CXXIII
Kate adopted her position as Queen so naturally, easily, and subtly that she made it appear easy to assume the mantle of royalty. She kept her gentlewoman’s ways, continuing to correspond with friends and relations in her usual manner, asking them to respond “as friendly as if God had not called me to this honour.” She signed herself “Katherine the Queen, K.P.” to remind herself—and others—that she was the selfsame Kate Parr she had ever been.
On the other hand, as Queen, she made use of her prerogatives to appoint family and friends to positions at court. Although the number of such positions was greater than the Boleyns or the Seymours had ever filled, I did not find this a threat, for the Parrs were, without exception, such an able and honourable tribe that they became their titles and honours well. There was never a question of loyalty or self-seeking. Kate’s brother, William, became Warden of the Marches near the Border; her sister, Anne, became a lady of the royal bedchamber; her stepdaughter, Margaret Neville, was a maid of honour, along with a cousin, Lady Lane.
Kate herself indulged her personal preferences in only two ways, one harmless, one not so harmless. She insisted that fresh flowers must be within her sight at all times, and so her apartments were filled with them; she even hired the old gardener to grow early-spring and late-autumn varieties in his cottage, so that she should have flowers from early February through late November.
The other thing she wanted to bloom was “free discussion” in the “sight of the Lord.” What that meant was that she slowly built up a religious salon. The slowness of the process appeared to me to contain its own checks and safeguards. Only members of court or their immediate families would be allowed to attend, and that by invitation only. No outlawed texts would be permitted, but only authorized Scriptural translations and my own King’s Primer. The intent was to deepen their own understanding of God’s Word and their commitment to Christ.
Sometimes I felt that Kate had taken Christ as her true bridegroom. But no matter, no matter . . . she was everything I had wished for as a companion and helpmate, and devoted stepmother to my children. What more could I ask?
My mind was ever now at war. Domestic problems did not concern me, except insofar as they impinged upon our ability to eliminate the French menace once and for all.
Yes, here I must set it down; meet it is that I set it down. I had become convinced that my mission was to eliminate France—and her toadying, back-stabbing ally, Scotland—as a threat to England. Then I could die happy.
Then I could die happy . . . always a silly phrase, I had thought, something one said in jest. After eating a large bowl of exquisitely ripe cherries: “Now I can die happy.” To expire after a surfeit of pleasure, to extend the ecstasy into eternity . . .
A neutered France (and a harmless Scotland, its teeth drawn) was within my capability. Knowing that, it was my duty as a King and a father to pursue it.
Charles and I bickered over the armies, the routes, and our objectives, just as I had done with his father and grandfather thirty years earlier. This time, however, there was this difference: I knew what I intended to do, and no one could dissuade me from it. I would capture as much of the northern part of France as possible. Normandy and Picardy, those provinces directly across the Channel from England, were my target. Let Charles talk about Paris. If there were time and material remaining after my primary goal, then I would be pleased to push on to Paris. Why not?
My plans were to send an army of forty thousand to France. Simple to say; difficult to do.
Armies need generals to lead them. My two ablest generals, the Duke of Norfolk and Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, were old. The younger soldiers—Dudley, Howard, the Seymours—were as yet untried and untested in a major campaign. They did well enough with skirmishes and raids on the Scottish Border, but prolonged war with France was another matter. They must earn their experience in France.
Wars cost money. I had little. The monastic properties had not been the great enrichment I had foreseen. I had let them go too cheaply, eager to buy courtiers’ goodwill and glue them into loyalty to my regime. It had worked: England would never return to Rome or to the overlordship of great families that my father had had to contend with. It had cost a great deal, but it was worth it. I had bought stability and peace at home. As a result, however, I would have to raise money directly from the people. Or else debase the coinage. Or both.
There was also the problem of my person. My physicians—Dr. Butts in particular—had advised me against going.
“I would not go so far as to forbid you,” he said. “But your corpulence alone would make it difficult to sit a horse for any length of time.”
