The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [28]
Evidently the monkey had decided to turn the King’s private papers into a nest, first by shredding the paper and then by trampling it.
“Perhaps you should put him in the royal menagerie, Sire,” I said. Six months ago. I had always hated the creature, who refused to be trained like a dog for his natural functions, yet could not imitate humans in the matter either.
“Yes,” he said curtly. “ pretenders”) persisted in tickling Yorkist fancies and harbouring pretenders and claimants to the English throne. Father had had to fight three pitched battles to win and defend his crown, and I, most likely, would have to do the same. How would I fare on the battlefield? I might make a good showing on the rigorously prescribed area of the tournament field, but a true battle was something else. Richard III had been brave, and a good fighter, it was said ... but he was hacked in a dozen places, and his naked body slung over an old horse after the battle. His head bobbed and struck a stone bridge in crossing and was crushed, but no matter, he was dead....
There would be fighting, and a test, sometime, of whether I was worthy to be King. And I shrank from it. Yes, I must tell it: I did not want the test and prayed for it to fall elsewhere, at some other time, on some other man. I was afraid. As it came closer, I no longer wished to be King, so acute was my fear of failure. When I was a little younger, I had blithely assumed that since God had chosen me for the kingship, He would protect me in all my doings. Now I knew it was not so simple. Had He protected Saul? Henry VI? He had set up many kings only to have them fall, to illustrate something of His own unsearchable purpose. He used us as we use cattle or bean-plants. And no man knew what his own end or purpose was. A fallen king, a foolish king, made a good example of something, was part of the mysterious cycle.
The year I was seventeen, there were but two overriding concerns at court: when would the King die, and how would he die? Would he expire peacefully in his sleep, or would he remain an invalid for months, perhaps years, becoming cruel and distracted on account of the constant pain? Would he lie abed carrying on his affairs of state, or would he become incapable, leaving the realm in effect without a King for an unknown stretch of time?
And what of Prince Henry? Who would rule for him? The King had appointed no Protector, although surely the Prince could not rule by himself. Such were their fears.
Outwardly, things went on the same as ever. Father continued to meet with ambassadors and discuss treaties, to haggle over the precise meaning of this phrase or that as if the outcome would concern him in five years’ time. He would stop every few minutes to cough blood, as naturally as other men cleared their throats. He kept a quantity of clean linens by his side for this purpose. In the morning a stack of fresh white folded cloths was brought to his bedside; when he retired, a pile of bloody, wadded ones was taken away.
Father convened the Privy Council to meet by his bedside, and I was present at a number of these meetings. They were dull and concerned exclusively with money: the getting of it, the lending of it, the protecting of it. Empson and Dudley, his finance ministers, were unscrupulous extortionists. Evidently a King’s main concern (to be attended to every waking moment) was the chasing of money. It seemed sordid. Was Alexander the Great concerned with such things? Did Caesar have to fuss about Calpurnia’s dowry?
For Katherine’s dowry still had not been settled to Father’s satisfaction. He continued to berate Ferdinand’s ambassador and threaten to send Katherine back, to marry me to a French princess, and so on. He quite enjoyed it, I think, as other men enjoy bear-baiting. And it kept his mind from the bloody linens.
But the minds of everyone else at courblack? The laundryman and washwomen were paid handsomely for this information.
At the Christmas festivities Father continued his slow, agonizing Dance of Death, while by convention all onlookers pretended