The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  The plague, and fear of it, reduced people to such terror that they forgot themselves and let their true natures reign. The Seven Deadly Sins stood revealed, glaring and gigantic, in every man, woman, and child.

  Pride? There were groups who withdrew from the plague-ridden people around them and, shutting themselves off completely, thought themselves safe if they embraced “moderation” and “tranquillity.” They ate the most delicate viands and drank the finest wines, listened to sweet music, and admitted no one to their quarters, although neighbours were beating on their doors, begging for help. Not only did they refuse entrance to other people, they even refused any news of what was happening beyond their immediate quarters, in London or the realm itself.

  Pride wears many hats: another is bravado, as when Charles, Duc D’Orleans, Francis’s favourite son (for the plague raged in France as well) rushed into a plague-stricken house and punctured the feather mattresses with his sword, shouting, “Never yet has a son of France died of plague,” and died of plague on schedule three days later. Then there was the pride of not fleeing, of standing at one’s post stalwartly, as Wolsey had done.

  Avarice bared its face boldly, with all fear of reprisal and castigation gone. The scavengers, as Hal described, picking over the bloated victims; the extortionistic rates charged for the simplest services; the “pickmen” who appeared, like ghouls, to charge for carrying biers to a burial place, all “respectable” people having fled. Avarice propelled men forward to grasp at positions and possessions abandoned by their rightful owners.

  Envy and anger joined hands in letting inferiors wear their masters’ clothes and exercise their masters’ offices, like evil children let loose to romp in cultivated fields. The anger of the underlings expressed itself in the glee they took in tossing their masters into unmarked graves or in leaving them to decay in public view: the ultimate shame and degradation. Squire Holmes, who had once worn long furred gowns and jewelled hats, must reduce himself, stinkingly, to a skeleton before the eyes of his erstwhile servants.

  Gluttony, even in this poisonous time, managed to find a niche for itself. Since one might be dead tomorrow, should not one die with a surfeit in one’s belly, one’s lips still sticky with spiced wine? There were those who declared that they would as lief die of overindulgence as plague and, in fact, thought they would cheat the plague thereby. So they caroused, eating and drinking continuously, feasting on dead men’s stores, going from house to house scavenging, not for gold, but for meat and drink. They passed their last days in an oblivion of wine and pastries.

  Others, of course, embraced lust as their answer to plague, preferring to die by an onslaught of Venus. They made their impending release from the moral code their excuse for violating it. They abandoned themselves to licentiousness, setting up orgy-rooms in death-emptied houses, where they indulged in every Roman and French vice known to man. Even respectable women were pawns of lust-inflamed men who came to “minister” to them as they lay incoherent and weak with plague. They were “examined” and exposed and then sported with . . . and left to die.

  The law foundered. Lawyers and priests were dying along with those they served, and there were few to administer the law or the Sacraments. Whenever a lone remaining priest appeared to perform a funeral, he would find many other biers falling in behind the original one, as people watched eagerly for any sign of a legitimate funeral, and attached themselves to it. So few remained to enforce civil or sacred law that no one had a mind to observe it, and so there was, in effect, almost no authority at all.

  Sloth—that slouching, lurking sin that underlies so many of the others—came into its own, as people declined to tend even to that which they could, such as clearing the streets, removing piles of offal, or gathering in the harvest. They were on a grotesque holiday.

  The plague was enough to make a moralist out of me, if not a true Christian. For man’s true nature was so ugly, so heinous, that any system, no matter how odious, that modified its evil was to be sought and embraced.

  At least until the plague abated.

  HENRY VIII:

  I had neglected Holbein. I had not cared for his mortal remains, and in so doing, I had behaved as barbarously as any fear-crazed apprentice. The plague had made a heathen of me—I, the Supreme Head of the Church in England. I prayed as I passed the corpse-pile, Grant them eternal peace.

  Then, God forgive me for my failings, my lacks, my blindness.

