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They let out a great cheer. “A glorious day!” yelled Brandon.

“Our King is mighty, he destroys his enemies!” cried young Courtenay.

I stepped to the door of my “house” and looked out across the flat plains of France, feeling the wind in my face. Whenever I want to recall that moment, that high moment of military triumph, I have only to close my eyes and open a window and let the wind blow steady and a little cold across my cheeks and lips. I do it sometimes, in moments of uncertainty. Then I become young again, and mighty.

WILL:

Katherine thought she was pleasing him by sending him the bloody Scots King’s coat in exchange for the captured Duc de Longueville. As if they were an equal exchange!

Katherine was very devoted to Henry; Katherine was very competent and loyal; Katherine was very stupid in crucial ways.

HENRY VIII:

We landed at Dover, almost four months to the day since we had set sail for France. Then, there had been all the excitement of seeing France—I, who had never seen any of England, save the parts around London—and fighting there, against great odds. France had proved fair; and I had proved a warrior. Now part of fair France was my booty.

All along the Dover-London road, my subjects were waiting. They wished to see us, touch us, call their greetings. We had done well; we had touched a nerve in Englishmen, and aroused a longing in them. And next year we would further satisfy that longing, for we would invade France yet again, this time well coordinated with Ferdinand and Maximilian. This season’s campaign had been but the beginning.

WILL:

It was here that I once again saw Henry VIII. I was one of the throng along the selfsame Dover-London road, and I was eager to glimpse him, the Boy-King. I stood for hours, so it seemed, waiting for a hint of movement on the road stretching away on either side. The King is coming. No, the King will be an hour yet. It was interminable, yet I dared not leave. At length—it was almost noon, and we had been waiting, standing, since dawn—he came into view, sitting proudly on a great white horse. He was dressed all in gold, and he himself was gold: his hair, his eyes, his glowing skin. He looked fresh, and as full of grace as any knight new-blessed at Jerusalem. My—whatever it is within the breast that expands into life at such moments—pride, for want of a better word, was touched, and I felt ecstatic beholding him, both as if I were King myself, and at the same time awed that we had such a King.

HENRY VIII:

Katherine wange my travel-stained clothes, in which I had lived since boarding my warship at Calais. Instead, I changed horses, so that I might gallop to her on the fastest steed in the royal stables. I had been faithful to her all the time I had been away, even during that time in Lille, between the besieging of Thérouanne and Tournai, when we celebrated our first victory and there were many Belgian ladies eager to “comfort” a warrior-king....

I had never been unfaithful to Katherine. I did not believe it was right. I had pledged myself to her, and I would keep that pledge. My father had never been unfaithful to my mother. I could not have borne it if he had insulted her so.

The towers of Richmond Palace, rising pale and beseeching against the blanched autumn skies. Inside, inside, was my wife. Mother-to-be, victor at Flodden Field ... oh, truly I was blessed.

Down the walkways (people on all sides pushing, claiming me) I flew toward the royal apartments. And there she was, at the entrance, like any schoolchild, not a royal daughter of Spain. Her hair glinted gold in the murky light. Then it was embrace, embrace; and I felt her warmth in my arms.

“O Henry,” she whispered, close by my ear.

“The keys to Tournai.” I had carried them on my person. Now I presented them to her, kneeling.

She took them, clasped them. “I knew you would win a city. So many times, as a child, I saw my mother or father return with such keys, keys wrested from the Moors—”

So. She compared the memories. Ferdinand and Isabella