Jean Plaidy - Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

“Come, Damport, you were the special friend of this man Derham.”

“Yes, yes, yes...”

“It will be much better for you if you talk.”

“But I swear I know nothing...nothing....”

They led him down to the torture chamber where Derham had gone before him, where Mark Smeaton had moaned in agony.

“Come, Damport. What is it to you? You have naught to lose. We do but ask for truth.”

Damport’s hair was wet on his forehead; sweat ran down his nose; he could but stare open-mouthed at those vile instruments; he could but retch from the stench of death.

“Why, Damport, that is a very fine set of teeth you have, and doubtless you are very proud of them!”

Damport looked about him as though seeking escape from such a situation, but the dark and slimy walls had no suggestion to offer; there was nothing to learn from them except that within them men had descended for many many years to the level of the lowest animals. It seemed to Damport that the evil shadows that hung about the dim chamber were the ghosts of those who, having died in agony, had returned to watch the anguish of those doomed to follow them. These cruel tormentors, these examiners, felt not the presence of those sad ghosts; cruelty was commonplace to them; they had learned indifference to the groans of tortured men; one had but to look into their brute faces to know this.

Damport whimpered, “An I knew aught, I would tell it.”

“We were saying those teeth were fine, Damport. Let us see whether they will look as fine when the brakes have done with them!”

It seemed that his head was being torn from his body; he felt a sickening crunch; his jerkin was wet and he felt its damp warmness on his chest; he smelled his own blood, and swooned. Words were like the beating of the blunt end of an axe on his head.

“Come, Damport, you know Derham committed adultery with the Queen.”

They had torn out most of his teeth and all he could remember was that Derham had said that if the King were dead he would marry Catherine Howard. He told them this, fearing further torture. They were disappointed, but the man was bleeding badly and he could not stand for the pain; and his mouth was so swollen that if he would, he could not speak.

They led him from the torture chamber. They would have to tell Cranmer that they could get nothing from Damport and believed he had nothing to tell. Cranmer would be filled with that cold fury that was more terrifying than the hot rage of some men.

From Manox they could get nothing of interest. There was not sufficient evidence against him; he had been one of the humblest musicians, and there was really nothing against him; he had not been in the Queen’s presence, even while her ladies were with her. As for his relations with her at Horsham and Lambeth he was ready enough to talk of these. He was such an obvious rogue that torture would be wasted on him.

But Cranmer was not angry. He was in fact delighted. The King of France had sent condolences to Henry, telling him how grieved he was to hear news of the faults of her, so recently his Queen. That was good; but there was better still.

Why, thought Cranmer, should the Queen wish to surround herself with those who had helped her in her wantonness before her marriage, if it was not to help her in the same capacity after marriage? He would examine thoroughly all those women at the court of the Queen who had been in the service of the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. There were several of them—Katharine Tylney, Margaret Morton, Jane Bulmer, and two named Wilkes and Baskerville being the chief among them. It was from Katharine Tylney and Margaret Morton that Cranmer learned of a certain night at Lincoln; Thomas Culpepper’s name was mentioned. Lady Rochford had arranged interviews. There had been several meetings before the tour to the north and during it.

“Bring in Culpepper!” ordered Cranmer, and they brought in Culpepper.

He was a bold youth, fearless and courageous, such as Francis Derham.

A plague on courageous, gallant men! thought Cranmer, the coward. What trouble they give us!

Head held high, Culpepper admitted his love for the Queen, admitted that he would have married her if he could. No wrong, he said, had passed between them.

Cranmer laughed at that. He must admit that wrong had passed between them! How else could Cranmer be sure of enraging his lovesick King.

“Rack him until he confesses!” he ordered.

Derham had been a pirate; he had faced death more than once, and it held less horror for him than for a man like Cranmer who had never seen it come close to himself; it was with Culpepper as with Derham. Culpepper was a wild boy and had ever been a plague to his father; he was a rebellious, unruly boy with a taste for adventure and getting into trouble. There was one quality he had in common with Derham and that was bravery.

They put him on the rack. He endured that excruciating pain, that most exquisite of tortures, pressing his lips firmly together, and only now and then, and most shamefacedly, let out a groan of pain. He even smiled on the rack and tried to remember her face, anxious for him. “Oh, take care, Thomas. Take care lest thou shouldst suffer for love of me.”