“For me, or for the horse?” I scoffed. “If it is the horse you are concerned about, I have already had a great courser specially selected, capable of bearing the weight of three bulls. Three armoured bulls.”
He did not smile. My little joke did not amuse him. “Horses can be replaced. Kings cannot. I truly believe—and you may ponder this as you will—that by going to war, by taking the field in person, you will without question shorten your life.”
The words were too close, too immediate. Could he, then, foresee the end of my life from his vantage point? Was it truly so visible?
“Action rejuvenates me,” I said stiffly. “I have been too long indoors, concerned with paper matters. Nothing to stir the heart, except in anguish. No honest physical exertion, which is clean and friendly to the body.” He had a sceptical look on his face. “Friendly. I insist that it is friendly,” I said. “War, that is.”
“There is nothing friendly to your body now, Your Majesty,” he said.
He knew nothing. Fool of a physician! Action cured me, quiet rotted me.
Charles, too, joined in the harassment. When he heard of my intention to lead my troops in person, he became alarmed and tried to dissuade me. He appealed to my sense of safety, and my age: two things guaranteed to infuriate me. I had never sought safety when honour was at stake, and scorned those who did. As for my age: I was but eight years older than Charles himself.
Meanwhile, the preparations went forward. As soon as the Channel cleared and it was safe to sail, we would launch our army. All through the winter I was in a fever of preparation. I scarcely noticed Christmas, and so Kate was free to observe it as she preferred: as the birthday of Christ, not as a great public festivity. She and her circle of fellow devotees prayed and kept a vigil. I drew up lists of ordnance and checked the refitting of my warships Mary Rose, Great Harry, and Matthew Gonnson. We kept Christmas in our own ways, and praised God according to our own gifts.
Lent came, and Ash Wednesday meant that Easter was only forty days away. And after Easter, as soon as the prevailing winds from the Channel changed direction, it would begin.
At last it was come, the moment I had awaited without even being aware of it, all those years when I had wasted my substance on petty things: War! War! Glory! All else led to this. I had begun with war; what more could I ask but to end with it, to complete what I had left behind on the battlefield? The old man would retrieve the muddied standard the young one had dropped, under the restraining hands of Wolsey, Ferdinand, and Maximilian.
Charles had fought Francis in a desultory fashion for a season already. Nothing had been gained. I would not be so haphazard. Nay, I had targeted my initial goal: Boulogne, that city in Picardy, and a neighbour to Calais. Often I had seen it from Dover, or from Hastings, as I stood upon the beach. It glimmered and shone across the Channel, mocking me, saying, I am as close as Calais. It looked like a cloudbank, but it was a tough little walled city, daring me. If I captured Boulogne, I could unite it with Calais, make an English strip along the French coast. . . .
Kate was to be Queen-Regent. I had observed her over these months, and she was so trustworthy and competent there was no other logical choice for authority in my absence. The only possible source of trouble for her lay in Scotland. If they made a menace with all my warriors away, Kate would
not have at her disposal a general-at-large, as Katherine had had in 1513, with Norfolk and Flodden Field. But Scotland had no King now, only an infant girl as ruler. Nay, there would be no war.
It was May, and I stood on the sands of Dover. Anchored nearby was my flagship, Great Harry, which I would board shortly. Already Norfolk and Suffolk had crossed the Channel with the main armies, and they were encamped and awaiting me, the supreme commander.
Kate and I faced one another, and her face was serious; beneath the shadows of her headdress I could see her frown.
“God be with you, Your Majesty,” she said. “May He grant you victory.”
She sounded like an archbishop.
“May He grant you peace,” I said, taking her chin in my hand. Her face was very close to mine. I could see the tiny beads of sweat across her forehead. I wanted to kiss her. I did not dare.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said, and in moving her mouth, she removed her face from my touch. “I wish you . . . to wear this,” she said, putting a ring on my little finger. “And think of me whenever you do see it.”
I looked down at it. It was a pretty little jasper ring, from her own hand. It was the first thing of a personal nature she had given me.
