The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  “Why me, Your Majesty?” He looked pained. “If all you require is an exchange of excrement, there are others better qualified. I do not use such terms myself, nor think in them. It will be a labour for me to perform what comes so easily to others. I beg you, let me serve you in some other capacity.”

  “No. For I need someone who can answer Luther at all levels, not merely the scatological. Employ a sailor to help you with the abusive terms; the meat of the argument needs your mind.”

  He fidgeted a little. I had noticed earlier that he had a tendency to pick at the skin around his thumbs. It was something that could be hidden under legal gowns, something that could be done while keeping an unperturbed face. His thumbs were often raw and bleeding.

  “There must be a hidden side of you,” I said. “A side that would love to daub the walls of a jakes. Give it rein.”

  “I am trying not to let my earthly side reign, my Lord, but to rein it in.”

  “Give it its head this one last time, then.”

  With a smile I sealed the command.

  More responded satisfactorily. His Answer to Luther, by “William Rosse,” claimed that Luther should be “overwhelmed with filth.” He called him “filthier than a pig and more foolish than an ass,” “a toadying buffoon who was once a friar, later a pimp,” with “nothing in his mouth but privies, filth, and dung,” fit only “to lick with his anterior the very posterior of a pissing she-mule.” He called on his readers to throw back into Luther’s “shitty mouth, truly the shit-pool of all shit, all the muck and shit which your damnable rottenness has vomited up, and to empty out all the sewers and privies” over his head. Luther, as might be expected, exploded with rage.

  “I am pleased,” I told More. “I shall bestow a suitable reward on you.” The truth was that he had shown scant originality; he had just used “shit” and “privies” to the point of boredom. “The pissing she-mule was an arresting image,” I said. The only one.

  “Give a stipend to William Rosse to have his stables muck-raked in perpetuity,” More said. “Do not connect my name or estates with it in any way.”

  “Now you have got it out of your system,” I said. “That imp, that worldly, physical side of you.”

  “I may thank you for that,” he said sadly.

  “Scurrilous, Your Majesty,” said Wolsey, glancing at the Answer to Luther on my working desk.

  “Indeed. I am somewhat embarrassed to have such a fellow as my defender—whoever he may be.”

  Wolsey sniffed his pomander.

  “The stench of literary shit is not blocked by cinnamon and cloves,” I said. “Pity.”

  “Yes, there is almost as much of that about as the common sort, now that every man has a pen and, it seems, access to a printing press.” He sniffed again. “I am thankful that you presented your work to Pope Leo rather than to the—Dutchman. And that good Pope Leo did not live to see the pamphlet wars and shit-fights.”

  I bit my lip to suppress a smile. “You do not care for Pope Adrian?”

  The truth was that Wolsey had entertained serious hopes of being elected Pope after Leo’s sudden demise. He had attempted to buy the Emperor’s votes in the Curia. But instead they had elected Adrian, Bishop of Tortosa, Charles’s boyhood tutor. From all reports the man was holy, scholarly, and slow as a “tortosa.”

  “I do not know him.”

  He had not told me of his bribery in the Conclave. Spying had become an adjunct to our dealings with one another. Did he know that I had commissioned More to write Answer to Luther? I hoped not.

  Now to the matter at hand: the Parliament I had been forced to call to raise money for a possible war.

  Yes, Francis had broken the Treaty of Universal Peace by invading Navarre, wresting it from the Emperor. Now the Emperor prepared for war and called on all those who had signed the Universal Treaty of Peace in 1518 to punish the aggressor, France, as the treaty stipulated.

  “What taxes do you plan to ask?”

  “Four shillings to the pound, Your Majesty.”

  “That is a twenty-percent tax! They will never agree!”

  “The honour of the realm demands it.”

  Was he that cut off from what was possible and reasonable? “It is unreasonable. Never ask for something that can be so easily refused. It sets a bad precedent.”

  He shook his head. His jowls moved along with it. “They will not refuse,” he intoned, in a voice suitable for the Masses he never said anymore.

