The Boleyn Inheritance

Katherine, Norfolk House, Lambeth, December 1539

And what shall I get for Christmas? I know I am to have an embroidered purse from my friend Agnes Restwold, a hand-copied page from a prayer book from Mary Lascelles (I’m so thrilled at the prospect of this I can hardly breathe) and two handkerchiefs from my grandmother. So far, so very dull indeed. But my dearest Francis is going to give me a shift of best embroidered linen, and I have woven him, with my own hands, and it has taken me days, an armband of my favourite colours. I am very pleased that he should love me so, and of course I love him too, but he has not bought me a ring as he promised, and he is sticking to his plan to go to Ireland to seek his fortune in the very next month, and then I shall be left all alone, and what is the point of that?

The court is at Greenwich for Christmas, I hoped it would be at Whitehall and then I might at least have gone to see the king eat his dinner. My uncle the duke is there, but he does not summon us; and although my grandmother went to dine she did not take me with her. Sometimes I think that nothing will ever happen for me. Nothing will ever happen at all and I will live and die an old spinster in my grandmother’s service. I shall be fifteen next birthday and clearly no-one has given a single thought to my future. Who ever cares for me? My mother is dead and my father barely remembers my name. It is terribly sad. Mary Lumleigh is to be married next year, they are drawing up the contract now, and she makes much of herself and queens it over me, as though I cared for her and for her pimply betrothed. I should not want such a match if it were offered to me with a fortune attached, and so I told her, and so we have quarrelled and the lace collar she was going to give me for Christmas will be given to someone else, and I do not care about that either.

The queen should be in London by now but she has been so stupidly slow that she is delayed, so all my hopes of her great entry into London and a wonderful wedding have been put off too. It is as if the very fates themselves work to make me unhappy. I am doomed. All I want is a little dancing! Anyone would think that a girl of nearly fifteen, or at any rate fifteen next year, could go dancing once before she dies!

Of course we will have dancing here for Christmas, but that is not what I mean at all. What is the pleasure in dancing when everyone who sees you has seen you every day for a year before? What’s the pleasure in a feast when every boy in the room is as familiar as the tapestries on the walls? Where’s the joy in having a man’s eyes on you when he is your own man, your own husband, and he would come to your bed whether you dance prettily or not? I try a special turn and curtsey that I have been practising and it does me no good at all. Nobody seems to notice except my grandmother, who sees everything, and she calls me out of the line and puts her finger under my chin and says: ‘Child, there is no need to twinkle around like some slut of an Italian. We all watch you anyway.’ By which I am supposed to understand that I should not dance like a lady, like an elegant young lady, with some style; but like a child.

I curtsey and say nothing. There is no point in arguing with my lady grandmother, she has such a temper she can send me from the room in a moment if I so much as open my mouth. I really do think I am very cruelly treated.

‘And what’s this I hear about you and young Master Dereham?’ she suddenly asks. ‘I thought I had warned you once already?’

‘I don’t know what you hear, Grandmother,’ I say cleverly.

Too clever for her, because she raps my hand with her fan.

‘Don’t forget who you are, Katherine Howard,’ she says sharply. ‘When your uncle sends for you to wait on the queen, I take it you will not want to refuse because of some greensick flirtation?’

‘Wait on the queen?’ I go at once to the most important thing.

‘Perhaps,’ she says maddeningly. ‘Perhaps she will have need of a maid in waiting if the girl has been gently raised and is not known to be an utter slut.’

I cannot speak, I am so desperate. ‘Grandmother … I …’

‘Never mind,’ she says and waves me away back to the dancers. I clutch at her sleeve and beg to know more; but she laughs and sends me to dance. As she is watching me, I hop about like a little wooden doll, I am so correct in the steps and so polite in my deportment that you would think I had a crown on my head myself. I dance like a nun, I dance like a vestal virgin, and when I look up to see if she is impressed by my modesty she is laughing at me.

So that night, when Francis comes to the chamber door, I meet him on the threshold. ‘You can’t come in,’ I say bluntly. ‘My lady grandmother knows all about us. She warned me for my reputation.’

He looks shocked. ‘But my love …’

‘I can’t risk it,’ I insist. ‘She knows far more than we thought. God knows what she has heard or who has told her.’

‘We would not deny each other,’ he says.

‘No,’ I say uncertainly.

‘If she asks you, you must tell her that we are married in the eyes of God.’

‘Yes, but …’

‘And I shall come to you as your husband now.’

‘You can’t.’ Nothing in this world is going to prevent me from being the new queen’s maid in waiting. Not even my undying love for Francis.

