The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [143]
That should have been that. But it was the beginning of a set of different challenges to my reign.
Fisher’s severed head was parboiled, as was the custom, and set up on London Bridge. The midsummer weather was hot and stagnant; foul odours rose from the Thames, which sloshed back and forth in an enervated fashion. Fisher’s head (minus its Cardinal’s hat—that would have been too macabre a touch) should have rotted and turned into a horror. But it did not. Instead, it seemed to glow and become more lifelike every day. People began to gather on the bridge to pay homage to it, to tell it their troubles....
To ask it to intercede for them.
Fisher was on the way to becoming a saint.
I ordered this ended. In the night my servants took down the head and threw it into the river.
Fisher, the incipient saint, was checked in his progress. But the weather, and the mood, continued ugly. There were pestilential vapours about, infecting the entire populace. It was best to do More now, and have the whole business finished. Then, that being done, I could go out on progress, ride out amongst the people, talk with them, soothe them. They needed me.
An unhappy languor had fallen over the court, as in one of those tales of enchantment wherein a witch has put everyone under a spell. Anne seemed particularly affected, alternately nervous and apathetic. Others moved about as though their brains had flown, or were held for ransom.
Then Anne told me her news, and that broke my spell.
“I am with child.” Magic words. Words that called to action.
“Praised be God!” I exclaimed. All would be right: out of these present troubles and hideous upheavals, the original purpose of which I had all but forgotten, a Prince would come.
I clasped her to me, feeling her slender supple body, all encased in silk. “Praised be God.”
More’s execution was to be July sixth, a fortnight after Fisher’s. I granted his daughter Margaret permission to witness the actual execution. He bequeathed her his hair shirt (yes, he had continued to wear it all through his captivity), and hearsay is that it has been preserved in the family as a relic to this day. He sent no message to his wife.
It was an oppressive summer day, not columbine-fresh as some can be, but lowering and heavy. The humours in the air hung waiting, malevolent.
Anne, in her characteristic, brave fashion, had attempted to mock it by staging a “Pope Julius” party in her apartments. She had had a number of boards painted up for the game that had been invented in the summer of 1529 featuring Pope Julius (he who had granted the original dispensation in 1503), with stops called Intrigue, Matrimony, War, and Divorce. She had set up tables with rounds to determine which players should be matched, culminating in a Master Board with a grand prize. The “tournament” was to beginased in breezes. Rose-scented incense supplied the sweetness that was lacking in the reeking outside air. As we were at Greenwich, there was the blessing of some slight breezes, borne inland from the sea. It was undoubtedly worse in the other palaces.
The entire court was assembled for Anne’s “tournament,” from the Privy Council through the ladies-in-waiting. Crum was there, looking eager for the gambling; the Seymour brothers, Edward and Tom, back from a fruitless diplomatic mission in Paris; Norfolk, Anne’s uncle; and ... as I have said, everyone.
Anne, looking almost as yellow as her gown in the oppressive heat and her condition, flitted about explaining the rules of both the game and her tournament to everyone. At the tinkle of a bell, all began. I was seated at table with Thomas Audley, Richard Riche, the Solicitor-General, and Jane Seymour, Edward and Tom’s younger sister, whom I had not seen before.
They were all people of velvet: Audley so yielding and cautious; Riche so smooth and pleasing; Mistress Seymour, so soft and comforting. They played according to character, and as a result I won the game easily, being the only one to play boldly and abrasively.
Pope Julius. It was a clever game, but belonged to simpler times.