The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [223]
Also, Francis Dereham by many persuasions procured me to his vicious purpose and obtained first to lie upon my bed with his doublet and hose and after within the bed and finally he lay with me naked, and used me in such sort as a man doth his wife many and sundry times, but how often I know not.
Our company ended almost a year before the King’sMajesty was married to my Lady Anne of Cleves and continued not past one quarter of a year or a litignorance and frailness of young women.
I was so desirous to be taken unto Your Grace’s favour, and so blinded with the desire of worldly glory that I could not, nor had grace, to consider how great a fault it was to conceal my former faults from Your Majesty, considering that I intended ever during my life to be faithful and true unto Your Majesty ever after.
Nevertheless the sorrow of my offences was ever before mine eyes, considering the infinite goodness of Your Majesty toward me which was ever increasing and not diminishing.
Now I refer the judgment of all mine offences with my life and death wholly unto your most benign and merciful grace, to be considered by no justice of Your Majesty’s laws but only by your infinite goodness, pity, compassion, and mercy—without the which I acknowledge myself worthy of the most extreme punishment.
She lied! She lied even here, even in her “honest” confession, she lied. Where was Culpepper in this, eh? “I intended ever during my life to be faithful and true unto Your Majesty.” The effrontery, the brazen deceit, in her very crawling phrases revealed that she did not know yet that Culpepper was taken. Her duplicity was stunning.
All my love for her ceased upon that instant. I saw her entire, for what she was.
I nodded to Cranmer, who was standing by, near to whimpering.
“Thank you. You have done well,” I said. “A faithful servant is not one who leaps to attend to joyful tasks, but one who takes it upon himself to shoulder the doleful ones. There are many to serve the bridegroom, but no one to lay out a corpse.”
“I am grieved for you, and wish only to help.”
“You have proved yourself over and over, but at no time more than now. I had so many to help me marry the Princess of Cleves. Where are they now?”
“The chief one is dead, Your Grace.”
So he was brave as well as true, I thought. Not one in a thousand would have voiced that, although all would have thought it.
“Cromwell.” I laughed a mirthless laugh. “Oh, how he would have relished these days, to have seen his enemies, the Howards, brought low. To have seen me shamed by that slut! My just reward for having chosen her over Cromwell’s Lady Anne.” Cromwell must be laughing—if one can laugh in hell. I know that demons cackle and jeer, but the damned?
“No one with any heart or goodness could laugh at these circumstances,” Cranmer insisted. Because he was good himself, he could not imagine its absence in others.
“They must be brought to trial,” I said, my mind leaving Cromwell in his shroud. “First the men, then Catherine. See how she feels when Culpepper denies her. As he will. He will swear he loved her not. How will she like that, to be denied publicly by the lover for whom she is giving up everything? That will hurt her worse than the sword which is to follow. He will deny her, you know. He will deny her and throw himself on my mercy.”
I rubbed my forehead. My head was pounding. “The men must have an open trial. Admit everyone at court, and their friends, to attend. Foreig cruel or bloody, but see for themselves how deceived and betrayed I have been!”
He nodded unhappily.
“Do not look so miserable. The worst part is over. Now only formalities and legalisms remain.”
He bowed.
Suddenly I thought of something. “Oh, and Cranmer—bring me back the original letter that Catherine sent Culpepper. I would have it in my safekeeping. Such pieces of evidence have a way of disappearing just before a trial or hearing. As the original