The Rose Without a Thorn Read online

  “Well, so you were.” He squeezed my thigh again, “And I will tell you something else, shall I, sweet Katherine?”

  “If it please Your Majesty.”

  “I like it well. You are little, Katherine Howard. Women should not be like great mares.” His face darkened. “I never liked that sort. Katherine, I will tell you this. You are the exact size that pleases me.”

  I laughed. He was watching me closely, his lips slightly parted so that they no longer looked cruel; his eyes gleamed, and there was an even deeper color than usual in his plump cheeks.

  “You continue happy with Court life?” he asked.

  “Oh yes, Your Majesty.”

  “And you sing and dance and pass the days merrily? Oh, Katherine, you are a happy young lady. I see it in your face. You bring happiness to those about you. Do you know that?”

  “I … I did not know.”

  “And you think that your King is the happiest because he is the master of them all … this brilliant Court, these men and women—they are here to serve him. You think there must be naught he lacks. Is that so?”

  What could I say but “Yes, Your Majesty,” for he was looking at me, expecting an answer.

  “Then you are wrong,” he said in a voice of thunder. His face was distorted in anger which alarmed me. My simple “Yes, Your Majesty” appeared to be the wrong answer. Thomas had said that in the service of the King one must take great care. A careless word could result in one’s being sent to the Tower.

  He saw my startled face and reached for my hand. He lifted it and, to my astonishment, raised it to his lips, kissing it.

  “My dear, dear child,” he said. “My dear Katherine, your King is not a happy man. There are times when I wonder why it is that Heaven persecutes me so. Have I done aught wrong? Is there some fault in me of which I know nothing, but which has displeased my Maker? Do you think so, Katherine?”

  I was abashed. I looked up at the sky, as though hoping to find the answer there. How easy it would be to make the wrong answer to such a question.

  But apparently no answer was needed, for his expression changed again to one of abject self-pity.

  “It is a cross I have to bear,” he said. “Through the years I have borne it. All I asked was a wife who would be good to me … and the nation. I was a good and faithful husband.”

  I looked sharply at him. I could not stop thinking of Elizabeth Blount—lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine—who had been the mother of his son, the Duke of Richmond. I thought of my cousin’s miscarriage, which might have been the means of giving him—and the nation—the desired son, and which had been brought on because my cousin had come upon him, fondling Jane Seymour.

  Yet he looked so sad, and quite unaware that he could be speaking anything but the truth, that I found myself almost believing him.

  “Why … why?” he went on.

  How I dreaded these questions. Why did I have to be so inadequate? Why had I not been like my cousin? Oh no, I must not think of her.

  But apparently again he did not need an answer. Though I did wish he would not keep putting his words in the form of a question.

  He was saying: “There is nothing I ask more than to be a good and faithful husband to a wife who will love me in return. Yet I am plagued. It would seem there is a curse on me.”

  There was silence while I tried to think of what I ought to say. He was still holding my hand.

  He said: “I believe you to be a good, sweet girl. You know nothing of the evils of the world, sweet child. You are untouched by the wickedness of the world. I find great pleasure in the company of one such as you.”

  Again silence. What could I say? Was I good? I had never wanted to harm anyone. But to most people goodness meant virtue. An image of Manox rose before me. I thought of the slighting manner in which he had spoken of me to Dorothy Barwike.

  But I was going to forget all that. Perhaps soon they would agree to my marriage with Thomas. I should go to Hollingbourne and in the years to come tell my children about the time I was at Court and how the King had liked my music, how I had met him in the garden and he had talked to me.

  I could hear myself saying: “There was something very kind about him.”

  “Yes,” went on the King, drawing me back to reality, and almost as though he were talking to himself. “Ill luck has dogged me. There are times when I ask myself, what have I done? There was my first marriage … only a form of marriage, that was. I was not married all those years when I thought I was. Then I married a witch. A spell was put upon me then. And after that there was Jane … good Jane … but she died and left me the boy Edward. There are times when I think I shall outlast him. And then … and then …” His face was dark again.

  “But, Katherine, the Lord has shown me the way out.” He leaned toward me and put his face close to mine. “What think you of that?”

  I realized that this question had to be answered, and desperately I sought for the right words.

  “I … I rejoice for Your Majesty.”

  “And not only for him, Katherine. You should rejoice for another.”

  I did not know to whom he was referring, so I remained silent.

  “You are a good, modest girl. It pleases me that there are still such as you in my realm. You have a good heart, Katherine. I would not be deceived in you, would I?”

  “Oh no, Your Majesty.”

  “Of course not. It is clear in your sweet face. You will be a good and honest wife, will you not? You will love your husband as he will love you?”

  I was on the point of telling him that I was all but betrothed to Thomas Culpepper and that we planned to settle at Hollingbourne, but something restrained me. Moreover, he went on immediately: “After my tribulation, it may be God’s will that I come to happiness.”

  “Oh yes, Your Majesty. I pray so.”

  “We will pray together, Katherine,” he said. “You and I, eh?”

  I smiled happily.

  “You please me greatly, Katherine,” he said. “Have they told you how pretty you are?”

