The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  “Anne!”

  She was lying against the birth-pillows, great goose-feathered rotundities specially made for the occasion. Her usually beautiful dark hair was damp and matted and her face was drawn. She reached out her hand to me, but it fell limply on the coverlet.

  I picked it up and covered it with kisses. “Thank you,” I heard myself saying. “Thank you, my beloved.”

  “Henry—” she began, but I stopped her. She looked so very tired.

  “I know it was difficult for you,” I babbled, all my earlier apprehensions drowned in a waterfall of excitement and gratitude. “Please rest. Do not talk.” I looked around me. “Where is he?”

  I rose from my knees. I did not see Anne’s hand waving feebly in an effort to distract me.

  “Here, Your Grace.” One of Anne’s ladies-in-service held out a crimson-wrapped bundle and thrust it toward me.

  Nestled deep within was the face I had so longed to see. I drew back the covering a little.

  “The Tudor red!” I said. “He has the Tudor red hair!”

  “She, Your Grace,” murmured the lady. “The Queen hath borne Your Grace a fair daughter.”

  I looked down at the sexless face. “A daughter?”

  “Aye. And healthy and with a mind of her own, already.” The lady was beaming. I turned wordlessly toward Anne.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered.

  So it was true! The thing in my arms was a wench, after all! I nearly flung it to the floor in disgust. Controlling myself, I merely handed it back to the nurse.

  Anne was looking at me imploringly. Never had I seen her so abject.

  “I did not know,” she began, her eyes swimming with tears. “All this time—with your desires . . . the soothsayers’ assurances . . . God’s needs for England . . . alienating the Pope—and for yet another useless girl-child!”

  She shared my unhappiness. We were alike victims of ill luck. Instead of anger, I found myself wanting to comfort her.

  “Take cheer,” I said. “She is a beautiful child. We will name her after both our mothers—Elizabeth. And she will have brothers, never fear.”

  Chapuys, the gloating Imperial ambassador waiting outside the birth-chamber doors, offered his “condolences” on Elizabeth’s birth. I walked on in a daze to the chapel, ignoring him.

  The Sacrament was in its monstrance. I could see its pale substance through the quartz opening in the intricately worked vessel. That was Christ Himself. I needed to see, to behold, His Presence, so I could ask Him certain questions—questions to which I must have answers.

  I knelt on the cold stone, forgoing the richly worked kneeling-cushions on the floor. I needed to feel something, to anchor myself to something real. At that instant I did not feel real; I felt like a floating ghost, a mass of disembodied emotions. Perhaps that is all a ghost really is. . . .

  I had a daughter. My son had never existed. All this time when I had been imagining him, naming him, already living with him and through him, he had been someone else. A daughter.

  England still had no heir. Where there had been one Princess, now there were two. God could do all things. He had given a son to Sarah in her old age. He had given a son to Hannah, after she prayed with Elijah. He had given a son to Saint Elizabeth, who was also too old to bear children. “With God, nothing is impossible.” That was what the angel told Abraham when he doubted God’s promise of a son. Since God could easily have given me a son, but had not, I must face the truth: He had deliberately withheld a son from me. But why? Why?

  I stared at the Sacred Host so long and so ardently that it seemed to melt, shimmer, and dance before my eyes. Answer me! my mind screamed. Answer me!

  It only pulsated before me, and my mind strained eagerly to hear . . . nothing. How dare God do this to me? I came before Him, heartbroken and confused, to receive an insolent silence. Was this the way He treated His servants?

  Answer me! If God had shoulders, I would have grabbed them and shaken Him. As it was, I felt a strong temptation to go up and grab the Sacred Host and shout at It.

  Blasphemy of blasphemies! What was I thinking of? Just so does Satan grab us at our weakest moments, and rush us into sin.

  O God—I am so frightened—the Devil has taken hold of me just now, and I have little strength to fight him. My heart is heavy and in pain. Where have I displeased you? Why are you punishing me in this way? Answer me!

