I wanted to laugh, but it never came.
“There are those who, I’m told, can actually strike a bargain with Satan. They sit down and work out a contract with him, just as you do with the money-lenders of Antwerp. ‘So-and-so much interest to be paid on the loan of twenty thousand pounds, due on Whitsun of 1542,’ you say, and it is done. ‘My soul in exchange for such-and-such,’ they say, and it is done. Cromwell appears to have—I mean, there are so many signs—”
He meant it. All the playfulness and deceit was gone from his face.
“My dear son, you—”
“Catherine!” said Surrey, as if a spell were being broken. Catherine had seen us deep in talk, and come over. She tugged playfully at her cousin’s arm.
“They are taking seats,” she chided him, “and you will not be able to see.”
Her presence took us out of that dangerous realm where we had entered, just for a moment. She grinned up at Surrey. They were cousins, first cousins. I could see little resemblance between them. Surrey was slender and blonde, Catherine small and auburn-haired. Both had pale skin, that was all.
I reached out my arm to her, and together we found seats and prepared to listen to a series of compositions performed on a reed instrument by a young man from Cornwall.
He was small and dark, like all his people. The melodies were haunting, dreamlike, unlike anything I had heard before. They spoke to a soft, lost side of myself.
Afterwards I talked to him. I had a bit of trouble understanding his accent, as his mother tongue was Cornish. I complimented him on his musicianship and enquired after the sources of his melodies.
“I modelled them on native melodies, Your Grace,” he said. “There are similar tunes across the sea in Brittany,” he added. “Often my father and I cross there, and while he does his business, I do mine.”
“And what is his business?”
“He is a fisherman, Your Grace.”
“And yours?”
“A musician.”
“And only that?”
“Aye. It’s what I’m called to.”
“But what of your father’s trade?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps somewhere a musician/div>
She reached out and slid her hand along my cheek. The faint light from the boatmen’s torches lit the left side of her face—a half-mask.
“You are a half moon,” I murmured, leaning over to kiss her. She returned that kiss heartily, hungrily, sweetly. I quivered, shuddered, erupted with desire.
“Nay, nay—” she was whispering, her voice rising in urgency. “My Lord!”
I was ashamed. I had frightened her, threatened her chastity. “Forgive me,” I said. My breath was still coming in short gasps.
She drew her cloak around her. Jesu, how could I have insulted her so? She was crying.
“Catherine, I meant no harm. But this—this is unnatural.” At that moment I knew it, felt it. “We must be wed straightway. It is meant to be. No more standing before the Thames, alive with longing.” Even the slap-slap-slap of the water against the riverbank sounded sexual to me. “I will speak to Cromwell tomorrow.”
Still she kept her face buried in her cloak, her shoulders hunched. I reached out a steadying hand. “Hush now.” I soothed her. When she had done crying, I put one arm around her and led her back to her waiting barge. She leaned against me all the way, and yet when the time came to play her part to her waiting uncle Norfolk, she smiled gaily and threw off the hood of the cloak as she joined him in the Howard barge.
Her cousin Surrey, the Lady Norris, Mary, widow of my lost son Fitzroy: all the Howard youngsters awaited her in the barge, and she outshone them all. As the rowers pulled away from the riverbanks, and the sound of music and the faint lantern light echoed and reflected on the water, I wondered what it was to belong to such a great tribal family, and how it felt.
XC
I awoke well before dawn, savouring the spring sweetness. Every hour seemed precious now, every aspect of the day steeped in a rare perfume. The birdsong outside my window was finer tuned than any human consort of viols. Oh, how beautiful was the world! Catherine would soon be my wife, and I would have someone again to share these exquisite moments of life.
Culpepper stirred on the pallet at the foot of my bed and groaned. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, muttering all the while. His breath was foul. I looked at him, in all his youthful strength and beauty, enmeshed in a hangover; and suddenly it seemed to me a desecration, a perversion of what a man was meant to be. He marred the day, like a boil on a virgin’s cheek.
