Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen

  “The Lady Margaret Douglas is my only true heir at present,” Henry said. “I cannot consider her half-brother, the King of Scots, for he is an alien and as such is barred from succeeding here—and I certainly don’t want England becoming a satellite of Scotland. But I pray God you will be fruitful, darling. I do not want to name anyone as my heir for now. Any person so named might take great heart and courage, and fall into disobedience and rebellion.”

  “I am sure that God will smile upon our marriage,” Jane said, thrusting down all her fears.

  * * *

  —

  Jane was eager to ensure that Mary would have all the fine attire she needed when she returned to court. To this end, she sent Edward to Hunsdon to obtain a list of the Princess’s requirements. He rode off, richly garbed, as became the fine lord he now was, and weighed down with his new honors.

  “You should take her a gift,” Jane had said.

  “What do you suggest?” he had asked. “A jewel? A prayer book? She is very religious.” He made a face. Mary’s long adherence to Rome irked him almost as much as it angered the King.

  “Maybe a fine horse?” Jane had suggested.

  “A capital idea!” Edward pronounced. “I’ll send my man to Smithfield to buy one.”

  “And please tell the Princess from me that the King’s gracious clemency and merciful pity have now overcome his anger. He is again her loving father, and longs to see her.”

  “I will tell her,” Edward had said.

  “She has written again to him, promising she will never vary from her submission, and praying that God will send us children.”

  “It is what we all pray for,” Edward said piously, looking at her speculatively. “You are not…?” He had been devastated when she told him she had lost a child.

  “Not yet. And Nan? You have hopes too, the more so now you have a title and estates to pass on.”

  He had looked momentarily downcast. “Not yet.”

  “Then I will pray that God will bless you too.”

  * * *

  —

  After Edward had departed for Hunsdon, Henry let it be known that he would shortly be reconciled to Mary, whereupon his courtiers immediately began racing off there to ingratiate themselves with her.

  Edward, when he returned, was furious. “They were clamoring to see her, the bloody vultures. I had to send them away. Mary is ill. The strain of making her submission has been too much for her.”

  Henry, when he heard, was deeply concerned. Being Henry, it never occurred to him that he had been the prime cause of Mary’s sufferings; it was all her own fault. Nevertheless, he was sufficiently worried to defer her official reception at court until she was better.

  “We will visit her ourselves,” he told Jane, and so it came about that, on a sunny July morning, she found herself riding the few miles eastward to Hackney, both she and Henry dressed in plain attire so as not to attract attention.

  “I had my officers summon Mary in the night and bring her in secrecy to the King’s Manor,” Henry had explained. She was waiting for them there, very nervous and looking like a shadow of her former self. She had been sixteen when Jane had last seen her, when Mary had been allowed to visit Queen Katherine at Eltham for a brief spell. Four years ago now. Even then she had been plagued with numerous ailments, made worse by the rift between her parents, yet she had been a pretty, diminutive girl, with beautiful red hair and the freshness of youth. Now, as Henry raised her from her deep obeisance, she looked ill and haunted, and she was much too thin.

  “My most dear and well-beloved daughter!” Henry breathed, clasping her to him. Jane saw that he had tears in his eyes, and guessed that he too was shocked at Mary’s appearance.

  He was gentle with her, kindly and affectionate.

  “I have brought your good mother, Queen Jane, to meet you,” he said, and Mary went to kneel, but Jane would not let her, taking her hands and embracing her instead.

  “You cannot know how good a friend you have in the Queen,” Henry said.

  Mary ventured a smile. “I know I am much beholden to your Grace,” she told Jane.

  Henry led them into the great chamber and bade Mary be seated between him and Jane. He regarded her with that intense blue gaze, his face filled with emotion. “I deeply regret having kept you so long away from me,” he said, and at that Mary’s composure broke and tears streamed down her face.

  “Oh, my dearest father, how I have missed you,” she wept.

  Henry was choked. “I will not let it happen again,” he promised. “We must forget the past and look to the future. There is nothing I would not do for you, my child, now that we are in perfect accord again.”

  Jane took from her purse a little velvet bag and pressed it into Mary’s hands. “And I would be your Grace’s friend.” She smiled.

  “There is nothing I would like better, Madam. You were always kind.” Mary’s eyes were dewy with gratitude. When she opened the bag, she could not speak. There in her palm lay the most beautiful diamond.

  “In token of our new friendship,” Jane told her.

  “And this is from me,” Henry said, handing Mary a tasseled purse. “It is a thousand crowns for your little pleasures. From now on, you need have no anxiety about money, for you shall have as much as you wish.”

  The afternoon passed pleasantly after that, as Mary and Henry began to relax in each other’s company, and Jane cherished good hopes of the future. Mary expressed delight in the horse that Edward had given her, and Jane assured her that she had many friends at court. After Vespers, when they made ready to leave, promising to see Mary again soon, the Princess’s haunted look had gone, and she was in much happier spirits. “I promise you, you shall be well treated from now on,” Henry called down from the saddle. “When you are restored to health, you must come back to court. You will enjoy more freedom than you ever had, and I will see to it that you are served with solemnity and honor, as the second lady in the land after Queen Jane. You will want for nothing!”

