The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [127]
Chapuys looked up in alarm, and stirred.
“Do not bother, good Ambassador. I have already read them—and had copies made before we even departed. A good plan you have. The only weakness is the disorganization and dependence of the conspirators themselves. They are united only through your ceaseless industry on Katherine’s behalf. By themselves they are unwilling and unable to carry out any plan, even the simplest.”
I listened eagerly. The uisgebeatha had loosened their tonguesyne, the Pope and Emperor,” retorted Chapuys recklessly. “In their hearts they are ashamed of the sham Queen Anne and of the King’s unlawful Acts. In Cardinal Wolsey’s day, England sat on the highest councils of Europe. Now she is a laughingstock, a bastard amongst legitimate nations.”
I pressed more uisgebeatha on him, and he unwittingly took it.
“No. England is now respected for shaking off the shackles of servitude, of minionhood,” I corrected him.
“When my father was ambassador to France and to the Pope, they laughed at us,” put in Boleyn. “They laugh no more. Their day is over, Master Chapuys. The future is not with the Pope or Spain, but with England and Protestantism.”
“Protestantism?” I snapped. “I’ll have no Protestants in my realm. They are heretics.”
“So seemed Our Lord’s disciples to the Pharisees.” It was Henry Howard, the youngling. His voice was thin with lack of years.
Everyone looked at him in surprise. “Fie, Sir Henry,” said Carew. “You, from an ancient and honoured house—you are not one of those ‘new men’ who must needs embrace the latest fad, like Lutheranism and this Zwingli-madness in Zurich.” His voice was soft, as if he were afraid really to use it for fear of bringing on another “attack.” His face still looked drained.
Henry Howard smiled. He was known even at his age as a fashion-setter. He wore wide-brimmed Italian silk hats, with one sweeping feather; he wrote verse in the new “blank” fashion, which meant that it did not rhyme. (As if poetry should not rhyme!) “The past fascinates me not,” he said. “It is a charnel-house, shut up, encrusted, airless. I want to open wide the doors—”
As I had at his age, when Father died....
“French doors?” asked Weston. “Like the ones you have been installing in Kenninghall?” Weston cocked his head.
I liked Weston not, I admitted freely to myself. He was too pretty. His habit of wearing only blue, to emphasize his pale blue eyes, set off by black spiky eyelashes, seemed to me most effete and un-English.
“Yes, we have heard about your remodelling,” said Cromwell, his eyes steady. “There are many of us who share your interest in remaking our English homes.”
“I think we all yearn to create ourselves anew,” I said. “With ordinary men, it can express itself in installing French windows. For a King, it must be in refining and reshaping the kingdom itself. England has long been in need of a master gardener—a gardener who will weed her, root out poisonous growth, chase away unhealthsome beasts—wolves, vultures, moles, snakes—and make her bloom.”
Now they were staring at me, but I went boldly on. “When a garden is thus planted, there is much initial destruction, and seeming chaos. But out of the upheaval comes order, beauty, peace.” I looked at them deliberately. “Do you understand? I must do cruel things in order to bring forth the glory of England, a glory that has long lain choked by weeds.”
I took another deep, full draught of Irish-water. “The way ueven ground with its treacherous snow cover. We were forced to pick our way along, shaking with exhaustion atop our weakened horses. Beaulieu might as well have been in Scotland, for all the good it would do us. There was no sign of it on the horizon; there was nothing save empty space and a small road, visible only because it was bordered by a stone fence.
The men were silent, each clinging to his saddle and praying to his God. Chapuys’s silver-festooned saddle seemed the epitome of false security, betraying us no less than him, useless