The Baker's Daughter Volume 1 Page 9

  The Archbishop stepped forward. He knew that Katharine would not consent to listen to anyone who would not give her what she considered to be her rightful title. He decided that the best way around that was to use none, even if doing so was considered rude. After all, who cared about Katharine’s feelings anymore? No one of any importance.

  “We are here to administer to you the Oath to the Act of Succession,” said Edward Lee.

  Katharine replied promptly. “That is an oath that I shall never take,” she said firmly. “You waste your time.” How could she take such an oath, which required that she recognize Anne Boleyn as the rightful Queen of England, that she declare her own marriage invalid, and her daughter, the granddaughter of the Most Catholic Kings, a bastard? To what end? To save her life?

  At that thought, the room began to spin and there was a whirring sound in her ears. It was as if she were watching her life played before her eyes, not in any meaningful sequence, but all in a jumble. Certain scenes were disjointed, hard to place into their proper context; others stood out with startling clarity.

  In her mind’s eye she saw the keep at Buckden, and imagined what the angry duke of Suffolk must have looked like on the other side of the sturdy oak door that separated them. On the threat that she was to be removed, in the dead of winter, to an even more noisome place than Buckden, she had bolted herself in the keep, leaving the frustrated duke to fume helplessly on the other side. The purpose of that visit had been to persuade her to accept the title of Princess Dowager, instead of queen, and if she would not, well then, let her be sent to an even worse place than Buckden. Katharine believed, as did her doctors, that she would not survive such a move. Everything that Henry had done to her she could forgive; but to seek her death? Could she forgive him that? Yes, she decided, she could forgive even that; but that did not stop her heart from breaking.

  From high up in the keep Katharine’s thoughts were distracted by two things simultaneously. First, the smell of smoke pierced her nostrils. The duke was attempting to burn her out. Then a movement outside caught her eye. She peered out of the wind eye. An astonishing sight met her eyes. The Buckden villagers had arrived, carrying all forms of crude weapons. The duke, expecting no opposition from a helpless woman and her few remaining servants, had not brought a large force of arms. The smell of smoke gradually faded; the villagers milled about threateningly. Finally, the duke rode off.

  Her vision cleared. She was still standing. All the time that she had been in her dream world, the harangue had continued, but she had heard none of it. The Archbishop’s face was red with anger, and there was spittle at the corners of his mouth. Bishop Tunstall stood looking forlorn and uncomfortable.

  “And you, My Lord Bishop,” said Katharine politely. “Are you not supposed to be my advocate in all of this? Are you also here to force this oath from me?”

  Bishop Tunstall shifted his stance uneasily. “I am, Madam, still your advocate, at the king’s pleasure,” replied Tunstall. “I am here to give you sound advice. Take the oath. God will understand.”

  Katharine inclined her head. “Will He, then? How do you know this?”

  A wave of red crept up the bishop’s face from his neck to his hairline. Why could this stubborn woman not just give way, and have done?

  “We ask, Madam, that you simply mouth a few certain words and then all will be well. The king will provide handsomely for you. Why make all this fuss over something that is already a reality?” Cuthbert Tunstall’s eyes pleaded along with his words. Both men feared failure; both men feared the king’s wrath.

  Katharine shook her head. “I am sorry. I cannot take this oath, as you well know.”

  The Archbishop exploded in anger. “Any person, high or low, who refuses to take this oath is guilty of treason,” he said. “Including you, Madam!”

  Katharine stood her ground. It was not just that the Act required one to recognize Anne’s children by the king as the legitimate heirs to the throne. As distasteful as that was to her, the Act of Succession went much further. It demanded that one renounce the power of any foreign authority or potentate. For some men, such as Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, that meant denying the authority in England of Rome and the Pope. Such was enough to ensure that neither of them would ever speak its words. But for Katharine the implication was that she must also renounce her nephew, Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor, and that she would never do.

  It was time to call their bluff.

  Katharine raised her head and squared her shoulders. “My Lords, if either of you has a commission to execute such a penalty on me, so be it. I am ready. I ask only to die in the sight of the people.”

