The Favored Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Third Wife Read online

  “A struggle is under way,” the nun was saying. “A great struggle, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. The fate of England’s soul rests with the outcome of this battle. It is all foretold in the Bible. We live in the time told of by Saint John in the Book of the Revelation. He saw it, all those years ago. He knew what the outcome would be.”

  “Tell us, tell us,” I heard people saying. I looked around me, and saw anxious faces, frightened eyes. They were clamoring for answers to the alarm they felt, for an end to the terrible uncertainty that was preying on them. I shared that fear, though I did not share the desperation that I saw in those frightened eyes, those tremulous voices.

  “It depends on you. On us. We are God’s warriors. If we fight well, we will win. The Lord will win, and the devil will be sent back to hell.”

  “The Virgin has shown me a great battle to come,” she began again, after a pause. “The greatest of battles, in which the earth shall be cast into the sea and the armies of darkness shall be utterly destroyed. The Virgin has shown me the future,” she added, her face radiant. “I rejoice in it, as shall you all. But before it arrives, there shall be a time of dire testing. We shall all be brought low. None shall escape, no, not one.”

  She broke off, shaking her head, as if in an effort to emerge from her visionary state. And then she said an odd thing.

  “I have seen a ship,” she said. “Carrying a man, a man sent by God to help Queen Catherine. He has come among us. He will tame the vipers in the court. For the court is nothing but a nest of vipers.”

  These words seemed to me to clash with the earlier part of her message. Instead of being part of a general message, these words were very specific, about a very specific man, a man who had come to the royal court recently. I had no doubt the nun was speaking of Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, sent by the emperor to represent his interests and to aid Queen Catherine. I not only knew who Ambassador Chapuys was, I had often seen him, for he came to visit the queen frequently, and she sometimes urged me to stay and be present during their colloquies.

  She welcomed his visits and his assistance in her difficulties resulting from the king’s nullity suit, but I knew that he disquieted her. He had no piety, and Catherine preferred people around her who were of strong faith. Beyond that, Chapuys was an ill-favored, hard-featured Savoyard, clever like my brother and Cardinal Wolsey, and while the queen found his cleverness reassuring—for he had a quick and incisive grasp of her situation and was full of suggestions for how she should deal with it—she disliked Italians and distrusted them. I admit that I shared her prejudice. It seemed to me that the ambassador was eloquent, yet untrustworthy; words slipped off his tongue with ease but they were not words one ought to believe.

  And now the nun was telling her followers that Ambassador Chapuys was a man sent by God.

  I tried to remember when it was that I had first heard of the Nun of Kent, and realized that it had been just at the time Cardinal Campeggio left England to return to Rome. Just when the legatine court was disbanded, having failed to render the judgment the king had been so eager to receive: the judgment that the royal marriage was no marriage at all. Ambassador Chapuys had arrived in England near that time.

  Had the nun’s visions begun at precisely the time when the queen’s need for support was growing? When she needed her rival Anne Boleyn to be vilified?

  I put my questions to Cat, later on that afternoon, after the nun had finished delivering her message and the pilgrims were leaving the chapel. The nine women in white who formed the nun’s escort—with Cat among them—were filing into an adjacent room, and I followed. No one stopped me or challenged me.

  I went up to Cat at once and kissed her and told her how very glad I was to see her. She kissed and hugged me and then, reaching for my hand, quickly took me aside.

  “Everything has changed, Jane,” Cat said, keeping her voice low and looking over to where a small group of priests was standing, watching all that went on. “As you see, I am no longer kept locked away. The nun protects me. I am useful to her, and to the queen’s cause. I know things about the family—your family, that used to be mine as well—that Ambassador Chapuys wants to know. As long as he wants me to help him—and help the queen—I will stay out of that horrible locked cell.” She had been bright-eyed, but as she spoke of the locked cell, just for a moment, she looked bleak. How unthinkable her suffering must have been, I thought, shut away there, kept from seeing anyone, and believing that she would spend the rest of her days in that same lonely, grim stone-walled room. Yet now I knew I had to add to it.

