The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Fifth Wife (25 page)

We played on into the afternoon, while Anna’s maidservant sat inconspicuously in a corner and her footman hovered behind her bench. I had the satisfaction of winning—a satisfaction I would not have sought had Anna not made such cutting remarks about our lack of a child. Anna was miserable. King Henry offered to give her the money to pay what she owed to me, a small sum which she accepted gratefully. Then she said, “I have heard you have a pearl bed. I want to see this.”

I saw no reason not to show off my beautiful bed, and, after the king excused himself and kissed Anna’s hand, I led her into my bedchamber. There stood the beautiful symbol of our union, glowing in the wan fading sunshine of late afternoon. Anna went up to the bed and ran her hand along its surface. She moved her head from side to side, watching the play of faint iridescence.

“Such a bed to make deep love in,” she said. “To make babies in. I am sorry you do not do this.”

She was not sorry at all, her mouth turned up at the corners. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, watching for my reaction. But I only jingled the coins in the pocket of my gown. My winnings from the card games. I smiled back at her, and said nothing.

*   *   *

A few days later Anna’s footman asked to see me. My chamberlain brought him to me, giving me a quizzical look as if to say, who is this and what can he want?

I looked him up and down. He was quite tall, and gangly, very thin with long dangling arms and legs. He wore Anna’s livery but his bony wrists protruded from the sleeves. His boots were scuffed and in need of a polish. His coarse black hair hung loose to his collar, falling over his forehead into his eyes. He did not meet my gaze, but looked down, shamefaced—or was his manner furtive? I couldn’t tell.

“Who are you, boy?” the chamberlain asked. The footman handed him a folded paper.

“For you, Your Highness,” my chamberlain said, handing me the note. I unfolded it and read.

To her gracious Majesty Queen Catherine,

Greetings to Your Majesty from my palace at Richmond and may all the blessings of Providence be yours. I hope you will look kindly on my former footman Englebert who is seeking a position in your royal household. He is without employment and I cannot afford to add him to my already crowded household. I have too many servants from Cleves. They keep coming to me looking for places and I cannot refuse them. They are fleeing the soldiers of the Emperor who are attacking us.

I would be grateful if you could find a place for Englebert who is a devoted and excellent servant. Please do this as a favor to me,

Wishing Your Majesty every blessing,

Anna, beloved sister of King Henry

“So, you wish to join my household,” I said to the footman, who nodded vigorously. “Do you speak English?” I could not remember whether he had spoken English or Clevan when at our court.

He nodded again.

“How well?”

He shrugged.

A taciturn footman is not at all a bad thing, I tend to think, but this man seemed mute.

“Speak to me then!”

“Your Majesty,” Englebert said in flawless English, bowing low, “I am at your service. If you take me on, I shall endeavor to give you satisfaction in all things.”

TWELVE

THAT
winter I awoke each morning in the great pearl bed, with my husband already up and dressed and gone. He continued to be a font of energy, riding, hawking, meeting with his councilors and with a new group of builders who he set to work enlarging Hampton Court and building a new palace, St. James’s, where the leper hospital used to be.

His list of new constructions was a long one. He ordered a new closet for Windsor Castle, new kitchens for Anna at Richmond—she had begged for these—a new gallery at Eltham and another at Whitehall, a new tiltyard at Whitehall and a vast new enclosed tennis court as well, and new leads for all the palace roofs. He rubbed his hands together with glee when telling me all that his laborers were doing, and all that he meant to have done in future. When the royal stables burned to the ground—a source of great sorrow to my husband, who loved his horses—he built vast new stables where the royal mews had been, with barns to hold the horses’ fodder and housing for the grooms and stable boys.

So eager was the king to have these works completed that he ordered the laborers to stay at their tasks day and night, working by candlelight in the sunless hours. He took great pleasure in inspecting the progress of his undertakings, hiring more and more designers and craftsmen and visiting the work sites again and again, often taking friends and officials with him and sometimes combining a tour of inspection with the pleasures of banqueting and even hunting, when the weather was not too foul.

