The Autobiography of Henry 8

by Margaret George

  The plans were drawn up. My world was ordered, like a chessboard freshly laid out with new ivory pieces. How the board—the squares and duchies of Europe—gleamed before me! On my side were Ferdinand, Maximilian, the new Pope, Leo. We were to launch our attack on France on many fronts simultaneously, coordinating them by means of the fastest messengers in Christendom (albeit mounted on Arab horses). Katherine and I spent hours imagining the battles Ferdinand and I would fight as comrades-in-arms; she longed to cross the sea with me and fight alongside us. Only the coming child prevented her.

  “With the Scots vanquished, I could come,” she said wistfully. “Only I would not endanger the child for anything in this world.” She patted her stomach tenderly.

  “Nor I, my love.”

  “I am so deeply happy that you and my father will meet at last.” True, I had never seen Ferdinand, except through Katherine’s devoted eyes. “And that you have chosen—or rather, allowed me to choose—a name from my family: Philip Charles.”

  The men in her family seemed blessed with vigour and longevity; perhaps I had become superstitious about the doomed Henrys, Richards, and Edwards in mine. In any case, it seemed a small enough concession at the time. Anything to keep Katherine happy so that the child might grow in peace.

  “Aye, yes.”

  Her devotion to both Ferdinand and Jesus often interfered with her devotion to her husband’s earthly needs. More and more I had found those needs taking on a life of their own, pulsating within me and demanding a hearing. They cared little for Katherine’s scruples, or for mine, either. I was twenty-three years old and a man, that was all they knew. Katherine’s maids of honour, her ladies-in-waiting, particularly the Duke of Buckingham’s married sister, seemed to rouse that imp within me. Satin pulled taut over breasts roused it in me.

  The sound of a lute in Katherine’s outer chamber called it forth like a cobra rising to a snake charmer’s flute. Out there would be the ladies, the maids, playing tunes, passing time, all arrayed in satin and velvet. Like a sleepwalker, I was drawn away. Like a sleepwalker, I was an onlooker only; all that ever happened was in my own head.

  The foul letter lay there like a dead fish, stinking with corruption, slime, and rottenness. Ferdinand had played me false, had betrayed me all along. At the very hour when I was entering Tournai in conquest, he was signing a secret peace treaty with the French. His toady and minion, Maximilian, had followed suit.

  This whole long winter, whilst plans were being meticulously formulated, munitions ordered, supplies replenished (the precise image of these things danced across my brain!), and my flagship taking shape, board by board, beam by beam, at great cost and rush, so as to be ready for launching in June ...

  And I had even called a Parliament, humbled myself to approacs. It was always the Pharisees, wasn’t it? But then there was an exception, a sort of condition that permitted divorce. It was something Saint Paul had mentioned. I made up my mind to ask Wolsey when I met with him the next morning. He was a priest, even if he was no theologian.

  After Mass, I went directly to Wolsey’s apartments in the Palace, where I found the Archbishop already at work at his desk. The Archbishop, I noted, had not attended Mass himself.

  “Read this.” I dropped the offensive Spanish letter on his heaped desk. It rolled down a pile of ledgers likeception, and entertainments he now frequented. “Surely you aren’t thinking of—yourself? You cannot divorce the Queen because of her father’s deceit. Although, God knows, I think you deserve a French princess on your arm and in your court.”

  His burst of candour shocked me as much as my proposed turnabout shocked him.

  “Why, Wolsey. You don’t like the Queen?”

  He was all explanations. “No, Your Grace, I do like and admire her, I only meant ... that a graceful French girl would be such an ornament to the court, such a jewel on your arm. Someone who dances and masques, someone who—”

  “Yes. I understand.” Katherine had become so much more serious in the past year or so. Still, Wolsey had no way of knowing that hidden Moorish side.... “France, and its curious combination of elegance and decadence ... I’d like to sample that in a woman.” I had never sampled any woman but Katherine. “But I am married and do not qualify for a divorce. You are correct: Ferdinand’s treason does not transfer onto his daughter. Her only ‘treason’ is in failing to follow the Biblical command to ‘leave your mother and your father.’ Her heart’s in Spain still. But her body’s here, and has been technically faithful.”

