The Queen's Mistake

  Henry looked back up at him again, and it took all of Thomas’s strength not to look away. “You knew about the queen?”

  “Only the court gossip. Not the story.”

  Henry’s eyes brightened with another flurry of tears. “She was not what she seemed. Not an innocent. She had a lover.”

  Thomas could sympathize with the king. He had felt the same way when he had found out about Dereham. “I would like to believe we all have the power to change, that a great love can alter each of us, that none of us are the sum total of our past. I know that, in my life, I have been permanently changed by the love of a woman.”

  Tears ran down Henry’s bloated cheeks in a steady stream, catching in his beard as his chin quivered. “But I am the King of England.”

  “Are you not a man first, sire? Will you not regret it for the rest of your days if you do not give Her Grace the opportunity to prove that the boy who came into her life before you ceased to matter once she met you?”

  Their eyes locked and Thomas felt a shiver of guilt, but he shoved it aside and maintained his confident exterior. Everything in the world depended on it.

  “You risk a great deal speaking to me this way,” the king warned.

  “Have you not always urged me to do so?” Thomas countered.

  “I have.”

  “Then I urge you to give Her Grace a chance to prove she is the woman you believed her to be. You had planned to reunite with your wife at Hampton Court. Go ahead with your plan. See her, speak with her. Then decide. That, at least, is what I would do—if she were my wife.”

  He was tormented by his last words, which only reminded him of what Catherine could never be. But if he could save her through his unlikely and enduring friendship with the king, he would do it.

  Henry ran a hand behind his neck and let out a great sigh. “You’re right, as always, Tom. I will see her once the anger in my heart fades.” He looked up now, tears still in his blue eyes. “She really is my rose with no thorns. Perhaps a childish indiscretion long ago is not so horrendous. Perhaps allowances could be made for that. Since there was a betrothal, it is likely that my marriage to her will be declared null after Dereham confirms the story. But things with the princess of Cleves ended well enough. Perhaps this, too, will be the case for Catherine and me.”

  Finally, a smile turned up the corners of Henry’s small mouth. And, for the first time in a long while, Thomas dared to allow himself a spark of hope that, by some miracle, they might be together after all.

  “Your Majesty is a benevolent man,” Thomas said, bowing to the king.

  “You know very well that I am nothing of the sort. They call me a butcher now, wild and unpredictable in my old age.”

  “Your Majesty is still full of enough youth and vigor to prove them all wrong.”

  “If that is what I decide to do about her,” the king added.

  “Of course, sire,” Thomas said. “If that is what you decide to do.”

  For five long days after he arrived at Hampton Court, Henry did not see Catherine nor speak to her. She was, however, given a daily report on the parade of women he invited to dine with him or stroll with him in the gardens. She was being advised by his counselors to acknowledge her precontract with Francis Dereham and allow an annulment to move forward. Several members suggested that the queen be sent quietly to a convent. It could be much worse, Jane observed, reminding her of how things had ended for Anne Boleyn.

  As if Catherine needed the reminder.

  Perhaps, after a time, once things had died down and Henry had replaced her, she could petition him for a situation like Anne of Cleves’s, and even seek out a second marriage. But she must be patient, Jane said, and they both must pray.

  As much as Catherine longed to go and plead for his understanding and mercy, her greatest hope was in remaining silent and out of sight to allow his rage to cool.

  As light snowflakes fluttered past her leaded windowpanes, she at last received a visitor. Hearing Jane go to the door, Catherine sprang from her chair, full of renewed hope. At last, she thought. At last, I am saved!

  Her visitor, however, was not the king. . . .

  Chapter Twenty-two

  December 6, 1541

  Hampton Court, Richmond

  In his severe black cape and hat with lappets over his ears, his craggy face devoid of emotion, Archbishop Cranmer stalked forward, pushing past Catherine as if she were of little consequence. Behind him was his personal secretary, who sat down at the queen’s writing desk. He drew forth a sheet of vellum, a pen and a pot of ink from the walnut-and-leather writing box he had brought along.