  The more I knew, the more I understood, so it seemed, but thereby my sins multiplied.

  Once outside the city walls, the dwellings grew farther apart. But if I thought that the plague was incapable of leaping separated households, I was wrong. Workers had died right in the fields, and their families in their farmsteads had succumbed at the same time. Livestock of all sorts—cows, pigs, sheep, goats—wandered the roads, starving and dazed. Dogs ran loose, reverting to beasts of prey, crouching and growling as we passed. Everywhere the fields were untended, the crops growing as best they could, but with no one to gather them in. Country gluttony manifested itself in people snatching whatever happened to be ripe and, without converting it into flour or beer or preserves, just eating it on the spot, making no provision for the morrow.

  Going west, we passed through the villages of Wokingham, Silchester, and Edington. At each one there seemed to be fewer crosses on the doors, fewer corpse-piles, less stench, until as we passed into Wiltshire, we actually came upon an intact village, one in which there were no disturbances, surrounded by fields that were tended and neat. It seemed miraculous, as indeed life and civilization are, however we think of them as normal. They are not normal; chaos is.

  All the while, as we travelled, I had looked anxiously behind me, like Orpheus, for I feared to lose my followers, feared that I would leave them behind in Hades.

  All through Wiltshire the hamlets and villages prospered, untouched by plague, and then we passed through the Savernake Forest, that great wild place that had stood the same since Arthur was King, and came upon the small road I knew so well, the long, wheel-rutted path leading to Wolf Hall.

  Wolf Hall: I saw it again, compact, healthy, self-sustaining. Jane’s home. My heart leapt with joy, and ached at the same time. Fool, fool to come here! Did you expect to see Jane, then?

  No. But I am strong enough to endure the not-seeing her. There is a strange pride in embracing God’s will, the ecstasy of clasping an armful of thorny branches. . . .

  CXX

  I settled myself in old Sir John’s quarters, with Will and Dr. Butts lodging I with me. Edward was to sleep in Jane’s girlhood room, and Tom Seymour returned to his original quarters. Lady Kate Parr chose the guest apartments for her own.

  Our routine was simple, and I found myself delighting in it. There being no priest, there was no morning Mass. Instead, we all slept until fancy awoke us, usually around seven o’clock. On a summer’s morning that meant the sun, and the farmers, had been up three hours already, so one awoke to the smell of cut hay and the play of dancing sunshine on the floor. We gathered for a breakfast of ale, cheese, and dark bread, with sweet butter and plum preserves, out in the courtyard, and sometimes were silent, still groggy, drinking in the odours of a June morning, with the dew still on shaded sweet-williams and chive blossoms. Edward and Kate Parr then settled themselves for the daily lessons; Tom prowled the grounds and the nearby village, restlessly; Will and Dr. Butts took walks and discussed medicine and politics. And I? I attempted to deal with the outside world and keep contact with the Privy Council and with the Continent. Sitting in my little dormered chamber, I could hardly believe that anything I said or did would resound beyond those walls.

  Dinner was a lazy, drawn-out affair at midday, consisting of local fare: salads of onions, leeks, dandelion leaves; roasted lark and pigeon pie; cherries with cream and spiced wine. How we would linger, there before the crude table and chairs set up in the stone courtyard, loth to leave, as we talked of many things, freely. The afternoons were given over to lon
g rambles, to music, and to amateurish philosophy. As the evening shadows lengthened, we would gather in the largest upstairs chamber, there to say evening prayers. I led the worship, selecting Psalms and speaking simple prayers, and it was a fitting close to our day.

  Such soft days, and hours. I savoured them, without even the awareness of what a balm they were to me. But gradually I began to move about more easily, and my stiff joints and ever-chafed legs grew supple and pain-free. True, they ached at supporting my great bulk (which did not diminish) and rebelled sometimes by buckling at surprising moments, but overall I mended, and regained good health.