  Archbishop Lee glared at her for a long moment, then turned on his heel, and strode angrily away without a word, the timid Bishop Tunstall following in his wake.

  Katharine sighed. Another battle won. But she feared that it was just a matter of time before she lost the war.

  Woodstock, Oxfordshire, June 1534

  The heat was oppressive and there was not even the breath of a breeze to stir the stale air that had descended upon the valley. The members of the small court were glad that the unpleasant weather had driven the king to take advantage of the baths that his father, Henry VII, had caused to be built within the confines of the hunting lodge at Woodstock; it freed them from the constant watch of the peevish royal eye. Fresh water from a spring had been piped in for the purpose of creating the baths. The same source had been tapped to create a fountain in the courtyard.

  Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, stooped to soak the cloth he used to mop his sweating brow into the cool waters of the fountain. He sat on the stone ledge and for a blissful moment, closed his eyes and pressed the damp cloth to his face.

  “Thomas Cranmer!” a voice bellowed from inside the building. It startled him so that he almost fell backwards into the water. For a brief moment, he wished he had. It might have served to delay by a few minutes this dreaded meeting with the king.

  Cromwell appeared in the courtyard, his face a study in agitation, the sweat dripping into his eyes. He ran an impatient hand across his face. “The king requests your presence immediately,” he shouted, then retreated back into the shade of the corridor.

  Cranmer wished for the hundredth time that he had remained in quiet obscurity. If only his idea to canvass the great universities of Europe about the King’s Great Matter had never been mooted! In the end, the effort had availed nothing substantive, but his ingenious idea had brought him to the king’s notice. And so here he was. He was not meant for the greatness which had been thrust upon him. He knew that now. He was the king’s helpless tool, nothing more. He would be a fool to believe differently. He had been promoted simply to do the king’s bidding because the king knew him to be weak and disinclined to do otherwise. Indeed, how could he do other than as the king bid him? His elevation had surprised everyone. He had previously held only minor positions in the Church. The king himself had personally financed the papal bulls necessary for his promotion to the See of Canterbury. The bulls were easily acquired because the papal nuncio was under orders from Rome to please the English in an effort to avert a final breach with Holy Church. Once he was consecrated, Henry made it abundantly clear that he expected him to declare the king’s marriage to Katharine of Aragon null and void, and condone, in the name of the English church, the desired union with Anne Boleyn. The only concession that the desperate king had made to his, Cranmer’s, sensibilities was that he had not been required to perform the marriage rite. He had, however, presided at the new queen’s coronation. He had anointed Anne with holy chrism and handed her the scepter. He shook these uncomfortable thoughts away.

  As he passed from the blistering courtyard into the damp coolness of the corridor Cranmer met the uneasy eyes of the Bishop of Durham and the Archbishop of York. Cuthbert Tunstall looked as if he had been pole-axed. Edward Lee’s brows were drawn down together in a deep frown. For a moment the three men stood in the shady corridor regardi
ng each other. The raucous caws of a murder of crows and the cacophony of summer insects filled the air. For a brief moment the noise was almost deafening.

  Bishop Tunstall shook his head. “This is a bad business,” he said worriedly. “A very bad business. What are we to say to His Grace?”

  “What can we say, but the truth?” rejoined Archbishop Lee.

  “The truth has lost many a man his head,” replied Bishop Tunstall tartly.

  Once in the king’s presence, the three men sought to cloak themselves in the safety of their clerical robes. But they knew in their hearts that that time was past. A breach with Rome was imminent, and nevermore would they be able to plead that their allegiance to the Church must needs supersede their allegiance to their sovereign lord.

  Henry reclined in his bath. The great marble tub was lined with fine linen sheets, the ends of which were draped across the floor.

  Cromwell stood to the side of the king’s bath. Cranmer noted the hunted look in his eyes. So he was afraid and wary, too. It was becoming evident that any man who wished to keep his head upon his shoulders must look to himself. And that was doubly true for those closest to the king. Were not the king’s closest friends being held in the Tower at this very moment, for their refusal to swear fealty to the Act of Succession?

