Jean Plaidy - Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

There was great news yet. The Queen was paler than usual; she had been sick; she had fancies for special foods.

Henry was joyful. He once more had hopes of getting a son.

While Henry was strutting with pleasure, Jane was beset with fear. There were many things to frighten Jane. Before her lay the ordeal of childbirth. What if it should prove unsuccessful? As she lay in those Hampton Court apartments which the King had lovingly planned for Anne Boleyn, she brooded on these matters. From her window she could see the initials entwined in stonework—J and H, and where the J was there had once been an A, and the A had had to be taken away very suddenly indeed.

The King was in high humor, certain that this time he would get a son. He went noisily about the place, eating and drinking with great heartiness; and hunting whenever his leg was not too painful to deter him. If Jane gave him a son, he told himself, he would at last have found happiness. He would know that he had been right in everything he had done, right to rid himself of Katharine who had never really been his wife, right to execute Anne who was a sorceress, right to marry Jane.

He jollied the poor pale creature, admonishing her to take good care of herself, threatening her that if she did not, he would want to know the reason why; and his loving care was not for her frail body but for the heir it held.

The hot summer passed. Jane heard of the executions and shuddered, and whenever she looked from her windows she saw those initials. The J seemed to turn into an A as she looked, and then into something else, blurred and indistinguishable.

Plague came to London, rising up from the fetid gutters and from the dirty wash left on the riverbanks with the fall of the tide. People died like flies in London. Death came close to Jane Seymour during those months.

She was wan and sickly and she felt very ill, though she dared not mention this for fear of angering the King; she was afraid for herself and the child she carried. She had qualms about the execution of Anne, and her dream became haunted with visions. She could not forget an occasion when Anne had come upon her and the King together. Then Anne must have felt this sickness, this heaviness, this fear, for she herself was carrying the King’s child at that time.

Jane could not forget the words the King had used to her more than once. “Remember what happened to your predecessor!” There was no need to ask Jane to remember what she would never be able to forget.

She became more observant of religious rites, and as her religion was of the old kind, both Cranmer and Cromwell were disturbed. But they dared not approach the King with complaints for they knew well what his answer would be. “Let the Queen eat fish on Fridays. Let her do what she will an she give me a son!”

All over the country, people waited to hear of the birth of a son. What would happen to Jane, it was asked, if she produced a stillborn child? What if she produced a girl?

Many were cynical over Henry’s matrimonial affairs, inclined to snigger behind their hands. Already there were Mary and Elizabeth—both proclaimed illegitimate. What if there was yet another girl? Perhaps it was better to be humble folk when it was considered what had happened to Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.

The Dowager Duchess of Norfolk waited eagerly for the news. Her mouth was grim. Would Jane Seymour do what her granddaughter had failed to do? That pale sickly creature succeed, where glowing, vital Anne had failed! She thought not!

Catherine Howard fervently hoped the King would get a son. She had wept bitterly at the death of her cousin, but unlike her grandmother she bore no resentment. Let poor Queen Jane be happy even if Queen Anne had not. Where was the good sense in harboring resentment? She scarcely listened to her grandmother’s grim prophecies.

Catherine had changed a good deal since that violent beating her grandmother had given her. Now she really looked like a daughter of the house of Howard. She was quieter; she had been badly frightened by the discovery. She had received lectures from Lord William who insisted on looking on the episode as a foolish girlish prank; she had received a very serious warning from her grandmother who, when they were alone, did not hide from her that she knew the worst. Catherine must put all that behind her, must forget it had happened, must never refer to it again, must deny what she had done if she were ever questioned by anyone. She had been criminally foolish; let her remember that. Catherine did remember; she was restrained.

She was growing very pretty and her gentle manners gave a new charm to her person. The Duchess was ready to forget unsavory incidents; she hoped Catherine was too. She did not know that Catherine was still receiving letters from Derham, that through the agency of Jane Acworth, whose pen was ever ready, the correspondence was being kept up.

Derham wrote: “Do not think that I forget thee. Do not forget that we are husband and wife, for I never shall. Do not forget you have said, ‘You shall never live to say I have swerved.’ For I do not, and I treasure the memory. One day I shall return for you....”

