The Autobiography of Henry 8

by Margaret George

  “The farther north, the longer the day,” said Wyatt, who was fascinated by oddities of geography. “At the highest latitudes, as in very northern Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland Isles, there is no night at all in June. Just a sort of purple twilight.”

  Wilder and wilder it became. There was so much game that after the first novelty of it, we did not bother to hunt. Besides, the surrounding forest was so dark and extensive it seemed unwise to chase far into it. We were near Robin Hood territory, and now the sheriff of Nottingham’s reluctance to pursue Robin Hood and his merrie men into the fastness of Sherwood made perfect sense. I would have let the outlaw roam, too.

  Lincolnshire, which I had once called “one of the most brute and beastly shires of the whole realm,” was the beginning of the territory of traitors. It had taken us forty days to reach it from London, travelling at our slow ceremonial pace, it was so remote. Small wonder Lincolnshiremen considered themselves beyond our grasp, a feudal kingdom of their owoss I said lamely. “I shall await him. In the meantime, the ceremony distinguishing between the traitors and the true subjects must be carried out.” I was not looking forward to this, but rgarent size="3">As I approached the door to her apartments, a dark shape rose from a chair nearby, and glided toward me.

  A spirit ... or at first I thought so. I was infected by the wild strangeness of this whole region. For it was a face I had thought never to see again: Jane Boleyn, George Boleyn’s wife. She who had betrayed her own husband and testified against him at that sordid time of Anne’s downfall.

  “Why, Jane—” I whispered.

  “Your Majesty.” She bowed low. It was truly she.

  She stood. A hood of the new fashion framed her face, but otherwise it was the same. An ugly face, with a long, bulbous nose and dark, shining, feral eyes too close on either side.

  It seemed that she was guarding the doors. But there were yeomen for that. It must be my own imagination, I remember thinking then.

  I tapped on the door, and Jane reached out a hand as if to restrain me. There was no response within; everyone must be dead asleep. Perhaps my Catherine was, as well? I produced the proper key (for we always carried our chamber locks with us to protect us from assassins who might have procured a key to the built-in lock), but Jane stayed my hand.

  “The Queen sleeps,” she said. “She asked me to keep watch in the outer chambers, lest she be disturbed.”

  “I will not disturb her,” I assured her. “I will sleep on a pallet at her bed-foot, if need be. Her presence will aid me to sleep.”

  “Very well.” She nodded stiffly.

  The key worked well enough, but the door was barred from the inside as well. I could see the metal rod passing across the door-crack, and a great coffer pressed against the doors. I could not gain entrance without causing a great commotion.

  Disappointment flooded me. I had not realized until that moment how much I longed to be with her. I had wanted to tell her how proud I was of her, how my heart was near to bursting as I presented her as my Queen. These recalcitrant northerners had always loved Katherine of Aragon, and remained her partisans. But now there was a new Queen, another Catherine, whose gentle ways and pretty manners had charmed them, a Catherine who bore no taint of Protestantism such as Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and Anne of Cleves had. She had reconciled me with my wayward subjects, as well as with myself.

  “She is afraid of assassins,” Jane, Lady Rochford, explained in a whisper. “These tales of bloody Scots have frightened her.”

  Poor, gentle child. I nodded. They were enough to frighten anyone. I understood her concern. “I would not disturb her,” I said. “Let her sleep, sweet Queen.”

  The next morning she was in my inner chamber, stammering and embarrassed at her makeshift defences. She covered me with kisses and swore that she, too, had been troubled with sleeplessness and would have relished a visit from me. Nothing else could truly calm her or rout her fears. She was chagrined that I had discovered the extent of her childish fear of the Scots. I assured her I was in sympathy, and loved her as much as ever, and no, I did not think less of her for taking those precautions.

  “Your Grace—my dear Lord—forgive me,” said Cranmer, thrusting a rolled letter into my hand. He looked ill.

  “What? No other greeting? I have missed you, Thomas, in our separation.”

  “And I you, Your Majesty. Truly.”

  “I will plough through all the notes you took in my absence, I promise it, tonight. You did well.”