  “Besides, she carries a child.”

  “Yes.” But even that seemed tainted.

  “However, there are other means of coming. close to France.” He steered me back onto that subject. He seemed eager; his eyes shone.

  “Indeed there are. And other marriages. My sister Mary—to the King of France!”

  His face registered the jolt that passed through his whole body. “Your Grace!” He licked his lips. “A thought of genius!”

  “It came to me, just on the instant. God sent it.” I truly believed that.

  “We will break Mary’s betrothal to Charles of Burgundy,” he said.

  That would delight her. She had hated the idea of marrying the Habsburg boy, Katherine’s nephew, who was four years younger than she. But later she had gotten into the spirit of it and carried his portrait about and attempted to sigh over it. She would be pleased to abandon the effort and go be Queen of France.

  “Queen of France? By marrying that decaying roué with the false teeth? No, no, no!” She kicked His Highness’s gift: a statue of Venus, with Cupid hovering over one shoulder. “No!” The statue toppled over, smashing the marble Cupid’s nose.

  “My dear sister,” I explained, “he is a King.”

  “He is repulsive!”

  “Queen of France! Think on it, my dear, think on it well. You will be celebrated in song and verse, will be First Lady of Europe. You will be able to do as you please, wear exquisite clothes, be heaped with jewels.”

  “And at night?” Her eyes narrowed. “At night I will pay

  “When did you become so hard?” she asked quietly. “This is not my brother speaking, not the Henry I have known, but some other man.”

  She touched on a delicate point. Of late I had felt that hard part growing, taking shape and rising within me like a rock rising from a lake, displacing all the sweet and placid water around it. It had first gathered itself when the word divorce had sprung unbidden to my lips, when I had turned against Katherine, if only for a short while. I had not known I harboured such an alien presence within me; but by now it no longer seemed alien, rather an integral part of myself. It was necessary for a King to be hard—at times.

  “Yes, the soft-hearted child you knew has gone. In his place is a King,” I said. “A child looks only at what he wants, at what he wishes were true. A King looks at what is, and how to drive the best bargain.”

  “And the best bargain for you is that your sister be Queen of France.”

  “ ’Tis the best bargain for you, as well. You’ll see. Besides”—I blurted this out—argain—unlike our other sister.”

  Poor Margaret, late the Scots Queen, now a coarsening woman with decreasing market value, and frantic for a man. As soon as she had given birth to James IV’s posthumous son, she had taken swaggering Archibald Douglas, the Earl of Angus, as her lover.

  Mary drew herself up, slender and golden. A most valuable piece on the chessboard. “I shall marry King Louis,” she said, each word enunciated as though she were carefully choosing it from a tray of others. “I will take a large number of ladies with me, to form my court. And when Louis dies, I will retain the jewels he has given me.” She paused. “From you, I require one thing.”

  “Name it.” Naturally I would grant her anything, any wedding present she might wish. I would even name my new flagship after her, rather than myself.

  “When Louis dies, I shall be free to marry whom I will. You may marry me this once. Hereafter I will marry my
self.”

  No. She was too valuable to me, and to England. “No.”

  “Then I shall not wed Louis. I shall enter a convent instead.”

  “You would do that, rather than submit entirely?” She was a Tudor—stubborn and ruthless. “I would never let you do that to yourself. Very well, then, I grant you your wish.” By the time she was widowed, she’d be more sensible. We all became more sensible in time. Then I had a sudden suspicion. “There isn’t someone now that you fancy?”

  She smiled a faraway smile. “There are many that I fancy,” she said. “As any young girl might.”

  After we had parted, I could not help reflecting on what she had said. It was true, the company I sought had changed. Instead of Erasmus and Dean John Colet, I wanted Edward Guildford and Edward Poyntz, bluff courtiers. Instead of Katherine, I had Wolsey for my political confidant. I did not want to be alone to pray, or reflect, or compose music. I wanted noise and gaiety and distractions; I wanted power rather than chivalry.

