The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [224]
But no, she had not been stolen. She had stolen away on her own.
Alone again, I sat down and opened the “confession.” I reread it slowly, word by word, as if this time I would see something that had not been there before, something that would redeem and negate the whole of it.
Instead I found more sorrow than ever.
First at the flattering and fair persuasions of Manox, being but a young girl, I suffered him ... which neither became him with honesty to require....
Francis Dereham by many persuasions procured me to his vicious purpose ... and used me....
The subtle persuasions of young men and the ignorance and frailness of young women....
The tone stank, the wheedling attempt to excuse herself and shift all the blame onto the men. How much more becoming if she had stood up for herself, shouldered the responsibility! Better a proud Delilah than an excuse-making Eve.
And why had she wanted to marry me?
I was so blinded with desire of worldly glory....
The fool! She was too stupid even to flatter! She just stated flatly that she coveted the jewels and gold.
O, I had loved a stupid harlot. Bad enough a harlot, but a fool as well. A girl too unschooled to write a grammatical letter, and too unclever not to insult the very one from whom she was begging mercy! Evil and subtlety, such as her cousin Anne Boleyn employed, were grand snares which could catch any mortal man. But stupidity! I had been ensnared by the surface charms of a simpleton!
CIX
The ugly secret was out and scampering about the realm like an army of rats. It would undoubtedly reach York and Lincoln far more quickly than the progress had, undoing all the good I had accomplished there for the majesty of the Crown. The trial would clarify and satisfy every morbid curiosity, for I cared not if every foul fact were exposed. Let the full abominations be known. I cared not for my own pride; but let no one afterward accuse the state of injustice, or a trumped-up trial, as they had over the Witch.
Catherine was given orders to surrender her royal apartments at Hampton and move, under guard, to Syon House, a former monastery. Her presence there would certainly deconsecrate it, if the Church had not already done so.
Since her hysterical confession, I had sent Cranmer back to >
Faced with Culpepper’s admission, and the evidence of her letter to him, she fainted.
“He could not—he dared not—” she murmured, collapsing. Upon opening her eyes, the first thing she demanded was, “The letter! The letter!”
“It is taken, Madam,” she was told. “The King’s Majesty hath it.”
She keened and wailed. She then confessed to meeting Culpepper in pre-arranged secret places and by the backstairs of palaces; that she had called Culpepper her “little sweet fool” and given him a velvet cap and ring for love tokens.
“But there was no sin between us, I swear!” she wept, with one breath, while with the next blaming Lady Rochford and Culpepper for having pressed her for these meetings.
Lady Rochford had a different tale to tell, one that exonerated her. She had arranged these meetings at Catherine’s mysterious urgings. Furthermore, she swore that “Culpepper hath known the Queen carnally considering all things that I hath heard and seen between them.”
Enough. Enough of this. Now the entire truth must be driven out. Dereham and Culpepper and Lady Rochford and Catherine Howard and all the other Howards must be brought to trial. The preliminaries, the investigations, were over.
Guildhall, in London. The entire Privy Council, and the foreign ambassadors—the French envoys Marillac and Castillon, and the venerable Chapuys—were in attendance when the men were brought before the company of jurors.
I was told that Dereham was charming. His arrogance was gone and he