The Confession of Katherine Howard Read online

  The king hadn’t been evident in chapel, either, and I’d glimpsed Kate register his absence. No surprise in itself, his absence: on days that weren’t feast days, he preferred to worship in private in his closet adjoining the chapel. Which meant work, mostly, if rumour was correct: catching up on papers whilst only half-listening to Mass. Usually, though, Kate would’ve been informed of his absence–of the fact of it, if not the reason, unless the reason was ill-health. She wasn’t expected to trouble her pretty little head with matters of state, and she made quite clear that she had no interest in doing so. All she ever wanted to know of the king was his whereabouts, even if only vaguely. Actually, what she wanted to know was when to anticipate his return.

  Whenever he came to her rooms to see her, he’d eschew the royal chair that was there for him, lowering himself instead on to a bench–his huge thighs braced–so that she could settle herself beside him. She’d rest her head against his fur-rich shoulder and he’d ask her, ‘What have you been doing, today?’ the miracle being that he sounded genuinely interested, if not in the substance of what she had to say, then in her telling of it. He hung on her every word. She might have very little to say, but she could make something of nothing with her eye for detail and her word-perfect recall (‘So then he said–’). She made it funny for him, with that dry delivery of hers. He even giggled–he did have a giggle, that great big man. Or with her, he did. So, there he’d be: a king with decades of rule, interested in the daily doings of a girl who professed no interest in anything much but clothes. Often he’d have a new acquisition to show her, perhaps a wind or string instrument or some ingenious item of percussion that he’d explain and demonstrate, and she’d just laugh at the nakedness of his enthusiasm, but he didn’t seem to mind and in no time he’d be laughing, too.

  Watching him with her, it was unimaginable to me that the jocular, twinkly man had, within the past five years, exiled one wife to a lonely death and signed an execution order for her successor.

  That day, dinner was cleared away by twelve, and still no word from the king. I could see that Kate was dithering, unsure whether she should remain available, even less able than usual to make something of the daylight hours left to us. It looked a fine day, too: ripe for having something made of it outside the confines of her rooms, such as a game of bowls on the green down by the river or perhaps even a trip on the water. We couldn’t be sure that this wouldn’t be the last sunshine of the year.

  I had no time for Kate’s procrastination on such an afternoon. I was biding my time before my escape, planning a walk through Kate’s private garden and then back along the moat and through her orchards. I wasn’t needed, and could slip from under the expectation that I’d be around. I was good at that. The proper ladies-in-waiting did enough waiting around for the rest of us. I doubted that I’d ever get the hang of it. I was a maid-in-waiting in name only.

  Of my fellow maids-in-waiting, Maggie, was poring over her little Book of Hours, as she so often was–I had no idea how she found so much in it–and Alice was ostensibly sewing but more often staring into space, an activity for which she had an extraordinary capacity. On the far side of the room, Lady Margaret–head of we maids and ladies–was in discussion with Sir Edward, head of Kate’s household: in full flow, she was talking and nodding, frowning and smiling all at once as only she could do. She was the king’s niece and the family resemblance was strong except in size: she was a slip of a girl. She looked scrappy in whatever finery she wore, a fault not just of her skinniness and pallor but also her anxious manner and its physical counterpart, the sore hands and abrasions beneath her collar and band of her hood. Hers was an onerous position for someone so young, no doubt foisted upon her as rehabilitation after her disgrace of a few years ago, the romantic entanglement for which, after her lover’s death in the Tower, she’d apologised and been pardoned.

  At the fireside, the Parr sisters were reading. My mother had taught me to read but then, when I’d grown up alongside Kate in the Duchess of Norfolk’s house, there’d been little tutoring and I’d never progressed, had perhaps even regressed. I had no trouble with individual words but became lost if there were a lot of them: I could read a letter, but not a book. Kate sometimes ridiculed the Parr sisters to me for their book-reading, catching my eye and raising her eyebrows, referring to them in private as the po-faced Parrs, although in fact they were a cheerful enough pair. As queen, Kate had books of her own, but for her they were decorative, leather-and silk-bound, gold-enamelled, studded with turquoise and rubies. I didn’t understand the precise nature of Kate’s objection to the Parr sisters’ absorption in books: she might’ve regarded it as a waste of time, she might’ve regarded it as presumptuous. Both, probably. For me, it was a source of fascination: how a book could hold them absorbed as if they were praying but with none of the subjugation of prayer. They had their heads bowed but I had a clear sense of them rising to those printed words with pleasure.