I expected to be taken along on these excursions, but he did not invite me, and when I asked to be included he made excuses for leaving me behind.

“You must not tire yourself, sweetheart,” he said, or “I would not want you to take cold.” I was sure he was hoping that I would soon conceive a child, if I had not done so already, and wanted me to stay quietly indoors, without exerting myself or exposing myself to the outdoor air, in order to ensure that I would not lose the babe in my womb.

When word reached him that a huge double cannon he had ordered from a German foundry had finally arrived, he celebrated by taking a number of ladies of the court to see the monstrous thing as it was brought ashore. As usual I was not included in the party, but I heard from Master Denny how when the king first saw the ordnance he cried, “Oh! I like it marvelous well! I shall put it in my tower at Nonsuch!” and all the ladies clapped and cheered. He called for wine and comfits to celebrate, and had his gunners load and fire the great cannon until all the ladies were nearly deaf from the explosions.

One lady in the party drew particular attention: Anna. I did not know whether my husband had invited her or whether she had simply discovered that he was going to the docks to see the new cannon and decided to join the group, confident that she would be welcome. But her presence led, inevitably, to gossip. It was whispered that my husband might be having second thoughts about Anna, wondering whether he might have been too hasty in declaring their marriage null. Dr. Chambers’s opinion about my being barren was still lively conversation, I was sure, while no physician had ever ventured such an opinion about Anna.

Even within my own household I was beginning to hear disloyal voices. Charyn, appointed to be among my ladies in waiting—and very mortified to find herself in such a subservient position to me, the girl she had once called an inferior whelp—approached me one day.

“Are you to have no coronation then, Catherine?” she asked. “You have been the king’s wife now for many months. Why is it he has not had you crowned queen?”

“I imagine he will order it, when he thinks the time is right,” I said, trying to keep my voice mild—and trying not to look at Charyn’s waist, which was expanding. She had married Lord Morley’s son and was expecting a child in the spring.

“I don’t believe coronation robes have been ordered,” Charyn went on. “But then, it may be that the king is waiting until you have had your first child.”

Others among my ladies who were strict Protestants whispered that I was lax in my religious observance and far from sober enough in my conduct to be queen. My lightness of spirit, my joking manner were held against me, as signs of the devil at work in me. I was unworthy to be the mother of the next king, they told one another (as Joan and Lady Rochford and others were quick to inform me).

I was advised to purge my household of such critics, but I did not, fearing that anyone I sent away might spread much worse gossip about me from a desire for revenge.

I did tire of hearing about my husband’s excursions in the company of ladies, however—excursions which always excluded me. I became vexed and worried when I discovered that among the ladies he invited was Madge Shelton, a beautiful, dimpled woman who had been his mistress in the past, when his marriage to my cousin Anne had been troubled and the court was full of gossip—as it was now—about how he might be thinking about ridding himself of Anne and marrying someone else.

The next time he organized a party of ladies to go aboard his flagship the
Great Harry,
with a promised banquet to follow on shipboard, I resolved to be a part of the festivities. I ordered my barge to be made ready, and when my husband and his many lady guests arrived at the river pier, I was already aboard my barge and the oarsmen were ready to row.

I had my own group of women supporters on board with me: Joan and Malyn, Lady Rochford and Catherine Tylney and some others I felt I could trust to be staunchly loyal to me. The number, I am sorry to say, was disconcertingly small.

My plan was to follow the immense flagship when she set sail. I knew she would not travel far, only a short distance past the lower docks and on downriver. I consulted my pilot concerning the tides and calculated that the barge could keep pace with the flagship for at least a few miles, depending on the strength of the winds.

The
Great Harry
set forth, and my barge followed. From both vessels came the faint gabble and murmur of female voices carried on the breeze. Then I heard a loud male voice.

“Aha! Catherine! A race! A race!”