  I blushed and he squeezed my thigh again. I thought, it will be bruised, I doubt not, and I giggled inwardly, asking myself if it were an honor to be bruised by the King.

  His face was creased again in tender sentimentality.

  “My dear little flower,” he said. “I like you, Katherine.”

  “Oh, Your Majesty is very kind to me,” I murmured.

  “And will be kinder. There is much we shall talk of when the time is ripe. Ere long it will be so for, as I have told you, you please me. You please me greatly. What say you to that?”

  I did not know what to say, and he went on: “Eh? Eh? What say you?”

  “Your … Your Majesty pleases me.” I stopped short.

  That was a terrible mistake. I was glad that my uncle could not hear. But it seemed I could do no wrong in the eyes of the King. He slapped his thigh this time. He was laughing.

  “I like that, Katherine,” he said. “The King has found favor with little Mistress Howard. What better news? What better?”

  I laughed with him—which was easy enough—while I marveled that my uncle could offend him so easily and that an untutored girl such as I was could so easily say what he wanted to hear.

  There was an apprehensive air of expectancy in the Queen’s household at Richmond. On the rare occasions when I saw the Queen, I was aware of tension, as though outwardly she were serene but she was aware of our watchfulness. The only attendant left to her from her own country was known as Mother Lowe; and she was constantly at the Queen’s side.

  I gathered that the Queen had always been gracious to her English attendants, but I supposed it was only to Mother Lowe that she would reveal her true feelings.

  There was something else. Attitudes toward me had changed considerably. Those who had previously ignored me seemed eager to show friendship. They watched me closely. It was, of course, because the King had spoken to me.

  I did not see Thomas. I wonde
red why, because usually he had sought some way of meeting me.

  Lady Margaret Douglas, who was chief of the Queen’s ladies, had, among others, noticed me. She talked to me now and then and we had become quite friendly. She was very handsome and I judged her to be about six years older than I. I had always been interested in her because at one time she had wanted to marry Lord Thomas Howard, one of my cousins.

  Lady Margaret was, of course, a very important lady, being the daughter of the King’s sister Margaret by her second husband, the Earl of Angus. She had had a very adventurous life and must have passed through many dangers. I think she felt drawn toward me because she had loved a member of my family.

  She was closer to the Queen than any of the ladies—except Mother Lowe—and one day I mentioned to her that I had seen the Queen in the gardens; she had looked sad and Mother Lowe seemed anxious.

  “Well,” said Lady Margaret. “Who would not be … in her position?”

  “Do you think she misses her home?”

  “It would seem so. But I think she fears most what is going to happen to her.”

  “Because she does not please the King, you mean?”

  Lady Margaret looked at me quizzically, and she said, with a lift of her lips: “The King looks elsewhere.”

  “What will become of the Queen, think you?”

  “Ah, that is what we are all wondering. Oh, Katherine, it is not all pleasure and honor to be royal.”

  “No,” I said.

  “How old are you, Katherine?”

  I told her.

  “You seem younger,” she said. “I know how you lived in your early days, and then you were with the Dowager Duchess. It is only recently that you have come into royal circles, is it not?”

  I nodded.

  “Think of me, the daughter of a Queen. It sets one apart. People are inclined to think it is a glorious position to hold, but it does not always work out that way, Katherine. Terrible things can happen to some of us.”

  I knew that she had spent a time in the Tower and I wondered whether I should refer to it.

  She went on: “One is moved this way and that. It all depends on how one is being used. I often think how much happier some of us might have been if we had not had royal connections. One should consider a great deal, Katherine, before one moves close to the throne.”

  “But if one is born there, one can do nothing about it.”

  “No, they are caught in it from the moment they are born. The fortunate ones are those who have a choice. You have seen ambitious men … and women … move too near the throne and what can happen to them. There was your own cousin.”

  The vision of Anne came to me then. I saw her beautiful head bent over the block, awaiting the fall of the axe. But it was not an axe, of course; it was a sword sent specially from France for the purpose. How like her to die in elegant style.

  “She might have married Northumberland,” Lady Margaret was saying. “He adored her, and she loved him. But fate had a different destiny for her.” She looked at me steadily. “I would be very wary before I sought favors of the King. For me there has been no choice. When the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth were declared illegitimate—that was when Jane Seymour became Queen—I was in line to the throne. There were no male heirs for the King, and I was the daughter of his eldest sister, you see. My mother was a very forceful lady; my father was a very ambitious man. They quarreled and there was much ill-will between them. My mother fled from Scotland, bringing me with her, and I was brought up in the palace of Greenwich.”

  “Greenwich is beautiful,” I said. “I love Greenwich.”

  “I, too,” she said. “The Lady Mary was there. She is close to my age. In truth I am a few months older. We spent our early years together and friendship grew between us. But in time I was taken away. Oh, the wars and the troubles and the effect they have on our lives! I have told you once, Katherine Howard, and I will tell you again. It is not good to be too close to royalty.”

  “I have often wondered about the Lady Mary,” I said. “How strange life must be for her. She was once adored as the King’s daughter and then she became of no importance at all.”

