The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  I had humbled myself, yet I did not begrudge it. I only prayed that he would see the danger he was in, and respond to my offer of help.

  Indeed, he replied, he would be honoured to sight this eclipse with me. His calculations (so he had known of it all along, but never thought to invite me!) showed that the eclipse would begin at slightly after eleven at night and be over by one. He would be pleased if I would honour him by coming early, in time for supper and Compline, and then spend the night in his home.

  The air was chill in the late April afternoon as the watermen rowed the royal barge up the Thames to Chelsea. Some trees had begun to unfold their leaves, copper-coloured, feathery things, whilst others were still bare. The grass along the bank was already bright green, almost artificially so. Grass is always the first to awaken after the winter sleep, and it hurts our eyes when it does.

  Rounding the bend in the river, I saw the pier that belonged to More’s household jutting out a little way into the water. Not only had it not been enlarged to accommodate larger vessels, but it had declined sadly from what it was. The planks were gamely mended, but still warped and sagging; the entire thing swayed under my weight.

  Down at the Watergate More was waiting, leaning against the wicket. He was as brown and plain as a wren, weathered like the planks of his decaying pier.

  “Thomas!” I said, hoping not to betray my surprise at his appearance. “I have so looked forward to this time!” I motioned to my servitors, carrying the fitted box with its precious set of one-of-a-kind lenses, and the astrolabe swathed in velvet. “Now we shall catch her out—Dame Luna.”

  He reached out his hand and grasped mine. “You are heartily welcome, Your Grace.” He opened the gate and bowed low. I strode in and encircled his shoulders with my arm, hugging him close to me. He did not resist. Together we walked toward the house.

  In the fragile, cold twilight it was quiet. Unlike that happy, lazy summer afternoon (the only other time I had visited him), there were no servants scurrying, no children romping on the grass. The beehives were dormant, and even the goats were nowhere to be seen.

  “My children are married,” he said, seeming to read my very thoughts. “Grown up, gone away. Elizabeth married William Dauncey, and Cecily, Giles Heron. My father died recently. Even my little ward, Margaret Gigs, has married my former page, John Clement. Dame Alice and I are left quite alone. It happens much sooner than you think.”

  “And Margaret?” I remembered his bright, shining daughter.

  “She married her Will Roper,” he said. “Another lawyer. Our family is beset with them. We need a farmer or a goldsmith to give us diversity.”

  “You had a Lord Chancellor and a Parliamentarian.” I could not help saying it.

  “Three generations of lawyers,” he said, ignoring my gibe. “But the house will not be entirely empty and sedate tonight. I have asked Margaret and Will to join us. Ah!” He gestured toward a glowering, dumpy figure standing in the doorway. “Here is Alice.”

  If More looked like a wren, she looked like a buzzard. Thickened and soured since our last meeting, she was a pudding gone bad.

  “Your Grace.” (Such venom in the words!)

  I passed into the winter parlour, and was shocked. Much of the furniture was gone, the tapestries taken down, the fireplace cold.

  We have you to thank for this, Lady Alice seemed to be saying, in everything but words. But which “you” did she mean? Me, for my Great Matter? Or her husband, for not bending himself to it, for absenting himself from power and court? They went hand in hand: my Great Matter was his as well.

  More never sought to explain or to apologize for his reduced state. He seemed to accept it as natural, as he accepted the coming of spring. “We will kill the fatted logs,” he joked, “for we have a great and honoured guest.” In that way he ordered a fire to be kindled, lest I take cold.

  It was not servants who brought the logs in, however, but Margaret and her husband. They were wearing rough old clothes, and kindled the fire with a surety born of much practise. The blaze was scarcely less cheerful than their chatter and movements.

  I settled myself before it, and the sole remaining lady-servitor brought us spiced wine. The goblets were wooden ones. It was only then I noticed that not only was there no silver or pewter in the cupboards, but there were no cupboards, either.

  How did he have the courage to entertain the King in such reduced circumstances, and as self-assuredly as Wolsey had ever done at Hampton Court?

  I had not actually seen Thomas More in almost two years. Since leaving court he had kept entirely to himself, writing long religious books, like the half-million-word Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, living through his correspondence with other humanists and scholars abroad. The little circle of such in England was broken now—some by death, most by politics. Erasmus, deprived of his post at a university, along with all Humanists, by the Emperor, languished in exile like More. Vives and Mountjoy, Katherine’s partisans, were in disfavour here. It was a great pity that these men had had to embroil themselves in the matters of the day. They should have stuck with the dead Romans and Greeks.

  More had visibly aged. Perhaps so had I. He was less able to mask his changes than I, because he dressed so plainly and wore no jewels to divert the eye. (Loyal servants, jewels. They perform so many tasks so well.) I inquired after his health, as politeness decreed. He answered that his lungs had been troubled by a flux all winter, but that with the coming of warmer weather, he looked to its easement.

  Perfectly reasonable words, a civilized exchange. Yet they seemed worse than shouting, worse than curses, because of all they did not say; and the unsaid loomed over us, demanding attention. To sit thus, the silences and the pauses embroidered by designs of “conversation,” seemed a monstrous sin. And yet I kept committing it.

