The Autobiography of Henry 8

by Margaret George

Jane appeared in the upper window, above the doorway of Nicholas Carew’s house. She had sought the cleanness of the open country once Anne had been arrested and there was no more Queen to serve, no need to remain at court.

  “I am here,” she said. She left the window, came down the stairs, and walked slowly out the front door. I dismounted and stood waiting, weary, yet accepting that weariness as something that would never go away, would only have to be shared.

  She came to me silently, extending her hands. Her face shone with an otherworldly love and kindness. She understood, without being contaminated by her knowledge.

  “Jane,” I said, makingr Jane.

  Afterward, at York Place, I gave a great afternoon banquet, ostensibly to celebrate Whitsun—for the centerpiece was a huge cake of crushed strawberries, seven layers to commemorate the seven gifts the Holy Spirit conferred upon the Apostles at Pentecost—but it was in reality a bride-cake, and a bride-feast.

  England had a true Queen at last, and no one begrudged her me.

  I ended the celebrations by bringing her with me to the Opening of Parliament on June eighth.

  Seated beside me on the Chair of Estate, looking out over both Lords and Commons, she heard Chancellor Audley exclaim, “Ye well remember the great anxieties and perturbations this invincible Sovereign”—he nodded toward me—“suffered on account of his first unlawful marriage. So all ought to bear in mind the perils and dangers he was under when he contracted his second marriage, and that the lady Anne and her accomplices have since been justly found guilty of high treason, and have met their due reward for it.” He shook his head as the ugly black shadow passed over the entire Parliament, and over my soul as well.

  “What man of middle life would not this deter from marrying a third time? Yet this our most excellent Prince again condescendeth to contract matrimony! And hath, on the humble petition of the nobility, taken to himself a wife, this time, who by her excellent beauty and pureness of flesh and blood, is apt—God willing—to conceive issue.” The company rose in acknowledgment of this.

  “The lords should pray for heirs to the crown by this marriage,” Audley concluded.

  Jane was now my wife, and Queen indeed: wedded by a true rite, saluted by the common people, and honoured by Parliament. It was done, and I was happy at last.

  Happy at last. Why is it so difficult to describe happiness? There are words aplenty for anguish, despair, suffering, and these are full of vitality. But happiness is left with weak verbs, supine adjectives, drooping adverbs. A description of happiness moves a reader to skip over those passages and causes a writer to flounder in treacle.

  Yet how can we recall it if we do not write of it? We put up summer in preserved fruits and conserves, we trap autumn in wine made from late-ripening grapes, we make perfumes of spring flowers. That way we can recall, albeit in a slanted or altered way, some essence of the moment.

  But human happiness . . . all our words for it are so bland, as if the thing itself were bland, or merely an absence of pain. When in fact happiness is solid, muscular, and strong; its colour all the spectrum of light; its sounds as sweet as water splashing in a Pharaoh’s desert palace; and its smells those of the flesh and its life: fur, heat, cooking.

  I was happy with Jane, as happy as one of the great cats stretched out in the sun around Wolf Hall. Only touch them and feel their deep, rumbling purrs, as they rest entirely in the present moment. That was me, that summer Jane and I were one.

  LXXVI

  Happiness begets courage, inasmuch as we raise our eyes from huddled self-absorption and, secure behind the ramparts of our solid, sun-.”

  Pope Paul III. There was no doubt that in this gentleman I had a tireless, clever adversary. He, unlike Clement, had drawn a line, and I was clearly outside it. Thereafter he made no apologies. His goal was to dethrone me or, failing that, to discredit me. It was he who had made Fisher a Cardinal, and it was he who had published the Papal bull which called for a Holy War against me by foreign powers and absolved all Englishmen from allegiance to me on my own soil. He was also grooming young Reginald Pole, a sort of latter-day Thomas More who had fled abroad, to be his weapon against me, deploying him on missions to implement Papal policy. I had been Reginald’s patron, paying for all his education, both here and abroad. The Pope had taken him from me and turned him against me. I left his name unmarked.