  We spent evenings in each other’s chambers, or alone, as we wished. There were no rules, no protocol, no expectations. For the first time in my life I was free of them.

  I always visited Edward and asked him to recite the day’s lessons to me. It was my own private Compline, to hear my five-year-old son give a summary of his day. Often, Lady Kate prompted him, but not always. They had an easy-going understanding of one another, and in her presence (although, I must admit, not always in mine), Edward softened and acted with self-confidence.

  Across two fields, with the abandoned beehives in between, stood the great barn where old Sir John had served Jane’s betrothal feast. It had stood there, large and glowing in fourteen sunsets, before I dared to go to it. I say “dared” because I had been afraid to do so. The memories it would trigger, the cherished things, lost . . . yet to be here, reside here, and not visit it, seemed a cowardice and a sacrilege I could not permit myself.

  So, after our jolly supper of fish caught by Edward in a stream that ran down near the nether pasture, and before bedtime and my unorthodox Compline, I betook myself to stroll toward the barn and make my peace with it. I say “stroll” because my bulk made anything faster out of the question.

  The sun was hurrying toward its rest as I tramped along the narrow path. That peculiar long slanting light fell over everything, licking the fields, the crops, the top of the barn.

  It had been about this time of year, too, when the feast was served. The twilights were long, and there had been torches all along the path to the barn—which was not a barn, for that day, but a fairy-tale palace. Silks had covered its wattle walls; flowers, in ropes, had hung from its roof; and inside, an oaken floor had been laid down, and long tables covered with linen had been set in gold and silver for the feast.

  I looked inside now, and saw it as it was: an earth floor, poor lighting, the smell of animals. The magic was gone, passed on, to some other place and persons.

  I sat against the wall, on a little bench there, and rested. The walk had tired me. Sweat was seeping from every seam of my clothing. What had I hoped to achieve by coming here? To assure myself that the transfigured moment had gone? To lay ghosts to rest? To partake of a sacrament of sorts?

  Whatever I had wished for, the reality quashed it. This was nothing but an old barn, and a barrier of time separated me from the thing I wished to hold once again. There was no o’erleaping that fixed barrier, even with the pole-vault of imagination and longing.

  I was as I was. Now, this moment. A dreary thought, a diminishing thought. And yet, strangely, a freeing thought. I was as I was. Now, this moment. All that I was, had been, would be, were here with me now.

  I was startled to hear voices. How dare anyone intrude upon my private devotions? For devotions they were, worship of private gods and celebration of private rites.

  “This is the great barn of Wolf Hall,” Kate’s clear voice was saying. “It was built”—a pause while she fumbled with a paper—“in 1452, by your mother’s great-grandfather. Your mother had her betrothal feast here.”

  “In a barn?” Edward’s voice. It was whiny and disrespectful.

  “Aye. It can accommodate many. What a marvellous barn!”

  She appeared in the very midst of it and held up her arms. “How fortunate that it was built so grand!”

  “A barn,” repeated Edward.

  “An enchanted barn,” I said, stepping forth. I would eavesdrop no longer.

  They both paled, and looked less than pleased to have me join them so unexpectedly.

  “I came here to relive my dear wife’s betrothal feast. Edward, a barn is nothing to be ashamed of.”

  I turned toward Kate. I was more touched than I would show that she had brought him here, to teach him of his mother’s past. “It is kind of you to instruct him in his personal history as well as in Roman history,” I said.

  She was silent, only inclining her head.

  “Yes, Edward, your mother had her betrothal feast here. And it was a soft May night, and all the neighbours and gentry nearby came to fête her,” I said.

  He was uninterested. Now, this moment. All was here. He cared not at all. An old barn was an old barn, not a magic place where past and present met.

  “I wish I could have known her,” he finally said.

  Only in Holbein’s painting, I thought. Only there can you and she know one another.