  In the middle of the room, Jane Rochford was playing the lute in a business-like way. I kept waiting for Kate to say, That’s enough for now, thanks, Roch, but she didn’t; she didn’t seem to hear it, whereas, unfortunately, it was all I could hear. There was never any respite from Jane Rochford: that dissatisfied but self-satisfied face was ever present in the queen’s rooms. She never went off as everyone else sometimes did, for dog-walks or flower-picking or bowls-games, and–understandably–no one ever asked her along to any music practice. She was forever hanging around, imposing herself on whomever she could find and sighing hugely as she did so, under the mistaken impression that her affected languor was comical. She was never off duty because unlike all the other ladies she had no home to go to; no one had re-married her in the four years since her husband’s execution.

  Kate was mooching at the windows, sunlight snagging on her new brooch–a lover’s knot of diamonds which the king had given her–but suddenly, ‘Oh!’ and she whirled around, finding me first. ‘Look!’

  I laid aside the letter I was writing to my cousin, and rose, craning to see the king’s party beyond the moat.

  ‘Looks as if he’s off hawking, but why didn’t he say?’ She had no love of the outdoors, and probably would’ve declined an invitation to join him, but she resented not having been asked. Also, Thomas Culpeper would be gone all day because not only was he one of the king’s favoured gentlemen, but he was a skilled hawker and even though we couldn’t spot him at such a distance, we knew he’d be there.

  ‘Where’s Francis?’ I asked her.

  ‘Well, not there,’ she replied, cocking her head towards the hawkers, amused by the prospect, the absurdity of it. Francis was firmly in her retinue, as I was; we were unknown to the king’s household. Francis’s place, like mine, was here, in her household. We’d come with her from home: we were hers.

  I persisted: ‘So, where is he, then?’

  She didn’t know. ‘Perhaps he’s ill.’

  ‘He was fine, this morning.’

  She gave me a look–I bet he was–but her flippancy rankled. ‘I’m serious.’

  She shrugged, expansively, turning it into a hugging of herself, turning herself away from the window.

  Later, increasingly intrigued by Francis’s whereabouts, I slipped into the second sitting of dinner in the Great Hall in search of his room-mate, Rob, who was able to tell me that Francis hadn’t ever returned, that morning, to his room. Not ill, then, but up to something. There’d been mention, I recalled, of some clothes that he was considering buying from someone: perhaps that was what he was doing, busy trying to raise or retrieve the cash. Back in Kate’s rooms, I spent a while longer expecting him to arrive before giving up and going for my walk. Maggie asked if she could come, and as always I was glad of a chance to lose myself in her cheery company. She tripped along at my side, chattering endearingly about some of the New Year gifts that she’d soon be sewing, and impressing upon me the various achievements of her little godson, before embarking upon a lengthy account–to which, admit
tedly, I only half-listened–of her family’s dispute with the mason who was supposed to be building her grandfather’s tomb. Maggie: two years my junior but in many ways old for her years. There was a gem-like shine to the river and cloud cover was no heavier than breath condensing on the surface of the sky.

  I was surprised not to see Francis on my return. Still no one remarked on his absence, but, then, despite his position as usher to Kate’s rooms, he did tend to come and go. Loyal to Kate though he was, he often disappeared–horse-riding, tennis-playing, tavern-frequenting with friends or his brothers–and managed to square it with her afterwards. I wasn’t overly concerned. If anything was amiss, he would–I was sure–have told me.

