The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [17]
The bad things: I was not to engage in any “dangerous” activities, such as hunting or even jousting, as my person now had to be guarded against the remotest mishap. As a result, I had to stay indoors and watch my friends at play, or join them outside merely to stand about watching, which was worse.
I had to live in a room that connected to the King‘s, so that I could go nowhere, and no one come to me, without passing through his chamber first. In that way he isolated me as effectively as one of those maidens in the Morte d’Arthur, imprisoned in a turret by her father. The only difference was that as long as my father lived, no one could rescue me or even approach me.
And how long would my father live? He was only forty-five, and seemed healthy. He might live anota retiredo from young to old, beggar to king. It is simple: for a King, do like a King.”
He sat down beside me, glancing toward the door. “And now I fear the King will come in and see that we are somewhat behind.” He seemed embarrassed at what he had just said, as if he wished me to forget it as quickly as possible.
“Have you learned the things I told you?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. I glanced over at the fireplace. I wished I could add another log to the fire, as my fingers were chilled. But there were no more there. Father allowed only six logs per day until after New Year’s, no matter how foul the weather. I blew on my fingers. “First, France. There are sixteen million Frenchmen. They are the most powerful country in Europe. As late as my father’s exile, Brittany was an independent duchy. But when King Charles VIII married Anne of Brittany in 1491, it became part of France. The French are our enemies. Our great King Henry V conquered nearly all of France—”
“Not all, Your Grace,” admonished Farr.
“Nearly half, then,” I conceded. “And his son was crowned King of France in Paris! And I shall recapture those lands!”
He smiled indulgently. “And how many Englishmen live in the realm?”
“Three million. Three and a half million!”
“And sixteen million in France, Your Grace.”
“What matter the numbers? An Englishman is worth twenty Frenchmen! They are terrified of us. Why, French mothers frighten their children with threats of les Anglais!”
“And English mothers frighten their children with cries of bogymen.”
“We still have Calais,” I persisted.
“For how long? It is an unnatural outpost.”
“It is part of England. No, I mean to pursue my heritage! To recapture France.”
“Have you been reading those Froissart things again, Your Grace?”
“No!” I said. But it was not true, and he knew it. I loved those chronicles of knights and their ladies and warfare, and read them late at night, often when I should have been sleeping. “Well—perhaps a little.”
“A little is too much. Don’t fill your head with such things. They are silly and what is worse, dangerous and outmoded. Any English King who attempts to recapture France now would risk his life, his treasury—and being ridiculed. A King can perhaps survive the first two. But the third, never. Now, then, have you memorized the general map of Europe?”
“Yes. The French have swallowed up Brittany and gorged themselves on Burgundy. And Maximilian, Emperor—”
“Of what?”
“The Holy Roman Empire.”
“Which is neither holy nor Roman nor an empire,” he said happily.
“No. It is merely a conglomerate of German duchies yoked with the Low Countries.”
“But Maximilian has some twenty million nominal subjects.”
“United on notroted.
“Exactly.