  Henry regarded the three clergymen with a gimlet eye. “Well?” he asked. “And what says the Princess Dowager?” He ran a hand through his damp hair. The men hesitated. Suddenly, Henry grasped the sides of the bath and raised himself, dripping wet and naked, to his full height. A frightened body servant scuttled forward with a great cloth, but the king waved him away impatiently. Henry stood, the water glistening on his body, feet apart, hands on hips.

  “I will tell you what she has not said!” he roared. “I’ll trow that the Princess Dowager has not sworn an oath to the Act of Succession! You have failed in your mission!”

  Archbishop Lee cleared his throat. “Your Grace, the Queen…” Too late, he realized his error; Katharine was no longer the queen.

  Henry ignored the faux pas. “The Lady Katharine has a haughty spirit, and I daresay she will never speak an oath to the Act! She has caused me no end of trouble!”

  Sir William Brereton, one of the men of the king’s privy chamber, came forward with the king’s shirt. Instead of holding forth to be dressed, Henry snatched the shirt angrily from Sir William’s hands and used it to wipe his wet face. He regarded the shirt for a moment, then threw it from him onto the floor. It was a shirt Katharine had made for him. Why must she persist in such activities, when she knew full well his feelings toward her?

  “Fetch me another!” he shouted.

  “Begging Your Grace’s pardon,” said Cromwell, “but why do you not simply force the Princess Dowager to take the oath?”

  Cranmer, Tunstall and Lee took an unconscious step backwards, as if to remove themselves ever so much further from the path of the royal wrath.

  Sir William approached again, this time with the king’s voluminous robe. Henry stepped from the bath onto the rushes and held out his arms. As the king donned the robe and pulled it about him, he considered this remark.

  Calmly now he said, “I have no wish to make a martyr of her, even if that is the fate she has so willingly chosen for herself. I know that she encourages my daughter in her obstinacy as well. Was ever a man as cursed as I with such recalcitrant females?”

  The men remained silent, unsure as to whether or not an answer was expected.

  Henry nibbled his thumbnail and began pacing the room, leaving little trails of water in his wake. Suddenly he turned and said peevishly, “The Lady Katharine is a proud, stubborn woman of very high courage. Why, if she took it into her head to take her daughter’s part, she could quite easily take the field, muster a great army, and wage against me a war as fierce as any her mother, Queen Isabella, ever waged in Spain! I wonder she has not done so already!”

  “Your Majesty,” said Cromwell in his soothing voice. “The Princess Dowager knows full well that any such endeavor would need the full support of the Emperor Charles, and that I am certain he will not provide. The Emperor’s lukewarm responses to the least of the Lady Katharine and the Lady Mary’s entreaties indicate that there is no risk of any sort of military support from that quarter. You need not fear such a thing.”

  Henry exploded in rage. “I need not fear? I need not fear? It is these troublesome women who should go in fear! Oh, yes, I have noted Katharine’s trust and hope in her glorious nephew! Her appeals to that quarter amount to allegiance to a foreign power! There, that is treason! And her stubborn refusal to relinquish the title of queen! There, that is treason again! It is she, not I, who should walk in fear!”

  Cuthbert Tunstall raised a nervous fist to his lips and cleared his throat. He was still smarting from Katharine’s derisive remark about the quality of his counsel. “The Princess Dowager has said that she will never speak the oath, Your Grace. The lady has said that a wife is bound to a husband not only by law, but because it is God’s will. She believes that despite all pretended judgments to the contrary, she is your true wife and she will never consent to be known by any other title than Queen of England.”

  Henry let out a snort. “And well do I know that! Katharine is full of arrogance, selfishness and inordinate vainglory, and her stubbornness is likely to lead this country into disputes over the succession, and civil war! Much blood will be spilt, and my kingdom utterly destroyed! And all so that she can call herself my wife and queen!”

  Tunstall stood his ground. He had no wish to die, but the king himself had charged him with defending Katharine, and that he would do. “The princess has many times said that she takes greater glory in being called the daughter of the Most Catholic Kings than the greatest queen in the world against her own conscience.”