  “The letter—read it first, I beg you, I—” He looked so agitated I knew immediately that he suffered from rebellious bowels.

  “Go, Thomas,” I said. Still he stood with a hangdog look. “Yes, yes. I’ll read it straightway,” I assured him. He slunk away, as if in pain. Poor man.

  I seated myself on a wooden bench in the Long Gallery outside the Chapel and unfolded the letter, just to humour him.

  It was a joke. It reported the claims of a certain John Lassells that his sister, Mary Lassells Hall, had told him that Catherine Howard was a whore, that she had behaved wantonly from a young age with men of the Duchess’s household, giving herself to a “music master” when she was but thirteen and then living in open sin with a cousin until her departure for court.

  Who was this Mary Hall? I reread the letter carefully. She was, before her marriage, a servant at the Duchess’s Lambeth establishment. When her brother, who was a fervent Protestant, had asked her why she did not seek a position at court, as the other Lambeth servitors had done, she had replied with disdain, “I would not serve that woman! She is immoral, both in living and in conditions.” And then she had named “Manox, a music master” and “Dereham, a gentleman,” as Catherine’s lovers.

  Nonsense. It was nonsense. So the Protestants were on the move again. Since the head of the heretical serpent, Cromwell, had been severed, it writhed on its own, in meaningless thrashings. A flush of resentment spread through me. I had spent the summer quashing the pretensions of the Catholics, I thought, and now I must spend the winter curbing the Protestants. I was amused that Cranmer should have been taken in by this bait. But I had left my Protestants in charge in London, I reminded myself. Cranmer, Audley, Edward Seymour ... they would be approachable by the extremists.

  Well, I would have this investigated, and have this Mary Hall silenced. She would regret ever having uttered this slander. Wearily I ordered William Fitzwilliam, the Lord Privy Seal, Anthony Browne, the Lord Admiral, and Thomas Wriothesley, Secretary of State, to round up Mary and John Lassells, and question Manox and Dereham. The slander must be stopped.

  In the meantime I enjoyed Catherine heartily, as if in defiance.

  Three days later my men returned, and in the privacy of my work chamber they said they had questioned the Protestant brother and sister, the music master, and Dereham, and had been unable to disprove the story. Quite the contrary.

  “I fail to believe this!” I muttered. “They must be lying. Oh, why do Protestants abandon their falsehoods only over the lighted fire? Damn their fanatacism! Very well, then—torture them! Force the truth from them!”

  Torture was illegal, except in cases of treason, sedition, or suspected treason.

  Catherine had planned a sus illeg; for me that evening. But suddenly I was not amused; suddenly I did not want to see her or share an amusement. Abruptly I sent word that she must take to her quarters and await the King’s pleasure, that it was no more the time to dance.

  The King’s pleasure had been shattered, and nothing but a full retraction by those blackguards would restore it.

  I slept poorly that night, if at all. At my bed-foot pallet, Culpepper was likewise sleepless. I could hear it in his breathing. Ordinarily I could have passed time with him, lighted a taper and set up a chessboard. But a deadly fear had got hold of me, and I did not wish any company. So we passed the long night, each acutely aware of the other’s presence, but each alone in an absolute way.

  I was relieved when dawn came and it
was time to go to Mass. I needed God; I needed some comfort. I dressed hurriedly and made my way down the Long Gallery to the Chapel Royal. There were few people about, as most preferred a later Mass on Sunday morning.

  Kneeling there, I poured out every incoherent thought and fear I had, and offered them up to God. The candles flickered on the altar and the Divine Service went smoothly, but I received no answers, no peace of mind.

  “—Thee, for that Thou dost vouchsafe to feed us who have duly received this holy mystery, with the spiritual food—” Outside the chapel doors there was a scraping, a scuffling. Then a shriek, piercing and like a banshee’s.

  “No! No!”

  “—of the most precious Body of Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, and dost assure us thereby of Thy favour and goodness towards us; and—”

  “Henry! Henry! Henry!” screamed the voice, each naming of my name growing fainter, as from a greater distance.

  I shook, even ten feet from the altar and with the Body of Christ inside me.

  Another scream, muffled now.