  “Cat,” I said, wishing I did not have to convey what I needed to tell her, “I have some very painful news.”

  At once her features grew clouded, and she nodded sadly. “About my dear John. Yes, I know he has gone to be with the angels. The nun told me.”

  “But hardly anyone knew. How did she find out?”

  “She is a true prophet, Jane. She knew when he died, and was very kind to me when she told me.”

  “I tried to do my best for him and for Henry. Will took the boys away when the sweat began to spread in Croydon.”

  “I know. I’m grateful, Jane, for what you have done for my boys—you and Will both. You didn’t abandon them. Without you, they both might have died.”

  “At least Henry is doing well,” I said. “He seems to grow bigger and stronger each time I visit him. He can draw a bow as well as a boy twice his age. Will thinks he will be a warrior one day.”

  I went on to tell Cat about Henry and the family he was living with, about how impressive he was, intelligent and resolute. She smiled.

  “I will write him. Can you make sure my letter reaches him?”

  I nodded.

  As we talked on, about all that I had seen that day and my conjectures about the nun’s revelations and the arrival of Ambassador Chapuys, I saw that Cat continued to keep her eye on the black-robed priests who hovered near the nun and her handmaidens. There were some half dozen of them, youngish men, not venerable bearded fathers, energetic men who talked in excited voices. I could not help overhearing their conversation—and realized that they were speaking in Spanish. Eventually one among them, a handsome, dark-haired man, approached us.

  “Jane, this is Father Bartolome. He came with Ambassador Chapuys. He is staying here at the convent.”

  “For now,” the priest said, turning his dark, curious eyes on me. “And you are Catherine’s sister who serves the queen.”

  I nodded. “I am, although my brother Edward would tell you otherwise.”

  “I know what has happened in the family,” the priest said. “I have heard about the estrangement. Your brother, if I may say so, is going against the laws of God and the church.”

  I did not quite know what to say to that, so I said nothing. The priest continued to regard me as if expecting a reply.

  “I hope you are not one of those who reads blasphemous Lutheran books and ponders challenging the authority of the Holy Father. In Spain, we reserve our harshest penalties for such persons.”

  I looked at Cat. Why was this priest asking me such a question? I remembered the stories I had heard, from Queen Catherine’s Spanish ladies in waiting, about the torturing of heretics in Spain, who were burnt alive or had their limbs pulled apart by cruel devices until they screamed in pain. I had heard of the Holy Office, the church court that condemned people to horrible deaths. But surely such investigations into religious error had nothing to do with me—or did they? For had I been questioned, I would have had to admit that Lutheran books had indeed found their way into our royal court, and out of curiosity, I had glanced at them.

  I was curious to read for myself what it was that the former monk Martin Luther was telling his followers, how his teachings differed from the teachings of the pope and of the church of St. Peter. The church of Rome.

  I had heard often enough that many learned scholars respected Luther’s teachings as founded on deep and solid l
earning as well as on high moral standards. Yet his writings were denounced, the books themselves burned as dangerous, insidious works of devilry. As far as I could tell, these books brought to light corrupt practices in the church, exposed the making of profits from the forgiveness of sins (which act of exposure seemed to me noble and moral), and were in favor of a pure and spiritual trust in divine mercy.

  If this was Lutheran teaching, I privately thought, then it was a kind of Christianity I could embrace. But I was no theologian, perhaps there were dangerous teachings hidden within the appealing new doctrines. Perhaps it took a far subtler and more learned mind than mine to determine where the truth lay.

  I knew that I was not alone in finding the teachings of the former friar Luther to be of interest. Among others, Anne and her brother George both read Luther’s writings, and King Henry too had acquainted himself with the books of the renegade monk. He condemned them, to be sure, but at least he read them first. Perhaps, I thought, it was the mere fact that I was a member of the royal household that brought me under suspicion from the black-browed priest.

