The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr (12 page)

“Hush,” said the Doctor. “You speak too freely.”

“But that… would be criminal.”

“My dear lawyer, when the Bishop of Winchester asks for victims, he must have them.”

“You wish me to see…Ockham?”

“I will see the fellow.” The Doctor laid his hand on Simons’ shoulder. “Do not tremble, man. This is the task which has been set us. Success is expected of us; never doubt that we shall achieve it.”

THE QUEEN SAT in her apartment with a few of her ladies. They were working at their tapestry, but the Queen’s thoughts were far away.

On a stool beside her sat little Jane Grey. The child attracted Katharine. She was so small and so beautiful. She was only six years old, but she was wise enough for eleven; she was also clever with her needle, and most happy to be beside the Queen.

Little Jane believed that one day she might be a Queen. Edward had whispered to her that he would ask if she might be his, when he was of an age to ask. They wanted to marry him, he believed, to his cousin, young Mary of Scotland, but he was not sure, because such a matter as the choice of his wife would not be mentioned to him just yet. He had heard too that Mary had been promised to the King of
France, and that his father was very angry about that. “But I am not, Jane,” he had said, “and you know why.”

They had smiled and nodded because they understood each other so well.

So Jane, who might one day be a Queen of England, liked to study the ways of the present Queen, and she found that study of great interest to her. She knew when the Queen was frightened as she was today, although she did not know the cause of her fear.

The tapestry was beautiful. In the center was a medallion about which flowers were being worked in gold and scarlet, blue and green silks. At each corner was a dragon with crimson fire coming from its mouth; and it was on one of these dragons that Jane herself was working.

It is a sad thing, I verily believe, to be a Queen, pondered Jane as she stitched at her dragon.

It was also a sad thing to be a King—a little King. It was all very well when you were mighty and all-powerful as was the King himself. It was when you were a little boy who was unsure of himself, as all young people must be, that it was alarming. It was only when they were in the apartments with Mrs. Sybil Penn that they were really unafraid. Mrs. Penn refused to look upon the Prince as the future King; he was her little one, she always said; and she would rock him on her knee and bathe his skin and croon over him; she would mutter threats against his tutors and his riding masters, and tell Jane that they should not long treat her little princeling as they did.

Edward would sit there contentedly in Mrs. Penn’s lap and Jane would sit at her feet.

“Jane,” the young Prince would say, “now let us play at being children.”

Jane intended to look after him when she grew up; that was why, if she were to be his Queen, she wished to know all about queenly duties.

Life was so difficult. It changed so quickly. The Princesses Mary and Elizabeth were now often at court and consequently the children saw less of them. It seemed a long time since Uncle Thomas Seymour had sailed away. Edward complained bitterly of his loss.

“It all changes so quickly, Jane,” he had said, his brow puckered so that Jane knew that he was thinking that soon the greatest change
of all might come: the day when Prince Edward would become King Edward.

And now, what was it that was worrying this dearest of Queens? She was preoccupied; she was not paying attention to what her ladies said; every now and then she would glance toward the door as though she expected to see someone enter, someone whose coming would be very important; as though she longed for it and yet she dreaded it.

Jane knew that some of the ladies and gentlemen of the court had disappeared suddenly. Among them were Sir Philip and Lady Hoby and Sir Thomas Carden. People did go away suddenly, and when you asked for news of them, strange looks appeared on people’s faces.

Jane had often traveled along the river from Greenwich to Hampton and she had seen that gloomy fortress of the Tower. She had heard terrible stories of what went on behind those gray stone walls; and she knew also that when people looked as they looked now when the names of Sir Thomas Carden and the Hobys were mentioned, that meant that those of whom one inquired had gone to the Tower.

Katharine, as she stitched at her tapestry, was marveling at her own temerity. Her sister Anne had been against what she had done, had implored her not to interfere.

“Discard these new ideas,” Anne had pleaded. “Shut your mind to them. These people are beginning to look to you as a leader. You know what these arrests mean. They mean that Gardiner and Wriothesley are working against you. They have marked you for their victim.”

