The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  Why did even my wife, the Queen, forget that I was King of part of France?

  The plans had been settled to the last detail. I, and all my company, were to land in the Pale of Calais, and thereafter, Francis and I would meet—and all our courts with us—just at the border of the two jurisdictions. Afterwards, each would entertain the other on his own land, and on his own territory. Special cities—temporary, splendid, as those can be only when permanency is not a factor—had been erected on each holding. There were papier-mâché palaces and silken-hung banqueting halls and conduits to dispense red and white wine to the onlookers.

  Now we began to make for the harbour, the great, enclosed Calais harbour. I could see the very men standing upon the piers, gesturing frantically.

  WILL:

  All this time I was growing up. By the time Katherine’s last pregnancy ended and Bessie’s bastard was born, I was almost a man, ready to make my way in the world, as generations of eighteen-year-olds had done before me. My father had apprenticed me to a merchant in the Calais Wool Staple—a lucrative place, halfway between England, supplier of raw wool, and Flanders, maker of fine woollen textiles. Not that I was burningly interested in it. But the wool trade—buying and selling—suited me better than Father’s messy world of dyeing and tanning, and so I fancied myself content.

  I lived in Calais, a strange city, compounded of French, English, and Flemings all bent on but one thing: trade. National pride meant little beside a ducat. When the French-English entente cordiale was announced, the talk in the taverns was not about the prospects for peace, but about the prospects for profit. Everyone saw great profit in the coming meeting.

  The King and his court must, perforce, land and lodge in Calais. That in itself was worth something, all the merchants agreed gleefully. True, they were going on to the fairy-tale palaces to be built from ground up in timber and papier-mâché; but simply building the palaces would require materials and food from the surrounding area.

  Their predictions proved true. Construction on the “temporary” palace and banqueting hall began several months in advance, and employed at least two thousand workers—masons, carpenters, glaziers, painters—using local tools and eating local food.

  At that time I worked six days for my master, weighing his incoming wool and tabulating his profits; but on Sundays I was free, and so I walked to the area where the “temporary” palace was abuilding. Not that it was a great walk: Guines was only five miles from Calais. (The deepest part of the Pale of Calais penetrated only twelve miles into France.)

  The site was easy to find; they had moved great quantities of earth, and there were swarms of workmen about. I found one of them taking his ease under a shade tree, having a picnic lunch. I approached him.

  “If there are quarters for only three people—the King, the Queen, and the Cardinal—in this thing you are building,” I said, “where is the rest of the court to lodge?”

  “That was a problem,” he said, eager to talk. “In the end it was decided to have a city of tents. There are to be four hundred of them out in this field.” He gestured toward Calais. “ ’Twill be a pretty sight. With all the pennants.”

  “And where will you be? Will you see it?”

  “I won’t be allowed,” he pronounced, proudly. “It isn’t fitting that I be there.”

  “When you finish here—?”

  “Then I get to work with the shovel. Moving that hill over there. Y’see, the French King and the English one must meet exactly halfway between Guines and Ardres, and at the halfway point there’s a hill in the way. So we’re to move it.”

  “What if the Kings moved instead?” I could not resist asking. I was young, remember.

  “The Kings move?” He looked bewildered.

  I felt a rough hand on my shoulder, and turned to see the angry face of the building master. He gave me a shove. “Stop talking to my workmen!” He suddenly moved and grabbed the other man by the shoulder. “What was he asking you? Dimensions, designs, secrets?”

  “He wanted to know about the hill,” the man said slowly.

  “Cursed Frenchman!” The master builder looked around wildly for something to throw at me, and found a large dirt clod. He heaved it in my direction. “Go tell Francis he has no hope of bettering us! Go tell your master that!”

  I would learn no more, and I had seen enough. So I left and continued walking in the direction of Ardres, the first town outside the Pale of Calais. From a hill nearby I watched an identical swarm of workmen building similar structures for the French King. I opened my square of cloth and took out my bread and cheese and last year’s softening apple, and ate. I started to laugh at them, but somehow could not. As a child I had promised myself always to answer my own questions and to hold nothing back from myself. Are they not fools? Are they not simpletons? The French King will come, and the English King will come, and then they will go. In ten years they will not even remember the glass in the palace windows. But why should that disturb me?

  Because it is wasteful, I answered myself. Because no man should be happy to serve another with no hope of recognition. Because all is temporary, and this reminder of the passing nature of things saddens me.

  A blacksmith in my village, reputedly stupid, had once speculated as to why Father’s mare had lost her new shoe so unexpectedly. (I had been sent to complain, as Father suspected shoddy work.) “Well now,” the smith said slowly, “there’s always the reason. And then there’s the real reason.”

  I found many reasons for my peevishness and sense of outrage about the royal enclaves being built, but the real one was this: I wanted to be there, and there I could not be.

  It would be simplistic to say that my detachment from such things began that day, but certainly I began to distance myself from that world. Everyone wants to feel special in some small way, and mine was to see myself as an aloof observer perched on a wall, watching the parade of human folly—royal and common—passing beneath me. Eventually I convinced myself that I had freely elected that stance.

