The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  She bowed her head in acquiescence. “Yes, Your Majesty,” she said.

  Will was alone in our quarters, Dr. Butts having gone to the meadows to gather such difficult-to-find herbs as stonecrop, mugwort, and all-heal, which he had delightedly spotted on one of his rambles. Will was sitting in the window-seat, his head black and featureless against the soft yellow of the midsummer fields. He was slumped a little, as if exhausted. Was he, then, truly growing old, as he had mentioned more than once?

  “Will,” I said, upon the instant I saw him. “Will, I must tell you . . . it is the most marvellous thing . . . I know not how to explain it. . . .”

  Wearily he moved his body and turned round toward me. Now he was a black mountain, blotting out the light.

  “Will, I am . . . to be married,” I said in wonder.

  “Christ, no!”

  He leapt from his seat, and light came back into the room.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “No,” he repeated. “It matters not who she is, only you must not wed again.” He was standing next to me now. “You swore—”

  “And I meant it. But this will be different.”

  “No! That is what you have said each time. And aye, they were different, because the ladies themselves were different. O Hal, those who say a much-married man in reality just marries the same woman repeatedly, have never studied you. If you had laboured to do so, you could not have found five women as different as your past wives, and—”

  Five? Had there truly been five? “Nay, they were not all true wives!” I protested.

  “You went through a marriage ceremony with each of them, Your Grace. Each lady could, for one day at least, call herself a bride, and rejoice.”

  “It is no matter, God did not rejoice with them.”

  “He will not rejoice at this!”

  “So! Now you claim to know God’s will, and God’s desires! Well, I have trafficked with God, struggled with Him, consorted with Him, rebelled against Him, and studied Him, more than any man on earth! And I can tell you this—His ways are mysterious, and no one can read Him. We can only do, at any given moment, what our limited little consciences tell us to do, and know that that, somehow, fits into the divine mosaic. And I, Henry Tudor, will marry again!

  “So Kate is to be Queen,” he said softly. “The prophecy is come true. Her ambition is rewarded.”

  “What prophecy?”

  “One she made herself, according to her brother William. It seems, as a child, she did not take easily to her duties of spinning and weaving. She told her mother that ‘these hands are destined for orbs and sceptres, not distaffs and spindles.’ ”

  Perhaps what starts out as a retort, a dream, turns into a drive, takes on a reality of its own. Is that not another cousin to destiny?

  “Everyone dreams of becoming royal, even the maids and chimneysweeps. ’Tis a common fantasy,” was my answer.

  “When is it to be?” Will indeed sounded tired, whereas I was filled with energy.

  “When the plague abates and we return to London,” I said. “No, I shall not find a lone country priest and go secretly to him . . . although it would be romantic,” I added. A small parish church . . . nuptials in the early summer morning, a walk through the fields, picking wildflowers. . . . “But it is important that this be no hole-and-corner affair. Gardiner or Cranmer must officiate. Pray God they are safe. I have not had word in five days from those in Suffolk. Edward Seymour and Paget, they are well in Gloucestireshire, as of two days ago. . . . Nay, I want them all present.”

  But the cool secret chapel, the procession through the fields . . . forbidden to me, no need to dwell on it.

  “Well, I wish you joy,” Will said. “You have had little enough in your weddings.”

  CXXI

  The table was laid in the courtyard, the long wooden one about which we gathered every noon, set up under the spreading hazel tree, as there was no shade from the long wings of the house at this time of day. Jugs of wine were set out on the table, and bunches of flowers, freshly gathered by Dr. Butts, Edward, and Kate.

  We all seated ourselves and waited for the cooks to bring out today’s fare. I would make the announcement in a moment.

  I looked at Kate, seated as always next to Edward. I tried to catch her gaze, but she did not look at me. Rather she looked only at Edward.

  The cooks brought out the first course, spring lamb and larks, prepared with scallions and chervil.