  He went and leapt on the piles of last harvest’s hay, mounded at the far end of the barn. I felt suddenly old and ill, and I knew not why. When we suffer, Christ is speaking to us. But what does He say? I heard nothing. At this time of my life, I should be able to make a summation, but I could not. In many ways I seemed the same as I had been as a lad. I was young and ignorant, in an old and sick body.

  Kate stood beside me as Edward sported in the hay. She smiled.

  “He honours his mother in his own way,” she said. “I think it is important to him that he has come here and seen the Seymour home and lands. He must know he is a Seymour as well as a Tudor.”

  “It is on such families that England’s greatness rests. The Seymours, the Dennys, the Parrs—those are the true strength of England.” I looked at her. “Yes, the Parrs have served England well, and when I speak of ‘true Englishmen,’ it is the Parrs I mean. Without the ‘true Parrs,’ there would be no England.”

  She started to demur, but something would not let her. “Aye,” she said. “We are proud to be English.”

  Mere English. Elizabeth had always used that phrase. She exulted in her English-ness, her pure English pedigree. I must write to Elizabeth. I had presumed Hatfield safe, but perhaps she should join us here. I would not lose her. I would not lose her . . . for I loved her, the saucy rebel. . . .

  My thoughts were wandering. I brought them to heel. Kate was waiting.

  “That is the source of England’s greatness. The pride of her families,” I said.

  I was tired. I longed for bed. I dreaded the long walk back. I wished I had a litter. At the same time I dreaded the empty chamber. If only I had a companion.

  Will was a companion.

  Yes, but . . . Will was a man.

  I longed for a wife.

  The admission was so shocking to me that I shook my head.

  A wife.

  There would be no more wives, I reminded myself.

  A companion, then. A woman companion. Not a wife in the old, ordinary sense.

  A monastic marriage?

  Yes, why not? You are the King, you can arrange anything.

  Someone to read with me, to keep me company, to distract me when the pain is bad.

  Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.

  Rubies. I glanced at Kate Parr’s hand. Yes, she wore it: the ruby ring I had given her for that shameful Valentine’s Day.

  “Kate,” I said. “Will you be my wife?”

  She turned to me, her face masked. Then her mouth twitched and wavered. “Your Grace,” she finally said, “it were better to—to be your mistress!”

  “Mistress?” I spat. I wanted no mistresses, no fleshly sport, but twining of the spirit. The thought of woman-parts disgusted me. The corruption, the secretions, the addiction. No. Not that. “Think you I wish what a mistress can offer me? Nay, Madam, then you do not know me!” I flung out my arm, gesturing toward the vast reaches of the shadowy barn. “Think you I
came here because I wished to relive the greasy pleasures of a mistress? Do you credit me with no higher love?” Why do we never credit anyone but ourselves with a soul?

  “Forgive me,” she finally replied. “I meant no disrespect. But I know—I have been told—that normal marriages include this . . . this element. My husbands were old, and I am ignorant of this. I would . . . learn. But at present I know not, truly, what it is to be woman.”

  “All that is beautiful and healthful in woman, you are already,” I said. “The other—oh, remain innocent of it, my Kate! It is naught!”

  “How can it be naught, when even the Scriptures themselves celebrate it? ‘Thou hast ravished my heart. Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners. How fair and pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave.’

  “I have—never felt this,” she said.

  O fortunate woman! To have been spared this punishment!

  “You are a maiden twice widowed,” I said. “And shall remain a maiden with me. O Kate, I need your humanness, not your woman-parts. I need what you, Kate, are.”

  “And what is that?” Her voice was strangely sad.

  “A good Christian lady.”

  “Aye.” Why did she sound disappointed at this high compliment?

  “Be my Queen. Should not England’s Queen be a good Christian lady?”

  “Aye”.

  “Do you this from patriotic duty, or for . . . personal reasons?”

  “Personal reasons,” she said. “I am not so patriotic.”

  Then she cared for me? My heart leapt, strangely.

  “I will be good to you, Kate,” I promised. “I will be kind, and gentle, and good.”