The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers (34 page)

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Authors: Margaret George

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“My mind?”
“Yes, mistress! Your mind! You have one, I know!” I heard myself exploding and yet was powerless to stop. “Do not play the simpleton with me!” Suddenly I was so angry I was shaking—at her coyness, her elusiveness, her pretended naivete, her calculating behaviour. I was the
King!
“All these months”—now it tumbled out, all the things I had vowed not to say, had scarce dared admit even to myself—“I have loved you, have wanted to lie with you. Instead you toyed with me, tortured me, made stupid answers to my requests.” My voice had risen dangerously (could the attendants in the next chamber hear it?), and she was looking at me in that infuriatingly concerned way. “Well, now I ask you, for the ft seemed to have come of its own accord.
“Your Grace,” she answered slowly, “your wife I cannot be, because you have a Queen already. And your mistress I will not be.”
“I have no wife!” I yelled. “I tell you, I have no wife!”
She made no reply.
“Clearly, you do not believe me! So you think I lie.” I stepped closer to her. I noticed that she not only did not shrink from me, but leaned toward me, as if she wanted my touch. I grabbed her arm, crushing the raised velvet sleeves in order to feel the long, slim arm underneath. “In any case, that is no answer to my question. When the Pope declares me a bachelor—as I am, and as he will—will you or will you not
marry
me?”
She looked up at me. “Yes. I will marry you. When the Pope allows you to be free.”
I was aware that I was still holding her forearm in a painful grip. I dropped it, and saw that my fingers had left damp pressure marks on the velvet. Ruined. I must send her another gown.
“Within the year,” I said confidently.
“Truly?” she asked. Her voice was doubtful, yet warmer than I had ever heard it.
“Truly,” I assured her. She smiled. There seemed nothing left to say. Therefore I gave her leave to depart—two strangers disengaging.
After she had departed, I found myself shaking. Marry her? But I hated her! Quickly I stamped on that thought.
 
Within a few hours I was basking in the peculiar warmth that comes only rarely in a lifetime—having attained one’s heart’s desire. The woman I loved was to be mine.
How should I approach the Pope? That he would give me an annulment I had no doubt. He had given others in less certain circumstances. My wayward sister Margaret had even obtained one from her second husband, the Earl of Angus, on the grounds that three years after the Battle of Flodden her first husband might conceivably still have been living.
I knew all the complexities of my case, having spent many sleepless hours considering them. The Biblical texts were clear, and had they not been, the death of my sons was clear enough evidence. God had not meant me to overlook my transgression.
The night was fully as hot as the day had been. I paced my chamber restlessly. Puffs of orchard-warmed air came into the room. Anne. Anne. Where was Anne? To whom was she talking this very instant?
What difference, I told myself sternly. Soon she would be my wife. Next year at this time we would be alone in this chamber together.
The Pope. He was key to it all. He must grant the annulment straightway. Wolsey. Wolsey would arrange it. I must send for Wolsey.
 
