WILL:
And better would it have been for Harry had she not been so “religious” and “pious.” If only she had cavorted with that disgusting friar (who, incidentally, was later deported for gross immorality in London—imagine that!—in London!), it would have been worth an earldom to him during Harry’s divorce campaign. But no, Katherine was pure. How Harry ever got any children on her is one of the mysteries of matrimony. Perhaps the Catholics are right in declaring marriage a sacrament. Sacraments bestow “grace to do that which is necessary,” do they not?
It is interesting to note that even at this tender age, Harry used the Church for his own purposes. I have no doubt that, had she consented, he would have cheerfully copulated with her in the shadow of the altar itself.
X
HENRY VIII:
I now had a Mission: to rescue the Princess from her tower of imprisonment, as a proper knight should do. And being in love (as evidenced by the rush of excitement I felt whenever I pictured her) made it all the more imperative.
Father was preparing to go on one of his summer “progresses,” which promised me freedom for the few weeks he was away. Once I had longed to accompany him and been hurt when he excluded me; now I just wished him gone.
Considering that Father disliked go/div>
On August first, the customary Lammas Mass was held in the Chapel Royal, in which a loaf of bread made from the first harvested grain of the season was brought up to the altar. That afternoon the King departed for his progress. He would not return until near Michaelmas at the end of September, when the year had begun to turn and slip toward winter. There was always goose on Michaelmas, a hearty autumnal dish.
I sat in an upper window, watching the royal party gather in the courtyard below. It was hot and sultry, and autumn and Michaelmas seemed a long way off. I felt dizzy with freedom. Everyone was going on the progress. I could see Fox and Ruthal and Thomas Howard and Thomas Lovell, as well as Father’s two finance ministers, Empson and Dudley. The King must think of finances, if not in the country sunlight, then late at night.
Only Archbishop Warham had stayed behind, and my grandmother Beaufort. The nobles and court dignitaries not accompanying the King would return to their own estates, as no business would be transacted at court during the King’s absence. Business followed him, and court was wherever he happened to be.
But there would be little business, because the whole world, it seemed, was lying idle during those golden weeks of August.
They were golden to me. I spent them in almost continual sport, participating in forbidden jousts and foot combats at the barrier with my companions, risking my person time and again. Why? I cannot tell, even now. Yet I sought danger as a man on the desert seeks water. Perhaps because it had been denied me for so long. Perhaps because I wished to test myself, to see at what point my bravery would break, to be replaced by fear. Or perhaps it is simpler than that. “Youth will needs have dalliance,” I myself wrote, and this was one form of dalliance, a knightly, death-defying one....
When I remember those contests, I cannot help but believe that Providence spared me, held me back from a severe punishment. It was that summer of 1506 cost Bryan his eye; and one of my comrades died from a blow in the head while jousting. The curious thing is that immediately after his accident, he seemed well enough. But that night he suddenly died. One of Linacre’s assistants (for Linacre had gone with the King) told me it is often so in head injuries. The bleeding takes place inside the skull, where it cannot be felt or stopped.
We were shaken, frightened—and young, so that in just a few days’ time we were back riding toward one another on horseback. Thus quickly and naturally do we kill one another in memory as well as in deed.
At night we would sup together, and then play our lutes and talk of our future conquests in France, where we would be brothers-in-arms. It was a good time for us, a little pause between what had come before and what must come after.
ote,Late at night, alone in my chamber, I found myself loth to sleep. Now that I was no longer confined, I relished my solitude after a day of boisterous companionship.
At Greenwich I had two windows in my chamber. One faced east, the other, south. The eastern one had a window seat, and there I found myself often, near midnight. It was always darkest in the eastern part of the sky. By mid-August the slow, lingering twilights had gone, and night came earlier. The stars were exceptionally clear now. I tried to pick them out, as I had been studying astronomy. I knew a great number of the constellations already. The heavens and the stars intrigued me. I was impressed that eclipses and other phenomena could be predicted by mathematicians. I wanted to learn how it was done. Already they knew that the third full moon from now would be partly shadowed. How?
I wanted to learn all things; to experience all things; to stretch and stretch until I reached the end of myself, and found ... I knew not what.
The small casement window was open where I sat. A hot gush of wind came in, and there was a distant rumble. Far away I could see bright flashes. There would be a storm. The candles and torches in my chamber were dancing.
The wind was from the west. Without thinking, I felt myself at one with that wind, that hot, questing wind. I took my lute, and immediately the tune and the words came, as if they had always been there:
O Western wind
When wilt thou blow
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again.
Summer ended, and the King returned. Within a few hours of his arrival, he summoned me to his chamber. Someone had told him about the tournaments. If I had not expected it, I should have. There are no secrets at court.
I fortified myself for the interview by drinking three cups of claret in rapid succession. (One of the changes I had instigated in Father’s absence was an abundant supply of unwatered wine in my chamber.)
