The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  “You are not supposed to take more than a bite of each dish,” lectured Margaret. “It is not like eating in the nursery! You filled your belly with prawns, and now there’s no room for anything else!”

  “I did not know,” I mumbled. I was feeling drowsy from the wine (watered as it was), the late hour, and my full stomach. The flickering candles before me and all up and down the table were affecting me oddly. I had to struggle to stay awake and upright. I hardly saw the grand dessert brought in, a sugared replica of Sheen Manor, and I certainly did not want any of it. My only concern was to keep from slipping sideways, lying down under the table, and falling fast asleep.

  Then the tables were cleared and jesters and mimes came in for what seemed an interminable time. I could not focus on them and just prayed for it to be over before I disgraced myself by collapsing and proving Father right—that I had been too young to attend the banquet.

  WILL:

  A candid opinion of how jesters are perceived by their audiences. It was always a mistake to have us follow a banquet; full stomachs make people unreceptive to anything pertaining to the mind. After eating, a man does not want to laugh, he wants to sleep. I have always believed that in place of the old Roman vomitorium (where they could relieve their distended bellies) there should be a dormitorium, where people could sleep and digest. Perhaps royal architects could incorporate this design in their plans. It should, of course, be directly off the Great Hall.

  HENRY VIII:

  At last it ended. The jesters exited, tumbling and throwing paper roses and paste beads out over the spectators. The King rose and prodded Arthur to do likewise. No one in the Hall was permitted to stir until the Royal Family had left the dais, and I wondered what Margaret and I were to do as I saw the King, the Queen, and Arthur making their way out. Suddenly the King turned and, with a solemn nod, indicated that Margaret and I were to join them. He had known all along, then, that we were present.

  They took no notice of us as we trailed along behind them. The King was busy talking to Warham, and the Queen walked alone, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. Behind her, like a raven, came Margaret Beaufort, all in black, straining to overhear the King’s private conversation. Beside me my sister Margaret walked, complaining about her tight shoes and the late hour and the roast swan, which was upsetting her digestion.

  The King’s apartments were on the opposite side of the Manor from the Great Hall, a matter for great grumbling in the kitchens. But when we finally reached them I felt a sense of disappointment. They were old and shabby, not even as spacious or well furnished as the nursery at Eltham. The ceiling was stained with soot from poor-burning tallow candles, the floor stones pitted and uneven. And it was cold, in spite of the fire. Drafts came from everywhere, making the torches and candle flames sway and flicker. All at once I was wide awake, and chilled.

  But the King appeared distracted and oblivious to the discomfort of his surroundings. He gathered Ruthal and Fox to his side and conferred with them for some moments before breaking away and saying in a strained voice, “Now we must make merry! It is Christmastide.” He smiled at the Queen, but it was more like a nervous tic.

  She stood up, a slender column of white. “My children!” she said, holding out her hands. “Without children, there are no holidays.” She turned to Arthur, standing just beside her. “My firstborn,” she said fondly, ruffling his hair. Then she looked out into the room. “And Margaret.” Margaret strode up to her, grinning. “And Henry.” Slowly I made my way up to her. “Ah, Henry! You have grown so. And I have heard such things from André about your progress in your studies.” The tone was warm but the words impersonal. They could have been directed at any one of us. For an instant I hated her.

  “Thank you, my Lady,” I said. And waited for something else. But there was nothing more.

  The King sank into an old, slack leather chair. He called for wine and drank two cups before uttering a word. This was a dismal gathering. I began to wish I had stayed in the nursery after all.

  Suddenly he heaved himself out of his chair. “It is Yuletide,” he reiterated, as if he had forgotten saying it earlier. “And I am thankful to have my family here with me. We will exchange gifts now—or rather, we shall present our gifts to our children.” He motioned, and a gentleman usher brought forth a tray of wrapped gifts. “To Arthur.” As the name was called, we were expected to come up and receive our gifts. Arthur took the bulky bundle, clutched it in his arms, and returned to his place.