He puts his hand around my waist and nibbles at the nape of my neck. ‘I shall be going to Ireland within days,’ he whispers softly. ‘You will not send me away with my heart breaking.’

I hesitate. It would be very sad for his heart to break, but I have to be maid in waiting to the new queen, there is nothing more important than that.

‘I don’t want your heart to break,’ I say. ‘But I have to take a post in the queen’s household, and who knows what might happen?’

He lets me go abruptly. ‘Oh, so you think you’re going to go to court?’ he asks crossly. ‘And flirt with some great lord? Or one of your noble cousins or someone? A Culpepper or a Mowbray or a Neville or someone?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. It is really marvellous how dignified I can be. You would think I was my grandmother. ‘I cannot discuss my plans with you now.’

‘Kitty!’ he cries, he is torn between anger and lust. ‘You are my wife, you are my promised wife! You are my own beloved!’

‘I must ask you to withdraw,’ I say very grandly, and I close the door in his face and run and take a flying leap into my bed.

‘What now?’ asks Agnes. At the far end of the dormitory they have drawn the curtains around the bed, some boy and some loose girl are lovemaking, and I can hear his eager panting and her sighing.

‘Can’t you be quiet?’ I shout down the long room. ‘It’s really shocking. It is offensive to a young maid such as me. It’s shocking. It really shouldn’t be allowed.’

Anne, Calais, December 1539

In all this long journey I have started to learn how I shall be when I am queen. The English ladies that my lord the king sent to be with me have spoken English to me every day, and my lord Southampton has been at my side at every town we have entered, and has prompted me and guided me in the most helpful way. They are a most formal and dignified people, everything has to be done by rote, by rule, and I am learning to hide my excitement at the greetings, the music, and the crowds who everywhere come out to see me. I don’t want to seem like the country sister of a minor duke, I want to be like a queen, a true Queen of England.

At every town I have had a welcome of people thronging in the streets, calling out my name and bringing me posies and gifts. Most towns present me with a loyal address and give me a purse of gold or some valuable jewellery. But my arrival in my first English town, the port of Calais, is dwarfing everything that went before. It is a mighty English castle with a great walled town around it, built to withstand any attack from France, the enemy, just outside the powerfully guarded gates. We enter by the south gate that looks over the road towards the kingdom of France and we are greeted by an English nobleman, Lord Lisle, and dozens of gentlemen and noblemen, dressed very fine, with a small army of men dressed in red and blue livery.

I thank God for sending me Lord Lisle to be my friend and advisor in these difficult days for he is a kind man, with something of the look of my father. Without him, I would be speechless from terror as well as from my lack of English. He is dressed as fine as a king himself, and there are so very many English noblemen with him that they are like a sea of furs and velvet. But he takes my cold hand in his big warm grip and he smiles at me and says ‘Courage’. I may not know the word till I ask my interpreter, but I know a friend when I see one, and I find a small peaky smile and then he tucks my hand into the crook of his arm and leads me down the broad street to the harbour. The bells are pealing a welcome to me, and all the merchants’ wives and children are lining the streets to have a look at me and the apprentice boys and servants all shout, ‘Anna of Cleves, hurrah!’ as I go by.

In the harbour there are two huge ships, the king’s own, one called the Sweepstake, which means something about gambling, and one named the Lion, both flying banners and sounding the trumpets as they see me approach. They have been sent from England to bring me to the king, and with them comes a huge fleet to escort me. The gunners fire off rounds, and the cannon roar, and the whole town is drenched in smoke and noise, but this is a great compliment and so I smile and try not to flinch. We go on to the Staple Hall where the mayor of the town and the merchants give me greetings in long speeches and two purses of gold and Lady Lisle, who is here to greet me with her husband, presents my ladies in waiting to me.

They all accompany me back to the king’s house, the Chequer, and I stand as one after another comes forwards and says their name and presents their compliments and makes their bow or their curtsey. I am so tired and so overwhelmed by the whole day that I feel my knees start to weaken underneath me but still they come on, one after another. My lady Lisle stands beside me and says each name in my ear and tells me a little about them, but I cannot understand her words and, besides, there are too many strangers to take it all in. It is a dizzying crowd of people; but they are all smiling kindly at me, and they all bow so respectfully. I ought to be glad of such attention and not overwhelmed by it, I know.