  After everyone’s plate was filled, I took the jug of red wine, thin and sour, but sweetened with honey, and filled my cup. “Fill yours, all,” I ordered. When that was done, I took a sip and then raised my cup. “I wish to share with you my great joy this day. England is to have a Queen, and I a wife.” I looked at Kate, inclined my head toward her.

  Look at me, woman! I ordered her silently, as she continued to study her plate.

  “It is our sweet, kind Lady Latimer who will become my wife, and your Queen.”

  Still she kept her eyes down.

  “A modest Queen!” I jested, reaching my cup over to her and touching her vessel with mine. The clunk made her look up.

  The company broke into smiles. Kate smiled too, shyly.

  “The King has honoured me greatly,” she said softly. “I pray that I may ever be a good, kind, loyal, and true wife to His Majesty.”

  “Nay, you make it sound like a funeral, Lady Latimer,” said Tom Seymour. He was sitting at the foot of the table, his accustomed place. He grinned, his elbows on the table, the great sleeves of his white linen shirt billowing out like sails. “Marriage is not decorum, but bliss and abandon and bed-sport.” He tasted his wine.

  “I wonder that you can speak so,” my Kate replied, “as you are a bachelor. You have no knowledge of marriage.”

  “Nor have you, my Lady; that is, of the side of marriage that belongs to impetuous youth. Alas”—he looked round—“I shall never experience it myself, as I am well past that prime. But the poets do say that it is extraordinary!”

  “Mark Antony was forty-eight when he loved Cleopatra,” Will said. “And poets make much of their love.”

  “Shall we debate love this afternoon, then?” asked Dr. Butts.

  “No, let us celebrate it,” said Will. “For love is a matter of the will as well as of the heart, and can flourish best, perhaps, when the two are combined.”

  We all drank, and then I reached out and took Kate’s hand. She looked at me, and I could not read her face at all.

  Edward was the only one at the table who truly rejoiced with me, for he loved Kate, and had no mother. It was all gain to him, as it was to me.

  Later that day, Kate came to me. “We must write to Mary and Elizabeth,” she said. “For they must not hear of this through gossip or third parties.”

  “Aye.” I had not heard of how Hatfield House had fared, and I was astonishingly worried about Elizabeth. “I will write my own letters, and you yours, and we combine them in a single envelope.”

  Correspondence was moving a bit more freely now; reports were that the number of plague victims was slackening in Kent and Sussex, the southernmost and hardest-hit counties. But deaths were climbing in Worcestershire, Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire, the middle counties. The plague travelled about my realm, making a progress all its own, holding its own audiences and demanding its own obeisance.

  That evening I wrote to Elizabeth, inquiring after her health and that of the countryside surrounding Hatfield House. I also told her of my plans to wed, and that I wished her to be present for the ceremony, which would be held as soon as it was healthy for everyone to return to London.

  Within the week I had her reply, very prettily worded and yet acknowledging no rift between us, or offering apology for the same. She wrote that Hatfield House, and the immediate neighbourhood, had as yet suffered no attacks of plague, but there had been reports—possibly unreliable—of St. Alban’s and Dunstable having been stricken. As for the wedding, and my bride, she would welcome the clo
ser ties with Lady Latimer, whom she greatly esteemed.

  Mary, who was at Woodstock, wrote in a stiff manner that she would be pleased to attend the Nuptial Mass, and wished me joy.

  In the meantime we whiled away our time at Wolf Hall; and although the June days were pleasant, I was growing increasingly anxious to resume normal life.

  For the country was boring, although we delighted in its scents and flowers and sunlight. It is ever a paradox that city-dwellers long for the country, build summer houses there, dream of it in winter—and yet find it stultifying and its native people dull within a very short time.

  Tom Seymour was so restless I was tempted to tell him to take his chances and return to London, or even voyage to France to assess the political climate there. From the information that managed to reach me here, Francis, although grieving for his favourite son, was bellicose as ever, and he and Charles were already making sporadic war along their borders. And this while I had to sit and wait for the plague to abate!

