The Confession of Katherine Howard Read online

  ‘Francis told you,’ she accused.

  But that was different and she knew it. ‘You’d’ve gone to someone with it, you know you would.’ She’d have gone protesting to someone and Francis would’ve been made to pay for his lack of discretion. Surely she understood that Francis was so much more vulnerable than she was? The king’s men didn’t have to follow any protocol with Francis: they could do whatever they liked to him. ‘And anyway–’ this came as little more than a whimper–‘I thought it’d blow over. I thought they’d resolve it.’ Feebly, I dared to ask: ‘Have they?’

  Because it was just possible that she’d allow it, that she’d sigh and say, Well, luckily for you, it so happens…

  But she didn’t. She slid her eyes from mine in what looked like disgust.

  Despair floored me: why couldn’t it be sorted out? There was no pre-contract between Francis and Kate: it was as simple as that. Why would no one accept it? ‘What’s happening, Kate?’

  Her eyes slid back to mine, deadened. ‘Cranmer says the king has asked him to look into the matter.’ Said expressionlessly, to make clear she was quoting.

  The king: the words seized my heart and knocked the air from my chest. So, it really was as bad as it could possibly be: Francis was in trouble with the king. ‘But what “matter”?’ I had to know: what matter, exactly?

  ‘The “matter”–’ she shouted at me–‘of who I was fucking before I became queen.’

  I hated that she saw me flinch.

  She looked away again, wearied. ‘Well, that’s the gist of it, of what Cranmer’s saying. I don’t know that it’s true, of course.’ She was right: it might not be true. Cranmer might be bluffing.

  ‘The king might not know anything, yet.’

  This, though, I realised, was wishful thinking. Cranmer and Wriothesley would never risk bringing the queen in behind the king’s back for such questioning.

  She came back at me, chin jutting. ‘I tell you this: they’re going to have to answer to him for having me in there all day, alone, and asking me those questions. When he finds out how Cranmer’s been going about this, he’ll be livid.’

  ‘Will he?’ Again, some hope: the hope that he’d see this as outrageous scandalmongering. He adored her and would soon put a stop to it. He’d be man enough to forgive her girlish carryings-on; perhaps even to clap Francis on the back.

  ‘Of course he will!’ She slipped off the bed and paced, frantic and furious, stirring the meagre candlelight, threatening it. ‘He’ll be outraged! I’m the queen! I’m his queen! No one–no one–can get me alone like that and ask me–’ She smothered herself, one hand over the other, wild-eyed, then uncovered her mouth to hiss, ‘Jesus, Cat, you would never believe it,’ an inhalation rasped like a sob. ‘You wouldn’t bloody believe it: the questions. And from Cranmer. Cranmer! Of all men. Why Cranmer? Oh God,’ she flailed. ‘I feel sick, I feel sick just thinking about it.’

  I didn’t want to hear about the questions; they were questions about what she and Francis had done together. I grabbed her hands, clasped them.

  ‘He hates me,’ she whispered into my face, her own unevenly illuminated, scary. ‘Cranmer: he hates me.’

  I shook my head. I doubted the archbishop hated anyone.

  ‘He does,’ she insisted, fearful. ‘He’s always seen me as a stupid little girl and now he thinks I’m worse. God, no: he knows I’m worse.’

  ‘Stop it,’ I said; I didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘The questions.’ She was staring into my eyes but it was as if she didn’t see me. ‘You wouldn’t believe the questions. What and how and when and where and with whom–’

  ‘So, deny it,’ I countered, ‘deny it all.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she yelled, dropping my hands–throwing them down–and whirling away, too close to the candle’s flame. Turning back, a little more composed: ‘Not all of it. Manox’s stories tally with Francis’s, Cranmer says.’ Wriothesley questioning Francis and Henry Manox, the archbishop questioning the queen. ‘So, it’s two against one.’ And then she was quoting: ‘“You like to be on top”, “You like a finger–”’

  ‘Stop it.’ I didn’t want to hear it.

  She blazed at me, accusatory, folding her arms, gathering herself: ‘Your boyfriend has been talking.’

  ‘They’re making him talk.’

  ‘Well, I wish I could shut him up.’ And she was off again: ‘“You don’t like your nipples being licked, you use your hand as well as–”’

  ‘Listen!’ I had to stop her, and make her see sense: ‘You have to tell Cranmer there was no pre-contract.’