  The day came, in June. The King was arriving, and we must welcome him, every last resident of Calais.

  I was there, upon the docks, as my master had directed me. I had dutifully helped him tidy the shop and festoon it properly with Tudor green and white, and flags, and mottoes for the royal visit. For three days street-sweepers had been busy gathering up the trash and offal from the main thoroughfares (it was hoped the King would not take it into his head to go down any others). The populace was anxious to see its King again and to see its Queen for the first time. Deep in everyone’s mind was the (futile) hope that if the French and English Kings met in friendship, the peculiar status of Calais would be resolved and the contradictions of our everyday life disappear.

  Henry’s ship came into harbour—a huge bulwark with golden sails. We all gaped at it. A number of sailors and shoremen tied it up. Then the King himself appeared on the decks.

  It was my third sighting of him. I had seen him twice before, once returning from his French wars, and before that, riding to the Tower.

  He is not the same, was my first thought. The figure on deck, heavy in majesty, was not that of the boyish soldier-King I had seen on horseback seven years earlier. He was stolid in a way the other never could have been—fixed, as in a carved figure.

  But he is thirty now, I told myself. Thirty and almost fifteen years a king. Time changes men. . . .

  He stepped down and strode across the gangplank to the docks. He was wearing clothes that tore one’s heart in envy—beautiful, costly things of gold and velvet and satin. He was robust and handsome as mortal men seldom are. I stood in awe of him, at a moment in time when I beheld human perfection—perfection that must, perforce, decay. He raised his arms, and everyone fell silent. He spoke to us, telling us of the forthcoming meeting of monarchs. It was the first time I had ever heard him speak. He had a superb voice, smooth and yet able to carry quite a distance. What a man, I thought.

  Then Queen Katherine appeare
d on the decks. She was wearing so many jewels the sun glinted off them and kept her face hidden. She raised her hand and made a gesture to the onlookers. Then she turned and slowly descended the ramp to join her husband.

  She was squat and old, and there was a stifled gasp from the crowd. They had expected a beautiful young Queen, someone like Henry’s own sister Mary, and instead there was this . . . Spanish warship. Indeed, she did resemble a man-o’-war, with her stiff brocaded skirts and strange, boxlike headdress (standard in the Spain of her youth, some thirty years earlier) and slow, deliberate movements. One almost expected a gust of wind to puff out her skirts and blow her along.

  Standing beside her husband, she did not turn toward him or acknowledge him in any way. Instead, she raised her hand in stately fashion (to which we were expected to respond by cheering) and turned her head into the sun.

  Which was a mistake. The sunlight on her aged face, in combination with the ugly headdress, reduced the onlookers to silence. She is so old, we all thought. (Later it was reported that Francis had observed, “The King of England is young and handsome, but his wife is old and deformed”—a remark for which Henry never forgave his “dear royal brother.”) But one can understand Francis’s bewilderment, as we were all struck by the contrast. On the one side, Henry, handsome and bursting with physical power; on the other, a woman riddled with gout and troubles.

  HENRY VIII:

  Katherine and I walked through the streets to a joyous welcome. It was dusk when we set out, and the individual faces in the crowd could be seen by natural light, but by the time we ended the procession, torches had been lit.

  We retired to a town house owned by a wealthy wool merchant, on loan for our royal use. We began to settle ourselves for sleep. But then Wolsey appeared. I left Katherine (doubtless she welcomed the privacy to make her personal devotions) and went downstairs to confer with the Cardinal.

  He was wearing lesser ceremonial clothes—designed to impress the onlooker, but still permitting some ease of movement and comfort to the wearer. He looked fatter than usual, I thought disdainfully. At the time I was still slim-bodied and hard-muscled, and could not imagine why any man would ever let himself go to fat.

  He was ebullient. Two Kings were about to step out upon the stage erected by him, to say lines conceived by him, and sign treaties written by him. Now he was most anxious for us to journey to the first stage of his elaborate set.

  I am thus: when someone wishes to impress me, I am determined to remain untouched, whereas when someone clearly does not, I often find myself drawn to him.

  WILL:

  And you were always singularly unable to tell the difference, mistaking Anne Boleyn’s feigned indifference for true. How well she perceived your true nature, and worked it to her advantage.

  HENRY VIII:

  “All is in readiness. The protocols, to the last raising of an eyebrow, are here.” He indicated a leather pouch overflowing with papers.

  “I believe I know it all by heart,” I said. Just for show, I did not touch the papers or the bag. “Tomorrow I ride out, just to the border of Calais, where the hill has been moved. My court will be behind me. Francis will approach; we will meet exactly halfway, embrace, and then the precisely divided honours and festivities will begin, shifting between Guines and Ardres.”

  He looked crestfallen.

  “Ah, my dear Cardinal,” I comforted him. “There will undoubtedly be problems and delays. Nothing will proceed as perfectly as on parchment. Then I rely on you.” When had the balance tipped, and he become reliant on my reassurance? When had he ceased to be solicitous of me and the reverse come about? “Tomorrow, early, we sally forth,” I said. “Our English party remains divided,” I admitted. “Half would not be here.”

