[213] There is in the British Museum (Stowe MS. 559) a list of the jewels and other things given by Henry to Katharine at the marriage and subsequently. The inventory was made at the time of her attainder, when she was deprived of everything. The jewels appear to have been very numerous and rich: one square or stomacher, given on New Year’s Day 1540, containing 33 diamonds, 60 rubies, and a border of pearls. Another gift at Christmas the same year was “two laces containing 26 fair table diamonds and 158 fair pearls, with a rope of fair large pearls, 200 pearls.” Magnificent jewels of all sorts are to be counted by the dozen in this list, comparing strangely with the meagre list of Katharine of Aragon’s treasures. One curious item in Katharine’s list is “a book of gold enamelled, wherein is a clock, upon every side of which book is three diamonds, a little man standing upon one of them, four turquoises and three rubies with a little chain of gold enamelled blue hanging to it.” This book, together with “a purse of gold enamelled red containing eight diamonds set in goldsmith’s work,” was taken by the King himself when poor Katharine fell, and another splendid jewelled pomander containing a clock was taken by him for Princess Mary.
[214] He had on the same morning taken the Sacrament, it being All Souls’ Day, and had directed his confessor, the Bishop of Lincoln, to offer up a prayer of thanks with him “for the good life he (Henry) led, and hoped to lead with his wife.” (Calendar Henry VIII., vol. 16, p. 615.)
[215] Calendar Henry VIII., vol. 16, p. 48, September 1540. This was a year before he made his statement to Cranmer. The hatred expressed to the King’s new Catholic policy by Lascelles proves him to have been a fit instrument for the delation and ruin of Katharine.
[216] They are all in the Record Office, and are summarised in the Henry VIII. Calendar, vol. 16.
[217] Lady Rochford, who seems to have been a most abandoned woman, was the widow of Anne Boleyn’s brother, who had been beheaded at the time of his sister’s fall.
[218] In the Record Office, abstracted (much condensed) in Henry VIII. Calendar, vol. 16. For the purposes of this book I have used the original manuscripts.
[219] In the curious and detailed but in many respects unveracious account of the affair given in the Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII., edited by the present writer, it is distinctly stated that Culpeper made his confession on the threat of the rack in the Tower. He is made in this account to say that he was deeply in love with Katharine before her marriage, and had fallen ill with grief when she became Henry’s wife. She had taken pity upon him, and had arranged a meeting at Richmond, which had been betrayed to Hertford by one of Katharine’s servants. The writer of the Chronicle (Guaras), who had good sources of information and was a close observer, did not believe that any guilty act had been committed by Katharine after her marriage.
[220] Record Office, State Papers, 1, 721. The Duke had gone to demand of his stepmother Derham’s box of papers. He found that she had already overhauled them and destroyed many of them. In his conversation with her, she admitted that she knew Katharine was immoral before marriage.
[221] The Commissioners included Michael Dormer, Lord Mayor, Lord Chancellor Audley, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, with the Lords of the Council and judges. Norfolk, in order to show his zeal and freedom from complicity, jeered and laughed as the examination of the prisoners proceeded. For a similar reason he brought his son, the Earl of Surrey, to the trial: and it was noted that both the Queen’s brothers and those of Culpeper rode about the city unconcernedly, in order to prove that they had no sympathy with the accused. As soon as the trial was over, however, Norfolk retired to Kenninghall, some said by the King’s orders, and rumours were rife that not only was he in disgrace, but that danger to him portended. We shall see that his fate was deferred for a time, as Henry needed his military aid in the coming wars with Scotland and France, and he was the only soldier of experience and authority in England.
[222] One of Katharine’s love letters to Culpeper, written during the progress in the North, is in the Record Office; and although it does not offer direct corroboration of guilt, it would have offered good presumptive evidence, and is, to say the least of it, an extremely indiscreet letter for a married woman and a queen to write to a man who had been her lover before her marriage. The letter is all in Katharine’s writing except the first line. “Master Culpeper,” it runs, “I heartily recommend me unto you, praying you to send me word how that you do. I did hear that ye were sick and I never longed so much for anything as to see you. It maketh my heart to die when I do think that I cannot always be in your company. Come to me when my Lady Rochford be here, for then I shall be best at leisure to be at your commandment. I do thank you that you have promised to be good to that poor fellow my man; for when he is gone there be none I dare trust to send to you. I pray you to give me a horse for my man, for I have much ado to get one, and therefore I pray you send me one by him, and in so doing I am as I said before: and thus I take my leave of you trusting to see you shortly again; and I would you were with me now that you might see what pain I take in writing to you. Yours as long as life endures, Katheryn. One thing I had forgotten, and that is to speak to my man. Entreat him to tarry here with me still, for he says whatsoever you order he will do it.” The letter is extremely illiterate in style and spelling. (Henry VIII. Calendar, vol. 16.)