“She might have married Northumberland,” Lady Margaret was saying. “He adored her, and she loved him. But fate had a different destiny for her.” She looked at me steadily. “I would be very wary before I sought favors of the King. For me there has been no choice. When the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth were declared illegitimate—that was when Jane Seymour became Queen—I was in line to the throne. There were no male heirs for the King, and I was the daughter of his eldest sister, you see. My mother was a very forceful lady; my father was a very ambitious man. They quarreled and there was much ill-will between them. My mother fled from Scotland, bringing me with her, and I was brought up in the palace of Greenwich.”

“Greenwich is beautiful,” I said. “I love Greenwich.”

“I, too,” she said. “The Lady Mary was there. She is close to my age. In truth I am a few months older. We spent our early years together and friendship grew between us. But in time I was taken away. Oh, the wars and the troubles and the effect they have on our lives! I have told you once, Katherine Howard, and I will tell you again. It is not good to be too close to royalty.”

“I have often wondered about the Lady Mary,” I said. “How strange life must be for her. She was once adored as the King’s daughter and then she became of no importance at all.”

“Yes, yes. Again and again I tell you. It is not good to be too close to royalty.” She was looking at me very intently. “It is dazzling, but it is dangerous, to get too close. Many have found that. Remember the Cardinal? Who will forget him? He was my godfather. He went too far … you will learn that I speak truth.”

I believed that to be true for some; but there were others. I was thinking of my own family, which had survived its disgrace at Bosworth Field. But on the other hand I was aware now that my uncle, the Duke, was always on the alert lest he should make a false move.

“Do not deceive yourself,” went on Lady Margaret. She was studying me intently. “Do you know, you remind me of your uncle, Thomas … my Thomas. Not that your looks resemble his … except perhaps your expression at times. Well, you are a Howard, as he was.”

I saw tears in her eyes and she put an arm round me.

“Oh, I am foolish,” she added. “It was just that memories came back. They put us in the Tower … just because we became betrothed … secretly.”

“I am sorry,” I told her. “How you must have suffered.”

She withdrew herself, perhaps remembering that she was the King’s niece and I the humblest member of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. But her lover had been my kinsman, and that brought us close.

“I loved him,” she said. “But I was royal, you see. I could be Queen of England, and so a match would be made for me. I was not allowed to choose. Your cousin, Queen Anne, had been my friend—even though the Lady Mary and I had been as sisters, and you can guess there had been enmity between Mary and Anne Boleyn. It was natural enough. Mary was devoted to her mother, and to see her replaced and so cruelly set aside was too much to be lightly borne. I am saying too much. Thomas Howard and I were sent to the Tower, just because we loved each other and had betrothed ourselves … and he was not the match they wanted for me.”

“How sad for you. I can never pass the Tower without shuddering.”

“As well you might. You should bear that in mind.”

“You feel badly because you were there once. Was it a long duration?”

She shook her head. “I fell ill of a fever and they thought I might die, so they took me away and I was sent, still a prisoner, to Syon House. I remember at length being released. It was an October day, just over two years after they had beheaded the Queen. Two days before my release, Thomas died.”

“What a sad story!”

“I tell you because … oh, Katherine, do you know why I tell you?”

“You are telling me because you think I ought to know how easily one can make a mistake at Court.”

I thought: I, too, am betrothed, as she was … or almost. Does she know? But I shall marry Thomas and we shall go to Hollingbourne. Did not my grandmother say that this would be?

She was watching me closely. Then she said suddenly: “And now I am restored to favor—lady-in-waiting to the Queen … the King’s niece … accepted at Court.”

“But you still remember my Uncle Thomas.”

She nodded. “But ’tis over, is it not?”

“The Queen appears to be a very gentle lady.”

“I believe her to be.”

“Lady Margaret, she is very much afraid now, is she not?”

“She has not found favor with the King. I suppose it is not easy to choose a wife … or a husband … on the account one receives from other people. They praised her too much, and, alas, she is not the King’s idea of a beauty.”

