The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  I die a Queen, but I would rather die the wife of Culpepper.

  She had said that. She had actually said that. Was it true? I hurried past that, which was beyond understanding, since her bloodless form now lay buried. I could never ask her, could never wring from her an explanation: Why did you insist on being Queen until the end if all you meant was to reject it?

  I die a Queen, but I would rather die the wife of Culpepper.

  Perhaps she had only retained the title so that she could, at her own command, do with it as she liked. And what she liked was to glorify her love for Culpepper.

  And spit upon my love for her, and the honours I had bestowed upon her.

  Tell it true unto yourself, I thought. Shrink not. The truth is that you offered her everything you were. You were sick, yes, and you were old. You did all you could humanly do to minimize those things and make yourself into an offering for her. You devoted yourself to being what you imagined she desired.

  And still she did not desire you.

  That is what she told you as her farewell. Do as you like, Henry. You will never be good enough for me. I preferred the charms of a no-one, a nothing. Your achievements, your titles, your gifts, your devotions: I count them as nothing. And you as well.

  Lady Rochford. She claimed that Anne was innocent, that she had perjured her. Was this true? And if it were? Suppose Anne and her brother had not been incestuous lovers? Would that have altered anything? Was that Anne’s main crime? No. It was the most unnatural. But remove it, and she yet remained a witch.

  Jane Rochford. Jealous of Anne, and now jealous of Catherine. Catherine had made a rejecting scaffold speech, one that would wound me greatly. Jane aped her as best she knew how.

  I was exhausted, and brokenhearted. The world before me seemed empty. The teeming stage offered nothing.

  I saw no reason to rise from my bed. Nothing was left but little people, little causes, little crusades. The world had shrunk perilously. And I as well.

  Such high-flown rhetoric does not truly convey my feelings. After all, it was composed long after the fact. I do not think any man could really explain the desolation I felt that night. I was alone, unloved, as I had been all my life. Only now I finally understood that it was a permanent condition.

  CXII

  St. Valentine’s Day, and Catherine had now been dead for twenty-four hours. There had been no embalming, of course, and so her corpse was in the natural state, exactly like a dog’s by the side of the road, struck by a cart the day previous. I had seen many of these. Usually by this time they were coated with flies so thick they looked like fur. There were no flies inside a coffin. But there were maggots, which would hatch and feed on the flesh. How would the grown flies escape from the sealed coffin, though? Would they die with the corpse they had consumed?

  O God, these nightmarish obsessions! Was I going mad? I was powerless to stop them, and the fear of them was becoming as terrorizing as the thoughts themselves. It was my mind that was consumed with maggots, the maggots of madness.

  That night I sat at the banquet I had commanded in honour of St. Valentine’s Day. Cup-bearers and servers were dressed like Cupid, and all the dishes were to be red and white. Thus the first course consisted of lobsters, crayfish, custard, apples, red cabbage. “Venus” presided over the other end of the table, at the place where Catherine should have been. I had chosen Henry Howard’s “Fair Geraldine” to play Venus: another beauty married to an old man, with an adoring young suitor. I wanted to duplicate Catherine as much as possible, to watch, as it were, other players playing myself, Culpepper, and Catherine. I sat staring at her as she tossed her curls (not as thick as Catherine’s), ran her slender fingers lightly up and around her neck-hollow, licked her lips slowly. If I squinted my eyes, yes, it could be Catherine—as she had looked to others.

  Her besotted old husband, Anthony Browne, was down at the end of the table and to my right. There are two kinds of old men: the fat kind and the withered-up kind. He was the dried-up, wizened type, who looked like a preserved lizard. His beady eyes shone with love for her. I noticed that he kept them firmly anchored in her direction, only allowing them to dart occasionally around the room.

  I know what you are thinking, went through my mind. You are wondering how you ever came by such a woman. You are remembering what happened between you the last time you bedded her. If it was nothing, you have taken a few potions since then and pray that next time it will be different. If it was satisfactory, you tell yourself over and over that it was for her, too.

  Old fool!