In the meantime there was this cursed hot, perfumed night to endure.
Wolsey was discomfited; nay, horrified—on him, horror diplomatically registered as mere discomfort.
“Your Grace, the Quave been l>
“Princess Katherine”—he quickly found an inoffensive and correct title —“is the child of a dead King. More important, she is the aunt of a living Emperor. A
devout
Emperor who will doubtless take offence at the implication that his aunt is living in sin.”
Exactly what I wanted! Wolsey was always practical. No cant about morality, no obfuscating issues. I could trust Wolsey.
“Facts are often unpleasant. He has faced Luther well enough.”
“Two unpleasant facts at one time ...” He gestured delicately toward a bowl of fruit. I nodded. He selected a last-year’s apple—soft, but all that was available this time of year. “... are too much for most men to stomach.” He bit into the apple, then looked dismayed as he discovered its soft texture. He quickly put it in a bowl.
“Those who would be Emperor must learn to. As you have. As anyone who would be Pope must.” At that he lightened. He still had hopes of the Papacy. Ah, if Wolsey had been Pope, then this whole conversation would have been unnecessary. But wishing is futile. An illegitimate Medici cousin of Leo X had succeeded the hapless Adrian as Pope Clement VII in 1523.
“But Popes are men.”
“And must die.” I smiled.
“And have concerns. Earthly ones,” he said sternly.
“Now you sound Lutheran,” I mocked. “The Pope, a man? The Pope, swayed by earthly issues?”
Wolsey was in no mood for banter this morning. Oddly, I was; I was in a buoyant, teasing mood. All would be mine. That tends to make a man cheerful.
“Your Grace, this is no matter for humour. To repudiate your wife will be no easy matter. If Your Grace will pardon me, it would have been easier had you done this before Charles become Emperor.... Nay, but then her father ... nay, by then he was dead. In 1518—”
“It is now!” I roared. What was wrong with Wolsey? Had it been the Garden of Eden, things would have been different as well, and what of it? “Now! The year 1527! And I have been living in sin for near twenty years! I want to end it, and instead you blather nonsense.”
He looked more alarmed than I had ever seen him. Then he did something I felt was clearly deranged: he sank to his knees.
“Your Grace, I beg you—” Tears began to stream down his cheeks. Stage tears; Wolsey could weep on command. “—do not proceed in this. Thereby lies much tribulation—”
How dare he presume to dissuade me? I looked down at the bulky figure swaying ludicrously on its knees, artificial tears watering my chamber floor.
“Up!”
His tears stopped instantly as he saw that his audience was not touched. Slowly he lumbered to his feet.
“You are Cardinal, and Papal legate,” I said. “Well versed in canon law and ecclesiastical procedure. What approach should we use?” I chose to ignore the staged outburst as a mutual embarrassment.
So did he.“Your Grace, I feel that perhaps a small ecclesiastical court here in England should ... examine ... the case in question, then give a quiet report to the Holy Father ll be a house matter, so to speak; no need to trouble the Vatican with it.”
Even weeping on his knees, he had been thinking. Was his devious mind never disengaged?
“Excellent,” I said.
“I myself will preside over the court. We need, for appearance sake, one other. What of Warham? He is the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“Excellent,” I repeated. This was my first—and most momentous—stride down the path I had chosen to take. The first is always the hardest. After that it becomes so much easier.
Wolsey arranged a “secret” hearing of my troubled matrimonial case. He and Warham were to examine the facts and declare that my marriage was indeed invalid. This information was then to be sent to Pope Clement, who would issue a routine annulment. So simple, so easy. Why, then, did everything fail to transpire as we had planned it?
 
The court met in late May, 1527, at Westminster. Wolsey as
legatus a
latere,
Papal representative, and Archbishop Warham as assessor, were chief tribunalers, with Richard Wolman as my counsel. I had high hopes, which came to nothing. Their so-called “findings” were that the circumstances of my marriage were indeed questionable, and must be referred to weightier minds, preferably in Rome. The Pope must examine the entire matter and reach an independent conclusion. In other words, the issue must now be made public.
WILL:
Unknown to Henry, it already was. Rumours of “the King’s Great Matter” (as the annulment was euphemistically called) were rife among the commoners. Every ferryman and tart seemed to know the King wished to be free of his wife. Everyone but the person most affected in the matter—Queen Katherine herself.
HENRY VIII:
 
