The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  I took another deep, full draught of Irish-water. “The weeds, the beasts, the Devil himself, will scream and seek to save themselves. But I can tell the true from the false, and I will not be hindered from doing what I must do, for England’s sake.”

  “You are mad!” cried Chapuys. “You speak as Caligula, and as every tyrant since Pharaoh. ‘I can tell the true from the false!’ Can you not hear yourself, you self-deluded Caesar?”

  “I told you they would cry out, did I not?” I asked my men. “Of course you do, you Papal viper. You have everything to lose, you and your Emperor-master, if England grows stronger. Too long have you meddled with us, seeking to use us, taking our money to finance your self-seeking wars, wars that have benefitted Charles, not us! The Bishop of Rome has coughed and waved his excommunication at us. The Emperor seeks my gold and my daughter, whilst Clement spits on my head. Fie, I say! I will root you out, every vestige of you. Get you out of England, foul carrion!”

  “Aye,” said Cromwell. “I think we all stand united on this. Oh, some of us are more forward-looking than others”—he nodded at Henry Howard and Weston—“but even the most conservative, like Neville and his rusting chivalric manners—can you still get into your 1513 armour, Edward?—are English, pure English, and want our country back to ourselves.”

  “Your King is mad,” said Chapuys. “That is the main thing which you seem determined to overlook in all this blather about ‘England.’ ”

  “Madness and greatness oft keep company,” said Cromwell. “Make no mistake. Whatever the grumbling about Queen Anne, the people love her Englishness. Your stupid Katherine does the one thing calculated to infuriate them, did they but know it: she appeals to foreign powers to right her cause. My agents are busy throughout the land, however, making them aware of this . . . disloyalty.”

  “Your agents,” whispered Chapuys. “You have indeed ‘studied’ in Italy.”

  “The Renaissance has many facets.”

  Later that night, as they slumbered and snorted by the fire, I crept away to do what I must with my ailing leg. Far back in the dark I flung the pus-soaked bandage and applied a new one by feel, covering it with my hose. The Irish uisgebeatha had faded, and nothing masked the fitful throbbing of the leg. Hastily I shook out two pain-pills from the medicine pouch and swallowed them whole. Then I crept back to my place by the fire.

  As the medicine took effect and the fire dwindled before me, then passed into a dream, I thought it curious that Cromwell had not refuted Chapuys when he said I was mad.

  LVI

  There was no real dawn, just a lessening of darkness, as we stirred painfully. I was numbingly cold and stiff, and ravenous with hunger. The fire was almost burnt out, and outside the wind was still howling. I walked stiffly to the mouth of the cave and peered out. Snow lay waist-deep, and in some places the drifts were the height of Goliath. It was twenty miles yet to Beaulieu. Could we reach it by sunset?

  In less than an hour we were mounted, miserably, and foundering through the drifts. The bats were no doubt pleased to be left to resume their dark rest undisturbed. I wondered if we had been wise to refuse to feast on them, regardless of how repulsive they seemed.

  By noon, our folly in venturing out was clear. We had not gone even five miles, and it was impossible to go faster because of the uneven ground with its treacherous snow cover. We were forced to pick our way along, shaking with exhaustion atop our weakened horses. Beaulieu might as well have been in Scotland, for all the good it would do us. There was no sign of it on the horizon; there was nothing save empty space and a small road, visible only because it was bordered by a stone fence.

  The men were silent, each clinging to his saddle and praying to his God. Chapuys’s silver-festooned saddle seemed the epitome of false security, betraying us no less than him, useless in this white wilderness to do anything but wink mockingly.

  A blast of wind hit me full in the face. My eyes smarted and watered in protest, and the horizon before me shimmered, swam, then cleared. In the blur, though, I had seen something, or thought I had. I blinked and strained to catch it again. Yes, there was something . . . and was that a smudge of smoke above it?

  “There. Ahead,” I grunted. My lips were cracked and bleeding in spite of the grease I had smeared on them.

  Cromwell started, stifled a smile. He knows, I thought. He knows what it is, and is pleased that I have discovered it for myself.

