Murder at Whitehall (22 page)

O
ne of my very favorite things about the Elizabethan period (and there are many!) is the great number and variety of strong-willed and passionate women. Queen Elizabeth, of course, along with her mother and stepmothers, her cousins (Margaret Lennox; the Grey sisters; Mary, Queen of Scots), not to mention ladies of other countries such as Marie of Guise and Catherine de Medici, are all examples of the strong women I admire so much. The Grey sisters, ladies Jane, Catherine, and Mary, and their mother, Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, are fascinating and tragically sad in equal measure, and I loved getting to know Lady Catherine better in this story.

Not everyone (not even everyone who was a Tudor!) had an ambition to wear a crown in the 1500s, and this included the Grey daughters, though sadly their birth pushed them toward the throne anyway. Lady Jane's story is very well known—scholarly, brilliantly bookish beyond her years, dedicated to the New Learning of the Protestant church. But her younger sister, Lady Catherine, isn't quite as widely known. She was the “beautiful” daughter, the counterpart of Lady Jane—charming and known for loving a good party. Her
ambitions were to be a wife (to a man of suitable estate), and have a family, to live a romance like the ones in the French poems she would rather read than the serious philosophies and sciences her sister loved.

Catherine was born in 1540, and was the second daughter of Frances Brandon, who was the daughter of the famously beautiful younger sister of King Henry VIII, Mary Tudor (the French Queen, as she was always known, though she was married to the elderly French king for only a couple of months), and her husband, the Duke of Suffolk. Catherine was married off in 1553 in a political match to the son of the Earl of Pembroke (in the same lavish ceremony that married Lady Jane to Guildford Dudley). The marriage was annulled the next year, after the death of Edward VI and the collapse of the scheme to make Jane queen. Lady Jane and the Grey girls' father were executed, and Lady Frances was left to find a way to remake her position at court and take care of her two remaining daughters. Somehow she managed to do this impossible task very well. They were reconciled to Queen Mary, who gave them high positions at court, but Queen Elizabeth mistrusted and disliked them, especially Catherine. Elizabeth refused the desire of many (including her chief secretary, Sir William Cecil) to name Lady Catherine as her heir.

Catherine's best friend was Lady Jane Seymour, the daughter of the former Protector of England in the reign of Edward VI, Lord Somerset, and his equally formidable duchess Anne (another strong Elizabethan-era lady!). Catherine soon fell deeply in love with Jane's handsome, if unreliable, brother, Edward, Lord
Hertford. Hertford seemed to return her passionate feelings, and the two were secretly married in December 1560 (about a year after
Murder at Whitehall
takes place). There were some rumors, especially in the summer of 1559, that Lady Catherine was becoming too friendly with the Spanish, and it's now known that the Spanish actually had some hopes of kidnapping her and bringing her to Spain, where she could marry a Spanish nobleman and eventually take over the English throne, though the extent of Lady Catherine's own involvement in the half-baked plan isn't known.

After Lord Hertford and Lady Catherine's hasty wedding (for which Lady Jane found the priest and was the only witness), the Queen sent Lord Hertford to France. After he left, Lady Catherine realized she was pregnant. She managed to hide it for many months, but of course that couldn't go on forever! When the pregnancy was discovered, and the secret wedding revealed, Queen Elizabeth was furious. Lord Hertford was summoned back to England, the couple was sent to the Tower, the marriage declared invalid, and the baby boy, Edward, rendered illegitimate. (By this time Lady Jane had died and the priest could not be found.) Even the walls of the Tower couldn't keep the Hertfords apart, though, and the next year another son, Thomas, was born.

Lady Catherine was sent away to the country under house arrest, and died of consumption at age twenty-seven in 1568 (or of a broken heart at being parted from the family she had longed for). Lord Hertford was
eventually released from prison and later married again and regained his place at court, though when he died he was buried with Catherine. Her sister, Lady Mary Grey, plagued with a deformed spine since birth, also went on to make a secret, disastrous marriage. But that's a story for another time!

