The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  We walked together, smiling and seemingly discussing the dogs. We approached another trainer, with a group of short-legged, dark hounds. He was offering them a piece of cloth to smell.

  “How are the slow-hounds progressing?” I asked him.

  “Excellently. They have been able to track three different men through a forest, a market-square, and a graveyard—right after a funeral!—and each time identified the proper one in a crowd.” He grinned.

  “These track by scent,” I said. “They are of great use in tracking outlaws, kidnappers, and so on. My breeders are attempting to purify the strain even more—to make their scent keener and their endurance greater. Then they’ll be almost on a par with your agents, Crum.” Why I needled him in front of others, I knew not. Crum smiled, a poisonous smile. It said: Why must I endure this?

  We nodded and moved on.

  “You have read the report of the monastic visitations?” he asked, the moment we were out of earshot.

  “Yes. The immorality your commissioners found was . . . a disgrace.” I had hoped that St. Osweth’s was a degraded, atypical example. I had known good monks, and I wanted to believe that the monastic ideal was still alive and calling to the best parts of men. It was true that the original Benedictines had drifted from their austerity and purity; but other orders had arisen to reclaim the spiritual inheritance and reinvigorate it: the Cistercians, the Dominicans, the Crutched Friars, the Premonstratensians. I did not wish to believe that the entire vocation had become moribund. Yet that was what the commissioners reported.

  “It is worse in the smaller houses, the ones with scarcely a dozen brothers. Close them, Your Grace. Gardeners prune roses and herbs to make the mother plant grow back more vigorously. This is the same.”

  A pack of spaniels was coming toward us.

  “Taking them to the water, are you?” I called to their keeper.

  “If we can find a suitable marsh, yes,” he answered. “Be interesting to see how many woodcocks they flush out.”

  Spaniels—descended from old English “water dogs”—were odd creatures. In their larger state, they were excellent for spotting and flushing game in low, wooded, marshy areas. Shrunk to a toy size, they became “ladies’ dogs,” lap-dogs. One almost forgot their hunting origins when one saw them only in the Queen’s apartments.

  I turned back to Cromwell. “I know it must be done. So I shall do it. As Supreme Head of the Church in England, I cannot know of these abominations and yet permit them to continue.” But, oh! I would not know. There was so much I would not know, that I knew nonetheless.

  Cromwell nodded, keeping his eyes straight ahead, as if the matter were of indifference to him. In fact, he had made it of prime importance to himself. “I shall give orders,” he said.

  “One last matter,” I said, “and then we can truly enjoy the hounds. My daughter Mary. Has she responded to your . . . overtures?” I had instructed Cromwell to approach her again, offering to act as her partisan and advisor. Chapuys had approached her from the other side, urging her to stand fast.

  “Surprisingly, yes.” He turned and looked at me. The sun caught his eyes and turned their blackness to deep, soothing brown. “I think she may be ready, at last, to . . . come home.”

  “Ah!” At once, as if a great shade had been lifted from the sun, the landscape grew brighter. The hounds were more richly coloured, the coats of the hound-masters more vivid.

  “Her resistance is broken,” he said. “She has grown older, wiser—after the recent events.”

  As have we all, I thought, but did not say.

  “When she can see her way clear to us, we will welcome her, the Queen and I,” I said instead.

  I felt as fleet as one of the deerhounds now, as I walked briskly along the heath, Cromwell in tow.

  There were other breeds, clumped together, each with its trainer. One sort of hound was being trained to obey the huntsman’s horn. Short-legged and medium-sized, this breed was used to track game into wooded areas. Their short legs assured that they could be adequately followed by huntsmen on foot, armed with bow and arrow.

  “You call these . . . ?” asked Cromwell.

  “Beagles, Sir. A fine English breed!”

  There were also foxhounds and harriers—the latter being those which tracked hares—all being trained to the horn, and the sounds of all the different timbres made rustic music, along with the distinctive baying of each breed.

  Another hound-master had a group of small, sparsely haired animals he referred to as “terriers.” They had rather ugly, sand-coloured hair and a coarse, grating bark. Their keeper claimed they were invaluable for what they were bred for: chasing vermin like otters, foxes, and rats into their nests and hideaways. “From the Border country,” he said.

  Naturally. The Borders abounded in vermin, especially of the two-legged sort. It was not surprising they had developed a special breed for it. The dogs seemed as unpleasant as the things they controlled.

  “I’ve a mind to hunt, and soon,” I said, to no one in particular. “In the autumn, let us make up a party for it. We’ll hunt roe and hare and the beasts of stinking flight—the polecats and stoats.” I loved killing these pests.

  I was bending down to pat one of the slow-hounds, feeling his thick, silky black fur, when I saw the messenger coming toward me. I felt only annoyance, no premonition. They seek me even here, I thought. Is it asking too much for me to have a scant two hours out-of-doors, inspecting my hounds with my chief minister?