  “What is that before us?” I asked.

  “St. Osweth’s,” he said, the answer ready.

  A small monastery—one that Cromwell’s agents had already visited and pronounced especially corrupt. The papers condemning it to dissolution lay on my inlaid work chamber desk amongst others awaiting my royal stamp.

  “How providential,” I said, wheeling my horse around. “A religious house ahead!” I called to the men. “We will go there.”

  “The good brothers will doubtless be astonished to welcome a royal party,” said Cromwell.

  “Doubtless.” Thanking God for their location if not for their morals, I turned toward the monastery. The dull spot in the sky that betokened the sun was already halfway to its setting-slot.

  The house was rough and tumble-down. Around it were not the neatly trimmed fences and ordered fields of my imagination, but the neglect of a slattern’s yard.

  Cromwell knocked on the door like a wrathful archangel at the Last Judgment. It creaked open, and a face like a vulture’s peered out.

  “The King is here,” announced Cromwell.

  To his credit, the vulture proudly flung open the door and gestured welcome, as if he had expected us. His thick cowl and gleaming pink point of a head above his tonsure made his resemblance to that bird truly striking.

  The odour of decay was so strong upon first stepping into the priory antechamber that I wondered what they fed upon.

  “I will fetch the prior,” the vulture-monk said, bowing low.

  Gagging, I willed myself to endure the putrid odour. It was warm in here. That was all that mattered.

  The vulture returned, bringing one of the fattest men I had ever seen. He swung each leg in a half-circle, propelling himself forward in a series of curious half-turns, rather than walking as ordinary men do. This exertion caused him to pant and wheeze. He scowled at the effrontery of any presence, even a royal one, that required him to move.

  “Prior Richard,” said the vulture-monk, presenting the sweating human pig before us. For an instant I had a passing fancy that we had stumbled into a bizarre enclave of talking animals, like those in fairy tales. What would emerge next from the inner door?

  “Your Majesty,” he wheezed, like an old bellows. Rivulets of sweat ran down his face. “The honour—the magnificence of your presence—it maketh me to rejoice exceeding, yea, I am unworthy that you should come under my roof”— he mixed the Psalms with the Mass, freely—“only say the word, the royal word, and I am your obedient servant.”

  “We must partake, alas, of your hospitality,” I said. “The storm has stranded us and prevented us from reaching our destination. In fact, we spent last night in a cave.”

  Now he looked alarmed. “How many are you?” He counted us rapidly. “Tell Brother William to lay nine extra,” he said to Brother Vulture. “It’ll be after High Mass. Meanwhile you can settle yourselves in the dormitory, Your Eminences.”

  He wheezed and waddled his way down a long stone cloister, all stained and leaking and covered with rook-droppings. At the end a warped, worm-eaten door flapped on its hinges. He kicked it open with one rough motion. Inside was a prisonlike, bare stone chamber with pallets scattered all over the floor. A number of monks were lying abed.

  “What, is there plague here?” I asked in alarm.

  “No,” said Cromwell. “Merely corruption and laziness. Admit it, Prior Richard. Your monks spend half their time lying in bed. Drunk!”

  He strode over to a pallet and nudged the man with his toe. Groaning, he sat up.

  I was appalled. T
he man was unshaven, covered with sores, and reeking of wine. Beside him something else stirred. A woman.

  “Did I not tell you of such things, Your Grace?” said Cromwell softly.

  I spun round and grabbed the prior by his cowl. “You swine! Is this how you honour the Lord?”

  “They are ill,” he wheedled. “I did not wish to alarm you—”

  “Then put them in the infirmary!”

  “The infirmary is full, Your Grace.” Prove otherwise, he dared me.

  “What is this woman?” I demanded.

  My men guffawed.

  “My niece,” said the prior, encircling her with his arm in what he supposed was an avuncular manner.

  “She has the Devil for an uncle, then.” I looked at her. She was scarcely more than a child. And to think of her serving the monks’ lust!

  All around us the “sick” monks began to stir. Half the pallets held bleary-eyed, bloated men, emitting that characteristic odour of drunkards. One vomited directly on the floor, then turned over and went back to sleep. A ratlike boy scurried over and began to clean it up.

