The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers

by Margaret George

  The law foundered. Lawyers and priests were dying along with those they served, and there were few to administer the law or the Sacraments. Whenever a lone remaining priest appeared to perform a funeral, he would find many other biers falling in behind the original one, as people watched eagerly for any sign of a legitimate funeral, and attached themselves to it. So few remained to enforce civil or sacred law that no one had a mind to observe it, and so there was, in effect, almost no authority at all.

  Sloth—that slouching, lurking sin that underlies so many of the others—came into its own, as people declined to tend even to that which they could, such as clearing the streets, removing piles of offal, or gathering in the harvest. They were on a grotesque holiday.

  The plague was enough to make a moralist out of me, if not a true Christian. For man’s true nature was so ugly, so heinous, that any system, no matter how odious, that modified its evil was to be sought and embraced.

  At least until the plague abated.

  HENRY VIII:

  I had neglected Holbein. I had not cared for his mortal remains, and in so doing, I had behaved as barbarously as any fear-crazed apprentice. The plague had made a heathen of me—I, the Supreme Head of the Church in England. I prayed as I passed the corpse-pile, Grant them eternal peace.

  Then, God forgive me for my failings, my lacks, my blindness.

  The more I knew, the more I understood, so it seemed, but thereby my sins multiplied.

  Once outside the city walls, the dwellings grew farther apart. But if I thought that the plague was incapable of leaping separated households, I was wrong. Workers had died right in the fields, and their families in their farm-steads had succumbed at the same time. Livestock of all sorts—cows, pigs, sheep, goats—wandered the roads, starving and dazed. Dogs ran loose, reverting to beasts of prey, crouching and growling as we passed. Everywhere the fields were untended, the crops growing as best they could, but with no one to gather them in. Country gluttony manifested itself in people snat beasts16;these hands are destined for orbs and sceptres, not distaffs and spindles.’ ”

  Perhaps what starts out as a retort, a dream, turns into a drive, takes on a reality of its own. Is that not another cousin to destiny?

  “Everyone dreams of becoming royal, even the maids and chimney-sweeps. ’Tis a common fantasy,” was my answer.

  “When is it to be?” Will indeed sounded tired, whereas I was filled with energy.

  “When the plague abates and we return to London,” I said. “No, I shall not find a lone country priest and go secretly to him ... although it would be romantic,” I added. A small parish church ... nuptials in the early summer morning, a walk through the fields, picking wildnowers.... “But it is important that this be no hole-and-corner affair. Gardiner or Cranmer must officiate. Pray God they are safe. I have not had word in five days from those in Suffolk. Edward Seymour and Paget, they are well in Gloucestireshire, as of two days ago.... Nay, I want them all present.”

  But the cool secret chapel, the procession through the fields ... forbidden to me, no need to dwell on it.

  “Well, I wish you joy,” Will said. “You have had little enough in your weddings.”

  CXXI

  The table was laid in the courtyard, the long wooden one about which we gathered every noon, set up under the spreading hazel tree, as there was no shade from the long wings of the house at this time of day. Jugs of wine were set out on the table, and bunches of flowers, freshly gathered by Dr. Butts, Edward, and Kate.

  We all seated ourselves and waited for the cooks to bring out today’s fare. I would make the announcement in a moment.

  I looked at Kate, seated as always next to Edward. I tried to catch her gaze, but she did not look at me. Rather she looked only at Edward.

  The cooks brought out the first course, spring lamb and larks, prepared with scallions and chervil.

  After everyone’s plate was filled, I took the jug of red wine, thin and sour, but sweetened with honey, and filled my cup. “Fill yours, all,” I ordered. When that was done, I took a sip and then raised my cup. “I wish to share with you my great joy this day. England is to have a Queen, and I a wife.” I looked at Kate, inclined my head toward her.

  Look at me, woman! I ordered her silently, as she continued to study her plate.

  “It is our sweet, kind Lady Latimer who will become my wife, and your Queen.”

