This is a wild young man, a fool who boasted that he could hold Boulogne forever, who has displeased the king with his rowdy grandeur more than once, but always played his way back into favour. He was the best friend of Henry Fitzroy, the king’s bastard son, and has always before been able to draw on that brotherly tragic love to win royal forgiveness.
Although everyone is quick to say that it is no surprise that the duke’s heir is missing from his father’s table, that the Howards are always storming off, everyone knows the young man would not disappear into the stews of London without his retinue and friends. Henry Howard is far too pleased with himself to go anywhere without a full entourage to admire him: somebody must know where he is.
One man knows: Lord Thomas Wriothesley. Slowly, it emerges that his men were seen bundling the young earl into a boat on the river late at night. Apparently there were a dozen of them in the Wriothesley livery and they had the young man between them, carrying him as he struggled and cursed them, and then they slung him in the bottom of the barge and sat on him. The boat went swiftly downstream into the darkness, and then it seemed to simply disappear. It was not an arrest, there was no warrant, and they did not arrive at the Tower. If it was a kidnap then Wriothesley has somehow found the mad courage to attack a son of the House of Norfolk, and to do it in the precincts of a royal palace. Nobody knows how he could do this, on what authority, nor on what quiet stretch of the dark river the barge with its honoured cargo can be moored, nor where the heir of the Howards is tonight.
It is inconceivable that Wriothesley could wage a private vendetta against the young man. Wriothesley and the Howards were conspiring against me only a few weeks ago and Wriothesley was ready to take me in the royal barge down the river where he has now disappeared with the young Howard heir. So perhaps he was authorised by the king to take the young man. But nobody can think what Henry Howard can have done to invite such an attack, and Wriothesley is absent, and his servants are saying nothing.
His father swears that Henry is innocent of anything. It is his brother, Tom, who was accused of reading heretical books and attending the sermons in my rooms, and besides, that is now allowed. Henry Howard, the older boy, is mostly interested in his own self-importance and his own pleasures. He is too busy with sport and jousting, poetry and whoring to seriously reflect. He will never have engaged in difficult study. Nobody can imagine him as a heretic, people begin to think that Wriothesley has overreached himself.
Norfolk, after a few days’ silence, thinks he is strong enough to challenge the Lord Chancellor. He demands to know where his son is kept, what are the charges, and that he be released at once. He shouts at the Privy Council meeting, he says he must see the king. He even demands an audience with me. Everyone at court understands that nobody, not even the Lord Chancellor, can trouble a Howard without questions being asked. Norfolk rages in the meeting, cursing Wriothesley to his face, and the councillors watch these two powers, the old aristocrat and the new administrator, collide.
As if in a terrible silent reply, without a public command from the king, and without warning, the yeomen of the guard march Henry Howard through the streets of London from Lord Wriothesley’s London house to the Tower on foot, like a common criminal. The great gates open as if they are expecting him, the constable of the Tower orders him to be taken to a cell. The doors close on him.
At the Privy Council meeting the duke is foaming at the mouth. Still there is no word of accusation, no charge against his son. This is the work of his enemies, he swears to them; this is an attack by craven men, men of no family or position, men like Wriothesley, who have wriggled their way up into power by a show of learning and cleverness with the law, while old aristocrats, noblemen like the duke himself and his son, the flower of chivalry, are embarrassed by these new councillors.
They don’t even hear him out. They don’t even answer his bellowed demands. The yeomen of the guard march into the Privy Council chamber and strip the sash of the Order of the Garter from his shoulders. They take his staff of office and break it before him as if he were a dead man and they were going to throw the pieces on top of the coffin as it rests in the grave, while Norfolk swears at them for fools, and reminds them of his nearly fifty years of service for the Tudors – hard service and dirty work that no-one else would do. They manhandle him from the room as he bellows his superiority, his innocence, his threats. Everyone can hear the scrape of his boots on the floor and the yell of his protest, all the way down the long gallery.
