The Last Wífe of Henry VIII Page 8

  “Her intent was that you be given the bed on your next wedding day. Until then I shall retain it as executor of her estate.”

  “I have some documents for you to sign,” the bishop went on, drawing out more papers from a leather pouch.

  “Not now, Bertie,” John said. “Can’t you see the girl is upset?”

  “Girls are always upset over something. These documents have to be signed, and signed now. I assume you can sign your name?” he asked me.

  His condescension piqued my pride. I replied in flawless Latin, “Not only can I sign my name, I can translate Vergil, and quote Saint Augustine, and no doubt correct your grammar!”

  “The girl’s a wonder!” said John Neville, with a surprised pleasure in his small blue eyes—eyes that, I now noticed, were surrounded with a fretwork of wrinkles and had red pouches beneath them.

  “She’s wonderfully ill-mannered,” the bishop remarked, unsmiling. “I had no idea Maud’s older girl was so badly reared. The younger one seems acceptable enough.” His light, dismissive tone irked me, but I was too wretched, thinking of mother, to challenge him. He placed the documents in front of me and called for a servant to bring writing materials.

  “Just sign your name on these, no need to add any quotation from Saint Augustine or make grammatical corrections. I’ll leave you to do it, meanwhile I’m going to greet the young Duke of Richmond.”

  He left me alone with John Neville, who was scratching his bald head.

  “My dear girl,” he was saying, “I’m truly sorry for the dreadful news we bring. Bertie and I were on our way to a meeting of the Council of the North and we received a message for you in the pouch of letters from court. Since Sheriff Hutton was on our way, and since Bertie is your mother’s executor and kinsman, we thought we would stop and see you.”

  He paused, looking over at me kindly. “I hate bringing anyone bad news. Especially when it concerns family. I’ve had my own share. My first wife died bringing my daughter Margaret into the world. My second wife—may she rot in hell!—ran off and left me and then died soon thereafter. My own dear mother died of grief at the news.”

  I watched him as he spoke, his agitation a distraction from my sorrow. I supposed he was about my father’s age—or rather, the age my father would have been had he lived. He was dressed more soberly than most noblemen, who tended to imitate the king and wear costly and showy embroidered doublets in rich reds and blues and greens with flashing jeweled buttons and thick gold rings and chains. His doublet was gray, his hat and hose black and his only ornament, a gold wedding band, held no jewel.

  A servant brought in a tray with ink, quills and a knife.

  “Perhaps you’d better sign these now, so Bertie will not bother you about them later.”

  I managed to read through the papers, which were copies of my mother’s will and acknowledgments of receipt for my inherited goods. John sharpened a quill for me, and I signed my name to each. Though he was a stranger to me, I felt comforted to have him at my side as I wrote, and I told him so.

  “I knew your father, you know. In the old days, when he was at court. I always admired his energy. I haven’t got it, myself. Never did have. I always seem to be behind with everything.” He smiled wanly, then got to his feet.

  “Now then, I expect you’ll want to be by yourself. I’ll just take these papers to Bertie for you, shall I?”

  “Thank you. That would be very kind.”

  He patted my hand. “Look after yourself, my dear.” He gathered up the documents and left.

  For several months after my mother’s death I got into the habit of retreating each day to the quiet of the pear orchard in search of comfort. I wore around my neck the rosary mother had left me, and read the Psalms of David with their words of healing and strength. I even began composing some meditations on the psalms, imagining that I had arrived at insights that might be of use to others.

  But I was careful to tell no one of my reading of the psalms in a forbidden English translation or of my written meditations. Religion had become dangerously controversial, with many people, especially in the North of England, cleaving to the traditional beliefs of the church of Rome and others eager to espouse the reforming views of Martin Luther, who had been excommunicated by the pope and who taught his followers to read the Bible in their own tongue and to put their faith in its teachings rather than in the corrupt church of Rome.

