The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  For many months thereafter I staved them off. But finally I had to sign my name to the great parchment ordering his arrest for high treason. There was no other way.

  By this time Wolsey was already in the far North, within a day’s walk of York and his diocese there. And York was where the Percys held dominion.

  Thus it was that God arranged it so that Henry Percy (Anne’s storklike suitor), as the chief lord in that district, was the only one empowered to arrest Wolsey.

  I was not there, of course. But witnesses told me of the heartsick scene: the company coming upon Wolsey in his receiving quarters, his confusion upon seeing them—he is threadbare and almost barefoot. There is no fire in the fireplace, and no wood. Yet he rouses himself as in the old manner, bids them welcome as if they were at Hampton Court. They are strangers to him. Then he sees Percy at the rear of the party, and his tired face lights up. A friend. A familiar face. His worn mind does not remember that he made an enemy of this lad, some five years ago.

  He comes forward to embrace Percy, as a friend from his entourage of long ago. He apologises profusely to the company for the quality of their surroundings, as he was wont to do in his great palaces. He then gestures to Percy in a spirit of expansiveness. Percy nervously follows him all the while he is chattering. “I plan to do all the Confirmations in York diocese next May,” he says, to the air. “And perform all weddings. There are many in the summer. And to enjoy my simple life, in the country.”

  “My Lord,” says Percy, in such a low voice that Wolsey scarce hears him, and continues talking. “My Lord,” repeats Percy, tapping him on the shoulder. “I arrest you for high treason.” The voice is a croak.

  Wolsey whirls. They stare at each other—the chastised boy, the fallen Cardinal. Revenge should taste sweet, but it does not. Too late, it is rancid.

  They take Wolsey away. Master Kingston from the Tower meets them to help keep Wolsey under safeguard en route to London.

  “Ah, Mr. Kingston,” he says. “So you are come at last.” The remark is puzzling to the hearers.

  Wolsey never reaches London. Before he leaves his little house at Cahill, he complains of pains in his bowels. (Self-induced? They did not appear before his arrest.) By the end of the first day’s journey he is extremely ill, and his party has to beg leave of the monks at Leicester Abbey for a place to rest.

  Once within, he makes a great show, predicting his own death. “At the eighth hour of the eighth day,” he says piously, after announcing, “I have come to lay my bones among you.” This greatly impresses the good brothers. (But how could he know the exact hour, unless he had taken a potion, whose speed of action he knew?)

  He is laid upon a simple pallet in a stone cell. He then calls for his gentleman usher, George Cavendish, and a monk. Then he utters his last words: “Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my King, He would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies.” He then (as the saying goes) turned his face to the wall and died.

  When I heard it I was happy. Wolsey had cheated the wolves at court. There would be—nay, could be!—no trial for treason. Had he taken poison? The more noble and brave he!

  And at the end, he had called on God and died in a stone cell in Leicester Abbey rather than the Prior’s house at St. Lawrence’s. Had he repented in time? Where had his soul flown?

  I was alone. Wolsey was gone. My father gone. Katherine gone—as my advisor. I stood alone. And there was much to do.

  Before me stood a road leading to Rome. I knew it well. I could travel it, but it would be time-consuming, expensive, and humiliating. And the verdict was uncertain, for all that.

  A smaller, sister road branched off. It led away from Rome, from Wolsey, from everything I had ever known. I could not see where it led, but it could be no less time-consuming and uncertain. Yet it beckoned me. There I would go, regardless of who tried to hinder me. It would not end at Rome, but . . . where? At myself?

  XLI

  I was in dire need of advice. I had no policy, no plan. I refused to go to Rome and appear before a court. Yet without the Pope’s decision I was helpless.

  Anne’s glee at Wolsey’s downfall (she and her friends celebrated his death by staging a masque, “Cardinal Wolsey Descending to Hell,” in her private quarters) was premature. In fact his death solved nothing, except for himself.