  Nothing but profound silence. God had utterly deserted me, then. I had so displeased Him that He would not even speak to me. He had abandoned me to the Devil.

  Feeling so drained I could hardly stand, I made my way out of the chapel.

  There were people waiting outside. The whole court, indeed, had gathered to see me and study me. I must not reveal my altercation with God just now, must not let anyone know that the Supreme Head of the Church in England had had a falling-out with his Commander.

  I held up my hands. “God be praised!” I shouted. (“God be thrashed,” I meant.) “He has sent us this day as fair a Princess as ever came to England!”

  They cheered halfheartedly, and their bewilderment showed on their faces. Still, they were relieved to follow my lead, and I was pleased to have kept my head and played a part. More and more, I was coming to realize the immense advantage in keeping one’s true thoughts to oneself. There are no windows into one’s mind; this simple truth had failed to serve me before now.

  “Aye!” I grinned. “The Princess Elizabeth will be christened ten days from now—and we trust you will attend the ceremony.”

  Lacking any further reason to stay, and thwarted in their desire to see me weep or rage, they dispersed.

  All except Cromwell, who followed me to my chambers, at a discreet distance. I motioned him in, where he slid in like an obedient snake. And stood watching.

  “ ’Tis bad,” I began. “Very bad.” Crushing, in fact. My heart ached within me, but to Cromwell I would put a mere political colouring on it.

  “It looks bad,” he agreed. He often began his treading by repeating back what you had just said. That was safe ground.

  “I look like a fool!” I burst out, suddenly seeing myself through the common man’s eyes—through Francis’s and Charles’s eyes, as well. “I shall have to—to have ‘ss’ added to all the proclamations: ‘in the deliverance of a fair Prince-ss,’ ” I barked irrelevantly, thinking of the fair, blemishless parchments selected for those rulers. O, my vanity! How God must have laughed at me, looking down from heaven.

  “Yes. You look . . . foolish. At this moment, perhaps. But this time next year you will have a son, and what is a year more, after all the years you have already waited?”

  “Already wasted, you mean!” I knew what he meant, all right. Anyway, all this was mere noise, against the great question: Why had God allowed this to happen? Why, why?

  “Not wasted. Nothing that goes in preparation is ever wasted. You needed the time to prepare England for your Church. Things have proceeded there at great speed. Ten years ago you had scarcely returned from the Field of Cloth of Gold. Think back on what the world was then. Today it is entirely different. Redrawn by your hand, and by your will.”

  “And God’s.”

  “And God’s.” He gave due concession to the Deity, then scrambled along to his true target. “However, these gains must be consolidated in law.”

  “They are,” I grunted. “Parliament has seen to that.”

  “I mean explicit laws. Let me be frank. For the moment, you have two Princesses, by two wives, and a son by a mistress. Now, how is a good, honest Englishman to choose between them? They each have claims upon his loyalty or common sense. Mary is seventeen and the child he—the mythical ‘common Englishman’—is used to bending knee to. Henry Fitzroy, Bessie’s son, is a fair lad, and bastards have risen to thrones before. And then”—his face fell—“there’s Elizabeth. One day old. Which one, Your Grace, would you support?”

  “Not Elizabeth. The other two, at least, have survived infancy. She is th
e least desirable.”

  “Exactly. Therefore you must extract an oath of loyalty from all Englishmen of note who might otherwise, in their hearts, support Mary or Henry. Only then—”

  “If only I had a son!” I cried. “Why is Elizabeth not a son? Why has God—”

  “Because He has not,” said Crum coldly. “And we must work with that.”

  The Oath was simple to frame. It required a man to swear—upon his immortal soul—that he recognized the Princess Elizabeth as my sole legitimate issue. That was all. It was to be administered to every adult English subject. Crum was right: had such an Oath been framed and circulated in earlier generations, dynastic wars would have been prevented.

  “But it could not have been done, Your Grace,” he reminded me happily. “In those days there were no administrators such as you have now. The great lords of the North and the West were wild beasts growling around the throne. You domesticated and housebroke them, Your Grace, when you executed the Duke of Buckingham. Now they are just districts. Administrative districts,” he said contemptuously.

