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

by Margaret George

  In November, then, I rejoined Catherine at Dunstable. Small manor it was, and it suited me. I enjoyed snugness now, a certain warmth encircling one’s being; although I knew I should visit Nonsuch soon, I had at this moment lost my taste for palaces and outsized things. Perhaps I wished to live as a man after living so long as a god.

  I decreed that until Christmas, and the obligatory return to London, I would keep only a few about me. Culpepper, of course; Will; Paget, Denny, and Wyatt; and Richard Harpsfield, the hunting-master, along with Edward Bacon, the horse-master. Horses were most important, as I intended to keep riding until well into December. The exercise had already wrought marvels upon my body. In three months I had been hewn anew. Now I would complete the process.

  After only two weeks’ absence from Catherine, she seemed dirferent—plumper, more pink. She was happy enough in the rooms of Dunstable Manor. “The windows of our chamber give off on the oaks!” she exclaimed. “I love them. They are my favourite trees. The leaves cling all winter, and they turn russet and make a lovely rustling sound when the wind rises.”

  The November sun was even now slanting through those leaves and shining directly into her eyes. I kissed her and pulled her close.

  Was it my imagination? Or was she, truly, thicker?

  “Yes,” she said, shyly.

  I was delirious with joy. “When, sweetheart, when?”

  “In October I missed my monthly courses. So it is early yet. Count back three months from October-September, August, July. In June, then.”

  “Catherine, my Queen, my love—the joy this brings me—”

  “Shhh.” She put a finger over my babbling lips. “We are but man and wife yet. The babe is not large enough to alter... anything that we might wish to do.” Her tongue in my ear. “My body is yours as it always was. Do you remember?” She touched me in a wanton way, triggering a flood of obscene desire in me. I responded as she knew I would.

  It was dark when I awoke. I was sprawled out on a narrow bed. Where? My eyes sought for something familiar and found nothing. All was uniformly black. I reached out one hand, numb from trailing on the floor, and felt fur. Fur? A hunting lodge. Yes... at Dunstable. Catherine with child. Now, yes ... then flooded in the memories of our wild and fearless lovemaking. Shameless in the sloping upper chamber and the coveted privacy. Things we did, unthinkable things... yet unforgettable. Instinctively I crossed myself, then cursed myself. Popish superstition. What was? The feeling that lust with one’s wife was evil. Did not the Scriptures say that Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob “knew their wives”? Yes, but not with such embellishments, or such relish. They knew them, yes, as nature required, but—

  My back was exposed, and cold. I groped for a covering, but there was nothing loose. Was Catherine there? It seemed not. I heard no breathing, not even of the softest sort.

  I was shivering. I must rouse and clothe myself. I leaned over and fished for garments, and they were there, crumpled at my feet. I drew them on, savouring the warmth they gave me.

  By now most of my senses had returned. I knew I perched on the bed where I had lately sported with my dear wife. I was in Dunstable. Night had fallen. Doubtless it was time for supper, and Catherine awaited me in the small room appointed for meals.

  I shuffled toward the door and ran my hand along its frame. A sliver of light outlined its edges. Through that crack I saw two profiles. One was Catherine’s; the other, a young man’s. He had a hawkish nose and a great deal of dark hair that fell forward over his forehead. Their lips were moving rapidly.

  I flung the narrow double doors open, and they started.

  “My Lord,” said Catherine, bowing a little. As if she should bow after what passed between us ... or was this a wicked sense of humour?

  “Wife.” If so, I joined in.

  “Your Majesty.” The young man swept low, then straightened. He was slim and quivering, like an eager rapier. Or something else, something I wished not to think upon.

  “This is Francis Dereham,” said Catherine, smiling. “A kinsman from Norfolk. I have known him since my childhood, and he is trustworthy. So I have appointed him my secretary.”

  I looked at him. He looked more like a pirate than a secretary. “It is not seemly to overuse one’s prerogative to appoint one’s kinsmen to important positions. The Queen’s secretary must fulfill certain duties—”

  “Let him be my honeymoon secretary, then,” she laughed. “Perhaps you are right. In London he would not be adequate. And soon enough we shall returnand dissected them.