  I looked now at Henry Howard, the erstwhile lover. Did he gaze at “Geraldine”? I watched as he cut his meat with his elegant personal knife and fork. He took a sip of wine and dabbed daintily at his lips with a lace handkerchief. He was speaking to Petre next him, and did not even look at his love.

  Oh, he was clever. Much cleverer than Culpepper, who had betrayed himself in a thousand ways, had I but had eyes to see it. But then Henry was a Howard, and Howards were nothing if not clever. The geniuses of the kingdom, the Howards. They excelled in soldiery, poetry, diplomacy, beauty. But the Tudors were more ruthless. That was why I was King and the Howards only dukes and earls. Not that they would not like to be King, or might not attempt to become so. . . .

  I looked once more at the trio, aching as I let them represent myself and my grief. As if by seeing them this way I would somehow gain a new insight, find a new perspective, that would lessen the pain.

  Old fool!

  In between courses, now, the silly Cupids came bearing large decorated boxes—one with Venus, one with her son. Inside the “Venus” box were pieces of paper with all the women’s names, from which each man would draw his Valentine. Likewise the “Cupid” box contained men’s names, for the women to choose from.

  The company attempted to choose the names with gusto and a light heart, as betokened the occasion. But I knew well how cruel and pitiless they thought me, to stage such a celebration the day after my wife’s execution. Their smiles and shrieks did not fool me.

  What, did they expect me to wear mourning for the traitress? Did they expect the court to keep itself all in black for a season, as it had for Jane? No, by God! It was divinely arranged that her execution should have fallen just before a happy holiday, so that the court—and I—could be prevented from any facsimile of mourning.

  So I wore red, and opened my Valentine. It was from Katherine Parr, Lady Latimer, the Scripture-quoting widow. I must declare myself to her, present a token, when the mummery was over.

  Now the eunuch-like Cupid made his rounds amongst the women, his red loin-covering looking obscenely silly. Each lady took out a sealed note, broke it open, and read therein the name of her appointed Valentine. Who was to be mine? No one betrayed herself. Why did such childish games appeal to grown people?

  The second course was presented. It was all in hues of red, made so by steeping and painting with dried rose petals, ground sandalwood, powdered alkanet: pink chicken, scarlet fish, crimson bread. Damask jelly-hearts quivering on plates; garnet puddings, vermilion-tinted parsnips, ruby-red clear soup, glowing like the Black Prince’s ruby.

  So many shades of red, such subtleties, it was like the great rose garden, where I had been dazzled by all nature’s ways of being red. Yes, and where, upon the instant, I had thought of creating the rose without a thorn, for her. . . .

  Red. Red everywhere. A wife was dead and once again I was swathed in a colour, like Joseph in his coat of many colours, only with me it was one colour, one colour per wife. . . .

  When Katherine died, there had been that ball that Anne gave, all dressed in yellow. Blazing, brazen yellow—it had not been seemly, but the Witch said it was mourning, or rather, her version of mourning. . . .

  When Anne died, I wore white—and all was white that day, with the fruit trees all in bloom, and sweet, pure Jane waiting in a country house, as virgin and pure as Anne was tainted. . . .

  When Jane died, all was black�
��my clothes, the court, the chambers all hung with it. . . .

  And now, red. Red for blood. The dishes dripped with blood, that was what made them red. I could see the oozings, see the clots . . . the cooks fooled me not! Who had done this? Who had dared?

  I stood up abruptly. Next to me I saw a cut surface of pudding, with genuine blood leaking out. “Stop!” I smacked Wriothesley’s hand and made him drop his fork.

  “Tainted! Someone shall pay!”

  Everyone stopped and waited upon my command. Obedient, sly creatures. Yet one person had left, had dared to leave the feast before me, and without my permission.

  The empty chair mocked me. And then I saw it. Beside the plate, laid across it—a single red rose.

  Without a thorn upon its stem.

  Fear passed over me, like wind over a grain field.

  Catherine. Her ghost was here.

  “You frighten me not!” I cried, lying. Could ghosts read thoughts? They came from hell.