  “—that we are very members incorporate in the mystical Body—”

  Was I dreaming? Was I the only one who had heard the bloodcurdling calls? The priest mumbled on, the worshippers mouthed the responses.

  When I stepped out, the passageway was empty.

  There was to be a Privy Council meeting at Bishop Gardiner’s residence in Southwark that evening. I called it that afternoon, as Fitzwilliam came to me with still more evidence and depositions. From a field outside Hampton, where I had gone on a pretext of hunting, but in reality to be alone, I issued a command to all the councillors to return to London to attend this emergency meeting. It was to be kept secret, and so I went directly to the royal barge without ever returning to the palace. Rumour had infested Hampton, and now everyone knew something was amiss. Catherine was confined to her apartments, on my orders.

  Sitting before me in Gardiner’s fine Council Chamber were Audley, the Lord Chancellor; Thomas Howard, ordered back to London for the occasion, looking pleased and important; William Petre, the Principal Secretary; Brandon, Cranmer....

  I ticked off their names. Yged ahead—“to consider certain things, evil charged against the Queen.” I rattled a paper before my face, the original deposition of the informers. “Whilst we were away, the Lord Archbishop and the Council in absentia”—I nodded toward Cranmer, Audley, and Seymour—“were apprised of alleged misdeeds of my ... wife. These were sufficiently grave that the Archbishop saw fit to report them to me in writing. Since then, we have investigated further. But these matters are confusing, and so, before proceeding further, we would lay the entire matter before you. The witnesses—defendants—shall speak openly where all can hear.”

  It was unorthodox. I could scarcely credit my own words. Since this frightful business had begun, it was like a fantasy, and everything seemed like a sleepwalk.

  “We shall retrace each step,” I said. “John Lassells, speak first.”

  They led in an elderly man, who seemed the very soul of reason.

  “State your name and title.”

  He bowed. “I am John Lassells, resident of London.”

  “State your occupation.”

  “I know what you aim for, so let us be honest and disclose it straightway,” he blustered. “I spoke of what my sister Mary, who had served as a nurse in the Duchess of Norfolk’s household, told me when I asked her why she did not seek a position at court. It seemed to me that anyone who had known the Queen came requesting a place. There was Joan Bulmer, writing all the way from York; Katherine Tilney, who became her chamberer. Why not my Mary?”

  I rapped upon the table before me. “Continue.”

  “She replied, ‘I would not serve the Queen. Rather, I pity her.’ I questioned why, and she said, ‘Marry, because she is light, both in living and in conditions.’ ”

  I glanced round. The faces were stunned.

  “And what did she mean? Did you probe further?” I asked detachedly.

  “Aye. And she said”—he hesitated, his voice winding down like a toy doll’s—“that there was a music master, Manox, who bragged that he used to feel her body, knew of a private mark on her secret parts—”

  The little ladder-mark on her uppermost thigh, a gash stitched together when she was but a child. I used to climb that ladder, it was a game we played, my lips mimicking feet, going rung by rung until they nibbled on the gates of her private parts.

  “—and then he was sent away by the Duchess, who found them fondling one another when they were shut up together with the virginals.”

  Music... a music master ... Mark Smeaton ... The pain, which I had thought gone forever, now tore my body apart.

  Mary Lassells Hall was now brought in. She was as I had envisioned: tall, hard, plain. She quickly told her story.

  “After the music master was banished, there came another. A Francis Dereham, some sort of cousin, a gentleman-pensioner of the Duke of Norfolk. He quickly joined the revels in the girls’ attic sleeping quarters, became a popular vihis vourself.” Norfolk squeezed each painful word out. He was frightened.

  “The young maidens were to sleep in a dormitory at night. The Duchess ordered that they be locked in at eight o‘clock. But she slept in another wing, and was half deaf, besides. As soon as she’d retired, what a picnic! Every lust-ridden male in the county converged on that ‘maidens’ chamber.’ They climbed in the windows, and brought strawberries and wine, and then spent their lust on the woman of their choice. Their only concession to modesty was to draw the curtains round the bed itself whilst they sported themselves.”