  I interrupted his impassioned conversation. “The Queen needs you,” I whispered directly into his ear. “Bring your birthing instruments.”

  Clearly puzzled, he left his companion and followed me out of the room. As soon as we were out of earshot, I said, “There has been a miscarriage. She needs you to examine her and tend her. Bring whatever instruments are necessary. Not birthing ones, of course. I know not the proper name for them.”

  While he was with her, I stood in the outer chamber, pacing and staring at the fire. The dark and querulous Francis Dereham had stalked away, as if it affronted him to share a space with me. Before I could think further on the nasty Dereham, Butts re-emerged. “So quickly?” I was surprised.

  “Aye.” He stood looking at me, his brown leather bag of implements and herbal potions dangling from both hands. “There was no child. This was just a normal monthly course. No heavier than usual. Apparently the Queen was mistaken.”

  Mistaken? No heavier than usual? But it was six weeks ago that she had told me. “Would not a delayed course like this result in a greater accumulation of blood?”

  “Sometimes. It depends on why it was delayed. Whether by natural or unnatural means.”

  “Unnatural? But a pregnancy is ‘natural,’ is it not?”

  He shook his head, as if pitying me. “There are ways to alter that monthly function, to meddle with it.” He hesitated a moment, then opened his hand. In his palm was a small, smooth pebble.

  “This was what the Queen miscarried,” he said.

  Still I did not understand.

  Sadly he explained, “Her womb expelled it. It had been put there to prevent a babe from growing within. ’Tis a custom in the Middle East much practised with beasts of burden, and perhaps with slaves as well. It makes conception impossible.”

  No! Such a filthy practise, no, Catherine could not have...

  “Could it have found its way there accidentally?”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  “How long had it been there?”

  “Judging from its appearance, for many years.”

  Jesu! Some evil Arab physician had done this to her as a baby. How? But there were Arab physicians ready enough to be found, even in England. I had found Al-Ashkar. The Duchess must have had one at her service, ready to do her bidding. She did not mean her poor niece ever to conceive—why? Was the old woman that bitter and angry at her charge? At having to bear the cost of raising her worthless stepson’s child? There may be children, had she thought, but I’ll assure there are no grandchildren? How cruel old women can be.

  “Thank you, Dr. Butts,” I said. I would reward him well for his discovery.

  I re-entered the chamber where she lay. My heart ached for her, so misused all her life. To be orphaned and neglected was one thing, but to be rendered artificially barren....

  “All was well?” she asked anxiously.

  “Yeont>

  “He said there would be more bleeding, perhaps heavy,” she said.

  It was natural. The womb was rebelling against its misuse.

  “It will soon be over.” My hopes for a child were even now staining the cloths beneath her buttocks. “Let us plan our Christmas together, now. Shall we keep court? Where?” I sought to distract her, cheer her.

  “Hampton,” she said without hesitation. She could not know how unsettling a choice that was for me. But no matter—anything to make her joyful.

  “As a child, whenever I thought of
court, I thought of Hampton. All the great glassy windows, the Italian statues, the astronomical clock; I imagined royal barges all lining the river; oversized kitchen ovens cooking night and day ... all the world would be there....”

  “Stop, stop,” I laughed. “You have seen all this in your mind?”

  She nodded.

  “Then you shall see it all in truth,” I promised.

  I stood up and looked about the small room. Suddenly I had lost my taste for remote hunting lodges; happiness had proved as elusive here as anywhere else. It was time to return to Hampton.

  She bled for a week, following the physician’s instructions and drinking a potion of ground dried pennyroyal mixed with red wine three times a day.

  “The wine is to replace the lost blood, and the pennyroyal is to staunch the flow,” he explained.

  When that danger was past, we set out for Hampton Court to keep Christmas, sending notice to all eligible members of court throughout the realm, and even to Scots nobles and Irish peers, to come and join us. All were welcome. Replies came quickly, and the allotments of rooms and servants’ quarters were spoken for so greedily that by St. Nicholas’ Day there was not a single chamber or even corner of a chamber free.

