The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  By God, she pushed me too far! She was no child; no, she was as political and dangerous as any Pretender of three times her years. As such, she was a danger to my Edward. “You are excused,” I said. “No further leave-taking is necessary.”

  Yet my heart ached to see her go. Who can explain the human heart? Mary was my firstborn, my only child for so long, and nothing could ever alter that. Edward was the gift I had prayed for, so long withheld. Elizabeth? She was a disappointment from the first, she was naught, she was the wrong sex, from the wrong woman, and in the wrong order of birth. Nevertheless she was the most intriguing to me, and I could not fathom why. Perhaps because she was the only one of the three children not afraid of me. As indeed why should she be? She alone, perhaps, of all persons in the realm, was untouchable by my wrath. I could never execute her; I had already illegitimized her, but I would never disclaim her; in short, I had already done to her the worst of what I could do, and she knew that. And I knew that.

  All the guests were looking intently at their strawberries. Domestic quarrels are always embarrassing when they spill over into public, but royal ones especially so. No rhyming or Rhenish could rescue this fading afternoon. Best that it end now.

  CXVI

  The summer dragged to its weary, wilted conclusion. By late August there were droughts in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, and certain priests wanted to form “Mary processions,” as they had done in times past, imploring the Virgin’s intercession. Should I forbid them or not? Were they Popish or not? Cranmer and I conferred and reached the decision that a procession in Mary’s honour was permissible, while one in any saint’s name was not. After all, Christ Himself had honoured Mary from the cross.

  “And how is your Book of Common Prayer progressing?” I asked him. He had been working on it for so long.

  “It progresses. It progresses. And your Primer?”

  I had set my hand to composing prayers to be said in the vernacular—or, if the person felt more at home in it, in Latin—and I would issue it with my own Imprimatur, my own Nihil Obstat, as Rome had been wont to do. Truth to tell, I was pleased with my little book.

  “It is almost done,” I said. “I think next year it shall be printed.”

  Cranmer shook his head. “Your industry and speed are truly gifts. Ones that I envy.”

  “As I envy yours, Thomas.” I spoke true. For his way with words and his purity of heart were rare things.

  Others envied Cranmer, not only his gifts but his friendship with me. They sought to bring him down, out of sheer spite and malice. Others saw him as a danger, a gangplank leading to rampant Protestantism. They thought if they tossed that gangplank down into the sea, no radical would ever board the secure ship of England. But Cranmer, who was so naïve about the Original Sin in men’s natures (although he described it poetically in his Book of Common Prayer), never thought to be on guard against his enemies, or even acknowledged that he had enemies.

  “I have but one garden to tend, the Church. You have many. How can you oversee the coming war with the French and write prayer books and education books at the selfsame time?”

  He referred to my ABC’s as Set Forth by the King’s Majesty, a little reading-instruction book I had prepared.

  I could not answer him honestly, for I knew not how I was able to think and attend to many things at once. Only that one gave surcease to the other, and while I laboured on Englishmen’s prayers I did not think of how many tents would be needed for a European campaign. “I know not,” I admitted. “But it is fortunate I can, else England would need six kings.”

  Six kings. A council of kings. That is what I was forced to consider, for Edward’s minority. My pang of fear with Elizabeth had made me face the worry that had been lurking for some time: Would I live until 1555, when Edward would be eighteen, the same age I had been when I became King? He was only five years old now. And Mary and Elizabeth were tall, rooted plants that threatened my Edward. Mary was a grown woman and could yet be made much of in Catholic circles, in spite of her formal capitulation to me. Elizabeth was clearly clever and winsome, and might harbour secret ambitions for herself. Edward was not safe; no, he was not safe.

  I must protect him, must make sure that, even in my absence, he could grow to maturity unmolested. There was no denying that the “New Men,” the gentlemen of learning and service whom I had honoured and titled, leaned toward Protestantism. Certainly Edward would have to understand the new ways, the New Learning, in order to deal with those men. And so, with some misgivings but with resignation, I appointed Dr. Richard Cox and John Cheke—Humanistic scholars—to be his tutors.