  Prayers, supper, and some music-making: the afternoon and evening drifted on. At six o’clock, as usual, Sir Thomas Heneage came along with news of the king for Kate. He was a funny little man, goofy and chinless; Kate didn’t often take to funny little men but Sir Thomas was an exception and she always invited him to stay for a drink and a gossip. This evening he told her that the king had gone off to London. London, suddenly, by barge, late on a November afternoon: something had come up, we might’ve surmised. Someone, perhaps: a troublesome nobleman or cleric; someone fallen from favour and being taken to task. But that was if we thought about it at all, and it’s just as likely that we didn’t.

  Eventually, the evening livened up. Only a few of the king’s gentlemen had accompanied him to London and just before eight o’clock the others turned up at Kate’s door, ring-led by her brothers who were as delighted as ever with themselves. Their merry band was vying for an invitation, which, as usual, was forthcoming, albeit being issued under the ever-watchful eye of Lady Margaret. The men were eager to be entertained, although the day’s hawking had helped deplete some of the ebullience that was often a problem after the end of the hunting season. In the end, good-natured gambling sufficed, the knight-marshal kept busy with the tallies.

  November 4th

  The following morning, Francis was back in attendance, carrying on as if he’d never been away. I felt I was owed an explanation. Kate was keeping him busy, presumably with the usual mix of tasks. He was both her usher–gate-keeper to her rooms–and her secretary. The pair of them never worked together in a closet–that would’ve been too serious for her–but would merely retreat to a corner of whichever room we were all in. There, he’d read aloud the clutch of letters that arrived daily for her, and they’d discuss how he should respond on her behalf. They’d go through any appointments that needed to be made, and he’d set about making them. Then there were the thank-you letters for gifts–from silverware and sumptuous fabrics to baskets of fruit and jars of preserve–which came from people in every walk of life who, for their various reasons, were anxious to curry favour. Then perhaps they’d work on formal renditions of any pleas for clemency which the king had already heard from her in private and indicated that he’d permit. I’d never anticipated what a soft touch she would become in that respect, although, upon reflection, there was nothing soft about it. She was genuinely unnerved to think of the hard and fast nature of the law: its drastically impersonal, inflexible nature. What drew her to particular cases–what she had a feeling for–was the minutiae of personal circumstances, and I could well imagine that she made them compelling when relaying them to her husband.

  All that morning, she and Francis made quite a spectacle with their industry. She was elaborately pinned and tucked, every inch the girl-queen, as good as gold, and he had an officious air. Habitually, he listened to her with only half his attention, polite but vague, but that particular morning he was frowning with concentration. He’d often make much, to me, of how he’d have been nothing without her, of how he owed his success to her–here he was, private secretary to the queen of England–but I wasn’t so sure. When we girls had first come across him, he was a gentleman pensioner of the Duke of Norfolk’s, an enviable position, and had he stayed in the duke’s household, he’d have done very well for himself. He was following Kate’s lead in that her own rise had been something of a fairytale, but she too, I sensed, had chosen to believe in the inevitability of it. For her, the obscurity of her earlier life had been the mistake and the recent elevation her due. A natural enough attitude to take, I supposed, but I’d expected something different from her–from her of all people, so impatient with others’ pretensions.

  At last, late on during the afternoon–too late, in my opinion–Francis came to find me in the gallery, where I’d got drawn into music practice with Alice and Anne Basset. He came slinking over, all smiles, attempting to slide his way back into my favour. ‘Hello, you.’

  I said nothing although I did tilt my face for his kiss, which then struck me as a gesture typical of Kate–that showy petulance that she affected with men.

  ‘Been busy?’ He was keen to make amends.

  Was I ever? But he’d asked, he’d given me the opportunity to knock him back, so I launched laboriously into a list of the day’s decidedly unspectacular activities: I’d written to my cousin and my father; tackled a new piece on the virginals; been entrusted to choose a gown and some jewellery for Kate from The Wardrobe and The Jewel House, settling on an indigo satin gown and sapphire-and-pearl necklace; managed to catch Liz Fitzgerald’s favoured tailor when he was visiting her, to ask if he could make a cloak for my little cousin in time for New Year; and dropped in at the Duchess of Richmond’s rooms to check the progress of the puppies, one of which, when weaned, would be Kate’s. I related all this in a deliberately flat tone, staring him down as I did so. Understandably, when he’d listened politely, he backed off.

