Chapter 40
Parr
Lina’s plan was a thing of beauty. Parr knew a thing or two about plans, after all, and even she had to admit she had never tied anything up so neatly.
She had convinced Henry to let her sit beside him during the Duke of Norfolk’s trial after she made her statements about the letters, claiming that because it involved the children, of course, she should do her duty as a stepmother and bear witness.
Besides, she’d told him, it was important that she understood the intricacies of the law so she could best uphold it.
She found it hard not to smile when spinning that lie.
Archbishop Cranmer was presiding over the trial, dressed in the traditional white wig and red robe of the court magistrates and judges.
He had gathered the Privy Council, Mary, the Duke of Norfolk, and several members of Norfolk’s household—including his wife and his mistress—in the Star Chamber.
The duke was guarded by two of the king’s soldiers, and though his overall appearance was haggard, Parr was quite certain she could see the resentment burning in his eyes.
He had the long, narrow face of the Howard family, going gaunt now from age or the stress of his arrest, and his clothes were fine but rumpled.
He was not a young man—sixty-five, give or take—though he held himself tall, his military training still on display.
Henry and Parr sat on one side of the room with a full view of the trial. Next to Parr, Henry kept adjusting his position in his seat, clearly unable to get comfortable. The more he squirmed and the longer the trial went on, the more agitated he appeared.
The first witness was Parr herself. Cranmer approached and offered a bow.
“Your Majesty, will you please relate what you told me on the tenth of October concerning the Duke of Norfolk and Lady Mary Tudor?”
Parr took a breath to make a show of steadying herself.
“A lady of our household brought to me a bundle of unopened letters addressed to Lady Mary,” she began.
“All bore the seal from the Duke of Norfolk, and when I opened them, they were signed by His Grace.” She frowned.
“These were love letters, you see, written in pursuit of Mary’s hand.
I was shocked, as it is well known the duke is still married, and I immediately brought them to the attention of my husband the king. ”
Henry nodded his agreement with what Parr had said.
As predicted, he had been furious that the duke was paying court to Mary, not because he wouldn’t have married her off to the vile man, but because it had not gone through the proper channels.
To him, decorum was more important than the happiness and safety of his daughter.
Cranmer turned to Mary next. “And is it true, Lady Mary, that you never saw these letters?”
Mary was dressed in a dark green gown, so deep it was almost black, like so many of her outfits. Her face was pale, her posture rigid. “That is true. I knew nothing of the letters until my father and stepmother told me.”
Parr chanced a look at Norfolk, whose neck and face were turning a brighter shade of red with every passing second.
“And you, Miss Holland, found another letter in the duke’s home?” Cranmer asked the duke’s mistress.
It was amusing, Parr thought, that no one seemed to want to acknowledge Bess Holland’s particular position.
She’d been brought to testify, yes, but as a member of the duke’s household, not as his mistress of the past ten years.
She was far younger than the duke, perhaps even younger than Parr herself.
She was pretty in an unremarkable way, with a heart-shaped face and a curvaceous figure far different from Parr’s angular planes.
Her face might have been considered attractive if not for her scowl and the narrowed set of her brown eyes.
“I did, sir,” Bess said, barely concealed anger in each syllable. “It was undoubtedly a love letter, and an unrequited one at that.”
Cranmer proceeded to read several of the letters aloud.
Parr, not prone to laughter, had to bite her tongue to keep from chuckling at some of Anne’s particularly inelegant turns of phrase.
The duke looked more aggrieved than ever and once even tried to stand up, as though the insult of bad writing forged in his name was too much to bear.
The guards forced him back down, and even from where Parr sat, she could see how hard he clenched his teeth together.
The Duchess of Norfolk’s testimony was next, and Parr quickly realized it was the hardest to hear.
“I am present today to speak to the character of my husband,” the duchess said.
She radiated gravitas and had a strong command of the room—her voice neither loud nor quiet but powerful enough to bring a hush over the gathering.
