In the Shadow of the Crown - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,112

be expected to emerge as an innocent maiden.

I had not liked her and I had thought my father had demeaned himself by doting on her so blatantly. Perhaps I was angry because he had treated my own mother so shamefully, humiliating a great princess of Spain and becoming so foolishly enslaved by this ill-bred little girl. But when I heard the state the poor child was in and how she had taken the news, I felt an overwhelming pity for her.

She had almost gone into a frenzy. She had seen the axe hanging over her head. It was what all my father's wives must have felt when they offended him. The ghost of Anne Boleyn would haunt them all as long as they lived.

And this one was really only a child, in spite of her knowledge of the needs of men. She would not know how to defend herself. She would only think of what had happened to her own beautiful, clever cousin who had found herself in a position similar to that which now confronted her. The difference might be that Anne Boleyn had been innocent; but was Catharine Howard? On the other hand, the King had wished to be rid of Anne that he might marry Jane Seymour. He certainly did not wish to be rid of Catharine Howard.

The shadow of the axe would hang over every bride of my father's from the day of her wedding. Catharine must have felt secure in his love—so petted, so pampered, she was the pretty little thing who knew so well how to please. Had it never occurred to him that she might have learned her tricks through practice?

They told me about her, how she had babbled in her anguish, how she had worked herself up to a frenzy and to such an extent that they feared for her sanity.

How could she help it? Poor girl, she was so young, so full of life. She enjoyed life to such an extent that she could not bear the thought of having it snatched from her.

She believed, naturally, that if she could speak to the King, if she could cajole him, if she could, by her presence, remind him of the happiness she had brought him and still could…he would save her. He would cherish her still. But the wicked men would not allow her to see him. They would keep them apart because they knew that, if she could but speak to him for a moment, this nightmare for her would be over.

They said that when she heard he was in the Hampton Court chapel she ran along the gallery calling his name. But they stopped her before she reached him. They dragged her back to her chamber and set guards on her so that the King should not be aware of her terrible distress. They must have believed, as she did, that if he saw her, he would forgive her.

Susan and I discussed the matter. I suppose everyone was discussing it. We learned many things about the life Catharine Howard had lived before the King set eyes on her and made her his Queen. We heard details of the establishment of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, of the young people who had been under her care… only there was no care.

It was a sordid little story. I could picture it all… the long dormitory, those high-spirited young people. For a girl of Catharine's temperament there would be temptations, and she was not a girl to resist them. Therein lay her great attraction. There would have been many to enjoy what had so pleased the King.

I remembered that she had taken Francis Dereham into her household at Pontefract. What a little fool she was to do so. She was foolish not to see the danger which would have been obvious to a more worldly person. Her knowledge of sexual adventuring might be great but she had no understanding of human nature. It would never occur to her that, for some to see the little Catharine Howard—the poor girl who had scarcely been able to clothe herself—now reveling in the silks and satins which she loved, would arouse great envy, and envy is a most destructive passion.

It all came out… the flirtations with Manox, the musician, the familiarities she allowed Francis Dereham, who wanted to marry her and claimed her as his wife. It had been as though they were married. And she, as Queen, had brought this man, the lover of her