Chapter 12
Early in March, the court left Whitehall for Hampton Court.
Kate had seen Greenwich and Whitehall, and thought them splendid, but she gaped at her first sight of the great red-brick palace as it came into view ahead above the Thames, nestling on the riverbank amid vast acres of parkland.
Hampton Court was magnificent! And when she and the other attendants followed the King and Queen through the King’s apartments, she drew in her breath at the splendor of the paneling, the rich friezes of putti, the walls glittering with the gold and silver threads in hangings of cloth of gold and velvet, the jewel-colored heraldic glass, and the opulent Turkey carpets.
Kate had learned that Cardinal Wolsey, who had been the King’s chief minister for many years, had built Hampton Court, but felt obliged to make the grand gesture of giving it to his envious master.
It had done him no good, for he had fallen from favor after failing to obtain an annulment of the King’s marriage to Queen Katherine.
His story was a salutary example of what happened to those who flew too high; like Icarus, the sun melted their wings and they fell.
And yet this court was full of men jostling for advancement and riches, none of them apparently concerned about the perils these might bring.
Kate hated the self-seeking, the ruthlessness, and the jealousies that she saw all around her.
It was one reason why she hated being at court. But then, of course, there was Francis…
As she and the other attendants followed the royal couple to the Queen’s lodgings, she heard the King say that he had made many improvements, and that he had had Anna’s rooms decorated in the antique style by a German craftsman, especially for her. Anna looked suitably overwhelmed by the gesture.
The maidens’ chamber overlooked a spacious courtyard with a cloister, but they had no time to stow away their things as they had to unpack the Queen’s chests.
Kate was itching to be out in the gardens or the park.
She wanted to explore them with Francis.
There must be many secluded places where they could be together.
—
When Easter came, they were still at Hampton Court. Spring was flowering, and Kate went about with a light heart and a light step. So what if there was some murky secret in the past? She was in love, and it could be of no importance to her now.
She and Francis took delight in the awakening gardens. They snatched as much time together as possible, wandering along by the river or watching the games in the tennis play. It made her feel proud, to be squired about by such a tall, attractive man.
In the afternoons, she had to attend the Queen, who liked to walk with her ladies in the ornate gardens that bordered the Thames.
Her favorite seat was in the little banqueting house near the ornamental fishponds.
There were several such banqueting houses in the grounds of the palace, and Kate and Francis made good use of them in the evenings, when they were the haunt of lovers.
The King had granted permission for them to be married in one of the royal chapels.
The date was set for 26 April, and when April came in, Kate found herself feeling deeply excited, for the waiting would soon be over, and then she would be Francis’s entirely and know all about the mysteries of married life.
The maids often gossiped and giggled about it, and she knew that you had to get naked and let your husband have his way with you, as indeed you must obey him in all things.
Katheryn Howard would have enlightened her further, of course, but even if Kate had wanted to probe for information, she seemed preoccupied these days and was often away from court, at the Howards’ mansion across the river at Lambeth.
Kate wondered if she was still seeing Thomas Culpeper.
She hoped not, for rumor had it that he had raped a country girl and managed to obtain the King’s pardon.
Kate would not have wanted anything to do with a man like that.
Everyone else was talking about the coming coronation, and the jousts and pastimes that would mark it. But Anna was becoming worried.
“No preparations are being made,” she told her ladies at dinner one day. “Whitsun is only about six weeks away. Surely arrangements should have been set in train by now?”
It was true. Kate wondered what was going on.
“Such things can be organized at short notice,” the Duchess of Suffolk said cheerfully.
“Have the invitations been sent out?” the Duchess of Richmond asked.
Anna had no idea.
Surely, Kate thought, she was worrying in vain.
At the first, it had seemed that the King was not pleased with his bride, but he was always most courteous to her—and he was visiting her chamber at night, and doubtless doing that thing that no one liked to mention.
Of course there would be a coronation! Even that monster would not publicly humiliate his Queen by denying her one now!
