The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  “I fear, however, that my mission to Mary was unhappy. She refused to acknowledge the way of things. She is a replica of Katherine.”

  Anne smiled smugly. “As I knew. And far more dangerous.”

  “How so?”

  “To be brutal, the old woman’s almost fifty, and ill. Mary is young and healthy. Katherine has been a Queen already; Mary is a potential one. A great man once said, ‘Never fear your predecessors, only your successors.’ ”

  “You will be pleased to know, then, that I have ended Mary’s ‘reign’ at Beaulieu. I ordered her to depart immediately to serve Elizabeth at Hatfield House. I have also”—I paused at this; I was so infernally weary!—“given Beaulieu to your brother George, to do with as he likes.”

  She squealed with triumph, clasping her hands together in the age-old sign of greed.

  “George is a good lad,” I said. “May he use it well.”

  Just then the servitors appeared with our supper, carried on silver trays and covered with great domes of heat-keeping metal. We must suspend all intimate conversation while the small dining table was spread with linen and all the dishes set out with their condiments of pepper and salt and cloves. There was rabbit stew, all savoury and swimming in rich sauce; little pancakes to lie under it; wild berry jelly and lentil soup. As the servitor arranged each item with precise artistry, I watched, my hunger a captive to his art; and Anne and I spoke in whispers and code.

  “Your cousin who makes poetry shall teach another to do so,” I murmured. “Starting straightway at Windsor.”

  I expected a smile; instead she glowered. We would discuss this later.

  “I have brought back jewels from a lax monastery,” I said. I opened the saddle-pouch and handed her the prior’s lost treasures. “All these were to pay for Masses unsaid,” I told her.

  “So many fallen people,” she murmured, stroking the stones and gold.

  The servitor’s ceremony of silver-laying yet went on, slowly, deliberately. Would he never be done?

  “Aye. A shame and a disgrace.”

  The goblets were now set in place, the wine poured into them.

  “We thank you,” I said. I indicated the fire, and the young servant put two solid oak logs onto it, then withdrew.

  I seated myself before the repast, so hungry that by now I was past hunger. I was precise, careful in all my movements. I picked up the goblet, of fine Venetian glass. I had lately ordered a hundred of them. Glass was better than metal for flattering wine’s taste.

  “Let us drink to all reunions,” I said. Our glasses touched. Reunion: the reuniting of that which is severed. If only wine could accomplish that.

  The touch of wine in my mouth caused an explosion of hunger. I helped myself to the stew, the pancakes, and savoured each bite. My hunger rose up and sported with the food.

  “What meant you about my cousin Howard?” she asked sharply.

  “Why, that he and my son Fitzroy shall spend some time together at Windsor. Fitzroy needs to be with other noble lads his own age; he’s been too isolated. And as for Howard . . . it would do him good to feel loved, and appreciated. The situation in his family—his parents living apart, no brothers to sustain him—they could help one another.”

  “So you continue to elevate your bastard son!” she said. “Forget him! He’s of your past! Why do you hark back to him, when we shall have sons of our own?

  “When we do, I shall honour them as heirs to the throne. I honour Fitzroy only as my son, and as a lad who needs attention and affection. As does Henry Howard. They are both sorely neglected.”

  “Henry the Good Samaritan,” she mocked—or did she? “That is not as others perceive you.”

  “If you are to be Queen,” I reminded her, “you must cease to be concerned with how ignorant people perceive you. Only be concerned with how God, who sees all, perceives you.”

  We finished our stew—it was delicious, seasoned with herbs I could not identify—in silence. Then I said, “Parliament opens two days from now. They will be enacting the bills concerning our marriage and Elizabeth’s primacy of succession.”

  This is the moment, I wanted to say. The moment that makes my love for you a matter of law. And treason. My private passion had become a concern of lawmaking bodies.

  “This Oath that will be required . . . it will first be administered in Parliament.”

