The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [200]
At length the filing-in was complete and they all sat, obedient to the day’s business. As the King never personally attended Privy Council meetings, they knew this was no ordinary agenda.
I rose. “My good Council and servants”—I stressed “good” and “servants” —“I am here to share with you a secret matter of mine own heart.”
They looked uneasy.
“Yea”—I pulled the prepared statement from its cover—“I, having contracted a marriage in good faith and having participated in a marriage ceremony with all good intentions, find now that my marriage is no true marriage in the eyes of God and the laws of men.”
I looked up at their faces. They appeared frozen. Good.
“The Lady Anne of Cleves was not free to make such a marriage, so it seems. There was precontract, from childhood, to the present-day Duke of Lorraine. This evidently is binding in every way.”
Now for the difficult part. God, how I hated it!
“Our bodies, in recognition of this, refused to join. We have remained chaste, and have not known one another.”
The Earl of Southampton tittered. Then the others followed suit, trying all the while to suppress their mirth. The more they stifled it, the more it grew.
Damn them!
“So you wish to know the exact details?” I said sharply. Such a hush fell over them that a man scarce would have credited it. “Very well, then!” Do not do this, one part of me said. Yes, do! another taunted. Outdo them in vulgarity and embarrassment. “When I first came to the bed of the Lady Anne, I felt by her breasts that she was no young maid; their slackness, and the looseness of her belly-flesh, so struck me to the heartred and looked weary. But not afraid. That was good. That meant they had not failed in their assignment. Somewhere in the welter of rolls they carried on their persons (and it seemed they had more than a stag had antlers, so did they protrude all over) were the signature and seal I craved.
“Well?” I rose from my chair.
“She agreed, Your Grace,” sighed Brandon, pulling out the one paper that mattered and handing it to me.
I grasped it and let my eyes run like a leaping child to find the requisite signature, down far at the bottom: Anna, Princess of Cleves.
“Christ be praised!” I muttered.
Only then did I think to offer them stools to sit upon, and some nourishment. It had been a gruelling day for them as well as for me. Gratefully they seated themselves and held out their dusty hands for bowls of water to wash them. A page performed the duty.
“The Queen—Lady Anne—had a hard time of it,” spoke Wyatt in a hushed voice, as his hands were being dried.
It was to be expected. After all, she loved me, and had assumed she would remain Queen of England forever. “Yes, I pity her,” I said. And I did. I knew what it was to suffer unrequited love, or to be deprived of a station in life to which one felt called.
“She fainted when she saw us appear round the hedge to her garden,” said Brandon.
Fainted? Could it be? No, absurd! She was no Virgin Mary, to bring forth without knowing a man. Where had my fancies taken me? She had done it out of love, out of desperate love.
“Poor lady,” I murmured.
“She thought we had come with her death warrant,” continued Brandon. “She thought to be arrested, tried, and then executed.”
I chuckled contemptuously.
“She was clear frightened, Your Grace. You had shown your disfavour and lack of consent from the start, then sent her away without you. She is no fool. I am sure she is well acquainted with the course of behaviour you took with Anne Boleyn. The withdrawal, the disfavour—all was being repeated.”
“Save that she had no lovers!” I shrieked, turning round. “Save that she was no witch! Save that she did not plan my death! Small differences, would you not agree?”
“Aye, aye,” murmured Wyatt.
“By all that’s in heaven, yea,” echoed Brandon. “She revived promptly,” he added.
Her strong constitution would see to that, yes. “She seemed delighted with the agreement,