The Queen's Mistake (56 page)

Catherine rode on horseback, weak and defeated. Margaret, Lady Arundel, Lord Baynton and his wife, Isabel, rode silently and stoically beside her, along with a contingent of royal guards thick enough to prevent any thought of escape. But she had no desire to run. Her will was sapped, since she knew that Thomas had been taken to the Tower, as had Jane. Even the dowager duchess had been detained for her crimes, though the old woman’s fate seemed uncertain. Catherine was to remain at Syon Abbey until her case could be heard. That was more consideration than Thomas, Jane or the duchess had received.

Catherine did not realize, at first, that the train had stopped until she saw the commotion. She could see one of the king’s guards speaking with another who had ridden out from Richmond Palace. His tunic bore the emblem of Cleves. Catherine waited silently as the two men spoke back and forth. Finally, the guard went to Lord Baynton.

Catherine was completely ignored in their exchange.

“The princess of Cleves craves a word with the lady,” the guard blandly announced. “Our orders were to see her directly to the abbey, but considering the lady’s position as the king’s good sister, we risk insulting her, and thereby His Majesty, if we do not pay our respects.”

Catherine glanced at Isabel, but her long, slim face betrayed nothing. “They say you may have five minutes,” she said evenly.

They advanced down a treelined causeway as the majestic palace, with its massive stables and outbuildings, blossomed into full
view. There was a great deal of activity in the courtyard, horses being led by grooms and gardeners carrying flowers and greenery, as if it were any other day. Catherine was helped from her horse by someone in a cloak and hat whom she recognized as the Earl of Waldeck, Anne’s aide.

“Her Grace knows you haven’t much time,” he said in his deep, thickly accented English. “She will meet with you in there.” He pointed to the rounded, open side door to the stables. “You will have only a moment. It is all Her Grace dares risk.”

A guardsman left Catherine at the door, and she was alone as she entered the small side room of the stables, which smelled strongly of horses and hay. A great shaft of sunlight filtered in from a small window near the roof. A moment later, Catherine heard soft footsteps.

She turned and completely lost what was left of her heart.

Catherine almost did not recognize him. Gone was the gorgeous courtier with the dazzling smile, the perfectly tousled hair and the costly wardrobe. The man who stood before her was beaten, his wrists chained. She went to him, a low, anguished sob tearing up her throat.

“Oh, look at you. . . .” She wept, wrapping her arms around Thomas as he bent for a moment to nestle his face against her hair.

“Look at us both. Yet you still smell of flowers.”

His square, perfect jaw was bruised, and there was an open wound near his eye. She had known that his confession would not have been extracted from him with ease. But she did not want to waste a moment on details that did not matter now.

“How is this even possible?” she murmured.

“You were good to Her Grace. She never forgot,” Thomas said gently.

“She told you that?”

“Her man, the one distracting the others, told me.”

Catherine shook her head, unable to see through her tears. “But how did she even know? We were only ever discreet.”

“Apparently the only one who did not know was the king.”

“I was never unfaithful. You know that. I never meant to hurt him.”

“Nor did I. I believe, somewhere in that wounded heart, he knows it. But Cranmer and the others have convinced him otherwise.”

Tenderly, yet with all the love she had ever felt, Catherine pressed her lips to his. Bittersweet. Fateful. A final moment. “I love you,” she whispered.

“And I will love you for all eternity.”

She gently kissed his cheek, then his chin, where sweat and dried blood mingled.

“Only a moment more,” a deep Teutonic accent warned from beyond the door.

Catherine tried to stop her sobbing, but it was impossible.

“I want you to know,” Thomas said brokenly, “I do not regret anything, not a moment, even if it brings me death.”

“Nor do I.” She wept.

“Do you not believe in our Lord’s heaven?”

“I do. Even now.”

He tipped his head and tried his best to conjure that familiar smile. “Then we will meet there, all right? I shall be the one waiting for you to come and mend my broken heart.”

He was doing his best to look brave, to be, as always, what she needed.

“I cannot bear this!”

“Be brave. It is not lost for you yet. You are going to the abbey, not the Tower. He still has time to reconsider.”

“No!” she cried. “I have no wish to live in a world without you in it!”

Catherine was clinging to him when she felt a hand clamp on her shoulder. “I’m afraid it is time,” the earl said.

