The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  She looked up at me. “Yes. I will marry you. When the Pope allows you to be free.”

  I was aware that I was still holding her forearm in a painful grip. I dropped it, and saw that my fingers had left damp pressure marks on the velvet. Ruined. I must send her another gown.

  “Within the year,” I said confidently.

  “Truly?” she asked. Her voice was doubtful, yet warmer than I had ever heard it.

  “Truly,” I assured her. She smiled. There seemed nothing left to say. Therefore I gave her leave to depart—two strangers disengaging.

  After she had departed, I found myself shaking. Marry her? But I hated her! Quickly I stamped on that thought.

  Within a few hours I was basking in the peculiar warmth that comes only rarely in a lifetime—having attained one’s heart’s desire. The woman I loved was to be mine.

  How should I approach the Pope? That he would give me an annulment I had no doubt. He had given others in less certain circumstances. My wayward sister Margaret had even obtained one from her second husband, the Earl of Angus, on the grounds that three years after the Battle of Flodden her first husband might conceivably still have been living.

  I knew all the complexities of my case, having spent many sleepless hours considering them. The Biblical texts were clear, and had they not been, the death of my sons was clear enough evidence. God had not meant me to overlook my transgression.

  The night was fully as hot as the day had been. I paced my chamber restlessly. Puffs of orchard-warmed air came into the room. Anne. Anne. Where was Anne? To whom was she talking this very instant?

  What difference, I told myself sternly. Soon she would be my wife. Next year at this time we would be alone in this chamber together.

  The Pope. He was key to it all. He must grant the annulment straightway. Wolsey. Wolsey would arrange it. I must send for Wolsey.

  In the meantime there was this cursed hot, perfumed night to endure.

  Wolsey was discomfited; nay, horrified—on him, horror diplomatically registered as mere discomfort.

  “Your Grace, the Queen—”

  “The Princess Dowager,” I corrected him. “Arthur’s widow. Her correct title is Princess Dowager.”

  “Princess Katherine”—he quickly found an inoffensive and correct title—“is the child of a dead King. More important, she is the aunt of a living Emperor. A devout Emperor who will doubtless take offence at the implication that his aunt is living in sin.”

  Exactly what I wanted! Wolsey was always practical. No cant about morality, no obfuscating issues. I could trust Wolsey.

  “Facts are often unpleasant. He has faced Luther well enough.”

  “Two unpleasant facts at one time . . .” He gestured delicately toward a bowl of fruit. I nodded. He selected a last-year’s apple—soft, but all that was available this time of year. “. . . are too much for most men to stomach.” He bit into the apple, then looked dismayed as he discovered its soft texture. He quickly put it in a bowl.

  “Those who would be Emperor must learn to. As you have. As anyone who would be Pope must.” At that he lightened. He still had hopes of the Papacy. Ah, if Wolsey had been Pope, then this whole conversation would have been unnecessary. But wishing is futile. An illegitimate Medici cousin of Leo X had succeeded the hapless Adrian as Pope Clement VII in 1523.

  “But Popes are men.”

  “And must die.” I smiled.

  “And have concerns. Earthly ones,” he said sternly.

  “Now you sound Lutheran,” I mocked. “The Pope, a man? The Pope, swayed by earthly issues?”

  Wolsey was in no mood for banter this morning. Oddly, I was; I was in a buoyant, teasing mood. All would be mine. That tends to make a man cheerful.

  “Your Grace, this is no matter for humour. To repudiate your wife will be no easy matter. If Your Grace will pardon me, it would have been easier had you done this before Charles become Emperor. . . . Nay, but then her father . . . nay, by then he was dead. In 1518—”

  “It is now!” I roared. What was wrong with Wolsey? Had it been the Garden of Eden, things would have been different as well, and what of it? “Now! The year 1527! And I have been living in sin for near twenty years! I want to end it, and instead you blather nonsense.”

