The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  But not quite. It was not quite the same. I knew more now, it had all been spoilt somewhere along the way, and that lodged itself like a stone in a shoe; we may run, and leap, and bound, yet the landing is sharp, and so we do not bound quite so high or exuberantly ever again.

  I loved her with all my might and heart; but soul and mind did not enter in. This time they demurred.

  She came to me and kissed me.

  How many months, how many years ago had I longed for her to do exactly that? There had been a time when I felt near death because she did not. Yet here it came to me, unbidden and unsought, with her body pressed up against mine, and all the gestures I had once so coveted, and while it was exciting, it was not soul-satisfying. I had grown beyond whatever hunger she once could have satisfied.

  Yet my body—my Judas-body, ever the betrayer—responded and for an hour or so helped me believe that I had not changed, that all was as it once was.

  “My Lord, my love, my dearest—” Her words poured, molten, in my ears. There was, of course, a bed, all bedecked in the sheerest linen, laid with furs and pillows of swan’s down. Anne had arranged all this, had had servitors set it all up, much as I had once done in heated anticipation in my own chambers.

  Her words, her hands, her voice, all reached out to me and sought to claim me. Because I was stronger now, and essentially free of her, the appeal was all the more poignant. I could appreciate, as I never had before, the exquisite little things about her: the way she drew aside her clothes, even folding them without actually folding them; her dramatic ability to turn a little storage room into a chamber of carnality; the sensuality behind her desire to watch the light playing on the opalescent surface of the draperies, so that they seemed to pulsate and throb from within. I saw all this, and appreciated it; but the appreciation itself was somehow an enemy to, and acknowledgment of, lust sapped by time.

  Was it all gone? Of course that is always the question. If I wade out into a pond, it may seem, on the surface, calm and empty. How safe to shrug and clamber ashore again, never venturing to plunge below the cold, demanding, slimy surface. If I lay with Anne upon the bed, what would happen? Could I predict how I would feel? Did I dare to find out?

  She pulled me, and I followed. Yes, I would do it, because if only I could feel those feelings once again, it would redeem all that had passed since. I did not like, or want, what had passed since. I would be what I was.

  I would like to claim that only the subtle poison of the opium-smoke caused me to behave as an alien to myself; that my pulling off of my clothes and my following of Anne into the bed was none of mine own doing. But it was. It was entirely I, Henry, who did these things, who loved the Anne he had once known in hopes of bringing back the Henry he had also once known. Passion is sweet and restorative, and in loving Anne again I was younger, stronger, happier. I would be that Henry again. The recent past, the ugly knowledge, would vanish.

  We coupled, there upon her black-hung bed. And it was but a coupling, there was no magic to it. I felt each physical sensation, each creak of flesh against flesh. But it was only flesh, and as such had so little power. Her arm was only an arm, her body and face only a body and face. She was Anne, robbed of her extra dimension, her aching splendour—splendour and dimension that I had breathed out around her, emanating from my own passion and desire.

  I rolled away from her. Now it was worse. In doing this, I had destroyed even the glory of the memory. For in retrospect it had all been as ordinary as this, only I could not have known it until now. I had broken the seal that held those memories inviolate; instead of resurrecting the past, I had killed it.

  I have just read these words over. Words, that is all they are: in retrospect . . . resurrecting . . . emanating. . . . The only true thing I have written is “I had broken the seal that held the memories.” That I had done, to my own sorrow. Yet it was a brave action. For had I found more of what I had previously found, I would be willing to pursue it, wherever it might lead.

  Anne lay beside me, a slim and sensual being. The candle and torchlight had an affinity for her skin, turning it to creamy vellum. She turned to light a bedside candle. I watched her as she did so, remembering how that very motion had once seemed hers entirely. Now I knew, and had seen how others lit candles.

  Yet I hated knowing, and seeing.

  No one had ever loved as I had loved. I believed that. No one had ever loved anyone as I had loved Anne.

  The sorrow was in the tense.