  Will grew morose; the country did not suit him. He was a city-dweller and had little use for walks in meadows and long afternoons spent napping or reading Homer.

  WILL:

  ’Tis true I am a city-dweller, but my moroseness arose from my utter inability to do anything to prevent the King from venturing once more into something that boded ill for him. Another marriage! Cared he not that thereby he would be sniggered at not only throughout England, but in Europe as well? What need had he of marriage?

  And the war with France! As a youngling, with his vainglorious advisor Wolsey, he had tried that, and found it expensive and wasteful and inconclusive. Had he not learned?

  It is hard to see a person whom one loves going down a wrong path, a path that will only bring him grief. What is love’s duty? To block the path and prevent the damage? Or to stand aside and respect his right to make errors and be responsible for them? When the loved one is a King, the former choice is not even allowable. Hence my misery.

  HENRY VIII:

  Edward and I grew used to one another. We went fishing together; we hunted and built cookfires together; and soon we knew each other’s personal quirks. That he grew cross if he were too long in the sun; that he enjoyed dreaming while fishing, and resented the bite of a fish as an interruption; that he tired quickly and had little stamina. This I hoped to correct by including more physical things in his daily life; for it is not good for a King to be so short of vigour.

  In turn he learned that I had great difficulty mounting and dismounting, as I had grown so corpulent, and also because my weak leg was of little help to me these days. He saw that I preferred cheese that was hard and tawny to that which was softer and white. He knew that I sunburned easily, and so he took it upon himself to watch my face for redness and then order me out of the sun. From such intimacies grow affection and understanding and subtle ties; and so I was grateful to the plague for giving us this opportunity to come to know one another.

  The same applied to Kate. I saw her in the humble circumstances of life, saw how she always was cheerful and calm. I saw, too, how she never emerged from her chamber until an hour past when I saw her first opening the casements. She kept her devotions then, and would not venture forth to speak with men until she had first spoken with God. At night, too, I saw the light burning for some time. Did she keep a private Compline? There were no traditional Holy Offices at that time. She made her own.

  One particularly fine day, Dr. Butts announced that he had seen strawberries in the fields near the Savernake Forest, and they were ripe and ready for picking. We made up a party and set out to gather them. Kate and I took one field, discreetly left alone by the others.

  “Ah, Kate,” I said, “they leave us alone to do as lovers do.” It seemed humourous, as we did not do what lovers do. I patted my basket. “How we shall disappoint them when we return with our baskets overflowing!”

  She turned and gave me a smile, but a sad one. As if to say, What a pity. All about us nature was rampantly growing, reproducing, making an abundance of new green stalks, weeds, creepers, and climbers. And here we were in their midst, sterile and restricted.

  But it was my time of life. I was autumn now, late autumn. In autumn all these fields and forests would be like me, we would be at one in our cycle. Now November passing through June fields was an outrage, an insult; then we would blend together and I would belong, where today I was but a visitor, a foreigner.

  We found the strawberries, mixed in with weeds and self-sown rye. Picking them out was a job, a job I disliked. Bending over was so difficult for me that I was forced to kneel down; but that was also difficult, because the pressure on my weak leg caused it to start throbbing. Disturbing it in any way meant possibly causing it to revert to its festering stage. At length I devised a sort of half-kneeling position to use.

  We picked, silently. In truth I had no extra strength to carry on a conversation while bent down in an uncomfortable position. The sun on my hat was rapidly making me overheat, but—last vestige of vanity!—I could never remove it and reveal my baldness.

  Sweat began popping out all over my face; then gathered in little streams, running down the troughs and wrinkles of my skin. The red strawberries gleamed and shimmered before my eyes, pulsating like stars. Then everything swirled, and I fell into the patch of meadow, face downward. I felt a strawberry crush against my cheek, and its sweet yielded juice was overwhelming in my nostrils.

