“Nay. You meddle in things you do not understand. I never liked meddling women, Kate.” He caught her cheek between his thumb and finger and pinched it. “Mind you, Kate, I know your motives. You meddle for them and not for your own gain. I like you for it. The form of marriage I went through with Elizabeth’s mother was no true marriage. She was precontracted to Northumberland. That made our marriage void, and her girl a bastard. They’re both bastards, I tell you.”
“Yet they are your daughters. And how like you is the Lady Elizabeth! My lord, could you not have them brought back to the position they enjoyed when you believed yourself to be married to their mothers?”
He pretended to consider, pretended to be faintly displeased. This was one of the games of makebelieve which he so liked to play. He was not considering; he was not displeased. He knew that the people thought it wrong that his daughters should live in penury; providing all agreed that they were bastards—which they must do if his conscience was to be satisfied—he would not be unwilling to give them a position at court. And how pleasant it was to do this thing which he wished to do and still make it a favor to Kate, his new wife, his sweetheart, his little pig.
“Methinks I find it hard to deny you aught, sweetheart, for now you ask this favor I am inclined to grant it.”
“I thank you. I thank you most heartily. Your Majesty is indeed good to me.”
“And you in turn shall be good to me.” She knew what he meant. It seemed to her as though the bells in the chapel had begun to toll. “Sons. Sons,” they seemed to say. “Give me sons.”
“But first,” he said, with the air of one who offered yet another honor to a subject already overloaded with them, “you shall dress my leg. The walking has shifted the bandage and it plagues me.”
THERE WERE TWO men who were not pleased with the King’s felicity. One of these was Thomas Wriothesley and the other Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester.
It was Wriothesley, the sly and cunning, who discovered through his spies that, in the privacy of her chamber, the Queen read forbidden books, and he hastened to his friend Gardiner to acquaint him with the discovery.
The court was at Windsor, and Gardiner, greatly disturbed by the news that he had helped to put on the throne a Queen who leaned toward Protestantism, suggested that Wriothesley and he should walk together in the Great Park to discuss this matter which he would prefer not to mention within castle walls.
When the two men had put some distance between themselves and the castle, Gardiner said: “This is indeed disturbing news, my friend. I would have sworn that the Queen was a good Catholic.”
“A sly woman, my lord Bishop, I fear. While she was Latimer’s wife, she allowed it to be understood that she was as good a Catholic as you or I. As soon as he dies and she marries His Grace, we find her playing the heretic.”
“A foolish woman, friend Wriothesley. Playing the heretic when she was Latimer’s wife would have been a mild matter. Playing the same as the wife of our Sovereign Lord is another affair. But we waste time
Wriothesley nodded. This was what he expected of Gardiner. He would be ready to strike a blow for Catholicism and strike it in the right direction. Gardiner was a strong man; he had served under Wolsey; his tact and enthusiasm in the affair of the King’s first divorce had placed him in high favor. When Wolsey had fallen, Gardiner became Secretary of State. The Archdeaconry of Leicester and the Bishopric of Winchester had speedily fallen to him. And if the King did not care for him as he had cared for some of his ministers, if Gardiner’s origins were obscure, these facts merely meant that his rise to power was the more spectacular, and if he did not win the King’s love, he had his respect.
“Tell me what you have discovered of the Queen,” went on Gardiner.
“She surrounds herself with those who are interested in the new religion. There are her sister Lady Hertford, the stepdaughter Margaret Neville, the Duchess of Suffolk, Lady Hoby and others. They are secret ‘Reformers’ … as they call themselves. Remember, my lord Bishop, she has some charge of the education of the Prince and Princess. Prince Edward and Princess Elizabeth are but children; their minds could be easily perverted. The Lady Mary is a staunch Catholic and safe from any contamination. But not only has the woman charge of the young Prince and Princess, but of the two Grey girls, and they are near enough to the throne for that fact to be disquietening.”
“You have no need to warn me on that score. We cannot have heretics sharing the throne with the King.”
“Could we not take this matter to the King and lay it before him?”
Gardiner smiled ruefully. He let his gaze rest on the two towers of the castle which were approached by the drawbridge. He was standing on a mound and could see the straggling street with its gabled houses, black and white, which formed the town of Windsor. He could see the winding river, silver under the summer sky, cutting its way through meadows gold with buttercups. But Gardiner had not a thought to spare for the beauties of Nature. Instead he thought of other Queens whom ministers had planned to destroy. He knew that any minister would be a fool to approach an amorous King with tales against the woman he had married as recently as two weeks before.
Cranmer had brought Catharine Howard to the block, but that had been some time after the marriage; yet the King had undoubtedly been infatuated with the woman. But what tales Cranmer had had to set before the King— such tales and such proof that poor nervous Cranmer had dared deprive Henry of a wife with whom he had been in love. And what Protestant Cranmer could do to Catharine Howard, Catholic Gardiner could do to Katharine Parr.
But not yet. Timing was all-important in such matters.
“This needs much thought,” he said slowly. “To strike at the Queen now would be to invite disaster. The King is pleased with her. Two weeks of marriage have increased rather than diminished his pleasure in her. I can assure you, Wriothesley, that she delights him more now with her nursing and her gentle ways than she did before the marriage. The time is not yet.”
“I am sure that you are right, my lord Bishop, but might not delay prove dangerous? It is while the King sets such store by her that she will have the best opportunity of whispering her heresies into his ears.”
The Bishop patted Wriothesley’s arm. “Yet we must wait. Later we shall no doubt have Seymour back at court. Then, mayhap, it may be possible to bring a case against those two. Such a case would be sure of success…if proved, and there are usually ways of proving these matters.” The Bishop’s lips formed into a smile, which disappeared as he looked toward the Castle walls. But they were fardistant and there was no one but his companion to hear this dangerous conversation.
