The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [35]
Shall I confess it? I was a virgin. Unlike my companions of the tiltyard and the exercise field, I had never had a woman. How could I, guarded and sequestered as I was, and constantly watched by the King? Oh, there had been the customary invitations from the serving girls. But I had no desire for them—perhaps because they offered themselves so freely. Or perhaps because I was embarrassed to reveal my virginal state, which I assumed would be obvious, and then they would laugh at me in the kitchens and the laundry. In the beginning it was simply that I was too young, and was frightened; then, later, ironically, I was too old.
And now I must take Katherine to bed. The young King, proclaimed a second Hector, another Lancelot, and so on, was as inexperienced as his older, sickly brother had been before him. And with the same woman. I remembered how, with the blithe ignorance of a ten-year-old, I had disdained his timidity and lack of self-assurance.
We were alone in the Retiring Room. The entire humiliating court ritual of “putting the couple to bed” had been duly observed. Oua bto be prescribed: there was nothing else one could do effectively to ease that desire.
Katherine seemed to be a virgin. But then, it is hard for one virgin to be sure of another. Thus, years later, when the controversy raged about this very question, I kept a diplomatic silence, lest I betray myself.
XIV
WILL:
All of England went on a general holiday for approximately half a year—from old Henry’s death in April until the autumn winds blew. There was a great rejoicing among the people, from the lowest (with whom I consorted in those days) to (I assume) the highest. The mood pervaded everything at the time but is very difficult to describe now: a feeling of jubilation and expansiveness. They were ready to embrace Young Harry (as they called him), permit him anything, then forgive him for it. They almost longed for him to sin, so that they could show him their great acceptance.
But he did not sin. He behaved well, as if he were following a private code entitled “The Honour of a Prince.” Not only was he young and handsome and rich, but he attended five Masses a day, had honoured his youthful promise to make the Spanish princess his wife, and had turned the gloomy court of his father into a glittering pavilion of wisdom, wit, and talent. The people waited anxiously to see what sort of Coronation he would give them. He did not disappoint them.
HENRY VIII:
I chose Midsummer’s Day for our Coronation. Midsummer’s Day, 1509. Even today I cannot write those words without stirring the scent of green summer from the dry leaves of an old man’s memory. High summer almost forty years ago, still preserved like pressed flowers in a few withered minds....
But that day there were thousands upon thousands who saw the young Henry and Katherine winding their way through the London streets to their Coronation in Westminster Abbey. They shrieked and held out their hands to us. I can still see those faces, healthy (perhaps slightly flushed with the wine I had ordered for the populace?) and filled with joy. They wanted me and I wanted them, and on both sides we believed we would live forever in this moment.
When we reached the Abbey, I dismounted while Katherine was helped from her litter by her ladies-in-waiting. She was wearing the costume of a virgin bride, all in white, with her golden-brown hair hanging loose. I held out my hand and took hers. Before us stretched a great white carpet over which we must walk before entering the Abbey. A thousand people lined the walkway.
Suddenly it was all very familiar. Once before, I had led Katherine over just such a walkway and into a great church. For a moment I had a chill, as if a raven had flown across the sun. Then it was gone, so that I could turn to her and whisper, “Do you remember another time when