Hampton Court, Winter 1540
Hampton Court, Winter
ALL THE NOBILITY are summoned to greet the new queen in December at Hampton Court; the marriage is formally announced, and Queen Katheryn finally gets the reception she wants, dining under the cloth of estate, with the duke’s daughter, the young widow Mary Howard, holding the golden bowl for her to dip her fingers, and the Duchess of Suffolk, Catherine Brandon, holding a towel for her to dry her hands.
Neither of them betrays the smallest flicker of disdain for the girl that they first met as a junior maid-of-honour, one of the silliest of the new cohort.
This is not hard for Mary Howard, who learned to hide her true feelings in the cradle, and Catherine Brandon knows better than most that queens come and go.
The Christmas feast is the merriest that the court has held in years – the king adores his young wife; we are at peace with the other countries of Christendom, and the king’s interest in reform has declined so much that only a few heretics are burned this holy season.
He drowns his little queen in new year gifts, table diamonds, ropes of pearls, a muffler of black velvet edged with sable fur, spattered with rubies and hundreds of pearls.
She claws the jewels towards herself like a gambler raking winnings from the table, and the constant stream of gifts keeps her temper sweet, even when she is tested by long days of bad weather when the king stays indoors and plays cards and riddles with her.
Lady Mary, the king’s eldest daughter, visits us from her own household at Hunsdon, and the entire court is agog to see how the daughter of a princess of Spain, herself a full royal, seven years older than her dainty stepmother and a cruel lifetime wiser, greets this former maid-of-honour sitting on her mother’s throne, flaunting her mother’s jewels.
‘I’m going to get her married off to one of the French princes,’ my uncle remarks in my ear as the first of Lady Mary’s outriders clatters through the clock gateway.
She is on a magnificent Spanish horse, a deep chested bright chestnut Andalusian, and wearing a purple riding jacket – a colour for royals and emperors, with a purple velvet bonnet.
A purple feather pinned with a magnificent amethyst sweeps around to frame her intense, pale face.
It is an entrance shadowed by storm clouds, as theatrical as the masque before a joust, when the challengers parade their standards and people pick their favourites.
‘Why would you make a good marriage for her?’ I wonder, as the cavalcade pulls up the princess looks towards us, and we bow in welcome. ‘What’s the benefit?’
‘I don’t care for her,’ my uncle says, out of the corner of his mouth. ‘But if she’s married out of the kingdom, then the oldest royal child left in England is our Tudor-Howard girl. Elizabeth will be more noticed.’
The princess dismounts and comes up the steps, where Sir Edward Baynton waits to escort her to the queen’s rooms, her mother’s rooms. She knows the way better than he does.
‘You once told her you would bang her head against the wall until it was as soft as a baked apple,’ I observe quietly.
‘Love talk,’ the duke replies with one of his hawkish smiles. ‘Fatherly love.’
LADY MARY’S PALLOR is the only sign of her distress at seeing a second Howard girl throwing down another better-born queen.
Her curtsey in the doorway of the queen’s presence chamber, before she approaches the throne, is to the exact depth required – she has been curtseying to inferiors raised to be her stepmothers for all her life.
‘Was that a proper curtsey?’ Kitty demands of me, in a hissed whisper behind her hand.
‘Perfectly proper,’ I say, admiring the hollow show of deference.
I lead Lady Mary to the queen. They exchange kisses, both of them kissing the air on either side of the other’s cheek, both cheeks barely touching, cold as eels.
Katheryn rushes to sit before Lady Mary sinks into the window seat, hurrying to claim precedence, and then she has nothing to say.
‘You are welcome to court, Lady Mary.’ I fill the awkward silence. ‘My father sends you his best wishes. I know he has sent you his translation of Cardinal Torquemada’s psalms this year.’
Lady Mary turns her head from the rigid little queen. ‘Please send him my thanks. I am always so interested in his work.’
Still the queen says nothing. She sighs as if exhausted by boredom and looks out of the window to the garden.
It is sleeting down on the formal garden; the different coloured squares of gravel divided by little hedges of herbs are all slowly going grey and white.
The gaily painted wooden statues of heraldic beasts are growing crowns of melting snow; the river beyond gleams silver in the cold air.
