The Sixth Wife_ The Story of Katherine P - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,32

you believed yourself to be married to their mothers?”

He pretended to consider, pretended to be faintly displeased. This was one of the games of makebelieve which he so liked to play. He was not considering; he was not displeased. He knew that the people thought it wrong that his daughters should live in penury; providing all agreed that they were bastards—which they must do if his conscience was to be satisfied—he would not be unwilling to give them a position at court. And how pleasant it was to do this thing which he wished to do and still make it a favor to Kate, his new wife, his sweetheart, his little pig.

“Methinks I find it hard to deny you aught, sweetheart, for now you ask this favor I am inclined to grant it.”

“I thank you. I thank you most heartily. Your Majesty is indeed good to me.”

“And you in turn shall be good to me.” She knew what he meant. It seemed to her as though the bells in the chapel had begun to toll. “Sons. Sons,” they seemed to say. “Give me sons.”

“But first,” he said, with the air of one who offered yet another honor to a subject already overloaded with them, “you shall dress my leg. The walking has shifted the bandage and it plagues me.”

THERE WERE TWO men who were not pleased with the King’s felicity. One of these was Thomas Wriothesley and the other Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester.

It was Wriothesley, the sly and cunning, who discovered through his spies that, in the privacy of her chamber, the Queen read forbidden books, and he hastened to his friend Gardiner to acquaint him with the discovery.

The court was at Windsor, and Gardiner, greatly disturbed by the news that he had helped to put on the throne a Queen who leaned toward Protestantism, suggested that Wriothesley and he should walk together in the Great Park to discuss this matter which he would prefer not to mention within castle walls.

When the two men had put some distance between themselves and the castle, Gardiner said: “This is indeed disturbing news, my friend. I would have sworn that the Queen was a good Catholic.”

“A sly woman, my lord Bishop, I fear. While she was Latimer’s wife, she allowed it to be understood that she was as good a Catholic as you or I. As soon as he dies and she marries His Grace, we find her playing the heretic.”

“A foolish woman, friend Wriothesley. Playing the heretic when she was Latimer’s wife would have been a mild matter. Playing the same as the wife of our Sovereign Lord is another affair. But we waste time tattling of the follies of such a woman. We must act.”

Wriothesley nodded. This was what he expected of Gardiner. He would be ready to strike a blow for Catholicism and strike it in the right direction. Gardiner was a strong man; he had served under Wolsey; his tact and enthusiasm in the affair of the King’s first divorce had placed him in high favor. When Wolsey had fallen, Gardiner became Secretary of State. The Archdeaconry of Leicester and the Bishopric of Winchester had speedily fallen to him. And if the King did not care for him as he had cared for some of his ministers, if Gardiner’s origins were obscure, these facts merely meant that his rise to power was the more spectacular, and if he did not win the King’s love, he had his respect.

“Tell me what you have discovered of the Queen,” went on Gardiner.

“She surrounds herself with those who are interested in the new religion. There are her sister Lady Hertford, the stepdaughter Margaret Neville, the Duchess of Suffolk, Lady Hoby and others. They are secret ‘Reformers’ … as they call themselves. Remember, my lord Bishop, she has some charge of the education of the Prince and Princess. Prince Edward and Princess Elizabeth are but children; their minds could be easily perverted. The Lady Mary is a staunch Catholic and safe from any contamination. But not only has the woman charge of the young Prince and Princess, but of the two Grey girls, and they are near enough to the throne for that fact to be disquietening.”

“You have no need to warn me on that score. We cannot have heretics sharing the throne with the King.”

“Could we not take this matter to the King and lay it before him?”

Gardiner smiled ruefully. He let his gaze rest on the two towers of the castle which