The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr Read Online Free PDF Page A

forget it.
    Latimer! he thought now. The noble lord had been involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace, as had Katharine Parr’s relatives, the Throckmortons. They were staunch Catholics, and Cranmer must be continually on guard against the influence of Catholic thought on the King. Yet of late Latimer’s widow had been turning toward the new faith, which was dear to Cranmer. A Protestant lady’s influence on the King would make Cranmer happy, while it would certainly discomfit his enemies—Norfolk, Gardiner and Wriothesley.
    Cranmer said: “Your Grace, we should command this lady to come to court.”
    The King nodded.
    “Let it be done,” he said. “Let it be done.”
    IN THE OAK-PANELED room of the Latimer mansion, Thomas Seymour was bowing over the hand of Katharine Parr.
    “I have waited for this moment for…for…” Seymour lifted his handsome eyes to Katharine’s face. It was a trick of the gallant gentleman, who was rarely lost for words, to feign a nervousness which made him tonguetied. It was a trick which never failed to please the lady he was trying to impress.
    “For?” prompted Katharine.
    “Since I last saw you.” He smiled and boldly drew her to the window-seat, keeping her hand in his.
    “Do you find it pleasant to be in London, fair lady, after the monotony of Yorkshire?”
    “I had too much to do in Yorkshire to find life monotonous there.”
    “But did you not, when you so nobly nursed your husband, long for court life?”
    “No. I was happy. Except…”
    “Except?”
    “I thought of that time when I knew great fear. Not a day would pass when I would not be startled out of my wits by a knock on a door or a sight of a rider in the courtyard. I would look through a window and say to myself: ‘Can it be a messenger from the King?’”
    “And, your lord husband, did he tremble with you?”
    “He did not. He seemed insensible to danger. He was a brave man.”
    “Too sick, I’ll wager, too concerned with fighting death to fear the King’s anger.”
    “And then …” she said, “the King pardoned him.”
    “The King’s pardon!” Seymour laughed. “The King’s smiles are like April sunshine, Kate.”
    “I hear he is moody and depressed these days.”
    “The King! Aye. And looking for a wife.”
    “May God preserve the poor, unfortunate lady on whom his choice falls.”
    Seymour raised his eyebrows in mock horror. “Treason, Kate!” he said.
    “I know I should be careful. I speak too rashly.”
    “Rashness? That is a fault I share with you. But ’tis truth you speak. What woman would be eager to share the King’s throne since poor little Howard’s head rolled in the straw?”
    “Poor child. So young. So beautiful… and to die thus!”
    “Caution!” Seymour took the opportunity to put his face close to hers on a pretext of whispering. “Master Wriothesley hath his spies everywhere, they say. I will tell you something: All through the court people are whispering, asking each other on whom the King’s choice will fall. Age creeps on the royal body. Once he was a raging lion; now he is a sick one. The same desires, the same mighty bulk, but a sick lion who stays at home to lick his poor, wounded limbs when once he would have led the chase. Such a state of affairs has not been beneficial to the royal temper.”
    “’ Tis you who are incautious now.”
    “I ever was, and ’tis true I am more so now. Do you know why? It is because you are sitting near me. You are as beautiful as the sun on the sea, Kate. Oh, I beg of you keep clear of His Majesty’s roaming eye.”
    She laughed. “You are mocking me. I have been a wife twice already.”
    “Nay! You have never been a wife. You have been twice a nurse. My lord Latimer was old enough to have been your grandsire.”
    “He was good to me.”
    “Good to his nurse! Oh, Kate, you know not how fair you are. Again I say, strive not to catch the King’s eye.”
    “I am thirty years old.”
    “And look but twenty. But why talk