A Dangerous Inheritance

It is my father-in-law, the martial Earl of Pembroke, who checks Wyatt’s advance. News comes that his cavalry has forced the rebels to halt at St James’s Park, a stone’s throw from Whitehall. So nearly had we come close to disaster! Then we hear gunfire, which sets all the courtiers panicking again. ‘Fall to prayer!’ the Queen exhorts us. Yet soon comes the news: Wyatt has been taken at Charing Cross, and is on his way to the Tower! The rebellion is over. We are safe.

Of my father, still no word.

‘God has worked a miracle,’ the Queen declares. ‘Now I will strike terror into all who are disposed to do evil.’

The leaders of the revolt are to be executed, as an example to other would-be traitors. My father, when he is caught – and that can only be a matter of time – will surely suffer the same fate. Suddenly people are avoiding my mother and me. The prospect of the crown now seems a very distant one. But I am more distressed about my father.

‘He brought it on his own head,’ my lady repeats dully, as if the fight has gone out of her. She seems resigned to his death. Yet it seems a very terrible punishment to me, even though he has fully deserved it. And I find it hard to accept that the father I have known – and looked up to until these last days – is soon to die.

Kate

August 1483. Pontefract Castle, Yorkshire.

Coventry. Leicester. Nottingham. Doncaster. It was a long progress, and the Queen was finding it exhausting. What kept her going was the prospect of seeing her son, and when the court at last arrived at the great stronghold of Pontefract, there was the most joyful of reunions. The fair, delicate little boy was restored to his mother’s arms, and his proud father lifted him high and a

Kate became aware that someone was watching her, and among the officers of the Prince’s retinue she saw him again: Ferret Face, the black-haired man who had stared at her on coronation day. She gave him a disdainful glance and then forgot about him.

A few days later, Kate followed among a bevy of noble ladies as the King and Queen, holding the little Prince by both hands, walked with him into York Minster for his solemn investiture. The child won all hearts, as he lisped his way through the great ceremony and sat patiently while all the great lords, one by one, paid him homage and swore oaths to him as his father’s heir; but at the feast afterwards he became restive and wanted to go off and play ball, and was only with difficulty constrained to stay in his high seat. King Richard looked happier and more relaxed than he had done in weeks, and Queen A

If there had been rumours about the Princes, there was no echo of them here. There was nothing but praise for the new King, and fervent expressions of loyalty. With the realm so quiet, Kate had no doubt that her father would keep his word and release the Princes very soon.

Her feelings for John were growing. They would try to slip away from the revelry at court or their respective duties and seek each other out in deserted gardens or shadowed arbours. It was in the garden at Nottingham Castle, that mighty fortress built on a rock, that he first kissed her, on a bright afternoon with a fragrant hint of autumn in the air. Without warning he’d bent forward and gently brushed her lips with his. And then they were in each other’s arms, kissing as if the world was about to end, and not caring who saw.

‘Sweet lady,’ John gasped, ‘no one has ever held such mastery over my heart as you. I am in torment!’

‘Torment?’ Kate echoed.

‘I would serve you all the days of my life, so I were allowed,’ he breathed. ‘I love you, Kate. Without you, all joy must be at an end. It is that which torments me, for there can be no remedy.’

He loved her! Her heart sang.

‘There canbe a remedy,’ she told him. ‘Why do you think I would not permit you to serve me?’

‘It is not what youwould not permit,’ he answered. ‘It is not you who can heal my malady.’

‘Then who?’ She felt a twinge of fear. Had her father said something to John?

‘Let us not speak of it. I want nothing to sully our precious time together.’

‘It is sullied already,’ she said, near to tears. Something or someone was standing in the way of their love: she knew it.

‘We will defy them all!’ he said fiercely.

‘Defy who?’ Her rare temper, born of fear, was rising. John pushed his fingers through her luxuriant dark hair and took her face firmly in his hands.

‘The whole world, if need be!’

‘I ca

‘Believe me, little love – let well alone for now. All may right itself in time. Leave it to me.’

‘I am not a child!’ she cried, and walked off, leaving him to keep his secrets to himself.

He sought her out again, of course. He came and sat quietly beside her in chapel when she was at her devotions, but she refused to acknowledge that he was there. It seemed more than coincidence that she kept ru

‘You will slay me unless you soften your hard heart,’ he muttered, waylaying her by the door to the Queen’s lodgings.

‘The remedy is in your hands!’ she said, but that hard heart of hers was fluttering like a trapped bird’s wings.

‘Very well, have it your way. But you will not like what I shall say to you.’

‘I would prefer honesty, Sir!’

‘It is my father. He has chosen a bride for me, and is already negotiating the marriage contract. I have told him I would wed you instead – and he said that if you were the King’s lawful daughter he might consider it, but that we are too near in blood anyway.’

It was the first time her bastardy had hit her like a slap in the face. She had been made to look of scant consequence in the eyes of the man she loved. Seeing her distress, John took her hand and squeezed it.

‘I paid him no heed, Kate. He is a bully and a blusterer, but I am used to him. I told him I would always love you whatever your birth, and that you are a lady worthy of the highest honour. I said I could never love another.’

‘And what did he reply?’

John frowned. ‘No matter. I will wear him down. It won’t be the first time. And if he thinks he can stop me from paying my addresses to you, he can think again.’

‘He has forbidden it?’

‘I will not let him come between us. It is you I want, Kate. Your beauty, your gentleness – all the wondrous things that make you what you are. If I ca

She said it; of course she did.

Katherine

7th February 1554. Whitehall Palace.

It is rare to be alone in a court, and in her Majesty’s privy chamber there are always servants about. The Queen is never alone, even when sleeping or performing her most intimate functions. Thus, when my mother suddenly appears, grim-faced, and drags me into an anteroom, brusquely dismissing two grooms and saying we need some privacy, I know that the matter is serious. Yet just how serious I could not have dreamed.

‘I have just come from the Queen,’ she blurts out, and to my horror I see that her eyes, normally so sharp and piercing, are brimming with tears. I have never seen my mother weep before – ever. ‘Katherine, there is no easy way to say this. Jane and Guilford are to be put to death.’ Her voice breaks.