  “No, no!” The King’s voice was harsh. “Open it!”

  Obediently, Arthur began tearing off the wrapping. There was something folded and soft underneath. It was white. It was—I could see it already!—a velvet cloak. With ermine trim. It fell across Arthur’s knees. He shook it out and had to stand to do so.

  The King was waiting expectantly. “Thank you, Father,” Arthur said. “Thank you, Mother.”

  “Well?” said the King, beaming. “Try it!”

  Arthur slipped it on, and there was a hideous pause. The cloak was far too big for him and hung grotesquely. It made him look dwarfish.

  The King saw it and waved his hand. “It is for your wedding,” he said testily. “Of course, it’s a bit large.”

  “Of course,” murmured the few chamber attendants present.

  Arthur took it off and folded it.

  Margaret received a pearl headdress. “For your wedding also,” said the Queen. “It will not be long,” she added gently. “In two or three years’ time—”

  “Yes.” Margaret made a rough curtsey and tramped back to her seat. She plunked down, grasping the dainty headdress in her grimy hands and almost twisting it out of shape.

  “And for Henry—” I stood as they called my name and walked toward the Queen, who was extending her hand. “Also for your marriage.” She handed me a slim package, then nodded at me to unwrap it. I did so, and found an exquisitely illustrated Book of Hours. I looked up at her in surprise.

  “Your marriage with the Church,” she explained. “Now that you have progressed so far with your lessons, perhaps you can make use of this.”

  I was disappointed for inexplicable reasons. Yet what had I expected? “Thank you, my Lady,” I said, and returned to my seat.

  The evening continued in such strained merriment. The King spent much time conferring with his mother, and the Queen never left her ornately carved chair to speak with any of us, but fidgeted with her hands and the fastenings of her dress and listened to Margaret Beaufort’s urgent whispers beside her.

  Occasionally I caught some of her words. Cornish. Army. Tower. Defeat.

  And still no one had mentioned the lion or the dogs. That was the most puzzling part. I did not understand, but then I understood so little.

  I did not understand, for instance, why the King, who was known to be stingy, had had such a sumptuous banquet. I did not understand why, in spite of his words about making merry, he was so obviously glum. I did not understand what the Cornish had to do with all of it.

  I was trying to sort out all these things in my mind while dutifully staring at the Book of Hours to please my mother, when a messenger burst into the room. He looked around wildly and then blurted out for us all to hear: “Your Grace—the Cornish number some fifteen thousand! They are to Winchester already! And Warbeck is crowned!”

  The King sat, his face a mask. For an instant there was no sound but his heavy breathing. Then his lips moved, and he said one word: “Again!”

  “The traitors!” spat the King’s mother. “Punish them!”

  The King turned an impassive face to her. “All, Madam?” he asked blandly.

  I saw her expression change. I did not know then that her husband’s brother, Sir William Stanley, had just gone over to the Pretender.

  She met him, steel against steel. “All,” she said.

  Then the messenger went up to them, and there was a huddle of consultation and much alarm. I watched the Queen’s face: she had gone pale, but betrayed no furt
her emotion. Suddenly she rose and came toward Arthur, Margaret, and me.

  “It is late,” she said. “You must to bed. I will send for Mistress Luke.” Clearly she wanted us gone, just when I most wanted to stay.

  Nurse Luke came promptly, to my great disappointment, and ushered us out. She was full of cheerful questions about the banquet and our gifts. As we walked back to our quarters, I could feel the cold, worse even than in the King’s chamber. It seeped into the open passageway like water through a sieve.

  The torches on the wall threw long shadows before us. They were burning low; it must be extremely late. As they dwindled down to their sockets, they gave off a great deal of smoke.

  In fact the passageway seemed blurred from the smoke, and ahead it was even thicker. As we turned into another passageway, suddenly the cold was gone. That was how I perceived it—not that it was abnormally warm, but that the cold was no longer there. I started to throw off my cloak. I can remember to this day just how it felt as I grasped the worn velvet and pulled open the fastening, and felt the heavy weight go off me. And almost at the same time I first heard the cry—“Fire!”—so that even today, if I grasp my cloak in just that way, I hear again that fearful sound. . . .

