Jane Seymour, the Haunted Queen Read online

  In the end, she decided that a set of silk handkerchiefs embroidered by herself in gold thread would be most acceptable. The King would surely appreciate the trouble she had taken. And secretly she hoped he would find her embroidery pleasing.

  Wearing their best gowns, the maids went in procession after the Queen to the royal apartments, where King Henry was enthroned beneath his canopy of estate, surrounded by a throng of gentlemen and courtiers. The court cupboards and buffets standing against the walls creaked under the weight of the plate and other gifts given to his Grace that morning, which would be left on display for all to see.

  He rose and greeted his wife, then waited as her gift to him, a bulky shape covered with a rich cloth, was carried in and placed on a table. Anne herself removed the cloth to reveal an exquisite diamond-studded fountain encrusted with rubies and pearls. When she turned a handle, water sprayed from the nipples of three solid-gold naked nymphs.

  The King’s delight was plain. He kissed Anne heartily and thanked her, then signaled to her ladies to come forward in order of rank with their gifts, acknowledging each graciously, as a secretary listed them in a book. Soon it was Jane’s turn. She curtseyed and held out her offerings. She could see at once that the King was impressed.

  “It is gifts like these, made with such care, that mean the most,” he said, smiling down at her. Then she remembered how cruelly he was treating his wife and daughter, and all her pleasure in his appreciation, and in the present he gave her in return—a small silver cup—was spoiled. She murmured her thanks and stepped back, glad to give place to Anne Saville.

  Afterward, she found her brothers among the throng who were moving slowly around the vast chamber, admiring the King’s gifts, and showed them her cup. They had similar ones.

  “I have gifts for you too,” she told them. “I will give them to you at the feast tonight.”

  “Harry is wishing he was at Wulfhall,” Thomas told her.

  Harry looked shamefaced. “I keep thinking of Father and Mother and Dorothy, just the three of them alone, and what it used to be like with all of us there making merry.”

  “I’ve been wishing I could be there too,” Jane told him, “but our parents want us to be here at court, so take comfort in that.”

  Edward was saying little; he seemed preoccupied. When Thomas and Harry were drawn into conversation with a noisy group of young gentlemen, she asked him if all was well.

  “Catherine has died,” he told her. “I had a letter from the Prioress.”

  “I am sorry to hear that.” Jane crossed herself. It had weighed on her conscience that she had not seen Catherine for so long. But Prioress Florence had effectively told her to stay away. Perhaps she should have insisted on visiting, even though it would have been difficult from the court. Should she have gone last year, after she had recovered from her illness?

  “She is to be buried at the church at Horton, near Woodlands, with her forefathers,” Edward told her. “Her mother will be chief mourner.” He was not wearing black, but a rather splendid gown and doublet of a coppery color. His bitterness was still evident.

  “Do the boys know?”

  “Not yet. I will tell them when I go home.” He paused. “Fortunately, they will have a new mother soon. Nan and I are to be married.”

  Jane tried to hide how unwelcome this news was. She had been glad to leave Nan behind in Katherine’s household. Nan was too prideful, too domineering, and she would rule Edward with ease. Even after four years, he was too besotted to see it. As for her being a good stepmother to John and Ned, Jane would not count on it.

  “Congratulations,” she said, forcing a smile. “When is the wedding?”

  “In March, at Rampton in Northamptonshire,” Edward said. “Nan’s family live in the manor house, and she returned there when the Princess Dowager’s household was reduced last spring. Afterward, Father is allowing us to reside at Elvetham.”

  Jane wondered how Nan would get on with Mother. They were opposites in nearly every way. She could see why her father had placed Elvetham, his Hampshire property, at Edward’s disposal. It meant that Edward would not have to live with Father; and Mother would not readily give place to any daughter-in-law, let alone a domineering one. Wulfhall was her domain.

  “I am pleased for you,” she said, and smiled at Edward.

  “You should be,” he replied. “I have been badly used.”

  * * *

  —

  Spring was approaching when Jane was chosen, with Lady Cobham, Lady Parker and Anne Parr, to attend the Queen when she visited the royal nursery at Hatfield. The baby Elizabeth was duly admired and petted, but it was clear that Anne was more preoccupied with planning apartments for the Prince she hoped to bear. She was in her fourth month now, and already they had loosened the laces on her bodice.

  Jane heard her ask Lady Bryan where the Princess Mary was—although she called her the Lady Mary, for that her mother was not supposed to have been lawfully married to the King. Only Elizabeth might be called princess.

  Lady Bryan ushered the Queen into the schoolroom and closed the door behind her. Then she set down the Princess Elizabeth on a quilted mat on the floor. She was a lively flame-haired charmer who was already trying to pull herself to her feet. Jane and the other maids knelt down and offered a silver rattle and a ball, both of which she tried to cram in her mouth. Her dark eyes were everywhere, full of curiosity. As she played with the baby, Jane wondered what was being said within. She feared for Mary, if she persisted in her defiance. She was so good, so loving and devout—her mother’s daughter in every way.