  “I assure you I am no follower of Luther,” I told Father Bartolome. “Queen Catherine can vouch for my faithful devotion to the church of Rome.”

  “Ah! But even to use such a phrase as ‘church of Rome’ brings you under suspicion, Mistress Jane. There is not a church of Rome and a church of Luther. There is only one true and apostolic holy church, presided over by His Holiness.”

  “I shall guard my words more carefully,” I said with a slight bow.

  “Jane,” Cat said, “we must talk again. I have much to tell you. If you will stay until tomorrow, I will see you then, and give you a letter for Henry.” She kissed me on the cheek and moved away, and to my relief, the priest moved off after her.

  * * *

  The warm spring sun was shining down on Chevering Manor, the Dormers’ estate, on the day Will’s sister Margery married my father’s cousin Godfrey Seymour and the Dormers and the Seymours were officially united.

  Margery had asked me to be one of her bridesmaids and Will stood up for the groom, who was all nerves and whose gold-trimmed doublet quivered in the sunlight.

  There had been a sudden thaw in the frosty relations between our two families, a warming brought about by Ned’s rapid rise in royal favor and the Dormers’ eagerness to profit from his success. Today’s festivities were a sign of this newfound warmth and congeniality, and my presence as a member of the wedding party was significant, as I was well aware.

  Our families had been neighbors and friends for as long as I could remember, it had only been the discovery of my father and Margery together that had caused the abrupt and seemingly irreparable breach between them. But when Ned had approached Will’s father Arthur Dormer, offering him the office of Under-Groom of the Confectionery at an entire thirty pounds per annum, and had added to that the promise that in the very near future he might be made Door-Keeper to the Court of Wards and Liveries, Arthur had immediately accepted and offered to make amends.

  “After all, it isn’t as though your father can hide in the storage room with any more of my girls, eh?” Ned told me he had said. “His gout keeps him in bed all the time now—alone. Am I right about that?”

  Ned had acknowledged that our father was indeed very seriously afflicted with gout, and could barely walk any more. His days of seduction, of adultery, were over.

  “And my Margery requires a husband. What about your cousin Godfrey, that lost his wife? He’s no Adonis, but he’s a fair huntsman and keeps an adequate table. Do you think he would have her?”

  Ned’s imitation of Arthur Dormer made me laugh. He could be wickedly amusing when he chose. His imitations of the great men of the court were devastating. He even dared—in safe company, of course—to imitate the king. But he seldom allowed himself to be lighthearted, work engulfed him more than ever after Cardinal Wolsey died and he was appointed to the much sought-after post of gentleman of the chamber to the king. Beyond that, he was often to be found in the company of the new power at court, Thomas Cromwell. I knew Ned saw himself as Cromwell’s successor. As the king’s future right-hand man. Perhaps, even, as chancellor of the realm.

  Will and I danced with abandon at the wedding, and drank deeply of the abundant country ale. As dusk was falling Will helped me up onto a cart and drove me out into the fields, fresh with new growth and fragrant with early flowers. He spread a blanket and cushions across the wooden floor of the cart and lay down, reaching for me to join him. I nestled into his warm arms.

  It was not easy, in the hours that followed, to keep our joint resolve and resist making love. Deep, sweet kisses, caresses that left me breathless and Will choked with desire: these we allowed ourselves, as the twilight faded to midnight blue and the sky became studded with brilliant stars, but we held back from going further. We saved that for our wedding night.

  “Soon, Jane, soon,” Will said. “The life we have hoped to make together is within our grasp now. Before long it will be our wedding day—and then, ah then, our wedding night.”

  Will had lost no time in speaking to his father about our continuing wish to marry, and had been assured that the Dormers would not stand in our way. Indeed, so changed was the entire situation between our families that Arthur Dormer hoped our marriage would come swiftly. Once we were married, he expected to be offered an even more impressive array of court offices. And with these offices, he said, would surely come his chance to buy a larger and finer estate than Chevering Manor.