I must see Cromwell, if this thing were truly to come about. And so I sent for him, which I had not done in some time. He appeared so promptly I could almost credit young Henry Howard’s tale of diabolical power; only the Devil could travel with such speed.
Clean-shaven and obedient, he stood before me. “Your Grace?” He bowed smartly; only his rising voice betrayed eagerness and compliance.
“Things are breaking up on the Continent, like clouds on a March day,” I began.
“Sire?”
“I no longer need the alliance with Cleves!” I barked. “You erected it; you dismantle it.”
ell, ifize="3">“Leonardo da Vinci—even he!—dismantled the arches and pavilions he created for Princess Katherine’s Coronation. He supposedly was a great artist —certainly Francis thought so, buying every small canvas he painted!—and yet he was not above cleaning up his messes. Now you do the same!”
“Sire?” He looked pained and confused. “Pray you, be specific. I am no artist, and have erected no arches filled with cherubim. Nor have I painted Madonnas in strange landscapes.”
“No, you have brought a travesty of a Madonna to my landscape!”
He looked blankly at me. What an actor!
“I mean the Lady Anne of Cleves! A Madonna—that is, a mother—she will never be, and the political reasons for the marriage are insufficient. Francis and Charles drift apart, like those March clouds, and my good coastal defence system will protect me better than an alliance with the Duchy of Cleves. It was a mistake, a ghastly mistake that robs me of the opportunity to happiness. So undo what you have so dexterously done!”
“I thought... that you were fond of the Lady... the Queen,” he mumbled.
“I am fond of my hunting dogs and of the first lute I had as a boy. But that is not enough for a marriage!”
Instead of responding with abject obedience, he walked about the chamber a bit—though I had not given him permission!—and at length turned back to me, musing. (He acted as if he actually had a choice as to whether to obey or not. Why did he try me so?)
His eyes were narrowed. “It is Norfolk who has put you to this,” he said coldly. “He seeks to use you for his purpose.”
“No one uses me!” I bellowed. The fool! “Least of all you!”
He started; I continued. “Yes, you! All over the kingdom they say you use me. Use me for your own schemes. Protestant schemes. Now prove to me that they lie. Undo this insulting Protestant alliance you concocted for me, that you erected just like one of Leonardo’s symbolic arches, all out of papier-mâché and paint. Tear it down. It is as insubstantial as a paper arch.”
He looked grim. “Your Grace—”
“Do it! What has been done can be undone!”
In a heartbeat he accepted the challenge. “What provision shall be made for the Lady Anne?”
I waved my hand impatiently. “A manor—a palace—a royal income.” Those were Cromwell’s concerns. I stopped. Anne was dear to me in a peculiar way. I even loved her, but it was a singular sort of love.
“She shall be my sister,” I said. “I will keep her and cherish her as if she were my dear lost Mary. I have no family,” I said, almost in wonder. “I would like a sister.”
“You must be more specific,” he said dryly.
I sat down and the words came. “She shall be titled ‘the King’s sister.’ She shall be given royal residences and ... shall be my friend.”
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br /> “A high honour.” D221; I laughed, but did not answer him. A deflection is no answer; it is not even a sop.
I knew deep inside that Crum was becoming dangerous, and had changed since first he came into my service. He had outlived his usefulness both to me and to England. There were signs—signs that even he could not hide: his obvious partiality toward the Protestants on the Continent, his strange leniency toward heretics and Reformers, his uncharacteristic reluctance to enforce “the Whip with Six Strings,” and his determined maneuvering for the Cleves marriage.
Yet I hung on that human balance, liking the man, even while knowing he was bad. I lacked the courage to act on my intuition, to just... end Cromwell. Eliminate his presence from my government. Each time I would say to myself, “Next time—next time I’ll do it—” and yet each time he would walk from my chamber a free man, enveloped in his customary power. Power that I must needs revoke. Next time.