  Anne, determined to supplant Katherine in all ways, including her early function as my advisor, sought to point me toward a possible solution for the Great Matter. She mentioned that her household chaplain, Thomas Cranmer—who was also a scholar and theologian at Cambridge—had proposed putting the prickly question before the great universities of Europe and polling the theologians there as to the niceties of the case. When I had a resounding majority on my side, His Holiness was bound to listen.

  Who was this clever man? Whoever he was, he had this sow by the right ear. I wished to meet him, and though he demurred, I insisted he come to court.

  Cranmer was not meant for court; that was evident the moment I saw him. He wore the tattered coat of a university theologian, and his hair was all askew. Yet he seemed a gentle sort, as unaffrighted by pomp as by poverty. I liked him immediately.

  He seemed to understand the convoluted matter weighing upon my soul. Together we decided upon the universities whose opinions must be sought: Oxford and Cambridge in England; Orleans, Bourges, Paris, and Toulouse in France; Ferrara, Bologna, and Pavia in Italy; and the German and Spanish universities.

  I gave him leave to procure the best men for the task, charging all expenses to the Privy Purse—the King’s personal exchequer. He smiled hesitantly and backed out.

  In the meantime there was Christmas to endure. Anne was lodged in apartments to the right of mine, while Katherine was on my left. Protocol demanded that Katherine and I preside over the court Christmas festivities, even though all the kingdom knew us to be estranged.

  Katherine herself pretended there was nothing amiss. Waiting was what she did best. She had waited in Spain while negotiations concerning her marriage to Prince Arthur dragged on for almost ten years. She had waited in England for seven more while the arrangements for ours were worked out. Therefore, the time that had passed since the opening of our Great Matter was nothing to her.

  She always enjoyed presiding at the holiday festivities. She planned each detail, down to which kitchen wench should receive which pomander. They appreciated it, knowing that Good Queen Katherine had thought of them.

  Good Queen Katherine. That was a sore phrase with me. Every time she appeared—more and more of late—the people cheered her and pointedly called blessings on Queen Katherine. The more they did it, the more she appeared. She had taken to waving from balconies and crossing the palace courtyard (public property, and always thronged with people) several times a day. As she traversed the area, she would smile and wave gaily, and toss out tokens and coins, just to hear the people cheer her and revile me. I forbade it. She was most displeased.

  But that Christmas—all twelve days of it—we were felicitous and amiable with one another, both ignoring the great rift between us.

  Anne was hidden away, as she had no role in the ceremonies, and the time was long past when she could appear as a simple maid of honour. She stayed in her apartments, pacing and brooding. When I joined her of an evening, I found her in a foul mood. One particular evening—it was Twelfth Night—I came to see her, only to find her irate.

  All the candles had been snuffed except one, flickering in a lantern. Anne was in her night-robe—a ruby velvet one—and her black hair was down and streaming over her shoulders. In the eerie light she looked half-supernatural, half-mad.

  As I stepped in, she rushed toward me—a black and red wraith. A devil. “Are you finished?” she fairly shrieked. Her black eyes reflected odd jumpings of the firelight.

  “Aye,” I said.

  “While I sat here, alone! I could hear the music—” She turned away abruptly.

  “Music you have heard many t
imes before. And will hear again.” My head hurt, and I was weary. I had looked for comforting, not a harangue.

  “When?” She whirled on me. “How many years will I endure Christmas shut up here like a prisoner? You leave me alone—”

  My head ached. The bright firelight, once so enticing, now seemed hostile. I drew myself up. “Forgive me, Mistress,” I said. “I did not mean to intrude upon you. I also care not to be berated. Good night.” Before she could protest further, I turned and shut the door behind me.

  Without thinking, I sought Katherine’s company. Soothing, kind Katherine.

  She was having her hair brushed by a maid of honour when I entered. It was long and, at its ends, still a honey colour. But the rest was the colour of Thames mud.