  While he approached me, I waited resignedly. He had a sealed message.

  Some petty thing, I thought, ripping it open.

  The Duke of Richmond, Henry Fitzroy, is dead. He died at noon. Your obedient servant and subject, and loyal physician,

  Wm. Butts.

  Even here, even now, Anne had struck. The sunlight, though yet as bright, was suddenly drained of its warmth.

  LXXVII

  I could not even openly mourn my son, or permit a public burial. At this point, the people would have been so frightened at reports of yet another death that the presumed hidden current of popular discontent might have broken out. I say “presumed” because it is impossible ever to really know the mind of the people, but there were indications. There was the priest Robert Feron who said, “Since the realm of England was first a realm, was never a greater robber against the commonwealth than is our King. He boasteth himself above all other Christian kings, being puffed up with vain glory. His life is more stinking than a sow; he has violated many matrons of the court.” The Prior of Syon Abbey had declared, “Until the King and the rulers of the realm be plucked by the pates, and brought, as we say to pot, shall we never live merrily in England.” Then he had added, “I have all the rest of Christendom in my favour. I dare even say all this kingdom . . . for I am sure the larger part is at heart of our opinion.”

  Throughout the realm, prophecies abounded. “The White Hare shall drive the White Greyhound into the root of an oak, and the King be driven out of England and killed at Paris gate.” “There will be no more Kings in England, and such a gap in the West that all the thorns in the realm shall not stop it.” “There should come out of the West one that should bring snow upon his helmet that should set all England at peace.”

  Then there were the treason-leaning statements and grumbles. At Eynsham, Oxford, one John Hill had said that Norris and Weston had been “put to death only for pleasure,” and that he “trusted to see the King of Scots King of England.” The bailiff of Bampton hoped to see the Scots King “wear the flower of England.” The vicar of Hornchurch, Hampshire, had said, “The King and his council had made a way by will and craft to put down all manner of religious; but they would hold hard, for their part, which was their right; and the King could not pull down none, nor all his Council.”

  A Sussex man, when told about my fall in the lists, had replied, “It were better he had broken his neck.” A Cambridge master called me “a mole who should be put down”; his students, “a tyran
t more cruel than Nero” and “a beast and worst than a beast.”

  Other statements reported by Crum’s agents were: “Cardinal Wolsey had been an honest man if he had had an honest master”; “The King is a fool and my Lord Privy Seal another”; “Our King wants only an apple and a fair wench to dally with”; and then there was a yeoman’s detailed recounting of how I had been riding near Eltham one day, seen his wife, abducted her, and taken her away to my bed.

  It was certainly true, what the Kentish man said, “If the King knew his subjects’ true feeling, it would make his heart quake.” The sample I did hear, did just that. My own unsettled and miserable state, from the beginning of my Great Matter to its end, had transferred itself to them. My new contentment would also transfer itself, but it would take time.

  I had lost my son, but I would cheat the Witch of claiming my daughter as well. Under Cromwell’s threats to drop her suit, and Chapuys’s advice, and the Emperor’s final lack of commitment to her cause, Mary gave in. She copied out the “suggested” letter, provided by Cromwell, in which she admitted her mother’s marriage to me was incestuous, in which she renounced all allegiance to the Pope and acknowledged me as the Supreme Head of the Church in England, and her spiritual as well as her temporal father. When I received the letter, I thanked God for it. Now all was clear for our reconciliation. I would have Mary back again; I would have my little girl!

  Theologians call the parable of the Prodigal Son the sweetest yet strongest story in the Bible. Now I knew how that father had felt. Or was I being presumptuous? I would read the parable over in the new translation that would soon be issued under my patronage.

  Already it was nicknamed “the Great Bible” for its size. The recently promulgated “Ten Articles of Faith” required for believers in the—my!—Church of England specified that each church should have a Bible in English, and Miles Coverdale’s translation was being used for the purpose. Originally it was to be printed in France, for their presses were larger than ours, but the English churchmen had run afoul of the French Inquisitor-General and had had to transfer their entire printing operation to England. The copy I consulted was one of the advance ones, sent for my inspection. One necessary change: Anne’s name on the dedication page, as Queen, must be replaced by Jane’s, as was being done elsewhere in stone and wood carvings.

  I turned to Luke, Chapter fifteen, verse ten.

  Likewise I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

  Or one person who realizes that he is not a sinner.

  And he said, A certain man had two sons.

  Two daughters.

  And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

  Just as Mary had asked for her “inheritance”—her Spanish birthright, her title as “Princess”—to the exclusion of all else.

  And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

  Mary had “wasted her substance,” but in extreme ascetic exercises, in self-made isolation and rebellion.

  And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

  Yes, Mary was in want. And the “famine” was Anne’s attempt to destroy her body and drive away her friends.

  And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

  She joined herself to Chapuys and his insubstantial dreams of Imperial rescue, and rebellion against my will.