The door to the king’s privy chamber is open a crack; nobody knows if the king has heard. Nobody knows if this is by royal command or if Wriothesley is staging a coup against his rivals. So nobody knows what to do.
Now, two Howards – the Duke of Norfolk and his heir, the earl – are held in the Tower without charge, without accusation, without reason given. The unthinkable has happened to them: the Howards, father and son, who have brought so many innocent people to the scaffold, who have sat high on their horses and watched innocent men hang, are imprisoned themselves.
The news of the fall of their rivals brings Thomas Seymour back to court in a hurry to consult with his brother, and Anne Seymour hovers in the doorway of the Seymour rooms to listen and then reports back to me.
‘Apparently the Howard house Kenninghall was searched from top to bottom on the very day that the duke was arrested. They went in at the very moment that he was taken to the Tower. My husband’s clerk says that the charge is to be treason.’
Joan Denny, whose husband, Sir Anthony, is in the king’s confidence, agrees. ‘The Duke of Norfolk’s mistress has signed a paper saying that the duke said that His Majesty was very sick.’ She lowers her voice. ‘She will say on oath that he said that the king couldn’t last long.’
There is a shocked silence: not that the duke should say what everyone knows, but that his mistress should betray him to the Lord Chancellor’s men.
Anne nods, avid at this disaster falling on her rivals. ‘They were planning to alter the royal will, seize the prince and take the throne.’ I look at her incredulously. ‘No, that’s impossible. Take the throne? The Norfolks are creatures of the throne. They have spent their lives jumping like fleas in any direction that any king might take. They never hesitate to obey him, whatever he asks. Their own daughters . . .’ I break off but we all know that Mary Boleyn, her sister, Anne, her cousin Madge Shelton, their cousin Katherine Howard, were all Howard girls paraded before the king by their family and given to him as wives or whores.
Anne Seymour bristles at the mention of the Howard young women. Her own lamented sister-in-law Jane Seymour took a swift and dishonourable path from lady-in-waiting to queen. ‘Well, at least Mary Howard refused.’
‘Refused what?’
‘To be dishonoured. With her own father-in-law!’
I don’t follow her. ‘Anne, be clear with me. Who wanted Mary Howard dishonoured? And what do you mean by her father-in-law? You don’t mean the king?’
She draws closer to me, her face bright with scandalised excitement. ‘You know that they proposed to marry Mary Howard to my brother-in-law, our Thomas?’
‘Yes,’I say steadily. ‘Everyone knows that the king gave his assent.’
‘But they had no intention of an honourable match. Never! They were planning to marry him and cuckold him. What d’you think of that?’
The thought of someone planning unhappiness for Thomas is like a physical blow. I know what shame is. I would never want Thomas to feel it. ‘I don’t think much of it at all. But what did they mean to do?’
‘They were going to marry him, and make him ask you if she could be one of your ladies-in-waiting. He was to bring her to court. And what do you think she was to do then?’
Slowly, a plot is unfolding. I think: how vile these people are, these sneakbills. ‘I would have granted her a place with me, of course. A Howard girl, a Seymour wife could not have been refused.’ And, I think, I would have done anything to bring Thomas to court so
that I could see him. Even if it meant spending every day with his wife. Even that. They would have drawn me in to hurt him. They would have used me to hurt him.
‘They were planning to put Mary Howard in the king’s path.’ She draws back and looks at me. ‘They planned that she should supplant you.’
‘How would she supplant me?’ I ask coldly.
‘She was to flirt with the king, to lead him on, to seduce him. She was to lie with him or do whatever he can still do. She was to be his maîtresse en titre, as grand as a French mistress, a whore above all others. They said they could secure that, for certain. You would be all but cast aside and she would be preferred. You would go and live somewhere else, she would rule the court. But they said that if she was clever, there would be more for her than that, something better than that.’
‘What could be better than that?’ I ask, as if I don’t know.