  She smiled to see me, then held out her hand and led me to a padded chair. She sat as near as possible. She leaned forward, and her eyes shone.

  “I am so happy that you have come to see me!” she said. I smiled.

  A fire was burning steadily. Just as I approached it, I could hear the strange sucking noise of the winter storm outside. The casements rattled. How miraculous to be inside, to be warm.

  The fire was a hot one. I could feel it from ten feet away, and held out my hands to be warmed. Katherine came up beside me and held out her hands also—although they could hardly have been cold.

  She smiled brightly. In the half-light of the fire I could see the young girl that once was. Then she, too, began to berate me.

  You never come to see me . . . you do not eat with me . . . you leave me to sit neglected and forsaken, as lonely as in purgatory. . . .

  She reached out and grasped my arm, her fingers digging so painfully into my flesh that all I could think was how to disengage them.

  She went on and on, about all my shortcomings and injuries to her person, until I thought her tongue must run dry. Still it did not. Then I became angry.

  “It is your own fault if you are neglected and uncomfortable!” I yelled, then lowered my voice. “You are mistress of your own household and can go where you like and live as you like!”

  “But not without my husband,” she said in mock subservience.

  “You have no husband!” I burst out. “Your husband is dead, and has been, almost thirty years! I am not your husband. Learned doctors of the Church have assured me of that!”

  Katherine drew herself up. “Doctors! They are stupid creatures. You yourself know the truth.”

  Yes, I did. God had pointed out the truth.

  “The Pope will decide,” she said smugly. “He will know God’s will.”

  God’s will. What did Clement know of God’s will? Theologians knew better than he. “The learned theologians in every university will study the case and decide it. And if the Pope does not, thereafter, rule in my favour, I shall declare the Pope a heretic and cease to obey him.”

  The fire snapped. Had I really meant to say that? Katherine stared. Nonetheless, I had said it. I took my leave and went back to Anne.

  I told her of what had just happened, of the frightening words I had just said, and what they meant. But she focused only on Katherine, not on my challenge to the Papacy.

  Standing in her velvet nightgown at the door to her inner chambers, she laughed. “You should know better than to argue with Katherine,” she said, once she got her breath. “Never once have you won an argument with her.”

  I bridled at that, but she silenced me. She started to say more, but then her face fell and she looked close to tears. “Someday you will be so convinced by Katherine’s arguments you will return to her,” she said mournfully.

  I started to protest, but again she cut me off. Her eyes brimmed with tears; her long, foxlike face was all aquiver.

  “I have given up everything for you,” she said. “And now I know eventually you will go back to Katherine. You must. And in the meantime”—she kept the door adroitly half-closed, so I could not force my way inside and take her in my arms—“I have given up any chance I may have had for an honourable marriage, now that I am known as the King’s Great Whore! My youth has been wasted! There is nothing left for me, except . . . I cannot say what will become of me!” Sobbing, she slammed the door.

  I stood, bewildered. And envied the monks, who were free of the snares of women. Had I become Archbishop of Canterbury—

  But I had not. We must embrace what we are.

  If I ceased to obey the Pope, who would fill his place in my life? It was the very office itself I was questioning, rather than Clement himself. When had the emphasis shifted?

  I had said it to Katherine, and suddenly I meant it: I would not obey the Pope, no matter what he pronounced. I did not believe in his spiritual authority any longer.

  When had that happened? I did not know . . . only that I was sure, in my deepest self, that the Pope was not the Vicar of Christ; that the entire office of the Papacy was a man-made thing and carried no more weight than one of those papier-mâché pageant-cars we use at Christmas. Pleasing the Pope had been one of my ways of trying so hard to be the “perfect” King.

  What a fool I had been! To tremble before the Papacy and seek its approval! A triple-turned fool—but no more, no more!

  You must not suppose that all this time England had been without a Chancellor. England might do without a Pope, but not without a Lord Chancellor. But since touching on his memory is still painful to me, I have delayed recounting the selection of Wolsey’s successor in the office.