Although Queen Anne is my favorite of Henry VIII's wives, I've always had a soft spot for Queen Catherine Parr. She had a rather astonishing life. Catherine Parr was raised by a strong, intelligent widowed mother, Maud Parr, lady-in-waiting to wife number one, Catherine of Aragon (who was possibly Catherine Parr's godmother). Maud had spirit, but not much money, and most of it went to securing a marriage for her son to the greatest heiress in England (a marriage that—spoiler alert—also did not go well). Catherine was married twice before she married the king, first to Sir Edward Burrough, who died very young, and then to John Neville, Lord Latimer, a widower twice her age with extensive landholdings in the isolated north. The marriage seems to have been reasonably happy, though, and Catherine raised his two children as her own. After his death, she joined the household of Princess Mary, where she caught the eye of King Henry. Henry had recently “lost” his unfortunate fifth wife, the young, pretty, giddy Catherine Howard, and was looking for someone steady and dignified. The widowed Lady Latimer, unfortunately for her, seemed to fit the bill, and the fact that she was being courted by
Sir Thomas Seymour made no difference. Catherine married the king on July 12, 1543.

She was well suited to the role of queen, charming and stylish but also well read and practical. Even diplomats from France and hostile Spain sang her praises, and she brought Henry's three children together as a family for the first time. She especially encouraged young Princess Elizabeth, who had been mostly ignored up to that point, in her educational endeavors. But she also became deeply interested in the Protestant faith and the New Learning, as Lady Jane Grey had, and gathered a group of like-minded women around her for studies and discussion. She talked about her studies at length with anyone who would listen. She was the first English queen to publish works under her own name. These included works of prayers and philosophy (including
The Lamentations of a Sinner
in 1547). Needless to say, this did not sit well with the more conservative courtiers, including Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. (It's true that one of Queen Catherine's best friends, the pert Duchess of Suffolk, named her spaniel “Gardiner.”) Her increasing “radicalism” also did not sit well with her husband.

In the summer of 1546, Gardiner and his allies managed to turn the king's irritation against the queen, and an arrest warrant was drawn up against her. Luckily, Catherine was pre-warned, and managed to reach the king and appease him before she could be hauled to the Tower. By the end of the year, the king was dead, and Catherine was free for the first time in her life. She had an independent income as Dowager Queen, and moved to her house at the Old Manor in Chelsea, taking her stepdaughters with her. It was at this time that her old flame, Thomas Seymour, came back into her life, and they married barely six months later, without the required permission of King Edward and the council. Princess Mary was furious and moved out, trying to persuade Elizabeth to do the same, but Elizabeth stayed. She was thirteen, beautiful, headstrong, and devoted to her stepmother.

That devotion didn't serve her well at that time. Thomas Seymour, who it was rumored had hoped to marry Princess Elizabeth before “settling” for the Dowager Queen, took a most inappropriate interest in his young stepdaughter, and there were many scandalous reports of his behavior with her—trying to come into her bedchamber in the mornings before she was dressed, chasing her in the gardens, even cutting her gown off her. At this time, Catherine was pregnant for the first time at age thirty-five, a dangerous proposition in that era, and she sent Elizabeth away. Catherine gave birth to her daughter, Mary, on August 30, 1548, and died six days later. Mary was sent to live with Catherine's friend the Duchess of Suffolk, who complained of the expense of the child. Now, with Queen Catherine and his young daughter out of the way, Thomas decided to pursue his old ambition of marrying Princess Elizabeth. Thomas Seymour was attainted for treason for trying to marry Elizabeth without permission, and was beheaded on March 30, 1549 (and only Elizabeth's quick wit saved her from sharing his fate. Her household was questioned about her own intentions toward marrying Seymour, and her favorite servants, including Kat Ashley, were taken to the Tower, but Elizabeth talked her way out of trouble—as she would many more times in the future).

Mary Seymour's property was restored to her by an Act of Parliament in March 1550, to help the duchess with her upbringing, but the last that was heard of her was around the time of her second birthday. Most historians agree she died as a child, but there have always been rumors she survived to be married off in obscurity and raise her own family. (I would love to think this was true!)

