The Queen's Governess (6 page)

MODBURY TO LONDON

 

 

 

F
inally, London loomed on my horizon, but not as soon as I had hoped and expected. It was a gloriously sunny day in late September 1528, and I had gone nigh mad waiting yet seven months more before the actual summons came for me to bid my Modbury hosts—for they were never quite my family—fare-thee-well and turn my face toward the desire of my dreams.

With a good-bye letter to my father, sent through the Barlows, I had planned to leave Devon as soon as the roads cleared of snow and winter mud. But warm weather had brought much rain and worse. The sweating sickness, that oft fatal summer slayer of hundreds—which was, at least, far different from the fever Master Cromwell had suffered from—nearly carried off Mistress Boleyn, in whose household I was to live at court. No doubt, I was as relieved as her royal suitor that she had survived.

I traveled toward London well protected by a band of twelve new-fledged Devon-born soldiers, sent by Sir Philip to serve the king. Four of the men had their wives with them, so I slept in inns or houses on the way with one of those women sharing my bed and the others on floor pallets. Much of those seven nights, as exhausted and saddle sore as I was, I lay awake, listening to whispers, sighs or snores. I was beside myself with excitement, too wild in hopes and heart to sleep.

As we approached the great city of London through Southwark, thatched, timbered houses, three or four stories high, jutted out over us, shouldering the sky. I shuddered with excitement as we rode through the shadow of a great cathedral. How I wished I had someone with me who could name each street, each church, to tell me what the crudely painted pictures on the hanging signs indicated lay within. A tongue thrust out with a pill on the tip of it, I knew, for there was an apothecary shop in Modbury, but what were these other wonders? I had so much to learn of my new world.

But familiar sights and smells assailed me too. Sheep and cattle being driven to market shoved folks aside. The stench from nearby slaughterhouses, tanneries and the garbage in the streets’ center gutters filled our nostrils, so that we breathed through our mouths. Hawkers elbowed each other for space while carters cursed. Would the jostling for positions at court be even more daunting and dangerous? Despite my rural companions and those bustling past, I felt so alone.

The hubbub grew thicker as we approached the curving, silver serpent that was the River Thames. It made the Dart shrink to naught in my regard. On the Thames, scores of boats wended their ways, wherries and barges, some of the latter with ornate carvings, gildings and livery-clad oarsmen. One long bridge with houses and shops crammed cheek by jowl upon it spanned the river. Across that busy thoroughfare lay the hulking royal fortress called the Tower, a palace and a prison, I had learned in our history lessons. Above all soared seagulls, reminding me of home, but I longed only to be here.

At the base of London Bridge, water rushed through the supports, especially at high tide, we heard, but it looked quite calm now. Amidst the watermen with boats for hire shouting “Oars east!” or “Oars west!” two soldiers, their wives and I boarded a barge and were rowed downstream toward Westminster Palace. It greatly cheered me to see fields along the way and grander homes than I had beheld in Southwark. I thought we must surely be to the king’s Westminster Palace when, after the curve in the river, we approached a magnificent edifice, and I blurted out, “There it is!”

“That be Cardinal Wolsey’s York Place,” the boatman told me. “Wi’ his power and wealth, he been abuilding it for years, finer than the king’s Westminster by far.”

As we passed gleaming glass windows, expanses of slate rooftops with ornate brick chimneys and weather vanes, water stairs and iron gates with glimpses into gardens, we Devoners were agog. So I had my first lesson in the true might of the man who employed Thomas Cromwell and, therefore, me.

When we arrived at the smaller and older Westminster Palace, I was to meet with disappointment, and not just for its less handsome facade. Rather than my being greeted by Cromwell or sent to the Lady Anne’s apartments, I was met by Master Stephen, the man who had been at Cromwell’s side in Devon.

“King and court’s off to Hampton Court, the newest royal palace, a gift from Cardinal Wolsey,” he told me as one of Sir Philip’s soldiers hefted my single trunk and fell in behind us. Cromwell’s man led us from the worn water stairs toward the palace. “You are to be sent there on the morrow via river. His Majesty goes much from place to place, especially,” he added, lowering his voice and bending slightly toward me, “to escape the presence of his wife so that he can disport more with his future wife, the Lady Anne.”

