The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers

by Margaret George

  “If it was this difficult with someone whose body I craved, think how much more difficult it would have been with someone to whom I was indifferent.”

  “But you would not have found yourself ... thus ... with someone you ... didn’t want.”

  She shook her head. “What do you think marriage is, for a woman?”

  Mary. Mary and Louis. God, how could the Mirror of Naples compensate for that?

  “But now ... when you come to your marriage-bed ... I’ve robbed you.”

  “I’ll pretend.”

  “But you can’t pretend—if it is not so!”

  “I have heard ... that it is easy to pretend, and men are content with that.”

  I was covered with sweat, the daybed was made rank with her deflowering, I was thoroughly shamed—and yet (O, most shameful of all!) with her words, and the thought of her later in another man’s bed, my lust began to flame once more.

  Just then she reached over and touched my cheek. “We must go. But oh—let us spend another few moments....” She did not wish to flee? She did not despise me? Truly, I knew nothing of women—or of my own nature, either.

  It was dawn when we finally left the musicians’ chamber, creeping down the stone stairs and stealing across the silent Banquet Hall, where the flowers still lay scatterit icurb my tendency to escalate the stakes. None of the ordinary things seemed to matter.

  Mary had embarked for France with a full court of her own, gloriously dowered and attended. Even children were appointed as pages and maids of honour. The two Seymour lads, aged nine and six, and Thomas Boleyn’s two daughters, aged ten and seven, were on board one of the fourteen “great ships” of Mary’s flotilla.

  It was late one evening in Wolsey’s quarters where I first read the name. That name. I had been checking the list in a cursory fashion.

  Nan de Boleine.

  “Who’s this?” I mumbled. I was exhausted from Bessie that afternoon, and needed sleep.

  “The Boleyn girl,” Wolsey said.

  “Why the devil do they affect this spelling? I’d not recognized the name.

  “It’s ‘Boleyn’ that’s the affected spelling,” said Wolsey. “The family name is originally ‘Bullen. ’But ’‘Boleyn’ or ‘Boleine’ looks more prestigious.”

  “Like Wolsey for ‘Wulcy’?” I grunted. “All this name-changing is frivolous. I like it not. So both of Boleyn’s daughters have gone? And both of Seymour’s sons? There’ll not be any young ones left to grow up and attend at our court.”

  “The parents were anxious for their children to acquire French manners.”

  By God, that rankled! For how long would the world look to France for its standard of elegance and style? I was determined that my court would usurp it. “The court of King Louis is as lively as a grasshopper in November,” I snorted. “They’ll learn little there.”

  “They’ll learn from the shadow court, the one headed by Francis Valois, Duc d’Angoulême. Unless Mary gives Louis an heir, Francis will be the next King of France. Already he holds court and practises. The little Boleyns and Seymours will learn from him, not from Louis.”

  “Francis’s wife, Louis’s daughter Claude, is as holy as Katherine, so they say.” My tongue was becoming unguarded with fatigue. “It can hardly be stylish there.”

  “Madame Claude is ignored. Francis’s mistress sets the tone.”

  Openly? His mistress presided openly? “What sort of fellow is this Francis, of the house of Valois?”

  “Much like yourself, Your Majesty.” Of late Wolsey had introduced this title for me, saying that “Your Grace” was shared alike with Dukes and Archbishops and bishops, and that a monarch needed his own title. I liked it. “Athletic, well educated, a man of culture.” He paused. “It is also said he enjoys a blemished reputation as an insatiable lecher.”

  “Already? How old is he?”

  “Twenty, Your Majesty.”

  “Are his ... attentions always welcome?”

  “Not universally, Your Majesty. He is most persistent, so it is said, and will not desist once he has his sights set on a prey. When the mayor and prayed just as intently. My prayers began in proper, stiff sentences. O Lord, Mighty God, grant, I beseech you, a son, for my realm. But as hours wore on, and Linacre appeared, shaking his head, they became frantic, silent cries. Help her, help me, give us a child, I beg you, please, I will do anything, perform any feat, I will go on a crusade, I will dedicate this child to you, like Samuel, here am I, Lord, send me ...