Father was in his favourite place: his work closet. (It was popularly referred to as his “counting house” since he did most of his finances there.) He was wrestling with a great mass of chewed papers when I arrived, his head bent over a veritable ball of them. I noticed, for the first time, how grey his hair was. He was without his customary hat, and the torchlight turned the top of his head to silver. Perhaps that was why he never appeared in public without a head-covering of some sort.
“Curse this monkey!” He gestured toward the little creature, now impertinently crouching near the Royal Seal. “He has destroyed my diary!” His voice was anguished. “It is gone!”
Evidently the monkey had decided to turn the King’s private papers into a nest, first by shredding the paper and then by trampling it.
“Perhaps you should put him in the royal menagerie, Sire,” I said. Six months ago. I had always hated the creature, who refused to be trained like a dog for his natural functions, yet could not imitate humans in the matter either.
“Yes,” he said curtly. “ pretenders”) persisted in tickling Yorkist fancies and harbouring pretenders and claimants to the English throne. Father had had to fight three pitched battles to win and defend his crown, and I, most likely, would have to do the same. How would I fare on the battlefield? I might make a good showing on the rigorously prescribed area of the tournament field, but a true battle was something else. Richard III had been brave, and a good fighter, it was said ... but he was hacked in a dozen places, and his naked body slung over an old horse after the battle. His head bobbed and struck a stone bridge in crossing and was crushed, but no matter, he was dead....
There would be fighting, and a test, sometime, of whether I was worthy to be King. And I shrank from it. Yes, I must tell it: I did not want the test and prayed for it to fall elsewhere, at some other time, on some other man. I was afraid. As it came closer, I no longer wished to be King, so acute was my fear of failure. When I was a little younger, I had blithely assumed that since God had chosen me for the kingship, He would protect me in all my doings. Now I knew it
was not so simple. Had He protected Saul? Henry VI? He had set up many kings only to have them fall, to illustrate something of His own unsearchable purpose. He used us as we use cattle or bean-plants. And no man knew what his own end or purpose was. A fallen king, a foolish king, made a good example of something, was part of the mysterious cycle.
The year I was seventeen, there were but two overriding concerns at court: when would the King die, and how would he die? Would he expire peacefully in his sleep, or would he remain an invalid for months, perhaps years, becoming cruel and distracted on account of the constant pain? Would he lie abed carrying on his affairs of state, or would he become incapable, leaving the realm in effect without a King for an unknown stretch of time?
And what of Prince Henry? Who would rule for him? The King had appointed no Protector, although surely the Prince could not rule by himself. Such were their fears.
Outwardly, things went on the same as ever. Father continued to meet with ambassadors and discuss treaties, to haggle over the precise meaning of this phrase or that as if the outcome would concern him in five years’ time. He would stop every few minutes to cough blood, as naturally as other men cleared their throats. He kept a quantity of clean linens by his side for this purpose. In the morning a stack of fresh white folded cloths was brought to his bedside; when he retired, a pile of bloody, wadded ones was taken away.
Father convened the Privy Council to meet by his bedside, and I was present at a number of these meetings. They were dull and concerned exclusively with money: the getting of it, the lending of it, the protecting of it. Empson and Dudley, his finance ministers, were unscrupulous extortionists. Evidently a King’s main concern (to be attended to every waking moment) was the chasing of money. It seemed sordid. Was Alexander the Great concerned with such things? Did Caesar have to fuss about Calpurnia’s dowry?
For Katherine’s dowry still had not been settled to Father’s satisfaction. He continued to berate Ferdinand’s ambassador and threaten to send Katherine back, to marry me to a French princess, and so on. He quite enjoyed it, I think, as other men enjoy bear-baiting. And it kept his mind from the bloody linens.
But the minds of everyone else at courblack? The laundryman and washwomen were paid handsomely for this information.
At the Christmas festivities Father continued his slow, agonizing Dance of Death, while by convention all onlookers pretended not to see. It was treason to “imagine” the King’s death but at the same time not humanly possible to avoid it.
He continued playing political chess, using his two remaining unmarried children as his principal pawns and collateral. In a macabre (or perhaps only self-deceptive) gesture, he included himself in the marriage negotiations along with me and Mary. Just before New Year’s he put the finishing touches on his grand Triple Alliance, a confusing welter of marriages designed to weld the Habsburgs and the Tudors into a splendid family edifice. He himself was to become the bridegroom of Lady Margaret of Savoy, Regent of the Netherlands; I was to marry a daughter of Duke Albert of Bavaria; and thirteen-year-old Mary was to marry nine-year-old Charles, grandson of both King Ferdinand and Maximilian, and in all probability a future Holy Roman Emperor. (Although the Holy Roman Emperor must be elected, the electors seem singularly blind to the merits of any candidates outside the Habsburg family. It is no more an “election” than that of the Papacy, but is for sale.)
WILL:
To the highest bidder, as Henry and Wolsey discovered firsthand when they tried to buy the election of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1517 for Henry, and then the Papal election of 1522 for Wolsey. Those offices do not come cheap, and Henry and his pompous, puffed-up ass of a chancellor were simply not willing to pay the full market value. Henry sometimes showed a streak of perverse frugality—perhaps as a sentimental gesture to the memory of his father?
