The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers (33 page)

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Authors: Margaret George

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She was standing well back from the others, as if to forestall being chosen as anyone’s partner. There was no torch near her to show her. Nothing betrayed her presence save the luminous pearls encircling her head.
I pushed my way over to her, to everyone’s surprise, not the least her own. She stared at me as I approached.
“Your Majesty.” She lowered her head. I took her hand and together we went to the middle of the dance-floor.
In the brighter light, I could see that the startling crownmine. Her voice was low—unlike the fashionable high voices of our court ladies. Her gown was also different; it had long, full sleeves which almost completely obscured her hands. She had designed it herself. Then I thought it charming. Now I know why she needed to do so—to hide her witch’s mark! But as I took her hand to dance, I did not discern the small sixth finger, so skilfully did she conceal it beneath the others....
She danced well—better, in fact, than any of our Englishwomen. When I praised her for it, she shrugged, and once again gave the credit to France.
“I learned there. Everyone dances well in France. There I was accounted of little accomplishment in the art.”
“France,” I laughed. “Where all is false, where artificiality is elevated to an art form. Because they are hollow at the core, they must celebrate the exterior.”
“You are too harsh with France,” she said. “Too quick to dismiss its very real pleasures—among them, the ability to appreciate the pretend.”
“A polite word for ‘the false.’ ”
She laughed. “That is the difference between an Englishman and a Frenchman!”
“The French King is a case in point,” I muttered. What had she thought of Francis?
“Exactly! And he is delightful!”
Francis? Delightful?
“At least your sister thought so,” I said censoriously.
She drew back. “Yes, I believe she did,” she paused. “And she was certainly in a position to compare.”
“As you could be,” I said. “Although you must begin on
our
shores.” There, I had said it. Her presence, her nearness, inflamed me. I
must
have her! “Unless ... you know already of Francis’s ... ?” I must know now, it was important that I know now. I did not want that, I could not bear it....
“No. I know nothing, save what Mary said.”
She talked? She told? I was thankful, then, that I had not consorted with her after the first year or so of her marriage. A woman who repeated details? Foul, foul!
“I am entirely unschooled in such matters, Your Grace,” she said. “I need a teacher.”
No regret for the lost Percy, to whom she had pledged herself? Even at that moment I was struck by her disloyalty. But as it benefited me, I did not dwell on it. Rather, I made up excuses for it.
There,
I told myself.
It proves she never really loved him.
“I could teach you,” I said boldly.
“When?” Her answer was equally bold.
“Tomorrow. Meet me”—oh, where to meet?—“in the minstrels’ gallery above the Great Hall.” When did Katherine dismiss her? “At four in the afternoon.” A favourite dalliance-time.
Just then the minstrels ended the measure. Anne quickly disengaged her hand from mine, nodded, and was gone. “I thank Your Grac822">
Tomorrow it would begin. Tomorrow.
All about me the courtiers waited, silver visors in place. We would dance —yea, dance all night. Let Wolsey bring fresh torches!
The minstrels’ gallery, overlooking the Great Hall, was shadowy and entirely private. Light exploded into the Hall from the row of windows along its length, but it left the minstrels’ gallery untouched. Not that Anne should have anything to fear from the boldest daylight. She was young, and entirely flawless.
I had not yet decided what to do with her. I would make her my mistress, yes, of course, I knew that. But after the coupling ... curiously, I thought of the coupling more for her sake than for mine.
I
did not need the coupling to bind me to her; that had happened the moment I saw her at Hampton Court; the strange bonding had taken place on the instant. The coupling was for
her.
Women were so literal. Until there was a physical thing, she would not consider herself bound to me.
I waited. The apartments (vacant since Mary Boleyn’s gradual decline in my life) stood at the ready. I had ordered them scrubbed, aired, and freshened, and the bed made up with finest Brussels-laced sheets. I would conduct Anne to them within a half hour ... and within an hour, we would begin our life together. Whatever that meant, whatever that led to....
I waited. I watched the great squares of light from the windows change their shape on the floor of the Great Hall as the sun sank lower. Finally they were long, thin slivers; then they faded and dimness reigned in the Hall.
Anne was not coming. She had broken our tryst.
Perhaps Katherine had detained her. Perhaps Katherine had suddenly needed her presence at some ceremony or other. Perhaps Katherine had even become fond of her and wanted her only to talk, to keep her company.
Anne was so winsome, that was likely.
I was ready to descend, by the little stone steps, when a page approached, hesitantly. “A message,” he said, thrusting it into my hand. He bowed and then hurried away.
I unfolded the paper.
“Your Grace,” it read. “I could not keep our appointment. I feared for my integrity.
Nan de Boleine.”
She feared for her integrity? She feared me? She teased me, rather! She had already admitted she would give herself to the artists in their dens! But not to a King! No! She would give herself to Johnny-paint-a-board, but not to King Henry!
And to have agreed to the time and place, and left me waiting! Sending a page in her stead! As if she would disdain to do her own unpleasant business. And the unpleasant business was—me. The King!
I removed Anne from court within a fortnight, sending her back to Hever. It was easily done: the mere writing out of an order, signed, sanded, sealed. As King, I had power to move people about as I would, transfer them from one post to another. But I seemingly had no power over my wife, my daughter, my fantasized mistress. Women! They rule us, nter, I missed her. Whatever had called me to her to begin with continued to call me. As yet I knew not what it was....
But it was not to be. Whatever that thing was, perhaps I was never to taste it. And to what purpose, anyway? I was married, and Katherine was my wife.
There were many diplomatic matters to attend to, foremost among them arranging a proper marriage for Princess Mary. A “proper marriage,” of course, meant one that was diplomatically astute.
O God, I had become like my father!
 