  “You have your wish, sweetheart,” I assured her. “By my reckoning, fifteen hundred will lodge here for the entire Twelve Days of Christmas. The kitchen fires will blaze night and day. The Lord Steward requests five thousand geese alone to feed this mighty company. How like you that?”

  She smiled. “And there will be balls, and masked dancing?”

  “As many of them as you wish,” I said.

  “Imagine everyone disguised—all fifteen hundred of us,” she said dreamily.

  “Much mischief would occur.” Oh, the maidenheads lost, the husbands cuckolded! All in honour of Our Lord’s birth.

  I proposed for Will to go about in an Infidel turban and pantaloons, but he refused. As I said, he was most dour and out of sorts these days.

  “Costumed or not, you shall not hide yourself away, Will. Too many idle people must be entertained, lest they get into fights. You know the problem of keeping men indoors too long. It transforms them into be-ee-easts.” I sucked my stomach in for the tailor who was measuring me for my masquing-coat. All of clothas reclaiming so many others. And so I would dance, on Ninth Night, for the first planned full evening of ensembles and suites. I practised in my chamber, rehearsing old steps and mastering new ones.

  O ! I had missed dancing, in those dead, hollow years, as I had missed so much, so much that I had not allowed myself to dwell on, or even to recall. I thought I had liked being dead.

  There! that was it, the proper turn of the galliard. They called it a “shocking” dance, but the younglings loved it....

  My leg seemed submissive, although it had, all during the past fortnight, been sending out ominous tingles. What that betokened, I did not know. Perhaps nothing. I intended to regard it as nothing.

  The Great Hall was cleared, and my finest consort-ensemble gathered together, with their woodwinds—recorders, crumhorns, and shawms—and their stringed instruments—viols, lutes, and harps. I had instructed them to begin with popular measures, so that everyone present might join in; only gradually were they to progress to the more demanding dances. I myself would refrain from joining until the saltarello near the end. My entrance would take the company by surprise, as I had long, long ago....

  I chatted, and circulated among the celebrants, pretending I had nothing more on my mind, pretending that I planned to stay swathed in my heavy robes, presiding like an old man.

  “Yes, yes!” I nodded and clapped. The rondo was ending.

  Next was my dance. I unfastened my cloak, laid it by. I readied myself, enjoying the pretence of talking, all the while flexing my calves and rising up and down on the balls of my feet, pointing my toe.

  The first beat ... I moved, thrusting out my leg. And felt excruciating pain in the thigh, suddenly, like a thunderclap. I was frozen with a paroxysm of pain.

  The ensemble played on. One would never know that I had missed my entrance cue. Frantically I massaged my leg—the cursed traitor! With each touch I felt fluid ooze up, as if I were pressing on a sponge. Was my leg, then, become a sponge? A sponge of disease? I was wearing black tights, so the stain did not show. Very well. As I formed the words in my mind, a hatred greater than any I had ever felt flamed through me. This was an enemy! An enemy like Anne Boleyn, like Cardinal Pole, like the Duke of Buckingham. It was sent by Satan, like them, to destroy me. But this was more subtle: it would attack from within, rot me out from the inside.

  I would dance, despite it. The ensemble reached the entrance point again, and I leapt out on the floor. As I landed, a nail of pain ran up my thigh and into my groin. People backed off to make room for me, to watch the King dance.

  And dance he would. And did. I spun and leapt as athletically as a stag, executed all the steps of the galliard perfectly, with a precision usually reserved for clockworks and sword-masters. This particular dance demanded the grace and dexterity of a hummingbird. In this I did not fail.

  After the first few beats, I took a mad, savage pleasure in the pain that fought back at me. It was a gladiatorial contest, and I, armed with net and trident, had ensnared and humiliated pain.

  The moment the music ended, I was encircled by men and women extolling my skill. They were surprised, oh, yes, they were. The last time anyone had beheld me dance athletically was a decade ago, and many of those faces were gone. robe—‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’—He did not say, ‘and thou also, Pilate, and Caiaphas,’ although surely in His heart He included them....”

