The Fifth Queen Crowned
royal blood, I will teach you a lesson. For hear me----'
'No, I will hear thee no more,' the Lady Mary answered; 'I will teach
thee. For thou art not the only one in this land to be proud. I will
show thee such a pride as shall make thee blush.'
She stood up and came slowly down the steps of the dais. She squared
back her shoulders and folded her hands before her; she erected her
head, and her eyes were dark. When she was come to where the Queen sat,
she kneeled down.
'I acknowledge thee to be my mother,' she said, 'that have married the
King, my father. I pray you that you do take me by the hand and set me
in that seat that you did raise for me. I pray you that you do style me
a princess, royal again in this land. And I pray you to lesson me and
teach me that which you would have me do as well as that which it befits
me to do. Take me by the hand.'
'Nay, it is my lord that should do this,' the Queen whispered. Before
that she had started to her feet; her face had a flush of joy; her eyes
shone with her transparent faith. She brushed back a strand of hair from
her brow; she folded her hands on her breasts and raised her glance
upwards to seek the dwelling-place of Almighty God and the saints in
their glorious array.
'It is my lord should do this!' she said again.
'Speak no more words,' the Lady Mary said. 'I have heard enow of thy
pleadings. You have heard me say that.'
She continued upon her knees.
'It is thou or none!' she said. 'It is thou or none shall witness this
my humiliation and my pride. Take me by the hand. My patience will not
last for ever.'
The Queen set her hand between the girl's. She raised her to her feet.
When the Lady Mary stood high and shadowy, in black, with her white face
beneath that dais, she looked down upon the Queen.
'Now, hear me!' she said. 'In this I have been humble to you; but I have
been most proud. For I have in my veins a greater blood than thine or
the King's, my father's. For, inasmuch as Tudor blood is above Howard's,
so my mother's, that was royal of Spain, is above Tudor's. And this it
is to be royal----
'I have had you, a Queen, kneel before me. It is royal to receive
petitions--more royal still it is to grant them. And in this, further, I
am more proud. For, hearing you say that you had prayed the King for
Cromwell's life, I thought, this is a virtue-mad Queen. She shall most
likely fall!--Prudence biddeth me not to be of her party. But shall I,
who am royal, be prudent? Shall I, who am of the house of Aragon, be
more afraid than thou, a Howard?
'I tell you--No! If you will be undone for the sake of virtue, blindly,
and like a fool, unknowing the consequences, I, Mary of Aragon and
England, will make alliance with thee, knowing that the alliance is
dangerous. And, since it is more valiant to go to a doom knowingly than
blindfold, so I do show myself more valiant than thou. For well I
know--since I saw my mother die--that virtue is a thing profitless, and
impracticable in this world. But you--you think it shall set up temporal
monarchies and rule peoples. Therefore, what you do you do for profit. I
do it for none.'
'Now, by the Mother of God,' Katharine Howard said, 'this is the
gladdest day of my life.'
'Pray you,' Mary said, 'get you gone from my sight and hearing, for I
endure ill the appearance and sound of joy. And, Queen, again I bid you
beware of calling any day fortunate till its close. For, before midnight
you may be ruined utterly. I have known more Queens than thou. Thou art
the fifth I have known.'
She added--
'For the rest, what you will I will do: submission to the King and such
cozening as he will ask of me. God keep you, for you stand in need of
it.'
* * * * *
At supper that night there sat all such knights and lordlings as ate at
the King's expense in the great hall that was in the midmost of the
castle, looking on to the courtyard. There were not such a many of them,
maybe forty; from the keeper of the Queen's records, the Lord d'Espahn,
who sat at the table head, down to the lowest of all, the young Poins,
who sat far below the salt-cellar. The greater lords of the Queen's
household, like the Lord Dacre of the North, did not eat at this common
table, or only when the Queen herself there ate, which she did at midday
when there was a feast.
Nevertheless, this eating was conducted with gravity, the Lord d'Espahn
keeping a vigilant eye down the table, which was laid with a fair white
cloth. It cost a man a fine to be drunk before the white meats were
eaten--unless, indeed, a man came drunk to the board--and the
salt-cellar of state stood a-midmost of the cloth. It was of silver from
Holland, and represented a globe of the earth, opened at the top, and
supported by knights' bannerets.
The hall was all of stone, with creamy walls, only marked above the iron
torch-holds with brandons of soot. A scutcheon of the King's arms was
above one end-door, with the Queen's above the other. Over each window
were notable deers' antlers, and over each side-door, that let in the
servers from the courtyard, was a scutcheon with the arms of a king
deceased that had visited the castle. The roof was all gilded and
coloured, and showed knaves' faces leering and winking, so that when a
man was in drink, and looked upwards with his head on his chair back,
these appeared to have life. The hall was called the Dacre Hall, because
the Lords Dacre of the North had built it to be an offering to various
kings that died whilst it was a-building.
