The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  After all this, we would take a light refreshment, served by a dim-sighted servant, and then part, almost wordlessly, only to repeat our actions the next day, or as soon thereafter as possible.

  That evening I would go over dispatches, confer with Wolsey, and gamble with my companions and attendants of the royal apartments, including Bessie’s father. I felt both whole and diminished, as if I were leading only half a life, and at the same time another, added half as well. I both loathed and loved my sin, both cherished and reviled it. My gambling losses mounted. I could not give proper attention to the game, or curb my tendency to escalate the stakes. None of the ordinary things seemed to matter.

  Mary had embarked for France with a full court of her own, gloriously dowered and attended. Even children were appointed as pages and maids of honour. The two Seymour lads, aged nine and six, and Thomas Boleyn’s two daughters, aged ten and seven, were on board one of the fourteen “great ships” of Mary’s flotilla.

  It was late one evening in Wolsey’s quarters where I first read the name. That name. I had been checking the list in a cursory fashion.

  Nan de Boleine.

  “Who’s this?” I mumbled. I was exhausted from Bessie that afternoon, and needed sleep.

  “The Boleyn girl,” Wolsey said.

  “Why the devil do they affect this spelling? I’d not recognized the name.”

  “It’s ‘Boleyn’ that’s the affected spelling,” said Wolsey. “The family name is originally ‘Bullen.’ But ‘Boleyn’ or ‘Boleine’ looks more prestigious.”

  “Like Wolsey for ‘Wulcy’?” I grunted. “All this name-changing is frivolous. I like it not. So both of Boleyn’s daughters have gone? And both of Seymour’s sons? There’ll not be any young ones left to grow up and attend at our court.”

  “The parents were anxious for their children to acquire French manners.”

  By God, that rankled! For how long would the world look to France for its standard of elegance and style? I was determined that my court would usurp it. “The court of King Louis is as lively as a grasshopper in November,” I snorted. “They’ll learn little there.”

  “They’ll learn from the shadow court, the one headed by Francis Valois, Duc d’Angoulême. Unless Mary gives Louis an heir, Francis will be the next King of France. Already he holds court and practises. The little Boleyns and Seymours will learn from him, not from Louis.”

  “Francis’s wife, Louis’s daughter Claude, is as holy as Katherine, so they say.” My tongue was becoming unguarded with fatigue. “It can hardly be stylish there.”

  “Madame Claude is ignored. Francis’s mistress sets the tone.”

  Openly? His mistress presided openly? “What sort of fellow is this Francis, of the house of Valois?”

  “Much like yourself, Your Majesty.” Of late Wolsey had introduced this title for me, saying that “Your Grace” was shared alike with Dukes and Archbishops and bishops, and that a monarch needed his own title. I liked it. “Athletic, well educated, a man of culture.” He paused. “It is also said he enjoys a blemished reputation as an insatiable lecher.”

  “Already? How old is he?”

  “Twenty, Your Majesty.”

  “Are his . . . attentions always welcome?”

  “Not universally, Your Majesty. He is most persistent, so it is said, and will not desist once he has his sights set on a prey. When the mayor of the city of Marseille presented him with the keys to that city, he took a fancy to the mayor’s daughter—who, being an honest woman, repelled by Francis’s looks and manner, refused. He attempted to force her. So great was her repulsion that she held her face over fumes of sulphuric acid to ruin her complexion. Only her disfigurement dissuaded Francis!”

  “A tragic deliverance,” I said. “For now she’ll be scarred forever.” I prayed that Mary would conceive a son and spare France from such a ruler.

  I glanced at Wolsey’s paper-heaped table near the fireplace. “And how proceeds your pleasure-palace?” That table was reserved for documents relating to Hampton Court.

  “Very well. The sewers and water-pipes are just being laid. My water will be brought from the springs of Coombe Hill, then pass under the Thames at Kingston, and emerge on my site. A distance of three and a half miles. I’d like you to come next spring, to watch the building. We can cross the river at Richmond, change horses at Teddington, and then it’s just a gallop through the forest.”