  “It is over.” Linacre flung the door wide. I leapt to my feet.

  “A son,” he said. “Living.” He beckoned for me to follow him.

  Katherine lay back, like a corpse upon a pallet. She did not stir. Was she—had she—?

  De la Sa was massaging her abdomen, which was still distended and puffy. Great spurts of blackish blood shot out from between her legs each time he pushed, where it was caught in a silver basin. The blood was lumpy with clots. Katherine moaned and stirred.

  “The child,” Linacre indicated, turning my eyes from the grotesque horror on the bed that was my pain-wracked and damaged wife. Maria de Salinas Willoughby was bathing the babe, washing blood and mucus off him.

  He was so tiny. Tiny as a kitten. Too small to live, I knew it on the instant.

  “We thought it best that he be baptized immediately,” said Linacre. “So we sent for a priest.”

  I nodded, aware of what he was admitting. Baptize him quickly, before he dies. No ceremony. Any priest will do.

  A young priest appeared from the outer chamber, having been hurried from the Chapel Royal, where he served with minor duties. He was still adjusting his vestments and carried a container of holy water.

  “Proceed,” I ordered him. Maria had the babe dried and wrapped in a blanket by now.

  “His ... robe,” protested Katherine weakly.

  “She means the christening robe she fashioned for him,” explained Maria.

  “We haven’t time.” I said the words, feeling nothing. Numb as a hand held against cold metal.

  “The robe ...”

  “It is right here, Your Grace, I’ll see to it,” Maria reassured Katherine tenderly. She pulled the dainty thing over his head, not even straightening it, just so she could comply.

  “Godparents?” asked the priest.

  “You, Maria, and you, Brandon.” What difference? Anyone would do. There would be no duties as the child grew.

  “Name?”

  “William,” I said. A good English name.

  “I baptize thee, William, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” A trickle of water on his soft forehead.

  Quick, now: wrap him warmly, hold him near the brazier, give him heated milk. A miracle if he lives. Lord Jesu, I ask you for a miracle.

  Prince William died seven hours later. By the time Katherine’s milk came in, the babe had been buried for two days, wearing his little christening robe as a shroud.

  As Brandon made his way to Dover, preparing to take ship and cross the wintry Channel, a messenger arrived carrying a letter smuggled out of the convent. Mary was being assaulted and harassed by Francis, who visited her daily on the pretext of consoling her, but propositioned her, grabbed her, and attempted to woo her. He ordered the nuns to leave them alone and lock the doors, then he tried to seduce her, and failing that, to force her to lie with him.

  I shook with rage at the picture of this libertine putting his hands on my sister—his stepmother! The very heavens themselves condemned this ancient abomination. The First Gentleman of France, as he called himself, was a perverted beast. Let Mary be found with child, so that France would be delivered from his evil reign! And let Brandon act as her champion to free her from the prison that Francis had put her in.

  “Pray God, Katherine,” I said, when I recounted Mary’s plight to her. “I know he hears your prayers.”

  “Not always,” she said. “But I will pray nonetheless.”

  God answered her pr
ayers, but in a disastrous way. For Brandon rescued Mary by marrying her himself, with Francis’s connivance.

  “Traitor!” I screamed, when I read his letter. “Traitor!”

  For the tenth time I reread the words:

  My Lord, so it is that when I came to Paris I heard many things which put me in great fear, and so did the Queen both; and the Queen would never let me be in rest till I had granted her to be married. And so to be plain with you, I have married her heartily and have lain with her, insomuch that I fear me lest she be with child.

  Now I knew them all by heart. No need to keep this foul document. I flung it into the fire, where it quickly writhed, blackened, and withered.

  “He’s robbed me of a sister!”

  “I think it was rather ... noble of him to do what he did,” said Katherine timidly, for she had learned not to contradict me in my rages.

