The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  Anne’s signature, her mocking signature, was there for those who recognized it: beginning on Princess Elizabeth’s birthday. This was Anne’s way of celebrating.

  They say the Devil is so prideful that he often behaves stupidly, just to boast and brag. This was such an instance. Anne had not been able to resist the elegant touch of using September seventh as her starting date to vanquish Elizabeth’s rival.

  “—I myself will stand surety,” Chapuys was saying. I had not heard a word.

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked.

  “Let her go to Katherine! She needs her mother, she is suffering in spirit as well as in body, and one cannot heal without the other. I offer myself as a hostage. Put me to death if anything untoward comes of their reunion. But—”

  “Impossible. What good would your death do, once Katherine has raised a rebellion against me?” Holding Mary’s letter in my hand, I hated the cruelty of refusing what I knew would cheer, if not cure, her. I was always being forced to play the villain, only because I knew things others did not, was responsible for the many, not just the one.

  “Katherine would act only as a mother—” he began.

  “God’s blood, she is not as you think!” I motioned for my private letter box to be brought to me, and I unlocked it and drew out a heavy envelope. Cromwell’s spies had procured it for me just three days previous. There was no doubt of its authenticity; I knew Katherine’s handwriting, its great black boldness, too well. “Read this. Her treason is here.” It had grieved me to read it, and to know it.

  It was written to the Pope, which in itself broke the Statute Forbidding Appeals to Rome. But even had it not, its contents, calling for foreign intervention in England, were manifest treason.

  “Your Holiness knows, and all Christendom knows, what things are done in England, what great offence is given to God, what scandal to the world, what reproach is thrown upon Your Holiness. If a remedy be not applied shortly, there will be no end to ruined souls and martyred saints.”

  “ ‘If a remedy is not applied shortly,’ ” I said softly. “In other words, she implores the P—the Bishop of Rome to urge Charles and Francis to invade England, to implement the Excommunication and Interdict he placed us under. She calls, Chapuys, for me to be deposed. Her ‘dear husband,’ whom she would ‘obey in all things.’ Ha!” Anger replaced sorrow at Katherine’s duplicity. She pretended to be so holy, so honest—she, too, was full of lies!

  Lies, lies! Everyone was lying! I was surrounded by liars.

  “Can no one speak truth to me?” I roared.

  Chapuys pointed to Mary’s letter. “It speaks true.”

  “Oh, that she is ill, I doubt not. But that Katherine and her partisans—including you, my dear Imperial lackey—would restrict her care to nursing, that I doubt. No, Mary shall stay where she is. Katherine shall not stir out to find her. Why, she might have to speak to someone who would forget to call her ‘Queen’!” I spat. “I’ll send Dr. Butts to Mary,” I said. “He can effect a cure, if anyone can.” And an exorcist as well, I thought, disguised as an apothecary. She would need his services to recover truly.

  Disappointment and disgust flooded Chapuys’s face. He indicated the letter.

  “We shall retain the letter,” I said. That I wanted it to give to the exorcist, I could not betray. Chapuys thought me mean and petty. Well, let him. In his innocence lay his safety.

  Anne’s net was closing in. Mary was stricken. I had no doubt that Katherine would soon become “ill.” But I was taken by horrible surprise when, in three days, came word from Windsor that Henry Fitzroy had begun to cough blood.

  If prayer alone could overcome the black arts, then I saved him that night, as I prayed beyond what I had ever thought possible.

  Now I must take my terrible knowledge and act, to overcome Anne and her evil. In two days, at the fête . . .

  What then? I had no plan, no certainty of what remedy lay at hand.

  LXVII

  The sun set on Michaelmas evening, and its last glow in the sky was like a reluctant parting, a giving-over into the hands of darkness which must now reign for twelve hours. I stood watching the last light fade, even as I saw the inner lights of the Great Hall glowing brighter. The fête was being readied.

  I was the last to enter the Great Hall. It was brilliantly lit, with some sort of white light that had a blue tinge to it, reflected by mirrors. It was an ugly, cruel light that showed lines on faces and made pupils narrow into pinpoints.