Anne was right. Katharine knew these things to be true. She was a meek woman, but she had a mind and she could not shut it to ideas, however dangerous. If she thought they were the right ideas she must accept them; she must read, and be true to herself; and because of some urge within her she must accept Gardiner’s challenge.

She had said to Anne: “How can these men possibly have found evidence against the Hobys and Carden? I know they are in possession of books, but those books remain in their apartments. The King has not given his permission that the castle shall be searched.”

“Someone has informed against them.”

“I do not believe it. Who would have done so? None but our
friends here at court knows of their connection with the New Faith. And none of our friends has been questioned. We know that.” It came to her as an inspiration. After all, she was no fool. Had not the Bishop appointed that rogue Dr. London to work for him, and did not Katharine know in what manner London’s evidence against the abbeys had been compiled?

From that inspiration grew another: If he were going to prove that some had spoken against the men and women of the Queen’s household, who could be better informants than dead men who could not speak for themselves? At the house of the clerk of the court would be those documents which had been written at the time of the examination of the three martyrs. If those papers could be seized and they could be proved to contain forgeries, not only would Katharine’s friends be saved, but her enemies would be exposed.

It was bold, but she felt the need to be bold. The right action—if her suspicions were correct—could save not only her friends now, but perhaps herself in the future.

She had not hesitated. This day, while the court was sitting, she had sent men on whom she could rely to the house of the clerk of the court. They would seize those documents on her authority.

If she had made a false step her position would be an unenviable one, but the King was still very kindly disposed toward her; if she were right, then would she be triumphant indeed.

No wonder she was nervous. No wonder she kept glancing toward the door.

She looked down and saw the wondering eyes fixed upon her. Was it sympathy she saw in those lovely eyes? Katharine stooped and kissed the upturned face.

“Jane, my dear,” she said, “you shall come to my chamber. We will find a post for you. Oh, you are overyoung to be a maid of honor, but you shall be there to serve me, because it pleases me to have you with me.”

Jane kissed the hand of her royal benefactress and expressed her thanks in the solemn manner which was habitual to her.

She wished she knew what ailed the Queen.

THE KING WAS FURIOUS. The trial of those members of the Queen’s household had been proved to be full of trickery. The clerk
of the court had been arrested; papers had been found at his home which contained forgery, inserted by him to implicate the arrested men and women. Dr. London and Lawyer Simons, together with the clerk, had been concocting evidence.

He sent for Gardiner and berated him severely.

Gardiner swore he had been deceived by Dr. London and the lawyer.

“Then let them feel our wrath!” cried the King.

His eyes narrowed, and they told Gardiner, although the King spoke not a word of this matter, that he understood these accusations, purporting to be directed against members of the household, were meant to involve his Primate Cranmer and the Queen; and that if more such tricks were played it would be Gardiner himself who felt the weight of the King’s displeasure.

Henry reflected: I’d dismiss this fellow now if he, being so sly, were not so useful to me.

As it was he would be content with the punishment of others.

“Let this Dr. London be set in the pillories of Newbury and Reading and Windsor. Let papers be attached to his person, notifying all who can read them that he has committed perjury, so that all may know what the King’s will is toward those who would accuse the innocent.”

The King raged up and down the apartment, calling God to witness that he was a just King. He shook his fist at Gardiner.

“Remember it, Bishop. Remember it.”

Gardiner was trembling when he left the royal presence.

He found Wriothesley and told him that it would be unwise to take further action against the Queen for the time being. They had underrated her. They had thought her weak, and this she most certainly was not.

“It would seem,” said Wriothesley wryly, “that all we have done is to bring to the stake three men of little importance, while much harm has been done to ourselves in the eyes of the King.”