  “In Spain such things may pass for noble. In England they are regarded as foolhardy and dangerous.”

  “He rescued a princess in distress, whose honour was being threatened.”

  “He robbed me of a valuable property to be used in marriage negotiations ! Now I have no one to use as bait for treaties, no one, as we are childless, and—”

  “Can you not rejoice for them, and their happiness? Henry, once you would have. Oh, remember the boy who wrote,

  ‘But love is a thing given by God,

  In that therefore can be none odd,

  But perfect in deed and between two;

  Wherefore then should we it eschew?’”

  “That boy is dead.” When had he died? In my learning to be King?

  “He rescued me. When I "1em

  Passion—almost equally impersonal—I delivered into Bessie.

  Mary was arriving back in England, and there was to be a ceremony at Dover to greet her. I made certain I was not there; for to be there was to confer approval on her actions, and that I would never do. Brandon, the (created by me!) Duke of Suffolk, was her protector now. Let him see to her needs.

  All communication between us passed through Wolsey. Brandon could not approach me without Wolsey’s leave; neither could Mary. Mary I wished to see, therefore I made arrangements for us to meet in London on the royal barge. Together we would be rowed up and down upon the Thames, where we could speak one last time before I relinquished her to Brandon forever.

  The woman who approached the landing-ramp was taller, more beautiful, than I remembered. She wore a cloak of deepest blue velvet, gathered about the neck and shoulders, that floated outward like the Virgin’s. But she was no virgin. Her very step was changed.

  The oarsmen saluted her. “Your Majesty.”

  I welcomed her, but said pointedly, “Queen no longer, my men. She is Duchess.”

  “I remain a Princess, regardless of my husband’s title,” she said, a smile masking her determination.

  “Shall we go below?” I took her hand, leading her belowdecks, where the royal stateroom, with all appointments for our comforts, awaited—not the least of which was that we would be insulated from the ears above.

  We settled ourselves on the·silken cushions: strangers.

  “So you have followed your heart,” I finally said, for want of anything else to say. “As you threatened to do.”

  “I love him!” she cried. “I love him, I love him, I have loved him since I was a child!”

  The oars outside the windows made slurping noises as they dipped in and out of the water.

  “Can you not see him for what he is? A womanizer, someone who knows all the tricks, all the things to win an unsophisticated heart.”

  “Is that so?” Her face took on a transcendent, triumphal look. “And what did he win by marrying me? Banishment from court, and from your favour.”

  “He won England’s fairest jewel.”

  “And your best playing card. Who is the calculating one, Brother?”

  I stood accused. Yes, I was worse than Brandon. He had seen Mary and loved her, risking my wrath and banishment from court. I had seen only the loss of a playing card. When had this happened to me? I hated myself, hated that thing I had become: ugly, base, experimenting with my own body as if it were a thing apart from myself.

  But a realist. A king who was not a realist cheated his people. That was the truth of it.

  A bright arc of foam, spray: the Thames was rising past us. I saw York Place on our port side. Wolsey’s residence had gaily fluttering banners planted by the water-stairs, inviting dignng and muscular, weak and weedy, fat and soft? Is it as good as mine?

  “I did not avail myself of it,” she said.

  “But surely you could tell—”

  “Jewelled raiment and well-tailored clothes disguise bodily defects,” she said. “That is what they are designed to do.”

  They were throwing out the landing ropes. There was not time for an answer, an honest answer.

  “Was he a man?” I cried.

  She looked puzzled.

  The barge bumped against the padded piles. We were there.

  “All men are men,” she answered. “More or less.”

  XXV

  With the departure of the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk came the arrival of Wolsey’s cardinal’s hat. The hat, conferred by Leo X, along with a blessed golden rose for me for my fidelity and orthodoxy, arrived at Dover, encased in a regal box. Wolsey arranged that it be conveyed to London with all proper reverence, there to be welcomed by the Abbot of Westminster Abbey. Afterward it was placed upon the high altar of St. Paul’s, and then, in a drama designed to dazzle the eye, it was placed upon Wolsey’s head, creating a scarlet presence against the ancient grey stones. The chanting of the choristers framed the moment in divine approbation.

