The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers (29 page)

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The little book was an astounding success. Many translations were printed, in Rome, Frankfurt, Cologne, Paris, and Würzburg, among other places, and they sold as quickly as they came from the printing presses. A total of twenty editions was produced before the Continental appetite for it was sated. It was at that point that Luther entered the fray, hurling insults at its royal author. Henry, disdainful of replying, directed More to defend the work.
HENRY VIII:
 
My theological darts had struck home. I knew that by the vehemence with which the stung Luther responded. The “spiritual” monk unleashed a volley of low-born insults against me in his pamphlet
Martin Luther’s Answer in German to King Henry of England’s Book.
He called me “by God’s ungrace King of England” and said that sind sadly.
 
“Scurrilous, Your Majesty,” said Wolsey, glancing at
the Answer to Luther
on my working desk.
“Indeed. I am somewhat embarrassed to have such a fellow as my defender—whoever he may be.”
Wolsey sniffed his pomander.
“The stench of literary shit is not blocked by cinnamon and cloves,” I said. “Pity.”
“Yes, there is almost as much of that about as the common sort, now that every man has a pen and, it seems, access to a printing press.” He sniffed again. “I am thankful that you presented your work to Pope Leo rather than to the—Dutchman. And that good Pope Leo did not live to see the pamphlet wars and shit-fights.”
I bit my lip to suppress a smile. “You do not care for Pope Adrian?”
The truth was that Wolsey had entertained serious hopes of being elected Pope after Leo’s sudden demise. He had attempted to buy the Emperor’s votes in the Curia. But instead they had elected Adrian, Bishop of Tortosa, Charles’s boyhood tutor. From all reports the man was holy, scholarly, and slow as a “tortosa.”
“I do not know him.”
He had not told me of his bribery in the Conclave. Spying had become an adjunct to our dealings with one another. Did
he
know that I had commissioned More to write
Answer to Luther?
I hoped not.
Now to the matter at hand: the Parliament I had been forced to call to raise money for a possible war.
Yes, Francis had broken the Treaty of Universal Peace by invading Navarre, wresting it from the Emperor. Now the Emperor prepared for war and called on all those who had signed the Universal Treaty of Peace in 1518 to punish the aggressor, France, as the treaty stipulated.
“What taxes do you plan to ask?”
“Four shillings to the pound, Your Majesty.”
“That is a twenty-percent tax! They will never agree!”
“The honour of the realm demands it.”
Was he that cut off from what was possible and reasonable? “It is unreasonable. Never ask for something that can be so easily refused. It sets a bad precedent.”
He shook his head. His jowls moved along with it. “They will not refuse,” he intoned, in a voice suitable for the Masses he never said anymore.
Was it then that I began to entertain doubts about the sanctity, the wisdom, of the office of the Pope? If Wolsey could be seriously considered as a candidate—O, it was good that I had written my book when my faith was as yet untroubled.
 