Such knights as had pages had them behind their chairs, holding napkins
and ready to fill the horns with wine or beer. From kitchens or from
buttery-hatches the servers ran continually across the courtyard and
across the tiled floor, for the table was set back against the farther
wall, all the knights being on the wall side, since there were not so
many, and thus it was easier to come to them. There was a great clatter
with the knives going and the feet on the tiles, but little conversing,
for in that keen air eating was the principal thing, and in five minutes
a boar or a sheep's head would be stripped till the skull alone was
shown.
It was in this manner that Thomas Culpepper came into the hall when they
were all well set to, without having many eyes upon him. But the Lord
d'Espahn was aware, suddenly, of one that stood beside him.
'Gentleman, will you have a seat?' he said. 'Tell me your name and
estate, that I may appoint you one.' He was a grave lord, with a pointed
nose, dented at the end, a grey, square beard, and fresh colours on his
face. He wore his bonnet because he was the highest there, and because
there were currents of air at the openings of the doors.
Thomas Culpepper's face was of a chalky white. Somewhere Lascelles had
found for him a suit of green and red stockings. His red beard framed
his face, but his lips were pursed.
'Your seat I will have,' he said, 'for I am the Queen's cousin, T.
Culpepper.'
The Lord d'Espahn looked down upon his platter.
'You may not have my seat,' he said. 'But you shall have this seat at my
right hand that is empty. It is a very honourable seat, but mine you may
not have for it is the Queen's own that I hold, being her vicar here.'
'Your seat I will have,' Culpepper said.
The Lord d'Espahn was set upon keeping order and quiet in that place
more than on any other thing. He looked again down upon his platter, and
then he was aware of a voice that whispered in his ear--
'A' God's name, humour him, for he is very mad,' and, turning his eyes a
little, he saw that it was Lascelles above his chair head.
'Your seat I will have,' Culpepper said again. 'And this fellow, that
tells me he is the most potent lord there is here, shall serve behind my
chair.'
The Lord d'Espahn took up his knife and fork in one hand and his manchet
of bread in the other. He made as if to bow to Culpepper, who pushed him
by the shoulder away. Some lordlings saw this and wondered, but in the
noise none heard their words. At the foot of the table the squires said
that the Lord d'Espahn must have been found out in a treason. Only the
young Poins said that that was the Queen's cousin, come from Scotland,
withouten leave, for love of the Queen through whom he was sick in the
wits. This news ran through the castle by means of servers, cooks,
undercooks, scullions, maids, tiring-maids, and maids of honour, more
swiftly than it progressed up the table where men had the meats to keep
their minds upon.
Culpepper sat, flung back in his chair, his eyes, lacklustre and open,
upon the cloth where his hands sprawled out. He said few words--only
when the Lord d'Espahn's server carved boar's head for him, he took one
piece in his mouth and then threw the plate full into the server's face.
This caused great offence amongst the serving-men, for this server was a
portly fellow that had served the Lord d'Espahn many years, and had a
face like a ram's, so grave it was. Having drunk a little of his wine,
Culpepper turned out the rest upon the cloth; his salt he brushed off
his plate with his sleeve. That was remembered for long afterwards by
many men and women. And it was as if he could not swallow, for he put
down neither meat nor drink, but sat, deadly and pale, so that some said
that he was rabid. Once he turned his head to ask the Lord d'Espahn--
'If a quean prove forsworn, and turn to a Queen, what should her true
love do?'
The Lord d'Espahn never made any answer, but wagged his beard from side
to side, and Culpepper repeated his question three separate times.
Finally, the platters were raised, and the Lord d'Espahn went away to
the sound of trumpets. Many of the lords there came peering round
Culpepper to see what sport he might yield. Lascelles went away,
following the scarlet figure of the young Poins, working his hand into
the boy's arm and whispering to him. The servers and disservers went to
their work of clearing the board.
But Culpepper sat there without word or motion, so that none of those
lords had any sport out of him. Some of them went away to roast pippins
at the Widow Amnot's, some to speak with the alchemist that, on the
roof, watched the stars. So one and the other left the room; the torches
burned out, most of them, and, save for two lords of the Archbishop's
following, who said boldly that they would watch and care for this man,
because he was the Queen's cousin, and there might be advancement in it,
Culpepper was left alone.
His sword he had not with him, but he had his dagger, and, just as he
drew it, appearing about to stab himself in the heart, there ran across
the hall the black figure of Lascelles, so that he appeared to have been
watching through a window, and the two lords threw themselves upon
Culpepper's arm. And all three began to tell him that there was better
work for him to do than that of stabbing himself; and Lascelles brought
with him a flagon of _aqua vitae_ from Holland, and poured out a little
for Culpepper to drink. And one of the lords said that his room was up
in the gallery near the Queen's, and, if Culpepper would go with him
there, they might make good cheer. Only he must be silent in the going
thither; afterwards it would not so much matter, for they would be past
the guards. So, linking their arms in his, they wound up and across the
courtyard, where the torchmen that waited on their company of diners to
light them, blessed God that the sitting was over, and beat their
torches out against the ground.
In the shadow of the high walls, and some in the moonlight, the
serving-men held their parliament. They discoursed of these things, and
some said that it was a great pity that T. Culpepper was come to Court.
For he was an idle braggart, and where he was disorder grew, and that