When my jester, Will, rather shamefacedly brought me a London broad-face sheet depicting my marriage bed and trials, I was horrified. Then I realized that if the common people knew, Katherine herself must have heard! I would have to discuss this with her—all the more embarrassing because I had not seen Katherine for a fortnight. She increasingly devoted herself to her charities and her private worship, which I of course did not wish to disturb. Also, I must confess, I had been so preoccupied with thinking of Anne I could scarce collect myself.
To tell Katherine that she had never been my wife would be a hurtful thing and, to one of her pious nature, a shock. I fortified myself with a large cup of wine before I walked to her apartments.
The corridor was unnaturally empty. Usually, swarms of serving-men were loitering about, showing off their latest velvet surcoats. Today it was deserted. Were they all off hunting? I felt the back of my neck; sweat was already gathering. I wished I were hunting with them; I wished I were any place but here. The guard admitted me to the Queen’s outer chambers.
There I paced the floor. I wanted to see her. I did not want to see her. At last I was gestured for. I meekly followed Katherine’s gentlewoman-usher. I
I faced Katherine. She had been at her devotions and was clearly irritated at being disturbed. After the Mass, she customarily spent an hour on her knees on a stone floor, conferring with her Maker.
“Yes, my Lord?” she asked, coming toward me. She gathered her great skirts in her hands. She still wore the fashion of Spain as it had been when she had left. I thought for a fleeting moment of Anne and her modern gowns, then I shoved the image away.
“So now I must seek an appointment with my Katherine?” I laughed. Yet why was I attempting to be jocular?
“You know the hours of my devotions—” she began.
“They are constant, Madam,” I replied.
She stared back at me in anger. I stared at her in wonder. How had we changed so? Two strangers who dreaded to confront one another. She shifted a bit on her feet, looked uneasy. I remembered that she had taken to wearing the coarse habit of a member of the Third Order of St. Francis underneath her everyday clothing. Perhaps it was itching.
“Katherine,” I said, “I have come to discuss with you a question of great importance.” I thought I should begin thus.
She moved toward me slowly. I noticed that she still wore satins by day. “Indeed?”
“Yes.” Then I stopped. How could I broach this subject? She stood in front of me like an army. “The Bishop of Tarbes was, as you know, here recently to consult about the possible betrothal of the Princess Mary to a French prince. He mentioned certain impediments—possible—”
All this time she had been staring at me, her wide eyes already somewhat wider.
“Impediments?”
“Our marriage. As you were married to my brother initially, it seems that many learned figures feel that you and I were never legally married, and therefore there is a question of Mary’s legitimacy—”
Before I could say more, she began shouting and rotating her arms like a windmill. “How dare anyone question the dispensation of the Holy Father? Both your father and mine accepted it in good faith. They both—”
Her father and mine? How long ago that seemed! Once they had been of such great consequence in our world; now they were forgotten by all but Katherine.
“—gave their consent to it! Nay, blessed it! And they were holy men!”
Holy men? Certainly not Ferdinand; and as for my father ... who knew him, truly? They had both been bound by outward obeisance to the Pope, for political show. Was that all?
“Perhaps they were.” Give her that comfort. “But even well-intentioned men make errors. And the fact is that God Himself has long ago passed judgment on our marriage. Painful as it is—”
“God?” She drew herself up at that word.
“Yes. All our children have died. We are without issue. Never before has an English King so needed an heir; never before have all his sons died; never before has a King married his brother’s wife.”
“We have Princess Mary. She lives.”
“A daughter. f the st of decorum, Anne insisted that we outwardly maintain our previous states: I as husband to Katherine, she as unmarried, eligible maiden. This was a happier arrangement for her than for me. As a “disguise,” she was compelled to surround herself with suitors and courtiers, whereas I must take my place beside the staid but seething Katherine.
In the meantime, in her own quarters, Katherine was hard at work writing secret letters to her nephew, the Emperor Charles, beseeching his help—letters which I had intercepted, with instructions for full copies to be made for my own records. Her means of protecting the marriage was foolhardy: appealing to a foreign power to aid her! She pretended to be fully English, but her actions belied it. She assumed that the Emperor could intervene in English affairs, and that I would cower before his dictates.
For my own part, I was also hard on the track of false hares. I was pursuing the Pope for confirmation that my marriage was indeed invalid. Numerous agents were also sent to Rome to procure a special dispensation allowing the case to be tried in England rather than Rome. They all failed. Pope Clement had no intention of delegating his authority. He insisted that the case could be decided only in Rome.
 