  The door burst open and Anne emerged like a tempest. A woman came hastening after her.

  “Your Grace, she is not a bad girl at heart,” she cried. “She is confused and frightened, and deeply grieved at being separated from her mother. And she is at a difficult age, when the young are wont to be rebellious. She should never have spoken to you like that, but she is her own worst enemy.”

  “I care not!” Anne stormed. “I’m washing my hands of her.”

  They left soon afterward. The Queen was clearly in no mood to waste time prolonging the pleasantries.

  * * *

  —

  Jane fetched the cambric for the smocks that Anne had asked her maids to make for the poor and needy. Anne was already at work, sitting with her brother’s wife, Lady Rochford, an edgy woman with a heart-shaped face and a barbed tongue, who rarely smiled. As the maids took their places, Jane noticed that Lady Rochford was looking especially downcast today.

  They spoke of their work for a few minutes, then Anne summoned her musicians to entertain them as they sewed.

  “You look sad, Lady Rochford,” Lady Berkeley said suddenly.

  Jane Rochford looked up, her eyes on Anne. “I received some sad news today,” she said. “Bishop Fisher has been attainted in Parliament.”

  Anne glared at her. “He treasonously supported the Nun of Kent, who has herself been attainted for treasonously inciting people to oppose my marriage to the King. The woman is mad, but he encouraged her—and he will not recognize me as queen.”

  Jane had heard—who hadn’t?—of the Holy Nun of Kent and her visions, and how she went about the county warning of what would happen if the King set aside his lawful wife. It was madness, but she was more to be pitied than condemned. No sane person would persist in such folly.

  “The Bishop is a devout and good man,” Lady Rochford countered, “and a great friend of my father; they share a love of learning, and they both served the King’s grandmother, the Lady Margaret, who was herself a holy woman. My father was present when she died during a Mass celebrated by the Bishop. So perhaps your Grace can understand why I am shocked that such a saintly man has been attainted.”

  “He may be saintly, but he is misguided at best,” Anne retorted, “and because he is saintly and people reve
re him and respect his opinions, he is dangerous. If we make an example of him, our enemies will be forced to see the error of their ways.”

  Lady Rochford had blenched. “How do you mean, make an example?”

  “A spell in the Tower should be sufficient,” Anne said coldly.

  Jane doubted that would turn the good Bishop from his convictions, God save him. These were sad times indeed, when men like him were thrown into jail for standing up for what was right.

  * * *

  —

  The King would brook no further defiance. That spring, Anne gathered her household in her presence chamber and announced that Parliament had passed an Act vesting the succession to the crown of England in his children by Queen Anne, and confirming the bastardy of his daughter Mary. Jane was deeply perturbed, because all the King’s subjects, if so commanded, were to swear an oath acknowledging the King’s supremacy, his lawful matrimony to Queen Anne, and the Princess Elizabeth as his legitimate heir. Those refusing to swear would be accounted guilty of abetting treason and sent to prison.

  As they all left the room, Jane found she was trembling. What would she do when she herself was required to swear the oath, which would be required of everyone in royal service? It went against everything in which she believed. It was her beliefs, her sense of right and wrong, that gave her integrity and made her what she was. Could she deny all that by taking the oath? How could she bring herself to repudiate the sacred authority of the Holy Father in Rome, and all that he stood for? She could not perjure her immortal soul, or betray the true Queen and Princess. And yet what might happen to her if she refused it? She would be dismissed in disgrace, and imprisoned. Her brothers would fall from favor; her family might suffer. She could not do that to them.

  Would it be possible to take the oath with reservations? She was terrified of going to prison. She could feel the walls closing in on her…As soon as she was free, she sought out her brothers and asked for advice, but they were all ready to swear the oath, and told her to set aside her concerns. She asked Bryan, who advised her to bend with the times. She asked Margery and Anne Parr and Lady Margaret Douglas.

  They all said it was best to bow to the King’s will.

  But what was it that Scripture enjoined? “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” This, surely, was a matter for God, for it was His Son who had instituted the Papacy and Holy Church. Dear God, she prayed ceaselessly, what shall I do?

  * * *

  —

  God, speaking through the Pope, had pronounced sentence at last. The King’s marriage to Queen Katherine was good and lawful, and he must put away the Lady Anne and restore his wife to her proper place.

  Jane had heard the news from the King himself when he had come charging into the Queen’s chamber like an enraged bull and shouted it out. Anne had been visibly shaken, and her hand had gone instinctively to her belly—and no wonder, for what would happen to her now?

  But the King was adamant. “This Pope—this Bishop of Rome—shall learn that his sentence no longer carries any weight in England!” It chilled Jane to hear him. This momentous news was what she and all England had been waiting for, but now she feared that nothing would change.

  “I will never forsake you,” the King told Anne. Jane recalled Bryan saying that Henry had gone too far to turn back, but she wondered what would happen if the child Anne was carrying turned out to be another daughter.