It was my husband, waving and challenging us to a contest. Knowing it would be futile, I nevertheless spurred my oarsmen on, while shouts and yells went back and forth between the two vessels. We kept pace for as long as we could, but before long the wind rose, favoring the flagship—which was in any case much faster than my poky barge—and we were left far behind. But at least I had made an effort, and my oarsmen cheered, making my spirits soar. My loyal women and my oarsmen—and, I was sure, a few of my guardsmen as well—were on my side. They admired my daring, my boldness. I felt certain of it. I saw how they looked at me, smiling and nodding, when I disembarked. I knew.

Just at that time the court seemed at loose ends, lacking in direction and—despite the king’s strong presence—lacking leadership. Quarrels erupted, proud words were spoken in anger, leading to blows. Grudges were held, threats made. Factions formed, only to dissolve suddenly. It was as if the courtiers were running here and there, back and forth, now taking momentary pleasure in adorning themselves with the latest fads in gowns and doublets, now abandoning them, now championing certain favorites, now casting them aside. Old wounds festered, new wounds were created—and in the midst of it all, the king seemed to dart from one building site to another, elusive, his motives unreadable.

He announced that it was time for me to make my first official entry into London as queen, though what prompted him I could not tell. I would not be part of a procession through the streets, but instead would travel through the town by river, aboard the king’s barge, with my husband at my side, in all our finery. There would be a cannonade from the Tower, the king told me, and all along the riverside, colorful displays of flags and painted ensigns and mottoes would proclaim my welcome.

The City guilds were alerted, and the citizens were given an incentive to turn out to acclaim me; they were told that wine would pour from all the fountains and conduits and that food in abundance would be provided on the day of the royal entry.

The day arrived, overcast and with a hint of rain in the air. We went aboard the barge and took our places, standing in the bow where we would be seen to greatest advantage. The king’s barge was much larger and more grand than mine, splendidly gilded and decorated and rowed by seventy-five strapping oarsmen. Pennants flew from every corner of the vessel’s canopy, and silken streamers floated in the rather cool spring air. I wore a gown of glimmering silver embroidered with clusters of pearls, and my neck, wrists and fingers sparkled with gems. The king looked at me approvingly as we began our journey, as if to say, yes, you’ll do. But he did not take my hand, or make me laugh, and his manner, though regal, was subdued.

The barge shot London Bridge and then was joined by dozens of other brightly decorated barges, with the mayor and livery companies aboard. Hundreds of smaller boats carrying Londoners of all ranks crowded around our barge, some with choristers serenading us, some with musicians, others with well-wishers who threw flowers into our vessel and shouted words of welcome.

Suddenly the Tower guns began to boom forth, a deafening sound that went on and on, getting louder the farther downriver we went.

“Is that your double cannon I hear?” I asked my husband, but he only gave me a quick smile and then turned away, distracted. For it was just then that we began to hear the clamorous voices shouting insults.

“Bitch! We will have none other than Queen Anna!”

“Devil’s harlot! Bring back our rightful queen!”

To my horror, someone in a small boat threw an object into our barge that landed at my feet. It was a dead rat.

The insulting cries continued, while others shouted “Good Queen Catherine” and “Queen Catherine forever!”

Meanwhile more things were thrown at us—or rather at me—and I shrieked when a pile of bloody entrails nearly struck me, splattering filth on my gown.

King Henry quickly pulled me under the barge’s canopy and shielded me, shouting orders to the guardsmen to “attack the filthy churls” with their pikes.

“Seize them! Take them to the Tower!” he ordered, though the harassers were too quick and too nimble. They turned their small boats swiftly and rowed away, and there was no catching them.

Servants hurried to remove the offending things flung onto the deck of our barge—not only entrails but bloody cloths, fish scales and bones, the head of a cat. I covered my eyes. I didn’t want to see any more.

“By all the saints! I have a woeful people to govern! It was an unlucky day when I was crowned! But I will chasten them, I will chasten them until they beg for mercy! I will make them suffer!”

It was a full hour before my husband was able to master his anger, and even longer before he stopped sputtering curses and threats and managed to eat his supper. We returned to the palace, having received the ceremonial welcome from the Lord Mayor and the City guilds. There were no more insulting words or flung objects, though for the remainder of our barge journey I remained alert to insolent outcries and kept looking around me, watching for rats and offal.