“Now, Master Holbein,” he growled, “I pay you well, and I want you to earn your money. We want a picture of ourselves. We want something larger and grander than anything you have done before. Yes, we will have a picture of our family. My son, my daughters, my…Queen. You will start tomorrow.”

Hans Holbein bowed. Nothing, he declared, would give him greater pleasure, and he would be eager to start on the royal portrait the next day.

And during that day the lady of the bedchamber, who had caught the King’s eye, sang a song of his which greatly charmed him. A strong-looking girl, he reflected, with health as well as beauty. A girl molded to bear children.

When he was alone with the Queen that night he said: “It is a marvelous thing that God denies me a son.” And the look which accompanied the words was that which Katharine had begun to dread more than any other.

The next day when Hans Holbein came to the King, Henry’s resentment had increased. His son and daughters stood before him, and he surveyed his daughters with distaste, his son with apprehension.

In health he felt well; his leg scarcely pained him at all. Before leaving his chamber he had examined himself in his mirror; he had seen a magnificent figure in a gown of gold and scarlet drawn in at the waist with a sash of white satin, its short skirts embroidered in gold; about his neck was a collar of pearls and rubies; his dalmatica was lined with sables and decorated with pearls to match those in his collar. More than usual he glittered with jewels, and if he did not look too closely he could imagine he was young again.

“By God!” he had told his reflection. “I feel I have many years of health left to me. Have I once more saddled myself with a woman who cannot give me sons?”

He looked at her now, at her meek eyes and gentle mouth. He did not want gentle meekness; they were all very well for a sick man; but when a man feels himself to be in good health and hopes to be cured of the accursed humors in his leg, he does not wish to waste his time with a barren nurse. He wants fire and fertility.

The Prince looked pale, and the crimson cap of velvet with its feather and jewels merely accentuated his pallor; the red damask garment did not suit him, and no amount of artful padding could hide the fact that he was thin and puny.

The two girls in their crimson velvet gowns, wearing their pearl and ruby crosses, angered him; the elder because she reminded him of his first Queen (and he did not wish to be reminded of his past and the Spanish woman’s reproaches), the younger because she was the most healthy of his children and had failed to be born a boy.

The picture would be of himself, his children and his Queen; but he would not have Katharine in it. This was a family portrait, and had she helped him to add to his family? She had not.

He growled his instructions. “I will sit as though on my throne, and the boy shall stand beside me. Come here, my son. Let my daughters take their stand by the pillars there, and my Queen should be beside me.” He glowered maliciously at Katharine. “Methinks though that there should be another beside me on this day, and that is the Queen who gave me my son.”

There was silence. Hans Holbein looked uncomfortable. Katharine forced herself not to show the fear that came to her whenever the King talked in this way.

Henry had seated himself. His son and daughters took the places he had assigned to them. Only Edward dared to look compassionately at the Queen.

“I have it!” cried Henry. “You shall paint the boy’s mother beside me. Queen Jane must be the Queen in this family group. She is dead, and that fact grieves me sorely, but she was our Queen; she was the mother of our son. I will have you set her beside me, sir painter. You understand?”

“I shall be for ever at Your Gracious Majesty’s command.”

“She will be painted pale and shadowy… almost like a specter…as though she has come from her grave to join our family group. So, madam” (he had thrown a malevolent glance at Katharine), “we shall have no need of your presence here.”

Katharine bowed and retired.

This was the greatest insult she had received since her marriage, and it filled her with a terrible fear. It could mean only one thing: the King regretted his marriage. When Henry the Eighth started to regret a marriage he was already looking for a new wife.

Everyone at court now knew how the picture was being painted; all had heard of the spectral Queen.

Gardiner and Wriothesley congratulated each other. Now was surely the time to strike.

Cranmer and Hertford were watchful of Gardiner and Wriothesley. Katharine’s closest friends were nervous. As for Katharine herself, she thought constantly of her predecessors who had walked out to Tower Green and died there, for she felt her time was near.

The bells rang jubilantly: Sons… sons… sons….

