The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  She touched the stiff old cloth gently. “Nothing could become it better than this.” She folded it back along its creases. “It belongs here.” She placed it carefully in its velvet pouch.

  Her eyes shone with a peculiar light I had never seen before. “And now I have a gift for you this New Year’s Day. Your jewel from the Holy Land serves to bless it—and I shall treasure it forever.”

  She stood in front of me, but her hands were empty.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It is . . . I am with child.”

  Her voice was low, and the four words, which meant more to me than all the jewels brought back from all the Crusades, hung on the air. I could not speak, for ecstasy. Yes, ecstasy.

  “Anne.”

  “In the late summer.”

  Still I could not speak, beyond saying her name.

  It was all to be: it was all to come true.

  That night I lay in bed, alternating between giddy exultation and dreary practicality, like a man with the smallpox, first sweating, then shivering. The exultation: Anne was with child, with my child, the heir I had been longing for. . . .

  The practicality: between now and the child’s birth, I must be married to Anne, in a marriage that could withstand any legal thunderbolts thrown against it. And it would be pleasing—not necessary, but pleasing—if Anne could have a proper Coronation. Ceremonies had weight in and of themselves, and a regal Coronation might go far in helping the people to replace Katherine in their mind’s eye with another Queen. Dislodging Katherine from that inner vision was my greatest challenge.

  So . . . first I must address the legal. Without a legal marriage to Anne, nothing else could follow. I must hurry the bulls from Rome, confirming Cranmer as Archbishop. To achieve that, I must reassure and placate Rome—by seeming to lose interest in Anne and by wooing the Papal nuncio, Del Brugio. Clement must be made to feel that allowing Cranmer to become Archbishop of Canterbury was a trifling humouring of a King, a small price to pay for guaranteeing to keep him within the Papal fold.

  It was necessary that Anne cooperate in the plan. She must pretend to be cast aside and ready to leave court. I was sure she would be delighted to participate in such a masque.

  She was insulted.

  “Hide in my apartments? Weep where my ladies can see me? Never!”

  “Anne, this is a necessary subterfuge.”

  “Another ‘hoodwinking of the Pope,’ as you said in the autumn?”

  “Aye.”

  “It is no such thing!” she burst out. “Whenever you have something you wish to do, you will dress it up in a Papal costume. Do you think I am that much a fool I cannot see for myself what you feel?”

  “Anne . . .” Patiently I explained the tangled legal straits we were in, concluding, “And thus the child can be born in legal wedlock.”

  “The child! The child! Is that all I am to hear from now on? What of Anne? What of poor, wretched Anne?”

  She tore herself away and ran for the inner chamber to be ostentatiously sick. I found myself clenching and unclenching my fists. I could fight and manipulate the Pope, Parliament, even the common people. But with Anne as an ally, not as yet another opponent.

  Anne emerged from her inner chamber, shaky but under control.

  “I think we must be married as soon as possible,” she said quietly, coming near. The concentrated essence of rose she had splashed on her throat served to mask the vomit odour. “We must not wait for Cranmer. He can regularize everything afterwards . . . after the fact. That is what archbishops and Popes do. Rearrange things after the fact. Anyone can serve to marry us.”

  “But a splendid, public ceremony—is that not what you desire, what all ladies of rank long for?”

  “Ordinary ladies of rank. But I—I, who have the King’s love—require nothing beyond that. Only to be truly your wife, in God’s eyes.”

  Yes. A ceremony conducted by any priest, and duly witnessed, would be as good as a cathedral ceremony. And maybe partake of more magic—be truly ours. I felt my blood rising. Just so had my grandfather Edward been secretly married on May Eve to his beloved Elizabeth. . . .

  Secret ceremonies—what a luxury for a king! Anne opened door after door of experience and forbidden things to me. . . .

