Jean Plaidy - The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr
“Ask me,” pleaded the jailor. “Ask me now.”
“You are ready?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Did you conduct a woman to a prisoner this day?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That was not one of your duties, I feel sure.”
“No, no….” The words tumbled out. He could not speak quickly enough. “I took a bribe. It was wrong. I repent of it. I should not have done it.”
“But it was such a big bribe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“From a person of quality, doubtless. And the name of the prisoner whose cell was visited? Do not try to deceive me, because then I should have to use these toys to make you tell the truth.”
“I will not. I swear I will not. The prisoner was a Mistress Anne Askew.”
“That is good. You are doing well. I can see we shall not have to play with those toys tonight.”
“Who was the woman you took to Anne Askew?”
“A lady… whose name I know not.”
“Whose name you know not? Have a care.”
“I swear I know not her name. She came with food and clothes for the prisoner. I know whence she came, though I know not her name. It was never told me.”
“So you know whence she came?”
“Yes, I know. She came from the heretic friends of Anne Askew.”
“The names of these friends?”
“They told me no names.”
“You are not being very helpful. I must have names.”
“They are ladies of the court.”
“Cannot you give me names…even of some of them?”
He had signed to two men with evil faces; they came forward.
“Not one name?” said the interrogator.
“I do not know who sent them. I was told by a man who brought her…I know…”
“You know?”
“Yes, my lord. I know the woman who comes is a messenger from the Queen.”
“The Queen! Ah, that is good. You have been useful. Let him go. Let him go back to his work. Not a word, my friend, of tonight’s adventure, or…”
“I swear I’ll say nothing. I swear…”
“You will be watched. Just go on as before. Take your bribe. Let the lady in. Your little journey to our chamber, your inspection of our toys makes no difference. Go, my good man. You have answered well and faithfully.”
The jailor’s response was to fall into a faint on the earthen floor.
Wriothesley watched him with a smile. He liked the man. He had given the answer he most wished to hear.
WHEN NAN REACHED the Palace of Greenwich she went straight to the apartments of Lady Herbert as was her custom. The Queen’s sister had spent the time of her absence alternately on her knees praying for Nan’s safety, and at the window watching for her return.
“Nan,” said Lady Herbert, “how went it?”
“Much as before, my lady.”
“Methinks you are returned a little earlier.”
“Yes, my lady. I had scarcely time to take off all the clothing I had brought when the jailor urged me to leave the cell.”
“Why was that?” demanded Lady Herbert, her face growing pale.
“It was merely, he said, that he had not seen the guard in his usual place.”
Lady Herbert’s fingers played nervously with the jewels at her throat.
“This cannot go on. They suspect something.”
Nan threw herself on to her knees. When she had been in the company of Anne Askew she seemed infected by her fanaticism, her desire for martyrdom.
“My lady, I am ready to die, if need be, in the cause of the Queen and the Queen’s faith.”
Lady Herbert began to walk up and down the apartment.
“Oh, Nan, if only it were as simple as that! If death were swift and painless, how easy it would be! What else, Nan? How was she?”
“As strong as before in spirit, but very frail in body.”
“Nan, you must not go there again.”
“If the Queen commands me, I should go. There are times, my lady, when I almost feel a desire to be caught… though I know I should all but die of fright. There is something about that place, something that wraps itself about one. It is utter desolation, hopeless… and yet there is a kind of welcome.”
Lady Herbert took the young woman by her shoulders and gently shook her.
“Nan, Nan, do not talk so. You speak as one who is ready to embrace death.”
“Willingly would I do so, if the Queen commanded,” said Nan. “If they caught me, none should draw the secret from me. They could put me on the rack…”
“Hush, you foolish woman!” cried Lady Herbert almost angrily. “You know not what you say. Stronger than you have been broken in the torture chambers of the Tower.”
“They would not torture me…a woman. They do not torture women. I should be sent to the stake, and because I am a woman they would strangle me so that I should not feel the scorching of the flesh.”
Lady Herbert recognized the signs of hysteria. The strain was too much for any but a fanatic like Anne Askew. They must give up these dangerous visits. She must make the Queen see that they dared not continue with them.
“Go to your room,” she said. “I will send you a soothing draught. Drink it and draw your bedcurtains; then… sleep… sleep until you awake refreshed.”