  “There’s no point in crossing the Thames twice. The road from Kingston to Richmond is safe, is it not?”

  His face took on a peculiar look. “I do not go through Kingston.”

  “Why? It is certainly the most direct land route.”

  He rose and made a pretense of stirring the logs in the fireplace. “I cannot say. I know only that Kingston bodes ill for me. I feel it.”

  “The place? The name? What aspect of Kingston?”

  He shook his head. He had the beginnings of jowls, I noted. He was not young, actually. He had begun his climb to power early, but had had many false starts. “I know not. Just ‘Kingston.’ Do you not have anything like that in your life?”

  “A premonition? No. No thing or place seems to promise ill or good. The future is veiled from me.”

  “You are fortunate, Your Majesty.” It was the first time I had ever beheld an expression of true melancholy on his face.

  Katherine’s time drew near, and all was in readiness. She and her ladies had completed the preparations for the infant, and Richmond Palace had been selected as her lying-in place. I had procured the finest physicians I could find, even paying an Arab to act as consultant—for certain areas of North Africa were known as great centers of medicine, and Al-Ashkar had studied there. They possessed, so it was said, manuscripts of Galen and other Greek physicians, and had access to knowledge lost to us. The knowledge I needed was not something esoteric, but the most basic of all: how to have a living son.

  In mid-September, on the eve of Holyrood Day, her pains began, and she was escorted to her lying-in chamber, already stocked with every pharmaceutical aid and surgical instrument known to medicine. Down she lay upon the wallflower-impregnated linens (for wallflower juice was known to ease childbirth pain), and, clutching the hand of Dr. Linacre with her right, and the hand of Dr. de la Sa, her Spanish physician, with her left, she bore each pain with fortitude, her lips moving constantly in prayer. When they offered her a pain-soother, she refused it, keeping her eyes fixed on the crucifix on the opposite wall.

  All this while I waited in the outer chamber, Brandon keeping vigil with me. I was as silent as Katherine and prayed just as intently. My prayers began in proper, stiff sentences. O Lord, Mighty God, grant, I beseech you, a son for my realm. But as hours wore on, and Linacre appeared, shaking his head, they became frantic, silent cries. Help her, help me, give us a child, I beg you, please, I will do anything, perform any feat, I will go on a crusade, I will dedicate this child to you, like Samuel, here am I, Lord, send me . . .

  “It is over.” Linacre flung the door wide. I leapt to my feet.

  “A son,” he said. “Living.” He beckoned for me to follow him.

  Katherine lay back, like a corpse upon a pallet. She did not stir. Was she—had she—?

  De la Sa was massaging her abdomen, which was still distended and puffy. Great spurts of blackish blood shot out from between her legs each time he pushed, where it was caught in a silver basin. The blood was lumpy with clots. Katherine moaned and stirred.

  “The child,” Linacre indicated, turning my eyes from the grotesque horror on the bed that was my pain-wracked and damaged wife. Maria de Salinas Willoughby was bathing the babe, washing blood and mucus off him.

  He was so tiny. Tiny as a kitten. Too small to live, I knew it on the instant.

  “We thought it best that he be baptized immediately,” said Linacre. “So we sent for a priest.”

  I nodded, aware of what he was admitting. Baptize him quickly, before he dies. No ceremony. Any priest will do.

&n
bsp; A young priest appeared from the outer chamber, having been hurried from the Chapel Royal, where he served with minor duties. He was still adjusting his vestments and carried a container of holy water.

  “Proceed,” I ordered him. Maria had the babe dried and wrapped in a blanket by now.

  “His . . . robe,” protested Katherine weakly.

  “She means the christening robe she fashioned for him,” explained Maria.

  “We haven’t time.” I said the words, feeling nothing. Numb as a hand held against cold metal.

  “The robe . . .”