  “They mistrust France to their marrow.” He gestured, signifying helplessness. “But the ones who said that if they knew they possessed one drop of French blood, they’d cut their veins and let it out . . .” He shook his head.

  “A dramatic statement,” I said. Could he not appreciate that? “We will be ready, my Queen and I,” I told him—or rather, dismissed him. “As the sun rises.”

  He took his leave, reluctantly. He wished to speak of something else, it was clear. But I did not wish to speak to him. So he must go. I heard his footsteps outside as he sought his silver-bedecked mule—symbol of humility. That made me smile.

  But the smile faded as I crossed the empty main room, with its fire still flickering in the corner fireplace. I had no desire to go upstairs and join Katherine, although I was very tired. I wished to be alone.

  I sat down on a small chair and stared at the dying flames. They threw eerie shadows, not the least of which was my own, throughout the room. In a strange moment I was envious of the wool merchant who owned this house. I imagined him to have a happy life: a trade he enjoyed, a wife, seven children. Better than being a King with a barren wife and a growing feeling of despair. Yes, despair . . . but of what? There was nothing certain I should despair of. Before such thoughts troubled me further, I got up and left the room, climbing the long staircase up to the waiting bed-chamber.

  WILL:

  There was no need for him to envy the wool merchant, whom I knew well. He was continually in debt, and his wife was unfaithful. (Only three of the seven children were his!) Yet we always envy others, comparing our shadows to their sunlit sides.

  HENRY VIII:

  I did not sleep that night. Rather, I reread the plan of my meeting with Francis, and rehearsed it in my mind. Toward daylight I felt drowsy and perhaps slept that strange half-sleep we do at dawn in an unfamiliar place: a sleep that leaves one curiously enervated and worse than no sleep at all. Thus I went forth for the day, with an altered sense of being.

  We were to ride forth, all the company of England, and meet the French in the grandly named Camp du Drap D’or. Even in Roman times the vale was known as Vallis Aurea. Clearly it had long awaited a great event, been named for it far in advance. Now we would fulfil it.

  As the early morning sun broke over the tightly packed roofs of Calais, it found our numbers overflowing the streets, and we were a high-spirited five thousand. All were wearing furs, gold, jewels: for we came not as warriors but on display. I gave the signal, and we moved out, the hooves of five thousand horses making a great noise upon the cobbled streets.

  By noon we rounded a small rise that had obscured our view of Guines. Spread out before us was a city of tents—a city larger than any in England save London, Bristol, or York. They even approximated city streets, with dwellers grouped according to association. Five streets cut through the tent-city, terminating in a great circle where a fountain had been set up.

  I heard gasps from the men around me. No one had expected such a thing. Even Katherine smiled. Then I heard it, from someone upwind: “ ’Tis the Cardinal’s doing.”

  Rising beside the tent-city was a small, perfect palace. Its rows of windows threw back the sun like a great line of mirrors.

  “See where we lodge,” I said to Katherine, sitting her horse in expert Spanish style.

  She turned to me, the sun behind her, so all I saw was a black outline. She nodded. Then I saw teeth as she spoke. “Wolsey’s city,” was all she said.

  Angry, I reined my horse away from her.

  The royal quarters in the so-called make-believe palace were sumptuous. Arabian carpets covered the floor, and intricately carved oaken furniture provided every comfort. A large banqueting house had been erected nearby, with a kitchen and all things necessary for proper ceremony.

  We entered our quarters and prepared for our meeting with Francis. There was much dressing to be done; the meeting of two monarchs for the first time decreed that we outdo one another in sartorial splendour.

  Although France was the fountainhead of all fashion, my tailors and I had decided not to ape the latest French style (which Francis was sure to surpass in gaudiness, if nothing else) but to draw upon our own English design. I was to wear a fur-trimmed golden
cloak over a scarlet doublet, with my white horse festooned in the same cloth-of-gold.

  “It is simple, Your Grace,” said my head tailor. “But simplicity is the most striking thing on earth.”

  WILL:

  So it proved to be, if you will study the large painting commissioned of the historic meeting. Henry, in gold and scarlet, stands—no, fairly leaps—from the background of a hundred men, riveting the viewer’s eye.

  HENRY VIII:

  We were mounted and ready to set out as soon as the trumpet blared. We were to wait for the French signal, which our own herald would repeat. Then the two great armies of courtiers were to move forward to the sound of drums in carefully measured beats. At all costs a charge—or any suggestion of it—was to be shunned.

  Now it came—a tinny bleat from two miles away, to be picked up and repeated by our own trumpeter. We moved forward, the creaking of thousands of saddles filling the air.

  It seemed we rode a long way without seeing anything. There was no sign of the French. The flat plain stretched out interminably, green and empty all around. Katherine rode beside me, straight and high in her imported Spanish saddle. She did not look to the left or right, but only straight ahead. My attempts to catch her eye were futile. She was lost in her own thoughts and fears, leaving me to mine.

  The sun glinted off something in the distance—a French shield? Yes! Now there was another, then another, until the field sparkled with them. They descended into the vale like a loose-linked necklace, each one momentarily catching the sun.