Thomas pressed a kiss onto her cheek. “Don’t cry. Please don’t let that be my last vision of you.”

“I cannot help it.” She choked on a sob.

“We both can help it. Because we both know you did not actually betray him. Neither of us did.”

“I did in my heart.” Catherine wept. “I only truly loved
you.
”

“But you were faithful to the king with your body. Go to your death bravely, if that is where the road leads you, as I shall go to mine.”

The Earl of Waldeck began gently to pull her. “You must return to the courtyard. You have risked too much time here already.”

“When do you leave?” she foolishly asked, knowing that the answer would torture her for as long as she lived.

“I am at Richmond only as long as you are. The princess of Cleves cannot risk detaining us any longer than that. Since it falls on the road to London, I do not think the king will question her if she says that one of the horses fell lame and needed to be changed.”

Catherine pressed a final kiss onto his mouth, and Thomas kissed her back with all his passion.

“I adore you,” she said, weeping.

“Meet me,” he urged her with that same knowing smile. “I shall be first, so I will be waiting. Come to me in heaven, my love.”

She felt hollow as they parted from each other, but she could not help but think to herself,
I regret nothing. I would not change a thing.

These last moments were a gift. She would have thanked Anne,
but she knew everything and everyone she touched from now on was at risk.

As the former queen rode on, Syon Abbey grew before her, a great, monolithic prison, and the palace of Richmond faded behind her. She had made her share of youthful mistakes, but she had also tried to be what everyone wanted her to be. For a single, shining moment, she believed she had been a glorious queen, and that everyone else’s wishes were her own.

But her heart had remained true. She knew that God would see them together, for He knew that, of all the mistakes she had made, Thomas could never be counted among them.

History might judge her differently.

She held her head up to the sunlight, feeling its warmth through the wind as she rode toward the abbey. She refused to cry anymore. She refused defeat.

As she thought of Thomas and how soon they would meet again, she smiled.

Author’s Note

T
homas Culpeper and Francis Dereham were tried for treason and were executed at Tyburn on December 10, 1541. Catherine Howard was subsequently tried and found guilty of adultery and high treason against the king. Owing to Henry VIII’s affection for his youthful companion, Thomas was not drawn, quartered and disemboweled, as he might have been. Rather, for the crime of loving the king’s wife, he was shown leniency and simply beheaded. Dereham was not shown the same mercy. Both of their heads were later put on display at London Bridge. Thomas Culpeper was subsequently buried in St. Sepulchre-Without-Newgate in London.

On February 13, 1542, Catherine was executed at Tower Green as Anne Boleyn had been just six years earlier. Just as her husband had been also six years before, Lady Rochford was beheaded, as well, having been found guilty of assisting the queen and Culpeper. Catherine Howard was buried near her cousin within the walls of the Tower beneath the altar pavement in the chapel royal.

As in each of my novels, I have taken great care in
The Queen’s Mistake
to recount historical events as they occurred. Various subplots and the motivations of some secondary characters, where necessary,
are fictionally enhanced. In this book the historical character Mary Lassells’s story was combined with that of Joan Bulmer, another of the Horsham servants, for the sake of brevity. I have also modernized Catherine’s single surviving letter to Thomas for clarity, and I have repeated the rumor that Henry VIII was the composer of the English folk song “Greensleeves,” although this is disputed by scholars and it is believed to be Elizabethan in origin.

As she went to her death on the block at Tower Green, Catherine Howard staunchly maintained that she had never been unfaithful to Henry VIII during the time of their marriage. Her fervent pleas to meet privately with him went unanswered, and ghostly sightings have existed for centuries of Henry’s fifth queen haunting the halls of Hampton Court, crying out, unanswered, for her husband’s mercy.

On July 12, 1543, Henry married Katherine Parr, his sixth and final queen. Their marriage lasted four years, until his death on January 28, 1547, at the age of fifty-six.

—DH

Diane Haeger
is the author of several novels of historical and women’s fiction. She has a degree in English literature and an advanced degree in clinical psychology, which she credits with helping her bring to life complicated characters and their relationships. She lives in Newport Beach with her husband and children.

READERS GUIDE

The Queen’s Mistake

IN THE COURT OF HENRY VIII

DIANE HAEGER