  “And then to everyone.” Her voice was calm.

  “All it will require is that . . . that the person swears that Elizabeth is the heir to the throne, excepting any sons we may have.”

  “So simple. How many words?”

  “Twenty, thirty. But . . . there are meanings behind the words. We know what those meanings are. There will be some, perhaps many”—how many?—“who may find it difficult to take the Oath.”

  “Because they are not hearing the words of the Oath, but the imaginary words behind it.”

  “Yes.”

  The dinner was done. The food, the plates, like all meals finished, were repulsive. I could not leave them soon enough. I stood, and we sought a padded bench on the far side of the chamber. I rang for the leavings to be removed.

  “The Oath is my pledge of love to you,” I assured her. “It is the greatest offering I can make you.”

  She laid her gentle hand on my shoulder.

  Just then the servitor came to clear away the things, so we remained frozen in our words and actions, but not in our thoughts. Those continued to race, change, rearrange themselves. By the time he left, they were of another order entirely.

  “You will not flinch?” she said. “Even though perhaps those you care for, consider dear, may refuse the Oath?”

  “Flinch?”

  “Refuse to punish them? To let them suffer the penalty of treason?”

  “I never flinch.”

  Who would not sign? Some would; I refused to predict the actions of individuals . . . of those I loved. . . .

  Anne was with me, Anne for whom all this had come about. The restorative magic of food was spreading itself all throughout my body, with wine following in its wake. I was floating. . . .

  Anne was beautiful, worth all I had had to move to have her. Now I wanted her.

  Yes, wanted her! The miracle was here, it had happened after all. My powers were back. . . .

  We entwined ourselves in the ancient and magical way, becoming truly one flesh.

  And Adam knew his wife. I knew Anne, or felt I did. Knew her to every sinew and bone, so very like mine. . . .

  Or so I believed.

  LVIII

  At midday, three days after my return, I went to Parliament in state. The Thames being frozen, I could not be rowed in the royal barge to Westminster, where both houses were meeting for the opening. Instead I had to walk, with a full complement of retainers and advisors, under a canopy of royal estate, carrying the mace of England, along the Strand. I was gratified to see that windows were still opened and people still hung over the sills to glimpse their King, and that their cries were gladsome ones. What would they change to after Parliament had finished making its bills?

  Inside the antechamber at Westminster Palace, I fastened on my heavy gold-and-ermine robes and had the crown placed on my head. The King in Parliament was about to take place: my presence, united with Parliament, was the highest law of the land.

  Both the Lower House (Commons) and the Upper House (Lords) were gathered together in the Lesser Hall today, a chamber tiled in green and white. In the middle of the room, four ceremonial woolsacks—enormous tasseled bundles saluting England’s foundation of financial greatness, wool—served as seats for judges and record-keeping clerks, as well as for Sir Thomas Audley, the Lord Chancellor, More’s successor.

  The House of Lords consisted not only of fifty-seven peers (“Lords temporal”) but of fifty high-ranking clergymen (“Lords spiritual”) as well. Commons were about three hundred strong, elected knights and burgesses from all the shires of the realm.

  The Lords sat on benc
hes arranged in a great double rectangle around the room, prelates on my right and peers on my left; the Commons had to stand outside, at the bar, behind their Speaker. I sat upon a throne overlooking them all, under a white embroidered canopy of estate, set up on a dais covered in blue and gold—gold Tudor roses and fleurs-de-lis. Flanking me on the dais were my advisors and councillors, particularly Cromwell.

  This was the fifth time this Parliament had sat. It was to last for seven years, and become known as the Long Parliament. Thus far it had enacted many things, but they had been aimed primarily at abuses that had long rankled good Englishmen: the separate privileges of the clergy, the taxes and tithes to Rome. This time was different. This time I would ask them to define treason—according to my terms.

  Standing before them, my crown heavy on my head, I spoke.