  Still she kept her eyes down.

  “A modest Queen!” I jested, reaching my cup over to her and touching her vessel with mine. The clunk made her look up.

  The company broke into smiles. Kate smiled too, shyly.

  “The King has honoured me greatly,” she said softly. “I pray that I may ever be a good, kind, loyal, and true wife to His Majesty.”

  “Nay, you make it sound like a funeral, Lady Latimer,” said Tom Seymour. He was sitting at the foot of the table, his accustomed place. He grinned, his elbows on the table, the great sleeves of his whing ” I said, “they leave us alone to do as lovers do.” It seemed humourous, as we did not do what lovers do. I patted my basket. “How we shall disappoint them when we return with our baskets overflowing!”

  She turned and gave me a smile, but a sad one. As if to say, What a pity. All about us nature was rampantly growing, reproducing, making an abundance of new green stalks, weeds, creepers, and climbers. And here we were in their midst, sterile and restricted.

  But it was my time of life. I was autumn now, late autumn. In autumn all these fields and forests would be like me, we would be at one in our cycle. Now November passing through June fields was an outrage, an insult; then we would blend together and I would belong, where today I was but a visitor, a foreigner.

  We found the strawberries, mixed in with weeds and self-sown rye. Picking them out was a job, a job I disliked. Bending over was so difficult for me that I was forced to kneel down; but that was also difficult, because the pressure on my weak leg caused it to start throbbing. Disturbing it in any way meant possibly causing it to revert to its festering stage. At length I devised a sort of half-kneeling position to use.

  We picked, silently. In truth I had no extra strength to carry on a conversation while bent down in an uncomfortable position. The sun on my hat was rapidly making me overheat, but—last vestige of vanity!—I could never remove it and reveal my baldness.

  Sweat began popping out all over my face; then gathered in little streams, running down the troughs and wrinkles of my skin. The red strawberries gleamed and shimmered before my eyes, pulsating like stars. Then everything swirled, and I fell into the patch of meadow, face downward. I felt a strawberry crush against my cheek, and its sweet yielded juice was overwhelming in my nostrils.

  I looked up at Kate’s face. I was lying on my back in her lap, and she was fanning me with my hat. My hat ... then she had seen my baldness! Oh, the shame of it!

  “The sun made me grow dizzy,” I murmured. I was so humiliated, so mortified, that I hated her for seeing this. I would never marry her now. I could not have a wife who looked down upon my weakness, who considered herself superior to me. My legs were forked out. I lay like a helpless frog in her sight.

  I sat up, retrieved the hat, clapped it on my head. I must leave this site, her presence, her shaming presence. I struggled to my feet, pushing away her “helping” hands. Her mocking hands, more like!

  “Edward does the same,” she said, in a natural voice. “He overheats in direct sunlight. It must be the Tudor complexion, for I believe Elizabeth avoids the sun for that reason. Although her white skin is her pride, I know.”

  I felt a rush of relief. My pride had been spared. But no, this would not do. “Kate,” I said, “you have seen, now, what I would have kept from you at all costs. I am not what I was. The truth is, the sun has never bothered me before. The truth is, I have many infirmities. My leg periodically goes on a rampage, crippling me. I have had trouble, of late, with my bladder ... and with raging headaches that leave me spent and weak. And with sick fancies, w
ith shapes that come and talk to me, that stand in corners and run down corridors, shrieking. I am an old, sick man.” There, I had said it. Now I would dismiss her, release her from the betrothal, on the understandownwmunication from his master. It seemed that Charles had had a successful campaign already, and had scored some notable triumphs in Luxembourg and Navarre. He looked to continue the war on the northern front, but would pass the coming fortnight at Landrecies, directing the siege there. If I wished to enter the campaign after that date ... ?

  “No, no,” I said. “It is too late in the season, and we cannot ready an army now, with midsummer already past.” Not to mention the plague. “Next season, next season, we shall join him. How long does he plan to campaign?”