CXXIV
We fought well, and Boulogne was taken by siege in a relatively short time. We captured it alone, as Charles was uninterested in it. He had his needs; I had mine. As a youth I would have been unable to accept that, and would have spent fruitless days in trying first to persuade him, then to co-ordinate our armies. This was so much simpler.
I had split the English forces—a total of forty-two thousand men, the largest English invasion ever sent against the Continent—in two, placing half under Norfolk’s command to besiege Montreuil, an important city near Calais, while I commanded the other half, directing the siege against Boulogne. I set up camp to the north of the town, by the sea. When I arose in the morning and looked out from my tent, I saw the raw, sparkling sea on one side and the falsely secure walls of Boulogne on the other. I smelt camp-food cooking, a thousand little tails of smoke, each signifying a cook and his skillet.
This time I was living simply. No special bed, no wardrobe-master, no gold plate, as I had required in my youthful campaign. Then I had thought that majesty needed trappings, that a King was not a Ring unless he appeared always in the proper raiment and slept in a kingly bed. Now I knew I was King even on the meanest cot, and I wished to sleep that way, so that I might experience what ordinary men did.
In my camp-tent I had the following: a cot, a bed-roll, a trunk, a collapsible table, a lantern. I was shorn of all my usual habiliments and felt like a child again, an honest, unencumbered child.
Arising in the morning was so simple. You opened your eyes, got out of bed, and pulled garments from the trunk—or put on yesterday’s, draped over the trunk. You relieved yourself (behind the tent, in a trench), then walked over to the cooking area for your group of tents. A mess of dried beef, old bread, and beer were awaiting you. If neighbourhood raids had been successful in the night, then there would be eggs and chicken. The sun warmed your shoulders, and you felt glad. Or the wind whipped off the Channel, and you pulled a woollen shirt over your head and rejoiced in every fibre of that wool.
This stripped-down, simplified life was magically invigorating. It both freed my thoughts and intensified them. I directed the siege, supervising every aspect: where to position the guns, how much powder to give each bombard, which angle would result in the best hit. The walls held fast for a long time, and we were unable to damage them. Then we scored a direct hit on a weak spot and made a large breach. As the stones flew upward and debris rained down on us, I knew Boulogne was ours.
Three days later the city surrendered, and I entered it in triumph.
They shouted at me, waved branches, called me Alexander. Thirty years ago I had believed it—for they had shouted the same things at Tournai. Now I recognized the title for what it was: the tired old phrase used ritually for any conqueror. Charles had been called Alexander, and Francis, too. Everyone had been called Alexander. Yet I smiled and waved, as if I believed them. And perhaps for one instant I did. But only for one instant.
Boulogne was an ugly city. “Ungracious doghole,” a member of the Privy Council later called it, and certainly it was much more appealing from without its walls than within. Within, it was the usual French mess of haphazard streets, dirt, and disorder, all suffused with what they mistakenly called “charm.” Well, under English command it would straighten itself out. The bombardment had reduced large parts of it to rubble, so that rebuilding would be necessary. I would see to it that it was rebuilt in proper Anglican, not Gallic, fashion.
I remained in Boulogne a dozen days, tasting my triumph. Then, suddenly, the devils came back. I began to be afflicted as I had been at the St. Valentine’s Day banquet. I saw red in people’s eyes. Not all people’s, just some people’s. And again the most cursed part of the visitation was that I could not always remember what I had done, said, signed.
I hated it. Why had this come upon me now, here? I had thought it a temporary manifestation of sorrow after . . . I will not write her name. But now, in the clear skies of France, when I was content as I had seldom been . . .
Kate wrote sweet letters:
Although the discourse of time and account of days neither is long nor many of your Majesty’s absence, yet want of your presence, so much beloved and desired of me, maketh me that I cannot quietly pleasure in any thing until I hear from your Majesty. The time therefore seemeth to me very long with a great desire to know how your Highness hath done since your departing hence; whose prosperity and health I prefer and desire more than mine own. And whereas I know your Majesty’s absence as never without great respect of things most convenient and necessary, yet love and affection compelleth me to desire your presence.