  The rose shimmered and vanished. The mark of the Evil One. Instinctively I crossed myself, unaware of the frightened stares of my guests.

  “Sweet Jesu, preserve us,” I whispered. The thing was gone, the Evil Presence was gone. The food no longer dripped blood, and next to me, the pudding reverted into an ordinary pudding.

  I sat back down, slowly. No need to give Satan any ground. I must carry on as if this had not occurred. Yield no ground to evil, no, never.

  “I did but test you!” I laughed, waving my hand. Everyone bleated back in simulated laughter.

  I forked a piece of food and popped it in my mouth. They all followed my example, then chewed with exaggerated motions. Back and forth, back and forth—like a company of goats. The men’s beards wagged fiendishly. Their eyes glowed. Fiendishly . . .

  The Devil is a goat, some say. He often takes that form, having a particular fondness for it. Now he animated the entire company before me.

  The amount of devil in them was revealed by the brightness of the red glow in their eyes. There was Tom Seymour, with eyes like a double Mars at sunrise; Francis Bryan, with his one gleaming, malevolent coal. The Vicar of Hell, they had nicknamed him years back, because he had shifted loyalty from Anne Boleyn and been the first messenger to Jane to announce Anne’s condemnation. It was a little thing at the time, but now I wondered if character were truly the handmaiden of such small details, after all.

  The others? Edward Seymour, William Fitzwilliam, Anthony Denny, John Dudley, Wriothesley, Gardiner, Sadler, Audley . . . their eyes were faint. Faintly red, faintly “normal,” there was nothing one way or the other about them. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. The devil had staked a halfhearted claim on them, but their matter was not worth fighting for. The battleground of good and evil should be grander, more sublime than this.

  Were there any here in the company with clear eyes, with no tinge of red? Primarily the women: I was startled to see that the Lady Anne of Cleves had such eyes, as did Katherine Parr, as did “Geraldine.” Ah, Geraldine . . . then you love your old man, do you? No cuckolding. The revelation was simultaneously a balm and a wound.

  That empty place. It was still there. And sitting in it was Catherine, her lower body all encased in pearl-encrusted silk, up to her bloody, clotted neck-stump. Rivulets of blood ran down the sides and flowed gently and warmly around the collar of jewels encircling it, before trickling in streams down into her bodice. Sitting on her platter was her head, the eyes pure red.

  Her evil was revealed! I threw my goblet at her, and it struck her head and knocked it off the table. Both the goblet and the head rolled on the floor, like lopsided balls of yarn, coming to rest against the table legs.

  Once again the company was staring at me. But protocol forbade their touching me, or making any move of their own.

  It was the widow Parr who stood, came over, and laid hands upon my shoulders. They were gentle hands, such as I had not felt since Jane . . . but there was something in them besides, some special grace.

  “You are not well,” she said, and, in her saying of it, made it natural. “Sleep is what is needed, my Lord.” She drew me up. “Come, and rest.”

  Somehow I was in my chamber, being ministered to by my attendants and put to bed. Somehow all was as it should be.

  “I have not forgotten,” she said, still there. “You and I are Valentines.”

  “I have a gift for you, Kate.” It was important that she should know that I remembered my duty in these matters.

  Then I was alone. My head throbbed, my senses spun. I was overtired, yes. How long since I had slept a natural sleep? Catherine but newly dead. Did she sleep? No, she did not. That I knew already.

  “Henry.”

  I heard the voice, sweet and voluptuous, in my ear. She was beside me.

  “Henry.” A little ways away. A few feet from the bed.

  “Henry! Henry! Henry!” Shrieks outside my chamber door.

  “No! No!”

  The wood registered the vibrations. Only a few inches between us—

  I flung open the chamber door, opening on the darkened Privy Chamber.

  “No! No!”

  The voice was behind yet another set of doors. I opened the Privy Chamber doors, leading to the Audience Chamber, but it was empty, vast, alien.

  “Henry!”

  It came from the gallery, the Long Gallery connecting the royal apartments with the Chapel Royal.