  “This is no fit place for human beings,” I said. “We will sleep elsewhere.”

  “There is no place else,” he claimed.

  “In your quarters, Prior.”

  “I doubt you will find them much to your liking, Your Grace,” said Cromwell, “if this fellow is any reflection of their condition.”

  “Let him sleep in his own dormitory for a night,” I said, “amongst his own monks. How long has it been since you have even set foot in here, knave?”

  Without waiting for a reply, I turned and went toward what I surmised must be the prior’s lodging, in the southeast corner of the priory garth. He wheeled around with surprising speed and attempted to get there first.

  “Stop!” I said. “I forbid you to enter first. I will see it undisturbed. Stay with my men!”

  At this, the young and old warriors in my party made a circle around the prior, holding him hostage. I strode alone toward the private door and flung it open.

  Yawning before me was someone’s febrile attempt to recreate an Eastern pleasure-den. The entire floor was covered with pillows, and the walls and ceiling were hung with cheap, brightly dyed cottons. There were no chairs or proper beds, just pallets and cushions and lounging-areas. Several coloured wicker baskets were scattered about. The smell of incense tried unsuccessfully to blot out the odour of rot.

  I burst into laughter. The whole thing was so pitiful, so ludicrous. Then I noticed the jewel-chests in the corner.

  I opened them, expecting to find imitation jewels as outlandish and preposterous as this Sultan’s lair. But they were real. Wonderingly, I took out a great ruby, pigeon’s-blood red and swollen with its own preciousness. Next to it lay a pearl, a black pearl—not truly black, of course, but an oily deep grey.

  “Where did you get these?” I asked the prior, glowering from the doorway where he was guarded by Neville and Boleyn.

  “They were . . . given to the Priory.”

  “In good faith, were they not? In exchange for which you vowed to pray daily for the souls of the donors?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you? Do you fulfill your promise?” Before he could wheeze forth another lie, I cut him off. “Do not forswear yourself. We know the answer to that!”

  What loot did the large covered baskets contain? I flipped off the lid of the nearest one.

  “No!” screamed the prior, trying to twist free. “No!”

  There was a quick movement, and a dark shape fairly leapt from the basket. I slammed the top back on, but not before I saw a long dark thing disappear like quicksilver amongst the pillows.

  “They are my pets. They—they”— he thought to find some convincing reason—“keep the rats away.”

  “You fool! Your monks are supposed to keep rats away!” I roared. “Am I mad? Do I dream? Here I find a priory with a dormitory full of lewd, drunken monks, its buildings and grounds in disrepair, no praying being done, and the master of all this living in some schoolboy’s idea of a love-nest and keeping snakes as domestic beasts!”

  “It is all in the report I gave you, Your Grace,” said Cromwell smugly.

  Loosed from his captors, the prior began feeling between all the pillows for the snake. “It was Cuthbert who escaped,” he said.

  At that my men began to laugh hysterically, falling all over the silken cushions.

  “You’ll hurt Cuthbert! Please, sirs—”

  “Cuthbert!” I said. “So you name your snake after a saint? Truly, you condemn yourself by this act alone.”

  The men enjoyed the pretend Infidel-den. I left them rollicking about, tormenting Cuthbert (if indeed he had remained in the chamber) and awaiting dinner, while I strolled out, drawn to the area that customarily housed the monks’ solitary cells. Here, if anywhere, I would find whatever glimmer of religion remained in this fallen house of God.

  Along one side of the original priory, judging from the age of the stones and the type of architecture, were the small stone cells. Perhaps St. Osweth’s had come into being because of a group of hermits. Some foundations had such a beginning. One holy man and his followers would withdraw from the world, and then their piety and reputation for saintliness would attract pilgrims, and the site would turn into a religious centre—exactly the sort of busy place the holy men had sought to escape in the first place. But no holy hermit could have borne the shame of what St. Osweth’s had grown into. Even the houses of prostitution in Southwark were (so I am told) clean and cheerful by comparison.