  “It is right here, Your Grace, I’ll see to it,” Maria reassured Katherine tenderly. She pulled the dainty thing over his head, not even straightening it, just so she could comply.

  “Godparents?” asked the priest.

  “You, Maria, and you, Brandon.” What difference? Anyone would do. There would be no duties as the child grew.

  “Name?”

  “William,” I said. A good English name.

  “I baptize thee, William, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” A trickle of water on his soft forehead.

  Quick, now: wrap him warmly, hold him near the brazier, give him heated milk. A miracle if he lives. Lord Jesu, I ask you for a miracle.

  Prince William died seven hours later. By the time Katherine’s milk came in, the babe had been buried for two days, wearing his little christening robe as a shroud.

  WILL:

  That winter the news came to us: our King had lost another son. Now, for the first time, people began to worry, and to pray. Their King had been married five years now, and remained childless.

  HENRY VIII:

  I went to Katherine, and we comforted one another, and I attempted to put all those fearsome doubts behind me. I resolved never to quarrel with her or upset her again. I was deeply sorry that I had said the cruel things I had, and above all, that I had uttered the evil word “divorce” like a curse.

  Katherine conceived again. It was a merry Christmas for us in England, and, I hoped, for Queen Mary and King Louis in France.

  XXIV

  For the past few months I had concerned myself with intensely personal griefs and hopes. But all that ended on New Year’s Day, when my attention was called back to matters of statesmanship. For on that ominous first day of 1515, King Louis died. All my carefully constructed plans were overthrown in the final exhalation of a single man’s breath. Francis was King Francis I of France now, and my sister no longer Queen but Dowager Queen, as politically useless in the new regime as a pig-farmer in the land of the Turk.

  In accordance with French custom, she was taken immediately to the Palais de Cluny, near Paris. There she was to remain, guarded by the nuns and veiled all in white for royal mourning, until her monthly course appeared and assured Francis that there was no heir within her womb to challenge him. She was to be known as La Reine Blanche, the White Queen, to distinguish her from Queen Claude, the reigning Queen.

  “They are holding her prisoner,” I grumbled to Wolsey. “I want her—and her dowry jewels, and her wedding jewels from Louis—out of France now. I distrust their motives.”

  “They will not release her until they are sure she is not with child. Francis dares not.”

  “I like it not! And why have we had no direct word from her? All our communications are passed through the French ambassador.”

  “I agree . . . there should be an English presence.”

  I paced the floor, treading softly on the new Turkish carpet that Wolsey had presented me for Christmas. He had insisted that I spread it on the chamber floor, even though it was of silk. It gave me a sense of luxury and power to walk on silk. “You must go. As my representative. Use the pretext of recognizing Francis as King. But spirit Mary, and the jewels, out.”

  “My presence would alert Francis to something of import. Send the Duke of Suffolk, rather. He is known as a friend of the Dowager Queen’s, a boon companion of Your Majesty’s, and, begging your pardon . . . he is not the stuff of which intriguers are made.” A polite reminder that Charles Brandon was not a man of wit or learning or even much intelligence.

  “An excellent subterfuge,” I admitted. “Yet he’s brave, and loyal. One can count on him to carry out a task.”

  “As long as he does not have to think, Your Majesty, but just be stalwart.”

  As Brandon made his way to Dover, preparing to take ship and cross the wintry Channel, a messenger arrived carrying a letter smuggled out of the convent. Mary was being assaulted and harassed by Francis, who visited her daily on the pretext of consoling her, but propositioned her, grabbed her, and attempted to woo her. He ordered the nuns to leave them alone and lock the doors, then he tried to seduce her, and failing that, to force her to lie with him.

  I shook with rage at the picture of this libertine putting his hands on my sister—his stepmother! The very heavens themselves condemned this ancient abomination. The First Gentleman of France, as he called himself, was a perverted beast. Let Mary be found with child, so that France would be delivered from his evil reign! And let Brandon act as her champion to free her from the prison that Francis had put her in.