  He blew her a kiss, and then they were riding away through the gatehouse and heading for the London road.

  “No father could have shown himself more loving,” Jane said.

  “No stepmother could have been more welcoming!” he countered. “I am glad that Mary and I are perfect friends again.”

  “And so was she, I could tell. She is overjoyed to be back in favor.” It was, Jane reflected, the happiest outcome that she, and even Chapuys, could have wished for. Mary now wanted for nothing but the name of Princess of Wales, and that was really of no consequence, for she would have everything else more abundantly than before.

  True to his word, Henry began to send her gifts of money, while Jane, working down Edward’s list, sent costly court gowns. Master Cromwell gave another fine horse and, at the King’s instigation, began overseeing the reinstatement of Mary’s household.

  “Read this, Jane,” Henry said at breakfast some days after their visit, and handed her a letter. It was from Mary, thanking him for the perfect reconciliation between them. Jane was touched to see that Mary had again expressed the hope that her dearest mother the Queen would shortly bear him children.

  She went to bed in a happy mood. It was six days since her flowers had been due, and she was nursing a secret hope that she might be with child. All was well between Henry and Mary, and she believed there was a good chance that her hopes in that direction might come to fruition too. If she had a son, Henry would surely be more amenable to restoring Mary to the succession.

  Chapter 29

  1536

  She did not see Henry the next morning, for he was in Council. Neither did she see Margaret Douglas.

  “She should be in attendance, Madam,” Eleanor Rutland said, looking irritated.

  “I’ll wager she’s dallying with Thomas Howard!” Mary Monteagle grinned.

/>   Jane could have kicked herself. She had meant to speak to Henry about that, and find out what he felt about the courtship, but it had slipped her mind. She suspected that he would not regard Norfolk’s younger, landless brother as a suitable husband for his niece. He would want some advantage for himself from her marriage. She feared that Margaret was living in a paradise of fools.

  Margaret had still not appeared when Henry arrived for supper that evening. His every look and gesture proclaimed him a man who had been much wronged, and who was righteous in his anger and his sorrow.

  Sitting down heavily in his chair, he waved the servants away and regarded Jane darkly.

  “What is the matter?” she asked, fearing that she had upset him in some way.

  “Would you believe me if I told you that my niece, Margaret, has presumed secretly to precontract herself to Lord Thomas Howard?”

  “She has not?” Jane was aghast. It was hard to credit that Margaret had been so foolish.

  “Norfolk wrote to me,” Henry growled. “His daughter had told him. She had abetted them in their misconduct, and confessed all, lest she be found out. And of course, in view of what has recently befallen his traitorous niece, the late Queen, he is already fearful for his own neck, and thought to win my favor by disclosing this treason.”

  “Treason?” The word struck Jane like an icy chill.

  “What else could it be?” Henry flared. “No princess of my blood should be given or taken in marriage without my consent. Lord Thomas’s presumption is outrageous, and I am bitterly disappointed in the Lady Margaret, having cherished such a high opinion of her and her virtue.” He banged the table with his fist. “How dare she defy my laws and promise herself without my permission? Her marriage is in my gift!” While he was in this furious humor, Jane feared to say anything lest she too incur his displeasure. Yet she had to speak out for Margaret. She had seen the lovers together, many times, in Anne Boleyn’s chamber. She was convinced that they had intended no treason, although they had been unbelievably foolish. “I do not understand,” she said. “How can this be treason?”

  His eyes narrowed. “It is strongly suspected that, in precontracting himself to my naughty niece, Lord Thomas aspired to the crown, and I am convinced that he falsely and traitorously imagined that if I died without heirs of my body, he would ascend to the throne by reason of his marriage. Margaret is popular, and he had reason to trust that the people of England would want her for their Queen. But in so plotting, Jane, he was guilty of maliciously subverting the new Act of Succession—and impugning the succession is treason!” He was simmering with rage.

  Put like that, it all sounded pretty damning for the couple. But it struck Jane that the whole case against them had been founded on belief and supposition.

  “Have they been questioned?” she asked.

  “They have. It’s clear that Lord Thomas was seduced by the Devil into disregarding the duty of allegiance that he owes to me, as his most dread sovereign lord! He has contemptuously and traitorously conducted himself, and suborned Margaret by crafty, fair and flattering words.”

  Jane found that hard to believe. Margaret had been as enamored of Thomas as he had been of her; he had had no need to suborn her. Jane herself had read their poems to each other, and been moved by the love expressed in them. And Thomas was a mild-mannered man with a poet’s soul; she could not imagine him scheming for the throne and using Margaret to that end.

  “What will happen to them?” She could barely bring herself to utter the words.

  “They have this day been imprisoned separately in the Tower,” Henry told her, his lips pursed.

  Fear spread its tentacles. Not the Tower! It was less than two months since Anne had been executed there. Surely Henry would not condemn his own niece to the same fate?