All the while, months passed as I waited, seeing Anne before me like a flame, surrounded by handsome young courtiers ... and one in particular, Thomas Wyatt, her cousin.
I liked young Wyatt, otherwise. He was a poet, and a good one. He was, in addition, talented in diplomacy and music. But he was a married man, and as such had no business suing for anyone’s favors, particularly his cousin’s. They had grown up together in Kent, so Anne assured me. But I liked not the way they acted together and looked upon one another. It was not seemly.
I well remember (well remember? I cannot banish it from my mind!) a fair day in May (a year after Wolsey’s foolish “tribunal,” and I as far from my heart’s desire as ever) when many of the court had gathered for the May bowls. A number of wooden pins were set up on a clipped green, and all men were to compete in tossing a heavy ball to bounce along and knock over the carefully arranged pieces. Katherine was sitting like a chesspiece on a carved chair, to watch us all, and even Brandon and Wolsey had been lured out for the festivities. Brandon had never paid the full fine for his “transgression” and therefore usually avoided Wolsey. Today, however, all was friendly and pleasant. I was especially happy that my sister Mary had ont size="3">I gripped the wooden ball I held in my hand as tightly as possible, then let fly at the targets. My ball smashed right through the center, scattering the pins like ducks. It then rolled on and on down the green, catching up to Wyatt’s.
“Ah! It is mine!” I said, pointing toward the faraway balls with my little finger, upon which was the token ring Anne had given me. Wyatt could not fail to recognize it.
He strolled forward with a smirk. Suddenly I hated the way he walked. “By your leave, Your Grace,” he said, “I must measure to ascertain the distance.” Then he began twirling something on a long chain, so that at first I could not determine what it was. Then I saw it for what it was: a locket of Anne’s. I had seen it often round her neck. He stretched out the chain mockingly and walked slowly to the balls.
I glared at Anne. She looked back at me, and all I could discern on her countenance was embarrassment. Not shame, not apology.
“I see I am deceived.” I turned and began walking back toward the palace. I should not have shown my hurt so nakedly, but I was stunned.
Wyatt continued his walk, his back to me, unaware of my anger. The rest of the gathered ladies and courtiers merely stared, or so I am told. But Katherine heaved herself from her chair and followed me across the newly clipped grass.
“My Lord,” she said.
I turned, surprised to find I had a follower. She stood there in the fresh May sunshine, heavily clad in her preferred costume and old-style headdress—a wooden one that encased her head and was overlaid with decorative material. It was so heavy it had made her sweat from the exertion of running only a dozen yards.
“Yes?”
“Stop it! Stop it now!” She was shaking. I said nothing. I could see the beads of sweat on her forehead. “I cannot bear to see you so shamed before all. And for ...” Her voice trailed off, but with a jerk of her head she indicated Anne, who had not even turned to see me go. “In front of all men. And I must watch.”
Suddenly I lashed out at her, as if she were the cause of it, merely for making the wounds deeper. “Then cease to watch, Madam! Cease following me about!”
She looked stricken and stood mournfully rooted as I stalked away, seeking refuge in my privy chamber.
 
It was cool there, at least. And empty. All attendants had been dismissed, let out into the warm May sun. At last I could pour my own wine without having to request it of some bumbling fool. Must never hurt a server’s feelings. No, never. So one must wait a good half hour for a service one could perform for oneself in a half-minute.
The wine was good. I poured another cup, then leaned down to pull off my boots. I flung each one forcefully against the farthest wall. One hit a tapestry and raised a great deal of dust. Of what use were the chamber scourers, then? Filth. Negligence. All was disgusting.
“Your Majesty, Margaret of Savoy would be displeased to see her gift treated so.”
I whirled round to face Wolsey’s bulk. He had evidently taken the first opportunity to retreat into the shade. From the way he eyed my wine flagon, I knew he was waiting to be invited to help himself. Inst size="3">“Still—” He sidled up to the wine. Suddenly he disgusted me, too.
“Take what you like. Drink it all.”
He needed no further invitation. Soon the flagon was empty. He belched —discreetly, he thought. In fact it was not. Then he turned and looked at me with the same mournful expression Katherine had worn.
“Your Grace,” he began dolourously, “it grieves me to see you so unhappy.”
“Then mend it! End my unhappiness!” I had not meant to scream, but I did. “It lies within your power!”
He knitted his brow in such fashion as to suggest that he was thinking deeply. It impressed those on councils, but I was used to it and knew it was merely a time-serving device.
“You are Cardinal! You are Papal legate! You represent the Pope in England! Do something!”
Still he stood with furrowed brow.
“Or, by God, I shall end it myself! With whatever means I must use! I care not what they are!” As I said it, I knew I meant it.
 
Later that evening, I waited within my chambers. Would Anne send word to me? Would she make amends, assure me that Wyatt meant nothing to her?
No. She did not.

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