  Later still, when the evening’s dancing began, I relented and took him aside, finally asking him outright, ‘So, where were you, yesterday?’

  He turned his big eyes to mine. ‘My mother wasn’t well.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ It must’ve been something serious, I thought, for him to have gone all the way to London, and my stomach clenched at the prospect of what he might be facing. Then again, he’d come all the way back, so whatever was wrong hadn’t been serious enough to detain him.

  ‘I don’t really know.’

  That struck me as vague, but, then, Francis was so often vague.

  ‘Well, is she any better?’

  ‘A bit.’

  I began to suspect he was lying, so I delved: ‘Were your brothers there?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘Yes.’ A touch of impatience, now: I said so, didn’t I?

  And thus I had him: ‘You told me your younger brother was in York.’ He’d told me that his brother had gone up there the previous week for a month of work.

  He narrowed his eyes, he was cross. ‘Well, he came back,’ and he protested, ‘I don’t tell you everything.’

  I sighed. ‘Clearly not, Francis.’ York and back inside a week? There’d barely have been time to turn around. He was definitely lying.

  ‘Look…’ but then he dropped whatever further protest he was about to make and settled instead for, ‘I’ve had a really, really long day,’ and I saw how that, at least, was the truth. He looked exhausted. Tenderness washed over me and I let it drop.

  November 5th

  I shouldn’t have, though, because in the early hours of the following morning a couple of handfuls of soil hissed at my window. Alice didn’t stir but both Thomasine and I were woken. Thomasine occupied the side of the bed nearest the window and with a lot of muttering–Bound to be Mr Dereham, what’s the betting it’s Mr Dereham–she raised herself to it, prised it open, and peeked–‘Yup’–before flopping back down and yanking the bedclothes over her head. Anxious to put a stop to the disturbance, I rose and–nightgown over nightshirt, and shoes on–hurried down there.

  He’d ducked inside the stairwell to hide from the night-watch. Despite the darkness, somehow I could see he was huge-eyed. His breathing skittered over the silence. He said nothing. He was terrified, I realised, and terror of my own leapt up i
nside me to meet his because I’d never seen him like this. He was here on the run from something or someone. This–here, this dark stairwell–was his refuge, yet clearly it was no refuge at all.

  I couldn’t–just couldn’t–take him in my arms; something held me back, a dread perhaps of making him vulnerable. And he, too, held himself separate, trying to hold himself together. And so we stood there, looking at each other in the darkness. Still he said nothing–he couldn’t say it, I understood, he couldn’t bring himself to say that earlier he’d lied to me. It was obvious now but it had been obvious at the time, too, and I had to quell my fury that we’d ever had to go through that charade of his mother’s supposed illness.

  He confided, ‘It was Wriothesley,’ his breaths uneven and raucous in the silence.

  Thomas Wriothesley, secretary of state to the king. I didn’t understand: ‘What was Wriothesley?’

  ‘Had me in for questioning.’

  Still nothing: it made no sense whatsoever, to me. ‘About what?’ Why on earth would Thomas Wriothesley be questioning Francis? And all day? And in such a way as to cause this terror in him? Francis was no one, he’d know nothing about anything. He was harmless: he was an innocent if I’d ever known one.

  He urged, ‘About before,’ as if that should mean something.

  ‘Before?’

  ‘When we lived at the duchess’s.’

  What was there to know? What could possibly be of interest to a man such as Wriothesley? Or indeed anyone. I could barely recall our time there, myself, not least because there was nothing to remember: that was its distinguishing feature, for me. Nothing had ever happened at the duchess’s. ‘What about the duchess’s?’

  Despite the darkness, I knew he’d given me a very direct look: loaded, in warning. ‘Kate,’ he whispered.