“You are impatient, sir,” said Gardiner testily. “We have lost the first battle, but it is the last one that proclaims the victor. This would not have happened but for the fact that the King’s marriage is as yet young. In a few months…in a year…he will have ceased to love Madame Katharine. His eyes will have fixed themselves on another lady. We have acted too soon, and London was a fool. Many men are
exposed in these matters of policy… exposed as fools. There is no place for fools. Let us not accuse each other of folly. We will wait and, ere long, I promise you, Katharine Parr will go the way of the others.”

In her apartments Katharine embraced her friends who had returned unharmed from their imprisonment. They fell on their knees and thanked her; she was their savior and they owed their lives to her courage.

“Do not rejoice too soon,” warned her sister.

But Katharine kissed Anne tenderly. She felt strong now. She had made up her mind as to how she should act in a future crisis; it would be as her integrity demanded.

“Beware of my lord Bishop,” whispered Anne.

And afterward, Katharine often heard those words when the hangings rustled or when the wind howled through the trees.

“Beware…Beware…Beware of my lord Bishop.”

They mingled with those words which seemed to come from the tolling of the bells.

THE FIRST YEAR of Katharine’s life as Henry the Eighth’s sixth Queen was slowly passing.

It was full of alarms as startling and terrifying as those sudden attacks of Gardiner and his Catholics. During the year, Gardiner had seemed to turn his attention from her to Cranmer; and contemplating the manner in which the Catholic Party had plotted for the downfall of the Primate Thomas Cranmer, and noting how on two occasions it was the King himself who had saved Cranmer, Katharine was comforted. The King, it seemed, could feel real affection for some. In the case of Cranmer, the astute monarch, knowing his well-loved Thomas to be in danger, had presented him with a ring which he might show to the Council as a token of the royal regard. None, of course, had dared attack a man who was possessed of such a token. On another occasion when the Catholics had wished to set up a Commission for the examining and discovery of heretics, the King had given his consent to the formation of this Commission but had foiled the purpose of it—which was to ensnare the Archbishop of Canterbury—by setting none other than that Archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, at the head of it.

Yes, the King had his affections and loyalties. But would he feel for Katharine the same regard he had shown to Cranmer?

How often during the passing months had the King demanded of his wife: “No sign of a child?”

Once he had said: “By God, I have, I verily believe, got me another barren wife!”

That had been said after a state banquet when he had been feeling more sprightly than was his habit, for his leg had been in one of its healing phases and he had been listening to the singing of one of the ladies, a very beautiful lady, whose person pleased him as well as her voice had charmed him.

“No sign of a child?” The words were ominous; and the glance which accompanied them had been one of dislike.

But a few days later the leg had started to pain more than ever, and it was Katharine, that gentle nurse, to whom he turned. He was calling her his little pig again; and when the beautiful young lady begged leave to sing His Majesty another song, he said: “Another time. Another time.”

How strange, thought Katharine, with that philosophy which had come to her since she had become the Queen, that the King’s infirmity, which made him so irritable with others, should be her salvation!

Uneasy weeks flowed past her. There were nights when she would wake up after a dream and put her hands about her neck, laughing a little, half mocking herself, saying with a touch of hysteria in her voice: “So, my dear head, you are still on my shoulders?”

She was a little frightened of that hysteria. It was new to her. She had always been so calm, so serene. But how could one remain calm when one was close to death?

But what a fool she was to brood on death. It seemed far away when she sat with the courtiers, and the King would lift his heavily bandaged leg and lay it across her lap. “’ Tis easier there,” he would say. “Why, Kate,” he added once in a rush of grateful affection, “there would appear to be some magic in you, for it seems you impart a cooling to the heat, that soothes my sores.”

“Good Kate, good Kate,” he would say; and sometimes he would caress her cheek or her bare shoulder. “Little pig,” he would call her and give her a ruby or a diamond. “Here, Kate, we like to see you wearing our jewels. They become you…they become you.” They were gifts given in order to soothe his conscience; they indicated that
he was planning to replace her by some fresh victim who had caught his eye; then because of infirmity and age he would decide not to make the effort; if his wife could not always charm him, the nurse, when pain returned, had become a necessity.