  I looked up at Kate’s face. I was lying on my back in her lap, and she was fanning me with my hat. My hat . . . then she had seen my baldness! Oh, the shame of it!

  “The sun made me grow dizzy,” I murmured. I was so humiliated, so mortified, that I hated her for seeing this. I would never marry her now, I could not have a wife who looked down upon my weakness, who considered herself superior to me. My legs were forked out. I lay like a helpless frog in her sight.

  I sat up, retrieved the hat, clapped it on my head. I must leave this site, her presence, her shaming presence. I struggled to my feet, pushing away her “helping” hands. Her mocking hands, more like!

  “Edward does the same,” she said, in a natural voice. “He overheats in direct sunlight. It must be the Tudor complexion, for I believe Elizabeth avoids the sun for that reason. Although her white skin is her pride, I know.”

  I felt a rush of relief. My pride had been spared. But no, this would not do. “Kate,” I said, “you have seen, now, what I would have kept from you at all costs. I am not what I was. The truth is, the sun has never bothered me before. The truth is, I have many infirmities. My leg periodically goes on a rampage, crippling me. I have had trouble, of late, with my bladder . . . and with raging headaches that leave me spent and weak. And with sick fancies, with shapes that come and talk to me, that stand in corners and run down corridors, shrieking. I am an old, sick man.” There, I had said it. Now I would dismiss her, release her from the betrothal, on the understanding that she tell no one what she had witnessed that day.

  “Yes. I know.” It was a statement, not an apology. “I did not agree to marry you in ignorance of this, Your Grace.”

  “Then you are doing it from pity?” Of all things, it was pity I could not tolerate, pity that demeaned me more than any other emotion. Pity was the ultimate insult. One who pitied always looked down from superior heights upon the pitiable one. Sympathy came down from its heights to share with you, but Pity sat and looked scornfully below. Pity was useless without action; a vile, contaminated thing. Nay, I would have none of it. I’d gouge the eyes and cut the face of anyone regarding me with pity.

  “No, Your Grace.”

  Liar! “What, then?”

  “From—from affection,” she said. “Affection and friendship—those are the two loves that care nothing for physical infirmity, to whom the physical being is unimportant. Eros is what is concerned with bodies; although even Eros is a love of sorts, for it wishes to possess the soul as well as the body. Lust is the only attraction that cares exclusively for bodies.”
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  I grunted. “Affection. Can affection move one toward marriage?” I thought affection a weak thing, a watered-down version of Eros or friendship, not something in its own right.

  “The Greeks called it Storge,” she said. “It is a special family sort of love, in its original meaning. It is a warm comfortableness, a satisfaction in being together. It is the humblest of loves; it gives itself no airs. It is responsible for most of the solid and durable happiness in our lives. Is it not a worthy reason to consider marriage?”

  Her quick, well-thought-out answer surprised me. This was something she had long since settled in her own mind.

  “So you feel affection toward me, Kate?”

  “I have felt so for a long time. Else I would not—could not—have consented to be your wife.”

  “But if I had ordered you, sweet Kate?” A feeling of great fondness and caring and well-being was coming upon me.

  “Affection does not order,” she said, with a smile.

  We finished gathering the strawberries, chattering happily about the philosophical differences among Storge, Philia, Amicitia, Eros, and Caritas, and returned to Wolf Hall for dinner, feeling married already. Or rather, as married people should feel toward one another, although my other marriages had been woefully lacking in such a bond. Excepting my marriage to Jane, of course. Always excepting Jane . . .

  CXXII

  My messengers were able to come and go more often now, and that alone showed that conditions, at least in the South of England, were improving. The number of plague victims in London decreased abruptly around Midsummer’s Eve, and common people attributed it to the magic of the longest day of the year. The scientists and physicians ascribed it to some mysterious effect of the sun’s rays upon the disease. Whatever it was, the plague loosened its stranglehold upon London and let the city breathe again.