The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  She was a child, I reminded myself. Children open their presents on the spot. I knew it, and yet I expected more. Or less. I hated her bragging and her strutting. Yet I longed for her kisses and enthusiasms. And her sweet flesh. We remained at royal country manors throughout the summer. After Oatlands we went to Grafton in Northamptonshire. The summer was hot and dry, and caused great unhappiness throughout the land. A drought: the very word had Biblical overtones.

  Drought was what God sent when He wished to punish people or, at the very least, compel their attention. But I did not tremble before it. Were not my barns full? There could be other reasons God would give such a rest to the land, and I no longer thought exclusively in terms of sin and punishment, for I had painfully come to realize that God was more grand and intricate than that. Defiantly, I decided to enjoy the drought for what it was: an opportunity to spend a warm golden summer in private with my bride.

  In the first week of August I ordered all the clergy to pray for Catherine as Queen during all Masses that Sunday, August eighth. Thus was my marriage announced throughout the land: not by heralds or foreign ambassadors, but simply from the pulpit.

  No one walked out, no one denounced me as King Ahab, or as a David with his Abishag. There were no reports of malcontents or ill wishes.

  Not that Catherine and I would have heard it, as we kept ourselves secluded in the country with only a skeleton court and the Privy Council in attendance. Even that little was irksome. Early every morning, besotted with love and its demands, I fairly staggered into the bedchamber and collapsed into my private bed. Culpepper would remove my cloak, my slippers, my gold chain, laying them all out neatly on my clothes chest. He would draw the heavy velvet window-hangings, and I would sleep until noon.

  Then, with a sigh of exasperation, Culpepper would jerk the curtains open. Hot sunlight would fall on my face or, if not on my face, make a burning patch on my body somewhere. A burning patch that aroused me.

  Stirring and turning, I would come back into the world. My days and nights were all topsy-turvy, lasciviously so. I would groan and stretch, mutter and scratch myself.

  Culpepper would appear by my side, a steaming basin of orange-scented water in his hands. Indulgently he would bathe me, keeping silence all the while. I was aware that the flesh on my chest quivered overmuch under his demanding strong hands. An inch or so of surplus fat had accumulated. But it was shrinking under my arduous hunting program.

  Yes, I was hunting again, which I had thought never to resume. I set aside three afternoon hours daily for hunting in the hushed, dry woodlands about me. I rode like a young man, as I had not done since the summer I had hunted with Anne Boleyn, in 1531. Nine years ago. What do nine years do to a man’s body? There are those who hold that they take an irreversible toll. But I believe—no, believed, sad addition of a d—that through will and determination a body could be subjugated and reinvigorated. The sore on my leg had gradually faded away, and I tried to forget it had ever existed. I almost succeeded.

  The first few days in the saddle, I ached all over. I know this never happened in my youth. Each muscle seemed now to have a voice and a querulous demand of its own. It would be so easy to yield to it, to say, “Ah, well, you’ve earned your rest, and you are forty-nine.” Some evenings when I walked I felt a full chorus of them, shrieking, “Be kind. Let us rest in honour.” But then I would go to my Queen’s chamber and renew my vow to become the hard-muscled man I once had been. Each time we took away our clothes by candlelight I could detect more muscles upon myself and less fat, and the joy I felt in reshaping my physique was second only to the transport I felt in the fleshly love between Catherine and myself.

  My bodily and my carnal self: both were being resurrected, reborn, and reshaped.

  When the time came for the summer progress to end, I found I had no desire to return to London and immerse myself in affairs of the realm, to read over the rolls of the shires and the tax compilations. There was the horrid task of sorting through Cromwell’s records, and this I did not care to do at all. I knew they would be orderly and not difficult to survey. But, oh! to touch them, and see that handwriting. It would be as if he himself stood grinning at my shoulder.

  Day by day I was increasing in strength and endurance, both out of doors and between the sheets with Catherine. It was only October. What need to break it all off now? I could return to London, unite my private travelling Privy Council with the London-bound lot, transact essential business in a fortnight, and rejoin Catherine for a long, slow autumn. Then there would be the Christmas revels, and after that, I could return to life as it commonly was.