  It was a confusing time, for King Henry, always in the past a faithful son of the church, was challenging the pope while claiming to be true to the faith. He condemned Martin Luther and his followers yet at the same time he refused to accept what the pope said about his marriage to Queen Catherine. The church was telling the king he must keep his wife and honor his marriage but the king had parted from his queen and forced her to live apart from him. And I knew from my own encounters with him how free he was with his desires. And was I not serving at the court of his bastard son, a son who, everyone assumed, would one day be king?

  I spent my mornings in the stillroom, amid the pungent fragrances of roses and gillyflowers, marjoram and musk. In the afternoons, when the weather was not too raw, I walked to the pear orchard, my books and writing papers under my arm, and read and wrote and pondered.

  Daniel found me there one day and greeted me.

  “Come now, milady, you spend too much time alone. Come and watch the young duke compete. There’s a tournament to be held this afternoon. Boys from all over the North are coming.”

  I went with Daniel to the tilting ground that had been built for Henry Fitzroy’s use. It was a faithful copy of the king’s own great tiltyards, of which he had several, but in miniature, built to a boy’s scale. The distances were smaller, the barrier between the combatants lower. Young Henry tilted with a short lance and rode a small horse.

  I had seen him go through his exercises before, and knew that he lacked both strength and agility. Because he was the king’s son he was praised extravagantly (though never by his father) and thought more highly of himself than his abilities deserved. I wondered how he would fare in this feat of skill.

  Among the boys who tilted against young Henry Fitzroy that afternoon was one who stood out for his outstanding ability and grace. He easily unhorsed all his opponents and the tournament master, foreseeing an embarrassing defeat for Henry Fitzroy, did not permit him to joust against this exceptionally able opponent. When the tournament ended I asked Daniel who the boy was.

  “That’s young master Neville. A likely boy, but a bit unruly. He’ll make a good soldier.” Without his jousting armor Johnny Neville was a lithe good-looking boy, blond and sharp-featured, quite unlike his jowly, balding father in looks. I saw him turn his level, unsmiling gaze on Henry Fitzroy, as if taking his measure. Of the two, I thought Master Neville much the more princely.

  Whatever his shortcomings in the tiltyard, Henry Fitzroy was clearly being prepared for rulership. He was certainly as haughty as any princeling, legitimate or otherwise; he strode through the halls of Sheriff Hutton giving commands in his high voice, and barking out shrill reprimands to the servants when they displeased him.

  He was thirteen years old in the year that I turned twenty, yet he was still a boy, slight and small and without any hair on his upper lip. He had no air of command. Looking at him, I could not help wondering, could this boy grow up to be king?

  And in that year, for the first time, it was being whispered that he had a rival. Not his longtime rival, Queen Catherine’s daughter Mary, but a new one. For Mistress Boleyn was pregnant with King Henry’s child.

  It was the thing most talked about, the change most feared. King Henry wanted to make Mistress Boleyn his queen, and now that she was carrying his child he was determined to force his will upon events, no matter what the cost.

  “What do you think, Cat?” Avice said as she came into my bedchamber one morning. “We are summoned to London. The young duke is to be betrothed to Mary Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s daughter. We’re to have new
gowns to wear to the ceremony.”

  Avice, who had intervened to protect me from Mistress Boleyn’s wrath during the previous Christmas season, was back in the household after having been dismissed following her contretemps with the royal favorite. I was glad for her return. Even though she was an earl’s daughter she had no hauteur. Her manner was that of a practical, forthright countrywoman and I enjoyed her company.

  With her broad, stout figure and outsize body, her lank dark hair and unappealing features Avice Odell was not likely to attract a husband, for her dowry was not large, and besides, she was nearing thirty; her parents had intended to make her a nun but she refused to enter the religious life. She shocked her family by agreeing with the reformers that the church of Rome was corrupt and like many others she secretly read the English Bible; when she discovered that I too read the Scriptures in translation it made us close friends.

  “I’ll be glad to go to London again. I haven’t been there since my own wedding. And I can see my brother Will.”