So. Now it would be done. I had no doubt of that. I had frightened him, and a frightened Cromwell was a sure servant. He would untangle me from Anne. But I was pleased at my decision to offer her a place in my family. Of course, such a thing was unprecedented, but then, so was our entire relationship. If Cleves were as dull as it seemed to be, Anne would surely have no wish to return to it.
I felt a contentment fuller than any in years. I paced the chamber a bit, trying to understand why.
Of course. I was being given something few men were ever gifted with: an opportunity to relive my life and have it turn out differently. What was Anne of Cleves but a second Katherine ofAragon—a foreign princess to whom I could not be husband? Only this time, instead of wasting years seeking Papal sanction, I had but to say “Do it” to Cromwell—and it would be done. Instead of appealing to foreign rulers and clinging to her “rights” to me, Anne would co-operate, and we would remain friends.
And Catherine Howard! She was Anne Boleyn before she became hard and heartless and corrupted. By some great miracle (for who can understand God’s mind?), I had been given a second chance.
That evening I was to dine with Anne, as I usually did on Thursday evenings; long, comfortable suppers before a hearty fire. I was not disappointed this time.
Anne greeted me affectionately at the door to her withdrawing chamber and pointed to a board set up before the open window, looking out on the summer twilight. My accustomed chair, well bedecked with velvet pillows, was drawn up.
“A new game?” I inquired. How she loved games!
“Ja!” She beamed. “It is call-ed ‘Var.’ ” The board had a figure drawn upon it that was funnel-shaped-narrow at one end, wide at the other. To the side were grouped carved horses and men, and wooden coins of different colours.
“Pray explain.”
“Ah, ja. Vell, it takes ze income from the monasteries, ze New Vorld, ze banks—vool produck-sion, all zose things, and zen buys men with zem, zat is, soldiers, and—zese nations var together.”
It was an elaborate and intricate game, based on sources of income for ten countries, and their national goFrance, while the Emperor stood on the sidelines with Scotland, and the Pope amassed land wealth.
“Leave it set up!” I cautioned. “I wish to conclude this game, see it through to the end.”
She laughed. “I am glad it pleasures you so.”
“Where did you find it?”
“I made it up.”
I was dumbfounded. “You? You created it?”
She was brilliant! A mathematician, a financier, a strategist. Oh, why was she a woman? Poor Wolsey. If only he had had one-third her grasp of these things.
“You are gifted, Princess. Would I could make you Chancellor of the Exchequer. Or War Minister.”
“Und vhy not?” she asked blandly.
“Because you are the Queen,” I replied. But will not be for long, I thought. And then, why not... ? No, impossible. But I would need someone to replace Cromwell.... No, absurd!
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” I said quickly, nodding and kissing her hand. I walked down the corridor to my own apartments swiftly, lest I suddenly act on my own impulse. Beheading a Queen had not alarmed the populace as much as appointing one Finance Minister would.
Within a fortnight Cromwell reported that all obstacles were cleared. The “cause” had been found: Anne’s precontract with the Duke of Lorraine, but, more importantly, the lack of consummation.
“The lack of consummation, or my inability to consummate the marriage? Be clear, Crum!”
He shrugged. “Of course it would be more... persuasive... if you attested to your inability to consummate it. But ’twill serve as well if you present it as a matter of policy that you simply chose not to.”
“It makes me sound as if my private parts wore the crown instead of my head.” He looked over at me, and I could almost read his mind: In you, Sire, they do.
Women groan from desire, too, I thought. You shall see.
Instead I smiled. “Good night, sweetheart,” I said, unwittingly giving the same farewell that I gave Anne every evening. What else was there to say to an untouched bride?
Cromwell I gave instructions to.
“You have prepared a statement for the Princess of Cleves to sign?” I asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty. It is all set down here, as best I understood your desires.” He produced a short document.
