Jean Plaidy - The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr

He took her hands. “At last!” he said.

“Thomas! How I have longed to see you! But is it not a little too soon?”

“It is most improper,” he replied with a laugh.

He knew she was hoping he would take her into his arms, and how could he refuse? He had never been able to refuse such a thing to a woman.

“Thomas… what if we were seen?”

“Ah, my brother Somerset’s spies are everywhere. Somerset now, remember. No longer merely Hertford.”

“And you are no longer plain Sir Thomas.”

He bowed. “Lord Sudley at your service.”

“Always Thomas…my dearest Thomas.”

“Oh, Katharine, how I have trembled for you in these latter years.”

“And yet you seemed not to notice me. How you made me suffer!”

“How I should have made us both suffer if I had looked at you and betrayed my thoughts!”

“You were the wise one, Thomas. I was foolish.”

“Now you understand how greatly I love you. I can even be wise for your sake.”

“You make me so happy.”

“And when, Katharine, my sweet Katharine, will you make me happier still?”

He was carried on by his feelings, as he always was. He owed his successes at sea to this very impetuousness. He believed so firmly in the destiny of Thomas Seymour that he was able to forget that five days ago he had asked Elizabeth to marry him; now it seemed to him that he had always loved Katharine, that during those years of danger he had deliberately forced himself to think of others for her sake.

Elizabeth, that child! It was a pretty joke, a pleasant game. And, oh, what an exciting game! But how could he marry the Princess without the consent of the Council? Besides, she was a child; and here was a warm, loving woman, so earnestly, so faithfully in love with him.

He took her roughly in his arms. He liked to play the buccaneer. It was usually successful, accompanied as it always was, in his dealings with women, by an underlying tenderness. See the strong man who could vanquish an enemy, see how he curbs his strength for fear of harming the one he loves!

She was a Queen; he could not help it if, in calculating her desirable qualities, he had in mind not only her gentle nature, her adoration of himself, her charming little body, not too mature, but so comfortable, so pleasant and delightful; there were also her lands, her endowment, her influence. The King loved his uncle, but without a doubt the boy idealized his stepmother. The two of them together would make a team to guide the King. With her riches, her influence and her charm, she was irresistible.

“My dearest,” he said, “when?”

“When?” she cried. “And the King not dead a month!”

“I shall not hesitate this time.”

“My love, you must… hesitate a little… for the sake of decency, for the sake of etiquette.”

But he had seized her again. “Do you think I care for these things when love burns in my heart? No, no! I lost you once. Do you think I will allow that to happen again?”

“Nay, my dearest, you must be patient.”

“Patience and love, dear Kate, go not hand in hand.”

“What would be said of me if…my husband not dead a month…I took another?”

“I would take my fists to the ears of any who spoke ill of you, Kate… from the lowest to the highest. Take off the hood.”

“I dare not.”

“Then I will.” He seized it and flung it from them.

She looked at him and laughed aloud. There was a note of the old hysteria in her voice when she said: “It is the end… the end of fear. Oh, Thomas, you cannot guess what it was like. Every time I heard footsteps I wondered whether they came for me.”

“My darling Kate, my dearest Kate, none shall harm you now, for Thomas will be at your side…as long as we both shall live.”

“It is so wonderful, my darling. I think I shall die of happiness.”

“Die! Ye shall not! You have done with death. Kate, we shall marry soon… this very week.”

“Now let us talk seriously.”

“I speak with the utmost seriousness. I’ll brook no delay.”

He lifted her in his arms while she laughingly begged to be put down. “For if we were seen, I know not what would be said or done against us.”

He refused to release her. He sat on a stool and held her against him.

“Nothing will be done against us, Kate. None would dare.” He was about to outline the advantages of a marriage between them, to explain how the little King would be as butter in their hands; but at such moments it was wiser to talk of love and nothing but love. If he was a reckless statesman, experience had made him a perfect lover; and in any case, love between them was a very pleasant topic.

“I am a most impatient man, Kate.”

“I am an impatient woman where you are concerned. But, Thomas, I am as yet unready. I have nightmares still.”

“You need me beside you to comfort you.”

“I dream …”

“Forget those dreams. Let us talk of others…when you and I shall be married.”