  And then we could see it—could see the flames in the Great Hall. They were inside, eating as greedily as we had done just hours ago, devouring everything. Already some, impatient for the next course, were licking up toward the roof. As yet there was no alarm raised, no people were pouring out into the courtyard. It was as if the flames were holding their own private revels.

  Nurse Luke screamed and turned and fled back toward the King’s chamber, with us rushing behind her. Along the way we passed two sleeping guards; she shook them and shrieked about the fire. We reached the King’s chamber and Nurse Luke, incoherent with fear by this time, just stood and stammered. The King was still talking to the messenger and looked annoyed at the interruption. Nurse Luke flung open the heavy door and a cloud of black smoke poured in. “Your Grace, Your Grace—” she babbled, pointing.

  The King ran to the window and stared outside. The flames had met and embraced above the roof. As we watched, horrified, the roof began to buckle and slowly cave in, like melting candy. Just then the wind shifted and a great wave of heat hit our faces.

  Then the King moved. “Outside!” he called, and his voice was no longer thin, but commanding. “Outside!” We all went into the corridor, thick now with smoke and alight with airborne sparks, and then down a private staircase which led outside the Manor walls. The guards followed. The King turned on them. “Raise the alarm! Get everyone out! And not into the courtyard! To the river!” He turned back to us. “Yes, to the river!” he said, pushing us toward the path to the landing-stage.

  Now the Manor itself was a torch. It had been dry and was nearly all of wood. Flames leapt from the roof, and as we hurried to the river, we heard a great groaning: the sound of the roof of the Hall collapsing inward. I turned to see it and saw a great arc of sparks fly upward, followed by a roll of smoke. Then I was knocked down by Arthur running behind me.

  “Don’t stop and stare!” he screamed. “Get up!” I scrambled to my feet and kept my eyes on the river ahead, which reflected the strange red light behind us. The unfrozen portions danced with the flames, indeed, seemed to be aflame themselves.

  The King stopped by the riverbank. “We’ll be safe here,” he said. Silently we all drew together and watched Sheen Manor burn.

  “Sic transit gloria mundi,” said Margaret Beaufort, crossing herself. She turned her snapping black eyes on me; I noticed, idly, as one does at such moments, how they reflected the flames in miniature. “A sermon for you someday, Henry. A lesson in how fleeting are the things of this earth.” Her language grew more florid by the moment. Clearly it was a sermon she herself wished to deliver on the spot. “It was God’s doing, to punish us for our vanity.”

  “It was the Cornishmen’s doing,” said Father. “Or their friends.” He took a stone and threw it angrily out into the river. It thudded on the ice, skidded for a few feet, then dropped silently into the cold water. Ripples spread out, each one red-rimmed.

  “Now we must go to the Tower. So it will look as if we had to take refuge. They planned it well.”

  Suddenly I understood it all. I understood the little, puzzling things: that Father had had the banquet in order to show the court and powerful nobles what a wealthy and mighty King he was, how secure, how established. He had brought his children to Sheen and obliged Arthur to sit by his side, had pointed Margaret and me out after the revels to show the solidarity of his family, to present his phalanx of heirs.

  He had hanged the dogs because there was treason all about, and he wished to warn potential traitors that they could expect no mercy from him. Appearances were important, more important even than reality. People credited only what their eyes beheld; no matter if it were calculatedly false or staged.

  And I understood the big thing: the enemy had its own resources and could pull everything down around you in an instant, leaving you to curse and throw rocks into the river. All enemies must be destroyed. One must ever be on guard.

  And the most frightening thing of all: Father’s throne was not secure. That fact hammered itself into my soul with cold nails. Tomorrow, or next week, or next year, he might be King no longer. . . .