  “Parliament is adding a clause to the Act of Succession,” he said. “From now on, it will be treason for any man to espouse, marry or deflower a woman of royal blood. Both shall suffer death.”

  Jane had to act. Margaret had not a treacherous bone in her body.

  She clutched at his sleeve. “You will not go so far, surely? She is your own niece, your flesh and blood!”

  He sighed. His anger was burning itself out now. “No, Jane, I will not. I think she was deceived. Certainly she was foolish, and she should have known that her marriage was mine to make. A spell in the Tower will teach her a lesson. Fear not, she is being held there in some comfort, in the Queen’s lodgings.”

  Jane shuddered. What comfort could there be in being immured in a gilded prison knowing that its last occupant had left it only for her death not long since? It would be a hard lesson for Margaret.

  “And Lord Thomas?” She must not appear to be too sympathetic.

  Henry frowned. “Parliament will deal with him as he deserves. And now let us change the subject, for I can feel one of my headaches coming on. Have some herrings.” He passed her the dish. “Tomorrow I will be knighting Cromwell and raising him to the peerage as Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon.”

  She was in no doubt that Cromwell was being rewarded for his zeal in uncovering the treason of Queen Anne. But did Henry know or suspect that Cromwell had gone further in that than just gathering proofs and drawing up a case? “He has served you well,” she said.

  “Indeed he has. And I am appointing him Vicar General. Parliament has enacted that all monasteries with an income of less than two hundred pounds a year be dissolved. He will oversee that.”

  She found it hard to hide her distress.

  Henry was watching her. “Jane, these houses are redundant or corrupt. There is no need to look so unhappy.”

  She thought of all the poor religious who had dedicated their lives to God, and who must now leave their abbeys and priories, places they had perhaps come to love. Some would be in great grief.

  “Sir, I beg of you, be charitable to the monks and nuns who are turned out!” she cried, falling to her knees before him.

  “Get up,” he said gently. “I have told you, they will be able to move to the larger monasteries, and if they prefer to return to the world, they can claim a pension. No one will suffer. You must think of the benefits.” He helped himself to more chicken. “The revenues from those houses, and the sale of their property, will double the Crown’s income. This can only strengthen the throne.”

  Yes, but it will undermine the Church! She held her tongue. She did not want to make him angry again.

  * * *

  —

  Cromwell craved an audience. She bade him be seated, and he eased his heavy bulk onto a turned stool, perching there uncomfortably. Since that dinner of Edward’s, she had been wary of him, and she believed he sensed it, for he seemed to be doing his best to ingratiate himself with her.

  “The Lady Mary has written to me,” he said. “She has expressed her gratitude for my advice, and promises to continue to follow it in all things concerning her duty to the King. She was pleased to say that she takes me as one of her chief friends after the King and your Grace. Madam, I have had made for her a ring inset with portraits of the King, yourself and her Highness. The King has graciously offered to take it when he next visits her.”

  “We are to see her at Richmond later this month,” Jane said. “I am sure she will be delighted with your kind gift.”

  At that the courtesies dried up. He had made his point, and reminded her of their former alliance, but she knew they could never be allies again. Still, he could prove useful.

  “This matter of the Lady Margaret,” she said. “It troubles me.”

  “Madam,” Cromwell said, “I assure you that I am doing all I can on the lady’s behalf. But I cannot be certain of the outcome. She and Lord Thomas have committed a grievous offense. Parliament is to debate it next week, and the King is pressing for the extreme penalty.”

  “But he promised me he would spare her!?
?? Jane cried.

  Cromwell leaned forward. “And that is indeed his intention. But first she is to be taught a lesson, that you do not with impunity usurp the prerogative of kings.”

  “Then she is to be kept in suspense?” The prospect was horrifying.

  “We both have prevailed upon the King to be merciful in the past,” Cromwell said, again speaking as if they were allies. “But I think we must not press him too far this time.”

  “And Lord Thomas?”

  “Alas, Madam. The King is not inclined to show mercy.”

  * * *

  —

  The Lady Margaret and Lord Thomas had been attainted for treason, and now languished under sentence of death. Henry gave Jane the news as he stumped into her chamber, scattering her women with a wave of his hand. He was in a morose mood.

  “The matter was so plain that the Lords and Commons did not hesitate,” he recounted. “But as it is clear that criminal intercourse did not take place, and you have interceded for her, I will spare Margaret.”

  Jane found herself trembling. “Has she been informed?”

  Henry’s eyes glittered. “Not yet.”

  She sank to her knees by his chair. “Henry, I beg of you, put her out of her misery. Think what it must be like to face the horrifying prospect of dying at just twenty years old. She will believe that it really will happen; after all, the Queen of England has just been beheaded. And for all she knows, she might be burned at the stake. Oh, Henry, the anguish of mind she must be suffering is unimaginable.”

  He had heard her out with a frown on his face. “Think you I do not imagine what it is like to face execution?” he asked. “She should have considered this when she precontracted herself.”