  I fumbled at the door latch. It was carved and heavy, to impress petitioners with the gravity of majesty. The doors themselves were great panels, the height of three men. Pulling them open required considerable strength; I felt my belly muscles tighten at the strain.

  The passageway outside was deserted. Then I saw it . . . the white figure, being dragged backwards, receding before my eyes. Mournful cries came from it, sorrow beyond telling. . . .

  There was nothing there. It had quite vanished, and all its presence with it.

  I returned to my bed. Since Culpepper, I had had no intimate of the bedchamber, and I slept quite alone and unattended. In one sense I savoured it. It was tiresome always to consider another’s needs in the night, not to dare to light a candle for fear of waking him.

  The ghost—for ghost it was, and I might as well name it as such—shrieked and cried in a way no mortal ever had. Would others see it? Or was it meant only for me? I settled the covers about me. I would not sleep, that I knew. But I expected to pass the night in solitary meditation.

  It was in the very darkest part of night, when the sun is gone and thinks never to return, that I first saw the monks. They were standing in the shadows of the far reaches of the chamber. I could see straightway that their habits were varied, and that they belonged to different orders. On the left was the light-coloured habit of the Cistercians. I had not dealt kindly with them, that I knew. They were a strict order, living isolated, arduous lives, and a good order, in the beginning. Well, we are all of us good in the beginning. But we must be judged on what we become.

  Next to him, a dark habit. Surely a Dominican. This was a hard order to love, just as many in Jesus’ time must have found it hard to love a disciple. They were too astute, too caustic, too clever.

  Standing a little to the side was a grey-habited figure. Greyfriars, the people called the Observant Franciscans: they had had a priory right outside the palace gates at Greenwich. Once they were my friends; then they became my enemies. Well, I had destroyed that obstructionist order.

  Then, in the middle, a dun-coloured habit. Oh, those Carthusians! I had had to take sternest measures against them. They had proved most recalcitrant to my enlightenment. Therefore I was not surprised when the tan-habited one came toward me.

  How did I see him? It was dark. His habit did not glow, as country folk would claim. Yet I saw him.

  He nodded gravely toward me. I could not see his face, yet I believe it was that of John Houghton, the London abbot whom I had hanged for refusal to take the
Oath.

  “Henry,” he intoned—no, whispered. “You were wrong in what you did. The monks were good, did good.”

  “They were evil, did evil.” Did I speak these words or merely think them?

  “No.” The sound was soft. So soft I could not quite discover whether it was true or my imagining.

  The monks shimmered. Their habits waved and seemed to change colour. Then the sun—only a tiny ray—shone into the chamber. There were no monks.

  There were no monks. There was no Catherine. (Yes, there was, only it was a corpse, a corpse without a head. If I bade diggers to dig her up, she would be there, two days rotted now. In winter it is slower. She might yet be beautiful. Her face, that is, printed upon the severed head.) I had fancied it all, in my sick fantasy. “Fantasy” . . . what a powerful word. The King did cast a fantasy to Catherine Howard. . . .

  CXIII

  Soon they would be coming into the chamber—the attendants, the doctors—having heard about my behaviour the night before. (Was it only the night before, when I had confronted the Fiend in all his degrees?) What exactly had happened? Was there any man who would dare to tell me?

  The breakfast over, the shaving over, the reading of the daily dispatches over, now the day must begin.

  Brandon came to me in my sunny work chamber.

  “My behaviour last night,” I said straightway. “Describe it as you would if under oath.”

  “Well . . .” He fidgeted, shifted back and forth on his feet. He had become portly of late.

  “Pray seat yourself.” I gestured toward a chair, one of two against the wall.

  He brought it over, closer to me. “Your Grace.” He smiled. “Do you not think it meet that these chairs come to this use?”

  I was silent. I did not remember the chairs. Collapsible U-shaped wooden things, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Some gift from the Patriarch of Jerusalem?

  “They were in the Spaniards’ tents when the Princess of Aragon first came to England. When your father was not allowed admittance.”