  She looked puzzled. ‘I have.’ Then half-laughed, as if I’d said something preposterous. ‘Of course I have! You can be sure I’m sticking to it–no pre-contract–whatever rubbish Francis is telling them.’

  That stung. ‘He’s saying there was no pre-contract.’

  She made a dismissive sound, disbelieving, and it was all I could do not to slap her. ‘No, you listen.’ She stepped up close to me. ‘There was no pre-contract, or all this–’ an arm behind her, in the air ‘–is nothing, and I’m not queen. And you: you’ll be back home, getting married off to…to someone.’

  Not Francis. A reminder that I was only here and living this life because of her, that I’d only have the future that I longed for if she had hers as queen.

  She retreated to the bed and briefly lowered her face into her hands. ‘The king didn’t ask if I was a virgin when I married him.’ Believing himself in love and keen, presumably, to believe his luck. Nor did any of his men think to ask, though. They didn’t think to doubt little Katherine Howard, seventeen years old and raised in a good old-fashioned Catholic household.

  I pressed back against the door again, made myself exhale. ‘He’ll forgive you.’ I desperately hoped he would; I did think he might. But Francis: would he forgive Francis? Francis hadn’t broken any law, but that was nothing against the wrath of the king.

  ‘He’ll have to,’ she said, dryly.

  ‘He loves you.’

  ‘All the more reason for him not to forgive me. Cat–’ she appealed, You don’t understand–‘I was his little virgin.’

  I did understand, perfectly.

  ‘I acted the little virgin on my wedding night.’ Suddenly, she beseeched me, ‘Stay, Cat. Please. Stay with me, here, tonight.’ When I didn’t respond, her look turned searching and she read in my eyes the reason for my hesitation: I needed to go and find Francis. She was safe, here; she was safe enough, and now I could go and find Francis.

  She bit her lip, lowered her gaze, withholding something.

  ‘What?’

  Still she hesitated. Then, ‘He’s not here.’ She said it quietly, looking up, wide-eyed. ‘I thought you knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’ Blood was pulsing in my ears.

  ‘Cat,’ she broke it to me, ‘he’s been taken to the Tower.’

  ‘Tower?’ Which tower?

  ‘This morning,’ she whispered, her unblinking eyes ghastly in the half-light. ‘I’m sorry, I thought you knew.’

  ‘The Tower?’ My legs had begun trembling fast and hard: a quite spectacular trembling. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Cranmer said.’

  And Cranmer, so far, as far as we knew, hadn’t lied.

  ‘But–’ I needed air–‘he was here. They were questioning him here.’ Why would he need to be taken to the Tower? A flash of a vision: Francis being manhandled, a mere slip of a lad, a blond boy in linen and silk. I demanded, ‘Can’t you–?’ do something.

  She pressed her fingertips to her lips, pressed them white, and her eyes reddened. She whispered something; I failed to catch it.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m to stay in my rooms.’

  ‘What?’ My trembling was distracting me; I lurched, grabbed hold of a bedpost. ‘But who–?’

  She shook her head. What did that mean? Didn’t she know? Or was she refusing to talk about it? ‘But you’re the queen.’ A surge of fury. ‘
Aren’t you?’ What kind of queen are you, confined to your rooms? Then, clutching that bedpost, I took a deep breath and inched around to sit beside her. Because there really was nowhere else to go. And so there we sat, side by side, confounded. ‘Cranmer said?’

  She sniffed, and nodded.

  ‘What–exactly–did he say?’

  ‘He said–’ her tearfulness was giving her a nasal tone–‘I must keep to my rooms.’

  And me? Was I, too, confined to her rooms? Because of her, because I was hers? Francis in the Tower and me trapped here, hours and hours away from him. Was there anything I could do?

  But, ‘Can he…? Cranmer: can he…command…?’

  She shrugged, and stated the obvious: ‘Well, he did.’

  ‘But where did he think you’d go?’ I probably shouldn’t have said it: driving home her helplessness. Worse, ‘What are we going to do?’

  She rose to it, though. ‘We’ll wait,’ she said, decisive. ‘Wait for it to be over. Which it will be, soon. Because there’s nothing for them to find.’