  He looked more alarmed than I had ever seen him. Then he did something I felt was clearly deranged: he sank to his knees.

  “Your Grace, I beg you—” Tears began to stream down his cheeks. Stage tears; Wolsey could weep on command. “—do not proceed in this. Thereby lies much tribulation—”

  How dare he presume to dissuade me? I looked down at the bulky figure swaying ludicrously on its knees, artificial tears watering my chamber floor.

  “Up!”

  His tears stopped instantly as he saw that his audience was not touched. Slowly he lumbered to his feet.

  “You are Cardinal, and Papal legate,” I said. “Well versed in canon law and ecclesiastical procedure. What approach should we use?” I chose to ignore the staged outburst as a mutual embarrassment.

  So did he. “Your Grace, I feel that perhaps a small ecclesiastical court here in England should . . . examine . . . the case in question, then give a quiet report to the Holy Father of our foregone findings. That way it can all be a house matter, so to speak; no need to trouble the Vatican with it.”

  Even weeping on his knees, he had been thinking. Was his devious mind never disengaged?

  “Excellent,” I said.

  “I myself will preside over the court. We need, for appearance sake, one other. What of Warham? He is the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  “Excellent,” I repeated. This was my first—and most momentous—stride down the path I had chosen to take. The first is always the hardest. After that it becomes so much easier.

  Wolsey arranged a “secret” hearing of my troubled matrimonial case. He and Warham were to examine the facts and declare that my marriage was indeed invalid. This information was then to be sent to Pope Clement, who would issue a routine annulment. So simple, so easy. Why, then, did everything fail to transpire as we had planned it?

  The court met in late May, 1527, at Westminster. Wolsey as legatus a latere, Papal representative, and Archbishop Warham as assessor, were chief tribunalers, with Richard Wolman as my counsel. I had high hopes, which came to nothing. Their so-called “findings” were that the circumstances of my marriage were indeed questionable, and must be referred to weightier minds, preferably in Rome. The Pope must examine the entire matter and reach an independent conclusion. In other words, the issue must now be made public.

  WILL:

  Unknown to Henry, it already was. Rumours of “the King’s Great Matter” (as the annulment was euphemistically called) were rife among the commoners. Every ferryman and tart seemed to know the King wished to be free of his wife. Everyone but the person most affected in the matter—Queen Katherine herself.

  HENRY VIII:

  When my jester, Will, rather shamefacedly brought me a London broad-face sheet depicting my marriage bed and trials, I was horrified. Then I realized that if the common people knew, Katherine herself must have heard! I would have to discuss this with her—all the more embarrassing because I had not seen Katherine for a fortnight. She increasingly devoted herself to her charities and her private worship, which I of course did not wish to disturb. Also, I must confess, I had been so preoccupied with thinking of Anne I could scarce collect myself.

  To tell Katherine that she had never been my wife would be a hurtful thing and, to one of her pious nature, a shock. I fortified myself with a large cup of wine before I walked to her apartments.

  The corridor was unnaturally empty. Usually, swarms of serving-men were loitering about, showing off their latest velvet surcoats. Today it was deserted. Were they all off hunting? I felt the back of my neck; sweat was already gathering. I wished I were hunting with them; I wished I were any place but here. The guard admitted me to the Queen’s outer chambers.

  There I paced
the floor. I wanted to see her. I did not want to see her. At last I was gestured for. I meekly followed Katherine’s gentlewoman-usher. In the back of my mind I reminded myself that this person was serving a Queen who was not truly Queen. I had made her think she was, as I myself had believed her to be.

  I faced Katherine. She had been at her devotions and was clearly irritated at being disturbed. After the Mass, she customarily spent an hour on her knees on a stone floor, conferring with her Maker.

  “Yes, my Lord?” she asked, coming toward me. She gathered her great skirts in her hands. She still wore the fashion of Spain as it had been when she had left. I thought for a fleeting moment of Anne and her modern gowns, then I shoved the image away.