As soon as the last lady, maid, servant and page has made their bow, and I can decently leave, I say that I should like to go to my privy chamber before we dine, and my interpreter tells them; but still I cannot be at peace. As soon as we walk into my private rooms there are more strange faces waiting to be presented as servants and members of my privy chamber. I am so exhausted by all these introductions that I say I should like to go to my bedchamber, but even here I cannot be alone. In comes Lady Lisle and other ladies and the maids in waiting to make sure that I have everything I need. A full dozen of them come in and pat the bed and straighten the curtains and stand about, looking at me. In absolute desperation I say that I want to pray and go into the little closet beside the bedchamber and close the door on their helpful faces.

I can hear them waiting outside, like an audience waiting for a fool to come out and juggle or play tricks: a little puzzled at the delay, but good-humoured enough. I lean back against the door and touch my forehead with the back of my hand. I am cold and yet I am sweating, as if I were ill with a fever. I must do this. I know I can do this, I know I can be Queen of England, and a good queen as well. I will learn their language; already I can understand most of what is said to me, though I stumble over speech. I will learn all these new names and their rank and the proper way to address them so that I won’t always have to stand like a little doll with a puppet-master beside me, telling me what to do. As soon as I get to England I shall see about ordering some new clothes. My ladies and I, in our German dress, look like fat little ducks beside these English swans. They go about half-naked with hardly a hood on their heads at all, they flit about in their light gowns, while we are strapped into fustian as if we were lumpy parcels. I shall learn to be elegant, I shall learn to be pleasing, I shall learn to be a queen. I shall certainly learn to meet a hundred people without sweating for fear.

It strikes me now that they will be finding my behaviour very odd. First, I say I want to dress for dinner, and then I step into a room that is little more than a cupboard, and make them wait outside. I will seem ridiculously devout or, worse, they will know I am painfully shy. As soon as this occurs to me I freeze inside the little room. I feel such a country-born dolt. I hardly know how to find the courage to come out.

I listen at the door. It has gone very quiet outside, perhaps they have become tired of waiting for me. Perhaps they have all gone off to change their clothes again. Hesitantly, I open the door a crack and look out.

There is only one lady left in the room, seated at the window, calmly looking down into the yard below, watching. As she hears the betraying creak of the door she looks up and her face is kind and interested.

‘Lady Anne?’ she says, and she rises to her feet and curtseys to me.

‘I …’

‘I am Jane Boleyn,’ she says, guessing rightly that I cannot remember a single name from the blur of this morning. ‘I am one of your ladies in waiting.’

As she says her name I am utterly confused. She must be some relation to Anne Boleyn; but what is she doing in my chamber? Surely she cannot be here to wait on me? Surely she should be in exile, or in disgrace?

I look around for someone to translate for us, and she smiles and shakes her head. She points to herself and says ‘Jane Boleyn,’ and then she says, very slowly and steadily: ‘I will be your friend.’

And I understand her. Her smile is warm and her face honest. I realise that she means that she will be a friend to me; and the thought of having a friend I can trust in this sea of new people and new faces brings a lump into my throat and I blink back the tears and I put out my hand to her to shake, as if I were a half-simple countrywoman in the market place.

‘Boleyn?’ I stammer.

‘Yes,’ she says, taking my hand in her cool grip. ‘And I know all about how fearful it is to be Queen of England. Who would know better than me how hard it can be? I will be your friend,’ she says again. ‘You can trust me.’ And she shakes my hand with a warm grasp, and I believe her, and we both smile.

Jane Boleyn, Calais, December 1539

She will never please him, poor child, not in a lifetime, not in a thousand years. I am amazed that his ambassadors did not warn him, they have been thinking entirely of making a league against France and Spain, of a Protestant league against the Catholic kings, and thinking nothing of the tastes of King Henry.

There is nothing she can do to become the sort of woman that pleases him. His preference runs to quick-witted, dainty, smiling women with an air that promises everything. Even Jane Seymour, though she was quiet and obedient, radiated a docile warmth that hinted at sensual pleasure. But this one is like a child, awkward like a child, with a child’s honest gaze and an open, friendly smile. She looks thrilled when someone bows low to her, and when she first saw the ships in the harbour she seemed about to applaud. When she is tired or overwhelmed she goes pale like a sulky child and looks ready to weep. Her nose goes red when she is anxious, like a peasant in the cold. If it were not so tragic this would be the highest of comedies, this gawky girl stepping into the diamond-heeled shoes of Anne Boleyn. What can they have been thinking of when they imagined she could ever rise to it?

