The Autobiography Of Henry VIII

by Margaret George

  The beast was eight feet long, and all black. Its tail was snakelike, its eyes red, and its fangs glistened and flashed. Within its eye was no recognition of Man, except as an enemy.

  The priest, upon seeing how aggressive it was, refusing to be driven off by natural human activities, fled.

  “The Hound of Hell!” he cried, rousing everyone nearby. “The Hound of Hell has come into our chapel, it paces around the King—”

  Armed, the men he roused went out to confront the hound. They carried torches and swords. But the beast, snarling and vicious, crouched beneath the coffin and could in no way be driven off. Its muzzle was red with blood.

  “We must wait until dawn,” the priest finally said. “This chapel has a large eastern window. The light will drive him off. If he is spectral—”

  “But why is he here at all? We have no dog that visits us!” asked one of the caretakers of the Abbey grounds. “Never, in the history of Syon—”

  “He’s here because of the King,” said one of his fellows, boldly. “And because of the King’s executed Queen. Remember how she wept and grieved?”

  “No, it’s to fulfil the Scriptural prophecy, the one about King Ahab. A friar said our King would meet the same fate. He preached it to his face. When he wished to marry the Boleyn woman. The Scripture was:

  “ ‘And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.

  “ ‘And the battle increased that day; and the King was stayed up in his chariot against the Syrians, and died at even: and the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the chariot.

  “ ‘And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked up his blood.’ ”

  Protestants always knew Scripture by heart, and quoted it smugly.

  “But this was Queen Catherine Howard,” one realist pointed out. “Perhaps she cursed him.”

  Now you have it, my lad. Now you have it. So evil and hatred can survive the dissolution of the body . . . unlike love and devotion. Love is stronger than death. No, hatred is.

  “We must wait until light.”

  In the full light of morning, workmen entered the chapel to re-solder the split coffin. The dog was still there, crouching under the hearse. The plumbers and solderers had trouble driving him off, but by thrusting hot pokers at him, they were able to get him to quit the den he had made under the hangings of the hearse. Once out from under it, he bounded away and seemed to disappear. He did not use any of the church doors to make good his escape.

  Peering under the hearse, the workmen saw that it, and the coffin inside it, were cracked. A fluid, thick and repulsive, was oozing down and dripping slowly on the floor. They thought that it was not blood, but corpse-fluids, mixed with embalming fluids and spices. The jouncing and jostling of the funeral hearse over the rough roads had loosened the fastenings and allowed this hideous episode to occur. They worked quickly to patch it up, and then, in the light of day, transport the coffin to its final resting place.

  By ten in the forenoon, the funeral cortège was on the road, leaving the fouled stones of Syon Chapel to be cleansed.

  The people were thicker now; more lined the road as we approached Windsor. But I could not leave the ugly taste of Syon behind, and the malevolence of Catherine, and the eternity of our past deeds. Nothing is ever gone, it seems, and the past does not wash clean like paving stones. Only the good disappears. I have smelt the potpourris made of last summer’s roses, and they are stale and faint. Good evaporates; evil remains and incubates.

  The interment at Windsor was a lengthy but simple ceremony. It was almost exactly like Charles Brandon’s, eighteen months previous. Bishop Gardiner, that most Catholic of Henry’s prelates, led the burial service. There was no eulogy. All of Henry’s friends were dead, save myself, and no one invited me to speak. My rank was not sufficient.

  The coffin was removed from the hearse, then conveyed to the gaping hole, where it was lowered, by means of a pulley and the help of sixteen burly Yeomen of the Guard. It was a long time making its descent; it seemed to take hours until the final “clunk” was heard and the yeomen could release the ropes.

  Then Gardiner began to lead the funeral service, surrounded by the head officers of the King’s household: the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Comptroller, the serjeant-porter, and four gentlemen ushers, all with staves and rods in their hands. He preached a sermon based on the text, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”

  The great funeral effigy of the King, dressed so carefully, fashioned so well, that onlookers had believed him to be yet alive and riding jubilantly on top of his own hearse, was brought forward and stripped and then pitched into the gaping grave.

  “Pulvis pulveri, cinis cineri,” said Gardiner. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Then the entire household of Henry’s servers came forward, one by one, and broke their staves with their own hands into splinters, and cast them into the yawning hole. They struck below in only a few seconds; the gap between the living and the dead was not, as yet, grown very wide. Brandon’s jousting helmet, preserved on a stone pillar high up and able to look directly down at the proceedings, was grinning.

  “De profundis,” intoned Gardiner. “Out of the depths have I cried to thee.”