  “So now I must seek an appointment with my Katherine?” I laughed. Yet why was I attempting to be jocular?

  “You know the hours of my devotions—” she began.

  “They are constant, Madam,” I replied.

  She stared back at me in anger. I stared at her in wonder. How had we changed so? Two strangers who dreaded to confront one another. She shifted a bit on her feet, looked uneasy. I remembered that she had taken to wearing the coarse habit of a member of the Third Order of St. Francis underneath her everyday clothing. Perhaps it was itching.

  “Katherine,” I said, “I have come to discuss with you a question of great importance.” I thought I should begin thus.

  She moved toward me slowly. I noticed that she still wore satins by day. “Indeed?”

  “Yes.” Then I stopped. How could I broach this subject? She stood in front of me like an army. “The Bishop of Tarbes was, as you know, here recently to consult about the possible betrothal of the Princess Mary to a French prince. He mentioned certain impediments—possible—”

  All this time she had been staring at me, her wide eyes already somewhat wider.

  “Impediments?”

  “Our marriage. As you were married to my brother initially, it seems that many learned figures feel that you and I were never legally married, and therefore there is a question of Mary’s legitimacy—”

  Before I could say more, she began shouting and rotating her arms like a windmill. “How dare anyone question the dispensation of the Holy Father? Both your father and mine accepted it in good faith. They both—”

  Her father and mine? How long ago that seemed! Once they had been of such great consequence in our world; now they were forgotten by all but Katherine.

  “—gave their consent to it! Nay, blessed it! And they were holy men!”

  Holy men? Certainly not Ferdinand; and as for my father . . . who knew him, truly? They had both been bound by outward obeisance to the Pope, for political show. Was that all?

  “Perhaps they were.” Give her that comfort. “But even well-intentioned men make errors. And the fact is that God Himself has long ago passed judgment on our marriage. Painful as it is—”

  “God?” She drew herself up at that word.

  “Yes. All our children have died. We are without issue. Never before has an English King so needed an heir; never before have all his sons died; never before has a King married his brother’s wife.”

  “We have Princess Mary. She lives.”

  “A daughter. A daughter cannot hold this throne. If she marries—and marries royally, as she must—that means England will thereby come under foreign sway. If she chooses not to marry, then the House of Tudor will end with her, and there will be civil war. The Lancasters and Yorks have many cousins. Which outcome do you prefer, good lady?”

  “God’s will is that it be so. Whatever He has done, it is His will. We must submit.”

  Could the woman not understand? “Nay! It is we who have violated His law, and His will! It is we who have transgressed! And it is we who are being punished!”

  She began to finger her rosary. Nothing I had said came to rest. In any case, I was a coward. I should have come straight to the point.

  “Katherine,” I said, stepping toward her. “I have consulted with learned churchmen about our marriage. They have concluded, upon a search of the Scriptures, that it is questionable. We have, perhaps, been living in sin these past eighteen years. Until the matter is cleared, we should separate and live chastely: I as a bachelor, and you as Princess Dowager. You may select any royal residence as your own, and I will—”

  She stared at me, and her eyes were like two riveting forces.

  “Not your wife?” was all she said, in a quiet voice.

  “I do not know,” I replied. “The churchmen must decide. In the meantime, my conscience decrees that—”

  She burst into tears—loud, wailing tears. I hurried to assure her. Only a formality . . . I still loved her . . . I wanted her to remain my wife. . . .

  The tears continued. I no longer knew what I thought, or wanted. I fled from her chambers, seeking a calm refuge of my own.

  The tears. Why must there always be tears? And why did I flee?

  The next few months were telling for me. I was not married, yet I was not a bachelor. My erstwhile wife was disconsolate; my intended wife was impatient and angry. Wolsey had failed me. His brilliant scheme for the “secret tribunal” in England was a failure. It was worse than a failure; it had alerted all of England—nay, all of Europe—to my situation, whilst solving nothing on my behalf.