  Yes. Well, yes, of course: I had to remind myself that there’d been no pre-contract, and that was a fact; that was the fact. What on earth had I been thinking? I should trust to the truth. I closed my eyes to concentrate on calming down, which was when I remembered that there was something. There was something else, much more dangerous than a mere long-ago dalliance. It was so obvious that I couldn’t voice it: it would be absurd, in a way, to have to voice it. I needed to, though, because it might well come to light and she needed to be thinking about that, and fast. ‘But what about–’

  She turned to me, expectant. I’d hoped she’d have known what I was referring to, but clearly she didn’t, or chose not to.

  I’d have to say it. Say it: ‘Thomas.’

  No change in those widened eyes of hers, not a flicker, nothing. ‘But they’re not looking for Thomas,’ she said, kindly, patiently, as if I needed help to understand.

  ‘No,’ I agreed, playing along, playing for time, fighting my frustration. How could I make her see? Why did she refuse to see? ‘But what if they…come across him?’

  ‘“Come across him”?’ She was perplexed, almost amused. ‘But how would that happen? There’s only you who knows. I mean, and–’ she gestured towards the door, Jane Rochford.

  ‘And Francis,’ I said.

  ‘–and they’re not going to say anything, are they.’ Something like a little laugh, at the very idea.

  I tried: ‘Francis–’

  Francis, in the Tower. I couldn’t say it, I just couldn’t, but actually I didn’t have to; I saw her catch on. ‘Cat,’ she was emphatic, ‘Francis would never betray me.’

  But hadn’t he already? Put like that–‘betrayed’–hadn’t he already? You like a finger…

  She read my look. ‘Not about Thomas,’ she specified. ‘Messing about, years ago,’ she spoke dismissively, ‘that’s one thing, and anyway they already knew it, and then they found Henry Manox, too, so Francis had no choice: he had to own up. But this…’

  Oh, you don’t have to tell me: this is deadly.

  She shook her head, definite that she was beyond danger.

  ‘But,’ I was going to have to say it, ‘he’s in the Tower.’ Don’t make me say this, I seethed inside even as I’d said it. Don’t make me say any more. It was illegal to use nefarious means of extracting information from prisoners, but it happened, everyone knew it happened: sometimes, it happened.

  She raised her chin as she shook her head again. ‘No, he wouldn’t ever betray me.’

  So, I did have to spell it out, and I hated her for it: ‘We don’t know what, under the circumstances, he might do.’

  ‘I know.’ Rueful, as if–gallingly–she pitied me for failing to appreciate their bond. Then, with a catch in her voice, she said, ‘Oh, and thank God for Thomas,’ and I saw she was crying–really crying, big tears. ‘I tell you, Cat,’ she swiped at the tears with the back of a hand, ‘I’d die if I didn’t have him. I would, I’d die. He’s all I’ve got.’

  Surely she didn’t believe that.

  ‘I love him, Cat, I love him so much.’

  It was nonsense and I couldn’t bear to hear it. She didn’t know what love was.

  ‘He’s the only reason I get up in the mornings. If I didn’t have him, I’d just be wife to…’ She sniffed hard. ‘I’m so scared he’ll go and marry someone else and won’t be there for me when–’

  I slapped a hand over her mouth. Enough. Treason, to talk of the death of the king, even to contemplate it. How could she be so reckless? She could get us all killed! She stared at me, horrified by what I’d done, not at what she’d said. I took my hand away. ‘You can’t talk like that.’

  She flared, ‘There’s no one here!’

  ‘But you can’t even think like that!’ Don’t you understand?

  She didn’t, I saw: she didn’t understand. And I didn’t think I could make her understand.

  We let it go, neither of us saying another word, and there followed a lengthy, miserable silence broken only by her sniffs. Eventually, with a shudder, she said, ‘Let’s get into bed.’

  We looked at it forlornly awaiting its evening ritual–the arrival of the ladies, their checking under the mattress for daggers and the covering of the mattress with its canvas cover and laundered sheets, before the kisses of Lady Margaret wherever she’d touched it and her making the sign of the cross. All of which had always had Kate struggling to keep a straight face. Neither of us was laughing now. The ladies hadn’t come, this evening, and it was unlikely they would. Kate heaved herself up with a sigh and, from a chest, took two clean, lavishly embroidered nightshirts. There were no sheets–no one having fetched any that day from the Wardrobe of the Bed–but the bedcoverings, the blankets and furs, would more than do.