  “O Henry, why?” wept Arthur, still clutching the white, ermine-furred gift robes against himself. Then he answered his own question. “I suppose it was a careless cook.” He pushed his hand across his nose, sniffling. “When I am King, I will make the kitchens safer.”

  Then I began to cry, too, and not for the burning Manor, but for Arthur, poor, foolish Arthur. . . .

  “Aye,” I said. “Make the kitchens safer. That would be a good thing.”

  Sheen Manor burned to the ground. We went to the Tower for safety, and Father’s forces defeated the Cornish, finally, but not before they had reached London itself. A great battle was fought across the Thames on Black-heath, and from the high window of the Tower we could see the men milling, see the puffs of smoke from guns. We could see, too, small sprawled figures that no longer moved, until, as the day went on, they outnumbered the moving ones.

  The pretender Warbeck was taken and locked securely in the fortress portion of the Tower, and we came out almost as he went in. A simple matter of which side of the walls one was on determined everything. Father was King again and could walk freely where he chose, while Warbeck was confined within the sunless walls.

  Father made grand plans to have Sheen Manor rebuilt in the modern style, with great numbers of glass windows. To emphasize his recent victory, he changed its name to Richmond Palace. (He had been Earl of Richmond before becoming King.) He spent uncharacteristic sums on the new palace, and as a result it was surprisingly magnificent.

  He also began making plans for Arthur’s long-standing betrothal to Princess Katherine of Aragon finally to lead to a wedding. He was determined to see Arthur settled in the marriage bed as soon as possible.

  IV

  Arthur had been betrothed practically from the font at which he had first been christened Arthur, “in honour of the British race.” And what better way to show the honour of the British race than to cross it with another royal house? Father, as always, aimed high. (I have lately come to realize that he would have made an excellent gambler. What a pity—and loss for his purse!—that he did not play, on principle.) Spain was an obvious choice, as Father preferred not to importune our ancient enemy, France, for a bride. If Spain would allow its princess to marry into the House of Tudor, this would constitute recognition that we were, indeed, legitimate rulers. It would be another bit of showmanship for Father, like the treasonous dogs. It would say to the world: Look, look, I am a true King. For the old, established royal houses would never sign marriage contracts with a Perkin Warbeck or his like. And once there were sons from that marriage, all unspoken reservations about the worthiness of the Tudor blood would be stilled. Ar
thur and Katherine’s children would be welcomed in every court in Europe.

  I think there persisted a feeling at the time that England was not a country in the civilized sense of the word. We were perceived as backward, remote, and barbarous—the latter because of our horrible dynastic wars, which had been going on since living memory. We were not truly wild, like the Scots or the Irish, but we were not yet an integral part of the rest of Europe.

  Everything took so long to reach us. When I was ten, that is, around the year 1500, glass windows in common dwellings were almost unheard of. No bluff, common Englishman would use a fork (or had even seen one), would wear anything but wool, would eat anything but the traditional “three B’s”: beer, bread, and beef. There were no rugs on the stone floors, nothing but dirty rushes where people spit and threw scraps. Even the King dined on a collapsible trestle table, and only women in childbirth could expect to have a pillow. This while Italian princes lived in open, sunlit villas, worked on inlaid marble tables, and sampled a variety of fine dishes.

  The Renaissance, the New Learning—those were but foreign terms to us, and anything foreign was suspect. Our great lords still tried to keep their own private armies of retainers, long after the princes of Europe had begun concentrating all military power in their own hands. Music, even at court, consisted of a small band of poor musicians playing outdated tunes on outdated instruments. Parliament was summoned only in order to raise money for the King, and then, often as not, the people refused to pay up. European ambassadors regarded a posting here as going into exile, where they would have to endure privations and exist among a baffling, unruly people. They prayed to endure until they could be rewarded by being sent to a “real” court.

  Of course, the common people would come out and gape whenever the English King would go from one palace to another. To them we were grand. They knew no better; but foreigners did. They used to mock the King and all our shabby, awkward, unfashionable grandeurs.