  In the meantime, how was I to live? With Katherine? As a celibate? Anne was adamant that she would never go to my bed except as my wife.

  Therefore I became a celibate. I can understand, now, those who claim that the state heightens one’s self-awareness and self-control. During those six years—six years!—that I was celibate, I became a different man. More resolute, more able to command myself. It gives one a strange feeling of control over oneself—and, by extension, over others. I was a true King, at last.

  XXXVIII

  Daily, Anne and I took walks in the gardens, especially in the bower, of which she was particularly fond. She liked strolling in the vine-sided tunnel, all dark and covered with green leaves, with the sun coming through to make a green murkiness.

  Every time she was by my side I could barely restrain the impulse to take her in my arms, to touch her onyx-sleek hair. Yet I did restrain myself, as I knew I must.

  In the interest of decorum, Anne insisted that we outwardly maintain our previous states: I as husband to Katherine, she as unmarried, eligible maiden. This was a happier arrangement for her than for me. As a “disguise,” she was compelled to surround herself with suitors and courtiers, whereas I must take my place beside the staid but seething Katherine.

  In the meantime, in her own quarters, Katherine was hard at work writing secret letters to her nephew, the Emperor Charles, beseeching his help—letters which I had intercepted, with instructions for full copies to be made for my own records. Her means of protecting the marriage was foolhardy: appealing to a foreign power to aid her! She pretended to be fully English, but her actions belied it. She assumed that the Emperor could intervene in English affairs, and that I would cower before his dictates.

  For my own part, I was also hard on the track of false hares. I was pursuing the Pope for confirmation that my marriage was indeed invalid. Numerous agents were also sent to Rome to procure a special dispensation allowing the case to be tried in England rather than Rome. They all failed. Pope Clement had no intention of delegating his authority. He insisted that the case could be decided only in Rome.

  All the while, months passed as I waited, seeing Anne before me like a flame, surrounded by handsome young courtiers . . . and one in particular, Thomas Wyatt, her cousin.

  I liked young Wyatt, otherwise. He was a poet, and a good one. He was, in addition, talented in diplomacy and music. But he was a married man, and as such had no business suing for anyone’s favors, particularly his cousin’s. They had grown up together in Kent, so Anne assured me. But I liked not the way they acted together and looked upon one another. It was not seemly.

  I well remember (well remember? I cannot banish it from my
mind!) a fair day in May (a year after Wolsey’s foolish “tribunal,” and I as far from my heart’s desire as ever) when many of the court had gathered for the May bowls. A number of wooden pins were set up on a clipped green, and all men were to compete in tossing a heavy ball to bounce along and knock over the carefully arranged pieces. Katherine was sitting like a chesspiece on a carved chair, to watch us all, and even Brandon and Wolsey had been lured out for the festivities. Brandon had never paid the full fine for his “transgression” and therefore usually avoided Wolsey. Today, however, all was friendly and pleasant. I was especially happy that my sister Mary had come.

  It was a lively game of bowls. Brandon still had his strength, though not his old aim. His ball usually went out of bounds with great power. He laughed a great deal about this. He did not care whether he won or not.

  Wyatt was a good player, skilfully hurling the ball toward the largest group of pins. Every time he made an accurate hit, he laughed lightly, as if to show how little it meant to him. In the final round he knocked down more pins than anyone before him.

  The object of the game was not only to knock down a certain number of standing targets, but to drive through them in such a fashion that one’s ball went a fair way down the green. Wyatt’s went a great way. The final balls were left to lie where they fell.

  As his ball flew toward the targets, I heard a delighted laugh. I turned round. Anne had joined us. She jumped and clapped her hands together when Wyatt bowed, and looked transported. He, in turn, sauntered over to her and kissed her outstretched hand in a semi-mocking fashion. She giggled.