  “Pray God, Katherine,” I said, when I recounted Mary’s plight to her. “I know he hears your prayers.”

  “Not always,” she said. “But I will pray nonetheless.”

  God answered her prayers, but in a disastrous way. For Brandon rescued Mary by marrying her himself, with Francis’s connivance.

  “Traitor!” I screamed, when I read his letter. “Traitor!”

  For the tenth time I reread the words:

  My Lord, so it is that when I came to Paris I heard many things which put me in great fear, and so did the Queen both; and the Queen would never let me be in rest till I had granted her to be married. And so to be plain with you, I have married her heartily and have lain with her, insomuch that I fear me lest she be with child.

  Now I knew them all by heart. No need to keep this foul document. I flung it into the fire, where it quickly writhed, blackened, and withered.

  “He’s robbed me of a sister!”

  “I think it was rather . . . noble of him to do what he did,” said Katherine timidly, for she had learned not to contradict me in my rages.

  “In Spain such things may pass for noble. In England they are regarded as foolhardy and dangerous.”

  “He rescued a princess in distress, whose honour was being threatened.”

  “He robbed me of a valuable property to be used in marriage negotiations! Now I have no one to use as bait for treaties, no one, as we are childless, and—”

  “Can you not rejoice for them, and their happiness? Henry, once you would have. Oh, remember the boy who wrote,

  ‘But love is a thing given by God,

  In that therefore can be none odd,

  But perfect in deed and between two;

  Wherefore then should we it eschew?’ ”

  “That boy is dead.” When had he died? In my learning to be King?

  “He rescued me. When I was a princess in a strange land.”

  Oh, she was going to begin on that again. I could tell by the faraway look in her eyes. What a bore. “Well, you are Queen now, and it’s a long time past.” Impatiently I looked round for escape. “I’ll tell Wolsey to devise some punishment for them. Set a fine. Yes, that’s it.” Quickly I left her alone.

  Wolsey did just that. He proposed that Brandon be required to compensate for the loss of Mary’s perpetual dowager’s pension from France by paying it himself: some twenty-four thousand pounds. If he would agree to this, then they could return to England and I would receive them.

  WILL:

  What this did, in effect, was to remove Brandon from any chance of competing for power at court. The heavy fine assured that the Duke of Suffolk could not afford to live at court any longer; he and Mary had to dwell at Westhorpe Manor, in Suffolk, where the living was cheaper. Out of Henry’s sight, out of Henry’s mind. Or so Wol
sey hoped.

  HENRY VIII:

  In the meantime I sported myself with Bessie. Brandon’s sentence—“I have married her heartily and have lain with her, insomuch that I fear me lest she be with child”—haunted me, mocked me. He, who knew so much about women—how to woo them, win them, bed them—had secrets I did not possess. Whatever his male beauty was, it was sufficient to win a royal princess. Did I have such as that? What was it? I did not know, that was the maddening thing of it. It was closed to me, a power I was not sure of. And yet, did we not have the same body, the same parts? Were we not both men, and were there not only a few (far fewer than voluptuaries would admit) common things we could do with our common parts? I drove myself to explore every aspect of the flesh with Bessie, as if to capture that final, elusive thing, sensuality itself. And yet, in the end, my body gave me no further knowledge.

  Afterwards, I would return to my outer chamber, where all my attendants and friends gathered. It was known that the King’s outer chamber was a place to pass time, to dice and sing and gossip and compare fashions. Then I would join in, become one of them, or fancy myself so. I would order more logs for the fire and more torches, and stronger wine, and the chamber would grow warm and ruddy, as we gambled with cards, playing Primero. In the reddish glow of the firelight and the pleasant aftermath of the misuse of my private parts, I would feel myself a man among men.

  Surfeited, I would retire, requesting Bessie’s father as my esquire to remove my outer garments. The touch of his hands, his ministering hands, was a perverse victory for me. I savored it, in all its nasty ramifications.