As for the Scots—we will certainly hear much more about them in Kate's next adventure,
Murder at Fontainebleau
, when she visits the French court of Mary, Queen of Scots! In this story, we see the aftermath of July 10, 1559, when King Henri II of France died after a terrible jousting accident, leaving his teenage son, Frances, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, to rule France and press his wife's claim to the English throne. In December 1560, a group of Scots Protestant lords who sought to take up arms against the French Catholic Regent, Queen Mary's mother, Marie of Guise, came to Elizabeth's court under the support of William Cecil. Sir William was eager to be rid of the thorn of Queen Mary, but Elizabeth, as usual, was cautious. She knew the English treasury was empty and war was expensive, and how would it look to support the overthrow of another anointed queen—even if she
was
a nuisance?

The Scots Protestants pressed their claim for aid, saying military reinforcements were due to arrive from France to crush the rebellion—an army that could then easily be used to invade England. Elizabeth finally agreed to send a fleet to Leith to block the French arrival, and ordered the Duke of Norfolk northward “for the preparation of the army to be sent into Scotland.” On February 27, she officially took the Scots Protestants under her protection with the Treaty of Berwick, and on April 6 laid siege to the French garrison at Leith. Peace was negotiated with the Treaty of Edinburgh in July, where both England and France withdrew from Scotland—but Mary, Queen of Scots, refused to ratify the treaty. It was only the beginning of decades of conflict between the cousin queens—and I can't wait to delve into the lives of the two queens!

If you're interested in looking deeper into the time period, here are a few sources I loved (and relied on heavily for the history behind
Murder at Whitehall
).

D. M. Ashdown,
Tudor Cousins: Rivals for the Throne
(2000).

Tracy Borman,
Elizabeth's Women
(2009).

Hugh Douglas, ed.,
A Right Royal Christmas
(2001).

Marie Hubert, ed.,
Christmas in Shakespeare's England
(1998).

Susan E. James,
Kathryn Parr, The Making of a Queen
(1999).

Leanda de Lisle,
The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey
(2008).

Janel Mueller, “
A Tudor Queen Finds Her Voice: Katherine Parr's Lamentations of a Sinner,”
in Heather Dubrow and Richard Strier, editors,
The Historical Renaissance: New Essays on Tudor and Stuart Literature and Culture
(1988).

———, “Devotion as Difference: Intertexuality in Queen Katherine Parr's Prayers or Meditations (1545),”
Huntington Library Quarterly
53 (1988).

Stephen Pincock,
Codebreaker: The History of Codes and Ciphers
(2006).

Linda Porter,
Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, the Last Wife of Henry VIII
(2010).

Evelyn Read,
Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk
(1962).

Simon Thurley,
The Royal Palaces of Tudor England
(1993), and
Whitehall Palace: The Official Illustrated History
(2008).

Read on for a look at Kate Haywood's next adventure in the fifth book in Amanda Carmack's Elizabethan mystery series,

MURDER AT FONTAINEBLEAU

Available from Obsidian in June 2016.

England, January 1561

H
ERE LYETH MATTHEW HAYWOO
D, D. DECEMBER 1560. “SING AN
D MAKE MUSIC IN YOUR
HEART TO THE LORD.”

Kate Haywood watched, shivering, as the stonemason's men slid the newly carved slab into place in the floor of the church aisle. She felt so numb, frozen in place. The moment seemed to stand perfectly still, caught in the grayish ray of light that fell through the window over the altar. And yet it also seemed to rush forward too quickly, pushing her over a cliff into something she was not ready for. A world without her beloved father.

The scrape of the stone echoing in the empty church
felt even more final than the day Kate had tucked a sprig of dried rosemary and a locket containing a curl of her long-dead mother's hair into her father's cold hand, and then watched as his coffin had been lowered into the vault.

That day, there had been people surrounding her. Her friend Lady Violet Green; her father's friends the Parks, who had once played music with him at the court of Queen Catherine Parr; and Lady Sidney, sent by Queen Elizabeth herself to lay a wreath and offer her condolences to Kate. There had been music, composed by her father, soaring majestically to the old rafters of the solid square Norman church. There had been stories of her father's life around the fireside afterward, tales of his great love for her mother, of the kings and queens he had served, of the great music he had brought into the world.

