In the Shadow of the Crown - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,115

her as they did…?” I looked at her steadily. She blinked and went on, “As they did my mother?”

It was rarely that I heard her speak of her mother. What happened to Anne Boleyn was something she kept to herself and brooded on. Not even Margaret Bryan knew how she felt about her mother. Whether she remembered her and mourned her, I do not know. It was always difficult to tell with Elizabeth. Anne Boleyn was not a person who could be easily forgotten, and she was Elizabeth's mother.

“I like her,” she said.

“She is a sort of cousin to me.”

“Yes, I know.”

“She is very pretty.”

I nodded.

“My father loved her dearly.” She frowned.

“Why does he no longer do so? And what will happen to her now?”

I could only fall back on those often-repeated words: “We shall have to wait and see.”

Edward came in. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

“The Queen,” Elizabeth replied.

“Why don't we see her now? She is in disgrace, is she not?”

“She is in prison,” Elizabeth told him.

“In the Tower.”

“In the Tower. That is for wicked people.”

“The King puts his wives there when he doesn't like them any more,” said Elizabeth, and she turned away abruptly and ran from the room. I think she was going to cry and did not want us to see her do so.

I thought: She does remember her mother. Perhaps also she was crying for Catharine. Elizabeth was resolute and strong and she had already come to terms with an uncertain existence such as we all must who relied on the favor of the King.

THEY WERE BRINGING CATHARINE to Sion House, and we had orders to move. We were going to Havering-atte-Bower. I was sad. I should have liked to be near the Queen. So would Elizabeth. We might have comforted her a little.

How sordid this was! How dreary! Why did they pursue it? It was clear that Catharine had behaved freely with certain men. They were tortured, but Dereham would admit only that he had loved Catharine as his wife because he had once regarded her as such. Was that a sin, for there was no question then of her marrying the King? He was a brave man, this Dereham; they tortured him cruelly and tried to make him admit that there had been impropriety between him and the Queen since her marriage, but he would not do so.

Catharine had denied any sexual involvement at first but after a while she broke down and confessed to it.

I know my father was suffering in his way. There was no proof that she had committed adultery in the case of Culpepper. I daresay she had flirted a little with him. It was in her nature to flirt with men—particularly those who admired her—and most did.

I went on wondering whether the King's obsession with her would override his pride. I think it might have done—and if it did, men like Sir Thomas Wriothesley and perhaps Cranmer would find themselves out of favor.

They had seen what happened to Thomas Cromwell over Anne of Cleves. He had died, it would seem, more because he had provided the King with a bride he did not like than for the foreign policy he had pursued with the German princes and the charges which had been brought against him.

So there were powerful men who would find a reconciliation an embarrassment to themselves, and they made sure that the story of Catharine's misdemeanors was circulated abroad. François, King of France, forever mischievous, wrote his condolences to his brother of England. That was the deciding factor. My father could not take back a wife who had humiliated him, however much he wanted her.

I wished that I could have gone to her. Elizabeth did, too. The child was deeply upset. She had been fond of Jane Seymour; she was even closer to Anne of Cleves; and now Catharine Howard was to die.

She became very thoughtful. I guessed she was thinking of the precarious lives we all led.

How brave they were, those two men. Neither Dereham nor Culpepper would implicate Catharine; and surely what had happened before her marriage could not be construed as treason. But the verdict had already been decided. Norfolk turned against his kinswoman just as he had against Anne Boleyn. He had wanted to make the most of the advantages which came from their being in favor, but as soon as they lost that favor he became their most bitter enemy. I despised such men—just as I had Thomas Boleyn