  The monasteries. There were more than eight hundred of them scattered over the realm, and Cromwell’s report, Valor Ecclesiasticus, divided them into “lesser” houses and “greater.” Some three hundred of them were “lesser” and had an income below an arbitrarily selected point. These houses had only a few members and were likely to be lax and poorly run. Certainly it was inefficient of the orders to have a great number of tiny monasteries in operation. Cromwell had recommended dissolving these establishments, letting the truly committed monks transfer to other, more disciplined houses of their orders, and releasing the rest from their vows. The property, of course, would revert to the Crown, as it was treason to send it to Rome. He reckoned that millions of pounds would accrue to me. I left the word “monasteries” un-inked. More to discuss with Cromwell.

  Now for a personal inventory. I wrote “poison.” I feared that Anne’s poison was slow-acting and irreversible. For my leg had not healed, as I had assumed it would do upon her demise. And Fitzroy—his cough had not lessened, and his colour paled day by day. I prayed that I could outlast the life of the poison, and ultimately defeat it, like a city under siege. Sooner or later its power must wane and abate. But it looked to be a long bodily siege. I was determined to withstand it. Would Mary? All the more reason for us to make peace. I was convinced that isolation increased the power of the poison. Under “poison” I included my impotence, which obviously had been due entirely to Anne’s malevolence, for it had disappeared with her.

  General health. Since my fall in the lists, and the permanent state of ulceration on my thigh, I had had to curtail my athletic activities. The lack of exercise had caused me to gain weight for the first time in my life. My very flesh seemed to expand and change from tautness to looseness. I tried every means of moderate exercise to reverse the process and bring it under control: walks with Jane, long, slow cantering rides, archery, bowling. But the tide of creeping slackness and fat was relentless. It seemed I needed the violent excesses of long hunts with hounds and horses, wherein the horses would tire before ever I did; the sweating tennis matches wherein I would bet upon myself; the foot combat at the barriers in tournaments when I must leap and swing swords while encased in one hundred pounds of tortoiselike armour; even the rigorous dances in court celebrations. Deprived of these tests, my flesh sighed, expanded, and began to sag.

  I left “general health” with no black line across it.

  Cromwell had shown mounds, the actual day-to-day work was done by kennel-masters and dog-breeders, a staff of ten.

  This fine day in late July the dogs were being exercised in the open fields not far from Blackheath. Like men, they grew restless and despondent if they were kept indoors and inactive too long; they were meant to run, especially the greyhounds and Scottish deerhounds.

  The latter were an interesting breed. I had only lately been successful in obtaining puppies of this noted dog of the open northern country, which hunted by sight and not by smell. Of course, a man had to have a fleet horse and be an expert rider to keep up; in our southern areas, “chases” had been cut through forested areas in order to hunt in this manner.

  “They say these dogs have been in Scotland since ancient days,” I explained to Cromwell. “But clansmen also claim that they were bred originally from Irish ‘swifthounds’—when Ireland and Scotland were exchanging families and settlers back and forth. ’Tis all the same, the wild North. Savages.” I admired a pack of deerhounds bounding off together. “But they breed good animals.”

  Cromwell smiled, and sighed expansively. It never failed to surprise me how well the outdoors became him. I was used to thinking
of him as a purely indoor breed. “Perhaps one day they will be tamed and civilized. But not in our lifetime,” he said. “Now we must merely contain them.”

  How quickly he came to the point. The open country gave us the opportunity to discuss it, as I had planned. “The disaffected lords assembled by Chapuys—what of them? In my experience, a group never disbands without having made a gesture of some sort.” I threw it out to him.

  “Yes, it is like a woman all dressed for a ball. She must dance to some tune.”

  “Whose tune?”

  “A northern one, most like. But as yet there’s nothing. Wait long enough, and eventually the maiden takes off her finery and goes to bed.”

  We walked together, smiling and seemingly discussing the dogs. We approached another trainer, with a group of short-legged, dark hounds. He was offering them a piece of cloth to smell.