  “News of your Confutation and its fine reasoning has reached me,” I said.

  “God has given me the opportunity to devote myself to it fully,” he replied. “Otherwise I might never have been so thorough.”

  The fire hissed and a spark jumped out toward us, as though trying, in its own way, to ease and distract our awkwardness.

  “Have you much time for astronomy?” I asked. “The skies are clear here.”

  “I have, but only with homemade instruments. Alas, your New Year’s gift of 1510”—he remembered the year; I was gratified, absurdly thrilled—“had to be sold to buy candles for this winter. I have missed it.”

  So it was difficult for him to part with the astrolabe? And my coming now, with my new playthings . . . it was actually a favour, not an imposition? I would make him a present of them. My heart swelled with goodwill and bounty.

  But my tongue was leaden, and the silences persisted. I was relieved when supper was announced and we could begin the soothing ritual of eating, and perhaps make the transition to easiness by the time the plates were cleared.

  “Your Majesty, would you bless our table and lead us in prayer?” More opened his palm to me.

  He acknowledged my divinely appointed spiritual guidance! What else could this gesture mean? How subtle of More. The rest would be easy, then, the evening pleasant.

  “O Divine God,” I intoned, “bless this gathering of those who love one another in unity of hearts and souls. May our words and actions and inmost desires be pleasing to You. Fill us with the Holy Spirit, so that we may always speak truth and act according to Thy wishes.”

  We all crossed ourselves. I looked up. My prayer, far from loosening everyone, seemed to have stiffened them.

  “Your Majesty,” said Lady Alice, “as it is Friday, and Lent, I have prepared the most festive dishes permissible under the circumstances.” She rang her little bell, and the serving girl appeared, bearing a great tureen of soup.

  “Slete soup,” she said, setting it down carefully in the middle of the smallish table.

  “Leeks are Welsh emblems, are they not, and Your Majesty is Welsh?” Margaret More Roper spoke up.

&nbs
p; “Do you speak Welsh?” her husband suddenly asked. It was the first thing he had said.

  “Yes . . . a little. I learnt it from my father.” Strange, I had forgotten that. Forgotten that he had spoken it to me as a child. I hardly remembered him speaking to me at all.

  “Leek soup is cawl cennin,” I said. “It is usually better on the second eating, when it is called cawl ail dwym.”

  The Celtic words did what my formal prayer could not: blessed us, gave us unity. A miracle.

  “Do you ever wish to visit Wales?” asked Thomas.

  “Yes. They are strange people, and yet I am part of them. I sometimes feel I have gotten all the best of myself from them: my music, my love of poetry.”

  And the worst, I thought to myself. The black moods, the melancholy, that strange feeling of homesickness wherever I find myself.

  “Will you make them part of England?” Lady Alice was blunt, as always.

  “They are part of England,” I said. “They cannot help that, nor can I. ’Tis more convenient for all parts to be united under a single government.”

  The slete soup was nourishing, and filling. I relished it in my belly; but more than that, I relished the free and loving conversation about the table.

  “Now for my favourite Lenten dish,” said Thomas. “Perhaps it is not a penance, because I love it so.” He rang the bell, gaily. I could see he truly looked forward to this dish.

  “Deep-dish eel and onion pie.”

  Presented before us was a magnificent coffer of decorated pastry.

  More took the knife and broke open the golden-glazed covering. A great gush of steam issued forth; and then I could see the succulent pieces of eel swimming in their sauce of butter, raisins, and milk. To accompany it was a good dish of boiled garlic.

  It was all finer than any royal banquet. And to this day I do not know why. Of course, More would have an explanation: Christ was a guest as well—as the Israelites always leave a place for Elijah at their Passover feasts.

  Supper over—there was no dessert, owing to Lent—we went straightway back to the winter parlor for Compline.

  Compline was, strictly speaking, a monastic ritual. Even Katherine never said Compline, despite her allegiance to the Third Order of St. Francis. But More had, after all, once been a novice for the Carthusian Order, although he had turned aside, saying, “It is better to be a chaste husband than a licentious priest.” Like many men who have served two masters, he had never completely forgotten the first one.

  The fire was dying. More ordered tapers to be brought so that he might read the Office. Although he offered me place of honour, I declined. I desired to see him in his customary role.

  I desired to know him. Truly to know him.

  First came the admonition. “Brothers, be both sober and vigilant,” he read.

  Then followed silent meditation. Then confession:

  “I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore, I beseech Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, to pray to the Lord our God for me.”

  Then Psalm 133:

  “Ecce nunc benedicite Dominum.

  “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

  “It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments.

  “As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore.”

  The fire died, as More’s words did. I felt embraced by God, by this blessed family, by the moment, by the words.

  “And now to bed,” said Lady Alice, breaking the spell.

  “Except for the moon-watchers.” Margaret smiled at me.

