The King's Pleasure, page 35
And now this. This momentous and terrible decision.
It seemed such a horrible thing to do. To ask that Henry should be cut off from every sacrament, cursed, severed from God; in worse case than any animal which, never having known the communion of souls, did not know the lack.
The Henry she remembered was the man so meticulous about his religious observances, making his confessions, doing his penance; “Six Masses and on a hunting day!”
Could she do this to him? She had failed to give him a son, she had lost his love, by holding to what she thought right she had driven him to defy the Pope who also thought she was right. She had loved him, loved him still, and had been his ruin.
And now she must decide upon this.
She looked at the word aggrieved. The aggrieved person. The word was inapt; it held implications of a desire to retaliate. She had been wronged but she had never for one moment felt any desire to be avenged. Never a day, from that terrible one at Greenwich, eight years, eight dragging years ago, when she would not have been ready to go back, with no recrimination, no reserve, to be his wife again.
Thinking was useless; she must pray about this. She went, into the Chapel and knelt, said the ritual prayers and laid the whole problem at the feet of God, of Mary, the Mother of God, and of Christ Jesus their Son who had died for the sins of the world.
She prayed for help and for guidance. From time to time she realized that she was no longer praying, but thinking in her limited, human way.
Mary’s rights to be considered and protected.
The Concubine may yet bear a son. She reads Lutheran books and on one occasion, at least, begged for leniency for a man who had smuggled such books in. No child of hers—when Henry is dead—would bring England back to Rome, thus denying its own legitimacy; When Henry dies, unless Mary becomes Queen immediately, England will go headlong into heresy. If I write this letter will Henry realize…
The thoughts, the questions went round and round in her mind like an old horse turning a mill wheel. From time to time she realized that she was not praying, but trying to reason, and pulled herself up sharply. God help and direct me. Mary, Mother of God, pity me—not meant for such great matters…Time passed.
Maria de Moreto, hovering in the narrow place between the door of the Chapel and that of the large room, was relieved to see Dr. de La Sa come in from the third door which opened on the courtyard where he had been taking his afternoon’s exercise.
“Her Grace has been in there,” she said, looking towards the Chapel door, “for three hours. I have looked in four times. She might be turned to stone for all the notice she took.”
“The letter Filipez brought her this morning disturbed her. I could see that. I am seriously considering asking Sir Edmund to forbid these rides of his. Whether he brings back a letter or mere gossip, she is always disturbed.”
“You do that, Dr. de La Sa,” Maria said, speaking between her teeth, her eyes narrowed, the very image of her formidable old father, “and you will have no blanket on your bed and no pillow. And I will use every book you have to stoke the fire.”
Taken aback, he said, “I meant no harm. It was her welfare I had in mind. Every time Francisco goes out…”
“He brings something to eat,” Maria said fiercely. “Something fit to eat. The smell of autumn is in the air already. How can she go through the winter on such fare as we are given?”
How could any of them, de La Sa wondered. The coarsest, darkest barley bread, pease porridge, a kind of stew, mainly cabbage with little shreds of meat: and even this poor fare none too plentiful.
“I have done what was possible,” he said, with hurt dignity. “I went across to the other side and made my protest.”
“You might as well have spat in the moat,” Maria said, still angered. “Now, get in there and persuade her to come out—for her health’s sake.”
Dr. de La Sa tiptoed in, bowed to the altar and then, stooping above Katharine, said softly, “Your Grace! I think you should come with me now. It is cold in here. We are concerned for you.”
On the hottest day of summer the Chapel was chilly, its thick wall to the north never catching the sun, the southern one shaded by the buildings on the other side.
She ignored him as she had ignored Maria, and for a moment he thought that she might be dead. The immediate result of death was a flaccidity; people keeled over, collapsed into a huddled heap; but with her elbows propped, her head in her hands and her knees already bent, the Queen might have passed that stage. Rigor mortis? The timing was unpredictable; surrounding temperature, the bodily build. The Chapel was cold, and she had wasted since April.
He reached out and touched her hand. Cold as stone, cold as clay. He withdrew his hand and thought a dispassionate doctor’s thought: Perhaps, for her, just as well, before the pain in which he could neither diagnose or cure, passed the point where the laudanum drops brought no relief—or the apothecary in Huntingdon ceased to give credit.
He was about to investigate more closely when Katharine moved, lifting her head, dropping her hands and attempting to rise. He helped her up.
“I have been trying to pray,” she said. “But my thoughts went round and round.”
“Your Grace is exhausted, and chilled.”
“It is something I have never felt before. As though God were no longer there. Only my own thoughts, turning in emptiness. Is it possible…No, the notion is too fantastic.” Yet she considered it. Suppose that far away in Rome the Pope had not waited for her request but had signed the papers and excommunicated Henry, and the sentence had fallen upon her, too. Husband and wife were one; no couple had ever been more truly one than she and Henry in the golden days.
“Without God life would be unbearable,” she said.