  “Before you are bills which will define the meaning of treason. We had always thought we knew the meaning of treason. It was instantly recognizable, as we recognize toads, snakes, vermin. Who could mistake a toad for a tabby cat?”

  Laughter.

  “But in these perilous days, it is not so simple to distinguish. Our ancestors had only to be alert for snakes and rats. But in our sad days, alas—even Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light.

  “That is a quotation from Scripture,” I continued. “That is just an example of how things have changed. For translated Scriptures abound, and any man might chance to read them—aye, read them, and misunderstand them!”

  I looked out at them. There was no laughter now. They waited to see what I was leading up to.

  “With this in mind, and as your loving King, I know you need guidance. We would be derelict in our duty and love of you if we did not provide it. Treason sneaks about on little cat feet, whispering first in one ear, then the other. But he who knows what treason is, who has been alerted, can turn aside . . . and stop the mouth of him who whispered it.”

  Now there was rustling in the seats. Their apprehension was turning into dread.

  “Treason is that which seeks to deprive you of your King, to lessen him in any way. That means attempting to deprive him of any of his rightful titles; speaking scandalously of his marriage to Queen Anne; failing to recognize the Princess Elizabeth as his true and legitimate heir. It means maliciously slandering him, in words or deeds. It means protecting those who do.”

  The true import of these words did not seem to have hit home to them. The gathering of men before me had bland faces as yet.

  “Now, as no good and loyal Englishman would wish to be guilty of such a crime, there will be provided an opportunity for all to swear themselves as not being numbered among the hidden traitors.” I motioned to Cromwell, who stood and brandished a scroll.

  “For your protection,” he said, “there will be administered an Oath throughout the land. When you take the Oath, your name will be entered in the register for your district. Then you will be safe in the knowledge that your loyalty is a matter of record, and no enemy can undo you.” He looked about. “You in Parliament will be privileged to be the first to take it. Then you may deputise others to administer it.” I motioned him to sit.

  “The Oath will be simple,” I said. “It requires only that a person acknowledge the Act of Succession—which you will enact in this session, stating that the marriage to the Princess Dowager was against God’s law, and not subject to any earthly dispensation, and that the Succession passes to the King’s issue through Queen Anne. That is all. All adult subjects will take the Oath publicly to observe and maintain ‘the whole effects and contents’ of the Act. You may swear to it by kissing the Bible, or, if you prefer, a holy relic. It will take only a moment or so. But just as baptism takes only a moment, yet cleanses Original Sin, so this will preserve your earthly body against the taint of treason.”

  They seemed to understand and stand ready to accede to my wishes.

  Parliament enacted the statutes, just as I had asked. Treason was no longer merely a word in the English language, subject to individual interpretation; it was now embodied in the law of the land, and there were certain things one did in regard to it, or failed to do. It was in the latter capacity that I consulted Crum.

  I had originally taken to calling him “Crum” because I had no other way of expressing fondness toward him. Although affable, he, like a slippery rock, afforded no grasping places by which to ascend to what was truly Thomas Cromwell. He stood quite alone: no wife (she having died, and he seemingly having no inclination to remarry, no marriage ties at court, no known past. A strange, solitary man. I envied him his self-sufficiency.

  Now, this bleak and cheerless day in March, when all the world lay torpid, I spoke with Crum.

  “Parliament has taken the Oath, and all the heads of London guilds,” I said. “When the weather breaks, then we shall send the commissioners to the rest of the realm.”

  “It will be June before Northumberland and the Marches are accessible,” he said. “You will have to rely on the Percys to protect the commissioners and smooth their task. The Percys . . . a thorn in Your Grace’s palm. Henry can be trusted, but he’s dying, so they say.”

  Anne’s Henry, her girlhood love. Dying? He was so young, Anne’s age.

  “He was puny.” Crum—as always—answered my unspoken question. “The North did not agree with his delicate constitution—neither the climate nor the manners. He could thrive only in the softness of a court.”