  Was it then that I began to entertain doubts about the sanctity, the wisdom, of the office of the Pope? If Wolsey could be seriously considered as a candidate—O, it was good that I had written my book when my faith was as yet untroubled.

  The business with Parliament went badly. Wolsey presented the case for the tax, and the noble calling of war against King Francis, the treaty-breaker. He spoke eloquently, as ever. He could have persuaded the birds to come down off the topmost branches of a tree. Any argument offered, he could have countered.

  But More, the Speaker of the House, offered the one thing Wolsey could not refute: silence. He claimed that it was an ancient privilege of Commons to maintain “a marvelous obstinate silence” whenever strangers were present. This should suit Wolsey, “forasmuch as my Lord Cardinal lately laid to our charge the lightness of our tongues.”

  It was a stunning device. Wolsey had no recourse but to leave the Parliament chamber in defeat. In the next session one of his own household members, also in the House of Commons, spoke in a low voice about the ill logic of spending money to fight on the Continent when it could better be spent subduing the Scots at our backs, “and thereby make our King Lord of Scotland as well.”

  In the end I was allowed a tax of one shilling on the pound.

  “Who was the fellow who proposed incorporating Scotland into our Crown?” I asked Wolsey, after the fact, when his pride had stopped smarting.

  “Thomas Cromwell,” he replied. “A youngling from my household. He speaks when he should keep silent.” Thus Wolsey apologized for him.

  “I would think you would never hereafter commend silence as a virtue!” The wounds were still open and salt was at hand. “His suggestion had . . . merit.” More was a different matter. Did he seek to prove his integrity by this contrariness?

  “Cromwell is a man who thinks only in terms of the attainable, not the permissible or the conventional. King of Scotland . . . I’ll wager he sees the crown on your head even now.”

  “As I could be persuaded to, myself.” I felt the corners of my mouth go up in the facsimile of a smile. It was a trick I had learned lately to mask impatience or boredom.

  In the end we had to go to war, and Parliament had to finance it. Unfortunately for us, Parliament would finance it only so far, and that was not far enough. The war turned out to be a three years’ affair, and Parliament would sanction only a year’s participation. The result was that we paid our money, suffered losses—but were excluded from the final victory and its glories. For Francis fell in the Battle of Pavia, and was taken prisoner by Charles, in the end. The French army was destroyed. Fighting alongside his patron and master, Richard de la Pole, Edmund’s younger brother, the self-styled “White Rose of York” and Francis-styled “King of England,” was killed on the battlefield.

  “Now we are free of all pretenders!” I cried, when the news was brought me. I rejoiced. But it was a secondhand victory.

  In the opening volley of the war, we made great impact. I had recalled Brandon from his estates in Suffolk, where he languished, and put him in charge of the invading army. He and his men came within forty miles of taking Paris itself. But then the money, and the season, ran out. Snow fell and enveloped them, followed by ice. They could not winter over; it would be impossible to sustain an army of twenty-five thousand in the field in winter conditions. (To think that war must obey the trumpet-sound of the seasons!) I beseeched Parliament for the funds to enable them to take up in spring where they had left off. Parliament refused.

&nb
sp; So the opportunity to conquer France was thrown away on the smug vote of a few self-satisfied Yorkshire sheep-herders and Kentish beer-brewers!

  All English citizens had been ordered to return before the outbreak of the war. That included the few still in Francis’s court, such as the Seymour lads and Anne, Mary Boleyn’s sister. It was not meet that any loyal citizen remain in the hands of the enemy, where he might be imprisoned or held for ransom. Even the Bordeaux wine procurers hurried home, bringing their provisioning ships along with them.

  WILL:

  And thus Anne Boleyn—“Black Nan,” as she was known already—came to England. The Witch returned home. . . .

  HENRY VIII:

  Going to Parliament had been demeaning in itself (but necessary, as I did not want to exhaust the Royal Treasury completely), but being refused by them was doubly so. Having to call my citizens home, admitting that I was unable to protect them abroad, was tantamount to impotence.