And all through the court there was tension and a sense of waiting.

FATE, IN THE GUISE of War, distracted Henry’s attention.

There had for some months been trouble in Scotland. It was Henry’s dearest wish that his son should marry Mary, the baby Queen of Scots, and so bring Scotland and England under one crown. This the French King wished to oppose with all his might. François planned to remove the child and bring her up at his court as the future wife of his eldest son. He had sent ships and supplies to Scotland, and the Scots thereupon repudiated the promises they had made to Henry and began to negotiate with France.

Henry’s great ideal was a British Empire; he realized that a marriage between Scotland and France would make this impossible. He decided therefore that the only course open to him at this stage was a war on two fronts.

The Emperor Charles had been seeking England as an ally against France, and Henry decided to join forces with the Spaniard. He had sent troops to the north of France under Thomas Seymour and Sir John Wallop; he was sending his brother-in-law the Earl of Hertford to Scotland. Henry decided that he himself would go to France for the attack; he and the Emperor planned to meet triumphantly in Paris when that city fell to them.

Temporarily Henry had ceased to think of a seventh wife.

There must be a Regent in England, and if his wife had ceased to appeal to him as a bedfellow, nevertheless he could trust her to act in his name during his absence. With Cranmer and Hertford to help her, he decided he could safely leave England and cross with his Army to France.

Thus on a July day he set out for Dover and reached Calais in safety.

While deeply aware of the immense responsibility which now rested upon her, and aware also of what reward would be hers if she failed in her duty, Katharine could feel nothing but relief. After all, when one was married to a man who had murdered two wives and terrified and humiliated three others, one must be prepared for alarms; and it was possible, if not to feel contempt for death, to be less unnerved by the contemplation of it.

He had gone; and she was free, if only for a little while. She rejoiced in secret.

He had parted from her with loving assurances of his devotion, but before he had left he had given her a special charge with regard to Prince Edward.

“We cannot get ourselves another son,” he had said reproachfully, “so we must guard well him whom we have.”

When he had kissed her fondly she had known he was thinking: A whole year and no sign of a son! Doubtless, as he crossed the Channel under his sails of cloth of gold, he was telling himself that he was a patient man and that a year was a very long time to wait for the sign of a son.

One day when she was with the children, superintending their studies, word was brought to her that a lady had presented herself at court and, stating that she was a friend of the Queen, asked if an audience might be granted her.

Katharine bade the messenger say that as soon as she was free she would see the lady; and shortly afterward there was brought to her a young woman, tall and slender, a pale primrose of a woman, with golden hair, and deep blue eyes in which seemed to burn an emotion not of this world.

“Your dearest Majesty …” The young woman knelt before the Queen.

“Why, Anne! It is Anne Askew. Though I suppose I should call you Mistress Kyme now that you have married. Rise, my dear Anne. I would hear your news.”

“Pray call me Anne Askew, Your Majesty, as you did in the old days, for that is how I wish to be known from now on,”

Katharine, seeing signs of distress in the face of her friend, dismissed her attendants with the exception of little Jane, whom she sent to her needlework in the far corner of the apartment.

“What has happened?” asked Katharine.

“I have left my husband. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that he has sent me from him.”

“He has turned you out of his house?”

“I fear so, Your Majesty.”

Anne laughed without mirth.

“I am sorry, Anne,” said Katharine.

“Do not look so sorrowful, Your Majesty. It is no great sorrow to me. I was married to Mr. Kyme, as you know, because he is the richest man in Lincolnshire. He was to have had my elder sister, but she died before the marriage contract could be completed; and so, my father gave me to him. I had no wish for the marriage … nor indeed for any marriage.”

“Alas,” said Katharine, “such as we are, we have our marriages made for us. Our wishes are not consulted.”

She thought of her own three marriages, particularly of the present one.

“And now,” she went on, “he has turned you out of his house?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I was forced to marry him, but I cannot be compelled to abandon my religion.”

“So, Anne, he has discovered where your sympathies lie?”