  Yet not all of me did. The first Henry, the one who wanted to be a “true knight”—he existed alongside the second one, keeping uneasy watch over him.

  XXII

  Mary and King Louis were to be married by proxy in England, so that she would arrive in France already its Queen. The elegant Louis d’Orleans, Duc de Longueville, taken prisoner in France during the war campaign, was to stand in for Louis and recite his vows for him. Although technically a hostage, de Longueville in fact behaved as a French diplomat, and it was to him that King Louis sent his wedding gift for Mary: a pendant necklace made of a gigantic, pear-shaped pearl so singular that it had a name of its own—the Mirror of Naples. I made a promise to myself to have it appraised by honest English jewellers before Mary left for France.

  The ceremony was to take place at Greenwich, with Archbishop Warham presiding, in the presence of the peers of the realm. I had transformed the gathering-room of the royal apartments with cloth-of-gold and silk, so that it glittered like a cave of gold, a treasure-hoard of legend.

  “Come, Katherine,” I said, turning to my wife. “It is time.” I offered my arm. Katherine took it, wordlessly and stiffly; that was the way things were between us now.

  In my outer chamber, Wolsey was waiting, resplendent in gleaming brocade vestments. As part of the ceremony he was to be recognized by Louis as furthering the cause of France. Katherine nodded stiffly to him. That was how things stood between them, as well.

  Mary made a lovely bride. One would never suspect, hearing her lilting voice pronouncing the hastily learned French vows to de Longueville, pledging her love and fidelity, that she had ever desired anything else. The rings were exchanged, the bridal kiss conferred, the papers signed. And now the marriage must be “consummated” by proxy.

  This had been my inspiration. A proxy marriage might be repudiated, like a precontract or betrothal. But a proxy consummation—that was another matter.

  “An absurd idea,” Katherine had sniffed. “Verbal agreements, properly witnessed, or signed documents, are all that honourable men require.”

  “Like my father and your father? We made verbal agreements and went through a public betrothal. Was it honoured? Why did you have to sell your dower-plate for food, then? You still continue to believe in honour, my duck?”

  “I believe in your honour,” she said.

  Wolsey, on the other hand, had appreciated the genius of it. “The very uniqueness, the novelty of it, will seal it in the eyes of the world,” he said. “It will be, in its own way, even more of a consummation than the ordinary kind.”

  “Quite.”

  I had had a great state bed set up in the middle of the Assembly Chamber. It was canopied, but no bed-curtains were hung to obscure the view, and no coverlets of fur or wool were arranged there to veil the required actions.

  The entire company gathered about the bed, while Mary retired to change into a nightdress. Katherine and her attendants waited until Mary emerged, clad in her magnificent dishabille, then escorted her with stately steps up to the bed, laying her out on her back upon the satin bedcloth, smoothing her hair.

  Then the Duc de Longueville approached the foot of the bed, wearing red hose and boots, which he ceremoniously removed, placing them neatly side by side. Assisted by Wolsey and Brandon, he mounted the side of the bed, lay down beside Mary, and touched her bare foot with his naked leg. He remained in that position whilst the onlookers gazed intently and Archbishop Warham peered over them and solemnly pronounced, “The marriage has been consummated!” The witnesses then broke into cheers and showered Mary and de Longueville with flowers.

  De Longueville sat up and began making jokes. “ ’Twas over in less time than a fifteen-year-old, and here I am of an age with His Highness! Were this all one felt, a man would scarcely hurry home from the fields for it!”

  Mary, blushing (as befitted a modest bride), rose from the nuptial bed to change into yet a third costume, her ballgown, for the banquet and ball were to follow. The guests flocked to the Banquet Hall while Wolsey, Katherine, de Longueville, and I lingered, waiting for Mary.

  “Well done,” I said. “You assisted in the making of a Queen. This wns—that of England and France,” I said, hoping to cajole Katherine. I had pointedly excluded the Spanish ambassador from all these ceremonies, to her anger.

  “If only your other sister were here, there would be three Queens,” she answered, irrelevantly. She was determined to be aloof; so be it. I turned to de Longueville.