Nan curtsied and went to her room.
And when she awoke from the soothing sleep, the lightheadedness had passed. She was herself once more. She could think of her experience with nothing but horror, and instead of seeing death beautified by martyrdom, she saw it evil and horrible, as the cold unhappy Tower had told her it must be.
IN THE QUEEN’S closet Lady Herbert shut the door and leaned against it.
“I am afraid,” she said.
“Why so?” asked the Queen.
“Our father and mother would never have dreamed that you would one day be Queen of England.”
“But the Queen of England must be braver than any lady in the land.”
“She must also be wiser. Oh, Kate, Anne Askew looks for martyrdom, but she is armed with her faith and her courage. You know that she has always been different from the rest of us.”
“Yes, even as a girl she was different. How remote she was from us! Oh, sister, what will they do to her? They have taken her because they wish, through her, to take me, and…we know why.”
“Yes, we know. It is you they wish to have in prison. They will try to make her admit that you too are in possession of the forbidden books, and that you have offended against the King’s laws.”
“And then?”
“And then I know not.”
“Do you not?” Katharine laughed bitterly. “Everything depends on His Majesty. If he wishes to see me condemned as a heretic, then condemned I shall be.” Her laughter grew wild. “It makes me laugh. I cannot help it. Everything depends on his state of health. If he is sick, I am safe for a while. But if he grows well…Oh Anne, is it not comic? I have watched his glances. The Duchess of Richmond is a comely lady. And so is Her Grace of Suffolk. Different types—and he cannot make up his mind which he prefers: the widow of his son, or the widow of Charles Brandon. Both widows, you see! I believe I have given him a taste for widows. And none but a widow would dare return the King’s loving glances. Sister, my life hangs by a thread; and who is holding that thread? His Majesty. And how he jerks it, depends on the Duchesses of Richmond and Suffolk…and the state of his health!”
“You must not laugh like this. It frightens me. You must be calm. You must be serene. Your smallest action is of the utmost importance.”
“Oh, sister, what will they do to poor Anne Askew?”
“They dare do nothing. They cannot torture a woman…a highborn woman. The King would not allow it.”
The Queen looked at her sister and broke into fresh laughter, and the Lady Anne Herbert had great difficulty in soothing her.
THE BISHOP AND THE CHANCELLOR walked once more in the Great Park.
“What news, my lord Chancellor?” asked Gardiner.
“My lord Bishop, good news. I had the jailor taken as soon as he left the court woman. He admitted in the torture room that the clothes and food which the prisoner has been receiving were sent at the Queen’s command.”
Gardiner nodded. “That is good.”
“Well, is it not enough?”
The Bishop shook his head. “It’s that accursed leg. The woman is such a good nurse.”
“You think he is so fond of her still that he seeks no other?”
“While the King breathes he will always be ready to seek another wife—providing the current one has shared his bed for a month or more.”
“My lord Bishop, it was but a week ago that he said to me: ‘Three years of marriage, Wriothesley, and no sign of fruitfulness. I cannot think the fault is mine; therefore must I wonder if my marriage finds favor in the sight of God.’”
“That was good.”
“And have you seen the looks he casts at my lady of Suffolk?”
“Not so good. She, like the Queen, inclines to heresy. I would my lady of Richmond did not worry his conscience. The warmer his feelings grow for her the better. Everything depends on the warmth of his feelings.”
“But…if he should turn to Brandon’s widow?”
“We must see that that does not happen. But first we must rid him of Katharine Parr.” Gardiner looked grave. “We must practice the utmost caution. Remember Dr. London, who has since died of the humiliations inflicted upon him.”
“I do remember him. But the jailor admitted the woman came from the Queen.”
“The word of a lowborn jailor could not be of great account. We must remember this, friend Chancellor: The situation is not a simple one. When Cromwell found evidence against Anne Boleyn, the King was already impatient for marriage with Jane Seymour. Now it is less simple. At one moment the King wishes to be rid of his wife, and at the next he remembers that she is his nurse and necessary to him. To bring the jailor’s evidence before the King when he needs his nurse, might bring down Heaven knows what on our defenseless heads. Nay! We must learn by the mistakes and successes of others. Think of the King’s love for Catharine Howard. Cranmer was fully aware of that. What did he do? He presented the King with undeniable evidence of his Queen’s guilt. That is what we must do. But the word of a lowborn jailor is not enough.”