He thought she was with him, talking to him now. In his thoughts he answered her. “Sweet Catherine, dost think I would do aught that might hurt thee? Thou shalt never suffer through me, Catherine. Let them do what they will.”

“Culpepper! Culpepper, you young fool! Will you speak?”

He gasped, for the pain was such as to make speech difficult.

“I have spoken.”

“Again! Again! Work faster, you fools! He has to confess!”

But he did not confess, and they carried his poor suffering body away most roughly, for they had worked themselves weary over him in vain.

The King’s rage was terrible, when he heard that Culpepper was involved. Rage, misery, jealousy, self-pity, humiliation maddened him. He wept; he shut himself up; he would see no one. This...to happen to the King of England.

His face was clothed in grief; his sick leg throbbed with pain; his youth was gone, taking with it his hope of happiness. He was an old sick man and Culpepper was a young and beautiful boy. He himself had loved to watch the grace of Culpepper; he had favored the lad; he had winked at his wickedness and had said that what happened in Kent need not be remembered at court. He had loved that boy—loved him for his wit and his beauty; and this same boy, fair of face and clean of limb, had looked frequently on the unsightly weeping sore on the royal leg, and doubtless had laughted that all the power and riches in England could not buy youth and health such as he enjoyed.

Mayhap, thought the King angrily, he is less beautiful now his graceful limbs have been tortured; the King laughed deep sobbing laughter. Culpepper should die the death of a traitor; he should die ignobly; indignities should be piled upon his traitor’s body; and when his head was on London Bridge, would she feel the same desire to kiss his lips? The King tormented himself with such thoughts of them together that could only come to a very sensual man, and the boiling blood in his head seemed as if it would burst it.

“She never had such delight in her lovers,” he said, “as she shall have torture in death!”

Catherine, in those apartments which had been planned for Anne Boleyn and used so briefly by Jane, and briefer still by Anne of Cleves, was in such a state of terror that those who guarded her feared for her reason. She would fling herself onto her bed, sobbing wildly; then she would arise and walk about her room, asking questions about her death; she would have those who had witnessed the death of her cousin come to her and tell her how Anne had died; she would weep with sorrow, and then her laughter would begin again for it seemed ironical that Anne’s fate should be hers. She was crazy with grief when she heard Culpepper was taken. She prayed incoherently. “Let them not harm him. Let me die, but let him be spared.”

If I could but see the King, she thought, surely I could make him listen to me. Surely he would spare Thomas, if I asked him.

“Could I have speech with His Majesty? Just one moment!” she begged.

“Speech with His Majesty!” They shook their heads. How could that be! His Majesty was incensed by her conduct; he would not see her. And what would Cranmer say, Cranmer who would not know real peace until Catherine Howard’s head was severed from her body!

She remembered the King as he had always been to her, indulgent and loving; even when he had reprimanded her for too much generosity, even when he, angered by the acts of traitors, had listened to her pleas for leniency, he had never shown a flicker of anger. Surely he would listen to her.

She made plans. If she could but get to the King, if she could but elude her jailors, she would know how to make herself irresistible.

She was calm now, watching for an opportunity. One quick movement of the hand to open the door, and then she would dash down the back stairs; she would watch and wait and pray for help.

The opportunity came when she knew him to be at mass in the chapel. She would run to him there, fling herself onto her knees, implore his compassion, promise him lifelong devotion if he would but spare Culpepper and Derham.

Those who were guarding her, pleased with her calmness, were sitting in a window seat, conversing among themselves of the strange happenings at court. She moved swiftly towards the door; she paused, threw a glance over her shoulder, saw that their suspicions had not been aroused, turned the handle, and was on the dark staircase before she heard the exclamation of dismay behind her.

Fleet with fear she ran. She came to the gallery; she could hear the singing in the chapel. The King was there. She would succeed because she must. Culpepper was innocent. He must not die.

Her attendants were close behind her, full of determination that her plan should not succeed, fully aware that no light punishment would be meted out to them should they let her reach the King. They caught her gown; they captured her just as she reached the chapel door. They dragged her back to the apartment. Through the gallery her screams rang out like those of a mad creature, mingling uncannily with the singing in the chapel.

A few days later she was taken from Hampton Court; she sailed down the river to a less grand prison at Sion House.