  “O Marcher lords, where is thy sting?” he crowed. “Bravo, Your Grace. They have laid themselves open to this simple, sweet little Oath. Whatever it costs—the officials, the bookkeeping—it is still a great savings over a war. A few arrests, a few executions—in an orderly fashion—cheap.”

  “I would have an heir whom the people would love on their own, not grudgingly mutter oaths to.”

  Crum smiled. “A beautiful thought. But such did not even occur with the Christ Child. Can we hope for more?”

  “If Herod had had you for a Secretary, the Holy Family would never have escaped into Egypt.”

  “I like to think so, Your Grace.”

  LIV

  Anne regained her strength slowly, for such a fiery creature. I had expected her to spring right from childbed into the salon, but she did not. First she developed milk-leg and had to lie for days suspended in a sling—a silken sling, but a sling nonetheless. Nothing but Mark Smeaton’s playing would soothe her during those hours. Then she developed melancholia and lay for hours with her eyes blank and expressionless.

  Melancholia: the strangest of all afflictions, the one most difficult to banish. Perhaps it was the Janus-face of the strained gaiety I had seen in her at times. She kept muttering that she had failed me, had failed England. She refused to see Elizabeth or even to help plan for her little royal household, which I was having to organize all on my own.

  “Hatfield House is a godly, healthy, and comfortable house,” I told Anne, feeling as if I were addressing a statue. “It is here in Hertfordshire, only a day’s ride away.”

  She smiled at me, as if doing me a great favour.

  “We want her to thrive, do we not? The court is not healthy for her. She might take sick and die. By Christmas, when everyone gathers and exhales foul contagions, she must be safely away.”

  Anne finally spoke. “Christmas. That is only a few weeks away. I must bestir myself. I must!”

  “It is but a holiday. Whatever time you need to be well, please take.”

  “Christmas is more important. I must be up, and gowned, by Christmas!”

  “That you shall, my love. I pray for it daily.”

  “Elizabeth’s household?” she suddenly said. “It will have a full staff of attendants?” She looked more interested than I had seen her in weeks.

  “Aye. I am just in the process of appointing them. Perhaps you would like to choose them yourself?” That would be a good sign.

  “There is only one I would appoint. The Lady Mary to serve her! To carry her robes and clean up her messes!”

  I was taken aback at the suddenness, and the forcefulness, of her request. Could it be granted? Should it be granted? What would such a thing do to Mary’s spirit?

  “So! You hesitate! On one hand you assure me that I am your true Queen and Elizabeth the only true Princess, yet you balk at this simple request—a natural request, if what you claim is true! What better way to show the people that Mary yields her claim as Princess?”

  “Crum and I have devised an Oath to be administered to the people—”

  “All very well,” she said airily. “But this can serve as Mary’s oath.” She sounded eminently logical, until she added viciously, “It will break Katherine’s heart.”

  “If Mary comes to serve Elizabeth, it must not be aimed at Katherine,” I replied. “Such a thing—”

  “Oh, defend her again! I know you long to take Katherine back, that in your heart you either still love her or fear her—”Anne’s voice was rising in the familiar tirade, the obsession.

  I cut her off. “I will consider appointing Mary. The plan has merits.”

  She lay back on her daybed, draped in deep soft furs against the coming cold. It was where she spent most of her time now, positioned as it was near the great fireplace, and with a view out toward the Thames. I looked at her nestled down there, the rich sables around her face no richer, darker, or thicker than her own hair, and suddenly I was inflamed with desire for her. It came over me with such dazzling swiftness that I marvelled at it even then. What powers did she possess? Trembling, I took my leave. Behind me in her chamber I heard Mark Smeaton’s discreet music start up.

  How long had it been since we had lain together as man and wife? How much longer would the physicians keep me away? Seeking to drive the demon of desire from me, I forced myself to consider the idea of sending for Mary to serve Elizabeth.