It seemed to be a thing for her confessor to deal with; so de La Sa sent for him. Maria de Moreto fussed about with the little shawl and found a place in the larger room where the westerly sun was still warm.
“What troubles you?” Llandaff asked gently, yet with a certain authority.
“Something to be decided. And I cannot. I cannot even pray about it. For the first time in my life, I could not pray. I was alone.”
Maria and de La Sa made to withdraw, leaving her with her confessor. But Katharine said, “Stay. It is too great for me alone; and God gave me no answer. You must help me.”
It took only a few minutes to explain what had been going round and round in her head for three hours. The three looked at one another in silence. Then the doctor said irritably:
“The Spanish Ambassador shows little sense and no consideration. You were better in every way when you had no communication with the world. I should advise you to ignore the request and do nothing at all. A letter whose delivery depends upon the schooling of a balky horse might never have reached you.”
“But it did,” Katharine said.
Llandaff also brushed the main question aside. “The feeling that God has withdrawn is a test of faith. Many saints have experienced it. And Our Lord on the Cross cried that God had forsaken Him.”
“Have you ever felt it?”
“I have never attained sufficient virtue. Only the strongest spirits are called upon to pass through the dark night of the soul. It will pass…”
Only Maria had been thinking about the original problem. She hated the King; she wished him to be punished in this world and throughout eternity. Hell was too good for him!
But it would never do to say so. It must be put cunningly. Her ability to make the most of very little, to whip up an omelette from one egg and half a cupful of water must now be employed on a different level.
She said, “I think your prayers for guidance were answered, Madam. In the feeling that God was lost to you. So the King must feel when he is excommunicated. And it will bring him to his senses. For eight years he has been in error, and for the last two living in a state of sin; and nothing so far, nothing, has ever been done, or said to bring home to him the perilous state of his soul. This well might.”
She saw, and so did the others, the bewilderment and hurt lift and vanish. Katharine made one protest,
“It might also lead to bloodshed.”
“Blood has already been shed,” Llandaff said. “More’s, Fisher’s, and the rest. And unless this headlong course is arrested, more blood will flow.”
“Not in battle,” de La Sa said, contributing his mite, anxious only for the matter to be settled and his patient’s mind at rest. “For who would fight for an excommunicated man?”
She had her answer. Conveyed by human voices, but direct from God who chose His instruments.
Writing the formal demand for Henry’s excommunication she felt like a mother, chastising a child for its own good; my dear one, my darling, I slap you to teach you that fire is not a thing to play with…
When she had written she went back to the Chapel and prayed that the curse might be the instrument of Henry’s salvation. And this time God was there; in a physical sense at the altar in the wafer and the wine which were His flesh and blood; and in the space which had been dark and empty, a terrifying void; now occupied again by all the unspeakable glory…
The days shortened; the weather worsened; the waiting time dragged itself out. Nothing happened.
“That request which cost me so dear to write,” Katharine said to Maria, “might have been dropped down the well for all the good it did. I sometimes think that I shall die as I lived, waiting.”
“Your Grace, do not speak of dying.” How could I bear to go on living? And what will happen to me? To us all?
XXVI
I fear, Your Grace, that I must insist,” Chapuys said. So soon as he had mentioned Dr. de La Sa’s name the King’s face had darkened and he had made a dismissing gesture with his hand. “It is the last time that I shall be obliged to trouble you, on this subject…but now I must, and immediately. Five minutes will suffice.”
“If you tell me the gist of the letter and do not read it word by word. It is still Christmas, Messire Chapuys, Christmas, and out there they await me.”
“The gist of the letter, Your Grace,” Chapuys said, pushing the rejected missive back into his sleeve, “is that the Princess Dowager is dying and has expressed a deathbed wish to see me and her daughter.”
“Dying?” The word jolted, though he had known her to be ailing, been warned that another winter in Kimbolton would kill her.
“So her doctor says. And sorry as I am to disturb the festivities, I must ask Your Grace’s permission to go to Kimbolton and to take the Lady Mary with me.”
Kate dying. He had pushed her away, out of sight, out of mind, refused to listen to any plea on her behalf. Let her suffer, he thought without any very clear idea of what she was suffering, because he had never in his lifetime sat down at a table that was not well spread or slept in an ill-furnished bed. When he thought of her he thought of a stubborn, proud woman who had kept him and Anne apart through several good breeding years and ruined their whole relationship by the uncertainty and the distrust and suspicion which even bedding together could not wipe out. It was a long time now since Katharine had seemed anything to him except an obstacle and nuisance. Now, for a second the past revived, and with it the knowledge that she was only fifty, this very month. Me too? One day.
He said defensively, “She was never a strong woman.”
For once Chapuys forgot to be mindful of his tongue. He said with asperity, “Her circumstances of late have not been conducive to good health!” What was he saying? Provoke Henry now and he would not obtain the necessary permission. He added quickly, “She has, I understand, voluntarily confined herself to a few rooms and refused what company was available.”