HENRY VIII:
Happy with this accomplishment, the King retired to his death-chamber. He went into it shortly after New Year’s Day, 1509, and never left it again. He chose Richmond as the place where he wished to die.
Yet the outward pose must be maintained. The King was not dying, he was merely indisposed; not weak, merely tired; not failing, merely resting. Every day he sent for me, and I spent several hours at his side, but he stubbornly refused to confide anything of real importance to me. He must play his part, as I mine.
When I came into his chamber, I must not remark upon his one luxurious concession to dying: the logs piled high in the fireplace and the abnormal warmth of the room. Nor must I sniff or allude in any way to the heavy perfumes and incense employed to mask the odour of illness and death. The rose scent was cloying, almost nauseating, but eventually I became used to it—after a fashion. I was to be always alert and cheerful, to appear as blind and insensitive as Father had once pronounced me to be.
In spite of the splendid large windows, with their hundreds of clear, small panes set like jewels in a frame, the hangings were ordered closed, shutting out the abundant light. From where he lay, Father could have looked out upon fields and sky, but he chose not to do so. Instead he lay on his back on a long couch, surrounded by pillows and the ever-present small linens. He would talk idly, or say nothing at all, just stare sadly at the crucifix above the small altar at the opposite sides ae trees were in full bloom, and a bloated moon—not quite full—illuminated them. They looked like rows of ghostly maidens, sweet and young. Below me the Thames flowed swiftly with the new spring-water, sparkling in the moonlight as it rushed past.
It was the first time since dawn that I had been alone, and I felt a shuddering relief. Day after day in that death-chamber ...
I walked slowly through the ghostly orchard. The shadows were peculiarly sharp, and the moonlight almost blue. I cast a long shadow, one that moved silently between the crooked, still ones of the trees.
“—dead soon. He can’t last.”
I stopped at the unexpected sound of voices. They seemed unnaturally clear and hard in the open night air.
“How old is he, anyway?”
“Not so old. Fifty-two, I believe.”
The voices were closer. They were two boatmen who had just tied up their boat at the landing and were walking toward the palace.
“He has not been a bad King.”
“Not if you remember Richard.”
“Not many care to.” They laughed.
“What of the new King?”
There was a pause. “He’s a youngling. It is said he cares for nothing but sport.”
“And women?”
“No, not women. Not yet! He is but seventeen.”
“Time enough if one is disposed that way.”
“Aye, but he’s not.”
They were almost level with me now. If they turned they would see me. But they did not and continued trudging toward the servants’ entrance of the palace.
“How much longer, think you?”
The other man made a noise indicating lack of knowledge or interest.
My heart was pounding. In that instant I resolved never to allow myself to overhear talk about myself again. They had said nothing of importance, and yet it had distressed me. The way they spoke so offhandedly about Father’s life and my character ... as though they knew us, had proprietary rights over us.
WILL:
It was a resolve Henry seemed singularly unable to keep—not to listen in on conversations. (Happily for me, as this penchant of his is what led to our meeting.)
HENRY VIII:
For them, Father’s passing was of little consequence, as they assumed that it did not presage another bloodbath or upheaval.
But to me? I did not want him to die and leave me ... leave me alone. I loved him. I hated him. I had not known until that moment just how much I relied on his presence, on his being the prow of the boat upon which I rode, protected from the spray and all other discomforts inherent in the vo>
I felt great pity for him. His strange vagabond life had precluded any opportunity to have normal boyhood friends, to m
ake those bonds that last for life. I was deeply grateful that I had been given friends such as Carew, Neville, and Henry Courtenay, and I felt privileged, as they were precious to me. I remember the thought, which came to me vividly and insistently. (How honest I am to record it, in light of their subsequent treason. How much more wise I would have myself appear!)
“I would not be a hermit,” was all I answered.
“Then you would not be King,” he replied softly. “And I see now that you are singularly unsuited to be anything else. You were right—it is God’s doing. And you must—” He was interrupted by a fit of coughing so violent that blood flew out of his mouth and splattered on the floor. “A priest—” he whispered, when it had stopped. “Wolsey.”
I rushed away from his bedside, seeking Wolsey. In the dim chamber, made more so by the clouds of smoke, I could not see him. Was he at the altar? I ran to it, but did not find him. He must be in the anteroom beyond. I ran at the heavy doors, bursting them open, and stood panting on the other side. Wolsey was sitting on a bench, calmly reading a Psalter. Even at that confused moment, I was struck by his almost unnatural composure.
“My fa—”—I corrected myself—“the King calls you.”
Wolsey rose, and together we entered the Privy Chamber.
“Go to him!” I almost pushed Wolsey toward Father’s bed. But he did not move toward him. Instead he dropped to his knees by my side.
“Your Highness,” he said.
I looked about me. No one was facing Father; they were all turned toward me. Wolsey had seen it, whereas I had been blind.
The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers Page 7