“You all know the circumstance of our marriage and separation, as well as his relationship with Bess Holland. But what you may not know is that my husband has abused me, body and soul, for years on end. He has hit me, torn my hair and clothes, and screamed horrible things at me. He has instructed his servants to treat me with similar contempt and cruelty, and for years, I have been a veritable prisoner, separated from my family and friends.”
She paused to look around the room, allowing the uneasy muttering of the Privy Council to swell and die down again.
Few of the men seemed to be able to meet her gaze, and Parr realized they were ashamed.
[*1] It was one thing to know the duchess’s story and dismiss it as someone else’s trouble—or worse, as a lie—but quite another to hear the truth from her own tongue.
“It is my duty to stand before you today and tell you all of this not for my sake or for your pity, but so that you can see what kind of man the Duke of Norfolk is,” the duchess continued.
“I am not surprised he would have tried to woo Lady Mary, for I know better than anyone that the vows of marriage mean little to him. But I cannot in good conscience stand by knowing that another woman, a member of our revered royal family, could suffer the same mistreatment and indignity I have suffered.”
This seemed to strike a chord with the Privy Council, who all began nodding.
Of course they could not let an adulterous, violent man near the king’s daughter.
Parr kept herself from sighing. It seemed to her that these distinctions—who must be kept safe, who must be avenged—fell along class lines.
No one thought to ask Bess Holland if the duke had hurt her too.
No one stood up and said, Not only should this man be kept away from a princess, but from all women.
Around and around Cranmer went, reviewing every piece of testimony, asking questions of other members of the Privy Council and the duke’s household. Finally, he turned to the duke himself.
“What do you have to say on your behalf, Your Grace?”
The duke rose to his feet, his hands fisted and the look on his face downright lethal.
“It is all a lie. Every single word that has been said here today—with respect to Their Majesties—is a lie. I never wrote a single letter to Lady Mary. I never paid her suit, nor would I have done so without the king’s express permission.
I have clearly been framed, likely by my spiteful wife, who delights in making up falsehoods about me and our relationship.
I can swear to you all, with the Lord as my witness, that I am innocent. ”
All of his words—save the unconscionable bit about his wife—were true.
Parr knew this better than anyone in the room.
And yet somehow, everything the duke said felt like a lie.
It wasn’t just Parr—everyone seemed to sense it, the rottenness of this man’s soul, the deceit and malice that lived in his heart.
If Anne Boleyn had been there, Parr would have claimed that moment to be magick, because for the first time in her life, she knew that every single person who had heard the duke speak believed that a guilty man was guilty.
The crime was wrong, but the verdict was right.
After very little deliberation, Cranmer and his judges sentenced Norfolk to a beheading at the Tower of London one week hence, and as he was dragged away shouting and cursing everyone in sight, his eyes locked onto Parr’s.
He couldn’t have known what she had done, and if he had, he could never have proved that she was in league with his murdered niece and Henry’s first queen.
But Parr saw something in his expression that hinted at suspicion.
And so, when no one else was watching but Norfolk, she smiled.
With Norfolk out of the way, the succession law passed without contest. Edward would inherit the throne, with his children and their children to follow him.
But if Edward were to die childless, the crown would pass to Mary and then to Elizabeth.
Legally, the girls remained illegitimate, but with the Tudor line so fragile, they retained the best claim to preserve the bloodline.
Really, Parr thought, it was very stupid she’d had to fight this hard for Henry and his councilors to see that.
But then again, the fight had resulted in the removal of the Duke of Norfolk, and that was a victory in itself.
The duchess had been reinstated in her home, and the duke’s son had taken over his title.
Bess Holland had been sent away to live with her own guilt, though the dowager duchess had given her a small allowance out of what Parr could only deem a sort of magnanimous irony.
Now, there was only one thing left to do.
Marguerite’s letter had come in the fall, saying simply, Let what must be done be done.
[*2] It was already decided that Parr would stay on after Henry’s death to oversee the transition of power to Edward and his new regency council, after which she would finally be free of court.
“I can poison him,” Parr said to Anne and Lina. “It would be very easy.”