“The earliest would be May.”

“May! Three whole months away!”

“We dare not before.”

“Who says I dare not when I will?”

“My dearest …” But he stopped her protests with kisses while his thoughts were racing on.

“A secret marriage,” he murmured in her ear.

She caught her breath. “No. No. It would be dangerous.”

“May, for our official ceremony then,” he went on. “But I shall visit you. I shall come by night.”

“No, Thomas.”

But he insisted: “Yes.”

“You will ride out to Chelsea after dark? No, Thomas, I forbid it.”

“But I shall forbid you to forbid it when you are in my arms.”

“Across the fields…over Bloody Bridge?”

“Why not?”

“At night! It is most dangerous.”

“So you think I could not defend myself?”

“I know you are the bravest, the strongest…”

“Yes,” he said. “I shall come. For I cannot wait till May.”

“No, no.”

“But yes!” he cried; he laughed and she could not help but laugh with him.

There had never been happiness like this in the whole of her life. Her widow’s hood lay on the floor—a symbol of her freedom. She knew that she would deny him nothing, for there was no happiness for her apart from him.

And when Thomas rode away from the Dormer Palace he was affianced—though as yet in secret—to the widow of a King not four weeks dead.

From one of the windows, the Princess Elizabeth watched him ride away. She tossed back her hair and smiled secretly.

He had called at the Palace in the hope of catching a glimpse of her, she was sure; he was pretending to be piqued because she had not accepted his proposal.

She danced round her room, pausing to admire herself in a mirror. She thought how enchanting she looked and of the months ahead when the Lord High Admiral would continue to woo her.

THE SPRING HAD COME to England. Daisies starred the fields, and the marsh marigolds, with the celandines, made a gold pattern along the banks of the river. Then came April, and the wild violets bloomed beneath the trees in Chelsea village.

Elizabeth was waiting for Thomas to act. There were occasions when she felt that she cared for nothing but to be with him and listen to his wooing.

Kat Ashley watched her.

“It is the coming of the spring, my lady,” she said. “Guard yourself, for in the spring fancy runs riot.”

“Mine never would,” declared Elizabeth.

The days were fully occupied. There were regular lessons of many hours’ duration. Elizabeth was studying now under the very distinguished and learned William Grindal who confessed himself astonished at her scholarship. Katharine conferred with William Grindal on her stepdaughter’s studies; but there was a remoteness about the Dowager Queen which Elizabeth did not understand. She was less important as the King’s widow than she had been as his wife; yet never had she looked so contented with life as she did now.

Elizabeth had seen Thomas now and then, although he made no special effort to meet her. It seemed as if he no longer thought of her as anyone but the late King’s daughter, and sister to the present one. But she fancied she caught a reminder of the old gleam in his eyes, and she guessed that he still wanted her. He was chagrined by her refusal. Arrogant Thomas! He thought any woman ready to submit to him. He had to learn that a Princess—who might one day be Queen—was no ordinary woman.

Avidly she learned all she could learn of the histories of England, France and Spain; and she imagined herself in a place of high state, governing countries. Two pictures dominated her dreams; one was of herself in the jeweled raiment of a Queen with her ministers about her, accepting her merest word as law; in the other she was lying under a hedge, as a serving woman might, and Thomas was beside her.

So passed the weeks with her stepmother at Chelsea.

Occasionally she went to court and saw her little brother. Edward seemed weighed down by his state duties. Whenever she saw him she thought: Kingship is too much for Edward. That which should adorn his head like a saint’s halo is but a weight he is not strong enough to carry.

What did her sister Mary think of all that was happening? Mary too, one step ahead of Elizabeth, must have her dreams. Hers were not of power and glory, of adulation, of wisdom to make her country great; her one thought was of turning England back to Rome. The clever girl who was not yet fourteen felt an inner exultation when she thought of Mary, since to force the people to what they loved not, was no way to rule, no way to keep the scepter in the hands and win the love and adulation of one’s subjects. She called to mind her father’s rule. His policy had been to destroy the dangerous men at the top and placate the mob. Already she was smiling at the people—the cottagers, the merchants and apprentices—when she went abroad. Already they were returning her smiles, liking her youthful beauty and her friendliness. “God bless the Princess Elizabeth!” they cried when they saw her. She was astute enough to know that this sign of her growing popularity must not show itself too often. It must not be known that already she was wooing the people, the common people who, those foolish ones did not fully understand, ultimately decided whether their monarchs should rule.