  “This house will belong to you, Will,” Arthur Dormer had said. “Just as soon as I can afford to purchase a larger property nearer the capital. One more fitting for an under-groom of the confectionery—or, of course, any other offices that may chance to come my way.”

  “So you are to become a gentleman farmer, Will,” I said, half teasing. “And I can learn to shear sheep and plant flowers, and help the cottagers when they are in need, while you improve the breed of our cows and make sure the steward is doing his job properly.”

  “And most important, we can have a family of our own. We can leave the court behind.”

  He took my hand and raised it to his lips.

  “Are we agreed then, Jane?” he asked tenderly. “Shall we do this?”

  I looked at him, at the loving, boyish face, the tousled blond hair, the warm blue eyes. I was so very, very fond of him in that moment. I nodded.

  “Yes, dear Will. Yes.”

  * * *

  Mr. Skut was very glad to be called back to the queen’s apartments at my request. He rubbed his hands together in happy anticipation.

  “Ah, Mistress Seymour,” he said, his smile broad, “am I to hope that the time has come to complete the beautiful gown? Is a betrothal to be announced?”

  “Indeed it is—at last. I trust the gown can be altered to fit a slightly older, slightly more world-weary bride.”

  He motioned to his assistants who brought forward their baskets of cloth and began unpacking their contents.

  “Of course we shall have to alter the bodice and sleeves, to bring them up to date. And perhaps we ought to add different trim at the neck and adjust the petticoats. Since the Lady Anne has come to prominence, and her wardrobe draws all eyes, all the ladies at court must follow French fashion. Which is to say, they must follow Lady Anne’s fashion.”

  I was only too aware that Mr. Skut’s comments were true. Anne’s influence on dress was paramount, and—I had long felt—quite intrusive. She changed her gown three or four times a day, and demanded that we all follow her example. And it seemed as though she not only changed her gowns often, she changed their design, their ornaments, their colors. It was impossible to keep up with her quicksilver taste. One day she had Mr. Skut’s seamstresses, their needles flying, sewing gold acorns on her skirts, the next they were ripping out the acorns and replacing them with sparkling aglets. True-loves were embroidered into puffed sleeves only to give way, shortly afterwards, to strips of black sarcenet or B
ruges satin.

  It was all quite dizzying—and, in my view, quite excessive. Anne needed the distraction of her obsession with dress because without it she was overcome by her fears. She needed to give orders to others so that she could forget that she herself was in thrall to the king, to her relatives, to the king’s hostile subjects. I felt I was beginning to understand her quite well. Not that understanding bred sympathy, quite the reverse, I’m sorry to admit.

  Mr. Skut was going on about the need to alter the bodice and sleeves of my beautiful wedding gown, as the sleeves were laid out and the cream satin petticoats spread between two carved benches. He reached into a basket and held up a length of delicate lace. He placed it against the satin, then shook his head.

  “Too yellow.”

  He rummaged in the basket again, and brought out several more samples of lace, rejecting each in turn.

  “Perhaps this is what you seek.” It was the resonant, musical voice of the king—a voice I had heard so often raised in quarrelsome anger that I was startled to hear it in a pleasant tone.

  He had come into the room holding up a length of Venetian silverwork, intricately woven in delicate metallic threads. Mr. Skut and his assistants bowed deeply.

  I curtseyed—and at the same time gave a little gasp.

  “How beautiful!” I said. “But surely this ought to be saved for one of Your Majesty’s velvet doublets, or to trim a pair of silver stockings—”

  “There are plenty more,” King Henry responded. “I believe the ship that brought this trim brought twenty or thirty boxes more like it. And enough silver to buy and sell most of my palaces,” he added in an undertone.

  “Is it from Venice?” I had heard that some of the finest silverwork was made in Venice.

  “Yes—but the silver itself is from the mines of Alta Peru, in the Americas, mines that belong to my wife’s nephew Charles. It is about these mines that I have come to see her.”