  LXVIII

  “I am with child.”

  Anne stood before me, triumphant, and spoke those words. This time I knew she did not lie; she would not have been so bold else.

  So her great gamble had paid off handsomely. Her expense for the opium, the fête, the preparation of the private chamber, all to procure my services, had been rewarded. How had I been so compliant? How could the timing have been so right? Of course, it was because she had controlled the timing, had planned the celebration around her body’s rhythm. Or perhaps she even controlled her body’s natural courses? Her powers were, literally, extraordinary.

  “I am pleased.” I rose to encircle her shoulders with my arm, as courtesy dictated.

  We would have a son, and that would save her. If she gave me a son, I could not repudiate her. She knew that and, like an endangered animal, had looked to protect herself.

  And with the child firmly anchored within her womb, she could dispense with me. She could be Dowager Queen and rule through her son. Already she had begun to work her spells upon me, to bring back my malady. For within a few days of the Michaelmas fête, I had felt a tingling in my leg, then a throbbing pain, and now the ulcer had reopened and was larger than ever. Ugly black streaks spread out on all sides of it. Dr. Butts was still with Mary, and I did not wish to separate them, so I was forced to treat my affliction myself. None of Dr. Butts’s associates was knowledgeable enough—or discreet enough—to involve himself with my illness.

  Meanwhile, the reports were that Mary did not improve. Neither did Fitzroy, who was wasting away before Henry Howard’s devoted eyes. I could not bring Mary here, for security’s sake (unless, of course, she took the Oath), but I could bring Fitzroy.

  Then came word that Katherine had fallen ill—“obviously,” said the report, “of poison.” Thus, in spite of Katherine’s precautions and suspicions, Anne had prevailed. Whether by natural methods (bribed cooks, powders) or supernatural, no longer mattered. What mattered was that Anne had prevailed. And she was now pregnant, carrying a child, with the Act of Succession vested in that child, and we had all become dispensable, I most of all. As the pain shot through my leg, I had a constant reminder of that.

  Chapuys was frantic with worry about both Katherine and Mary, and betrayed his very real personal affinity for them, apart from political maneuverings. He begged for permission to visit Katherine, but I withheld it for a time. I knew that any attention from Chapuys, with its representation of outside concerns, might stir Anne to injure Katherine further, until she was beyond help from any quarter. To flatter me, Chapuys pestered me for a tennis match, something I had long ago urged upon him.

  “In the enclosed court at Hampton, we can play during the nasty weather,” he said.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps.” I could not run about on this infected leg, but I hoped it would diminish by Christmas. “At the holiday time, when we move there.”

  Would I even be walking by then? What would Anne’s hand have done to me by then? I must consult with Cromwell, my totally unscrupulous and utterly discreet Cromwell.

  “I must be rid of her!” I cried.

  “We have already determined that as long as Katherine lives—” he began.

  “Aha!” Therein her own hatred and jealousy was her undoing! For, out of spite, she was causing Katherine to languish and fail. “If Katherine should die, then Anne can be set aside,” I finished.

  “In a special limbo designed for ex-wives,” suggested Cromwell.

  “By God, you sound a
s if you expect it to be a permanent position, created by me!” I barked.

  “No, no, Your Majesty,” he assured me. “Nothing of the sort. It would be an unnecessary expense to the Exchequer—on a permanent basis.”

  I settled myself more comfortably on my chair, and rested my leg upon a padded footstool. I wished I could mention my leg to Crum, but I dared not. I realized with a start that I trusted no one now; there was no one I knew to whom I could reveal any intimate thing about myself without fear of betrayal. So that was what Father had meant. It was loathsome, this aloneness. He claimed it was the price of kingship. Was it? At present, the answer was yes. Was it worth it? The answer to that was also yes. One can get used to anything.

  “Divorce us, Crum,” I ordered him. “Call it what you will, but find a legal way to sunder us. She used illicit means to effect our union; now use licit ones to undo and confound all her cleverness.”