  I wondered, though, if she shouldn’t be showing her face back in the Presence Chamber; shouldn’t she be trying to keep up appearances? Not running in here and shutting the door. What would they–out there–be making of this? I dreaded to think. Wasn’t it dangerous for her to be cutting herself adrift?

  ‘Shouldn’t you–?’ I nodded towards the door.

  She merely rolled her eyes.

  Some of them would eventually come to us, though, wouldn’t they: some of them, surely, would turn up to wait on their queen? Lady Margaret, if no one else, although I recoiled from the prospect: Lady Margaret, whose lover had died in the Tower; Lady Margaret with her patches of reddened, broken skin. But, anyway, she wouldn’t just leave us, abandon us here, even if it was what we wanted. If nothing else, she’d be aware that no fire had been laid.

  I didn’t believe that Kate didn’t care. That roll of her eyes was bravado and this was not the time for it. She couldn’t be oblivious to the shame of having run in here with red eyes after a whole day’s detention. The ladies would have to be faced, sometime. Or would they? Perhaps when we next walked into the Presence Chamber, they’d all have gone. I had no idea what was happening. Anything, it seemed to me, could happen.

  We began undressing, releasing the catches at each other’s napes; lengths of precious stones crunching down into our cupped hands. Having eased the jewelled frames from our heads and lifted them and their silky veils away, we untied our crossed-over plaits and teased free our hair. Then came the unpinning of the bodices of our gowns, kirtles and petticoats: picking through the back-fastening and side-fastening layers that we could reach for ourselves, before turning for help with the others. Working down the rows, we slid pins from fabric and collected them in our teeth. Weary and distracted, we pricked ourselves on some, overlooked some and had to backtrack, dropped some but left them on the carpets. As each layer of clothing came loose, we raised it from the other’s shoulders, holding them for each other to step free, taking the dead weight of it in our arms and laying it over one of the chests. Her scarlet petticoat was so soft that I almost crawled into it and wrapped myself up in it to sleep.

  Then I lay in that fur-he
aped bed thinking of Francis, wondering where he lay, whether he had covers over him. I willed him to feel, through the air and across the miles, how my every thought was of him; and then, in my mind, I reached him, not with the bearhug that I might’ve anticipated but the lightest, the softest of touches, a ticking of my fingertips down over his ribs, a dab to the scantily protected bone of his nose. As if those touches held a strength that his captors could never have. As if they were all that were needed to safeguard him.

  Also Francis Dereham by many persuasions procured me to his vicious purpose and obtained first to lie upon my bed with his doublet and hose and after within the bed and finally he lay with me naked, and used me in such sort as a man doth his wife many and sundry times…

  Jo Bulmer left the duchess’s to get married when she turned fourteen. She came back from a visit home with the big news. ‘It’s happening!’ she called to us, thundering the length of the gallery behind us as we headed to evening prayers. ‘It’s all arranged!’ We turned to see her breathless, flushed, bright-eyed. ‘I’m getting married!’

  And suddenly she had us: all a-flutter, gathered around her, gawping and gasping. Even Mary.

  Privately, though, my reaction was relief: at last, we were going to be rid of her.

  ‘Who?’ Dottie, radiant with excitement, was the first of us to be asking, ‘Who is he?’

  Jo cited a name–not one I’d ever heard–before rattling off the pertinent details, his various properties: estate here, estate there; manor houses here, there and everywhere. This was who he was: owner of all that property. And that’s who she’d be–mistress of it all.

  ‘Anything in London?’ Dottie again, hopeful.

  ‘No,’ no London residence, ‘but I’ll persuade him,’ she laughed, which in turn made us laugh because we could well imagine her mode of persuasion and indeed she came clean, ‘I’ll insist.’ With an arch of an eyebrow, she laughed harder: me, the wife. It was almost touching to see her so hopeful.

  ‘When’s it happening?’ piped Maggie, on tiptoe. ‘When’s the wedding?’

  ‘Next month!’ A verbal flourish of triumph, because anyone could be betrothed but this was actually happening and in no time.