In the Shadow of the Crown - Plaidy Jean - Страница 57

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“She did mention you. She asked all those watching to pray for the King and Queen, Prince Edward … and she wanted her god-daughter, the Princess Mary, to be specially commended.”

“So she was thinking of me right to the end.”

“You can be sure of it.”

“How did my dear Countess die?”

Susan was silent.

“Please tell me,” I begged. “I want to hear of it from you. I shall learn of it later.”

“The block was too low, and the executioner was unaccustomed to wielding the axe.”

“Oh … no!”

“Do not grieve. It is over now, but several blows were needed before the final one.”

“Oh, my beloved Countess. She was my second mother, the one who shared my sorrows and my little triumphs during those early years. Always she had been there, comforting me, wise and kind…”

I could not bear the thought of her dear body being slaughtered by a man who did not know how to wield an axe.

All through the years I had not seen her I had promised myself that we should meet one day.

The realization that we never should again on Earth filled me with great sorrow and a dreadful foreboding. How close to death we all were.

MY FATHER WAS in a merry mood those days. He was delighted with his fifth wife. He watched her every movement, and he did not like her to be out of his sight. He took a great delight in her merry chatter. I thought she was rather silly.

When I remembered my father's turning from my mother, from Anne of Cleves, even from Anne Boleyn, I marvelled. All of them were endowed with qualities which this silly little girl completely lacked. Yet it was on her that his doting eyes turned again and again.

Queen of England she might be, but I could not treat her with respect. To me she was just a frivolous girl. It could only have been her youth which appealed to him. He was fifty and she was about seventeen; and he was desperately trying to share in the radiant youth which was hers.

I was five years older than she was. I wonder now why it was that I disliked her so much. She was mild enough, and I daresay if I had shown some affection she would have returned it. She was stupid; her education had been neglected, although she was the daughter of Sir Edmund Howard, a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk. He had been the hero of Flodden Field but his services to his country had never been recognized and consequently he was desperately poor. There were ten children and it was a strain on his resources to care for such a large family and he was constantly trying to elude his creditors. He was, therefore, glad to send young Catharine off to her grandmother to be brought up in that rather disreputable household—which was what set her on the road to disaster.

But that was to come. At this time, there she was… the uneducated little girl who had suddenly found herself the King's petted consort, his little Queen.

It was not that she gave herself airs. She certainly did not. She was just overwhelmed by all that had happened to her. She behaved like a child but she was quite experienced in certain ways of the world, as was to be revealed. I realized—only, I must admit, later, when I knew something of her past— that she was a girl of lusty sexual appetites and even if her good sense—of which she had very little—had warned her that she must not act in a certain way, she would have been unable to resist doing so.

I suppose she was just the girl to appeal to the jaded senses of an ageing man who had been bitterly disillusioned in his hopes of a beautiful bride.

I was surprised that she was aware of my dislike. I should have thought she was not intelligent enough to sense it. It was not a habit of hers to complain, but she did about my attitude to her, so she must have felt it deeply.

My father was annoyed that I had offended his little darling.

He said of me, “It is those women about her. She has too many of those whispering cronies. There is too much chatter in those apartments…too much brooding on this and that and rights and wrongs. She shall be taught a lesson.”

The lesson was to rob me of two of my women.

I was angry. I was fond of the women about me, and ours was a very happy household. I needed all the friends I could get. Fortunately Susan remained with some others of my closest comrades, but I did miss those two who were sent away.

I was about to protest when Chapuys came to see me.

“You must patch up this quarrel with the Queen,” he said.

“That stupid little creature!”

He laughed. “She pleases the King.” He gave a little smirk. “They say he has never been so pleased since he set eyes on the girl's cousin all those years ago. There must be a similarity to Anne Boleyn there.”

“Anne Boleyn was a clever woman,” I said. “This one is a fool.”

“None the less, one must beware of fools if they have power.”

“This one has power?”

“Through her devoted lover, of course. You are not entirely out of favor with the Court. Don't forget. You are next… after Edward.”

“Edward is so young.”

Chapuys looked at me slyly. “Who can say?” he murmured. “However, there must be no further estrangement between you and your father, and there will be if you continue to offend the Queen.”

“I did not think to offend her.”

“Yet you have shown disrespect for her in some way.”

“She is so silly.”

“Silly to you, but delectable to His Majesty, and it is His Majesty who has the power over us, remember. Find some means of making up the quarrel. The breach between you must not widen.”

I saw his point. There was always sound thinking behind Chapuys' words.

It was not difficult. When I was next in her presence, I admired her gown. She flashed her smile at me. She was really very pretty, and she had been so unused to having beautiful clothes that she was childishly delighted with her wardrobe. I admired her beautiful curls.

A few days after I had spoken to her, I made some progress. I learned that, while the Countess was in the Tower, Catharine had sent some clothes to her; and because his wife had wished it so ardently, the King had allowed her to do this.

I think that helped matters a great deal between us.

I mentioned to her that I knew she had done this, and I wanted to thank her for it.

“I heard that she was to die,” she said, “and it seemed terrible in that cold place. I hate the cold. It was cold in my grandmother's house in winter… and we were so poor, I hadn't any warm clothes… and I thought of the poor Countess…”

I said with feeling, “It was so good of you. I wanted to thank you for what you did…”

She gave me her dazzling smile.

“I sent her a nightgown of worsted, furred and lined… and I sent her some hose and shoes.”

“It was so kind…so very kind…”

“You loved her dearly,” said the Queen softly.

I nodded, too moved for words.

“She took the place of your mother. I had my grandmother… but she never took much notice of me.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said.

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you did for the Countess.”

It was the first time I had brought myself to call her “Your Majesty.” There were tears in her eyes; she was easily moved. I could not really like her or feel close to her as I had to Jane and Anne, but I knew she was goodhearted and generous, and if she was a little stupid, it was not for me to be annoyed because she had wormed her way into my father's affections.

After my speaking to her of the Countess, we were on better terms and I felt my relationship with her should no longer cause Chapuys any anxiety.

The King might be in a state of euphoria now that he had found the perfect wife, but the country was still in turmoil. It was when Sir John Neville had headed a revolt in the North that my father had decided that the Countess must die. The country was now more or less split into two. There were those who wanted to cling to Rome and those who saw the advantage of a break; there were those for the King and those against him. But the issue was not as clear cut as that. The Protestant Church had begun to grow, and there were some in England who were ready to embrace it. The King was not one of these. The break with Rome did not mean a break with the old religion; all the King wanted was to give the Church in England a new head. That was all he sought. It was due to the rival factions that the King had his great power, for neither was big enough to overcome the other, and the King stood apart from them and yet remained the great despotic ruler. It seemed strange that there had been two living Queens, Katharine and Anne; and now we were left with two different queens with similar names. There would be many people in the country who believed that, since the King had gone through a ceremony of marriage with Anne of Cleves, his marriage with Catharine Howard was no true marriage—just as in the days when my mother was alive, some had believed he could not be married to Anne Boleyn.

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