something to be avoided?

    In any event, he did not have long to wait. By 8 p.m. on the 24th she was dying and Norfolk summoned Cromwell from London. 'I pray you', he wrote, 'to be here tomorrow early to comfort our good master, for as for our mistress there is no likelihood of her life, the more pity, and I fear she shall not be in life at the time ye shall read this.'

    Jane died about midnight. We do not know whether Henry was present.
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PART THREE

F
or whatever reason, Henry was in no hurry to remarry after Jane's death. Perhaps he really was inconsolable. Perhaps it was the difficulty of finding another suitable wife. The most likely explanation, however, lies in a quirk in the King's amorous nature.

    For Henry, as we have seen, being in love, or at least being able to imagine himself in love, was a prerequisite for marriage. But he tended to fall
in
love with a woman only when he was falling
out of
love with another one. It was thus that Anne had succeeded Catherine and thus in turn, as her own star waned, that Anne had been displaced by Jane. But Jane died while Henry was still in love with her – or, at least, not much out of it. Moreover, the fact that she died giving him a son meant that he came to love her more dead than alive. In these circumstances, the machinery of love on the rebound did not come into play and the post of Queen lay vacant.