It appealed strongly to Catherine’s adventure-loving nature to receive love letters and to have her replies smuggled out of the house. She found it pleasant to be free from those women who had known about her love affair with Derham and who were forever making sly allusions to it. There were no amorous adventures these days, for the Duchess’s surveillance was strict. Catherine did not want them; she realized her folly and she was very much ashamed of the freedom she had allowed Manox. She still loved Francis, she insisted; she still loved receiving his letters; and one day he would return for her.

October came, and one morning, very early, Catherine was awakened by the ringing of bells and the sound of guns. Jane Seymour had borne the King a son.

Jane was too ill to feel her triumph. She was hardly aware of what was going on in her chamber. Shapes rose up and faded. There was a huge red-faced man, whose laughter was very loud, drawing her away from the peaceful sleep she sought. She heard whispering voices, loud voices, laughter.

The King would peer at his son anxiously. A poor puny little thing he was, and Henry was terrified that he would, as others of his breed before him, be snatched from his father before he reached maturity. Even Richmond had not survived, though he had been a bonny boy; this little Edward was small and white and weak.

Still, the King had a son and he was delighted. Courtiers moved about the sick room. They must kiss Jane’s hand; they must congratulate her. She was too tired? Nonsense! She must rejoice. Had she not done that which her predecessors had failed to do, given the King a son!

Fruit and meat were sent to her, gifts from the King. She must show her pleasure in His Majesty’s attentions. She ate without knowing what she ate.

The ceremony of the christening began in her chamber. They lifted her from her bed to the state pallet which was decorated with crowns and the arms of England in gold thread. She lay, propped on cushions of crimson damask, wrapped in a mantle of crimson velvet furred with ermine; but Jane’s face looked transparent against the rich redness of her robes. She was exhausted before they lifted her from the bed; her head throbbed and her hands were hot with fever. She longed to sleep, but she reminded herself over and over again that she must do her duty by attending the christening of her son. What would the King say, if he found the mother of his prince sleeping when she should be smiling with pleasure!

It was midnight as the ceremonial procession with Jane in its midst went through the drafty corridors of Hampton Court to the Chapel. Jane slipped into unconsciousness, recovered and smiled about her. She saw the Princess Mary present the newly born Prince at the font; she saw her own brother carrying the small Elizabeth, whose eyes were small with sleepiness and in whose fat little hands was Edward’s crysom; she saw Cranmer and Norfolk, who were the Prince’s sponsors; she saw the nurse and the midwife; and so vague was this scene to her that she thought it was but a dream, and that her son was not yet born and her pains about to begin.

Through the mist before her eyes she saw Sir Francis Bryan at the font, and she was reminded that he had been one of those who had not very long ago delighted in the wit of Anne Boleyn. Her eyes came to rest on the figure of a gray old man who carried a taper and bore a towel about his neck; she recognized him as Anne’s father. The Earl looked shamefaced, and had the unhappy air of a man who knows himself to be worthy of the contempt of his fellowmen. Was he thinking of his brilliant boy and his lovely girl who had been done to death for the sake of this little Prince to whom he did honor because he dared do nothing else?

Unable to follow the ceremony because of the fits of dizziness which kept overwhelming her, Jane longed for the quiet of her chamber. She wanted the comfort of her bed; she wanted darkness and quiet and rest.

“God, in His Almighty and infinite grace, grant good life and long, to the right high, right excellent, and noble Prince Edward, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester, most dear and entirely beloved son of our most dread and gracious Lord Henry VIII.”

The words were like a rushing tide that swept over Jane and threatened to drown her; she gasped for breath. She was only hazily aware of the ceremonial journey back to her chamber.

A few days after the christening, Jane was dead.

“Ah!” said the people in the streets. “His Majesty is desolate. Poor dear man! At last he had found a queen he could love; at last he has his heart’s desire, a son to follow him; and now this dreadful catastrophe must overtake him.”

Certain rebels raised their heads, feeling the King to be too sunk in grief to notice them. The lion but feigned to sleep. When he lifted his head and roared, rebels learned what happened to those who dared raise a voice against the King. The torture chambers were filled with such. Ears were cut off; tongues were cut out; and the mutilated victims were whipped as they were driven naked through the streets.