  Anne came toward me. She was dressed half in white, half in black, her costume divided down the exact middle, and she had turned half her hair white as well. The nails on one hand were painted black, the other gleamed white. It was the first time I had seen her since the dreadful night in her chamber when she had betrayed herself to me.

  The court knew we were estranged. Our deep separation had been impossible to conceal, and now they watched, motionless, as Anne and I approached one another.

  I alone had no suspense. I knew that her actions would have no effect on me, that I was beyond her machinations. The woman I had loved had never existed, and this vixen was no part of her.

  “My Lord,” she said, and smiled. Her teeth . . . her blood-red lips . . . they called something to mind . . . something. . . .

  “My Queen.” I let our hands touch. We lifted them up together, and turned for the people, ceremoniously. I would give them no food for their curiosity.

  Anne signalled for the music to begin. From the minstrel’s gallery came abrasive, cacophonous sounds, wailing and piercing. Stringed instruments were being tortured, and their cries smothered by brutal drums.

  “Do you like it?” she asked. “I had it composed especially for tonight—winter and darkness, overcoming summer and light.”

  Never had her courage been more brightly displayed: make no mention of our parting, or of our estrangement, or of my accusations; instead, ask my opinion of an experimental composition. I admired her bravery, while despising her person.

  “It is hideous,” I answered. “As hideous as all darkness and evil.”

  “Then it is a successful composition,” she replied, “for that is what it is meant to represent.”

  “Who is its creator? Mark Smeaton?” I answered my own question.

  She nodded. Then she said, “Will you take your seat of honour? All is in readiness.”

  She was to be seated at my side. So she was not to perform in this drama, respecting my wishes. Oh, she was so submissive, so pleasing. Too late—all too late.

  The Hall was full, packed with the so-called New Men, the young opportunists of the day. There was burly, winsome Edward Clinton from Lincolnshire, his broad shoulders straining his dark satin doublet. Recently become Baron upon his father’s death, he was rumoured to have his eye on Bessie Blount, to pluck her upon the sickly Tailboys’ demise. But did he wish her for gain? I must ascertain. Certainly he was looking lasciviously at the Chancellor’s wife, standing beside him. He would never be faithful.

  Sir Richard Riche, one of Cromwell’s men, recently made Solicitor-General, was standing between Chancellor Audley and his wife. His utterly featureless, forgettable face smiled blandly, blankly. His lips moved, saying nothing. Yet his testimony had helped to convict More.

  More.

  His replacements and inheritors milled about: Thomas Wriothesley, another “find” of Cromwell’s, strutted about pointing and mincing. He had lately aristocraticized his name from Risley to Wriothesley and talked in what he assumed was a fashionable soft tone. Beside him stood Ralph Sadler, a pleasant little rodent of a man; William Petre, sweet and malleable; Bishop Stephen Gardiner, calculating but inept—an unfortunate combination.

  They all left a bad taste in my mouth. I found myself wishing to spit, particularly on the plume of Risley’s rakishly affected hat.

  It was with relief that my eyes found another group of “New Men.” There was William Parr, barely twenty, but with a gravity of manner that suggested an earlier era
. He was from a northern family, one that had served me well against the Scots. His sister, Katherine, married to old Lord Latimer, was beside him, her youth not at all compromised by her husband’s needs. Although he was also from Lincolnshire, he kept a London town house and brought his wife often to court, where she sought out the few remaining scholars and Humanists, pointedly avoiding Anne’s suite. I was surprised—pleased, but surprised—to see her here this evening. Jane Seymour, in pale autumnal gold, stood talking to her, and beside her were Edward and Tom Seymour—the former wooden and mannered, the latter preening like a multihued cockatoo.

  The older men stood off in another clump by themselves—the Duke of Norfolk, looking as though he had an indigestible lump of suet in his belly that was turning his face yellow as well; next to him the Duke of Suffolk, untroubled as always. God, I envied him that. It was a special gift never to spend unrecoverable moments in worry or regret. Now that I knew the true reason for Mary’s death, I did not begrudge Brandon’s remarriage; it seemed a revenge on Anne that he did not grieve overlong. Where was his young wife? Not with him. That was no cause for alarm. Ah, I spied her with Lady Latimer, an equally young but serious woman. So different from Anne, they were. . . .