  “Disgusting,” muttered Norfolk.

  “Your cousin Sir William Howard had his own key,” she said stiffly. “Now this Manox, when he found himself barred from these pagan indulgences, wrote the Duchess a tattling note about them. The Lord William Howard was dismayed, lest he be caught by his wife. He had enjoyed his fifteen-year-old hussy, indeed he had! He scolded Manox and Dereham, saying, ‘What, you mad wretches! Could you not be merry but you must fall out amongst yourselves?’ His game was spoilt, and he regretted it.”

  I waved my hand. “Enough.” I did not care what Lord William Howard had done. My heart did not break on account of him. “You say others from the Duchess’s establishment requested positions from the Queen?”

  “Yes. Joan Bulmer, who was her confidante in the old days, now serves as her privy chamberer; Katherine Tilney, as her bed-maid; Margaret Mortimer, as her wardrobe supervisor. They feathered their berths well, to assure their future.”

  So. She had brought foul reminders of her past life with her. To aid her evil plans. But perhaps it was not her choice, perhaps she had been threatened by them....

  “Edward Manox,” I called. He came forward and stood before me. I had not expected him to be so handsome.

  I repeated the testimony against him. “What say you to these reports?”

  “They are true, but it is not as it appears! I was the son of a neighbouring nobleman, brought into the Duchess’s household to teach her charges music. Catherine Howard was just thirteen at that time, a very ... forward virgin. She had genuine talent in music”—yes, I knew that, I had rejoiced in that talent, cherished it—“but she was wayward, wanton—and beautiful. She promised her maidenhead to me, but before I could make good that promise, the Duchess caught us kissing on the stairs. She screamed and boxed Catherine’s ears. She said she was a fool to waste herself on me, that I was unworthy of her. Then the Duchess dismissed me.” He hesitated. “Before I was sent away, Catherine walked with me in the orchard. She said she loved me and would always be true.”

  I hated the words, hated seeing him, so straight and young and honest.

  “I make my living as a musician,” he said. “I was living in Chertsey when I was brought here to ‘answer certain charges.’ Please, my lords. When I knew her she was but Catherine Howard, a girl in the Duchess’s household, and I did nothing wrong. She may have promised me h
er maidenhead, but I never took it. And I have never mentioned to anyone, sincsor.

  They led him away and dragged Dereham in. Handsome, cocky Dereham.

  He, too, was read the accusation and called upon to clear himself.

  “The Queen is my wife,” he said boldly. “She was promised to me two years ago. We lived as husband and wife, and then she went to court and I to Ireland—both to make our fortunes, that was the plan. Well, I had some success in ventures there”—yes, piracy, I remembered—“but imagine my surprise to find, upon my return, that my little wife is now styled Queen of England. Naturally I hurried to reclaim her, and she was most amenable to appointing me her secretary. But, alas, I found I had been replaced in her affections ... by a Thomas Culpepper.”

  No. No.

  “You say you ‘lived as husband and wife,’ ” said Cranmer dryly. “In what precise sense?”

  “In that we coupled often, and had intentions to marry.”

  Coupled often. I looked at the long-legged pirate, imagining him lying on my Catherine, quivering above her, searching out her secret parts and then depositing his seed within her.

  The stone. The stone in her womb ... that was what it was for.... It was Catherine herself who had sought out a practitioner to put it there, to protect herself from her own sexual indulgences.

  I felt vomit in my throat.

  “Did she promise herself to you?” asked Cranmer reasonably.

  “We called one another ‘husband’ and ‘wife.’ I entrusted my money to her while I went to Ireland. I remember holding her whilst she said, in tears, ‘Thou wilt never live to say to me, “thou hast swerved.”’”

  But she had, she had. O God—why did not the pain stop? Why could I not feel anger? Come, clean anger, sweep this agony away!

  “Look to Tom Culpepper if you want more!” he cried, as he was taken from the chamber.

  Culpepper.

  A dozen eyes blinked back at me. I thought my heart would break, I thought myself torn into shreds, as I whispered, “Arrest Culpepper. Question him.” A stirring, and my servants went to carry out my bidding.