  “Not past September,” Van der Delft replied. “He has family business then—a wedding.”

  “Ah.” I smiled. “I also. I have my own wedding.”

  The ambassador grinned. “Your own, Your Majesty?”

  “Aye. Ah, ah, do not mock me, sir”—I began laughing, as I could see his surprise and unasked questions—“although I know ’tis a temptation.”

  “I wish you happiness,” he said simply.

  “I do truly seek it,” I answered.

  “Then you shall find it.” He looked straight into my eyes. I liked him; he seemed honest. We would not spar and parry, as I had done with Chapuys, but that was well enough.

  “I pray so. I shall wed the widow Latimer, as soon as all is set in order. Now, though, as to this war business—Charles and I have settled satisfactorily the title confusion, as being addressed as ‘Defender of the Faith, etc.’ will content me. I lack but the proper means—in winds and moneys—to come to France before spring. But I shall do so, and in person. You may tell your master that I will lead my soldiers myself, as I did in the glorious campaign of 1513—the Golden War!”

  My God, I grew excited just thinking of it! Oh, my blood stirred! To wear armour again, to camp again, to hold war council meetings in the field-tent ... how sweetly it beckoned!

  As soon as he returned to London, I spoke to Bishop Gardiner about my intention to wed Kate Parr.

  “I wish you to marry us,” I said.

  “Not Cranmer?” His tone was distant, judging. Yes, Gardiner was jealous of Cranmer, jealous of his closeness to me and his privilege in sharing so much of my life.

  “No. It must be someone whose orthodoxy is beyond question, as Lady Latimer is suspected—unjustly, of course—of leaning toward the Reformers. Your performing the ceremony will silence those tongues.”

  “Will it, Your Grace?” Still he appeared aloof, cool, uncommitted.

  “As best they can be,” I retorted. “Nothing ever silences tongues altogether.”

  “Are you so very sure she is not a Reformer?” Each word was measured out and flung at me.

  “Because her foolish friend Anne Askew goes about preaching? Each person is responsible for his or her own soul. Wto me aave to nurse me—“and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

  “I will.” Her voice was faint. Had something given her pause? The “sickness”? The “forsaking all other”? For she was young....

  “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” He looked round at the company, smiled his thin February smile, and said, “I do.”

  Then, taking our right hands together, he directed me to say:

  “I, Henry, take thee, Katherine, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance: and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

  Marriage promises. They took in both sides of life: no sooner did they say “better” than they said “worse,” no sooner “richer” than a quicker “poorer.” In the midst of our greatest happiness they were worded to remind us of woe, and bound us to include wretchedness in with our rejoicings.

  Kate then repeated the same vows.

  Gardiner took from me the ring I had for her, plain gold, with no engraving at all. I put it on her finger, her cool slender finger. “With this ring I thee wed,” I said, “with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen.” There. It was done. How differently I would fulfill these vows than I had with my previous wife.

  “Kneel,” said Gardiner, and we did so, upon the blue velvet cushions laid before us. “O eternal God, Creator and Preserver of all mankind. Giver of all spiritual grace, the Author of everlasting life: send Thy blessing upon these Thy servants, this man and this woman, whom we bless in Thy name: that, as Isaac and Rebecca lived faithfully together, so these persons may surely perform and keep the vow and covenant betwixt them made, and may ever remain in perfect love and peace together, and live according to Thy laws: through Jesus Christ Our Lord, amen.”

  “Amen,” murmured the people.

  “Forasmuch as King Henry and Katherine Parr have consented together in holy wedlock,” said Gardiner, addressing the whole company, his voice rising, “and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a ring, and by joining of hands: I pronounce that they be man and wife together.”

  He raised his hands over our heads. “God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, bless, preserve, and keep you: the Lord mercifully with His favour look upon you: and so fill you with all spiritual benediction and grace, that ye may so live together in this life, that in the world to come ye may have life everlasting. Amen.”