  A wad of pain worked its way up my leg, and it was all I could do to keep from crying out. “So that the moment the child is born . . . she may be sent away.” My belly contracted with the pain, but my will kept the cry of pain from escaping. Crum never heard it.

  “There are rumours,” he said. “Rumours that the conspirators stand at the ready in Northumberland and along the West Marches to spirit Katherine away.”

  Would he never be gone? I could not mask this pain much longer. “So the dream has come about, and the Papal forces are ready to move,” I said. “It was inevitable. Yet”—another spasm of pain—“if Katherine is ill enough, it all comes to nothing.” Yes, the Devil was stupid to wound Katherine.

  “Out of England, she might rally.”

  True. Beyond our shores, treated as her vanity dictated, hearing words of flattery and submission, she would mend quickly enough.

  “Out of England she shall never go,” I said. “And as for her misguided knights-errant, we shall disempower them, subtly, so that when and if the time ever comes when they might try to move . . . they shall find themselves stuck fast.”

  Poor Katherine. She would never know of her would-be rescuers.

  “I would send the Princess Dowager a token of encouragement in her illness,” I told Crum. “Not Chapuys. But a box of delicacies, and one of my musicians. . . . See to the land arrangements.”

  There, that should occupy him. Else I might scream if he did not immediately quit my presence and allow me to massage my leg.

  Anne’s pregnancy fared well; the most healthy being in all England was that one which lay within her womb. While her magic blighted all of her enemies, her child and her salvation waxed strong.

  The year slipped further toward the dark bottom of its wheel. My leg did not mend, but at least it did not worsen. Fitzroy, whom I had brought to court under the pretext of inviting him to keep Christmas with us, remained pale and wracked with a cough (it sounded the very same as Father’s), but likewise did not worsen. Mary hung in the limbo of not-truly-ill/not-truly-well, and I was given the painful task of refusing Katherine’s natural pleas to help her. She had written Chapuys:

  I beg you to speak to the King, and desire him from me to be so charitable as to send his daughter and mine where I am, because if I care for her with my own hands and by the advice of my own and other physicians, and God still pleases to take her from this world, my heart will be at peace, otherwise in great pain. Say to His Highness that there is no need for anyone to nurse her but myself, that I will put her in my own bed in my own chamber and watch with her when needful.

  I have recourse to you, knowing that there is no one else in this kingdom who will dare to say to the King, my lord, that which I am asking you to say. I pray God to reward your diligence.

  From Kimbolton. Katherine, the Queen.

  The picture of old, sick Katherine hobbling about, “tending” to Mary, thinking herself capable of nursing her back to health, was piteous. She wished her heart to be at peace. But the truth was that Katherine had two other jealous claimants on her person: illness and the network of those who would “liberate” her to give the Emperor and Pope cause to invade us. Mary would doubtless urge such a course as well. Mary was obstinate and wilfully disobedient and subversive, where pious Katherine was not. Katherine still loved me, Mary did not. No, I could not permit them to be reunited and lodged under a common roof, no matter how well guarded.

  I had noted the persistent signature, even when in the position of a supplicant: Katherine, the Queen.

  Christmas was a sham. It was necessary to keep the Twelve Days, necessary for Anne and me to appear together, necessary for her to be lauded as the mother of the hoped-for heir. Princess Elizabeth was brought to court and dressed up and shown about. She was now two and a half years old, and—I was forced to admit—a winsome thing. Her hair was golden red and abundant, her spirits always exuberant, and—most telling of all—her mind sharp and quick. She knew a number of surprising words like “scabbard” and “oak” and “edict.” She was exhibited as promise of the even better things to be expected of the heir—for if God was so profligate with gifts for a female, think what He would bestow upon a male.

  Through all this, Anne and I exchanged no private or personal words. We were enemies now, locked in a duel: a duel of wits and ruthlessness, the rules understood on both sides.