  Although I did not suffer from that grave disorder, other aspects of my life concerned with that delicate element were all at odds. I continued to see sweet Mary Boleyn every Tuesday and Thursday (we made the hours sacrosanct!), but Mary had changed.

  She grew by turns fretful, then languid, then tearful. In short, it was no longer pleasurable to sport with her. I told her so, like a buyer complaining of shoddy goods.

  “Moods and tears are for one’s wife, not one’s mistress,” I grumbled one night, after she had spoiled our tryst. My loins were aching for release, and all I had been offered was a quarrel—about nothing.

  “Ah! I am practising,” she said bitterly. “It is a skill I must master, and soon.”

  Now I had it. “You are to marry?”

  “Yes,” she said glumly.

  “Who is he?” The prescribed question.

  “William Carey. One of your gentlemen servers.”

  Carey. I tried to place him. I could fit no face with the name. That in itself was bad. It meant he was unmemorable.

  “My father chose him! Paid him, rather! He wants me wed, especially since he sees—or thinks he sees—signs that I may be with child.”

  “Oh.” I felt suddenly sad. I would miss Mary; and I hated the idea that I might have a child, a child that was mine and yet was not mine. . . .

  “So he paid this fellow to make me respectable. My father wishes to advance at court; it would not do to have a bastard grandchild. Nor be seen as panderer to the King.” She laughed spitefully.

  “When is it to be? The wedding?”

  “Next week. On Sunday.”

  This was Thursday. So this was our last time. . . .

  “Perhaps it will not be as . . . odious to be married as you fear,” I reassured her.

  “William Carey is a sweet man,” she said.

  “Then you are fortunate.”

  “Sweet—and acquiescing.”

  Suddenly I understood. My first reaction was disgust. Then, close on its heels, relief.

  “Then I am fortunate,” I said.

  WILL:

  And, Catherine, you were born within the year, were you not? What say you now?

  HENRY VIII:

  After the dreadful, cursed child that Katherine had borne, there had been no others. No pregnancies. It was as if her womb, on bringing forth this monster, had cursed itself.

  Katherine had been thirty-three at the time of the vile birth. She was forty now. Although I had continued to fulfil my marital duty to her, she never conceived again.

  How fleeting a time is woman’s fertility. Katherine’s was now over. I had first beheld her when she was just opening that window. Now I held her hand as she closed it. It had not been so very long a time.

  XXXI

  I was thirty when I presented Assertio Septem Sacramentorum to Leo X and he named me Defender of the Faith. It was a stirring moment for me, and I was happy whenever I thought of it.

  But it was a happiness set like a jewel against dark velvet. There was little else in my life that showed favour from God, and bit by bit I began to wonder if the Pope were truly privy to God’s mind. Rather than being a consolation to me, the Pope’s approval served only to throw the integrity of the Papacy itself into question.

  For there was little doubt that God had turned His back on me. I had no heir, and the doctors had confirmed what I had long feared: Katherine could bear no more children. My money was spent, yet France remained just beyond my grasp. The Scots had been trounced in 1513, yet they gathered again—Holy Blood, was there no end to them and their troubles? My private vision of England’s greatness was clouded. Everywhere I looked, any plan or desire I had cherished had been soundly defeated. It was clear that God did not intend me—and by extension, my realm—to prosper until I had expunged some unknown offence against Him.

  But what was it? I could think of nothing so heinous as to merit such banishment from His favour. There had been adultery, which I had confessed. Yet (if I do not seem disrespectful) God seemed to look kindly on adulterers in the Old Testament. Abraham and Jacob and David had “handmaidens” with whom they lay, even bringing forth children. I have always found it puzzling that God was outraged at David’s “taking” of Bathsheba, yet evidently condoned Abishag’s “comforting” of him in his old age. My own special unhappiness stemmed from the knowledge that I had somehow estranged myself from my Maker. I began to search for the inadvertent action for which I was being held accountable.