  “You know who else is going,” Avice was saying, her eyes twinkling.

  “No. Who?”

  “John Neville.”

  She teased me about John, who I had gotten to know fairly well in the past few months. He came to Sheriff Hutton often, as his own estate of Snape Hall was not far away and he was among those the king trusted to oversee Henry Fitzroy’s household and make sure the boy was well tutored and well taken care of. I saw him at dinners and on saint’s days, and he sought me out. I knew that he admired me, but thought little of it. He was kind and I liked his self-effacing manner, a manner rare in an important nobleman, which he clearly was. But he was old, and bald, and ill-favored. He aroused no feeling in me other than friendship. And I believed with all my heart that I would never again feel for any man the tender love I had felt for Ned.

  “Avice, John Neville is old enough to be my grandfather.”

  “Not quite. He certainly doesn’t look at you like a grandfather would.”

  “He takes a grandfatherly interest in me.”

  She laughed.

  We were supervising the packing of our things for the trip south when we heard raised voices in the corridor outside. My maidservants grew pale and retreated to an anteroom.

  “Here! Put him in here!”

  “No! Find another bed. A big one.”

  The door of my bedchamber opened and five men came in, carrying a litter on which lay an injured man.

  “This lord has a broken leg. He needs a bed.”

  “Why not put him in his own bedchamber?” Avice asked.

  “He has none, milady He was going to stay at the hunting lodge tonight, but it’s twelve miles from here.”

  “Of course he can have this bed. Put him here.”

  I quickly moved off the bed some piles of clothing which my servants had been sorting. The injured man was laid on the bed. I saw then that it was John Neville, one bloody leg thrown out at an awkward angle. His eyes were closed.

  “The doctor’s been sent for, milady.”

  “Thank you. You can go now.”

  As the men left, a little girl came in. She was fair and pale, and her light blue eyes were troubled. Yet she showed much poise as she curtseyed to me and to Avice and then went up to the bed, which was so high that she had difficulty seeing the man who lay there.

  “It’s my father, isn’t it. I’m Margaret Latimer.”

  “Yes, dear. The doctor is coming.” I went to the girl and lifted her up onto the bed.

  Watching her father as she spoke, she told us what had happened.

  “We were on our way to London. The duke and some other men saw deer in the forest and went off after them. My father went too. Then they brought him back like this.” Her voice trembled, but only slightly. I put my arm around her shoulders and she looked up at me, with a look I will never forget. Her entire face was a plea—for sympathy, for understanding—above all, for love.

  “Don’t worry, Margaret. Here comes the doctor now.”

  Avice lifted the little girl off the bed and, patting her head, drew her back to give the physician room.

  Over the next several days, as we completed our preparations for the journey to London, John Neville had his broken leg set and bound in splints. The chambermaids brought him broth and cider and changed his linen and the grooms and pages heaped logs on the fire to keep him warm. Avice and I sat with him and helped to keep him in good cheer, while all around us the servants packed for our coming journey and took our trunks and satchels out to the carts and wagons that would take us to London.

  I kept Margaret with me, ordering a trundle bed brought in so that she could sleep near her father and talking to her encouragingly about his gradual improvement.

  And he did appear to improve. A ruddy color came back into his cheeks—his face had been gray and pale when he was first injured—and he ate well and was in good spirits.

  “If only I could go south with you all,” he said to me with a sigh on the evening before our departure. “I would dearly love to spend a few weeks at court. All that feasting and merriment!” His eyes shone briefly. “And there are things I must discuss with the king. The Council of the North is embattled. The king’s authority is waning, and must be strengthened or we will face rebellion.”

  “Don’t think about all that now,” I told him. “Wait until you are stronger.”

  He lay back against his pillows and closed his eyes. I thought he might sleep, but after a few moments he opened his eyes again.

  “Read to me, Cat, will you?”

  “Of course.”

  “One of the old romances.”