“All her troubles have been of her own making. Except her poor health. Her experiences in childbed prove that she was never strong.”
“She has been very unfortunate,” Chapuys agreed. It seemed to him that the byword about fortune favoring the brave was without truth; those who bore one trouble bravely had others heaped upon them.
“You may go to her when you like,” Henry said, with the magnanimous air of one conferring a great favor. Katharine’s death would be timely, he thought, recovering from the jolt. Anne was pregnant. That news had been the best of Christmas gifts. It must be a boy this time; and if Katharine died the boy would not be born to a man with two wives. If Anne gave him a son he would send her into dignified retirement, possibly at The More; give her whatever in the way of worldly goods she cared to ask for, and never see her again. If she bore another girl he would take more drastic steps to be rid of her…He had recovered some of his old buoyancy; the year was ending, the sentence of excommunication had not fallen upon him, and if by the end of the coming summer he was the father of a prince all England, all the world would see that he had been right.
Chapuys, prepared to take a prompt leave, was thinking much the same thing. But if he could reach Kimbolton before Katharine breathed her last, and could get her and Mary into one room together, there was still a chance. People often had moments of enlightenment on their deathbeds, looked back over their lives and saw where they had made mistakes. And in any case Katharine’s promise—or threat—to hold herself as surety for Mary, would have no more validity now.
Henry was also thinking of deathbed scenes. He remembered that room at Richmond, smelling of death on a sweet April afternoon; the gasped-out warning which he had disregarded. Mary was more dutiful. Whatever Katharine said to her at such a moment would be held sacred. And what might Katharine not say? “You may go, Messire; but I cannot entertain the thought of the Lady Mary travelling so far in such weather, and—if she ever reached Kimbolton—witnessing a distressing scene. She is not a strong woman, either.”
“Your Grace, it is a deathbed request. The Lady Mary is a good horsewoman, and I promise to see that she is not overtired. Or, if you thought it wise, she could travel in a litter.”
A litter would delay them; a litter until they were out of London, perhaps.
“Messire, I have expressed my opinion.”
There was nothing more to be said, except, “Has Your Grace any message you wish me to convey?”
Idiot! One kind word now, and something of a kindly nature was plainly expected—and back it would come, borne on the wind to Anne who must not, must not, be upset in any way, by anything, from now until July. August?
“Tell her I commend her to God.”
Hatred of him flared in Chapuys’ unemotional mind.
I shall ask to be recalled. I will not remain in a position where I must be civil to the brute. If she dies without giving her daughter permission to lead a rising against him, there is nothing more for me to do here and I cannot force myself any longer to say smooth things to her murderer. And I will not take another diplomatic post. The Emperor will give me a pension, which I will turn over to the family, and I will retire, perhaps to Louvain and spend the rest of my days in quiet study. I have had enough of this.
Then Henry said the words which were to twist Chapuys’ life in another direction. “And, Messire Chapuys, when it is…over; I commission you to break the news to my daughter. She is at odds with me at the moment and there is none about her who would do it…kindly.”
What a mass of contradictions the man was!
“I will do that, Your Grace. And now, if you have no further instructions…”
Both men, as they parted, looked past Katharine’s death and misread every sign. Henry looked ahead and saw the birth of a prince reconciling even the most stubborn Papists to the new régime. Chapuys saw himself cloistered from this troublesome, disappointing world, with only fellow scholars and books for company.
And before a month was out Henry was to be unhorsed in the tiltyard at Greenwich, lie unconscious and get up with a wound in the leg which was never to heal: Anne, told by her stupid uncle, Norfolk, that the King was dead, was to miscarry. And Chapuys, going to tell Mary of her mother’s death, was to transfer to that tough, tender, passionate, controlled young woman all that he had felt for Katharine, and was to stay on in England for the next ten years, watching her interests and furthering her cause.
All unknowing Henry went to join the Christmas revels and Chapuys crossed the courtyard where a thin sleet was falling, to collect his pass for Kimbolton from the office where the Duke of Suffolk presided.
Suffolk remembered Buckden. Handing the pass to the Ambassador, he said cheerfully, “When she is dead, Messire, there will be no barrier between my master, the King and your master, the Emperor.” Suffolk had reason to feel and speak cheerfully; Katharine’s death would solve for him a very troublesome problem. He had recently married again, and his mother-in-law, a truly fearsome old woman, before allowing him to marry her daughter had extracted from him a promise, the thought of the need to keep it enough to make him sweat in the night, even lying beside his bride. He would be free now.
Chapuys thought: You are hateful, too: it is a living woman you thus dismiss as though saying that when the mist clears the day will be fine.
He said politely, “It will not be an enviable journey. North of Bedford is a harsh country, as your lordship knows!”
In another December, north of Bedford, in Buckden, Suffolk, hero of the battlefield and the tiltyard, victor of many a bedchamber, had been defeated, outmaneuvered by a headstrong woman and a group of peasants. It had been the joke of London for a month and any mention of it could still make him writhe.