“You mean the woman herself—this Anne Askew—must speak against the Queen?”
“That is what I mean.”
“But you know her mind. She will say nothing against anyone. ‘Kill me,’ she will say. ‘I’m not afraid of death.’ And, by God, you will have but to look at her to know that she speaks truth.”
“It is easy for a fanatical woman to say these things, and to die quickly is easy. But to die slowly…lingeringly…horribly… that is not so simple. The bravest men cry out for mercy on the rack.”
“But… this is a woman.”
Gardiner’s thin lips smiled faintly. “This, dear Chancellor,” he said, “is our enemy.”
IN HER CELL in the Tower, Anne Askew daily waited for the doom which she felt must certainly be hers.
She had knelt by the barred window and prayed, and praying lost count of the hours. On the stone walls of this cell which had been occupied by others before her were scratched names, messages of hope and words of despair. She prayed not for herself but for those who had suffered before her. She knew that there was some grace within her, some extra strength, which would enable her to meet with courage whatever was coming to her.
It was midnight when she had knelt, and now the dawn was in the sky. It filtered through the bars of her cell; another day was coming and she was still on her knees.
It was some days since Nan had visited her. She had had little to eat, yet she did not feel the need of food. There were times when her mind wandered a little—back to her childhood in her father’s house, back to the days when she and her sister had wandered in the gardens and been happy together.
Anne had always been the serious one, loving books more than play. Her elder sister had laughed at her, and there had been times when Anne had envied her. She was so normal, that elder sister of Anne’s; she liked good things to eat, fine clothes to wear. She had said: “Anne, you are strange. Sometimes I think you are a changeling—not the child of our parents. You are like a fairy child, and in your eyes there burns such fervor that I feel your sire must have been a saint.”
Sometimes Anne imagined that she was back in the days of her sister’s betrothal to Mr. Kyme.
She could hear her sister’s light chatter. “He is very rich, Anne. They say he is the richest man in Lincolnshire, and I like him well enough.”
“How can you go into marriage lightly?” Anne had asked, shuddering. “How I rejoice that it is not for me. I shall go into a nunnery. That is what I long for… quiet… peace…to learn that of which Martin Luther has written.”
Looking back it seemed that she lived again through those tragic days of her sister’s death. Death was ever near. It swooped suddenly, and one could never be sure from what source it came.
“Now that your sister is dead,” her father had said, “you must take her place with Mr. Kyme.”
She could see him clearly—Mr. William Kyme, a young and ardent man in need of a wife. He was very willing to take the younger sister in place of the elder.
In vain she had prayed and pleaded with her father. “A daughter’s first duty is obedience; so said the Scriptures,” she was told.
So said the Scriptures. And she would not fight her destiny.
Now was the most horrible of all her memories: the warm, eager hands of Mr. Kyme, and herself trembling supine in the marriage bed.
He had been kind at first. “My poor sweet child, you do not understand. You are so young…so innocent. You must not be afraid.”
She had lain, shuddering, bearing that torture as later she would bear others.
Resignation came to her at length, but Mr. Kyme did not wish for resignation. There were angry scenes. “Unnatural!” That was the word he had flung at her.
“Leave me alone,” she had begged. “Divorce me…do what you will. But release me from this life which is distasteful to me.”
He had not been, she was sure, more brutal, more unkind than any man would have been. “I will not let you go,” he had stormed at her. “You are my wife and you shall be my wife.”
She would awake even now with those words in her ears, so that she was almost glad to be in this cold cell because it at least meant escape from a life which had been too humiliating and distasteful to be borne.
“I will make a normal woman of you yet,” he had said; but he had changed his mind when he had discovered her books.
“What is this?” he had demanded. “Are you one of these Reformers?”
“I believe in the teachings of Martin Luther.”
“Do you want to make us the King’s prisoners?”
“I would as soon be a prisoner of the King as of your sensuality.”
“You are mad. I will stop this reading and writing.”
He had locked her in her room, destroyed her books.
But she had found him to be vulnerable, and she rejoiced that this was so. The servants were talking of her leanings toward the new faith, and when a man’s wife is implicated, how easy it is to cast suspicion on that man!