“I thought she had a very kind face.”

“The King looks for more than kindness. She is not graceful, and he looks for grace, it seems. She is too learned. Some men do not like learned women.”

“That seems strange. Would they not wish to talk of interesting matters with their wives?”

“You do not know men, Katherine Howard.”

Did I not? There was Derham. I had regarded myself as married to him once. Thomas Culpepper, to whom I was almost betrothed. I knew there were such men as Manox, too.

“If you did,” she went on, “you would understand that they like to be the masters. Superior in matters of the mind. Clever women disturb them. There are those who say that Queen Anne Boleyn was too clever for her own safety.”

“None would find me too clever, I’ll warrant.”

She laughed with me, which I realized meant she agreed.

“And the Queen,” I said. “She is too clever?”

“Chiefly she lacks the kind of beauty which is to the King’s taste.”

“Lady Margaret, what will happen to her?”

“I believe there will be a divorce.”

“Can that be?”

“Assuredly it can. The King does not have to get a dispensation from the Pope now, does he? He is now Head of the Church, and can command archbishops and bishops to obey him when he needs them to.”

“But there would have to be reasons.”

“I will tell you this, Katherine, but it is not generally known as yet. There has been a convocation, and the matter has been referred to the two archbishops with four bishops and eight other members of the clergy; and there are reasons why a divorce is possible. The first and most important is that the Queen was precontracted to the Prince of Lorraine; the second is that the King was married against his will and has never completed the marriage; and the third is that the nation wishes the King to have more children, and in view of his feelings for the Queen, he could never have them through her.”

“But he did actually marry her.”

Lady Margaret lifted her shoulders.

“Depend upon it, the King will have an annulment if he wishes it enough. And there is no doubt in my mind, and those of many at Court, that the King will have his way.”

I thought a good deal about that talk with Lady Margaret. I had vaguely heard about the death of my uncle in the Tower and that he had been foolish enough to act unwisely with a lady.

My uncle, the Duke, was contemptuous of such conduct, although he continued to act scandalously in his own marital concerns, and was still involved in his liaison with the washerwoman, Elizabeth Holland.

But that was the way of men. I thought fleetingly of the King’s assertion that I was a good and modest girl and how he approved of such conduct at his Court; and I could not help remembering Elizabeth Blount and the Duke of Richmond and the King’s conduct with Jane Seymour, which had been seen by my cousin.

And I was very sorry for the poor Queen.


* * *

It appeared to be as Lady Margaret had said.

Some of the ladies-in-waiting on the Queen and some of the gentlemen of the King’s bedchamber were called as witnesses to the fact that the royal couple did not spend their nights together. I wondered whether Thomas Culpepper was called and what he thought about the matter.

It was clearly proved that the marriage was no ordinary one. The Queen was not present during the proceedings, as her English was not good enough for her to understand what was going on. But she had learned a little of the language and, when she was asked if she had informed Mistress Lowe or any of her ladies of the King’s neglect, she had replied that she had not done so as she received quite as much of His Majesty’s attention as she wished for.

Then came the announcement that the marriage was null and void and that both parties were free to marry again. A bill was produced to prove this. The Archbishop of Canterbury announced the end of the marriage, and the Lords passed the Bill which afterward went to the Commons, where approval was readily given.

The King had had his way.


* * *

Several of us were in the Queen’s apartment when news came that the King was sending a deputation to the Queen that she might agree to the terms which were set out.

I could not but be aware of the brooding sense of foreboding which hung over those apartments at Richmond.

The Queen, outwardly calm, sought to hide the fear which beset her. She remained in her apartments and would see none but Mother Lowe.

Lady Rochford said: “Poor lady! One can guess her feelings. Three have gone before her. One discarded as a wife after many years, another to the block, and the third no sooner married than she died in childbirth. You can understand her fears. It seems as though a curse has been laid on the King’s wives.”