“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.”
“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 m
atter, 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.