Before Jane was buried, Henry was discussing with Cromwell whom he should next take for a wife.

Henry was looking for a wife. Politically he was at an advantage; he would be able to continue with his policy of keeping his two enemies guessing. He would send ambassadors to the French court; he would throw out hints to the Emperor; for both would greatly fear an alliance of the other with England.

Henry was becoming uneasy concerning continental affairs. The war between Charles and Francis had come to an end; and with these two not at each other’s throats, but in fact friends, and Pole persisting in his schemes to bring about civil war in England with the assistance of invasion from the Continent, he had cause for anxiety. To be able to offer himself in the marriage market was a great asset at such a time and Henry decided to exploit it to the full.

Although Henry was anxious to make a politically advantageous marriage, he could not help being excited by the prospect of a new wife. He visualized her. It was good to be a free man once more. He was but forty-seven and very ready to receive a wife. There was still in his mind the image of Anne Boleyn. He knew exactly what sort of wife he wanted; she must be beautiful, clever, vivacious; one who was high-spirited as Anne, meek as Jane. He reassured himself that although it was imperative that he should make the right marriage, he would not involve himself unless the person of his bride was pleasing.

He asked Chatillon, the French ambassador who had taken the place of du Bellay at the English court, that a selection of the most beautiful and accomplished ladies of the French court be sent to Calais; Henry would go there and inspect them.

“Pardie!” mused Henry. “How can I depend on any but myself! I must see them myself and see them sing!”

To this request, Francis retorted in such a way as to make Henry squirm, and he did not go to Calais to make a personal inspection of prospective wives.

There were among others the beautiful Christina of Milan who was a niece of Emperor Charles. She had married the Duke of Milan, who had died, leaving her a virgin widow of sixteen. Henry was interested in reports of her, and after the snub from Francis not averse to looking around the camp of the Emperor. He sent Holbein to make a picture of Christina and when the painter brought it back, Henry was attracted, but not sufficiently so to make him wish to clinch the bargain immediately. He was still keeping up negotiations with the French. It was reported that Christina had said that if she had had two heads one should be at the English King’s service, but having only one she was reluctant to come to England. She had heard that her great-aunt Katharine of Aragon had been poisoned; that Anne Boleyn had been put innocently to death; and that Jane Seymour had been lost for lack of keeping in childbirth. She was of course at Charles’s command, and these reports might well have sprung out of the reluctance of the Emperor for the match.

Henry’s uneasiness did not abate. He was terrified that the growing friendship between Charles and Francis might be a prelude to an attack on England. He knew that Pope Paul was trying to stir up the Scots to invade England from the North; Pole was moving slyly, from the Continent.

Henry’s first act was to descend with ferocity on the Pole family in England. He began by committing Pole’s young brother Geoffrey to the Tower and there the boy was tortured so violently that he said all Henry wished him to say. The result was that his brother Lord Montague and his cousin the Marquis of Exeter were seized. Even Pole’s mother, the aging Countess of Salisbury, who had been governess to the Princess Mary and one of the greatest friends of Katharine of Aragon, was not spared.

These people were the hope of those Catholics who longed for reunion with Rome, and Henry was watching his people closely to see what effect their arrest was having. He had had enough of troubles within his own domains, and with trouble threatening from outside he must tread very cautiously. At this time, he selected as his victim a scholar named Lambert whom he accused of leaning too far towards Lutheranism. The young man was said to have denied the body of God to be in the sacrament in corporal substance but only to be there spiritually. Lambert was tried and burned alive. This was merely Henry’s answer to the Catholics; he was telling them that he favored neither extreme sect. Montague and Exeter went to the block as traitors, not as Catholics. Catholic or Lutheran, it mattered not. No favoritism. No swaying from one sect to another. He only asked allegiance to the King.

Francis thought this would be a good moment to undermine English commerce which, while he and Charles had been wasting their people’s energy in war, Henry had been able to extend. Henry shrewdly saw what was about to happen and again acted quickly. He promised the Flemish merchants that for seven years Flemish goods should pay no more duty than those of the English. The merchants—a thrifty people—were overjoyed, seeing years of prosperous trading stretching before them. If their Emperor would make war on England he could hardly hope for much support from a nation benefiting from good trade with that country on whom Charles wished them to make war.