  There was William Fitzwilliam, the Lord Privy Seal, of an age with myself, standing with the two Dukes. He disliked Anne (not that he had ever said so directly, but he conveyed it in every disdainful gesture. I would have enjoyed seeing him take the Oath, as he undoubtedly did it with a mockery that belied the words), and his weathered face was set like an obstinate donkey’s as he rocked on his heels and waited for the latest manifestation of her foolishness. By his right elbow was good, solid John Poyntz, of Gloucestershire, with a face like those I had seen lining the roads whenever I went out on progress, and his friend Thomas, Lord Vaux, made a Knight of the Bath at Anne’s Coronation. Vaux bore a remarkable resemblance to Thomas Wyatt, but he had no literary ability whatsoever, even though he attempted to write poetry. Beside all these stood Cranmer, primly and eagerly, as though he really enjoyed this and awaited the “entertainment.”

  In another self-contained circle were Edward Neville, Nicholas Carew, and Henry Courtenay, a sort of old snowbank of privileges and ideas. Left over from an earlier time without ever having achieved or striven for anything then, they were melting in the new times and felt themselves trickling away. Chapuys was with them, his swift movements and nervous energy always a pleasure to observe; did the man never grow old? But then, attached to the little knot like an odd growth were the two Pole brothers remaining in England: Henry and Geoffrey.

  At the thought of the Poles I got a feeling inside like that which visited me at the thought of More. Reginald, the youngest Pole, whom I had educated in Italy at my own expense in his youth, had fled abroad and refused to return to England. He was a brilliant scholar, and much esteemed in Padua and the Papal court, and he had just written Pro Ecclesiasticae Unitatis Defensione as his answer to my Great Matter. He was Katherine’s great champion, so much so that she and her nephew the Emperor thought many problems would be solved if Mary and Reginald would marry, uniting the Red and White Roses in an outlaw union. The Poles, through their mother Margaret, were Plantagenet. And they were cousins of the defunct de la Pole family.

  The two English Pole brothers left behind were sad blooms on the White Rose bush. Henry, Lord Montague, was so unimaginative and plain he was like a paving-stone, and Geoffrey, nervous, timid, and sickly, needed to sleep with a night-candle. The pride of the family, its genius and courage, was all with Reginald, who chose the Pope over me.

  Standing discreetly some feet away was Cromwell, fashionably attired for the evening. In defence, the little group kept its distance, not realizing that Crum had posted one of his spies (a pretty woman) on the opposite side, and that the farther they withdrew from him, the closer they came into her range.

  Anne moved on the Chair of Estate beside me. I knew I should say something to her, but I could not. I hated her with so pure a hatred, feared her with so pure a fear, that I did not trust myself to speak. Not speaking would betray me more, I knew, so I forced myself to make the effort.

  “Have you had this long in mind?” I said. I did not want to look at her; she was repulsive to me. So I spoke out of the corners of my mouth.

  “Since I saw the first leaf fall, this year.” Her voice was beguiling, as of old. It promised important things.

  “Is this to be a new form?” Still I would not look at her.

  “Yes. There are new elements. Now watch you! The wings I fashioned all myself, while you were away from me. . . .”

  A small platform was erected for Anne’s players. Little tin shields were placed all along the borders, and behind them nestled candles, to provide the illumination. Within the Great Hall, the eerie blue-filtered lights were extinguished, until only the stage lights were left.

  The musicians began to play, the softest harp music ever heard, suggesting eternity and ecstasy. Out upon the platform appeared pale, amorphous beings with great white wings, glistening with feathers. It was as I had always imagined angels, particularly their wings, hovering and close, sweet and comforting. As a child I had been told I had a guardian angel who kept my foot from danger; and when I had played, narrowly missing accidents, I had almost seen that Henry-angel. . . .