And again, on the other hand, the same zeal and love forceth me also to be best content with that which is your will and pleasure. And thus love maketh me in all things to set apart mine own commodity and pleasure, and to embrace most joyfully his will and pleasure whom I love. God, the knower of secrets, can judge these words not to be only written with ink, but most truly impressed in the heart.
Lest I should be too tedious unto Your Majesty, I finish this my scribbled letter, committing you into the governance of the Lord, with long life and prosperous felicity here, and after this life to enjoy the kingdom of His elect.
From Greenwich.
By Your Majesty’s humble, obedient, loving wife and servant,
Katherine the Queen, K.P.
I was blessed in having such a wife. But she must not know I had been revisited by those demons she once had helped lay to rest. No, no . . .
Whilst I kept residence at Boulogne, alternately happier than I had ever been and more miserable, I received a blow that pushed me over into misery’s camp. Charles had made a secret peace with Francis, at Crépy, even whilst I was besieging Boulogne. He had disengaged himself from the war and was now, if not my enemy, certainly not my ally. I could expect no help from him. I stood alone against France, Scotland, and even the Turk.
There would be no further aggression in France. Sick at heart, I must return to England and prepare to defend us against possible invasion. I left Brandon in charge and ordered him to hold Boulogne through the winter. I had no intention of surrendering Boulogne, because with it I had doubled the size of the Calais pale.
Kate was overjoyed to see me, and be relieved of the burden of Regent-ship. She had borne it well, but for shoulders unused to the mantle of sovereignty, it weighed heavily. I did not gallop joyously to lay the keys to the city of Bolougne at her feet, as I had those of Tournai at the Princess of Aragon’s. Instead I merely showed them to her and said, “This was a good siege campaign, even though the rest was a muddle, and riddled through with betrayal.”
“Charles has not behaved honourably,” she said. She always said less than she thought. A tactful woman. “Be
fore your arrival, this reached me.” She handed me a parchment, heavily studded with French seals.
Francis wished to send his ambassadors to discuss peace, as soon as possible.
“Rather to discuss the return of Boulogne,” I snorted. “That I shall never do.”
“Naturally not. But discussions will serve to make the time serve you.”
I smiled. A politic woman. The Lady of Aragon would have talked only of honour. I looked at her hands, grasping other papers she wished me to see. They looked like talons. The fingers were long and bony, ending in curving claws. Some talons wore rings. Mary’s little ruby ring was there, but the stone was replaced by a great globule of blood, swelling and about to drop from where it trembled and quivered. . . .
“My Lord, you need to rest. You must be exhausted from your journey. Tell me, the crossing . . . how was it? I have never been upon water. . . .” Deftly she led me by the hand, toward my withdrawing chamber. Her talons rested lightly on my sleeve. I hoped the claws would not damage the material.
I awoke in the late twilight. I had lain down completely dressed, even to my shoes, stretched out on my back. I felt fine, rested, even blissful. I must have been exhausted, I could see that now. That was what Dr. Butts had been concerned about, the sapping of my energy. Yet so enticingly was it sapped, with the excitements of war, I had been unaware of the toll it was taking on me. Now I would rest, and there would be no visitations from my demons.
Boulogne was a prize well worth an hallucination or two. The phantoms would fade, but Boulogne would remain.
The French ambassadors came straightway. I allowed them my gracious permission to cross the Channel in safe conduct, to receive them and hear their proposals. From the start it was hopeless, as my terms—that I keep Boulogne, and that the French cease their provocations in Scotland—were impossible for Francis to accede to. The envoys promptly retreated, and by late October they had made the hazardous Channel crossing and returned to Paris, where Francis intended to spend the winter in cosy ensconcement with his mistress Anne, Duchesse d’Estampes. So much for the French.
The Autobiography Of Henry VIII Page 109