“He really will marry her?” I asked.

His mouth tipped in a stiff grin. “Ah, you have much to learn,” he told me with a look that took me in from head to toe. “You must be weary, but Secretary Cromwell will see you now afore he leaves on his master’s business to York Place, then on to Hampton Court.”

“His master, the cardinal?”

“Actually, his master, Henry Rex. We hear you excel in Latin and have some Greek and a bit of French,” he said as if to change the subject. “We have all come a long way, have we not? And, as my master, Cromwell, says, much more to go.”

Leaving the man with my trunk outside a door on the first floor of the vast, old palace near the great cathedral of the same name, Master Stephen led me into a large room, well lit from sconces, candles, and late afternoon light slanting through mullioned windows set ajar. I knew that Lady Barlow and Lady Katherine would have deplored the fact I was not well chaperoned, but I soon saw the chamber was filled with secretaries or clerks bent over their work. Yet, when Cromwell looked up, with a single clap and wave of his hands, he quickly cleared the area of all but Stephen and me.

He came around his big desk, covered with stacks of neatly aligned papers. Putting his hands on my shoulders, he stood me back a bit, looking me over. “Now a polished gem,” he declared, and kissed me lightly on each check, as was, I had learned, the French fashion. Lady Katherine had told me—warned me, as she put it—that the English courtiers’ greeting was a kiss directly on the mouth.

I had rehearsed words to ask him to be certain the Barlows had a suitable place to live when they gave up Dartington Hall, but that and much else flew right out of my head. Even with king and court away, this place and this man reeked of purpose and power.

“Come sit, and I’ll send for malmsey wine, a hearty venison pie and some sugar bread with currants—one of my favorite sweets.” He looked behind me at Stephen, who evidently took that hint and went out to order the food, leaving us alone. “Sit, sit,” he said again, choosing the chair next to mine, “and I will explain how things are here—or wherever His Grace, the king, goes these days. Then we shall see you get some rest before joining the Lady Anne’s household. I’ll put you on a supply barge to Hampton Court—it’s a ways out in the country—and see you there myself in a few days. Now, to business . . .”

And business it was. I was to be a circumspect, clever observer of what Cromwell called the lay of the land. That is, how the Lady Anne Boleyn and the king were getting on, anything I overheard or observed that was not common court knowledge. I was especially to be aware of anything that lady might say to her father or to her brother, George, who were much about the court and rode high in the king’s favor.

“So you are working for the cardinal or the king?”

“I believe you asked me that once before, Mistress Champernowne,” he said with a hint of a smile. “Both, of course. Both, until the wind somehow shifts.”

“I will do my best,” I promised him. “And I will do my best to not think of myself as spying for my bread and butter.”

His ink-stained fingers tapped the arm of his chair. “You are not to think or say such. You are merely informing and, thereby, helping to keep the great wheel that is the court and the country rotating in perfect harmony. Now for the most important part.”

I frowned at him, confused. Had he not told me all?

“You see,” he went on, turning even more toward me in his chair, then glancing behind us to be certain that, I take it, neither Stephen nor his clerks had come back in, “the Lady Anne does not get on with my master, the cardinal. Both she and His Majesty bear him some ill will that His Eminence has not obtained the king’s divorce yet. Well, of course, as fond lovers, they are impatient.”

“I hear she is of the new learning and, obviously, the cardinal is not.”

“Astute but not the key thing here. Now harken to this: the Lady Anne especially dislikes the cardinal because he once rescinded her covert and willful betrothal to Henry Percy, heir to the earldom of Northumberland. Then later the cardinal said in her hearing that she was a foolish girl of no account to hope to wed so high.”

Of no account—
those words poked at me. How I had feared the same. Yes, I dared to think that the king’s beloved Anne Boleyn and I had something, at least, in common. I had not been good enough even for Arthur, the second son of Sir Philip, and how I had feared I would be of no account if I were to be left marooned in Dartington. Anne, too, came from the countryside; Anne, too, had ambitions; Anne, too, resented those who would hold her back. I dared to think I almost understood her.

“Are you listening, mistress?”

“Yes. Yes, I am. Say on.”