  This side of St. Osweth’s was deserted, and in frank decay. Roofs had fallen in, and seedling trees grew in the crevices. Ice hung on the empty windows like grotesque panes of glass. Yet I felt cleaner and clearer here than anyplace else on the grounds. Perhaps thoughts, desires, motives remain in a place long after the men who thought them are gone, leaving an aura to hover about. Whatever it was, I suddenly felt blessed and knew I stood on holy ground. I had made a pilgrimage after all.

  Immediately I began to pray. First, hesitantly and silently, for England. Then, softly, for more personal things.

  “God, I beg You, fill me with the wisdom to serve You better. Let me know Your will in all my doings, so that I may obey. Show me when I go astray so that I may correct myself straightway.” Do not let me become an abomination in Your sight, like the prior.

  The wind rose. I felt the cold all about me, and it caused my leg to ache. “O Lord God, take this infirmity away from me!” My words turned to puffs of smoke on the frigid air. “Please, I beg You, I beseech You . . . I can bear it no longer! I know it is a mark of Your disfavour”— the words were tumbling out now, without modesty or seemliness—“but wherein have I failed? Show me clear, bid me do a thing, and I will do it! But tease me no more with bodily infirmities!”

  I was angry with God—yes, furious with His way of punishing me for an unknown sin. Was this fair? No earthly ruler would behave in so devious a fashion.

  “When I punish a subject, I always give him a chance to repent first. Why have You not granted the same courtesy to me?” A shot of pain ran through the leg. “Is this how You talk to me? Indirectly? Can You not find a better translator than a diseased leg?”

  Now He would strike me—surely! Anything but this insolent silence, this celestial detachment. The leg throbbed, then quieted.

  “And to take away my manhood! I beg You, let me be a husband to my wife!”

  Anger and fear flung me to my knees, and I shut my eyes and cried out in undisguised pain to God.

  I know not how long I remained thus, but it seemed a different sort of time than worldly time. Stumbling to my feet, I felt a fleeting sweetness that promised all would yet be well.

  Or did I but deceive myself?

  That night in the comical Sultan’s den, my men commented several times that I seemed subdued, softened.

  “He grows fond and familiar in his old age,” said Neville.

&
nbsp; “ ’Tis we who grow old,” said Carew. His heart trouble had frightened him. “The King merely grows more regal.”

  But Cromwell studied me with narrowed eyes. He was trying to detect something—he who lived by being able to read the secret thoughts of other men.

  As early as possible the next morning, we left St. Osweth’s behind, as a man will leave a sickbed. It would be closed as soon as I could sign the orders. In the meantime there was no point in punishing the prior. Let him enjoy his snake-lair a little longer before he was turned out to earn an honest living. Prudently, we had deprived him of the jewels and treasury. My saddle-pouches now bulged with gemstones.

  The storm had passed out over the Channel and was now harassing France. I hoped it would ruin Francis’s hunting. Of late it was reported that he spent inordinate amounts of time hunting, restlessly moving from one lodge to another, feverishly chasing game. Feverish . . . yes, the rumours said he was suffering from the dread French Disease, and this caused his glittering eyes and unpredictable behaviour.

  Rumours. I wondered if any had reached Francis or Charles about my infirmity?

  LVII

  In the morning light, St. Osweth’s, now behind us, seemed as dreamlike as the days that had just passed. They were set apart, outside anything in our regular lives. Therefore it was jarring when Cromwell rode alongside me, murmuring about the monasteries, saying that it was necessary to act now about them, that St. Osweth’s was but a mild example and mirror of what I might find in over eight hundred other such establishments throughout England. He pressed for permission to seize and close them all.

  His thirst for their ruin seemed primary, his concern for their morals secondary. His emphasis distressed me.

  “Not now, Crum!” I barked, and the cold, clear air seemed to encapsulate my words, to surround each of them with a box. Did the fool not understand that I was about to meet my daughter, whom I had not seen in almost two years? My daughter, whom I loved and with whom I was yet at enmity. Human emotions: these did not reckon in Crum’s scales. Except as something to be used to undo a man.