The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [266]
“To decide what?”
“The details of the funeral. The publication of the will.”
“They found it, then?”
He looked confused. “Why, was it lost?”
That is what they would give out. It was lost. Or the King had not made one. To give them time to alter it. O Jesu, chaos reigned!
“I know naught of wills and councils,” I said, adopting my most wheedling manner. “I seek only to do honour to my lost King. Tell me, where is he?”
“In the Privy Chamber. The chapel is not prepared to receive him. While it is being readied, he must lie in state in his own Privy Chamber.” He waved me in.
They had done something to him in the night: spirited him away, disembowelled him, steeped him in spices and preservatives. Now his corpse lay lapped in Eastern tars and inside a flimsy coffin. It was draped with heavy black velvet palls. The supports underneath it were sagging. No one had been prepared for this eventuality. To “imagine the King’s death” was treason, therefore one could not ready even the most elementary props for it. The coffin supports were inadequate, but no one could replace them beforehand without running afoul of Cromwell’s leftover secret police.
Sun streamed into the chamber. I felt foolish approaching the death-bier. It was all so makeshift, so un-kingly. I had nothing to say here, nothing to do. I had joined the throng of people who only wished to “check up.” I disgusted myself. I left.
Later I was told that “officials” (what officials?) made it more palatable and seemly. The coffin was surrounded by eighty tapers, and there were Masses, obsequies, and continual watches kept by the chaplains and gentlemen of the Privy Chamber.
Outside this well-ordered respect, the realm trembled and soldiers diced for the seamless garment. No, that is really being too cynical. The truth was that offices must be filled and a nine-year-old King “protected” ... especially from his older sisters, who represented substantial claims to the throne in their own right.
Here I must digress to comment on the two contradictory deathbed scenes reported by “witnesses,” neither of whom was present at the time. The Protestant version is that King Henry had envisioned a great enlightened state in which the Reformed religion would prevail. In this version, Henry deliberately had Edward brought up by Protestant tutors and entrusted the Protestant cause to Mary’s conscience by calling her to his deathbed and saying, “Be a mother to Edward, for look, he is little yet.” Dying in sanctity, he had commissioned Mary to protect her brother, had cut down the Howards as Catholic weeds that might block Edward’s Gospel sunlight, and had created the Governing Council as a safety device to shelt12;was surrounded by wax tapers, each two feet long, and weighing, in total, a ton. The entire floor and walls of the chapel were covered in black cloth. It was a chapel of exquisite death.
While Henry was engaged—albeit unwillingly—in this tableau, the realm was seething like an anthill. Chancellor Wriothesley went to Parliament to announce the death formally before both houses of the assembled Lords and Commons. Then Sir William Paget read Henry’s will (discovered at last) so it could be proclaimed throughout the land.
The surprise provision in it was that Henry had not ruled out the possibility of children by Katherine Parr; for he placed them directly after Prince Edward in the line of succession, and before Mary and Elizabeth. These were his exact words:
And for the great love, obedience, chastity of life, and wisdom being in our wife and queen Katherine, we bequeath unto her three thousand pounds in plate, jewels, and such apparel as it shall please her to take of such as we have already....
And per default of lawful issue of our son Prince Edward, we will that the said imperial crown after our two deceases, shall fully remain and come to the heirs of our entirely beloved wife, Katherine, that now is.
And all this time we had assumed their marriage