  LXIX

  Katherine was dying. Her illness had passed beyond the realm of mere illness, which implies recovery, and into that of “last sickness.” On New Year’s Day, 1536, I received word from her physician. “Breathing laboured,” “colour poor,” “unable to take nourishment for a fortnight,” “insufficient strength to leave bed,” “heartbeat irregular,” wrote Dr. De la Sa, and I knew what it signified. I granted Chapuys leave to go to her—accompanied by Crum’s “assistant,” Stephen Vaughn.

  For a week, while the new year was in its first days, Katherine entertained the Angel of Death in her private chamber at Kimbolton. She also entertained Chapuys, who arrived on January second.

  She, like the Queen she still was in her own mind, attempted to welcome the Imperial Ambassador ceremoniously. She opened her chambers to Bedingfield and Chamberlayn, her “keepers,” who had not seen her since first she shut herself up in royal pride, and included them in the ritual. All her faithful servitors, as well as her gaolers, were required to line up and form an aisle about the sickbed, which Chapuys approached on his knees. Katherine extended her hand and allowed Chapuys to kiss it, saying, “I can die now in your arms, not abandoned, like one of the beasts.”

  Chapuys then told her a pack of lies (that I promised prompt payment of all the arrears of her pensions, and that when she was better, she could transfer to any manor in the realm), and reminded her of her duty to recover—“as the peace, the welfare, the unity of all Christendom” depended on it, he claimed.

  Katherine then ceremoniously dismissed him and let all the witnesses, keepers, and spies depart. When they were safely gone (so she supposed), she sent a secret message for Chapuys to return to her.

  So even the pious Katherine was capable of duplicity—a character trait that none of her admirers ever acknowledge.

  What they discussed, Stephen Vaughn was unable to ascertain. But they conferred for hours, far into the night.

  Chapuys stayed three days, and Katherine rallied during his visit. She was able to eat, and to retain her food. Her spirits soared as yet another gift came to her: Lady Willoughby, the Maria de Salinas of her youth. She had heard of Katherine’s dying and, without leave or permission of any sort, had travelled dangerous and foul winter roads to come to Kimbolton. Arriving near midnight of the night before Chapuys’s departure, she had stood across the moat and demanded that Bedingfield admit her.

  “I cannot,” he said. “I have no orders to.”

  “You must,” she said. “I have endangered myself coming here; have fallen; have almost come into the hands of highwaymen. I am a noblewoman, and shall not risk my person further, regardless of your orders. Admit me at once!” Her delicate voice must
have rung across the dank, icy moat waters.

  The chivalrous, confused Bedingfield lowered the drawbridge and admitted her.

  Chapuys left, but committed Katherine to Maria’s devoted hands. She seemed much improved. She sat up, combed and arranged her hair, had long talks with her girlhood friend. But in the middle of the night her nausea and pain returned fourfold. Her confessor was sent for, and he immediately saw she was not likely to live until dawn, the earliest permitted time to say Mass. Under canonical law, when death was imminent, a dispensation was allowed. But Katherine—for whom no rules were ever to fashion themselves to human needs—forbade him, murmuring citations from ancient authorities against it. She would wait, she insisted, for the dawn.

  God gave her the grace to do so. She received the Sacrament at dawn, then dictated two letters. One was to the Emperor. I know not its contents. One was to me. I received it a few days later.

  She lived until two in the afternoon of January eighth. At ten in the morning she received Extreme Unction, and then prayed until noon, in a clear voice, for Mary, for the souls of all the people in England, and especially for “my husband.”

  Katherine was dead. Katherine, who had been a part of my life, a counterpoint like a second melody to myself, for as long as I could remember. Before I was seven years old, I had known about the Princess of Spain who was coming to England to be its Queen someday.

  I tried not to remember her as she was then. I tried to keep only the image of the obstinate, recalcitrant, troublemaking old woman before me. Her pursed, dry lips; her perpetual indignation and gravity that had carved two parallel lines between her brows; her ugly wooden headdresses and her boxlike figure, swathed in coarse dark wool.