“Yes, Sire, indeed yes, and unworthy to be your wife.”

“You said you would be our mistress and not our wife. Explain yourself. Explain yourself.”

Katharine covered her face with her hands. She thought of two women who had knelt on Tower Green, who had laid their heads on the block at the command of this man. They had been his wives. Already she seemed to sense the executioner beside her, his ax in his hand, the blade turned toward her.

Henry had taken her by the shoulder and was shaking her.

“Speak up, I said. Speak up.” His voice had softened. He was seeing himself now as he wished to see himself—the mighty, omnipotent King, whom no woman could resist, just as they had been unable to resist him in the days of his youth when he had had beauty, wealth, kingship and all that a woman could desire.

“It is on account of mine own unworthiness,” faltered Katharine.

He forced her hands from her face and put an arm about her. He kissed her with violence. Then, releasing her, he began to roar: “Here, page! Here, man! Call Gardiner. Call Wriothesley…Surrey…Seymour… call them all. I have news I wish to impart to their lordships.”

He smiled at Katharine.

“You must not be afraid of this great honor,” he said. “Know you this: I can take you up and lift you to the greatest eminence…and I will do it.”

She was trembling, thinking: Yes, and you can cast me down. You can marry me; and marriage with the King, it is said with truth, may be the first step toward the Tower and the block.

The courtiers came hurrying back to the chamber. The King stood smiling at them.

He looked at them slyly, all those gentlemen who, a short time before, he had dismissed that he might be alone with Katharine.

“Come forward!” he cried. “Come and pay your respects to the new Queen of England.”

KATHARINE WAS IN her own apartments. With dry, tragic eyes she stared before her; she was trying to look into a future which she knew would be filled with danger.

There was no escape; she knew that now.

Nan, her faithful woman, had wept openly when she had heard the news. Katharine’s own sister, Anne Herbert, had come quickly to court. They did not speak of their compassion, but they showed it in their gestures, in the very intonations of their voices. They loved her, those two; they prayed for her and they wept for her; but they did not let her hear their prayers, nor see their tears.

It was the day after the King had announced his intention to marry her that Seymour came secretly to her apartments.

Nan let him in. Nan was terrified. She had been so happy serving Lady Latimer. Life, she realized now, had been so simple in the country mansions of Yorkshire and Worcester. Why had they not returned to the country immediately after the death of Lord Latimer? Why had they stayed that the King’s amorous and fickle eyes might alight on her lady?

There was danger all around, and Sir Thomas made that danger more acute by coming to her apartment. Nan remembered the stories she had heard of another Thomas—Culpepper—who had visited the apartments of another Catharine; and remembering that bitter and tragic story she wondered if the story of Katharine Parr would be marred by similar events. Was she destined for the same bitter end?

“I must see Lady Latimer,” said Sir Thomas. “It is imperative.”

And so he was conducted to her chamber.

He took her hands in his and kissed them fervently.

“Kate… Kate… how could this happen to us?”

“Thomas,” she answered, “I wish that I were dead.”

“Nay, sweetheart. Do not wish that. There is always hope.”

“There is no hope for me.”

He put his arms about her and held her close to him. He whispered: “He cannot live for ever.”

“I cannot endure it, Thomas.”

“You must endure it. We must both endure it. He is the King. Forget not that.”

“I tried,” she said. “I tried…. And, Thomas, if he knew that you were here…”

He nodded, and his eyes sparkled with the knowledge of his danger.

“Thus do I love you,” he told her. “Enough to risk my life for you.”

“I would not have you do that. Oh, Thomas, that will be the most difficult thing that faces me. I shall see you…you whom I love. I must compare you. You…you who are all that I admire… all that I love. He…he is so different.”

“He is the King, my love. I am the subject. And you will not be burdened with my presence. I have my orders.”

“Thomas! No …not… the Tower?”

“Nay! He does not consider me such a serious rival as that. I depart at sunrise for Flanders.”

“So…I am to lose you, then?”

“’ Twere safer for us, sweetheart, not to meet for a while. So thinks the King. That is why he is sending me with Dr. Wotton on an embassy to Flanders.”

“How long will you be away?”

“Methinks the King will find good reason to keep me there… or out of England… for a little while.”

“I cannot bear it. I know I cannot.”

He took her face in his hands. “My heart, like yours, is broken, sweetheart. But we must bear this pain. It will pass. I swear it will pass. And our hearts will mend, for one day we shall be together.”

“Thomas, can you believe that?”

“I believe in my destiny, Kate. You and I shall be together. I know it.”

“Thomas, if the King were to discover that you had been here…”

“Ah, perhaps he would give me this hour, since he is to have you for the rest of his life.”

“For the rest of my life, you mean!” she said bitterly.

“Nay. He is an old man. His fancy will not stray to others as once it did. One year… two years… who knows? Cheer up, my Kate. Today we are broken-hearted, but tomorrow the future is ours.”

“You must not stay here. I feel there are spies, watching my every movement.”

He kissed her and caressed her afresh; and after a time he took his leave, and on the next tide sailed for Flanders.

IN THE QUEEN’S closet at Hampton Court, Gardiner performed the ceremony. This was not hurried and secret as in the case of Anne Boleyn; this was a royal wedding.

The Princesses Mary and Elizabeth stood behind the King and his bride, and with them the King’s niece, the Lady Margaret Douglas. Lady Herbert, the Queen’s sister, and other great ladies and gentlemen were present.

The King was in excellent humor on this his marriage morning. The jewels flashed on his dalmatica; the shrewd eyes sparkled and the royal tongue licked the tight lips, for she was a comely creature, this bride of his, and he was a man who needed a wife. He felt, as he had said that morning to his brother-in-law, Lord Hertford, that this marriage would be the best he had ever made.

The July sun was hot and the bride felt as though she would faint with the oppressive atmosphere in the room and the fear within her.

A nightmare had sprung into life. She was here in Hampton Court being married to the King, here in a palace surrounded by gardens which Henry had planned with Anne Boleyn, on whose walls were the entwined initials, the H. and A. which had had to be changed hastily to H. and J. Along the gallery which led to the chapel, the youthful Catharine Howard had run one day, screaming for mercy. It was said that both Anne and Catharine haunted this place. And here, in the palace of hideous memories, she, Katharine Parr, was now being married to Henry the Eighth.

There was no longer hope of escape. The King was close. His breath scorched her. The nuptial ring was being put on her finger.

No. No longer hope. The King in that tragic moment had made Katharine Parr his sixth wife.

CHAPTER