  Then functionaries brought forward oiled planks and laid them over the grave-hole; another servant brought out a rich Turkish rug and spread it over the planks, making a sweet and reasonable floor over an open hole with a King’s coffin in it.

  Gardiner stood upon the makeshift floor, attended by his spiritual officers, and proclaimed young Edward’s titles.

  “King Edward the Sixth, by the grace of God King of England, Ireland, Wales, and France, Defender of the Faith.”

  Then his churchmen, and all the mourners, repeated the titles three times.

  I want to say there was no spirit in it. That it was all by rote, men dully following other men’s protocol. But the truth is, as Henry himself said, “There is magic at the making of a King,” and as Edward’s name was read, and an involuntary shiver came over us all, I knew that, like it or not, England had a new King.

  Then the trumpets sounded, with both melody and courage—and suddenly it was Edward, Edward, all Edward—nothing left of Henry.

  The King is dead: long live the King.

  Epilogue

  There were only a few genuine mourners for the King. By that I mean anyone who felt sad, weak, out of sorts, and disinclined to participate in daily activities. I was one. (Even Kate, the “mourning” Queen Dowager, was taken up with fending off Tom Seymour’s wooing.) I found myself praying a great deal and wandering around aimlessly in my chambers. I knew I must soon leave court, and yet my hands were so heavy I could scarcely make them do what I knew they must—clear out my belongings and alert my sister that I was coming to visit her, until I had a more permanent place. The gathering-up process was difficult.

  It was hard to remember what I had and what I had not. I had not used some things for many years, and yet they were mine; I knew them. With other things, the ownership was less certain. But as I labouriously gathered them up, I became aware that there was nothing I owned of my King’s. I had not sought lands or titles, nor would my life have offered jewels or gold an understanding home. But now I was left with nothing I could touch and say, “This was his,” or “This was ours, together.”

  I felt so sad over this that I perplexed myself, so bereft that I even shouted at Hal one evening.

  “You left me nothing of you! I need something to touch, like an old fond woman! And there is nothing. The vultures have taken everything away, to make an ‘inventory.’ Even your handkerchiefs have been taken!”

  And yet, and yet—was not memory always, and exclusively, within one’s head? What good did an object do?

  It was a fortnight after the King’s
funeral, and I had but one day to vacate the royal apartments at Whitehall. I had gathered my things together, and the bundles were bound and strapped and covered by a canvas. They bulged and jutted in strange ways, the implements of an unorganized lifetime. Tomorrow they would be taken away; my sister had said I could join her household in Kent.

  My last night in royal apartments. I should have felt something, should have been able to distil some essence of all these years. But I felt uneasy, unwanted, rather than nostalgic. I was anxious to be on my way, out of this house of death and the past.

  For the fortieth time I walked around the bundles, checking the knots. All was within. All . . . what had I forgotten? Wearily I bent down to see it, whatever afterthought had been propped up there. Forever, the “afterthoughts” would come trickling in. Now I would have to find room for this, this—

  King Henry’s little harp. The one he used when composing.

  It had not been here earlier. Had someone brought it? But no one had entry to my chamber. And certainly not within the past half hour, which was the last time I had walked around the bundles, checking the knots.

  But there it sat, leaning against my belongings, pressing itself to them.

  So love can survive, too. Or something close to it. Consideration and kindness.

  In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.

  It must be a very big mansion, to encompass all it does.

  The Autobiography of Henry VIII

  Margaret George, who lives with her husband and daughter in Madison, Wisconsin, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and has travelled extensively. After reading numerous novels that viewed Henry VIII through the eyes of his enemies and victims, she became determined to let Henry speak for himself, and it has taken fifteen years, about three hundred books of background reading, three visits to England and France, and five handwritten drafts for her to answer the question: what was Henry really like?

  Also by Margaret George in Pan Books

  Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

  The Memoirs of Cleopatra

  Mary, Called Magdalene

  Helen of Troy

  Lucille Lost (children’s book)

  First published 1986 by Macmillan London

  This edition published 1988 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2011 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-447-21731-2 EPUB

  Copyright © Margaret George 1986

  The right of Margaret George to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ‘The Triads’ on page 735 are translations from the Irish by Thomas Kinsella: Thirty Three Triads, published by Dolmen Press, Dublin, 1955; Atheneum, New York, 1961. Reprinted by permission.

  The translation from the Irish of ‘Cathleen’ is reprinted by permission of Tom McIntyre.

  ‘The Hag of Beare’ from The Book of Irish Verse, 1974 by John Montague, is reprinted by permission of A. D. Peters & Company on behalf of the author.

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