  XLVII

  It was late January, the time when cold creeps into the very walls of all dwellings, and Bridewell Palace was no exception. The sun did not even rise until well after eight o’clock, and at five in the morning it was still dark night. A raft of candles fluttered in the draught of a lonely, unfurnished room in the upper regions of the palace. The window was yet a darkened pane against which sleet drove itself. Chaplain Edward Lee stood there, looking bewildered, sleepy, and uncomfortable. The other witnesses were there, looking much the same.

  I was dressed in an embroidered moss-green doublet and new fox-furred cape. The rest were in the things nearest to hand when they had received the summons to come to this attic room. No one had been notified ahead of time, for fear of the secret getting out and someone trying to stop the ceremony.

  Suddenly Anne appeared. Although undoubtedly as sleepy as the rest, she appeared radiant and was wearing a light blue gown with a furred mantle over it. I reached out my hand and took hers, bringing her gently to my side.

  “You may proceed with the Nuptial Mass,” I told Chaplain Lee.

  “But, Your Grace, I have no permission nor instructions from His Holiness—”

  “They have been received,” I lied. “You may rest assured His Holiness approves.”

  Looking discomfited, he began the ancient ceremony. I clasped Anne’s hand. My head was spinning—Anne, my wife at last! No trumpets, no costumes, no eminent churchmen to conduct it. No feast or tournaments afterward. Instead, a great grey secret, with the winter wind singing outside, and the sleet flying, and Anne in no wedding gown. The candles kept flickering in the wind that found its way through the tiny gaps in the mortar. It was deathly cold; by the time we exchanged rings, my hands were numb.

  Then, afterward, no fanfare. The onlookers filed silently from the room, like shades, and vanished in the early morning grey.

  Anne and I were left alone. We faced one another.

  “Well, wife,” I finally said. I meant to be light, jocular, but all of that faded as I looked at her: her youth, beauty, life—all mine. “Oh, Anne.” I clasped her. I was alive at last. It had been a long wait, but all was right, all destined, in that one clasp of flesh against flesh as I held my true wife to my side.

  The next few days passed as in a phantasm. I was on earth, yet I was not. By day I signed papers and dressed as a King and behaved as a King. By night I was Anne’s husband, her secret husband.

  January ended, February began. Still the Pope delayed. Nothing was forthcoming from Rome. To press further now might betray me. So I must wait—the thing I did least well.

  Mid-February. The icicles hung long on eaves, the snow rose over boot-tops. Yet the sunset was coming later now, and I could see by the way the shadows fell that spring was not so far away. Ash Wednesday was almost upon us. And once Lent began . . .

  I gave a small dinner the Sunday before Lent. I would serve venison and wine and all those things forbidden for the next forty days. I invited only those I truly wished to see: Brandon, Carew, Neville. . . . I lie. The truth is, Brandon, Carew, and Neville were indeed the only ones amongst my guests I truly wished to see, but there were others there: Cromwell, Anne’s father and brother, his wife Jane. . . . The Boleyns I must include for Anne’s sake; Cromwell so he could give his intelligencers a rest. Anne was seated with her own family, as befitted an unmarried maid, and she kept her eyes properly downcast. It filled me with a voluptuous pleasure to play this part; it inflamed my desire more than if we were alone.

  The candlelight barely reached her, and most of her face was in shadow. In fact, most of the room was in shadow. In a great cupboard along one wall was all the silver plate given me by the Venetian Doge, beautifully wor
ked in the Byzantine manner. How it caught the candlelight; how well they knew their craft. . . .

  “Is it not a fine dowry?” I said softly to the old dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who was seated next to me. “This silver plate—is not Anne a finely dowered woman?”

  She stared back at me like a disgusted hawk.

  “How could you have said such a thing?” Anne upbraided me the next day, when my careless remark was already well circulated. Like all wine-remarks, it did not wear well in daylight.

  “It was the wine,” I said, tired of making excuses, giving explanations.

  “Thanks be to the Virgin, there will be little wine for the next forty days!”

  “By the time this Lent ends, you will walk by my side, publicly, as my wife and Queen.” Suddenly it became a pledge. “On Easter Eve you shall go to Mass with me, in all the titles and royal jewels I can give you!”