  “Yes, yes. Again and again I tell you. It is not good to be too close to royalty.” She was looking at me very intently. “It is dazzling, but it is dangerous, to get too close. Many have found that. Remember the Cardinal? Who will forget him? He was my godfather. He went too far … you will learn that I speak truth.”

  I believed that to be true for some; but there were others. I was thinking of my own family, which had survived its disgrace at Bosworth Field. But on the other hand I was aware now that my uncle, the Duke, was always on the alert lest he should make a false move.

  “Do not deceive yourself,” went on Lady Margaret. She was studying me intently. “Do you know, you remind me of your uncle, Thomas … my Thomas. Not that your looks resemble his … except perhaps your expression at times. Well, you are a Howard, as he was.”

  I saw tears in her eyes and she put an arm round me.

  “Oh, I am foolish,” she added. “It was just that memories came back. They put us in the Tower … just because we became betrothed … secretly.”

  “I am sorry,” I told her. “How you must have suffered.”

  She withdrew herself, perhaps remembering that she was the King’s niece and I the humblest member of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. But her lover had been my kinsman, and that brought us close.

  “I loved him,” she said. “But I was royal, you see. I could be Queen of England, and so a match would be made for me. I was not allowed to choose. Your cousin, Queen Anne, had been my friend—even though the Lady Mary and I had been as sisters, and you can guess there had been enmity between Mary and Anne Boleyn. It was natural enough. Mary was devoted to her mother, and to see her replaced and so cruelly set aside was too much to be lightly borne. I am saying too much. Thomas Howard and I were sent to the Tower, just because we loved each other and had betrothed ourselves … and he was not the match they wanted for me.”

  “How sad for you. I can never pass the Tower without shuddering.”

  “As well you might. You should bear that in mind.”

  “You feel badly because you were there once. Was it a long duration?”

  She shook her head. “I fell ill of a fever and they thought I might die, so they took me away and I was sent, still a prisoner, to Syon House. I remember at length being released. It was an October day, just over two years after they had beheaded the Queen. Two days before my release, Thomas died.”

  “What a sad story!”

  “I tell you because … oh, Katherine, do you know why I tell you?”

  “You are telling me because you think I ought to know how easily one can make a mistake at Court.”

  I thought: I, too, am betrothed, as she was … or almost. Does she know? But I shall marry Thomas and we shall go to Hollingbourne. Did not my grandmother say that this would be?

  She was watching me closely. Then she said suddenly: “And now I am restored to favor—lady-in-waiting to the Queen … the King’s niece … accepted at Court.”

  “But you still remember my Uncle Thomas.”

  She nodded. “But ’tis over, is it not?”

  “The Queen appears to be a very gentle lady.”

  “I believe her to be.”

  “Lady Margaret, she is very much afraid now, is she not?”

  “She has not found favor with the King. I suppose it is not easy to choose a wife … or a husband … on the account one receives from other people. They praised her too much, and, alas, she is not the King’s idea of a beauty.”

  “I thought she had a very kind face.”

  “The King looks for more than kindness. She is not graceful, and he looks for grace, it seems. She is too learned. Some men do not like learned women.”

  “That seems strange. Would they not wish to talk of interesting matters with their wives?”

  “You do not know men, Katherine Howar
d.”

  Did I not? There was Derham. I had regarded myself as married to him once. Thomas Culpepper, to whom I was almost betrothed. I knew there were such men as Manox, too.

  “If you did,” she went on, “you would understand that they like to be the masters. Superior in matters of the mind. Clever women disturb them. There are those who say that Queen Anne Boleyn was too clever for her own safety.”

  “None would find me too clever, I’ll warrant.”

  She laughed with me, which I realized meant she agreed.

  “And the Queen,” I said. “She is too clever?”

  “Chiefly she lacks the kind of beauty which is to the King’s taste.”

  “Lady Margaret, what will happen to her?”

  “I believe there will be a divorce.”

  “Can that be?”

  “Assuredly it can. The King does not have to get a dispensation from the Pope now, does he? He is now Head of the Church, and can command archbishops and bishops to obey him when he needs them to.”

  “But there would have to be reasons.”

  “I will tell you this, Katherine, but it is not generally known as yet. There has been a convocation, and the matter has been referred to the two archbishops with four bishops and eight other members of the clergy; and there are reasons why a divorce is possible. The first and most important is that the Queen was precontracted to the Prince of Lorraine; the second is that the King was married against his will and has never completed the marriage; and the third is that the nation wishes the King to have more children, and in view of his feelings for the Queen, he could never have them through her.”

  “But he did actually marry her.”

  Lady Margaret lifted her shoulders.

  “Depend upon it, the King will have an annulment if he wishes it enough. And there is no doubt in my mind, and those of many at Court, that the King will have his way.”

  I thought a good deal about that talk with Lady Margaret. I had vaguely heard about the death of my uncle in the Tower and that he had been foolish enough to act unwisely with a lady.

  My uncle, the Duke, was contemptuous of such conduct, although he continued to act scandalously in his own marital concerns, and was still involved in his liaison with the washerwoman, Elizabeth Holland.