  And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him.

  Yes, the Emperor gave pretty words but nothing else. The Pope sent the empty husks of Papal bulls to feed her.

  And when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger?

  Mary realized she had been duped, abandoned, and betrayed—by everyone.

  I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

  That was what Mary had done, in her letter of submission.

  And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

  I nodded. Yes, Mary would surely do this in person when we met. She would be moved to.

  But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.

  I closed the Great Bible. Yes, that was it. My daughter was dead, and is alive again. One can be brought back to life, this side of the grave. . . .

  I realized how nervous I already was in anticipation of Mary’s “surrender” this coming afternoon. She was to come to the palace and there make a formal recitation before me of what she had already put in writing. This would be in private. I needed no witnesses.

  By the mid-afternoon, when I had sat, fully dressed in my most august robes (for I must look her King as well as her father) for over an hour in the heat, I knew that she was not coming. At the last moment some new “scruple” had presented itself, some tearing loyalty to Katherine. . . . I felt a disappointment so keen and deep it was in itself a mourning. Hope had died, and the death of hope is the true death; the body merely confirms it after the fact.

  To have hoped so fully, so that the thing seemed so assured . . . now this second death. God teases us on the rack of expectations; the earthly ones we construct as implements of torture are poor imitations of His own.

  The door opened. I was no longer looking at it, and so Mary was fully in the room before I saw her. And then she seemed a vision.

  A tiny young woman—that was my “little girl.” She was short, and that made her seem young, belied her true age.

  “Father.” Her voice was low, gruff. It seemed an odd thing to issue from her throat.

  Before I could reply, she flung herself down at my feet and began reciting, in that near-growling voice, “I, most humbly lying at your feet to perceive your gracious clemency, my merciful, passionate, and most blessed father, Supreme Head of the Church of England. . . .” The words were all stuck end-to-end as she admitted her mother’s marriage incestuous, abandoned her allegiance to Rome, and acknowledged my claims of overlordship of the Church of England.

  I bent down and pulled her gently up, hugged her to me. Her head came only up to my chest.

  “Mary, daughter. You need say no more. Thank you for coming back to me.

  At once she began to cry, and I knew she wept for her “betrayal” of her dead mother. But to go on living is no betrayal. I said nothing and let her cry. But oh! my heart sang to have her back . . . back from both Katherine and Anne. God be thanked that they were both dead. Their deaths freed me from my past, and my mistakes.

  “You are welcome here at court,” I finally said. “Come, the Queen wishes to see you again.”

  “Queen Jane was always kind,” she said, in a low monotone.

  Jane had come to court when Katherine was already isolated and beginning her stubborn martyrdom. The self-seekers had followed Anne’s rising star. But Jane had remained with Katherine and befriended Mary, who was only seven years younger. (Jane had been born the same year I became King.)

  Together we walked from my inmost private room and out into the common chamber. I requested that the Queen come straightway. While we waited, Mary and I stood together awkwardly. I no longer felt elated, but almost uncomfortable with a grown woman who was a stra
nger but also my daughter. Would Jane never come and relieve this tension?

  Jane, Jane, help me, as you always do. . . .

  Jane appeared, at the far end of the chamber, and came swiftly toward Mary, arms outstretched, a great natural smile on her face.

  “Mary, Mary!” she cried, genuine welcome in her voice.

  Mary tried to kneel, but Jane embraced her instead. “I have so longed for this day,” said Jane. “Now my happiness is complete.” She held out her other arm to me and locked us all together, turning the water of awkwardness into the wine of ease, against all odds.

  LXXVIII

  I held it in my hand: a sacred relic that had been adored from the safe distance I of a golden, jewel-encrusted reliquary since the days of Edward the Confessor. Pilgrims had come from far away to see it, and had addressed their most fervent prayers to it. It was a glass vial containing drops of the Virgin’s milk—miraculous help for barren women.

  Cromwell’s inspectors had found it to be a fraud, refilled regularly with ground Dover chalk dissolved in thin olive oil. The slightly yellow tint gave it an authentic look of antiquity.

  The monks at that particular shrine had made a tidy living from exhibiting their precious “relic.”

  “Disgraceful,” I said, but more in sadness than in anger.

  I turned to the next confiscation. This was a marble Virgin that wept “real tears” and could be petitioned (with money) to share one’s own sufferings. I turned it around. There was a small line behind the head, indicating an opening of some sort. I pressed upon the neck, and the stone piece moved outward. I prized it out, and found the head to be hollow. There was a porous container inside to be filled with salt water that oozed through the minute ducts leading to the Virgin’s eyes at just the proper rate. It was an ingenious contraption. And it only had to be refilled once a week.

  All across the land there were similar versions of these famous hoaxes. They could not be maintained without the conspiracy of corrupt monks. How could one profess himself a follower of Christ and yet practise the same trickery as the priests of Isis or the Canaanites?