  “On Easter Eve?”

  “Aye. So count you these forty days of Lent, pray for a safe delivery and long to reign. For it shall come to pass—I promise that.”

  Three days later, Ash Wednesday. A creeping cold day. Ashes on my forehead. Remember, Man, you are dust, and unto dust you shall return. Dust. I said it with my mouth, tried to pray as if it were true, but I was not dust, that Lent of 1533. I was air, I was feathers, I was blessed—I was King of England and Anne was my wife.

  The twenty-second of February. Anne came from chapel early in the morning and chanced across a party of courtiers in the courtyard. Amongst them she spied Thomas Wyatt.

  “Tom!” she cried out, rushing toward him and holding out her hands. Her voice was loud and rang out in the cold winter air. “Ah, Tom! Of late I have had such a great longing to eat apples. Apples, Tom! And none to be found! Do you know what that means?” She looked around wildly. “The King says it means I am with child! But I tell him, ‘No! No, it cannot be!’ ” She then began to laugh, and turned her back and rushed away, leaving the courtiers embarrassed and speechless. But they were not speechless for long, as the story was soon circulated about court and reached my ears.

  “Anne! What meant you by this?” Now it was my turn to berate her.

  “Naught,” she said listlessly. She was seated by a window, idly plucking her lute. Everything, even the stabs of murky sunlight coming in the window, seemed enervated with a peculiar late-winter ennui. “I cannot think what came over me.”

  Her halfhearted excuse was as good as an apology. I did not have the energy to pursue it.

  “Doubtless.” I looked out over the patchwork fields, drab with dead grass and stale snow. How long? How long must I wait for word from Rome? The roads were clear now, going south.

  “Curses to Clement!” I spat.

  Anne continued playing her lute.

  “Curses to Katherine!” I added, for good measure. “I have sent yet another deputation to her, ordering her to surrender all claims to being my wife. Yet she persists. Like a poll-parrot she repeats, ‘I was legally wed to Prince Henry. The Pope’s dispensation was good. Henry’s wife I was, Henry’s wife I am, and Henry’s wife I will remain until I die.’ ”

  “Until she dies?” Anne laid down her lute. “Then put her cage someplace where she can sing that song unheard—until that day.”

  Aye. I looked out across the bleak fields. Put her someplace where it was like this all year round. Let her sing her silly song to the fens!

  Buckden was a “comfortable” (by Edward III’s standards) red brick palace belonging to the Bishops of Lincoln, and was situated right on the borders of the fen-country, those great grey swamps that make up the eastern coast of England, the ancient land of East Anglia—historic, mysterious, and unhealthy.

  I issued the orders immediately. The Princess Dowager would remove herself straightway to Buckden.

  There she could rot in the fens!

  Within five days a messenger from Ampthill reported that Katherine protested against being moved to Buckden, refused to be addressed as anything other than Queen, and had ordered entire new liveries for her servants with golden K’s entwined with H’s. As I began to roar with anger, I was handed a letter from the woman herself. It was addressed with the familiar bold black scrawl, as if a staff called me to attention.

  I ripped open the missive. It captured her tone perfectly, as if she were standing right beside me. Of course it said nothing, just the usual upbraiding, followed by the usual assurances of eternal love and devotion and fidelity. Ugh! When would she begin to hate me? I looked forward to that day.

  Why did she not hate me? She had every reason to. Any normal woman would have. But not Katherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, Katherine of Spain, Katherine the proud. It was beneath her. That was what made it so difficult to contend with her on human terms.

  I sank down on a cushion and picked up my small harp. Music. I needed music.

  I had less than a half hour to myself when Henry Norris, my closest chamber attendant, came in. “Your Grace,” he said worriedly, “there is a messenger here from His Holiness.”

  I leapt up. The long-awaited Papal bulls for Cranmer!

  Norris read my face. “No! It is not good news. He has been directed by Clement to deliver into your hands an order to take Katherine back and separate from Anne—on pain of excommunication.”

  “Excommunication!”