The Dowager Duchess lay in bed. She said to her attendants: “I cannot get up. I am too ill. I feel death approaching fast.”

She was sick and her disease was fear. She had heard that Culpepper and Derham had been found guilty of treason. She knew that they had had no true trial, for how could men be sentenced to death for what could not be proved, and for that which they would not admit under the vilest torture! But these two brave men had not convinced their torturers that they would not eventually respond to the persuasions of the rack, and even after their sentence, daily they were taken to the torture chambers to suffer fresh agonies. But not once did either of them swerve from their protestations of the Queen’s innocence since her marriage.

Never in the Dowager Duchess’s memory had men been tried like this before. For those accused with Anne Bolyen there had been a trial, farcical as it was. Culpepper and Derham had been taken to Guildhall before the Lord Mayor but on either side of the Lord Mayor had sat Suffolk and Audley. Sentence had been quickly pronounced, and the two were judged guilty and condemned to die the horrible lingering death assigned to traitors.

The Dowager Duchess thought of these matters as she lay abed, staring up in terror when she heard the least sound from below. She knew inventories had been made of her goods, and she knew they could not fail to arouse the covetousness of the King, for they were great in value.

What hope had she of escaping death? Even the Duke, old soldier that he was, had shown that he thought the only safe thing for a Howard to do was retreat. He had gone into voluntary retirement, hoping that the King would forget him awhile, until the fortunes of the Howard family were in a happier state.

And as she lay there, that which she dreaded came to pass. Wriothesley, accompanied by the Earl of Southampton, had come to see her.

Her face was yellow when they entered; they thought she was not malingering but really suffering from some terrible disease. They dared not approach too near the bed, the fear of plague being ever in their minds.

“We but called to see how Your Grace does,” said Wriothesley artfully, never taking his eyes from her face. “Do not distress yourself, this is but a visit; we would condole with you on the sad happenings which have befallen your family.”

The color returned slightly to her face. The men could see hope springing up. They exchanged glances. Their little ruse had succeeded, for she had always been a foolish woman ready to believe what she wished rather than what she should have known to be the truth; and she could not hide the wonderful feeling that after all she might be safe. The Dowager Duchess, these two men knew, suffered from no plague, but only from the qualms of a guilty conscience.

They questioned her. She wept and talked incoherently.

She knew nothing...nothing! she assured them. She had thought the attraction between Derham and her granddaughter but an affection between two who were united by the bonds of kinship. She had not thought to look for wickedness in that. But had she not found them together, in arms kissing? Had she thought that meet and proper in her whom the King had chosen to honor? Oh, but Catherine had been such a child, and there had been no harm...no harm that she had known of. But had she not been told of these things? Had she not beaten the girl, and had not Derham fled for his life?

“I knew it not! I knew it not!” she sobbed.

Wriothesley’s cunning eyes took in each rich detail of the room.

“Methinks,” he said, “Your Grace is well enough to be transported to the Tower.”

At Tyburn a crowd had gathered to see the death of the Queen’s lovers. Culpepper was first. How could the Queen have loved such a man? His face was emaciated; his lips drawn down; his skin like bad cheese; his eyes had sunk into black hollows. The people shuddered, knowing that they saw not the Queen’s lover, but what the tormentors had made of him. Lucky Culpepper, because he was of noble birth, and was to be but beheaded!

Derham could say Lucky Culpepper! He was of not such noble birth, and although he begged the King for mercy, which meant that he asked to die by the axe or the rope, the King was in no mood for mercy. He saw no reason why sentence should not be carried out as ordained by the judges.

Derham’s eyes were dazed with pain; he had suffered much since his arrest; he had not known there could be such cruelty in men; truly, he had known of those grim chambers below the fortress of the Tower of London, but to know by hearsay and to know by experience were two very different matters. He did not wish to live, for if he did he would never forget the gloomy dampness of gray stone walls, the terrible shrieks of agony, pain and the smell of blood and vinegar, and those awful great instruments, like monsters without thought, grimly obedient to the evil will of men.

This he had suffered and he had to suffer yet; he had been submerged in pain, but mayhap he had not yet tested its depth. Nature was more merciful than men, providing for those who suffered great pain such blessedness as fainting; but men were cruel and brought their victims out of faints that the pain might start again.