  Or life as it was meant to be. The realm was quiet, at long last, after the murmurings and belligerence at the start of my Great Matter; after the outright rebellion against the closing of the monasteries; after the plots and counter-plots and treachery that went abroad in the realm, masquerading as “conscience” (Thomas More), the restoration of the “old order” (Cardinal Pole), the bringing about of the “new order” (Cromwell); after outside threats and sword-shakings (the Pope and his toady the Emperor, until at last their pawn, Mary, disappointed them by coming over to my side). Oh, it was all over at last, and I was weary, weary. I had fought so many years. Now a golden haze of satiation lay on the land I had harried so, and I would luxuriate in it.

  In November, then, I rejoined Catherine at Dunstable. Small manor it was, and it suited me. I enjoyed snugness now, a certain warmth encircling one’s being; although I knew I should visit Nonsuch soon, I had at this moment lost my taste for palaces and outsized things. Perhaps I wished to live as a man after living so long as a god.

  I decreed that until Christmas, and the obligatory return to London, I would keep only a few about me. Culpepper, of course; Will; Paget, Denny, and Wyatt; and Richard Harpsfield, the hunting-master, along with Edward Bacon, the horse-master. Horses were most important, as I intended to keep riding until well into December. The exercise had already wrought marvels upon my body. In three months I had been hewn anew. Now I would complete the process.

  After only two weeks’ absence from Catherine, she seemed different—plumper, more pink. She was happy enough in the rooms of Dunstable Manor. “The windows of our chamber give off on the oaks!” she exclaimed. “I love them. They are my favourite trees. The leaves cling all winter, and they turn russet and make a lovely rustling sound when the wind rises.”

  The November sun was even now slanting through those leaves and shining directly into her eyes. I kissed her and pulled her close.

  Was it my imagination? Or was she, truly, thicker?

  “Yes,” she said, shyly.

  I was delirious with joy. “When, sweetheart, when?”

  “In October I missed my monthly courses. So it is early yet. Count back three months from October—September, August, July. In June, then.”

  In June. So quickly! In less than a year of marriage, she would bring forth my child. As Katherine had. Truly, nothing had changed! I was as I ever had been.

  “Catherine, my Queen, my love—the joy this brings me—”

  “Shhh.” She put a finger over my babbling lips. “We are but man and wife yet. The babe is not large enough to alter . . . anything that we might wish to do.” Her tongue in my ear. “My body is yours as it always was. Do you remember?” She touched me in a wanton way, triggering a flood of obscene desire in me. I responded as she knew I would.

  It was dark when I awoke. I was sprawled out on a narrow bed. Where? My eyes sought for something familiar and found nothing. All was uniformly black. I reached out one hand, numb from trailing on the floor, and felt fur. Fur? A hunting lodge. Yes . . . at Dunstable. Catherine with child. Now, yes . . . then flooded in the memories of our wild and fearless lovemaking. Shameless in the sloping upper chamber and the coveted privacy. Things we did, unthinkable things . . . yet unforgettable. Instinctively I crossed myself, then cursed myself. Popish superstition. What was? The feeling that lust with one’s wife was evil. Did not th
e Scriptures say that Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob “knew their wives”? Yes, but not with such embellishments, or such relish. They knew them, yes, as nature required, but—

  My back was exposed, and cold. I groped for a covering, but there was nothing loose. Was Catherine there? It seemed not. I heard no breathing, not even of the softest sort.

  I was shivering. I must rouse and clothe myself. I leaned over and fished for garments, and they were there, crumpled at my feet. I drew them on, savouring the warmth they gave me.

  By now most of my senses had returned. I knew I perched on the bed where I had lately sported with my dear wife. I was in Dunstable. Night had fallen. Doubtless it was time for supper, and Catherine awaited me in the small room appointed for meals.