  “Aye.” Cromwell stood behind Norris in the doorway. I motioned him in. I did not concern myself with how both Cromwell and Norris knew the contents of the “private” Papal letter.

  “Does the Papal messenger know that I know he is here?”

  “Of course not!” Cromwell was indignant. “That is the point. With your cooperation, we can make sure he never hands you the directive himself. Then neither he nor you need concern yourselves with its whereabouts thereafter. Clement will be relieved—to have spoken clearly without being heard by anyone.”

  “Very neat.”

  Cromwell permitted himself a slight smile.

  I sent for Anne. I needed her to be my mirror.

  Anne came straightway. She was as sweet as honey, yes, as soothing and easy as the melted honey-and-camphor concoctions my childhood nurse had dripped slowly down my throat when it was pained. “How goes the day for my love?” she asked.

  “Not well,” I grunted, and told of the happenings thus far. She laughed at Katherine’s letter, especially at the news that she had ordered costumes with our initials entwined with love-knots. Then her laughter abruptly ceased, and pain crossed her face.

  “Poor forsaken woman,” she said slowly. “ ’Tis hard past bearing to continue to love someone who will have none of you.” I looked at her sharply, but she seemed to be talking to herself. “The Irish have a triad. Three things that are worse than sorrow: to wait to die, and to die not; to try to please, and to please not; to wait for someone who comes not.”

  “You are the cause of my not coming to her. Can you now pity her?” I wondered.

  “Yes, and no. No, in that I would not undo it. Yes, in that I may someday be in her place.”

  The idea was absurd. Anne, fat and fifty and spending her days in prayer and calling after a man who ignored her? Never. Anne would rather be dead.

  “Enough of this talk,” I said. And I told her about the Papal order.

  “So now we play hide-and-seek with him?” she asked gleefully.

  “A game at which you excel. Now you shall teach me your tricks, my love.”

  I looked forward to seeing her put someone else in the position where she had held me for so many years a prisoner—where I could admire and benefit from her prowess rather than being tortured by it.

  Dusk was falling. Soon Norris brought in our supper and fresh wood for the fire. It was cosy and close. Anne smiled at Norris as he discreetly performed his duties. His presence did not intrude, yet he managed to make us aware that he was there, lest we say private things in front of him.

  The fire crackled; the heat seeped through my veins. I was warmed inside and
out, and discreet and functionary as he doubtlessly was, I was glad when Norris cleared away our dishes, added one or two fragrant logs to the fire, and pointedly retired for the night.

  I took Anne to my bed, where yet another thoughtful servant had smoothed the fresh linen for us.

  “Ah, wife,” I said, lying back in her arms. “How I love you!” I pressed my hand to her belly. I felt so complete.

  Why, then, was I unable to make love to her? Why did he suddenly turn as soft as a maid’s breasts? It made no sense. My loins were throbbing, but flaccid.

  I wrenched myself away, covering myself in an agony of embarrassment. But Anne knew; of course she did. If she spoke a word, it would hang between us forever.

  “Go!” I said. “Go quickly.”

  Alone in my chamber, I sat staring at the fire. Its jumping, fragrant flames mocked me.

  My glance fell on the letter from Katherine, still lying on the chest-top. I picked it up and tossed it on the fire. As I did so, I could not suppress a bitter laugh. We do not always know for what we long.

  The next morning, in bright sunlight, it seemed a singular event, nothing permanent or significant. I whistled as Norris dressed me, and even complimented him on the sweet-smelling fire he had built for us.

  “I hope it added to your pleasure,” he said modestly.

  I managed a great smile that felt real to me. “Indeed!”

  He looked pleased.

  “I trust the Papal messenger spent an unproductive night?” I was relieved to have this topic to turn to.

  “Aye.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Breaking his fast with the Duke of Suffolk.”

  Ha! I chortled at that. Charles Brandon hated the Pope almost as much as I, though he had far less cause. Rome had most obligingly granted him annulments of two previous marriages, setting an encouraging example for me at the start of my own negotiations.