In the Shadow of the Crown - Plaidy Jean - Страница 72

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Gardiner and Wriothesley determined to lose no time. The Queen was in disgrace. She had argued with the King once too often, and this in the presence of others. She had been reprimanded in front of them. She must be very low in the King's estimation at this moment; so therefore the time was ripe for her removal.

I could imagine Wriothesley and Gardiner closing in after that scene in the garden. Would the King be tutored by his wife? Indeed he would not. He was clearly piqued by her learning. But she was not clever enough to know when she should be quiet. The King did not want a clever woman; he wanted a Catharine Howard without her blemishes with the nature of Katharine Parr—or a Katharine Parr with the body and sensuality of Catharine Howard.

Now was the time to strike at the Queen, for she clearly leaned toward the Reformed Faith which the King had forbidden. Thus she was giving her enemies the opportunity they needed. She was questioning the King's right to supremacy. His Majesty would never endure such behavior from a woman. Anne Askew had been such another—saucy, defiant, acting in utter disobedience to the King's orders and the laws of the country.

Surely there must have been intervention from Heaven. It happened like this: one of the Queen's women was hurrying across the courtyard when she saw the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley passing through, carrying a batch of papers. He was a man whom none—great or humble—wished to come face to face with unexpectedly, for it could not be known whether one might offend him—and he was not the man to take an offense lightly.

So the woman drew back to the shelter of a pillar, and as she did so, she saw him drop one of the papers. He obviously did not notice, for he did not stop to retrieve it. She ran from her hiding-place and picked it up, meaning to give it to him, but by that time he had disappeared into the Palace. Some impulse made the woman look at the scroll, and she saw at once what it was. It was a mandate for the Queen's arrest.

She stood for a moment staring at it, unsure how to act. If she took it to the Chancellor, the Queen would be in the Tower very shortly. But if the paper were lost, he would have to get another. That would take time, and time was all-important on such occasions.

Tucking the scroll under her arm, she made her way in great haste to the apartments of the Queen's sister.

Lady Herbert almost swooned when she saw what it was. She had been expecting trouble and had, I believe, on many occasions warned her sister, to whom she was devoted; when she actually saw a warrant for the Queen's arrest, she must have thought the end was near.

She decided what she must do. Her sister must be prepared. She went to her immediately and showed her what the woman had brought to her.

It was then that Katharine sank into such melancholy that they feared for her life.

She wept piteously, Lady Herbert herself told me afterward. They did not know what to do. They had seen the mandate, and there would be some delay, but it would come. The King had approved this. His signature was on the document. So there was no hope.

Katharine could think of nothing to do. She was a very religious woman but she was afraid of death. The shadow which had hung over her since that fearful day when she had been told the King wished to marry her, was now upon her—a shadow no more: a reality.

The fact that she had had this on her mind and had lived so long with fear did not help her. It would come soon: the walk to the block, the gory death while people looked on and would say: “That is the end of the sixth wife.”

“And who will be the seventh?” she said hysterically. “The Duchess of Richmond… the Duchess of Suffolk? And how long for them?”

Lady Herbert tried to console her but there was no consolation.

“The King put a ring of doom about me when he put the ring on my finger,” she said. “I knew it at the time. I am no martyr. I am no Anne Askew. She went willingly to her death for her faith. I am merely a woman who does not please her husband.”

Anne Herbert was afraid for her sanity. Her eyes were wide and tragic… she saw herself taking those last steps to the scaffold.

Her sister called me, and I went to see Katharine. We tried to soothe her. Her eyes were glazed and she began to sob. Then she called out that she did not want to die. She was too young to die. She had never lived the life she had wanted. She had been nothing but a nurse to old men, and now she was to die.

We tried to calm her but a fearful hysteria had taken possession of her. She was laughing and crying at the same time. It was heartbreaking to hear her.

I really think she would have lost her senses, but God saw fit to save her. She was the most fortunate of the King's wives, which was due to the fact that he was now old. His fancy for the Duchesses of Richmond and Suffolk waned according to his health. The state of his diseased body was Katharine's salvation; she was such a good nurse.

He had signed the mandate that she should be taken to the Tower and questioned about her religious beliefs; no doubt it had been presented to him when he was smouldering with anger against her because he thought she was daring to contradict him. The rumblings of discontent which had followed Anne Askew's death were not far behind. They had aroused his rage, and to think that there was dissension in his own household must have infuriated him.

So in a flush of resentment he had signed the document.

With Katharine indisposed, one of his gentlemen had to dress his leg— and that was when he missed her.

Katharine was certainly lucky. I often thought of poor little Catharine Howard, who had not had a chance. I had always believed that, if she could have reached him, pleaded with him, he, who had been so enamored of her at that time, would have forgiven her and turned against all those who had attempted to destroy her, and she would have been alive today. But she had not had the luck of Katharine Parr.

He asked where she was. She was sick unto death in her apartments, he was told.

“Then I must go to her,” he said.

He could not walk. His accursed leg would not allow it. He must be wheeled to her. This was done. I wondered how he felt when he heard her sobbing. Did he feel a twinge from that well-ordered conscience? I doubted it. That conscience was as well disciplined as he expected his loyal subjects to be.

I only know what I heard later of that interview. Katharine herself told Lady Herbert, who told others, and so it came to my ears.

I wondered what the Queen had felt, seeing before her the man who had signed the mandate for her arrest. At that time, Lady Herbert said, Katharine despaired of saving her life and thought she was looking Death straight in the face.

He must have had a little pity for her. He was a sentimental man at times. He could change in a few minutes. Here was the Queen, of whom, shortly before, he was planning to rid himself, now lying helpless, frightened, believing that she was going the way of her predecessors. He must have remembered her gentleness, her kindness to his children, how she had made a home for them such as they had never had before. She was a woman of some learning: that was where the trouble had arisen; but he had enjoyed her discourse, and she had such gentle hands.

He must have made up his mind that, if her beauty did not set him afire with desire, if she failed to give him sons, he was getting too old for amorous adventures; he needed a good nurse rather than a voluptuous wife. So he came to her in a conciliatory mood.

He said that he disliked to see her in such a state, and he would do a great deal to restore her to health.

It must gradually have dawned on her that he had changed his mind about ridding himself of her. But she was too far gone in melancholy to rejoice. No doubt she thought that, if she were saved today, what would her fate be tomorrow? In those first moments she must have been far too bemused to remember what was said, and he, being aware of her state and the reason for it, realized how important she was to him.

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