  “How are the slow-hounds progressing?” I asked him.

  “Excellently. They have been able to track three different men through a forest, a market-square, and a graveyard—right after a funeral!—and each time identified the proper one in a crowd.” He grinned.

  “These track by scent,” I said. “They are of great use in tracking outlaws, kidnappers, and so on. My breeders are attempting to purify the strain even more—to make their scent keener and their endurance greater. Then they’ll be almost on a par with your agents, Crum.” Why I needled him in front of others, I knew not. Crum smiled, a poisonous smile. It said: Why must I endure this?

  We nodded and moved on.

  “You have read the report of the monastic visitations?” he asked, the moment we were out of earshot.

  “Yes. The immorality your commissioners found was ... a disgrace.” I had hoped that St. Osweth’s was a degradedus s “trusted to see the King of Scots King of England.” The bailiff of Bampton hoped to see the Scots King “wear the flower of England.” The vicar of Hornchurch, Hampshire, had said, “The King and his council had made a way by will and craft to put down all manner of religious; but they would hold hard, for their part, which was their right; and the King could not pull down none, nor all his Council.”

  A Sussex man, when told about my fall in the lists, had replied, “It were better he had broken his neck.” A Cambridge master called me “a mole who should be put down”; his students, “a tyrant more cruel than Nero” and “a beast and worst than a beast.”

  Other statements reported by Crum’s agents were: “Cardinal Wolsey had been an honest man if he had had an honest master”; “The King is a fool and my Lord Privy Seal another”; “Our King wants only an apple and a fair wench to dally with”; and then there was a yeoman’s detailed recounting of how I had been riding near Eltham one day, seen his wife, abducted her, and taken her away to my bed.

  It was certainly true, what the Kentish man said, “If the King knew his subjects’ true feeling, it would make his heart quake.” The sample I did hear, did just that. My own unsettled and miserable state, from the beginning of my Great Matter to its end, had transferred itself to them. My new contentment would also transfer itself, but it would take time.

  I had lost my son, but I would cheat the Witch of claiming my daughter as well. Under Cromwell’s threats to drop her suit, and Chapuys’s advice, and the Emperor’s final lack of commitment to her cause, Mary gave in. She copied out the “suggested” letter, provided by Cromwell, in which she admitted her mother’s marriage to me was incestuous, in which she renounced all allegiance to the Pope and acknowledged me as the Supreme Head of the Church in England, and her spiritual as well as her temporal father. When I received the letter, I thanked God for it. Now all was clear for our reconciliation. I would have Mary back again; I would have my little girl!

  Theologians call the parable of the Prodigal Son the sweetest yet strongest story in the Bible. Now I knew how that father had felt. Or was I being presumptuous? I would read the parable over in the new translation that would soon be issued under my patronage.

  Already it was nicknamed “the Great Bible” for its size. The recently promulgated “Ten Articles of Faith” required for believers in the—wy!—Church of England specified that each church should have a Bible in English, and Miles Coverdale’s translation was being used for the purpose. Originally it was to be printed in France, for their presses were larger than ours, but the English churchmen had run afoul of the French Inquisitor-General and had had to transfer their entire printing operation to England. The copy I consulted was one of the advance ones, sent for my inspection. One necessary change: Anne’s name on the dedication page, as Queen, must be replaced by Jane’s, as was being done elsewhere in stone and wood carvings.

  I turned to Luke, Chapter fifteen, verse ten.

  Likewise I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

  Or one person who realizes that he is not a sinner.

  And he said, A certain man had two sons.

  To have hoped so fully, so that the thing seemed so assured . . . now this second death. God teases us on the rack of expectations; the earthly ones we construct as implements of torture are poor imitations of His own.

  The door opened. I was no longer looking at it, and so Mary was fully in the room before I saw her. And then she seemed a vision.

  A tiny young woman—that was my “little girl,” She was short, and that made her seem young, belied her true age.

  “Father.” Her voice was low, gruff. It seemed an odd thing to issue from her throat.

