The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers Read Online Free PDF

whispers beside her.
    Occasionally I caught some of her words. Cornish. Army. Tower. Defeat.
    And still no one had mentioned the lion or the dogs. That was the most puzzling part. I did not understand, but then I understood so little.
    I did not understand, for instance, why the King, who was known to be stingy, had had such a sumptuous banquet. I did not understand why, in spite of his words about making merry, he was so obviously glum. I did not understand what the Cornish had to do with all of it.
    I was trying to sort out all these things in my mind while dutifully staring at the Book of Hours to please my mother, when a messenger burst into the room. He looked around wildly and then blurted out for us all to hear: “Your Grace—the Cornish number some fifteen thousand! They are to Winchester already! And Warbeck is crowned!”
    The King sat, his face a mask. For an instant there was no sound but his heavy breathing. Then his lips moved, and he said one word: “Again!”
    “The traitors!” spat the King’s mother. “Punish them!”
    The King turned an impassive face to her. “All, Madam?” he asked blandly.
    I saw her expression change. I did not know then that her husband’s brother, Sir William Stanley, had just gone over to the Pretender.
    She met him, steel against steel. “All,” she said.
    Then the messenger went up to them, and there was a huddle of consultation and much alarm. I watched the Queen’s face: she had gone pale, but betrayed no further emotion. Suddenly she rose and came toward Arthur, Margaret, and me.
    “It is late,” she said. “You must to bed. I will send for Mistress Luke.” Clearly she wanted us gone, just when I most wanted to stay.
    Nurse Luke came promptly, to my great disappointment, and ushered us out. She was full of cheerful questions about the banquet and our gifts. As we walked back to our quarters, I could feel the cold, worse even than in the King’s chamber. It seeped into the open passageway like water through a sieve.
    The torches on the wall threw long shadows before us. They were burning low; it must be extremely late. As they dwindled down to their sockets, they gave off a great deal of smoke.
    In fact the passageway seemed blurred from the smoke, and ahead it was even thicker. As we turned into another passageway, suddenly the cold was gone. That was how I pe “Now we must go to the Tower. So it will look as if we had to take refuge. They planned it well.”
    Suddenly I understood it all. I understood the little, puzzling things: that Father had had the banquet in order to show the court and powerful nobles what a wealthy and mighty King he was, how secure, how established. He had brought his children to Sheen and obliged Arthur to sit by his side, had pointed Margaret and me out after the revels to show the solidarity of his family, to present his phalanx of heirs.
    He had hanged the dogs because there was treason all about, and he wished to warn potential traitors that they could expect no mercy from him. Appearances were important, more important even than reality. People credited only what their eyes beheld; no matter if it were calculatedly false or staged.
    And I understood the big thing: the enemy had its own resources and could pull everything down around you in an instant, leaving you to curse and throw rocks into the river. All enemies must be destroyed . One must ever be on guard.
    And the most frightening thing of all: Father’s throne was not secure. That fact hammered itself into my soul with cold nails. Tomorrow, or next week, or next year, he might be King no longer....
    “O Henry, why?” wept Arthur, still clutching the white, ermine-furred gift robes against himself. Then he answered his own question. “I suppose it was a careless cook.” He pushed his hand across his nose, sniffling. “When I am King, I will make the kitchens safer.”
    Then I began to cry, too, and not for the burning Manor, but for Arthur, poor, foolish