Page 27 of Love, Remember Me

"The king may not wish to be held up to public ridicule," fretted Cromwell. "What man wishes to admit to his kind of problem?"

"He has no other choice," Bishop Gardiner replied practically. "If he would be rid of this lady, then he must make some sacrifice."

"This is not a simple man we are speaking of," Cromwell said irritably. "This is Henry Tudor himself!"

"We will support you in this, Crum," the Duke of Norfolk assured the chancellor. "Partisan politics must be put aside for England's good. Are we not agreed there, gentlemen?" He looked about the table.

"Aye!" the others said with one voice.

"I am not certain of your reassurances, my lord," Cromwell replied, "but it would seem that I have no choice in the matter other than to approach the king with regard to an annulment. It will be done this very day. Waiting cannot help us."

The chancellor departed the Privy Council to seek out the king. The other men began to drift away as well. Bishop Gardiner sidled up to the Duke of Norfolk and said, "We must speak, Tom."

"Come with me," the duke answered.

The two men moved out into one of the royal gardens, deserted on this rather chilly day. Spring was near, but not quite at hand. Walking among the green maze they would be unobserved, and unheard. It was the perfect spot for plotting.

The Duke of Norfolk looked at his companion. The bishop was a tall man with a long face ending in a round chin. His nose was big and his lips fleshy. His dark eyes were unfathomable. He wore his graying hair cropped close just below the top of his ears. He was a very difficult and arrogant man, but like the duke, he was conservative both politically and religiously. And like the duke, he had been kept from court in recent years by Thomas Cromwell. Neither man had any love for the chancellor.

"Now that the matter is practically settled," Stephen Gardiner said low, "we must consider the matter of a new marriage for the king."

"There isn't a woman of rank in Europe who would have him," the duke said harshly, "but that is all to the good, isn't it, my lord bishop? The king will find his new bride right here in his own garden. He will choose from among English roses, not from among foreign flowers."

"Have you a lady in mind, my lord?" the bishop asked slyly. "For all his great size, he prefers dainty women of some beauty who can flatter him into believing that he is still the handsomest prince in all of Christendom. A lady who loves music, and dancing. A lady who is young enough to bear children, and to flatter his always burgeoning ego. Yet what young girl would want to ally herself in marriage to that great, hulking mound of flesh with his stinking abscessed leg? A man who has cast off three of his four wives—and one must ask oneself, would Queen Jane have survived to live a long life had she not died of the complications of childbirth? In retrospect he fashions her the perfect wife, but would she have continued to be so, or would his eye have begun to wander again? What maid of good family would sacrifice herself to such a man, Thomas?"

Norfolk regarded the bishop evenly. The duke's long, lean face, set with high cheekbones, was calm, his eyes serious. He was the premier noble in all of England, but even his own wife, Lady Elizabeth Stafford, had warned Thomas Cromwell not to trust Thomas Howard, who could speak as fair to his enemies as he could to his friends. Not that Cromwell had needed the warning.

The Duke of Norfolk was a schemer, but he was also ambitious and highly intelligent. His first wife had been Anne, the daughter of Edward IV, sister to Henry VII's wife. She had given him one son, Thomas, who had died young. The lady Anne had not lived a great deal longer. His second wife had given him a son, Henry, who was the Earl of Surrey, and a daughter, Mary, who had been married to Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond, the king's beloved illegitimate son. There had been times the Duke of Norfolk dreamed of seeing his daughter on England's throne, but Henry Fitzroy had died, and Queen Jane had produced the desired legitimate heir.

Now another plot was forming in his mind, and he answered the Bishop of Winchester quietly. "What maid, you ask, my lord bishop? Why, my niece, Catherine Howard, my deceased brother's daughter. She is young, and pretty, and most malleable. Already the king eyes her, for she serves the queen as a maid of honor. Why, only the other day he called her a rose without a thorn. She is a perfect choice."