  Before I could reply, she flung herself down at my feet and began reciting, in that near-growling voice, “I, most humbly lying at your feet to perceive your gracious clemency, my merciful, passionate, and most blessed father, Supreme Head of the Church of England....” The words were all stuck end-to-end as she admitted her mother’s marriage incestuous, abandoned her allegiance to Rome, and acknowledged my claims of overlordship of the Church of England.

  I bent down and pulled her gently up, hugged her to me. Her head came only up to my chest.

  “Mary, daughter. You need say no more. Thank you for coming back to me.”

  At once she began to cry, and I knew she wept for her “betrayal” of her dead mother. But to go on living is no betrayal. I said nothing and let her cry. But oh! my heart sang to have her back . . . back from both Katherine and Anne. God be thanked that they were both dead. Their deaths freed me from my past, and my mistakes.

  “You are welcome here at court,” I finally said. “Come, the Queen wishes to see you again.”

  “Queen Jane was always kind,” she said, in a low monotone.

  Jane had come to court when Katherine was already isolated and beginning her stubborn martyrdom. The self-seekers had followed Anne’s rising star. But Jane had remained with Katherine and befriended Mary, who was only seven years younger. (Jane had been born the same year I became King.)

  Together we walked from my inmost private room and out into the common chamber. I requested that the Queen come straightway. While we waited, Mary and I stood together awkwardly. I no longer felt elated, but almost uncomfortable with a grown woman who was a stranger but also my daughter. Would Jane never come and relieve this tension?

  Jane, Jane, help me, as you always do....

  Jane appeared, at the far end of the chamber, and came swiftly toward Mary, arms outstretched, a great natural smile on her face.

  “Mary, Mary!” she cried, genuine welcome in her voice.

  Mary tried to kneel, but Jane embraced her instead. “I have so longed for this day,” said Jane. “Now my happiness is complete.” She held out her other arm to me and locked us all together, turning the water of awkwardness into the wine of ease, against all odds.

  LXXVIII

  Edward the Confessor. Pilgrims had come from far away to see it, and had addressed their most fervent prayers to it. It was a glass vial containing drops of the Virgin’s milk—miraculous help for barren women.

  Cromwell’s inspectors had found
it to be a fraud, refilled regularly with ground Dover chalk dissolved in thin olive oil. The slightly yellow tint gave it an authentic look of antiquity.

  The monks at that particular shrine had made a tidy living from exhibiting their precious “relic.”

  “Disgraceful,” I said, but more in sadness than in anger.

  I turned to the next confiscation. This was a marble Virgin that wept “real tears” and could be petitioned (with money) to share one’s own sufferings. I turned it around. There was a small line behind the head, indicating an opening of some sort. I pressed upon the neck, and the stone piece moved outward. I prized it out, and found the head to be hollow. There was a porous container inside to be filled with salt water that oozed through the minute ducts leading to the Virgin’s eyes at just the proper rate. It was an ingenious contraption. And it only had to be refilled once a week.

  All across the land there were similar versions of these famous hoaxes. They could not be maintained without the conspiracy of corrupt monks. How could one profess himself a follower of Christ and yet practise the same trickery as the priests of Isis or the Canaanites?

  Parliament had passed the Act of Suppression of the Lesser Monasteries. The Act began: “Forasmuch as manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living is daily used among the small abbeys . . .” It was based on the reports that at Garadon there were five homosexuals, “one with ten boys”; that at Selby one of the monks had had sexual relations “with five or six married women” who had come to seek benefit from the Abbey’s “Virgin Girdle,” which protected one in childbirth; that at Warter, Brother Jackson was “guilty of incest with a nun,” and that at Calder, one Matthew Ponsonby “showed peculiar depravity.” At Bath Priory—where the prior had tried to buy Cromwell off by sending him a leash of Irish wolfhounds—monks were “more corrupt than any others in vices with both sexes.” At Lewes, the prior had “eight whores” and the place was a “very whorehouse and unnatural vices are here, especially the sub-prior, as appears by the confession of a fair young monk.”