  I had not seen Mary for one and a half years, since she had insolently refused even to listen to my side of the story, but had wholeheartedly been Katherine’s partisan in the matter. To be sure, it was natural, as realizing that she was illegitimate must have been painful for her. But perhaps now she would welcome the opportunity to make her peace with me and accept her new position. After all, being an acknowledged and titled royal bastard was no disgrace. Yes, I would write her and tell her that I desired her to come and join the Princess’s household at Hatfield. And I would sweeten it with the hint of Christmas at court. . . .

  A fortnight later, as I sat having my freshly scissored beard combed with a rosemary branch, Norris handed me a thick letter from Mary. It was weighted down with seals, including that of Princess of Wales, which she no longer had the right to use. A bad beginning.

  The letter was blunt. She refused to come and serve at Hatfield House, and as for the “Princess,” she knew of no Princess save herself in England; but if it pleased me, she would acknowledge Elizabeth as “sister” in the same way she did Henry Fitzroy, Bessie’s bastard, as “brother.” My mention of the Queen drew the “puzzled” response that she would welcome the help of Madam Pembroke in reuniting her with her mother, Queen Katherine.

  I flung it down. Stubborn fool! What was I to do with her? I needed her. I needed her to cooperate—

  No. That was not it. The truth was that I needed her; I needed her as a father needs a daughter. I had loved her too long to crush those feelings now, try as I would. I remembered her as a child, as the pretty baby in the jewelled cap, being betrothed to the Dauphin; as the joyful child playing on the virginal for me. How she had laughed, and how we had taken turns on the keyboard . . . and then, the changes in her face and form as one day I looked at her and realized, with a jolt, that she was beginning to make the transition into womanhood.

  Proudly she had gone to Ludlow Castle to practise for the court life she would lead, out from under my shadow. And at her leaving, I had felt the same pang of coming loss that any parent does. Not so soon, my little one, not so soon. . . . But I had Anne by then, and my love-madness to blunt what it meant to be losing Mary. And like every parent, I thought, there’s Christmas, she’ll be back for that. . . . How was I to know that she would never come back? There was an emptiness there that no Anne, no son, and certainly no Elizabeth could ever fill.

  I picked up the parchment with the harsh, stilted words of my estranged daughter. Had it hurt her as much to write them as it hurt me to r
ead them?

  Anne’s recovery took place overnight. It seemed, even then, unnaturally swift. She informed Cranmer that she was prepared to undergo the ancient ceremony of the “churching of women.”

  “Yes, Thomas,” I answered his unspoken question. “We will retain that ceremony. You may proceed with it.”

  He looked as if there were a stone in his shoe. “I—I have been studying the origins of this ceremony,” he finally said, “and it appears to me to be pagan. Even its common name, ‘purification of women after childbirth,’ sounds heathen. Would not a ‘thanksgiving of women after childbirth’ be more appropriate to these times and the Church of England?”

  I sighed. “Yes. I suppose so. But it smacks of reform. A ceremony here, a phrase there, and where does it end?” I was more distressed than I cared to admit about Cromwell’s persistent hunger to “investigate” the monasteries, and any reminders of it made me uncomfortable. “It is better to retain too much than to dismantle over-hastily.”

  Whatever it was called, the ancient significance of being “churched” was that a woman could now lie with her husband again, with the Church’s blessing.

  Perhaps it was the excitement, or that it had been so long forbidden us. Or that I desired her more than any man had ever desired any woman. Or that—I know not what, or why, but once again I had . . . difficulties. Difficulties of a most delicate nature.

  I would go to her chambers, as if to perform a ritualistic act in some ancient temple, and find myself, as it were, a supplicant before an unearthly creature. I was all flame, all fire—then, abruptly, it would depart. All would disappear, and she would lie back, judging, tantalizing.

  In the beginning, I made jests. Then I fortified myself with wine. Armed with that assurance, I came to Anne again. Yet again the thing would happen. I conjured other women in my head. I told myself that we were not married, only lovers. But there was no remedy, it seemed.