  On Easter Day, after Mass, Jane listened in horror as the Queen’s chaplain informed his flock of the wickedness of Pope Clement, and exhorted all true subjects to pray every Sunday for King Henry VIII as being, next unto God, the Supreme Head of the Church, and Anne, his wife, and Elizabeth, their Princess.

  The Queen’s strident aunt, Lady Boleyn, whom Anne tolerated only because her beloved uncle James was her chancellor, took pleasure in telling her that there had been celebrations in several places in anticipation of the Princess Dowager’s return to favor. Anne gave her a withering look.

  * * *

  —

  The King’s officers came to the Queen’s apartments and all her servants lined up to take the oath. Jane took her place with the other maids-of-honor, her heart racing. The previous evening, when she had learned what would be required of her this day, she had gone to the chaplain who usually shrove her, and blurted out, under the seal of the confessional, all her fears. Was it a worse sin to follow her conscience and disobey the King, with all the consequences that would result, than to take the oath without meaning it?

  There was a silence from behind the grille. “My child, the King’s Highness is Supreme Head of the Church, with authority over spiritual matters. What makes you so certain that your conscience is leading you in the path of righteousness? Is your understanding better than his?”

  Jane was about to answer truthfully, but she paused. This priest was a royal chaplain in the Queen’s employ, and might be a reformer like her. Could she trust him?

  “It is because I fear that I have not perfectly understood that I have come to you,” she said carefully. “It is hard to change the beliefs and certainties you have held all your life.” She did not add that she was as sure of them as she was of her own existence, and that she could never change them. Already she knew that this confession had been a mistake.

  “Indeed,” the chaplain said. Then he surprised her. “Remember that God hears what you are thinking, whereas humans hear only what you say. Therefore, your duty as a Christian is to tell the truth to God. Reserving some of that truth from the ears of human hearers is a moral act if it serves a greater good.”

  It was as if the weight of the world had slid from her shoulders. “Thank you, Father,” she murmured.

  He had given her a light penance for all her small venial sins, and dismissed her. She left the chapel wondering if he himself had reservations about the oath.

  Now she was next in line. She stepped forward, placed her hand on the Bible, fixed her mind on God and read aloud what was written on the document given to her: “I, Jane Seymour, swear to bear faith, truth and obedience to the King’s Majesty, and to his heirs of the body of his most dear and entirely beloved lawful wife Queen Anne, begotten and to be begotten. I do utterly testify and declare in my conscience that the King’s Highness is the only Supreme Governor of this realm, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things as temporal; and that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate has, or ought to have, any jurisdiction within this realm. And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all such powers or authorities, and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance to the King’s Highness, his heirs and lawful successors, so help me God.”

  It was done. She told herself she had made the right decision.

  * * *

  —

  That afternoon, being off duty, she walked in the gardens, enjoying one of the first really warm days of the year. She had arranged to meet Edward. He was newly arrived back at court, and she wanted to hear about the wedding.

  He was infinitely more cheerful than when she had last seen him, and gave her a brotherly hug. They strolled together between the flower beds.

  “It was a fine occasion,” he told her. “Father and Mother came with Dorothy and the boys, Lizzie sent a gift, and there were a whole host of Stanhope relations. Nan’s parents had spared no expense. It was a lavish feast.”

  “And Nan? Did she make a beautiful bride?” Jane asked.

  “Nan would look beautiful in anything,” Edward said, still clearly besotted.

  Jane smothered her resentment. “And has she settled in happily at Elvetham?”

  “Yes,” Edward said, but without conviction. “The truth is, she longs to be at court. Alas, it seems there is no place available. We asked Francis to speak for her, but he said his credit with Queen Anne is not what it was.�
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  Jane was secretly relieved that Nan would not be joining the Queen’s household. One shrew was enough! Anne’s temper had been very uncertain lately.

  “And the boys? Do they like her?”

  Edward hesitated. “Alas, no. She has not taken to them, and they know it. I’ve left them at Wulfhall. She wants me to disinherit them.”

  It was exactly what Jane had feared. “But you will not, will you?”

  “In faith, I do not know, Jane. Nan tells me it is the right thing to do, for their legitimacy is dubious. She says the way must be clear for our sons to inherit.”

  “But the law presumes that John and Ned are your lawful sons.”

  “Yes, but we know that they might not be. And Nan is adamant. So I have said I will think on the matter.”

  Jane reflected that, for all his ability, his learning and his air of authority, her brother was malleable and weak. Already, it seemed, the strong-willed Nan ruled him. But if it lay in her, Jane would not let those young boys be disinherited. They had suffered enough through the loss of their mother.

  “Think very carefully,” she enjoined. “Do what is just.” He looked away.

  They walked on toward the tennis courts. A burly black-haired man in a long black gown was coming toward them. Jane recognized the heavy-set face and shrewd eyes of Master Cromwell, one of the most powerful men at court. Since the disgrace of the Cardinal, he had risen to become the King’s chief adviser. He was a supporter of Anne, and Jane had seen him several times when he had been a guest in the Queen’s apartments.