The business with Parliament went badly. Wolsey presented the case for the tax, and the noble calling of war against King Francis, the treaty-breaker. He spoke eloquently, as ever. He could have persuaded the birds to come down off the topmost branches of a tree. Any argument offered, he could have countered.
But More, the Speaker of the House, offered the one thing Wolsey could not refute: silence. He claimed that it was an ancient privilege of Co as my Lord Cardinal lately laid to our charge the lightness of our tongues.”
It was a stunning device. Wolsey had no recourse but to leave the Parliament chamber in defeat. In the next session one of his own household members, also in the House of Commons, spoke in a low voice about the ill logic of spending money to fight on the Continent when it could better be spent subduing the Scots at our backs, “and thereby make our King Lord of Scotland as well.”
In the end I was allowed a tax of one shilling on the pound.
“Who was the fellow who proposed incorporating Scotland into our Crown?” I asked Wolsey, after the fact, when his pride had stopped smarting.
“Thomas Cromwell,” he replied. “A youngling from my household. He speaks when he should keep silent.” Thus Wolsey apologized for him.
“I would think you would never hereafter commend silence as a virtue!” The wounds were still open and salt was at hand. “His suggestion had ... merit.” More was a different matter. Did he seek to prove his integrity by this contrariness?
“Cromwell is a man who thinks only in terms of the attainable, not the permissible or the conventional. King of Scotland ... I’ll wager he sees the crown on your head even now.”
“As I could be persuaded to, myself.” I felt the corners of my mouth go up in the facsimile of a smile. It was a trick I had learned lately to mask impatience or boredom.
In the end we had to go to war, and Parliament had to finance it. Unfortunately for us, Parliament would finance it only so far, and that was not far enough. The war turned out to be a three years’ affair, and Parliament would sanction only a year’s participation. The result was that we paid our money, suffered tosses—but were excluded from the final victory and its glories. For Francis fell in the Battle of Pavia, and was taken prisoner by Charles, in the end. The French army was destroyed. Fighting alongside his patron and master, Richard de la Pole, Edmund’s younger brother, the self-styled “White Rose of York” and Francis-styled “King of England,” was killed on the battlefield.
“Now we are free of all pretenders!” I cried, when the news was brought me. I rejoiced. But it was a secondhand victory.
In the opening volley of the war, we made great impact. I had recalled Brandon from his estates in Suffolk, where he languished, and put him in charge of the invading army. He and his men came within forty miles of taking Paris itself. But then the money, and the season, ran out. Snow fell and enveloped them, followed by ice. They could not winter over; it would be impossible to sustain an army of twenty-five thousand in the field in winter conditions. (To think that war must obey the trumpet-sound of the seasons!) I beseeched Parliament for the funds to enable them to take up in spring where they had left off. Parliament refused.
So the opportunity to conquer France was thrown away on the smug vote of a few self-satisfied Yorkshire sheep-herders and Kentish beer-brewers!
 
All English citizens had been ordered to return before the outbreak of the war. That included the few still in Francis’s court, such as the Seymour lads and Anne, Mary Boleyn’s sister. It was not meet that e imprisoned or held for ransom. Even the Bordeaux wine procurers hurried home, bringing their provisioning ships along with them.
WILL:
And thus Anne Boleyn—“Black Nan,” as she was known already—came to England. The Witch returned home....
HENRY VIII:
 
Going to Parliament had been demeaning in itself (but necessary, as I did not want to exhaust the Royal Treasury completely), but being refused by them was doubly so. Having to call my citizens home, admitting that I was unable to protect them abroad, was tantamount to impotence.
Although I did not suffer from that grave disorder, other aspects of my life concerned with that delicate element were all at odds. I continued on. How could I have overlooked him?
Because he was illegitimate. I had recognized him as mine; but he was not born in wedlock, which barred him from the succession.
I paced my chamber. I remember the sun was streaming in, making patterns on the floor which I disrupted as I passed through the hot golden shafts again and again. Did this truly prevent his becoming King, I wondered. Was there no precedent?
Margaret Beaufort had been the descendant of John of Gaunt’s bastard. There was talk that Owen Tudor had never properly married Queen Catherine. I disliked these examples, however, as they undermined my own claim to the throne. There had been William the Conqueror, of course, known as the Bastard. There was also doubt that Edward III was the son of Edward II. Most assumed he was the child of Queen Isabella’s lover, Mortimer. Richard III claimed that his brother Edward IV had been the son of a lover, sired while the good Duke of York was away fighting in France.
These were unsatisfactory examples, not apropos to my case. No, this would not do.
My son was my son! All knew him to be such. I could not confer legitimacy upon him. But I could confer titles upon him, make him noble, educate and prepare him for the throne and name him heir in my will. He was but six years old, and there was time to let the people know him and learn to love him, so that when the time came ...
I stopped stock-still. The answer had been before me all the time. Not a perfect answer, but an answer. I would make him Duke of Richmond, a semi-royal title. I would bring the boy to court. He must be hidden away in the country no longer.
Katherine would be unhappy. But she must recognize that only in this way could Mary be protected against self-seekers lusting after her throne. Our daughter deserved a better fate.

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