  “Master Dereham has confessed to everything, madam. Now it is your turn, so you might as well take a seat. It is going to be a long afternoon.”

  Panic coursed through Catherine like a white-hot wave, and for a moment she could not move. She knew instantly that whatever she said could be used against her.

  “I said sit down, Lady Catherine,” Cranmer demanded.

  The alteration in title was a direct hit. Still, as a new flurry of bitter tears flooded her face, she could not prevent a show of pride. “I am your queen, my lord archbishop.”

  “That is incorrect. You forfeited your honor, so you have surrendered your rights as queen.”

  His tone was cruel, exacting. She felt Jane hovering behind her, and if she had turned around to look at her, she would have seen her panic mirrored in her friend’s expression. The secretary at the desk lowered his head and began to scratch swirls of ink onto the open sheet of vellum.

  “During his questioning, my lady, Master Dereham confessed many interesting things,” Cranmer began.

  “Perhaps he made them up under duress,” Catherine said quickly.

  “There was proof shown of your marital precontract—a scarf you made for him with your initials entwined. The only hope you have is to confess the truth.”

  “Do not do it,” Jane urged in a whisper from behind her, suddenly overwhelmed by fear. “I am not certain that we can trust in the king’s mercy. His fury and wounded heart could overtake everything else, as it did with your cousin Anne Boleyn.”

  “Confess everything, my lady Catherine, and there may be mercy for you. Say nothing, and there is a well-worn block on Tower Green at the ready.”

  She gasped, fingers splayed across her mouth. “Hal would not dare. He loves me.”

  “A man betrayed is not a man to be trusted,” Cranmer said with a sneer.

  “I have been a loyal wife,” she cried, hearing her own frantic tone rise.

  “And what were you before?”

  “A foolish girl!”

  “You told him you were a maiden.”

  “I said no such thing.”

  “Then you allowed him to believe it, at least. Your guilt is the same.”

  “Omission is the same as lying?”

  “His Majesty believes so. And not a soul in your family did anything to alter the perception, so great was the ambition of the Howards.”

  “I love the king!” Catherine wailed.

  “You bedded your secretary.”

  “Before I was queen!”

  There was a small silence. Cranmer bit his lip to stifle his victorious smile. “Thank you, my lady, for confirming what we already knew.”

  “You do not understand.” She lurched forward, tumbling out of her chair, eyes shining with desperate tears. “Let me speak with the king! Please let me make him understand!”

  He shook his head slowly in a show of feigned pity. “I am sorry, my lady. The king was most specific when I came here. He does not wish to see you.”

  She stiffened. “What does he wish?”

  “Only for the truth. All of it.”

  The truth. That was a hornet’s nest she could never explain, and one Henry would never understand. Frustration welled within her, choking her until she could not breathe. This was all a horrendous mistake. She had been a good wife. A faithful queen. She had never rebuffed him, never made
him feel like anything but the youthful prince he had been once. Catherine needed to see him. If she could look into his eyes, she could make him understand, and he would forgive her.

  But she needed a chance, a moment only.

  Suddenly Catherine bolted for the door, her chair clattering behind her. Skirts gathered up in her hands, she sprinted out into the open gallery. One chance. That was all she had.

  “Hal! Hal, please! Where are you?”

  The cadence of footsteps behind her was heavy. Ominous. The king’s guard and the archbishop were advancing. She stopped, spun around, her eyes wide with panic. Tears slid down her face as she cried out in pure terror.

  The hand on her shoulder was icy through the velvet.

  “He is hunting, my lady. He cannot hear you. Alas, there is much more for us to speak of,” said Cranmer. “By His Majesty’s order, you have already lost your title, your money has been sealed, your jewels confiscated, and your household is to be disbanded. You would be wise to confess the full truth in your own words if you have any hope of saving your life or Lady Rochford’s.”