Now she was alone. She had sent everyone back to their homes in the days after the funeral, with many tears and fond embraces. She had wanted the quiet days of waiting for the stone to be carved, wanted the time to pack her father's music and think on what she would do now.

She'd done little of that, though. The books and manuscripts were still piled by the trunks, her father's chair still by the fire. She had played her lute, stared into the flames—tried to fight away the numbness. There was truly no question of what she would do now. She would go back to court, to serving Queen Elizabeth with her own music—and with other more secret matters when the queen was in danger. That was her life
now, a life she loved, a life where she was needed and had great purpose.

If only she could shake away the cold and
move
.

“How does it look, Mistress Haywood?” the stonemason asked. His voice was quiet, respectful, yet it still startled Kate from her trance.

She looked down to see that the workmen had finished laying the stone into place. It fit perfectly into the flagstones of the aisle, barely any line around its edge at all. The words were deeply carved and crisp now, but she knew soon enough they would fade, mellowed by all the footsteps that would cover them.

“It is very fine indeed,” she said. “Thank you.”

The stonemason nodded. He twisted his cap in his hand as he studied the stone with her. “He was a fine gentleman, your father. He even taught my daughter some music on his lute, said she had a natural ear for a song. He will be missed here.”

“That is most kind of you,” Kate answered, making a note in her mind to send some of his music to the daughter. “I know he was most content in his home here.”

And that was true. After a long life of turmoil and trouble, of being always on the move as monarch followed monarch on the unsteady Tudor throne, of losing his beloved wife and bringing up a daughter alone, Matthew Haywood had found great peace by his cottage fireside. His gout kept him confined at the last, but his letters to Kate at court had been full of his work, the music he finally had time to write down, and his new friends.

That comforted her, as did the knowledge that he was with her mother again at last. Surely they would both watch her and help her now.

Kate slowly turned and made her way out of the church. Even though it was a cloudy day, threatening rain, the pale light after the gloom of the church blinded her for a moment. The cold wind caught at her skirts. She drew the dark silk veil down from her small peaked cap and turned down the churchyard path toward the gate.

On such a chilly day, everyone in the village was tucked up by their own firesides, and she met no one in the frozen lane that led through the center of the community. She could smell the tang of woodsmoke in the air and the scent of the promised rain. After her months at the queen's court, moving from palace to palace amid the crowds and the schemes, such quiet still caught her by surprise. She could see why her father had liked it at the last, but she found she missed the noise, the company.

At the end of the lane, she reached the low stone wall that bordered her father's small garden. She laid her gloved hand on the gate latch, yet somehow she could not make herself push it open. Once she stepped inside that empty cottage, she would know her father was truly gone and was not coming back. She was alone.

“Kate!”

For a moment, she was sure she imagined the sound of that voice calling her name. It was an illusion of a lonely moment and grief, mayhap, of too many
sleepless nights. Rob Cartman would not be there in that little village. He would be with the queen's cousin Lord Hunsdon, the patron of Rob's acting troupe. His rare letters had told her of all the masques and plays he had been writing, the stately manors they had visited.

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

“Kate!” But there it was again. Half daring to hope, Kate spun around and saw Rob hurrying toward her down the lane, leading his horse. He looked travel stained with winter mud on his high boots, his short wool cloak wrapped high around him. Yet he was still, as always, gloriously handsome, with his golden hair beneath a lavishly plumed cap, his smile flashing brightly through the dark day. He raised his hand and waved.

Feeling suddenly lighter, Kate ran to meet him and flung her arms around his neck. He lifted her off her feet, laughing in surprise.

“Oh, Rob,” she said, trying not to break into sobs. She was a sophisticated lady of the court now; she could not show every emotion. But, oh, it felt so good to feel the warmth of a friend nearby again. An anchor in the world—even if an actor like Rob was the furthest thing from a solid foundation. His work took him from town to town, estate to estate, just as hers did. But she had missed him.

And his arms were comforting as he held her close. “If I had known I could expect such a fine welcome, I would have traveled faster,” he said with a laugh.