  But you made that impossible. Tactfully, he did not say it.

  “The French court, more like.”

  “Indeed. Where one could be—what was it ’twas said about Caesar?—‘every man’s woman and every woman’s man.’ He evidently could not satisfy his wife. She left him and returned to her father’s home. Wretched creature, Percy. A decrepit boy.”

  “So by August the Oaths should have been given, and received, in every reach of the realm.” Enough of Percy, of his dyings and inadequacies.

  “Yes. The names of the loyal will be in our hands, also of the dissenters.”

  “Then we shall have to decide how to deal with them.”

  “Death is the penalty prescribed by law.”

  Yes, the law was very clear on that. But executions . . . there had been no executions in England except for heinous, active treason, like the Duke of Buckingham’s, for thirteen years. (The Duke had intended to conceal a knife on his person and assassinate me during an audience.) But automatic executions for refusing to sign a paper?

  “The sentences must be carried out, else no one will trust the law or believe Parliament can enforce what it passes,” Crum insisted.

  “I pray that all may take it,” he added. “For their sakes, and ours.”

  Was I duty-bound to try to warn those who might consider refusing? Those who might not realize that the time for temporizing had run out, that the law would show no mercy? It would be on my conscience if I did not.

  Conscience? No, that was my excuse, a high-sounding one. The truth was that love—if I had love for these people—commanded me to do it.

  Mary I had already gone to. Katherine I could not, as she was near Cambridgeshire, and travelling was impossible just now betwixt there and London. I could write her, advising her of the danger she was in.

  More. Thomas More, in Chelsea, keeping to himself since he had resigned as Lord Chancellor. Writing his everlasting books, his letters, his devotions. The Bishops of Durham, Bath, and Winchester had sent him my twenty pounds to buy proper robes to come to London and attend Anne’s Coronation with them. He had declined the invitation, with an impertinent “parable” about losing his innocence thereby. It had gone as follows:

  Your proposal put me in remembrance of an emperor that had made a law that whosoever committed a certain offence, except it were a virgin, should suffer the pains of death. Such a reverence had he to virginity! Now, so it happened that the first committer of that offence was indeed a virgin, whereof the emperor hearing was in no small perplexity, as he would now have to put that
law into execution. Whereupon when his council had sat long, solemnly debating this case, suddenly arose there up one of his council—a good plain man among them—and said: “Why make you so much ado, my lords, about so small a matter? Let her first be deflowered and then after she may be devoured.”

  And so, though Your Lordships have in the matter of the matrimony hitherto kept yourselves pure virgins, yet take good heed, my Lords, that you keep your virginity still. For some there be that by procuring Your Lordships first at the Coronation to be present, and next to preach in favour of it, and finally to write books to all the world in defence thereof, are desirous to deflower you; and when they have deflowered you, then will they fail not to devour you. Now, my Lords, it lieth not in my power but that they may devour me. But God, being my good Lord, I will provide that they shall never deflower me.

  I had looked for him in vain at the Coronation banquet, not as an “emperor” cheated of his quarry, but as a friend sorrowed by another friend’s absence. Now I knew that similar bravado and ignorance of the consequences might well lead him blithely to refuse the Oath.

  I must go to him. I had no choice.

  LIX

  As his King and sovereign, I could have ordered him to appear before me in any place I chose, and at any time I chose. I could have routed him out of his cosy quarters, upset his routine, stood his life on its head. But I would not do that. I came as a friend. So I consulted with my astronomers and astrologers and found an eclipse of the moon coming in four weeks. This heavenly disturbance was something we could study together that had no earthly overtones. Afterwards we could talk.

  I wrote, inviting myself to come to him in Chelsea and watch the eclipse with him. “For there are none at court nowadays who share my enthusiasm,” I wrote ingenuously (so I hoped), “and I have some new sighters, which I trust may surprise you. I bring the old astrolabe from Greenwich as well.” Would he remember?