But her very awkwardness gives me a key to her. I can be her friend, her great friend and ally. She will need a friend, poor lost girl, she will need a friend who knows the way around a court such as ours. I can introduce her to all the things she will need to know, teach her the skills she must learn. And who should know better than I, who have been at the heart of the greatest court that England ever had, and seen it burn itself up? Who better than me to keep a queen safe, who watched one destroy herself and destroy her family with her? I have promised to be this new queen’s friend and I can honour that promise. She is young, only twenty-four years old, but she will grow. She is ignorant but she can be taught. She is inexperienced but life will correct that. I can do much for this quaint young woman, and it will be a real pleasure and an opportunity to be her guide and mentor.

Katherine, Norfolk House, Lambeth, December 1539

My uncle is coming to see my grandmother and I must be ready in case he sends for me. We all know what is about to happen but I am as excited as if I were waiting for a great surprise. I have practised my walk towards him and my curtsey. I have practised my look of astonishment and my delighted smile at the wonderful news. I like to be prepared, I like to be rehearsed, and I have had Agnes and Joan play the part of my uncle until I am step-perfect in my approach, my curtsey and my genteel cry of joy.

The maids’ room is sick of me, sick as if they had eaten a glut of green apples, but I tell them it is only to be expected, I am a Howard, of course I will be called to court, of course I will serve the queen and, sadly, of course they will be left behind; what a pity.

They say I will have to learn German, and there will be no dancing. I know this is a lie. She will live like a queen and if she is dull, I shall only shine more brightly in contrast. They say it is well-known that she will live in seclusion, and the Dutch eat no meat but only cheese and butter all day. I know this is a lie – why else would the queen’s apartments at Hampton Court have been repainted but for her to have a court and guests? They say that all her ladies have already been appointed and half of them have already left to meet her in Calais. My uncle is coming to tell me that I have missed my chance.

This, finally, frightens me. I know that the king’s nieces, Lady Margaret Douglas and the Marchioness of Dorset, have agreed to be the chiefest of her ladies and I fear it is too late for me. ‘No,’ I say to Mary Lascelles, ‘he cannot be coming to tell me I must stay here. He cannot be coming to tell me that I am too late, that there will be no place left for me.’

‘And if he does then let it be a lesson to you,’ she says firmly. ‘Let it be a lesson to you to mend your ways. You don’t deserve to go to the queen’s court as light as you have been with Francis Dereham. No true lady should have you in her chambers when you have played the slut with such a man.’

This is so unkind that I give a little gasp and feel the tears coming.

‘Now don’t cry,’ she says wearily. ‘Don’t cry, Katherine. You will only make your eyes red.’

Instantly, I hold my nose to stop the tears coming. ‘But if he tells me I am to stay here and do nothing I shall die!’ I say thickly. ‘I will be fifteen next year, and then I will be eighteen, and then I will be nineteen and then I will be twenty and too old for marriage and I will die here, serving my grandmother, never having been anywhere, and never seen anything, and never danced at court.’

‘Oh, nonsense!’ she exclaims crossly. ‘Can you never think of anything but your vanity, Katherine? Besides, some would think you have done quite enough already for a maid of fourteen.’

‘Duthing,’ I say, with my nose still pinched. I let it go and press my cool fingers against my cheeks. ‘I have done nothing.’

‘Of course, you will serve the queen,’ she says scornfully. ‘Your uncle is not likely to miss such a place for one of his family, however badly you have behaved.’

‘The girls said …’

‘The girls are jealous of you because you are going, you ninny. If you were staying they would be all over you with pretend sympathy.’

This is so true that even I can see it. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘So wash your face again and come to my lady’s chamber. Your uncle will be here at any moment.’

I go as fast as I can, pausing only to tell Agnes and Joan and Margaret that I know full well I am going to court and that I never believed their spite for a moment, and then I hear them shouting: ‘Katherine! Katherine! He is here!’ and I dash down to my lady’s own parlour and there he is, my uncle, standing before the fire and warming his backside.

It would take more than a fire to warm this man through. My grandmother says that he is the king’s hammer; whenever there is hard and dirty work to do it is my uncle who leads the English army to batter the enemy into submission. When the North rose up to defend the old religion just two years ago when I was a little girl, it was my uncle who brought the rebels to their senses. He promised them a pardon and then cozened them to the gallows. He saved the king’s throne and he saved the king the trouble of fighting his own battles and putting down a great rebellion. My grandmother says that he knows no other argument but the noose. She says he strung up thousands even though inwardly, he agreed with their cause. His own faith did not stop him. Nothing will stop him. I can see by his face that he is a hard man, a man not easily softened; but he has come to see me and I will show him what sort of niece he has.