—
The other great topic of conversation among the ladies was the closure of the last of the great abbeys, which had all surrendered themselves to the King’s commissioners.
“I never thought to see this day,” Margaret Douglas mourned, viciously jabbing her embroidery tambour with her needle. “At the outset, the King intended only to dissolve the smaller religious houses.”
“Good riddance to them all, I say,” chimed in Lady Suffolk.
“Hotbeds of Popery, all of them.” Most of the ladies were nodding their agreement.
Margaret, a devout Catholic, seemed poised to retort, but kept silent.
It was tantamount to treason to criticize the King.
For all that he upheld the Catholic faith and its rituals, and was effectively Pope in his own realm, he had appropriated the Church’s riches for his own coffers, and was now selling off, or granting, monastic land to noblemen loyal to the Crown.
Will had said that he was effectively buying their support for his reforms.
“But the sick and the poor go destitute, since they can no longer receive succor from the monasteries,” Margaret persisted.
Kate felt she had little to contribute to the conversation.
She had not given much thought to the tumultuous events that were happening around her.
What she had heard was that a lot of monks and nuns had broken their vows and been living sinful lives.
Yet as she listened, she began to feel sorry for some of them, because it seemed they were not all bad.
What of those who had true vocations and had been turned out of the abbeys?
They had all been given pensions, she learned, but some of the ladies were saying that they did not amount to much and could not compensate those who had truly forsaken the world and were now cast away.
It was awful that no one dared to speak up for them.
Queen Anna thought it appeared as if the King was encouraging Lutheranism.
“The reformists are flourishing,” she said. “Even Lord Cromwell is one.”
Kate did not fully understand what that meant. When she saw Francis later that day, and they were sitting by the fishpond, she asked him about it.
His face grew serious. “I am for reform. We reformists want the Church reformed from within; we are not heretics. But as for Lord Cromwell, there is talk in the court.” He lowered his voice.
“He is tottering. You are acquainted with Dr. Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester? He is a staunch Catholic and hates all reformers, Cromwell in particular. Cromwell had him dismissed from the Council, but now he is back, and in favor with the King, a sure sign that Cromwell’s influence is not what it was. ”
“But he is the most important man in the court!”
“Aye, but those who rise high have farther to fall. Remember Cardinal Wolsey? We must hope that Cromwell does not go the same way.”
Kate nodded. “Yet what of the monasteries? They were houses of prayer and they helped people.”
He pulled Kate close to him. “They were corrupt, most of them, like the whole Roman Church. I would not sully your ears by repeating the practices that were discovered by the King’s commissioners. The King was right to close them down.”
“But some monks and nuns led holy lives, surely.”
“A few,” Francis said begrudgingly. “But those houses were bastions of Popery, and therefore disloyal to the King. A man cannot serve two masters.”
“I thought they were meant to serve God!” Kate retorted, with spirit.
“If only they had. But they preferred to serve Mammon.”
“My family have always been for reform,” she told him. “My grandfather, my aunt Anne, and my uncle of Rochford were hot for it; they thought monks and nuns were lax and unholy. I heard someone say that my uncle was more Lutheran than Martin Luther himself. He could have been burned for it.”
“Ah, but no one was sent to the stake in Queen Anne’s time,” Francis reminded her. “She had a beneficial influence on our King.”
“She was no Lutheran,” Kate told him.
“Would it have been a bad thing if she was?” Francis was looking into her eyes, his expression serious.
She was shocked, darting her eyes around the gardens to see if anyone could possibly have heard him. This was another thing she hated about the court. You had to watch what you said all the time. The penalties for having a loose tongue did not bear thinking about.
“You should not say such things,” she whispered. “It’s heresy, and you know what happens to heretics!”
Francis regarded her seriously. “I will say no more, to set your mind at rest. But one day, when the world is different, as it shall be, we will be able to speak of these matters freely. Until then, I will do nothing to risk your happiness. Just forget I said it.”
“You know it will be hard to do that!” She gripped his forearms, seized by alarm. “Francis, promise me, as you love me, never to say to anyone else what you have just said to me!”