It was during the month of May when she made a discovery. She was lying drowsily on her bed in her apartment at the Dormer Palace; it was just on midnight, and through the slight opening where the curtains about her bed had not been pulled together, she caught a glimpse of the moonlight which flooded her room.

Suddenly she heard a sound in the grounds below. It might have been the snapping of twigs or the sound of a footfall—she was not sure; but she felt certain that someone was down there creeping stealthily about the gardens.

She remembered gossip she had heard among her women.

“They say he comes at night.”

“They say she meets him at the postern gate… and lets him into her chamber….”

Elizabeth had taken little notice. It was not unusual for a woman to have a lover, to bring him into the palace at night. She wondered now who the man was. If she discovered, she would tease the woman in the morning. She got out of bed and went to the window, creeping that she might not disturb her attendants who were sleeping in the room beyond, with the connecting door open.

She knelt on the windowseat.

Moonlight lay across the grass, and there…coming across it, was a man.

She had not been mistaken then….

She drew back suddenly in delighted terror.

He is coming to me! she told herself. How like him! He will climb the creeper to my room. And what shall I do? He will be seen. There will be scandal. I shall have to make them keep quiet…I…

She placed her hand on her heart and felt its mad beating under the thin stuff of her nightgown.

He must not come….

Yet she hoped, of course, that he would.

Then, as she watched, she knew that she need not fear his coming. She would not have to deal with a delicate situation, for she had no part in it—except that of lookeron. Another person had appeared. There was the small figure of a woman. She ran to Seymour, and he and the woman seemed to melt into one. The woman’s hood fell back exposing the head of the Dowager Queen.

Elizabeth watched their kissing, the hot blood in her face, the sweat in her palms.

“How dare he!” she murmured. “And how dare she!”

She watched them, her rage increasing. He had released Katharine now. They stood looking at each other; then he put his arm about the Queen and they turned toward the Palace.

So the Queen was taking Thomas Seymour secretly to her apartments. She was behaving, Elizabeth told herself, like any kitchen slut.

She remained kneeling at the window after they had disappeared, picturing them in the silences of the Queen’s chamber.

Her women would know, and they would keep her harlot’s secrets. Katharine Parr had always won the regard of those who served her. Doubtless Kat Ashley knew, for did not Kat make it her task to discover everything that went on? And Kat would have kept it from her mistress because she feared such news would wound her pride.

If I were Queen, meditated Elizabeth, if I were Queen of England now!

She gave herself up to thoughts of the torture she would inflict on those two.

But her rage was only temporary, for she loved them both. That was what hurt so badly. Who could help loving Katharine Parr? Ingratitude was not one of Elizabeth’s failings; she could not forget how the Dowager Queen had changed the state of the neglected princesses when she had become the King’s wife. Elizabeth must love Katharine for her virtues, while she loved Seymour in spite of his sins.

These two had betrayed her; but the Queen, of course, knew nothing of the betrayal. But he knew. He was laughing at her whose hand he had asked in marriage when he was the lover of Katharine Parr.

Elizabeth went back to her bed and tried, without success, to banish thoughts of those two together. The pictures her mind conjured up for her were so vivid. They embodied all that Elizabeth wanted for herself and dared not take, all that was denied her because of her dream of Queenship.

Her mouth grew prim. This was an insult to her father, the great King Henry. They were traitors, both of them. What if she betrayed them? What would be the fate of those two if the Duke of Somerset, the Lord Protector, knew what his brother was doing with the Dowager Queen?

What if there was a child…a son! And what if they declared that son to be the late King’s! Elizabeth grew cold at the thought. She knew at that moment that her desire for the crown would always be greater than her desire for Seymour or any man.

They would not dare declare their son the King’s son. If they tried to, she would let nothing stand in her way of humiliating them … destroying them.

I could have had him, she reminded herself. Poor Katharine! She is the one who is being cheated.

She could not sleep. She lay, conjuring up more pictures of their lovemaking until the dawn came.

She was at the window, watching his hasty departure.