The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers (68 page)

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Authors: Margaret George

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I let her sleep. I had no desire to be surrounded by people until I had my thoughts on course. Let everyone think we slept late because the marriage was a grand success. It served my plans better.
Thus do we become old. It is not in our aching knees, or in our rheuCromwelles. No. It is in the transforming of what in youth is a simple pleasure into something false and face-saving. The wedding night becomes a political ruse. In this we betray ourselves, surprise our own selves in the distance we have already travelled on our life’s journey.
Afore noon, Anne and I, attired in our “second day” costumes, greeted Cromwell and the other Privy Councillors before adjourning to a midday feast. In these short winter days, dinner was served when the sun was at its height. I took care not to smile overmuch, lest it be misinterpreted. Let them puzzle over exactly what I felt; let them wonder how pleased I was; let no one be sure of where he stood with me.
A rush of pleasure filled me at the situation. I enjoyed leaving men in limbo, uncertain as to what exactly was happening to them—or was about to happen. It was an ugly feeling, and I was ashamed that I could relish it so. Yet emotions and feelings were not sins, were they? Only actions were sins, and I had done no unkind action. In fact, I was behaving in a most generous and kingly fashion toward them. I spoke vaguely of “our pleasure” in the Lady Anne, and invited them to join us in “our dinner.”
Fifty members of the court dined with us in the Great Hall. Anne and her ladies from Cleves, all identically got up in headdresses that reared up around their faces like the wrinkled ears of elephants, chattered away to each other on the dais.
Cromwell, in his customary plain black robes, was seated just down on the table to the right, talking gravely to Brandon. I noticed that he left his wine untouched. Brandon did not, of course.
Across, seated at the other table, were the women. Brandon’s new wife, Katherine. (I persisted in thinking of her as his “new wife,” even though they had been married as long as Princess Elizabeth had been alive.) Bessie Blount —now Lady Clinton. My eye lingered fondly over her, but she was no longer the Bessie I had known. She was thin and coughed often, pulling her furs as close about her as she dared, for fashion’s sake. She was consumptive. I could see it, mark it coldly in one part of me, whilst the other winced. Not Bessie ...
she
could not grow old. We want the sharers of our youth to remain forever young, to remind us of what we were, not of what we are. Best to die young, then? Certainly, for those to whom your existence is a touchstone, an affirmation.
Princess Mary, dressed all in purple. She loved the colour, and, as she was entitled to wear it, saw no reason not to have her headdresses, her handkerchiefs, her shoes, as well as her gowns, the colour of squashed violets. No reason, save that it was singularly unbecoming to her and made her face look yellow. Next to her was a rare, pretty creature who knew everything about colour and how to use it. She had auburn hair and the fair skin that sometimes goes with it, and wore dusky pink, which made her face and hair seem of sublime tints. She was chattering away to the Princess Elizabeth on her left. Elizabeth’s startling red hair was drawn demurely back into a snood, and she was attired in modest brown. Although only six, her manner was so grave and her demeanour so old that from across the room she seemed to be old Margaret Beaufort, come again to taunt and judge me. Her black eyes—keen, sharp buttons—were the very same. But the creature next to her—all froth and frills and foam—was making her laugh. Who was the lady?
A splash of spittle landed before me. Anne was speaking. I turned. Yes, she was saying something, but I could not ufore meiv>
“She says she is well pleased with such a godly company,” he repeated stiffly.
“Tell the Queen”—how strange it sounded!—“that I will engage a tutor for her straightway. She must needs learn the language of her people.”
Anne nodded vigorously, her headdress swaying. Again I thought of elephant ears. “They are in England now,” I said. “It is time that they lay aside their native costumes and dress according to fashion here. I shall have the court milliner measure the ladies of Cleves tomorrow.”
When they heard this, they were indignant.
“They say it would be immodest to lay aside their proper headdresses,” Hostoden said. “It is a wickedness to display the hair.”
“God’s breath! If they cannot conform to English custom and costume, they should return to Cleves!”
They scowled at this pronouncement, then agreed that they would do so. I was flabbergasted, insulted. To quit England so readily? Yet my indignation lasted but a moment, as I saw that in reality it was to my advantage to send away as many of these foreigners as possible and replace them with Englishwomen. In my youth, the court had been a bright place, as bright with youth and beauty as a summer field spread out with wildflowers and butterflies under the sun. There was still youth and beauty somewhere beneath the English sun, and it must be brought to court.
Anne looked startled and frightened at the thought of being left alone. But I reached out and touched her stiff, brocaded shoulder.
“As an English Queen, you should be served by Englishwomen,” I said, and Hostoden conveyed my words. “This is your home now. And I shall employ—I shall send—” I motioned for Cromwell, a slight flicker of my eye and finger, and he was instantly beside me.
“Your Grace?”
“You have provided all things for Lady Anne, but no language instruction,” I chided him. “I desire straightway that a tutor be found, a person so skilled in his craft that by Candlemas my wife shall speak to me in perfect
English.”
Having been given an impossible task, Cromwell accepted the commission unemotionally. He bowed, a stiff little smile on his face.
“Yes, my Cromwell,” I said smoothly, “I am so anxious to hear my dearly beloved wife speak to me in my own tongue. It will complete my happiness.”
A flicker of worry crossed his brow, that brow trained so well in Italy. Then he did his masters well. “As you say, Your Majesty. In your pleasure lies my happiness.”
And your welfare, I thought. And your very existence.
I nodded expansively and chucked Anne on the cheek.
That evening, after the light supper of cold venison, pudding, and bread, a slim young man was announced. Anne and I were once again retiring to the “bridal bower,” and the rest of the courtiers and attendants had withdrawn—doubtless to jest and pity me. Well, their laughter and their pity would be short-lived.
flourished a basket of books, pens, and paper.
Crum—always daring in fulfilling a request. Who would have thought of sending someone to begin lessons this very night? Only Crum.
I motioned the young tutor in, sat him down with my bride before a table.
“I ... am ... Anne.
“You ... are ... Martin.
“He ... is ... King Henry.”
I fell asleep to this refrain on the second night of my new marriage.
LXXXVIII
F
or the next week or ten days, Anne gave herself over completely to her English lessons. I was astounded by her concentration and diligence. Every morning when I left her, I kissed her on the cheek and said,
“Good morning, sweetheart.” At night before going to sleep, I gave her yet another chaste peck and said, “Sleep well, my dear.” By the fourth morning she was able to say, “Good morning”; by that evening, “And you as well, husband”; and before many more days were out she was inquiring solicitously about my state business, my Council meetings, and the forthcoming nuptial tournaments and celebrations. Soon I would have a
talking
horse.
She was also (as befit a domestic beast) docile in allowing her women to be sent back to Cleves, in being assigned a whole new group of attendants, and in being measured and outfitted for a new wardrobe. Her “elephant ear” headdresses were cheerfully surrendered, and she showed a surprising taste for luxurious fabrics and fashionable gowns. She certainly had the frame to carry any extravagance in weight or colour. It was truly like trapping a great horse.
I spent my days closeted in meetings, poring over the latest diplomatic dispatches regarding the “amenity” between Charles and Francis. They must catch no wind of the lack of success in my new marriage, and rather than trust anyone, I must play my part so well that no one, not even Cromwell, would suspect. So I acted the happy bridegroom, watching myself as though I were detached, marvelling at my own ability to dissemble. It is a talent I suspect everyone possesses. Those who lament, “I can never lie, my face gives me away,” are the cleverest liars of all.
Forward went the plans for the great national celebrations. Protocol must be served, and on a windy day in late January the jousting barriers were put up in the tiltyard of Whitehall Palace; the brightly coloured flags were raised, and the spectator stands were hung with the Tudor colours.
Crum had employed an innovation: the royal boxes were enclosed, and heated with braziers. We were to gaze out at the contestants through glass plates.
The day of the royal tournaments was blustery and overcast, one of those days that seem grey throughout. But inside the royal glass boxes it was high summer, with all the chattering and uncovered necklines that accompany warmth.
Anne was wearing a square-cut golden velvet and cloth-of-gold gown, and on her hair she had a thin gold wire coronet set with emeralds—quite the latest fashion. She seemed exuberant to be attending this joust.
“In-a Cleves, ve haf no such tang,” she enunciated carefully.
No, I supposed not. What an insufferably dull place s tender and succulent as her foot. She still clutched the handkerchief, but tears glistened on her flushed cheeks, and her cushion-like lips quivered. She was the most sensual creature I had ever touched, the most fleshly and entirely of the senses, of this
earth ...
and I knew, in that instant, that I must possess her.
I said nothing. I stood up, made my way back to my royal seat.
It was settled. She would be mine. I had but to speak to arrange it. I lived in a world where all desires could be satisfied, but where the lack of desire had been the fearsome thing, the thing that weighed on me and made me feel dead.
Now I lived again. To
want
was to be alive. And I wanted Mistress Howard, wanted her so violently I was ashamed and breathless at the same time.
 
