The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [136]
I padded across the room to take hold of the candle, use it to find a praying place. For I knew that was what I needed to do: to pray. I had not prayed in days. My soul was starved for it. I grasped the candle, held it aloft. Of course there was a devotional niche, complete with kneeler and pictures of the saints: the one essential in a Thomas More room.
But in passing over to it I saw a deep yellow light shining from outside the window. It came from somewhere on the grounds. Was it the cooks, lighting the day’s fires? Yet it seemed too early. Then I remembered that More had let most of the servants go.
It was in the New Building. Could there be thieves? More had refused to tell me what purpose the New Building served. Had he secreted his jewels there? Perhaps he had kept more than he admitted.
No matter; thieves were there. I would not wake More; I would rather confound them myself.
I attired myself fully, then drew on my cloak. I crept down the darkened stairs and made my way to the great up so much, and yet men sought to rob him. Anyone associated with court, no matter how remotely, was always assumed to have hidden riches.
The building was close now. I pressed at the door and was relieved to find that it swung open easily. I came inside and shut it.
Now. I was obviously within range of the robbers. The thought that I could confront them, frighten them away, somehow relieved my conscience. I had brought More to lowered circumstances (or had he brought himself?), and yet I could personally prevent their being lowered further. One somehow ransomed and redeemed the other.
Inside the building, it was icy cold—colder, even, than outside. That startled me, and I had to draw my mantle closer about me as I felt my way about. I could not ascertain where the light had come from, for all seemed to be dark within. Perhaps the thieves had extinguished their light.
I pressed my way past one door, taking care not to make it squeak on its hinges. Now I could see light, faint light. It originated around a corner.
I flattened myself against the wall and peered around it.
I expected robbers, filling their bags with More’s reduced belongings. They would be laughing, flinging the things in, desecrating them, already spending the money in their heads.
But there was no intruder there. Only More himself, bare to the waist, kneeling on a pallet.
Over his shoulder was a whip. But no ordinary whip. I recognized it as the “discipline”: a small metal ring with five chains suspended from it, each chain ending in a hook. As I watched, he beat himself with it, slowly, rhythmically, reciting all the while, “It is for You, Lord, for You. Let my imagination and my memory be effaced. For You, Lord, for You.”
He rocked back and forth on his knees, thrashing himself and chanting.
His entire upper body was cut and bleeding. There were slashes all over his back. But they were superimposed on flesh that was already irritated and infected. Yellow pustules were scattered like the blooming of evil little flowerets all over his chest and back, and his whole skin was bright red. There was not an inch of unmarked skin on his upper trunk.
“Forgive me, Lord, that my sufferings do not approach Yours,” he intoned. “I will increase them, so as to please You.” Then he picked up the “discipline” again, and began to flog himself. He gasped with each fivefold lash, yet continued. Blood oozed from the new-created gashes down to his waist, where it dribbled to the floor.
“I cannot begin to appreciate Your sufferings, O Lord,” he murmured. “This as yet feels like pleasure.” He whipped himself until his shoulders were completely raw and laid open. “It is not enough!” he cried, flinging himself forward, prostrate upon the ground. “I cannot go the full length. Only give me strength.”
There was no crucifix before him, yet he seemed to see it.
His hand—twitching now, but obedient to his will—reached out and grasped the “discipline