"He eyes others as well," the bishop said. "There is the Bassett girl, to whom he gave a horse and saddle last autumn, and another maid of honor, Nyssa Wyndham, whom he calls a wild English rose. Your niece may have competition for the royal marriage bed, and however you scheme, Duke Thomas, the king will have his way this time. Last time he left the choice to others, and it will cost him dearly to right the matter, both in prestige and worldly goods. Remember that well as you plot."

"The Bassett girl is of no import, Bishop. He had her once, so I am told, and neither of them thought a great deal of the experience. He rewarded her good nature with a minor gift, and thinks kindly of her, but he would never marry her now. He wants in marriage a woman he can have no other way. He will have my niece only when he slips a wedding band on her dainty little finger. The game has not yet begun, Bishop, but it is about to, and I will personally instruct my niece in her behavior. We will have no debacles with Catherine as we did with Anne Boleyn, that foolish headstrong creature who lost her head for her alleged adulteries."

"But what of the other girl?" the bishop asked.

"Lady Nyssa Wyndham?" the duke replied. "Her mother was the king's mistress some fifteen years ago. Perhaps you remember her. Her name was Blaze Wyndham."

"Is the girl the king's get?" the archbishop wondered. "As I recall, her mother left court rather suddenly, did she not? Is that why you are not worried about this girl? She is the king's daughter perhaps?"

"She is not the king's daughter," the duke said. "Her father was Edmund Wyndham, the third Earl of Langford. She was already two years old when her mother, then widowed, came to court."

"Then why," demanded Stephen Gardiner, "do you not fear this young woman, my lord? You know what a romantic fool the king can be. It would be just like him to choose this girl over all others in a desperate attempt to recapture his youth. As I recall, her mother allied herself to no one. Her loyalty was solely for the king. This girl could be dangerous to us, my lord."

To us. The duke masked his triumph. Gardiner was with him. "If I feel the Wyndham girl is becoming a threat to our plans, my lord bishop, I will see that she is discredited in the king's eyes. You know how he dislikes being disappointed by someone in whom he has placed his trust. With your help, our little Catherine will be England's next queen."

"It is to be hoped she will not go the way of your other niece, Anne Boleyn. You managed to survive her, but if this girl is not all you make her out to be, you might not survive the disaster that will follow in the wake of the king's anger and disillusionment."

"Catherine Howard is nothing like Anne Boleyn. Anne was very sophisticated by virtue of her years at the French court. She was older, and willful. Catherine is but sixteen, sweet, silly, and pliable. She has had a hard life, being orphaned early and placed in my mother's care. Why, had I not obtained her place for her at court, I cannot imagine what would have happened to her. She will be grateful to be queen, and to have everything she has ever wanted. Putting up with the king and his little foibles is a small price to pay for such a glittering prize as a throne. She can take comfort in the knowledge she will surely outlive her husband. She will do as I tell her."

"You are certain that she is everything that the king would want in a bride, my lord? There are no little secrets? No ugly flaws?" the bishop pressed.

"None," the duke told him in positive tones. "She has lived like a nun down at Leadinghall in my mother's care. She is a skilled musician, and she loves to dance. She is nothing more than a frivolous piece of pretty fluff. She is just what the king needs."

"Then so be it," the bishop said. "We will encourage our sovereign liege lord in his pursuit of Catherine Howard. We will not be queenless long, once he has freed himself of Anne of Cleves. But Cromwell? What of Cromwell? Will he not try to stop us, my lord?"

"Cromwell is finished," the duke said, his triumph evident. "He has failed the king in the worst way possible. All of Henry Tudor's embarrassment and difficulties in this matter have been laid at old Crum's doorstep. The king will never forgive him. We need not worry about his foiling our plans, my dear bishop. Thomas Cromwell will be too busy trying to save his miserable life. It is astounding that one of such low birth could have climbed so high, but then these are very modern times, are they not? I do not like modern times. I am a man who prefers life the way it has always been, and when finally we are rid of Cromwell, it will be that way once again." He smiled a wintry smile, and then without another word he turned and left the bishop standing in the middle of the green maze.

---