  I knew he liked stories of olden times, tales of knights and ladies, dragons and sorcerers. He carried books with him wherever he went, unlike many noblemen and noblewomen, who had not been taught to read and who looked on reading as something for priests to do, a lowly activity and not a worthwhile one.

  “Which one shall it be?”

  “Read me the Tale of Gwennidor.”

  I found the book among his things, opened it and began to read.

  It was an old familiar tale, of an evil beast who imprisoned a king in his castle and a maiden, Gwennidor, who assaulted the castle and freed the king and then married him.

  I read on, the candles burning low and my voice as it rose and fell the only sound in the warm room.

  “Read me the part about Gwennidor marrying the king again,” John asked.

  “And when she had freed him,” I read, “and the rude beast had been slain, then the king said, Fair Gwennidor, all I have is yours, and my heart as well. And she gave him her hand with a right good will, and so they were wed.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Fair Catherine, all I have is yours, and my heart as well. Will you agree to be my wife?”

  I looked at him in surprise. I felt no particular pleasure at his words, but no revulsion either. Avice was right, I thought. She was right all along, about John’s feelings for me.

  “Milord, I am still in mourning for my late husband, and for my mother. I cannot think of marriage.”

  “I am content to wait until you are out of mourning. Bertie will give us his blessing and marry us. Will you agree?”

  I shook my head. “I cannot ponder it, milord. Perhaps when I return from London—”

  His face fell.

  “Of course, yes. I understand. I should have known. It was only a thought. I am fond of you, and I could offer you a home, comfort, position. And Margaret has grown fond of you.”

  “Margaret is a dear child, and needs a mother. Only—”

  “Only you want daughters and sons of your own. That is quite natural. We can have them, you and I. I am not too old.”

  A silence fell. Logs crackled in the hearth. I stood up. “I’ll give you my answer when we return from London, John. And I thank you for honoring me with your proposal.”

  I turned to go, then on an impulse turned back and bent over John’s recumbent form. I kissed him on the cheek,
and he smiled.

  “Goodbye, dear Gwennidor,” he murmured, taking my hand in his and gripping it with a strength that surprised me. “Goodbye, my little bride.”

  10

  THE JOURNEY SOUTH WAS COLD AND WET.

  Each day we huddled under fur blankets and warmed ourselves by drinking mulled cider. Each night we stayed close to the fire in the manor houses that offered us hospitality, and dined at the table of the local lord. Henry Fitzroy was shown respect and courtesy but there were no banquets or special entertainments. Word of Mistress Boleyn’s pregnancy had spread quickly, everyone expected her son, and not Fitzroy, to become the next king.

  Once we arrived in London many in Henry Fitzroy’s household sought employment in that of Mistress Boleyn, which was growing rapidly in anticipation of her becoming the next queen.

  “I’ve heard she requires twenty new grooms,” I overheard one of Henry Fitzroy’s pages say to another. “And they’ll be paid well. Far better than we are now.”

  “But she’d be the devil’s own bitch to work for,” came the reply.

  “She is the devil’s own bitch now.”

  “I’d rather serve the devil himself. King Henry doesn’t throw things, or swear at his servants. Last Christmas he had a snowball fight with his grooms. When it was over he gave them five gold pieces to share.”

  I knew that the court ran on gossip, yet it seemed to me, in my first few days at Whitehall, that the level of gossip was at an all-time high. Whispers, titters and muffled laughter filled the long broad corridors of the magnificent palace, which I remembered well from my childhood though then it was called York Place. The palace was festive with green boughs and twining ivy, bright wall hangings and paintings done by visiting Italian and German artists.

  All had been made ready for Henry Fitzroy’s betrothal ceremony. Yet even at that ceremony, as Avice and I and four others stood in our finery beside Henry Fitzroy’s pathetically young, blond bride-to-be Mary Howard, there were murmurs of sympathy and outbursts of giggling.

  My brother Will was a font of jokes about Mistress Boleyn and her bulging stomach.