The Rose Without a Thorn by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online Page B

The sermon he preached at Greenwich was not couched in parables as some were; it was not merely hinting at the dire punishment which might befall a man who put away his wife for the sole reason that he was tired of her and lusted after another woman. Friar Peto spokefiercely against both the King and the Queen. Rome had refused the divorce, and the King had snapped his fingers at the Holy Pope and acted without his approval. He preferred the advice of his obliging Archbishop. The King and the woman he called his Queen were sinners. Friar Peto even went so far as to liken King Henry to Ahab, whose sins were not forgiven and at whose death had his blood drunk by dogs. He said Anne was a sorceress, and, still in biblical mood, likened her to Jezebel.
    The King must have been in a somewhat tolerant mood, for Peto was not immediately sent to the Tower, though he was there some months later, where he stayed for two or three years; and at the end of that time, not being so enamoured of his Queen, the King might have felt that the Friar was perhaps not so wrong as he had appeared to be at the time of the coronation.
    The Duchess remained at Court and the household was more relaxed than it had been, even in Horsham. Meals were regular and household matters attended to, but there was little supervision of the servants.
    I could not understand Mary Lassells. There had been times when it occurred to me that there was something behind Isabel’s words, but this seemed doubly so in the case of Mary. Her attitude toward Manox was a little mysterious. Sometimes she seemed to hate him, at others quite the contrary. I often saw her watching him, and she seemed very pleased when he paid attention to her. She was not easy to understand. Sometimes she almost sneered at my family; at others seemed to show great respect for it.
    “You come of a
very
grand family,” she said to me once. “The Queen’s coronation brought that home to us, did it not? The Queen herself… your cousin! And Lord William Howard, your uncle. And the Duchess, your grandmother, holding the Queen’s train and now in the Queen’s household!”
    “I believe my cousin to be a very kind and generous lady,” I said.
    “Oh, it is well for families when some of its members creep into high places.”
    “Creep into high places?”
    “Oh, I mean when they are favored by royalty.”
    She smirked a little. Then she went on: “I wonder that you are on such terms with a musician of low birth.”
    I flushed. Henry Manox and I had become even closer than we had been before. But there was a certain restraint in him. There was so much of which I was ignorant. Our lovemaking excited me. It was like making new discoveries, but I did have the notion that there was more to learn and that Henry Manox wanted to teach me, and had the power to, but, for some reason, was not altogether sure whether he should proceed.
    Henry had once said: “My little Katherine, you were born to love, but you are so young as yet. That will change though. One day, it will be even better between us two.”
    I had snuggled up to him and he had said: “You are a temptress.”
    I heard Dorothy Barwike say to Mary Lassells: “Henry Manox says he loves Katherine Howard to madness.”
    I was enthralled, and thought: “Dear Henry, I know he truly loves me.”
    Dorothy went on: “He believes he is troth-plighted to her and so contracted.”
    What was Dorothy saying? That Manox thought to marry me! I was eleven years old. Some princesses married at that age. This was rather disconcerting. I had not thought of marriage.
    Then something alarming happened. Mary Lassells came to me one morning, looking as though she wanted to talk to me and did not know how to begin. I asked her if anything was wrong, to which she replied hesitatingly: “I know not what I must do. But do something I know I must.”
    “What has happened?” I persisted. “Pray tell me, Mary.”
    “Mayhap I have failed to understand. Mayhap I should