  Immediately after Wolsey’s fall, many men clamoured to be Chancellor. It amused me how many saw themselves as fit for the office, when in fact they were not.

  The Duke of Norfolk. He had all the prestige of his rank and ancient family name, but he was oddly unimaginative and much too conservative to suit my needs these days.

  The Duke of Suffolk. Brandon, my dear friend and brother-in-law. He was a clever and indefatigable soldier, but not a statesman. He would not do.

  There were the churchmen: sly Gardiner, aged Warham, fulminating Fisher, smooth-tongued Tunstall. But I wanted no more churchmen. I was moving away from relying on prelates to do my work. I wanted a scholar, a statesman, a layman.

  Who else but Thomas More?

  Yes, More. I determined to see him straightway. I would visit him at his manor home in Chelsea, to which I had never been invited. Very well, then. I would invite myself.

  Chelsea was a small village three miles from London. It took a good hour’s row to get there. More chose to live there to escape the hurly-burly of London, as he called it.

  The royal barge swung round a bend in the river. Ahead were nothing but open fields and woodlands. We had left London behind. The overhead sun made me sweat and turned the river to a reflection of light.

  We approached More’s docking. It was meant for small boats, and our large barge could not dock there. I would moor it out in the river. This we did. But even as we dropped anchor, there was much excitement on the shore. The royal barge was something to catch all men’s eyes. Every ploughman within a mile had left his plough and come to gape at the barge. As a consequence, the entire bank was lined with men—hardly an inconspicuous entrance for me.

  A small rowboat was employed to take me to the pier. I hoped to catch Sir Thomas at home, and at ease. It was most important to find him at ease. I alighted from the small boat and began walking down the pier. The small boat cast off behind me.

  The pier seemed very long. Ahead of me lay More’s home. It was set far back from the river. A long, sloping green lawn led to the very riverbank. The colour of the grass was so deep it seemed fairly to glow. Was that because it was so well shaded in late afternoon by the giant oaks all around?

  I stood at last on the close-cropped carpet. A small flock of goats nearby looked up at me, their slitted yellow eyes appraising me. They soon lost interest and returned to their grass-nibbling.

  There was no one in sight. The house sat, drowsy and seemingly empty in the late afternoon sun. Off to one side, I saw a row of beehives a
nd could just catch the slow murmur of bees inside.

  I sighed. I had come all this way for nothing. Still, I felt a triumph that I had finally seen More’s private place.

  Behind me the planks rattled as the boatmen and my few attendants followed me down the pier. They were talking; some were even singing. They would not be so happy when I informed them we must turn around and return to London. Perhaps we should all sit on the lawn for half an hour and watch the swans and small boats gliding past on the Thames. It was a beguiling sight.

  Suddenly someone strolled out from the house. It was a serving-maid. She saw us and turned and fled into the house. In a moment several others appeared, and additional faces showed in the windows. I could hear noise from within.

  A large wooden door stood square-center in the back of the house; it flew open, and a short, fat woman came scurrying down toward us. She held up her skirts so that she could move faster. Behind her came several others, moving at slower pace.

  “Your Grace, Your Grace,” she panted as she came closer. I saw then that it was Lady Alice, More’s wife. “We are—we are—”

  “We are honoured,” said a familiar and beloved voice. More’s. He brushed Alice aside and smiled easily at me. “Never have we had the pleas—”

  “Never have I had the invitation,” I heard myself saying, and was mortified. Why, with More, did I always feel as I had in those dark days when Arthur was favourite? Always seeking for approval, always feeling slighted.

  More had a curious expression on his face.

  “So I decided to make my own,” I finished lamely.

  “You are most heartily welcome,” he replied, in that oddly soothing, rich voice. Yet I knew I was not.

  I threw my hand out and gestured wildly toward the house. “Beautiful, Thomas,” I said. “So peaceful.”