The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [48]
Perhaps, when I conquered France, God would turn His face toward me. I became more and more convinced of it.
My advisors and Council, by and large, were not convinced. Of my desire to redeem myself with God they were unaware; but they were against war with France. Father had spoiled them with his lack of involvement in foreign entanglements, and like any privileged state, they had got used to it. After all, it was Father’s leftover councillors who had renewed the peace treaty with France, behind my back. These churchmen—Ruthal, Fox, and Warham—a pacifist trio, continued to thwart me and preach endlessly of the uselessness, the expense, the evil of war. The nobles on the Council—Howard, Earl of Surrey, and de Vere, Earl of Oxford and Lord High Admiral, whose raison d’être was making war—were in favour of it. But the Church was not, and even the intellectuals (so carefully imported and cultivated to give a humanist polish to my court!) were not. Erasmus, Vives, Colet—they blathered and wrote such nonsense as “anyone who went to war because of ambition or hatred, he fought under the banner of the Devil.”
Disgruntled, at one point I asked Wolsey to ascertain the exact cost of provisioning and equipping a force of thirty thousand men, so I would have true figures with which to argue. I made no muster rolls or correspondence available to Wolsey. By now I knew he was so industrious and resourceful he did not need any direction from me other than a vaguely worded request.
However, as days passed without my seeing him, and as need arose to consult with him about a rumour that the fierce Pope Julius lay deathly ill, I made inquiries as to his whereabouts. At that time he lived in a small suite of rooms in the palace, adjoining the Chapel Royal, with only one manservant and one secretary. I did the unusual thing of going to his quarters myself. But Jonathan, his manservant, told me that his master was “moved to an inn in Kent, thereby to keep counsel with himself for a time.” I glanced into the plain, sparsely furnished room. All the table surfaces were bare; he had taken all his papers with him.
“And where is that?”
“At Master Lark’s, Your Grace. He has an inn called the ...” The fellow twisted his face in remembering. “... Lark’s Morning. Near Chilham.”
Lark. Lark. Where had I heard that name? The Lark’s Morning. Good name for an inn. I would find it. By God, it would make a fine morning’s ride, and I was ready for one. Should I ask Katherine? A gallop together, in the damp March air—but no, this was her prayer-time. Nonetheless, I could ask. Perhaps she would ... ? No. She would not.
Thus we use our supposed “knowledge” of others to speak on their behalf, and condemn them for the words we ourselves put in their silent mouths.
Having asked Katherine in my mind, and bee PoMarch is an ugly month, uglier even than November, its lifeless counterpart. I was glad to reach the Lark’s Morning (easy to find, on the main road to Dover), warm myself inside at the fire, and put some heated ale in my belly.
The innkeeper’s daughter (she was too young and pretty to be his wife) seemed unusually flustered when she recognized me. I was accustomed, now, to the stir I caused by my presence (odd how easy it is to become used to being taken for a god), but she seemed more frightened than awed. This puzzled me. I made sure I spoke to her gently, to ease her fears.
“I seek Thomas Wolsey, one of my almoners. Tell me, is he hereabout?”
She smiled; or rather, her mouth twitched.
“Father