  I also began secretly to draw up a list of those I would appoint as councillors to govern for and with Edward, until he was a man. I knew already that I must leave no Lord Protector, such as Richard Plantagenet had been, for I knew what fate Protectors dealt out to those they “protected.” My Council would be composed of equals. My will would insist on that. My will . . .

  The idea of my not surviving another thirteen years was chilling to consider. I did not like it, did not care for the queasy, weak sensation it aroused in me. I told myself that making these provisions was the prudent thing to do, that it did not mean I was acquiescing in my own death. Young kings had died in battle, and I myself might yet venture forth in battle—“hazard my person,” as they say. . . .

  Dare I confess it? I wished to take the field against Francis, to do again what I had done so long ago, but this time do it as I wished, and not be balked and cheated of my spoils by a Ferdinand or a Maximilian. No, I was my own master now, and I would return to that place which had hung, unresolved and insulting to me, for thirty years. I would take the cities in Picardy I craved, add them to Calais, and expand the English holdings into a strip extending along the Channel coast.

  I confided this to no one. I would wait for things to roll that way, as roll they would. I enjoyed the power it gave me, keeping my thoughts and plans to myself.

  In the meantime, preparations for our chastisement of Scotland went ahead. That was no secret. We would wait until their grain was gathered in, until their livestock was wintered, and then we would strike.

  In August I had sent troops across the Border, and they had been beaten at Haddon Rig, near Berwick. Nearly six hundred prisoners had been taken, including the commander, Sir Robert Bowes. This was, I must confess, a surprise. The Scots were ever full of surprises. Every time one thought they were quiet, quiescent, beaten—they struck and stung, like an adder.

  In retaliation I dispatched Norfolk to persecute them. It was the first communication I had had with him, the first assignment I had given him, since the disgrace of—I cannot write her name again—his niece. He, and his hothead son Henry, managed to burn the lowland towns of Kelso and Roxburgh and about thirty others. But it was an inconclusive, womanish reprisal. I was most displeased. I had given them orders to defeat the Scot, not pinch his toe or tweak his nose.

  But Jamie, for his own reasons, took the burnings as a call to arms. His honour must be satisfied. He gathered an army, but the nobility would not fight willingly for a King who excluded them from his councils; the Border lords, barons like Argyll and Moray, were smarting from harsh treatment from the unstable, fickle Jamie; and the outcome was that his army refused to march farther south than Lauder, where it disbanded itself.

  Another army must be raised, and the industrious Cardinal Beaton managed to gather a force of ten thousand men in only three weeks. Oh, the Cardinal, the Scots Cardinal! He had been commissioned by Pope Paul III to publish the Papal bull excommunicating me, in Scotland. How I despised him! Cardinals, I believe, were created by Rome expressly to torment me in this life.

  This Cardinal’s army was to be led by Oliver Sinclair, King Jamie’s “favourite.” He loved him more than he had ever loved any woman, thereby incurring the disdain and derision of his subjects. The hated Sinclair was no soldier. At the edge of the Solway River, in southwest Scotland, Jamie suddenly decided to leave
his troops, declaring that he would cross into England from Lachmaben, when the tide ebbed. So that Sinclair could have the battle to himself, and thereby acquit himself? Who knew what he was thinking?

  Across the Solway I had three thousand Englishmen, hastily drawn up under the command of the Deputy Warden of the Marches, Sir Wharton. Although outnumbered, Sir Wharton led boldly and scattered the Scots, driving them into the bog, where his men killed them with spear and sword, or left them to be sucked into the muck or drowned in the river. Twelve hundred were captured, including Oliver Sinclair. The Borderers—who had largely composed the Scots force—took a perverted pleasure in punishing their King by surrendering to us without a fight, and many of the nobles who came into our custody were Protestant. Therein lay a great opportunity.

  But God had still a greater one reserved for us. When he heard of the defeat, King Jamie wilted and died. “Fie, fled Oliver?” he said. “Is Oliver taken? All is lost!”