“If it said what the true nature of the complaint is, it would be even shorter.” The parchment said it, said something—what matter, as long as the game was ended? I laid it down.
“There is another matter, Your Majesty,” said Cromwell happily. “A matter pertaining to money.” He looked as if he expected me to salivate. Was I perceived as that simple, then? And that greedy?
“In the monastic suppressions, we overlooked one order. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.”
Ah, yes. The militant order of monks, the sword-arm of Christ. They had formed originally to protect defenceless pilgrims to Jerusalem. They had fought the Infidel and set up hospices all along the pilgrim routes. As always, competence and filling a need where no services existed had made them powerful and then wealthy. Today the order held land and privilege all over Europe. They were true knights, though, in the purest sense of the word. And their name stood for strength, honesty, compassion.
“... a profit of ten thousand pounds,” Cromwell was saying.
“But who will take their place?”
He smiled crookedly. “No one. Because they are not needed today.”
“Charity and protection, not needed?”
“Not en route to Jerusalem. Perhaps in other guises, at other stations.”
“But with no formal organization?”
“The Knights did not begin as a formal organization. They began with one man’s courage and charity. Other men of vision will see the needs today.”
I sighed. I was reluctant to sign, as if by signing I would at long last kill something lingering in myself.
“I shall leave it here for you,” Cromwell said at length, placing it firmly on top of a stack of lesser documents for my attention, things pertaining to rent-leases in Kent and shipping regulations for Alicante wine.
After he had left me alone, I reread the first parchment carefully. It stated, succinctly and reasonably, why the marriage to Anne was no marriage. It outlined the privileges Anne was to acquire upon becoming “the King’s most entirely beloved sister.” She would take precedence over all women of the realm, with the exception of my Queen (who was left unspecified) and my daughters. She would be granted a large annual income of about five thousand pounds, and two royal manors, Richmond and Bletchingly.
In exchange, she had merely to sign and acknowledge that we were in agrerfect harmony on this matter.
Attached to the document was an envelope containing a terse statement by Cromwell: “It will doubtless be necessary for the King’s Majesty to speak personally to selected members of the Court and the foreign ambassadors on this matter, viz, to wit: ‘The marriage be
tween the Princess of Cleves and myself has never been consummated, due to our inner conviction that this was no true marriage. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth and Wisdom, communicated itself to us unmistakably, and we obeyed.’ ”
How neat and vague and high-minded. But what if questions were asked? Must a King open himself so personally to public knowledge? How much would people demand, and how far was I bound to answer?
I found I could not sign the paper. I would have to search the matter out more fully with Cromwell in the morning.
XCI
“I know not how, precisely. But it disturbs my conscience.” What disturbed my conscience, truly, was the putting away of a good woman for no other fault than not exciting me.
“It need not be done at all!” he said merrily. “Perhaps these pricklings of conscience are showing you another way, the most righteous way!”
Any chance that his handiwork would survive elated him. But it could not be.
“Nay, it must be done. It is necessary for the realm that I have a true Queen and perhaps other heirs. It would give Edward comfort, too, not to carry the burden alone.”
Cromwell nodded, as he had to; wondering if a new Queen on the throne would represent all manner of connections he had sought to quash.
I turned quickly and swung round to glance at the parchments spread out on his work-surface. They were innocent enough, or seemed to be. One never knew. They might contain codes; I knew he had devised some. To disguise his plans?
I then let my eyes search his chamber. The light was so poor it was difficult to see into the far corners. I thought I saw a shelf laden with odd-shaped vessels. Abruptly I made my way to it, taking one of the candles with me. Behind me I could hear Cromwell following anxiously.
Yes, it was a row of jars and bottles and little boxes. Some were evidently quite ancient; I could tell by the worm-eaten wood.
“What are these things?” I asked. I reached out and took one, a rounded container with a hinged lid. Inside was some sort of ointment. I took a smear of it. It smelt vile, like a decaying animal.
The Autobiography of Henry 8 Page 45