  “You see what a serpent you have nurtured in your bosom,” muttered Katherine, standing stiffly beside me. “He glistens and gleams like the very creature in the Garden of Eden.”

  A splendid metaphor. Wolsey’s satin indeed gleamed by the fluttering candlelight. But he was too plump to pass for a serpent. I said as much, while the chanting covered my low voice.

  “A demon, then,” said Katherine. “Although Satan himself is sleek, some of his lesser demons must be gluttonous, just as their counterparts on earth.”

  “Ah, Katherine.” She hated Wolsey with such an unreasoning hate, held him responsible for all the changes in me, when in fact he merely facilitated them; they originated within myself.

  “How long will you wait before appointing him Lord Chancellor? Will it be a Christmas gift?”

  Damn her for her insight! In truth, I had planned a December ceremony, separating the cardinalship from the chancellorship by a decent interval of two months. Archbishop Warham was old and ready to retire. But more to the point, I no longer listened to him on political affairs or considered any of his opinions, so he was useless in his office.

  “It is no gift. He has earned it.”

  Katherine did not reply, merely gave me a withering look of disdain. I did not care to argue. I was keeping my promise to myself, never to fight or hurt or upset her again. Her new pregnancy must be undisturbed, even if it meant coddling and cossetting the bitter and illogically resentful vessel it rested within.

  My new Lord Chancellor and I had much to discuss, in February of 1516. The Christmas festivities were over and done with. Archbishop Warham had gn his spiritual duties, and Wolsey had assumed the mantle of the highest political office in the realm, along with the highest ecclesiastical rank, as England’s only Cardinal.

  Did he ever regret the lost Joan Lark and his sons? Or had the sacrifice been well worth it? It had taken only three years to go from the Lark’s Morning Inn to this, once the decision had been made. Tactfully, he never referred to it. He was a man of the present. The Welsh longing for unnamable things was not a part of his makeup. I envied him that.

  “King Francis has proved himself,” he said bluntly, that raw February morning as we settled ourselves before his gigantic Italian work desk.

  I
knew what he meant. He meant that Queen Claude was pregnant. Francis had proved himself alarmingly, then, both as a warrior and as a getter of children. Within only a few months of his accession, he had taken the field, leading his troops into battle at Marignano in Italy, winning a stunning victory against the Papal forces. Francis meant for northern Italy to become French, and he was well on his way to achieving it.

  “Perhaps it will die.” I cursed it, then.

  “Nothing Francis does seems to die, or not thrive. Truly, he seems to have extraordinary luck on his side.” Wolsey was annoyed by this. One could counter stratagems, not luck.

  “And all anyone talks of is his wretched court! His styles, his ballet de cour, his plans to build châteaux.”

  “A novelty, Your Majesty.” Wolsey sniffed daintily at the silver pomander he had affected carrying. “He is the newest king in Europe. ‘Twill pass.”

  “Ah, but he is not the newest King!” I produced the telling letter that had arrived only that morning, and handed it to Wolsey.

  His eyes attacked it. “Ferdinand is dead.” He crossed himself, by rote. “Charles of Burgundy is King of Spain.”

  “Yes. A sixteen-year-old Habsburg is now the newest—and youngest—King in Europe.”

  “And that makes you the old fox among them.” Wolsey smiled. “We’re well rid of Ferdinand. He was useless to us; useless to everyone, in fact. A new king in Spain, a boy-king ... what possibilities this offers!”

  “For manipulation?”

  “How well we understand one another.”

  “That is why you are where you are.” And let him understand that it was I who had put him there, not he himself. Without me, he could do nothing, was nothing. “Not all boy-kings can be manipulated. Age is not necessarily a measure of innocence.”

  “I understand this one is unworldly, peculiar.”

  “The truth is that he is unknown. As I myself was when first I came to the throne.”