In early 1527, the “proper marriage” for Mary was with a French prince. Certainly we did not want to ally ourselves with the Emperor; he was too strong, after having so soundly defeated Francis. Even now his unruly troops were holding Rome—and the Pope—terrorized as they looted and rampaged in “celebration.” If we allowed him his head, he might become a latter-day Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar belonged in histories, not staring one directly in the face. (And engulfing one. England had been Roman once—and once was enough.)
Gabriel de Grammont, Bishop of Tarbes, came to England to negotiate such a match. Grammont was a great, swelling toad of a man. He began by reading a long proposal to Wolsey and myself, seated as we were outdoors before the fountain in the inner courtyard at Hampton Court. The early-spring sun was making a feeble attempt to warm us, and was doing well, as the encircling courtyards cut off the prevailing winds. I noticed that the grass was green all around the fountain.
“—however, we need to be satisfied as to the Princess Mary’s legitimacy,” he concluded.
Wolsey a-hemmed and demurred. “I pray you, explain your scruples.” He made a face at me, as if to say, “Ah! These legalists!”
“It is this.” The toad drew himself up to his full height, swelling out his chest. “Pope Julius issued a dispensation for the marriage of Prince Henry and his brother’s widow, the Princess Katherine, who had been legally wed to Prince Arthur. Now we have the case of a brother marrying his brother’s widow—expressly forbidden in Scripture! Leviticus, Chapter eighteen, verse sixteen: ‘Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife; it is thy brother’s nakedness.’ Leviticus, Chapter twenty, verse twenty-one: ‘And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.’ ”
He exhaled through his fat lips. “The question is, did the Pope have the right to issue a dispensation? There is only one other instance of such a dispensation being granted, in all Church history. It raises doubts. Is the Princess Mary legitimate? Or is the marriage of her parents—honest and pious—no marriage at all? My master would have these questions resolved, ere he unites himself to such a house.”
The dispensation ... yes, long ago, in that pretend “protestation” I was forced ty statement was a muddled merger of the two.
“We are pleased that you should have returned to court. We need your presence.
“Is that the royal ‘we’ or a simple plural?”
She was bold beyond all stomaching! I stared for a second. Then I answered honestly. Why not? “The royal.
I
need your presence. Does that suit you better?”
She chose to disregard the direct question, as the one who loves less is always privileged to do. “What could
you
need me for, Your Grace?”
The girl—nay, she was no girl, I sensed now, but something else, something I knew not—regarded me not as a King, but as a man. Someone to answer back to, rebuke, as long ago others had done. It felt familiar—and hurtful.
“I want you to be my wife,” I heard myself saying to this stranger. Yet I had meant to say it all along.
Then came the laughter-high-pitched, ugly. And the turned back: yellow velvet covering the narrow shoulders and waist.
The posturing guard stared balefully at us and clicked his spear manfully upon the floor, as if to remind us that he still existed and was protecting us from harm. The fool!
“Get out!” I yelled. He scurried away.
I turned to Anne and saw that she had now turned to face me, an odd smirk still on her face.
“Your wife?” she said. “You have a wife already. Queen Katherine.”
“She is not my wife! Not lawfully! We sinned....” I found myself pouring out the entire process of my growing guilt, laying myself and my thoughts bare to this peculiar girl who seemed at once both the most sympathetic and derisive of persons.
“... and so,” I finished, “the Pope erred in granting us a dispensation to marry. Therefore we are not married, have never been married in the eyes of God. And the present Pope will acknowledge that.”
She seemed not to have heard. Or, rather, not to believe. Her long face stared back at me, as if I were reciting some obscure law from the time of Henry I, of no relevance or concern to her.
Finally her lips moved, and she spoke. “When?” A simple, devastating word.
“Immediately,” I said. “Within the year, at most. The case is clear. I have simply hesitated because of—because of not knowing your mind.”

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