  He drooped at Falkland Palace whence he had crawled in abject defeat. His wife was in her last days of pregnancy, but that held out no hope for him. His other sons had died, and any child born at this hour would be foredoomed.

  It was a girl, in any case. When he heard of her birth, he said, “Is it even so? The Stuarts began with a lass, and they shall end with a lass.” Then he turned his face to the wall, and said, “The de’il take it. The de’il take it,” and died. Jamie was thirty-one years old. He left a week-old baby girl, christened Mary, called Queen of Scots, as his heir.

  CXVII

  What a windfall! What extraordinary fortune! I could scarce credit it, other than that at long last I enjoyed God’s favour and basked in His rewards!

  Scotland was mine, and for the price of a border skirmish! Sir Wharton and his three thousand men, with no elaborate war machinery, no field provisions, had delivered Scotland squarely into my hands, as if by divine edict.

  I was suzerain of Scotland. I was grand-uncle of its infant Queen. I would marry her to my Edward. It was perfect; it was all part of a Divine Plan, I could see it now. Before, it had all been masked in murkiness, and I had floundered like a man in a mist, but still trying to discern the will of God, still trying to follow it when I received no external sighting, relying only on the steerings of my conscience. Now I had my reward, now all the mists were cleared away, and I had steered true. I found myself in a marvellous place.

  Scotland and England would be one. Edward would be Emperor of Great Britain: ruler of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and England. I, who as a child had had to take refuge in the Tower against a rebellion by Cornishmen—I would leave my son a throne that incorporated three other realms. In one generation the Tudors had gone from local kings to emperors. Because of me.

  Scotland was mine! Scotland was mine! I would be a kind and gentle husband to her, as I had been to all my wives. I would honour her and treat her with respect. No mistreatment of the prisoners of war, and no (public) gloating over King Jamie’s death. Instead, I gave the Protestant-leaning Border noblemen we had taken as prisoners instructions to “woo” the Lowland and Highland Scots upon their release, to convince them their future lay with England. They were to return to Edinburgh and act as our agents there.

  As for the infant Queen: I issued an order (as her uncle and guardian) that we would draw up a treaty at Greenwich, arranging for her marriage to Edward.

  Things always come round a second time; history never exactly repeats herself, but sets up the pieces of the game the same way. In 1286, the Scottish King Alexander had died, leaving his six-year-old granddaughter, “the Maid of Norway,” as his heir. King Edward I of England, who already claimed overlordship of Scotland, immediately moved to have the Maid Margaret betrothed to his son Edward. But the girl had died travelling between Norway and Scotland, and thus the peaceful and natural union of the two countries was averted. But this time there would be no death, this time all “would go merrily as a marriage bell,” in More’s phrase.

  The captured Scots nobles were transported to London, where they kept Christmas with us at Greenwich. I presented them with my terms, which they were to take back to their crushed and demoralized government. They were “to set forth the true and right title that the King’s most royal Majesty hath to the sovereignty of Scotland, whereby the late pretenced King of Scots was but a usurper of the crown and realm of Scotland,” and uphold that I had “now at this present (by the infinite goodness of God) a time apt and propice for the recovery of the said right and title.” Furthermore, the infant Scots Queen was to be betrothed straightway to Edward, then surrendered into English hands, to be brought up in London. These were my demands, and after the Scots peers swore to uphold and enforce them, I released them, speeding them back to their homeland to work for me—but not before I had received hostages in their stead. I housed these “guest” Scotsmen in a former monastic property along the riverfront, where they could act barbarically together and not frighten the horses at court.

  I was stunned when, instead of respecting my victory and my clear claim to Scotland, Francis declared that “he would never desert his ancient ally,” and began sending ships and money to Scotland. He masterminded a coup d’état by the Cardinal and the French Queen Mother, Marie de Guise, in which they defied me. It seems that my rightful claim had “affronted” them, and roused the vexed Scots once again to resist. The curs! Even when they were beaten, they did not acknowledge it; they swore one thing and then betrayed their own oaths. My ambassador in Edinburgh, Ralph Sadler, wrote that “under the sun live not more beastly and unreasonable people than here be of all degrees.” They took the infant Mary and crowned her Queen of Scots at Stirling; then they promised Francis that she would wed one of his sons.