  “Margaret once had a fancy for astronomy,” More said. “But when I continually had to point out the difference between the moon and the sun—”

  “Nay, I never excelled at astronomy,” agreed Margaret. “It baffled me.” She looked at us all. “I must to bed. Father is right.”

  Lady Alice likewise excused herself. Thomas More and I were left entirely alone. As I had wished, had dreamt of.

  “Show me your secret,” he said. “I am anxious to see what you have brought.”

  Carefully I opened the velvet-lined fitted wooden box. Inside was a set of lenses, and a board where they could be affixed into a series of holes.

  “If these are paired and aligned in a certain way, they bring things closer, I know not how. My eyeglass maker showed me this trick. I can play with them and see objects on the far side of the room as if they were within arm’s length. I must confess I have not tried them on the stars. But perhaps tonight?”

  “Yes! Yes!” He sounded genuinely interested, and extracted one and studied it intently.

  “I had my eyeglass maker grind them,” I said. “I have had to resort to wearing reading glasses these days, alas.” I was now obligated to wear what were called “forty-year glasses.” They also made “fifty-year-glasses,” “sixty-year-glasses,” and so on.

  “We have awhile yet before the eclipse begins. Let us adjust them when it is less chilly, and avoid the condensation on the lens.” He rose, gathering his drab grey wool about him.

  He ushered me outside, through the rear door of the Great Hall—silent and dark now—and out onto the little meadow behind his manor house. The sharp, sweet smell of promised spring was in every breath.

  The land rose slowly to a little knoll. More took a torch and led me toward it. Only as I came closer did my torch show something else to be there. As my eyes took in the structure, so my nose smelled new, oiled wood.

  More indicated it. “A moon-watching platform,” he said. “The Chinese, I am told, call all balconies such, and so they should.”

  He had built it for me. For my visit. In his reduced circumstances, still he had seen fit to honour me, and my wishes. . . .

  I mounted the steps of the small deck, encircled with a railing.

  “I built it on my highest land,” he said.

  “You built this . . . for my visit? The wood, the workmen’s fees—”

  “I built it myself,” he said. “That is why it tilts so.” He laughed. “I hope our calculation table can stand steady.”

  My men were busy setting it up. They could manage.

  “It is steady, Your Majesty,” they said. They had made all the necessary adjustments to the legs and the angle of the top.

  “You may keep pastime in the winter parlor,” More told them. “Request more wood if you like.”

  Now we were alone. No ceremonies, no mitigating forces, and there was still an hour before the eclipse. It was most inconvenient of the Almighty to schedule it so late.

  More walked around the new-smelling platform, rubbing his hands in the cold. There were two chairs on the deck, obviously fetched up from the house, as they were indoor chairs.

  “We could look at Venus first,” he suggested.

  “But there is little to see,” I replied. “It is always of a uniform appearance, and so bright. I prefer Mars.”

  “The God of War,” said More. “Spoken like a true prince. Of late it has seemed brighter, at least to my naked eye. May I?” He indicated the larger lens, the one to be held at arm’s length.

  “If you insert the handle into the hole at the far edge of the board, then tilt it”—I showed him how—“that can serve well for stars near the horizon. It will free one hand.”

  He was delighted with the innovation.

  “I wonder what the red is?” he mused. “Does Mars have red seas, do you think?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Most likely. Or perhaps it burns with a red flame? Or
perhaps it is covered with blood?”

  He sighed. “To think there are other worlds, so different from ours. . . . Sometimes I cannot comprehend, truly comprehend, in my soul, the depth of God’s great universe. I have recently read of a Polish man’s theory that all the planets circle the sun—he has not published, of course—”

  “It is not for us to ‘comprehend’ with our finite minds, but to seek to obey Him in whatever world He has placed us,” I said. “It is not, of course, always so plain. . . . God confounds us, tests us.”

  I hesitated. But the moment was here, the moment when I must speak. “Thomas, I came to see you tonight not only to view the eclipse, but also to warn you. I do not know what you hear from London of worldly matters. Gossip and rumours distort and are no friend to truth. But I am speaking the truth, as your friend, when I tell you that Parliament will require an Oath to support their Act of Succession, which they are even now in the process of making law.”

  “Of what will the Oath consist?”

  That question again.

  “That the swearer believes the Princess Elizabeth to be the only legitimate heir to the throne. That the swearer will support her claims against all others”—I paused—“should I suddenly die.” How remote that seemed, standing out on the brave little moon-platform.

  “That is all?”

  “Yes. I believe so. Perhaps a few words to the effect that my marriage to Anne is a true one, the one to Katherine null and void—”

  “ ‘A few words’?” He dashed his hands against the railing of the platform. “Always ‘a few words’! Oh, would that they were many—then it would be so much easier. A few words. God, why are You so cruel?”

  His voice was sharp in the still air, rising like a rapier, rattling itself against God.

  “Yet it is all the same.” His voice quieted at once, before he turned back to me.

  “I hope you will not refuse the Oath,” I said. “For it will be law that those who do not subscribe to it are guilty of treason.”

  His expression—of course, I could not see it well in the starlight—seemed not to alter.