  I must also face the problems inherent in my situation, should it prove impossible to remove them. I had a daughter, Mary, now nine years old. She was a delight! She excelled at her studies, being quite proficient in Latin as well as Spanish (which Katherine spoke with her) and French. Best of all, she loved music and showed great promise. She was a gentle and loving child.

  WILL:

  Who grew up to be the bitter, vindictive woman we all now suffer under. When did she change from what she was?

  HENRY VIII:

  Love her as I did, I was forced to examine the matter in cold terms. She was a woman, and when she married, she would become subject to her husband. When Mary married, England itself would be her dowry.

  No! I would not permit it! England to be annexed to either the Holy Roman Empire or France? The very thought choked me! And if she married a lesser prince, someone from a German duchy or an Italian state? What would he know of ruling a great realm? He might try, nonetheless, and thereby bring irreparable harm to England.

  Should Mary not live (the very thought was painful, but I must face the possibility), who was next in line for the throne?

  My thirteen-year-old nephew, James V of Scotland, little Jamie? I trusted not a Scot.

  My other sister, Mary, now had a son and two daughters. Yet their father had been a commoner, and this would inevitably cause questionings and bring forth other contenders and pretenders.

  These contenders would be, perforce, distantly related to royalty. But distance, I had found to my surprise and sorrow in the Buckingham affair, was no bar to royal ambition. Let a man’s great-great-great-grandfather wear a crown, and he has little trouble picturing himself in it.

  Such had been the feelings of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, descended from the sixth and last son of Edward III. We shared a common great-grandfather, as well: John Beaufort, son of Edward III’s fourth son, John of Gaunt. This enabled him to boast that he had more Plantagenet blood in his veins than I.

  There was much more besides. He consulted with a monk fortune-teller, who prophesied that he “should have all.” Buckingham said, “If aught but good come to the King, I should be next in blood to the Crown.” Most chilling of all, he said that God was punishing me (for what?) “by not suffering the King’s issue to prosper, as appears by the death of his sons.”

  After he was arrested, tried, and found guilty of treason, he revealed the full extent of his perfidy. He begged an audience with me, in which he planned to conceal a dagger on his person. He would kneel before me in supplication, then suddenly rise
and stab me to death, “using him as his father wished to Richard III.” The traitor never had an opportunity to put his fell plan into effect.

  WILL:

  Buckingham was rather stupid, as were so many of the long-established nobility. He evidently felt that his titles and lineage conferred some sort of immunity on him, which was curious in light of the fact that three Kings—Henry VI, Edward V, and Richard III—had been murdered within living memory.

  HENRY VIII:

  I had other cousins, more distant and numerous the further back one traced the lineage. There were potential claimants aplenty, that I knew.

  I could not leave the throne to Mary alone. A woman had never reigned in England but once—Matilda, in 1135. Her cousin Stephen (who stood in exactly the same relation to Matilda as James V to Mary) wrested the Crown from her after a bloody civil war. I could not permit that.

  If only I had a son! If only—

  But I did have a son. Bessie’s son throve. I had a living son. How could I have overlooked him?

  Because he was illegitimate. I had recognized him as mine; but he was not born in wedlock, which barred him from the succession.

  I paced my chamber. I remember the sun was streaming in, making patterns on the floor which I disrupted as I passed through the hot golden shafts again and again. Did this truly prevent his becoming King, I wondered. Was there no precedent?

  Margaret Beaufort had been the descendant of John of Gaunt’s bastard. There was talk that Owen Tudor had never properly married Queen Catherine. I disliked these examples, however, as they undermined my own claim to the throne. There had been William the Conqueror, of course, known as the Bastard. There was also doubt that Edward III was the son of Edward II. Most assumed he was the child of Queen Isabella’s lover, Mortimer. Richard III claimed that his brother Edward IV had been the son of a lover, sired while the good Duke of York was away fighting in France.