‘They said that if she were clever and desirable and spoke to him sweetly and did as they taught her, that he would get rid of you and marry her. And then she would guide him back to the old religion and her court would be a centre of theology. Like yours, but better, they said: they meant papist. And that when he died she would be stepmother to Prince Edward, and the Duke of Norfolk would be lord protector and rule the kingdom until the prince came of age, and then rule him by force of habit. She would bring the king back to the Church of Rome, he would restore the church and the monasteries in England, and she would be dowager queen over a papist kingdom.’
Anne breaks off, her face bright, looking at me with a mixture of horror and scandalised delight.
‘But the king is her father-in-law,’ I object quietly. ‘She was married to his son. How could they think she might marry him?’
‘They wouldn’t care about that!’ Anne exclaims. ‘Don’t you think that the pope would give them a dispensation? If the bride was bringing England back to Rome? They’re devils, they care for nothing but stealing the king back to their side.’
‘Indeed, I think they must be,’ I say quietly. ‘If this is true. And did they think what would happen to me when pretty Mary Howard was in the king’s bed?’
She shrugs. Her gesture says: what d’you think happens to unwanted queens in this England? ‘I suppose they thought that you might accept a divorce, or they might charge you with heresy and treason.’
‘I would die?’ I ask. Even now, even after being queen for nearly three and a half years, walking through danger for all that time, I find it impossible to realise that anyone who knows me, who sees me at dinner every day, who has kissed my hand and promised loyalty, could coolly plot my death, and conspire to have me killed.
‘It was Norfolk who named you as a disciple of Anne Askew,’ she says. ‘That was to call you a heretic, that’s an offence that carries the penalty of death. It was he who worked with Gardiner to turn the king against you, calling you a serpent. This is not a man who sticks at trifles.’
‘Trifles?’
‘The death of a woman is a trifle to a man like the duke. You know it was he who passed the death sentence on both his nieces? He plotted that they be queen and when it went wrong, he sent them to the scaffold to save himself.’
Women’s lives do not matter to anyone at this court. Before every queen stands her pretty successor, behind her a ghost.
‘So what is happening now?’
‘The king is taking advice from us Seymours,’ she says, unable to hide her rising pride. ‘Thomas and Edward are with the king now. I expect they will tell me what is happening when they come here before dinner, and then I will be able to tell you.’
‘I am sure the king will tell me himself,’ I say, to remind her that I am Queen of England and the king’s wife, newly restored to favour. Otherwise she will think of me as the Howards do, as the court does: a temporary occupant of the throne of queen, a woman who might be divorced or killed on a whim.
I dress with meticulous care, sending my gown back once and changing my sleeves. I think I will wear purple and then I see that though it is the colour of emperors it drains the flush from my cheeks and tonight I want to look young and lovely. So I wear my favourite red with a golden underskirt and red sleeves with gold slashes. I pull the neck of the gown down, so that my creamy skin is defined by the square cut and my auburn hair flames against the scarlet of the hood. I wear rubies in my ears and gold chains at my waist and looped around my wrists. I paint my lips with rouge and I rouge my cheeks.
‘You look beautiful,’ Nan says, a little surprised at the trouble I have taken.
‘I’m showing the Howard household that there is a queen already in place,’ I say staunchly, and Nan laughs.
‘I think we had a lucky escape,’ she says. ‘Thank God that they could not agree and Thomas Seymour never brought Mary Howard to court.’
‘Yes,’ I say, disregarding the fact that he was ready to marry her. ‘He saved us.’
‘It leaves him a bachelor, though,’ Nan points out. ‘No man will marry Mary with her father and brother in the Tower, and she giving evidence against them to save her own skin. Thomas Seymour rises up day after day. His family is the leading house in the kingdom and the king loves him. He could choose almost anyone.’
I nod. Of course he will marry Elizabeth if the king gives permission. Then he will be married to the third heir to the Tudor throne. Then I can dance at his wedding. Then I will have to think of him as my son-in-law.
‘Who knows?’ I say lightly. I nod to my ladies to open the doors and we walk from my bedroom into my privy chamber, and into my presence room, and there he is. He turns as he hears the doors open and I realise he has been waiting for me; and there he is.