  We rose, man and wife. The gathered company broke into movement, embracing, swaying together, laughing. We turned to them and accepted their good wishes, joined them in celebrating.

  Mary, the bridesmaid, came to us and threw her arms around us both. She kept her eyes averted, but I spied tears spilling down her cheeks. She had known Kate for a long time, ever since Kate first came to London with nd keep You must be exhausted from your journey. Tell me, the crossing ... how was it? I have never been upon water....” Deftly she led me by the hand, toward my withdrawing chamber. Her talons rested lightly on my sleeve. I hoped the claws would not damage the material.

  I awoke in the late twilight. I had lain down completely dressed, even to my shoes, stretched out on my back. I felt fine, rested, even blissful. I must have been exhausted, I could see that now. That was what Dr. Butts had been concerned about, the sapping of my energy. Yet so enticingly was it sapped, with the excitements of war, I had been unaware of the toll it was taking on me. Now I would rest, and there would be no visitations from my demons.

  Boulogne was a prize well worth an hallucination or two. The phantoms would fade, but Boulogne would remain.

  The French ambassadors came straightway. I allowed them my gracious permission to cross the Channel in safe conduct, to receive them and hear their proposals. From the start it was hopeless, as my terms—that I keep Boulogne, and that the French cease their provocations in Scotland—were impossible for Francis to accede to. The envoys promptly retreated, and by late October they had made the hazardous Channel crossing and returned to Paris, where Francis intended to spend the winter in cosy ensconcement with his mistress Anne, Duchesse d’Estampes. So much for the French.

  As for Charles, he and I sent a volley of accusations against one another. His preposterous claims were that (1) I had evaded the agreed-upon march on Paris; (2) I had used the siege of Boulogne (falsely prolonged) as an excuse to avoid a true mutual commitment; (3) I had agreed that Charles could act as “Arbiter of Europe,” and that was what he was attempting now to do, and why he had made separate, private peace with Francis; and (4) I should hand Boulogne over to him in his capacity as arbiter, and he would award it as he saw fit.

  I, in turn, had grievances against him, mighty ones. I flung them at him, but he failed to react, or even to refute them. I said that (1) Charles was guilty of treason toward me, tha
t we had agreed that either of us might negotiate separately but neither should conclude a treaty without the other; (2) Charles was bound by treaty to act as my ally, not as a negotiator between France and England; (3) English merchants in Spain were being subjected to the Inquisition; and (4) Spanish troops had entered French employment.

  But these were futile, rearguard gestures. The truth was that I had lost my ally and stood naked to whosoever wished to attack me. Even the Pope was proceeding to call his General Council, which would meet at long last in Trent, not in Mantua. I was beleaguered and abandoned, alone on my island kingdom.

  Even that would not be so fearsome, if the island itself were only united. But half of it was given over to enemies, French sympathizers. I kept my Border troops busy harassing the Scots, making pitiful little raids into their territory. In one of those, my troops had accidentally desecrated the tombs of the Earl of Angus’s ancestors in Melrose. This turned Angus against us—he who had been our stoutest ally—and he and Francis, as well as the infant Queen’s council, began plotting for revenge. The form that revenge would take was a Franco-Scottish invasion. The plans were (my spies were able to ascertain this much) for France to send a force to Scotland via the northwest and another just to the Border in the east. Released from bothering with Charles, the rest of the French forces could attack England from the heast by sea. Francis could raise an immense fleet if he so desired, and since the prevailing winds were from the south across the Channel, he could effect a landing in almost any season.

  I was half sick with worry about these things, when Gardiner insisted on a special audience with me to raise alarmist concerns about the growth of the Protestant faction in our midst.

  “In your absence this summer they have grown like pestilent weeds,” he said. “But unlike weeds, the frost does not kill them. Nay, they hibernate in winter, meeting secretly in one another’s homes, spreading their sedition, infecting others with it.”