  Onto the stage erupted black, crisp beings—had they come up from a trap door?—crawling about like insects. There were swarms of them, and they attacked the angels, pulling at their wings, scattering feathers as in a great wind. The music changed to shrill cries of hurt and fear and discord. The angels took rods and hit the devils; one fell in front and his insides poured out, great sticky molten globs. Then their prince appeared—Satan, wrapped in a black satin cloak, masked by smoke.

  I was surprised to see that Satan was handsome. His face was even familiar, but, in the flickering footlights, appeared altogether new. It shone with supernatural beauty.

  “I am he, the light-bringer, Lucifer, the morning star,” he said, and indeed he was all these things.

  Evil was not always ugly; it was at its strongest when disguised as an angel of light, and who knew that better than I?

  “Fight with me!” he exhorted us all. “Together we shall defeat the angels and reign forever in heaven!”

  A battle ensued, and only the Archangel Michael and his hosts of extra angels routed Lucifer and his black legions. All about the Great Hall, braziers were lit, and clouds of smoke poured out, enveloping everyone. The fight on the stage extended to us as well; suddenly both angels and devils were amongst us, shrieking and struggling. A great heavy wing smashed against my chair, scattering feathers; and three demons scurried after its owner and crawled between the rungs of my chair. I recognized one: Francis Bryan, with his eyepatch. Then a familiar gesture, the way he tossed his hair, betrayed another, and my heart froze: Henry Norris was decked out as a demon in Anne’s masque. The fight turned real; swords were drawn. The onlookers joined in the pandemonium, and yet I cared not. A drowsy lethargy had sunk over me, paralyzing my limbs and dazzling my mind. The smoke . . .

  “Opium.” Anne, once again, read my thoughts. “Purchased at great expense and trouble from the East. It is the Great Lethargy, Sloth in a powder. . . . But watch now, it will prevent any harm.”

  The swords slowed their momentum, dropped by their owners’ sides. Motion turned to heaviness. Only the demons retained their quick movements, as if immune. They shrieked and raised their arms, and from beneath the black-draped platform swarmed a horde of evil beings: werewolves, phantoms, mummies, banshees, ghosts, grave-worms, corpses, witches, warlocks, decay, regret, remorse. . . .

  Anne rose beside me, crying out with them, her red mouth open and curved, and I knew her for a vampire, eager for blood, as she had sucked mine and turned me, too, into a creature of the night, a creature who had changed into something alien, and lived by others’ blood, even the blood of his friends.

  She took my hand, and I rose with her. I ha
d become as she was: just as evil, just as bloodthirsty, just as tainted. Her lips had infected me, corrupted my being. Yet I would not be that way, I would be redeemed. . . . In vain I looked for an angel. I saw only a dismembered wing lying on the floor, torn from its shoulder harness and with its wax frame sagging and trampled.

  My head spun; my senses were suspended. I felt myself following Anne, letting myself be pulled along a dark, muffled, secret passage leading away from the Hall. Westminster was full of such secret ways and connections, fashioned as it was in ancient times. Anne was taking me away, away from the safety of the others, and this moment was one I could no longer avoid or postpone.

  Her fingers were slender and cool as the jewels upon them. Her face was seen only in brief licks of light from the guttering torches in their iron sockets. Behind her, her costume streamed out—great, billowing, smokelike puffs. I was drugged; the opium smoke had stunned me, like the smoke from Jane Seymour’s torch putting the bees to sleep.

  We were in a chamber. It was a small chamber, hung with filmy draperies. There was a strange odour within. I had never smelled it before, and it bore no likeness to any other; therefore I cannot describe it, save that it was sweet and caressing.

  “The end of the fête,” I said slowly. It seemed my lips were numb.

  She drew back her hood, which shrouded her face. The coverings fell and her face, unique and entrancing, was revealed. To see it was to remember, and to relive, and then to enter once more into the past, when it had commanded supreme obedience and longing in my heart.

  I knew better, and yet I loved her once again. Almost all of me did. The conquest was not complete, for there were parts of me new-formed since first I had loved her, and those were not in her power to reclaim; those stood apart in clucking denunciation. But for the rest, they rose up like the dead at the Day of Judgment. And once again there was that rush of feeling, of transport, of excitement.