  Was this her holiday talk? What, then, was her serious talk?

  “Madam Latimer, you are far too joyless,” I chided her. “Surely at Our Lord’s birth, when He came as a babe, as God’s gift to mankind, it is morbid to dwell on His coming betrayal and death.”

  Her dark eyes danced with excitement. Theology, then, was what inflamed her passion. “Ah, Your Majesty! But it is all one, that is its perfection, its mystery. The Kings brought frankincense and myrrh—shadows of His future death and burial. ‘Mary took all these things, and pondered them in her heart.’ She ‘pondered’ them, she did not rejoice, or sing; no, it was a heavy thing. I have often wondered,” she said dreamily, like Culpepper stroking a particularly fine piece of velvet, “what Mary did with the gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” I noted that she did not say “Our Lady” or “the Blessed Virgin.” “Did she store it in a cupboard, somewhere amidst the linen, and look at it once in a long while, or by accident after she had finished her ordinary tasks after an ordinary day, waiting for Joseph to stop work and return? Did she touch it then, and feel the miracle all over again, have an epiphany of her own?” The widow Latimer was the most unabashed romantic I had ever encountered, but only for things unknown, unseen.

  “She doubtless sold the gold and spices to pay for the trip to Egypt.” It was Elizabeth who spoke, in her practical way. But why was Elizabeth amongst these intellectual matrons? What would attract a child here? Did she long for a mother that much? “After all, the gold would have been heavy to transport, and the exotic spices would have attracted too much attention. However, selling them in Bethlehem might have alerted Herod. Probably they waited until they were in Egypt. The Egyptians would have been more blase about those items.”

  The women looked at her, then nodded. “The child speaks true,” said Lady Herbert.

  Elizabeth laughed. “The Holy Family were people, with all the considerations of any other people.” She turned a guileless, smiling face to the widow. “Would you sometime be so kind as to check my translation of Proverbs? I am attempting to translate it into Greek.”

  The flattered widow nodded.

  Charles’s wife, the Duchess, produced a small book of devotions. “This I have found so helpful.” The others all bent their heads over it, like chickens in a henyard when fresh grain has been heaped o
n the ground. I cursed my leg, to have confined me in this clucking flock of secular nuns.

  “Ach! Zere you are, my child!” A fluster and rustle of material, along with a fine spray of saliva, announced the arrival of Anne, Princess of Cleves. “Und Henry!” Her voice rose with genuine gladness. Standing before our group was the great dray-horse herself, all shimmering in yellow satin, spreading her particular brand of good cheer. And I was delighted to see her. Rising slowly (in deference to Sir Leg), I greeted her.

  “Sister!”

  We embraced warmly. Her sturdy arms almost swayed me off my balance. I was astonished at how glad I was to see her. “Pray join uth a fine legedly abjured them.

  In my inner chamber, I had my leg surreptitiously checked and re-bandaged by Dr. Butts. He wrapped it in fine silk, so although it was tightly bound it would not be bulky.

  “For tonight only,” he cautioned. “Silk is not an agreeable bandage. It does not absorb. So, should the sore weep, it will leak and be visible. But it looks dry for now. It should keep for a few hours, at least.” He nodded. “Take a good dose of the soothing-syrup.”

  “Nay. It dulls the. pain but it also befuddles me, and I must needs remember all the dancing-steps.”

  I turned to look at myself in the mirror. I was unrecognizable, a vision from the East.

  The Great Hall, too, was unrecognizable, utterly transformed from our eating-place of only an hour earlier. A throng of strangers milled about on the floor. A harem-girl. Merlin the magician. Several nuns. There was Pope Adrian, the only English Pope, looking remarkably like myself. (Who had done this?) There was a headsman with a hood and bloody axe, Friar Tuck, painted savages from the New World, werewolves, crusaders. At the far end of the hall, Jezebel. She was wearing a scanty costume that revealed three-quarters of her body, and next to her was a man dressed as Elijah, ranting and raving. As she moved, I knew her—Catherine!