  “Tell him!” Jane begged suddenly. “There is no other choice left to us!”

  As Henry limped through the gallery with Anne Basset beside him, he heard the whispers. He had not been meant to hear them, nor had he wished to. He had spent the day in the forest to escape them, but there would be no escape. She is no better than Anne Boleyn, they said.

  Those ancient wounds had been cut open and were raw again.

  But as Henry hobbled across the gallery, he heard something else. It was the unmistakable echo of Catherine’s pleading cry. At first it surprised him, but anger, not sympathy, swelled in his heart. Catherine Howard was not his wife. She never had been, after all. He turned away from her call, taking Anne Basset’s hand stubbornly in response.

  After Cranmer had finished interrogating Catherine and Dereham, he came to Henry with Southampton, Wriothesley, Brandon and Seymour. There was not a hint of mirth on their faces. Henry knew what they wanted without asking.

  “I went to the Tower to see Dereham this morning, Your Majesty,” Cranmer announced dryly. “May we speak privately?”

  Henry released Anne’s grasp, leaving her behind as they continued on.

  “How bad is it?”

  Cranmer dared to touch his shoulder in a gesture of support as they walked. “I beg you, allow me to speak entirely alone with Your Majesty.”

  They went together into the small, private oratory inside the chapel within the palace walls. It was quiet and full of soft shadows. Cranmer closed the door.

  “I know not how to tell you this, sire.”

  “Straight out, man. That is always the best way,” he replied irritably. What more could there possibly be; what worse news than that the woman he had loved so dearly had lived a lie? “Have we proof for the annulment?”

  “We do.”

  “So, he confessed?”

  “To more, I am afraid, than we ever expected.”

  Henry lowered his gaze for a moment and said a small prayer for strength. He was not certain he could bear to hear that there were even more thorns on his precious rose.

  “Out with it, Cranmer,” he snarled.

  “After I saw Dereham at the Tower, I went straight to Lady Catherine for confirmation. But alas, I did not need it, as the information had already been confirmed by several of her ladies.”

  Henry did not look up, and his tone was very low. His body knew instinctively how to protect itself from heartbreaking attack when he sensed its approach. He’d had a lifetime of it already.

  “There was a reason Master Dereham was never a threat to Your Majesty here at court.”

  “Did their affair end before he arrived?” Henry asked.

  “It did, sire, because there was someone else here, among your courtiers, who had succeeded Dereham in the queen’s affections before he arrived from Horsham.”

  Henry drew in a labored breath, then exhaled. “Very well, Cranmer, tell me who it is.”

  It was over. Everything Catherine had tried to balance for so long was taken from her. Cranmer had badgered her for hours upon hours, questioning her about every word she spoke. And the secretary scratched away on his vellum, recording it all.

  She had not meant to involve Thomas, but Francis Dereham had already done so. Mary Lassells and Katherine Tilney had confirmed it. She knew there had been no point in the lie, so she had tried to explain. Her only hope had been to make the archbishop understand that she had never once dishonored her husband by having intercourse with another man during their marriage.

  Her explanation had not been well received.

  Shortly before her interrogation began, Jane was removed by guardsmen from the royal apartments. Catherine knew they wanted to see if her friend would corroborate her story.

  Jane never returned.

  Near midnight, Wriothesley had entered the privy chamber, where Catherine sat in the window embrasure, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, trying to hold in what was left of her sanity. She had listened with closed eyes as he had announced that, since she was no longer queen and would be removed from court, there was no longer need of her servants. The charge, he said blandly, would be treason. Only her sister Margaret and Lady Baynton were allowed to remain.

  Cranmer had painted her as an adulteress, and she had tried desperately to deny it, but the archbishop layered the sordid details of her past like paint, which steadily covered her own version of the truth.

  “Was Culpeper your lover or not?” he pressed for the third time, his voice brittle and threatening.