“That Percy flap is all water over the mill dam now, since he’s wed to an earl’s daughter and the Boleyn will wed His Majesty. But my point is that there is bad blood between Anne Boleyn and the cardinal, so she doesn’t trust him.” He took a little breath. “But she does trust me.”

My eyes widened. I leaned toward him to know what he would say more.

“You see,” he said, looking a bit smug, “I have done favors for her father, Viscount Rochford, for her brother, George, Lord Rochford, too, so I naturally came to her attention.”

“Naturally.”

He bit back a smile. “But the thing is—the thing that concerns you—is that neither the cardinal nor the king know that I am finding ways to champion her cause beyond what the cardinal yet deems to do. The lady and I correspond privily from time to time, and that has been difficult. But with you living there with her and in her favor—”

“In her favor? But—”

“Because she knows that not only Sir Philip of Modbury is your sponsor—which everyone will know—but that I am your privy sponsor, too, and that you are sworn to help her cause, through me. Is that not so?”

I sat up straighter. “It is, Master Cromwell. I believe it means you have a bit of a balancing act, holding up the interests of both Lady Anne and the cardinal—and ever, of course, the king—but I shall put my trust in you.”

I felt a bit like a traitor to the Barlows, throwing my lot so completely in with Cromwell. But I, too, had come so far so fast, and there was no way in Christendom I could or would turn back. I owed this man a great deal. True, I’d seen hints that he was devious, but he also seemed devoted to his masters and the Lady Anne and, of course, to himself—but weren’t we all? I jolted alert, for he was lecturing me again.

“On the shirttail—or, should I say, petticoat hem—of the Boleyns and their kin the Howards, many are coming to court who will wield influence. Like it or not,” I recall he muttered later that night before a link boy lit me to my chamber, “Anne Boleyn is the king’s and this kingdom’s future, and we must hitch our wagon to her star.”

I knew not then what a shining star—and then a falling one—she would be in the vast firmament I had just found.

 

 

 

 

LONDON TO HAMPTON COURT

 

 

 

The next morning, without seeing Cromwell again, I was off to Hampton Court on a royal barge, one stripped of its hangings, crests and seat cushions, though loaded with wooden boxes tied down with straps. I intended to see the countryside sights all the way, but a companion—a young, handsome man who leaped on at the last moment in the most brave style—took much of my attention.

“Mistress,” he greeted me in a rich voice, and doffed his flat leather cap in a half bow as the barge was rowed away from the landing and turned westward against the stiff current. “As I see you have no protector with you but the oarsmen, I will have to do. Tom Seymour of Wolf Hall in Wiltshire at your service.” As we set out into the choppy river, he bent over my hand and kissed it, which made my skin tingle clear up to my shoulder.

I felt my insides cartwheel, and my face heated—and not from the warm September sun. Tom of Wolf Hall was tall—later I learned few but the king were taller—and dark-haired, with brown eyes that seemed to look right through me, or at least through my clothing. He sported a quick white smile that flashed from his face. I gave him the story of my life that Cromwell and I had discussed about being reared with Sir Philip Champernowne’s family in Devon and coming to court in service to the Lady Anne. I told him I had been an only child but Sir Philip’s brood were like my own siblings.

“An only child—you and the Princess Mary both,” he said, frowning at some privy thought and putting his packet of papers down at his booted feet. I feared they’d get wet from the spray, but it seemed not to worry him. Meanwhile, the oarsmen labored against wind and waves, though the man closest to us, right in my line of vision, was obviously amused by Tom’s bravado. Though bent over his oar, he looked up with a grin and a roll of his eyes before he winked at me. I ignored him as well as the pretty villages and fields we passed and concentrated on my charming fellow traveler.

“Sometimes, I get so vexed with my older brother Edward,” he said, frowning and shaking his head. “Hell’s gates, let’s just say I wouldn’t mind being the only son. Now, my sisters are a different story. Jane’s the one I really miss since I’ve come to court in Sir Francis Bryan’s household. She’s sweet, quiet, pretty—quite blond, with blue eyes—while the rest of us are darker. But as for the king’s Princess Mary, His Grace has sent her to live at Richmond Palace in her own household—not unusual, of course, but I think he’s done it to put the screws even more to her doting mother. Mary’s as good as exiled from court, and, I warrant, the queen shall be next.”