That night I could not sleep. Truly. For the first time since I had beheld Anne Boleyn at the investiture (June 25, 1525; I would never forget that date) and been bewitched, I had not had such a feeling. Was this, too, witchcraft? No, I knew better now. Anne’s witchcraft had come later. That initial feeling I had had was genuine and undesecrated.
To experience it again! I had thought never to do so, and now to be given it, unsought, at my age!
I lay awake all night, enjoying the love yet to come, relishing the fact that I
knew
it would come to pass, for I had power to command, and what I wished, I could take. I was no Culpepper. But in the interval between the framing of a desire and the acting on it—therein lies the torture, and the bliss. A person is never more ours, yet never more unattainable, than in those hours.
Anne snored softly beside me. I felt fondly toward her, knowing that she was the odd means of having brought about my present and future bliss. Without the arranged marriage, I would have been content to languish forever, mourning and feeling myself dead. I had believed myself so. I even felt gratitude toward Francis and Charles. Without their enmity, I never would have had to make this forced marriage, then I never would have had a Queen, and the Queen would never have had a household—
Enough! This was absurd. One might as well be thankful that one’s father lay with one’s mother on a certain night, and that the midwife was saved from tripping on the stairs because of a fortuitous candle. The truth was, I was gloriously in love—rebom, as it were—and that was all that mattered. Things were as they were, and to care overmuch who brought them to this pass was to busy oneself wastefully. Any action not bringing a lover to the possession of his loved one was wasted, unless it be savouring the moment to come.

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