Kitty gazes out of the window, as blank as snow clouds.
In the queen’s silence, Lady Mary and I go from a comment on the weather to the many words in English for rain.
‘The dialect of Venice has a word for the reflection of light from water on the ceiling of a room,’ I tell her. ‘Gibigiana. Reflected light.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Katheryn demands abruptly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about! What are you going on about?’
I could blush for her rudeness. Everyone in the room stops their low-voiced conversations and looks from the queen to Lady Mary.
‘We were speaking of an Italian word, Your Grace,’ Lady Mary explains politely. ‘A word that means both reflection of light and – interestingly – a gaudy or glittery woman.’
I keep my face perfectly still at this unexpected, unwanted demonstration of Lady Mary’s scholarship.
Katheryn, dazzling as a magpie in Lady Mary’s mother’s jewels, goes white but for two spots of red, as if someone has slapped both cheeks. ‘Lady Rochford,’ she squeaks. ‘A word, if you please?’
I rise at once and go behind the queen’s chair to lean over her shoulder so she can hiss a hysterical complaint.
‘She insulted me!’
‘She meant nothing.’
‘She should be talking to me, not you!’
‘You’ve said nothing to her.’
‘She didn’t call me “Majesty”.’
‘She called you “Your Grace” which is quite adequate since you’re not crowned yet.’
‘I won’t have her at court.’
I steal a quick glance at the princess. Now, she is talking easily, in a ripple of low-voiced Spanish, to Catherine Brandon, the half-Spanish daughter of Katherine of Aragon’s most beloved lady-in-waiting. This visit is getting worse and worse.
‘You’ve got to welcome her for the season,’ I say flatly. ‘The king has ordered it; you’re her stepmother.’
‘You tell her: I want respect. She was respectful to Jane Seymour, wasn’t she? And to Anne of Cleves?’
‘My dear, she was as respectful to them as she is to you. Believe me, there is nothing to make a quarrel about. And you’ll make yourself look foolish.’
‘I’m not foolish!’ She gives a little scream.
‘You’ll look foolish if you quarrel with the king’s daughter over nothing.’ I gamble on Kitty’s love of appearance.
Her restless glance goes past me to Lady Mary’s entourage. ‘And how many ladies-in-waiting has she brought with her? She’s only allowed two. I know it. She’s only allowed two.’
I follow her gaze. Four ladies are talking pleasantly to old friends.
‘It’s hardly worth making a fuss . . .’
‘You tell her. I’ll cut down her household. She will lose two attendants.’
The door is flung open; the king, on this boring afternoon, is playing the part of a delighted husband and father visiting his wife and his daughter. He is wreathed in smiles. The noblemen come in behind him, all delighted to see us ladies in such picturesque harmony.
Kitty jumps to her feet with delight and takes Lady Mary’s hand to lead her forward.
‘I’ll tell her later,’ I say.
TO MY SURPRISE, my father is in the king’s entourage. I curtsey to him, and he rests his hand in blessing on my hood and kisses my brow. When the queen plays cards with the king and Lady Mary, we sit together in the window seat.
‘Why are you at court, my lord Father?’ I ask nervously. ‘Not an inquiry or anything?’
The king is talking pleasantly to Lady Mary. Katheryn is pulling at his sleeve.
‘You make me sound like a Cassandra, constantly bringing bad news,’ he smilingly complains.
‘Of course there’s no inquiry! Who could organise one, now that Lord Cromwell is gone?
I only came to present my compliments to the king and my translation of the Commentaries of the Turk for his new year’s gift.
I’m not a born courtier like you, Jane. I don’t enjoy the life as you do. I don’t have the patience for it.’
‘I don’t enjoy it as I used to,’ I tell him.
‘I know too much. It’s as if I’ve gone behind the scenes of a masque and seen the machinery that makes the thunder and the wheels that turn to make the waves of the sea.
I don’t delight in the spectacle now that I have to put my weight on the wheels.
I’m part of the machine, not the audience. ’
He is more interested in the metaphor than in me. ‘Make great waves then,’ he recommends, glancing at the king. ‘Make sure you’re the one working the machinery.’