Henry says, ‘You know when you see a little child placed on a chair, its legs dangling? You smile and pity the child, do you not? Imagine a young man placed on a throne … you feel as if your feet are in the air, like that …’
He sees Gregory smile. He thinks of Helen, before she was Rafe’s wife, bringing her little children to Austin Friars and setting them on a bench, their legs thrust straight out before them.
The king says, ‘My father said that the surest sign that Heaven favoured his reign was the birth of a prince so soon after his marriage to my sainted mother. In January they were wed, and in September they had Arthur in the cradle. It is no sin, you know, to go to bed once you are betrothed, or if it is a sin, it can easily be absolved. They were blessed with a numerous family after. I remember us together at Eltham, gathered in the great hall, the day Erasmus came to see us.’
‘May God rest him,’ Gregory says. He hopes Erasmus will not rise, to write more books.
The king’s hand moves to cross himself; his jewels catch the light. ‘I would be eight years old, I think, a bonny child and a toward wit. I sat under the canopy of estate, and to my right my sister Margaret, being about ten years old, already betrothed to Scotland. My sister Mary on my other hand, her hair white like angels’ hair. And Edmund still a babe, he was held in some great lady’s arms I suppose. I had another sister, Elizabeth, three years old when she died, I have no memory of her, but they said she was as lovely as Mary, and a great pity she died, for she could have been married thereafter, with advantage to our polity. Edmund himself lived not long after. And my sister Mary is dead now. And Arthur. There is only myself left. And Margaret, far beyond the border.’
It is hard to know whether the king is congratulating himself, or commiserating with himself. His lips are stained by many cups of a strong and sweet malvasia; he blots with his napkin, eyes distant. ‘The burden of kingship,’ he says, ‘no man can imagine it. All my life, to be a prince: to be observed to be a prince; all eyes to be set on me; to be an exemplar of virtue, of discretion, of excellence in learning; to have a mind young and vigorous yet as wise as Solomon; to take pleasure in what others have designed for my pleasure, or be thought ungrateful; to discipline all my appetites, to unmake myself as a man in order to make myself as a king; to waste not a minute lest I be seen to waste it; for idleness, no excuses; always alert to prove, always to show, that I am worthy of the place God appointed me … When I was a young man I suppose I showed the calf of my leg to an ambassador and said, “There, has your French king a calf as good as that?” And my words were reported, and all Europe laughed at me, a vain idle boy, and no doubt people laugh still. But being young I asked myself, if God had formed François better than me, which prince did He favour most?’
Thomas More had said once, can a king be your friend? He thinks, the first time I came into Henry’s presence, it was like the Fox and the Lion. I trembled at the sight. But the second time, I crept a bit nearer and had a good look. And what did I see? I saw his solitude. And like Fox to Lion, I stepped right up and parleyed with him, and never looked back.
The king says, ‘I have got no good of my sister Margaret or her marriage with the Scot. She has been a trouble and an expense all her life. And see now her daughter going the same way, intriguing with Tom Truth.’
He has been hoping the king will be good to Meg Douglas, and let her move from the Tower to some easier custody; now, he sees, is not the time to broach it.
‘They are saying in the north that you want to marry her.’
Gregory is caught unawares: ‘What?’
‘You need not deny it,’ the king says. ‘I tell everyone, Cromwell would not presume. Not even in his dreams.’
He feels obliged to state, ‘Nor do I.’
The king says, ‘Do you know, there are some who claim the old Scots king did not die at Flodden? They believe he escaped the battlefield and took ship to become a pilgrim in the Holy Land. He has been seen in Jerusalem.’
‘Only in fantasy,’ he says. ‘Did not Lord Dacre, who knew him, inspect his naked remains? And my lord of Norfolk will tell you, you could put your fist through the holes in his surcoat where the blades had pierced him.’
Henry says, ‘I was winning battles in France at the time, I cannot know. But I wonder if princes do die, as common men die. I feel my father watches what I do.’
‘Then surely, sir, he sees your difficulties, and admires your resolution?’
‘How can I know that? If the dead can see us, be sure they do not like the world to change from what they knew. Nor do they like their power disrespected. Norfolk’s father took credit for Flodden, but in Durham they credit St Cuthbert with the victory. They march behind his banners now.’