  Yes,” said Henry. “I know it well. She is far too aware of her own royal dignity, is she not? Not only is she the daughter of two reigning monarchs, but her mother descends from both of John of Gaunt’s legitimate marriages, whereas my descent is from the wrong side of the blanket. All know this. I applaud her sense of destiny and family allegiance. But to my mind, she is as crazy as her sister Joanna, and she is as obsessed with me as that lady was with Philip the Handsome. Is it for the foolish obsession of a treasonous madwoman that this country should go to war? She could have taken the veil. That was an honorable retreat available to her, was it not? Had she done so, our marriage could have been automatically dissolved without any reference at all to its original validity. I could then have made reasonable provision for her as my widowed sister-in-law. The Lady Mary could have been legitimized. Then I would have been free to see to the succession without all this anguish! Must we someday face the eventuality of this realm falling into the hands of a foreigner through Mary’s marriage? Or worse yet, into the hands of my sister Margaret’s impudent whelp? Heaven forefend!”

  Cromwell considered this remark. “But Your Grace, James of Scotland is not named in the Act of Succession.”

  “Indeed he is not,” retorted Henry. “Think you that was an oversight? But when I am dead, who will be my closest legitimate male relative? The Act may be disregarded, and the people may rise against the rule of one whom they think bastard. And who would want to be ruled by a woman? Is that not the very thing that I have been seeking all this time to avoid?”

  “Your Grace, I do not believe that the people would ever accept a Scot on the throne of England,” replied Cromwell.

  None of the other men in the room dared utter a word. They had heard it all before; they would likely hear it all again and again before time revealed the truth of what was to be. But that did not stop their thoughts; Bishop Lee was thinking that it was a good thing that the young Earl of Lincoln had followed his mother to the grave barely nine months after her death; the people of England would not have accepted the son of Charles Brandon on the throne, either. But at least now that need not be said.

  Cuthbert Tunstall shifted uneasily
on his feet. It was oppressively hot and deathly still in the room. If only the angry king would invite them all to sit while he vented his rage.

  The king was silent for a moment, and then he continued in a softer voice. “It is the Lady Mary who is my worst enemy,” he said. “She seeks to turn my loyal subjects against me, and it is her fault along with her mother’s that none of the European rulers recognize my marriage to the queen.”

  Now they were on dangerous ground.

  Henry threw himself into a chair. The other men took this as a sign that they might also sit. Only Cromwell remained standing.

  “Wine!” bellowed the king.

  Cromwell had waved Sir William and the body servant from the room. He went to the sideboard and poured some ruby liquid into a golden goblet. He knew that Henry would never admit to anyone that his marriage to Anne was a disaster, but all knew this to be true. Their marriage was recognized by no foreign court, Anne was accepted as queen and Henry’s true wife at no court in Europe, and everywhere Elizabeth was deemed a bastard, including by many in England. Every time he thought these disturbing thoughts, he felt the cool blade of the axe on his neck. Was it not his machinations that had eventually won Henry his second bride?

  The king took a long pull from his wine. “All this could have been avoided,” said Henry, “had the Princess Dowager been thinking of the good of England and not only of her own pride.”

  Cromwell agreed, but said nothing. Many people sympathized with Katharine and thought she had been grievously wronged. Whilst that may be true at a personal level, at the dynastic level it was a catastrophe. But if one was to tally blame in this whole debacle, there was plenty to go around. He dared not voice his opinion on the matter, but if Henry had listened to Wolsey’s good counsel and petitioned Pope Clement for an annulment based on the impediment of public honesty, and not on the grounds that Julius’ dispensation was flawed, he might have been successful in getting his marriage to Katharine dissolved. Attacking the infallibility of a pope when there was an alternative had seemed folly to him at the time, and he had not changed his mind on the matter. Henry had left Clement little ground to work with, and so had come up empty-handed. No, worse than that, really; it had cost Henry years of precious time, and the result had been inevitable. The Roman Curia had eventually found for the queen, long after such a decision was enforceable. Everyone involved had lost. Well, almost everyone.