  In times past, it had always been a French Princess married to a Scots Prince. But the other way round—a Scots Princess married to a French Prince, a Prince who might succeed to the very throne of France—was so dreadful a prospect I trembled to think on it. Scotland would go the way of Brittany, become part of France. . . . No! That I would never permit, even if I had to assassinate the parties involved.

  Francis! Francis! I would destroy him, as he was attempting to destroy my island kingdom. Was there no shred of honour in the man? To attack and corrupt sworn men; to ally himself with the Turk, the Great Infidel? Fie! God would give me the strength to crush him, even if it were to prove my last earthly task.

  So. I would put my affairs in order, and then I would go and fight Francis. The Emperor was already preparing for war, and it would be convenient were we to join forces. But not necessary. When I was a stripling in 1513 it had been necessary that I have allies. I had needed Ferdinand, and Maximilian, and the Pope. Only the truth is that I had not needed them; I had duped myself. They had shackled me and bossed me and taken my money. No, I had not needed them. Now, if Charles wanted to fight alongside me, I would grant him that courtesy. Likewise the Pope. But it was immaterial to me what course they chose.

  I sent for Chapuys, to tell his master that I was bent on war with France, for my own selfish reasons, but would welcome fighting company. I knew it would please Chapuys to return to the Continent, and please him as well that his last mission between his master and me was to be a cordial one.

  “Tell Charles I will take the field against Francis in person,” I told Chapuys. “I mean to fire cannon again with my own hand, to sleep in tents with my men. The terms, my grievances against the King of France, and my tentative battle strategy are all outlined within this document.” I handed him a tightly rolled parchment, which I had written myself, past midnight, and which no man had read or witnessed—nay, not even Will. “I have sealed it well, on both ends, and secured the outer case. Tell Charles to ascertain that the seals are unbroken. I know that you will guard it well en route, and no spies will glimpse its contents.”

  “Cromwell is dead, Your Majesty,” Chapuys’s dry little voice said. In old age he resembled a scorpion: brittle, desiccated, but still dangerous.

  Pity.
I could have used Cromwell now; if not the scoundrel himself, at least his methods. Under my direction, Cromwell’s leftover spies were quite slipshod and inefficient. I lacked their master’s diabolical genius. “Aye. And so letters are safe again.” I laughed.

  “Is this farewell?” he asked, quite simply.

  “Possibly,” I said. The Emperor might decide not to send him back to England. It was likely a new ambassador would return with Charles’s reply, while Chapuys would be pensioned off to spend his latter days near the Mediterranean, soaking up the sun like a lizard. “I shall miss seeing you, my friend.” Farewells hurt, always more than one expected. I hated them.

  “Have you considered what we spoke of, regarding the Princess Mary?”

  I did not correct him to “Lady.” He had earned the right to call her Princess. “Yes. I had made negotiations with the French, to marry her to Francis’s second son. Now—” I twisted my belt, wishing to rend it, as if that would cure my rage. “Now that selfsame son is to marry Mary, Queen of Scots. You see how they betray me, And my Mary is left once again husbandless, unwanted—”

  “A Frenchman was unworthy of her,” said Chapuys. “But it was loving of you to attempt to arrange it. Perhaps someone from the Spanish royal house . . . even someone younger . . .”

  “Or one of His Holiness’s illegitimate sons?” I could not resist needling Chapuys. “A good Pope-Catholic, by necessity!”

  “Why not? An illegitimate King’s daughter for an illegitimate prelate’s son?” He returned the parry. But our fencing was mellow, affectionate, as only long-standing adversaries can grow to be. Jesu, I would miss him!

  “Yes. That would do. And as part of the marriage settlement, the Bishop of Rome would recognize my title as Supreme Head of the Church of England.”