The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [11]
“It is late,” she said. “You must to bed. I will send for Mistress Luke.” Clearly she wanted us gone, just when I most wanted to stay.
Nurse Luke came promptly, to my great disappointment, and ushered us out. She was full of cheerful questions about the banquet and our gifts. As we walked back to our quarters, I could feel the cold, worse even than in the King’s chamber. It seeped into the open passageway like water through a sieve.
The torches on the wall threw long shadows before us. They were burning low; it must be extremely late. As they dwindled down to their sockets, they gave off a great deal of smoke.
In fact the passageway seemed blurred from the smoke, and ahead it was even thicker. As we turned into another passageway, suddenly the cold was gone. That was how I pe“Now we must go to the Tower. So it will look as if we had to take refuge. They planned it well.”
Suddenly I understood it all. I understood the little, puzzling things: that Father had had the banquet in order to show the court and powerful nobles what a wealthy and mighty King he was, how secure, how established. He had brought his children to Sheen and obliged Arthur to sit by his side, had pointed Margaret and me out after the revels to show the solidarity of his family, to present his phalanx of heirs.
He had hanged the dogs because there was treason all about, and he wished to warn potential traitors that they could expect no mercy from him. Appearances were important, more important even than reality. People credited only what their eyes beheld; no matter if it were calculatedly false or staged.
And I understood the big thing: the enemy had its own resources and could pull everything down around you in an instant, leaving you to curse and throw rocks into the river. All enemies must be destroyed. One must ever be on guard.
And the most frightening thing of all: Father’s throne was not secure. That fact hammered itself into my soul with cold nails. Tomorrow, or next week, or next year, he might be King no longer....
“O Henry, why?” wept Arthur, still clutching the white, ermine-furred gift robes against himself. Then he answered his own question. “I suppose it was a careless cook.” He pushed his hand across his nose, sniffling. “When I am King, I will make the kitchens safer.”
Then I began to cry, too, and not for the burning Manor, but for Arthur, poor, foolish Arthur....
“Aye,” I said. “Make the kitchens safer. That would be a good thing.”
Sheen Manor burned to the ground. We went to the Tower for safety, and Father’s forces defeated the Cornish, finally, but not before they had reached London itself. A great battle was fought across the Thames on Blackheath, and from the high window of the Tower we could see the men milling, see the puffs of smoke from guns. We could see, too, small sprawled figures that no longer moved, until, as the day went on, they outnumbered the moving ones.
The pretender Warbeck was taken and locked securely in the fortress portion of the Tower, and we came out almost as he went in. A simple matter of which side of the walls one was on determined everything. Father was King again and could walk freely where he chose, while Warbeck was confined within the sunless walls.
Father made grand plans to have Sheen Manor rebuilt in the modern style, with great numbers of glass windows. To emphasize his recent victory, he changed its name to Richmond Palace. (He had been Earl of Richmond before becoming King.) He spent uncharacteristic sums on the new palace, and as a result it was surprisingly magnificent.
He also began making plans for Arthur’s long-standing betrothal to Princess Katherine of Aragon finally to lead to a wedding. He was determined to see Arthur settled in the marriage bed as soon as possible.
IV
Arthur had been betrothed practically from the font at which he had first been christened Arthur, “in honour of the British race.” And what better wo realize that he would