Kate drew back to study his face. Aye, he was as handsome as ever, yet he seemed rather tired, with
shadows beneath his eyes and new lines bracketing his smile. She saw he had grown a beard, close-cropped and golden, and he wore a new pearl drop earring in one ear, which had been the new fashion set by Robert Dudley when she left court.

“You look as if you have been traveling long as it is,” she said. “Were you not meant to be with Lord Hunsdon at his new estate?” Rob's acting troupe had been employed by the queen's cousin for many months, entertaining the court under his auspices. It was a high place with the promise of greater to come.

“So I was, organizing his lordship's Christmas revels. He went to the queen at Whitehall after New Year's, and that was where I heard you had left court. Lord Hunsdon gave me leave to depart right away. My poor, sweet Kate. Why did you not write me directly of Master Haywood's death?”

“I did not wish to take you from your work, not now. And I . . .” She broke off, shaking her head. How could she explain how much she had wanted to see him, but how she was afraid of it at the same time? How lost she had been in the last few days?

Rob stooped down, not letting her look away from him. “Kate. Have we not been good friends for a long time now? Have we not seen much together? A queen's coronation, traitors, and murderers? Actors of a much lesser caliber than my fair self?”

Kate had to laugh.
Friends?
They had been that, and sometimes with the tiniest diamond-bright promise of more. “Aye, we have known each other more than a year now. And truly, I am happier than I can say to see
you here now. I just . . .” She did not know what to say, so she laughed and said, “You have a new beard, I see. Most fashionable.”

He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “I am told it is quite dashing. Mayhap it makes me look more serious.”

“Serious? You? Never!” Another cold gust of wind snatched at her cloak and threatened to carry away Rob's plumed cap. “I am a poor hostess indeed to keep you standing here. There is a livery stable just along the lane. I shall make us some spiced wine while you see to your horse.”

Rob gave her a small frown, as if he wanted to argue or ask her something more, but then he just smiled and took up the horse's lead.

Kate let herself into the cottage. The building had felt cold and lonely when she had left to walk to the church, but now it seemed to welcome her again. She laid aside her cloak and veil, and stirred the embers of the hearth back to life. As she poured the wine and mixed up the cinnamon and sugar, she thought of Rob. Surely he had brought news of the court, of Queen Elizabeth and her latest activities. There would be word of the outside world again. As the flames caught, they seemed to melt away her numbness, and she was interested in life again.

Was it Rob or was it the excitement of the court again that made her feel thus? Queen Elizabeth declared that romance and marriage were the ruin of a woman, and the single state was to be preferred above all others. One could not blame her for such a view after all she
had seen in her twenty-seven years—her mother and stepmother beheaded under her father's orders, her young Grey cousins forced to the altar by their parents, untimely deaths in childbirth. The queen had her safety and independence at last, a throne all for herself. Yet Kate's own parents had been so happy in their brief time together, and she had seen other couples who made lives together and kept the coldness of the world at bay.

Kate rose from the hearth and turned to tidy the small table while the wine warmed. Her workbox sat open, spilling out thread and ribbons along with books and slates she used to study codes and languages. Surely her confused thoughts meant she was just feeling lonely, with her father gone and her work at court far away. She needed distraction, to feel of use again.

She swept everything into an open case and shut the lid onto it. She knelt down beside the fire and reached for the heated poker to use for the wine. As she finished, Rob came through the cottage door, bringing the cold wind of the day with him.

Kate pushed away her old melancholy and her jumbled thoughts and smiled at him. “Come, sit by the fire, Rob,” she urged. She took his cloak and cap and hung them up next to her own. “Tell me all the news of court, every little bit.” There were two chairs by the fire, her father's cushioned armchair and her own stool. She hesitated for an instant, and held out her father's chair for him.

It was good to see it filled again.

“I can do better than that,” he said. He reached for
his saddlebags and took out a letter. As Kate took it from him, she noticed the queen's own seal pressed into the red wax, and her heart beat a little faster in excitement.

“Queen Elizabeth herself entrusted that to me, and said to give it into no hands but yours,” he said, his voice full of pride and his own excitement. They were both making their place in a royal world.

Kate eagerly opened the message and scanned the neat lines of the queen's spiky handwriting and the precious signature at the bottom—
Elizabeth R
.