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Pope Clement VII had escaped to Castel Sant' Angelo with thirteen of the cardinals. There he was safe from the mob.
But he was at the mercy of the Emperor, and my father was seeking papal help in a
So the Sack of Rome had a special significance for the King.
WHEN I HEARD the name of A
There was no doubt that she was the most attractive woman at Court. Before I had known what part she was going to play in our lives, I had noticed her. She dazzled. She had all the arts of seduction at her fingertips. Brought up in France, there was a foreig
She had come from the Court of France whither she had gone when a child in the train of my Aunt Mary Tudor who went there to marry the ageing Louis XII. She had not returned until soon after the occasion of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, on account of the rapidly deteriorating relations between France and England. She was then to marry Piers Butler because there was some dispute in the Boleyn family about a title, and the marriage of A
My father must have been aware of her at that time, for the proposed marriage was mysteriously prevented. I could not believe that at that time he thought of marrying her. The suggestion would have been too preposterous. I was shocked to hear that Mary Boleyn, A
These rumors of his philanderings upset me very much when I first heard of them. Now I know that that is the way of men. Well, Mary Boleyn was his mistress and I suppose that at the time of A
I heard, too, about the passionate love between A
A
I grew to hate her so much that I could not see any good in her; but later on, when her terrible fate overtook her, my bitterness diminished a little and I often thought that, if she had been allowed to marry Percy, she could have been a happy wife and mother and much anguish spared to many.
My father, by this time, was begi
I could imagine her grief and anger. She would be passionate in her emotion, although at the time she would not have known that the breaking up of their match had been due to the effect she was having on the King and that he was forming plans for her. She thought it was because she was not considered of noble enough breeding to mate with the mighty House of Northumberland, which had deeply wounded her dignity.
The rest of the story is well known: her return to Court at the instigation of the King, a place in my mother's household as one of her ladies-inwaiting, where she could grace the Court with her special talents of dancing, singing and writing masques with the young poets of the Court, most of whom were her slaves.
She was one of those women who I believe are called a femme fatale. My father was not the only one who desired her.
I did not know—I am not sure even now after so many years have passed—whether she deliberately set out to wear the crown. She could not in the begi
When he made it clear that he wished to be her lover she told him that she would not be the mistress of any man and as, by reason of her unworthiness and the fact that he was married, she could not be his wife, that must be an end of his aspirations.
It was bold. But then, she lived by boldness. It had served her well in the begi
My father could not bear to be crossed; in any case, he was obsessed by the woman. He wanted her so desperately that he contemplated drastic steps to get her.
We could not believe it at first—not even Wolsey, who knew the King as well as any of us. Wolsey was our enemy—my mother's and mine. He was a clever man who believed there was a need to produce a male heir, but for him there was a greater need than that, which was to placate the King. But he was an astute politician who would immediately see the folly in divorcing my mother in order to put A
I did not know how much the proposed divorce was due to the lack of a son and how much to the King's desire for A
He came to my mother one day and I was present. Looking back now, I think that made a turning point in our relationship.
My mother and I were embroidering together, which was something we often did. The Countess said it had a soothing effect and calmed the nerves. It did seem to do so, for my mother would become quite interested in the stitches and we would sometimes talk of happier subjects than that one which was uppermost in our minds.
When my father arrived, I rose and curtsied. He came toward us, smiling benignly.
“Well, Kate,” he said to my mother, “I would speak with you.”
He turned to me and laid a hand on my shoulders.
“So…you are keeping your mother company? Good. Very good. And getting on with your studies so that you do not disgrace us, eh?”
There was a faraway look in his eyes, and his mouth showed signs of tightening. They were aspects which always alarmed me as well as others because I was begi
His hand went to my head and he patted it.
“Growing up now. Well, well, I would speak with your mother. Go now. Go to your governess. Leave us…”
I curtsied and went, but on the other side of the door I paused. There was a small ante-room which led into the chamber in which they now were. I slipped into that room. I was going to commit the sin of eavesdropping. I could not restrain myself. So often I had felt I was groping in the dark, and how could I comfort my mother, how could I protect myself, if I did not know fully what against?