  “My lord, I was never unfaithful to the king.”

  He arched a brow. “You did not meet him clandestinely on the back stairs?”

  “We only spoke!”

  “Did you not exchange glances while in the king’s presence?”

  She tried to press the panic back, but it was too powerful. “He was often in the presence of the king. I would acknowledge him, but that is all!”

  “You did not refer to His Majesty’s dear, trusted friend as your ‘sweet fool’?”

  Catherine’s blood went absolutely cold. There was no one else in the world who knew her pet name for him besides Thomas. At that moment, she knew there was no escape. They knew everything. The opportunists, the Reformists, the vultures had won.

  Dear Thomas, my heart, did they torture you to get you to tell them my name for you? she asked herself. What have they done to you to make you betray me? But she could not bear an answer. Cranmer had driven her, cleverly and methodically, to the very edge of sanity, from which she would fall if she knew the truth.

  But, even so, her undoing came when Cranmer held a letter out to her. She saw her own writing, her own passionate plea, and her signature beneath the words:

  Yours as long as life endures.

  And so it was true. They had everything. She, Thomas and Lady Rochford were under arrest. And their fate was sealed.

  She thought of him as she lay on the floor beneath the window, curled in a protective cocoon. He deserved so much better from this life.

  Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings.

  The ancient quote, which had often fallen from her grandmother’s lips, was strangely prophetic in hindsight.

  Now that they had broken her, it was Wriothesley’s turn to drive the first nail into her coffin. He loomed over her.

  “You will leave by morning’s light, my lady Catherine.”

  He did not expect a response and did not receive one, but her mind raced through a host of questions anyway.

  Was she to be taken to the Tower?

  Would she be sentenced to death?

  Could Henry, an old, fat, bitter wreck of a man, whom she had nevertheless cared for, be so cruel as to refuse her side of the story?

  Had Anne Boleyn felt this way on her swift journey to the block?

  Had Anne tried to reason with the tyrant?

  What had been her plea?

&nb
sp; “You will take only your sister and Lord and Lady Baynton with you,” Wriothesley added, breaking through her thoughts. There were too many things to weep for, and Catherine was certain she did not even know all of them yet. If Cranmer had his way, however, she would know them soon enough.

  Take care, my greatest love, she thought. Forgive me for loving you . . . and save yourself if you can.

  Before Cranmer’s final visit with Catherine, Thomas was brought into the king’s presence, not in velvet or silks this time, but in a white muslin shirt and rough, gray wool pants, his hands bound by heavy chains. His wrists and hands had gone numb several hours ago.

  Not so his heart, or his conscience.

  He was responsible for all of this.

  Despite the look of utter devastation on the king’s face, Thomas did his best to bow to Henry.

  “Spare me your false show of fidelity,” Henry said with a voice so hollow and thin that Thomas was stunned.

  The king’s expression was blank, yet the advancing age and despair behind it were as clear as a cold moon in the winter sky. He sat hunched, his usually broad shoulders weak and rounded. His costume was gray and unadorned, like mourning attire. A single large candle burned on the table beside him, as if it were a last monument to something or someone. Perhaps it was, Thomas thought.

  “I’ll not ask you if it is true. There is too much evidence for you to deny. I do, though, want to hear you say how you could have betrayed not your king, but your friend. I trusted you, Tom.”

  Thomas felt the sting of Henry’s words. Yet no matter what he said, Thomas knew he had already been tried and convicted. His sin was unforgivable.

  “All of those months when I spoke with you about her . . . asked your advice . . . when I confided in you . . .” The words barely escaped the king’s lips.

  “It was over by then,” Thomas reassured him.

  “But you loved her.”

  “Yes.”

  It was all Henry needed to hear. “Take him.”

  Thomas did not look back as he was led away, chains cutting into his wrists. But when he came to the door, he paused for a moment. His soul would have found no rest if he had not.