The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [54]
“Yes. I understand.” Katherine had become so much more serious in the past year or so. Still, Wolsey had no way of knowing that hidden Moorish side.... “France, and its curious combination of elegance and decadence ... I’d like to sample that in a woman.” I had never sampled any woman but Katherine. “But I am married and do not qualify for a divorce. You are correct: Ferdinand’s treason does not transfer onto his daughter. Her only ‘treason’ is in failing to follow the Biblical command to ‘leave your mother and your father.’ Her heart’s in Spain still. But her body’s here, and has been technically faithful.”
“Besides, she carries a child.”
“Yes.” But even that seemed tainted.
“However, there are other means of coming. close to France.” He steered me back onto that subject. He seemed eager; his eyes shone.
“Indeed there are. And other marriages. My sister Mary—to the King of France!”
His face registered the jolt that passed through his whole body. “Your Grace!” He licked his lips. “A thought of genius!”
“It came to me, just on the instant. God sent it.” I truly believed that.
“We will break Mary’s betrothal to Charles of Burgundy,” he said.
That would delight her. She had hated the idea of marrying the Habsburg boy, Katherine’s nephew, who was four years younger than she. But later she had gotten into the spirit of it and carried his portrait about and attempted to sigh over it. She would be pleased to abandon the effort and go be Queen of France.
“Queen of France? By marrying that decaying roué with the false teeth? No, no, no!” She kicked His Highness’s gift: a statue of Venus, with Cupid hovering over one shoulder. “No!” The statue toppled over, smashing the marble Cupid’s nose.
“My dear sister,” I explained, “he is a King.”
“He is repulsive!”
“Queen of France! Think on it, my dear, think on it well. You will be celebrated in song and verse, will be First Lady of Europe. You will be able to do as you please, wear exquisite clothes, be heaped with jewels.”
“And at night?” Her eyes narrowed. “At night I will pay
“When did you become so hard?” she asked quietly. “This is not my brother speaking, not the Henry I have known, but some other man.”
She touched on a delicate point. Of late I had felt that hard part growing, taking shape and rising within me like a rock rising from a lake, displacing all the sweet and placid water around it. It had first gathered itself when the word divorce had sprung unbidden to my lips, when I had turned against Katherine, if only for a short while. I had not known I harboured such an alien presence within me; but by now it no longer seemed alien, rather an integral part of myself. It was necessary for a King to be hard—at times.
“Yes, the soft-hearted child you knew has gone. In his place is a King,” I said. “A child looks only at what he wants, at what he wishes were true. A King looks at what is, and how to drive the best bargain.”
“And the best bargain for you is that your sister be Queen of France.”
“ ’Tis the best bargain for you, as well. You’ll see. Besides”—I blurted this out—argain—unlike our other sister.”
Poor Margaret, late the Scots Queen, now a coarsening woman with decreasing market value, and frantic for a man. As soon as she had given birth to James IV’s posthumous son, she had taken swaggering Archibald Douglas, the Earl of Angus, as her lover.
Mary drew herself up, slender and golden. A most valuable piece on the chessboard. “I shall marry King Louis,” she said, each word enunciated as though she were carefully choosing it from a tray of others. “I will take a large number of ladies with me, to form my court. And when Louis dies, I will retain the jewels he has given me.” She paused. “From you, I require one thing.”
“Name it.” Naturally I would grant her anything, any wedding present she might wish. I would even name my new flagship after her, rather than myself.
“When Louis dies, I shall be free to marry whom I will. You may marry me this once. Hereafter I will marry myself.”
No. She was too valuable to me, and to England.