The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [198]
“The lack of consummation, or my inability to consummate the marriage? Be clear, Crum!”
He shrugged. “Of course it would be more... persuasive... if you attested to your inability to consummate it. But ’twill serve as well if you present it as a matter of policy that you simply chose not to.”
“It makes me sound as if my private parts wore the crown instead of my head.” He looked over at me, and I could almost read his mind: In you, Sire, they do.
Women groan from desire, too, I thought. You shall see.
Instead I smiled. “Good night, sweetheart,” I said, unwittingly giving the same farewell that I gave Anne every evening. What else was there to say to an untouched bride?
Cromwell I gave instructions to.
“You have prepared a statement for the Princess of Cleves to sign?” I asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty. It is all set down here, as best I understood your desires.” He produced a short document.
“If it said what the true nature of the complaint is, it would be even shorter.” The parchment said it, said something—what matter, as long as the game was ended? I laid it down.
“There is another matter, Your Majesty,” said Cromwell happily. “A matter pertaining to money.” He looked as if he expected me to salivate. Was I perceived as that simple, then? And that greedy?
“In the monastic suppressions, we overlooked one order. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.”
Ah, yes. The militant order of monks, the sword-arm of Christ. They had formed originally to protect defenceless pilgrims to Jerusalem. They had fought the Infidel and set up hospices all along the pilgrim routes. As always, competence and filling a need where no services existed had made them powerful and then wealthy. Today the order held land and privilege all over Europe. They were true knights, though, in the purest sense of the word. And their name stood for strength, honesty, compassion.
“... a profit of ten thousand pounds,” Cromwell was saying.
“But who will take their place?”
He smiled crookedly. “No one. Because they are not needed today.”
“Charity and protection, not needed?”
“Not en route to Jerusalem. Perhaps in other guises, at other stations.”
“But with no formal organization?”
“The Knights did not begin as a formal organization. They began with one man’s courage and charity. Other men of vision will see the needs today.”
I sighed. I was reluctant to sign, as if by signing I would at long last kill something lingering in myself.
“I shall leave it here for you,” Cromwell said at length, placing it firmly on top of a stack of lesser documents for my attention, things pertaining to rent-leases in Kent and shipping regulations for Alicante wine.
After he had left me alone, I reread the first parchment carefully. It stated, succinctly and reasonably, why the marriage to Anne was no marriage. It outlined the privileges Anne was to acquire upon becoming “the King’s most entirely beloved sister.” She would take precedence over all women of the realm, with the exception of my Queen (who was left unspecified) and my daughters. She would be granted a large annual income of about five thousand pounds, and two royal manors, Richmond and Bletchingly.
In exchange, she had merely to sign and acknowledge that we were in agrerfect harmony on this matter.
Attached to the document was an envelope containing a terse statement by Cromwell: “It will doubtless be necessary for the King’s Majesty to speak personally to selected members of the Court and the foreign ambassadors on this matter, viz, to wit: ‘The marriage between the Princess of Cleves and myself has never been consummated, due to our inner conviction that this was no true marriage. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth and Wisdom, communicated itself to us unmistakably, and we obeyed.’ ”
How neat and vague and high-minded. But what if questions were asked? Must a King open himself so personally to public knowledge? How much would people demand, and how far was I bound to answer?
I found I could not