  I shuffled toward the door and ran my hand along its frame. A sliver of light outlined its edges. Through that crack I saw two profiles. One was Catherine’s; the other, a young man’s. He had a hawkish nose and a great deal of dark hair that fell forward over his forehead. Their lips were moving rapidly.

  I flung the narrow double doors open, and they started.

  “My Lord,” said Catherine, bowing a little. As if she should bow after what passed between us . . . or was this a wicked sense of humour?

  “Wife.” If so, I joined in.

  “Your Majesty.” The young man swept low, then straightened. He was slim and quivering, like an eager rapier. Or something else, something I wished not to think upon.

  “This is Francis Dereham,” said Catherine, smiling. “A kinsman from Norfolk. I have known him since my childhood, and he is trustworthy. So I have appointed him my secretary.”

  I looked at him. He looked more like a pirate than a secretary. “It is not seemly to overuse one’s prerogative to appoint one’s kinsmen to important positions. The Queen’s secretary must fulfill certain duties—”

  “Let him be my honeymoon secretary, then,” she laughed. “Perhaps you are right. In London he would not be adequate. And soon enough we shall return there, and then, dear husband”—she came over to me, took my hand in hers—“we shall become grave and proper, and you will teach me how. In the meantime, cannot our servitors be lighter than usual? We wear cottons in summer, and woollens in winter. Well, then, I would have a cotton secretary for this lighthearted time.”

  Dereham looked embarrassed, as well he should.

  “Secretarial duties will be light until Christmas,” I admitted.

  “Yes!” she shrieked. “So they shall! So they shall!”

  I attributed her edginess to lingering excitement from our time together in the little bedchamber.

  November was mild and sweet, with murky fogs rising from the woods, and black, still waters reflecting the stripped trees hovering above. A few last leaves floated on the surface, but they were bleached and limp, companions of the darkness below: souls waiting for a ferry across the River Styx. Great hordes of rooks circled about, selecting certain trees for their gathering places. Glistening and black they settled on the naked boughs, visible from great distances. Birds of winter taking their appointed places. This melancholy transition between gaudy autumn and still winter was a time of its own, a time of which I had never been cognizant. It was abnormally hushed and monochromatic. And holding its breath. I could feel it.

  XCV

  We spent those hushed weeks in secret pleasure in small royal manors. Every morning I would wake early before the increasingly slug-abed sun, and go to the stables, leaving Catherine still asleep, then gallop for an hour or two after stag and hare and weasel in the soft, shadowless forests. I swear it—the horses tired before I did. I had to change mounts twice or even thrice before I headed back toward the manor for the lavish midday meal, with a roaring hunger and all the blood tingling in my veins.

  By the time I arrived back, the manor would be as lively as a Scotsman dancing to his bagpipes. I loved the activity. It made me feel like a tribal chieftain with all his warriors and kinsmen about.

  On a day in late November—St. Catherine’s Day, to be precise—it was sleeting by the time I handed the reins of my horse over to a groom and strode inside. I was chilled clear through, and went first to my chamber to put on some warm woollens. Catherine was not there. Neither was Culpepper. But Dereham was scowling in the Receiving Chamber, twisting up bits of paper and throwing them into the fire, muttering angrily all the while. He sneered as one large piece snapped and burst. An unpleasant fellow, even if he was Catherine’s kinsman. I wondered, idly, why she felt obligated to allow him into her household, if only temporarily. He seemed a bad sort.

  It was just a thought, an impression, tearing across my mind like a shooting star. And just as quickly gone.

  I shrugged, passed him by, and went into my chamber. A cheery fire awaited me, and a whimsical drawing from Catherine, showing a row of exhausted horses, a grinning King, and a pile of game. I took it and ran my hand over it fondly, then put it where I kept the other tokens she gave me. She was so loving! Her simple, unrehearsed gestures meant more to me than all the sophisticated posturings of court ladies. I hurried down to join her in the dining hall. She was already awaiting me at the high table, although in this small setting it was a rough, stained oak table like any other, and there was no dais.

  “My Lord! My Lord!” she called out in her pretty voice, then banged her horn-handled knife and spoon on the table. As if I could not see her! She was all in pink satin, my favourite colour for her, and her auburn hair fell free, unrestrained by any headdress.