  “You are a free man now. King Louis has paid your ransom.” A fat one it was, too, and I had put it right into my private account. “Although I must say you passed your ‘captivity’ in French style.”

  He smiled, and answered my implied question. “Yes. Mistress Popincourt is going with me. I shall install her in my apartments in the Louvre.” De Longueville had, naturally, acquired a mistress during his brief stay with us. I resolved that it was high time I acquired one, too.

  Mary joined us, dazzling in a gown of royal blue silk.

  Wolsey bowed low. “You shine like the angels painted by the Italian masters,” he murmured. “All blue and gold you are.”

  “My Queen.” De Longueville made obeisance.

  Mary looked startled. The transformation from Tudor Princess to French Queen had been so swift, and so absolute.

  Katherine moved over to kiss her cheek. “Now we are sister Queens,” she said.

  Together the five of us entered the Banquet Hall, where all the company awaited us: glowing spots of colour against the creamy stone of the Hall; the candlelight reflecting and magnifying from the gold plate that was displayed everywhere.

  Mary was feted again and again, and I led out the first dance with her, Brother King and Sister Queen. I knew we were a stunning sight, our youth and strength and colour making us seem more than mortal. Indeed, I felt myself, that night, to be something beyond an ordinary being, certainly beyond my ordinary self, with all his confines and sensitivities.

  Katherine danced only the sedate basse-dances and the pavane, that introductory measure in which all the company paraded their wardrobes. She was now in her eighth month, and all was well. I made sure her thronelike chair was fitted with extra velvet pillows, and that she had a footstool for her swollen feet.

  That left me free to dance with whomsoever I pleased, and there were many pleasing women. Katherine’s attendants, particularly her maids of honour, were young and unmarried. Yes, it was time I found a mistress. I had been too laggard in availing myself of a sovereign’s prerogative. Sovereign’s? I looked over at Brandon, smiling at his partner, looking like Bacchus. It was a man’s prerogative. One did not need to justify it on the grounds of rank.

  There was winsome little Kate, from Kent, a niece of Edward Baynton’s. She was light as gauze, bright as a butterfly, and as insubstantial. There was Margery, a raven-haired Howard girl, some relation to the Duke of Norfolk, with a big bosom and pudgy fingers. There was Jocelyn, a distant cousin of mine, through my Bou
rchier relations in Essex. But she was a thin, intense sort, and it was not good to meddle with one’s relatives, besides.

  There was a Persephone, standing near Lord Mountjoy.

  My heart felt a hush as I beheld her. I swear my first thought was of Persephone>manhick hair, tore out its bindings so that it fell free over her shoulders and even covered her face, all but her parted lips, which I devoured. In a fever-fit of excitement, I undressed her, perplexed by the fastenings of her clothes (for I had never undressed Katherine; her maids of honour did that), trying not to harm them. She had to show me, else I would have ripped them.

  When we lay side by side on the musicians’ daybed, she turned toward the torch so that the amber-coloured light bathed her body and sweet face. “Bessie—Bessie—” I wanted to master my need, at least draw it out a little, but it mastered me, and I pulled her under me in the ancient act of submission, crushed her beneath me, plunged into her body—O God, she was a virgin!—and in a frenzy, sweat exploding from my whole body, I drove myself into her again and again (hearing dimly her cries in my ear) until I burst open inside her.

  I spiralled down into a great darkness, turning, turning, landing softly.

  She was crying, fighting for breath, clawing at my shoulders.

  “Jesu, Bessie ...” I released her, pulled her up, embraced her. She gasped for air, crying all the while. “I am sorry, forgive me, forgive me—” The mad beast had gone, leaving a conscience-stricken man to repair the damage. I comforted her, hating myself. Eventually she stopped crying and became calm. I began my apologies again. She put up a shaking finger against my lips.

  “It is done,” she said slowly. “And I am glad of it.”

  Now I truly comprehended how ignorant I was of women. “I behaved as a beast, and injured your ... your honour.” I had not even thought of the virginity beforehand.