I dip down into a deep curtsey, as we have practised over and over again in the maids’ chamber, leaning a little forwards so that my lord can see the tempting curve of my breasts pressed at the top of my gown. Slowly I look up at his face before I rise, so that he sees me almost on my knees before him, giving him a moment to think about the pleasure of what I could be doing down there, my little nose almost against his breeches. ‘My lord uncle,’ I breathe as I rise, as if I were whispering it in his ear in bed. ‘Give you a very good day, sir.’

‘Good God,’ he says bluntly, and my grandmother gives a little ‘Huh’ of amusement.

‘She is a … a credit to you, ma’am,’ he says as I rise without wobbling and stand before him. I clasp my hands behind my back to present my breasts to their full advantage, and I arch my back too so that he can admire the slimness of my waist. With my eyes modestly cast down I could be a schoolgirl except for the thrust of my body and the little half-hidden smile.

‘She is a Howard girl through and through,’ says my grandmother, who has no great opinion of Howard girls, known as we are for beauty and forwardness.

‘I was expecting a child,’ he says as if he is very pleased to find me grown.

‘A very knowing child.’ She gives me a hard look to remind me that nobody wants to know what I have learned while in her care. I widen my eyes innocently. I was seven years old when I first saw a maid bedding a pageboy, I was eleven when Henry Manox first got hold of me. How did she think I would turn out?

‘She will do very nicely,’ he says, after he has taken a moment to recover. ‘Katherine, can you dance and sing and play the lute and so on?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Read, write, in English and French, and Latin?’

I shoot an anguished look at my grandmother. I am tremendously stupid, and everyone knows it. I am so stupid that I don’t even know if I should lie about it or not.

‘Why would she need that?’ she asks. ‘The queen speaks nothing but Dutch, doesn’t she?’

He nods. ‘German. But the king likes an educated woman.’

The duchess smiles. ‘He did once,’ she says. ‘The Seymour girl was no great philosopher. I think he has lost his taste for argument from his wives. Do you like an educated woman?’

He gives a little snort at this. The whole world knows that he and his wife have been parted for years, they hate each other so much.

‘Anyway, what matters most is that she pleases the queen and pleases the court,’ my uncle rules. ‘Katherine, you are to go to court and be one of the new queen’s maids in waiting.’

I beam at him.

‘You are glad to go?’

‘Yes, my lord uncle. I am very grateful,’ I remember to add.

‘You have been placed in such a position of importance to be a credit to your family,’ he says solemnly. ‘Your grandmother here tells me you are a good girl and that you know how to behave. Make sure that you do, and don’t let us down.’

I nod. I dare not look at my grandmother, who knew all about Henry Manox, and who caught me once in the upper hall with Francis, with my hand down the front of his breeches and the mark of his bite on my neck, and called me a whore in the making and a stupid slut, and gave me a cuff that made my head ring, and warned me off him again at Christmas.

‘There will be young men who may pay attention to you,’ my uncle warns, as if I have never met a young man before. I dart a look at my grandmother but she is blandly smiling. ‘Remember that nothing is more important than your reputation. Your honour must be without stain. If I hear any unbecoming gossip about you – and I mean anything, and you can be sure that I hear everything – then I will remove you immediately from court and send you not even here, but back to your step-grandmother’s house in the country at Horsham. Where I will leave you forever. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, my lord uncle.’ It comes out in a terrified whisper. ‘I promise.’

‘I will see you at court almost daily,’ he says. I am almost beginning to wish that I was not going. ‘And from time to time I shall send for you to come to my rooms and tell me how you are getting on with the queen, and so on. You will be discreet and you will not gossip. You will keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. You will take advice from your kinswoman Jane Boleyn, who is also in the queen’s rooms. You will endeavour to become close to the queen, you shall be her little friend. From the favour of princes comes wealth. Never forget it. This could be the making of you, Katherine.’

‘Yes, my lord uncle.’

‘And another thing,’ he says warningly.

‘Yes, uncle?’

‘Modesty, Katherine. It is a woman’s greatest asset.’

I sink into a curtsey, my head bowed, as modest as a nun. A laugh of derision from my grandmother tells me that she is not persuaded. But when I look up my uncle is smiling.

‘Convincing. You can go,’ he says.

I curtsey again and I flee from the room before he can say anything worse. I have been longing to go to court for the dancing and young men and he makes it sound like going into service.

‘What did he say? What did he say?’ They are all waiting in the great hall, desperate to know the news.

‘I am to go to court!’ I crow. ‘And I am to have new gowns and new hoods and he says I will be the prettiest girl in the queen’s chamber, and there will be dancing every night, and I daresay I will never see any of you ever again.’