  “Aye, aye,” I said amiably, making my way over to her. As I squeezed between two tables, I was pleasantly aware of how much slimmer I had grown, and of my hard-gained muscular strength. It was a fine feeling, to recapture one’s own body.

  “Was the hunting good?” Culpepper asked eagerly.

  “Aye. Two stags and a dozen hares.” I sat down.

  He smiled. “Then you’ll be wanting to return tomorrow?”

  I shook my head. “The weather has turned. Why, did you wish to accompany me?”

  “What a disappointment,” he murmured.

  I laughed. “Your hunting clothes have waited this long to be christened, they can wait another day.” Culpepper seemed to choose his activities by the attire required to pursue them. He disliked the heavy breeches and leather shoes sailors must wear; therefore he declined to go sailing.

  “Yes. I can wait another day,” he admitted.

  Catherine touched me. “I am pleased you will be inside tomorrow.” I knew what she meant, yet so sweetly and innocently did she say it, she would have fooled the Blessed Virgin. I squeezed her thigh under the table.

  “Inside I shall be,” I agreed.

  Down at the end of the left-hand table, Will looked dour. I knew not what afflicted him of late, but his good humour had flown south with the birds.

  WILL:

  I was sick at heart for you, Hal. All could see what you could not, would not. . . .

  I grieved in advance for you.

  HENRY VIII:

  After the rollicking dinner, when we retired to our bedchamber for our afternoon “rest,” Catherine’s smiles faded. “O Henry,” she said, “I know not how to say this, other than just to say it. This morning I learned . . . I am not with child.”

  I leapt over to her, encircled her with my arms. “You miscarried? O Jesu, why did you not call a physician?”

  “I was . . . ashamed. Embarrassed.”

  Her modesty was too much! “Lie down at once, and I’ll send for him!”

  Against her protests, I pulled her toward the bed and lifted her into it. I gathered up all the feather bolsters and arranged them behind her back, then arranged a woollen blanket about her. “I will send Dr. Butts in to see you straightway.” I leaned over to kiss her, so small and brave in that great bed. “Sweetheart, I grieve for our loss. But you should not have hidden it.”

  Before she could argue, I left her and searched out Dr. Butts. He was in his room with his assistant, discussing something about ana
tomy as taught at Padua. It seemed a physician there had actually stolen rotting corpses of executed criminals and dissected them.

  I interrupted his impassioned conversation. “The Queen needs you,” I whispered directly into his ear. “Bring your birthing instruments.”

  Clearly puzzled, he left his companion and followed me out of the room. As soon as we were out of earshot, I said, “There has been a miscarriage. She needs you to examine her and tend her. Bring whatever instruments are necessary. Not birthing ones, of course. I know not the proper name for them.”

  While he was with her, I stood in the outer chamber, pacing and staring at the fire. The dark and querulous Francis Dereham had stalked away, as if it affronted him to share a space with me. Before I could think further on the nasty Dereham, Butts re-emerged. “So quickly?” I was surprised.

  “Aye.” He stood looking at me, his brown leather bag of implements and herbal potions dangling from both hands. “There was no child. This was just a normal monthly course. No heavier than usual. Apparently the Queen was mistaken.”

  Mistaken? No heavier than usual? But it was six weeks ago that she had told me. “Would not a delayed course like this result in a greater accumulation of blood?”

  “Sometimes. It depends on why it was delayed. Whether by natural or unnatural means.”

  “Unnatural? But a pregnancy is ‘natural,’ is it not?”

  He shook his head, as if pitying me. “There are ways to alter that monthly function, to meddle with it.” He hesitated a moment, then opened his hand. In his palm was a small, smooth pebble.

  “This was what the Queen miscarried,” he said.

  Still I did not understand.

  Sadly he explained, “Her womb expelled it. It had been put there to prevent a babe from growing within. ’Tis a custom in the Middle East much practised with beasts of burden, and perhaps with slaves as well. It makes conception impossible.”