The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers (12 page)

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

Authors: Margaret George

“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.)

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