When I see him a strange thing happens. It is as if I can see no-one else. I don’t even hear the usual noise of the room. It is almost like a dream, like a slip in time, as if all my clocks freeze and everyone has gone and there is nothing but him and me. He turns and sees me, and I am blind to everything but his dark eyes, and his smile, and his gaze upon me as if he too can see no-one else, and I think – ah, thank God, he loves me as I love him, for there could be no smile so warm, so directed, except from a man who loves the woman walking towards him, glowing, her hand outstretched.
‘Good evening, Sir Thomas,’ I say.
He takes my hand, he bows over it, he kisses my fingers. I feel the light touch of his moustache and the warmth of his breath on my hand and the slightest squeeze on my fingers as if to say ‘Beloved . . .’ and then he straightens up and lets me go.
‘Your Majesty,’ he says. ‘I am so happy to see you looking so well.’
As he says the ordinary words his dark gaze is searching my face and I know that he will know that I have put on my best gown and reddened my lips. He sees the shadows under my eyes; he will know that I am grieving for Anne Askew. And he will also know, as a lover always knows, that something very grievous, very bad has happened to me.
He offers me his arm and we walk together, through bowing courtiers, to the window where he gestures with one hand as if to indicate the setting sun and the rise of one penetrating bright star on the horizon.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asks simply. ‘Are you ill?’
‘I can’t tell you here and now,’ I say honestly. ‘But I am not hurt or ill.’
‘The king?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he do?’ His face darkens.
I pinch the inside of his sleeve, the inner part of his elbow. ‘Not here. Not now,’ I remind him. I smile up at him. ‘Is that the pole star? Is that the one that you steer by?’
‘Are you in danger now?’ he demands. ‘Not now,’ I say.
‘Edward says that you were within a hair’s breadth of arrest.’
I tip my head back and laugh. ‘Oh, yes! I saw the warrant.’
His gaze is admiring. ‘You talked yourself to safety?’
I think of my stretching my lips to the bloodstained riding whip. I think of the ivory satin codpiece thrust into my mouth, bangin
g against my teeth. ‘No. It was worse than that.’
He makes a little exclamation. ‘God—’
‘Hush!’ I say rapidly. ‘We’re not safe. Everyone is watching. What’s going to happen to the Howards?’
‘Whatever he wants.’ He takes two impatient steps on the spot, as if he would fling himself out of the room but remembers that there is nowhere that he can go. ‘Whatever he wants, of course. I expect he will kill them. They were planning treason, without a doubt.’
‘God help them,’ I say, though they would have sent me to the scaffold. ‘God help them.’
The double doors are flung open and the king’s enormously bandaged foot comes in first, his great chair and his beaming smile next.
‘God help us all,’ Thomas says, and steps back like the courtier he is, so that my husband can be wheeled towards his possession, his chattel, his smiling wife.
Father and son, Thomas Howard and his son Henry, wait in the Tower to hear what charges they will face. No-one visits them, no-one speaks up for them. Suddenly this old man and his heir, who ruled all of Norfolk, and owned most of the South of England, who rode at the head of thousands of men, who lived their lives like fat spiders in a network of friendships, kinship and obligations, know no-one. They are completely friendless and without allies. The evidence of treason against Henry Howard is overwhelming. He was fool enough to boast that he had a great claim to the throne. His own sister Mary Howard, still smarting from his command that she must whore herself out to the king, accuses him. She swears on oath that he ordered her to marry Thomas Seymour to get to court, and to become the king’s mistress. She told him that she would rather cut her throat than be so dishonoured. Now she is cutting his.
Even his father’s mistress, the notorious Bess Holland, gives evidence against him. The young man, well-hated by those who should love and protect him, is incriminated daily by his friends and lovers, and finally by his own coat of arms, which Thomas Wriothesley, son of a herald, grandson of a herald, declares has been fraudulently based on the arms of Hereward the Wake – a leader of England five hundred years ago.