From the Tower he wrote to her, using a piece of coal, to tell her which day he would be executed. He could not forbear to jest even then. “It will be St. Thomas’s Eve, a day very meet and convenient for me. And I never liked your manners better than when you kissed me last. For I like when daughterly love and dear charity hath no leisure to look to worldly courtesy.”
She was to go to his burial. The King had given written consent—and this was a privilege—providing that at his execution Sir Thomas would promise not to use many words.
So he died; and his head was impaled on London Bridge to show the people he was a traitor. But the people looked at it with anger; they murmured sullenly; for these people knew they looked at the head of one who was more saint than traitor.
Henry was uneasy; he was tired of women. Women should be a pleasant diversion; matters of state should be those affairs to claim the attention of a king.
The French King was trying to renew negotiations for a marriage with Mary. More was in prison awaiting execution; so was Fisher. He had postponed execution of these men, knowing of the popular feeling towards them. He had ever been afraid of popular feeling.
Anne colored all his thoughts; he was angry with her who had placed him in this position; angry with his desire for her, brief though it might be, without which his life would be incomplete. Anne had brought him to this pass; he could wish she had never entered his life, yet he could not imagine it without her. He hated her; he loved her. She was a disturbance, an irritation; he could never escape from her; he fancied he never would; worse still, he was not entirely sure that he wanted to. Obviously a most unfortunate state of affairs for a mighty king to find himself in. He had broken with Rome for Anne’s sake; the Pope’s name had been struck from the prayer books, and it was not mentioned at Divine Service; yet in the streets the people never ceased to talk of the Pope, and with reverence. Wolsey was gone, and with his going, the policy of England was changed. Wolsey it was who had believed that England must preserve the balance of power in Europe; Henry had pursued a new policy, he had cut off England from Europe. England stood alone.
Those matters, which had once been the concern of the Cardinal’s, were now the King’s. Cromwell was sly and cunning, but a servant, no leader; Cromwell did what he was told. Why should a man with so much on his shoulders be pestered by women! Madge Shelton was a bright wench, but he had had enough of her. Anne was Anne . . . none like her, but a witch—a nagging witch at that. Too clever, trying to dictate to England through him; advising rashness here, there, everywhere. This state of affairs was such as to make a man’s blood—which was ever ready to simmer—bubble and boil over.
He was going to be firm. Anne could not get children; he would be better without Anne; she disturbed him, distracted him from state matters. Women were for bedtime, not to sidle between a king and his country.
The people were dissatisfied. There were too many noble lords ready to support the Catholic cause, possibly conspiring with Chapuys. These were not dangerous at the moment, but there were inevitable perils in such a situation. He had his daughter Mary watched; he believed there was a plot afoot to smuggle her out of the country to the Emperor. What if that warrior thought to raise an army against the King, with the replacement of Katharine and Mary as its cause! How many nobles of England, who now did honor to its King, would slip over to the Emperor’s banner? Henry asked himself uneasily. His conscience told him that he had embarked on this matter of divorce that he might produce a son and save England from civil war, but he had produced no son, and his actions had put England nearer to civil war than she had been since the conflicts between the houses of York and Lancaster.
He sounded a few of his most trusted counsellors on a new line of action. What if he divorced Anne? It looked as if she could not have a son. Might not this be a sign from Almighty God that the union with Anne had not found favor in the sight of heaven? It was astonishing; a healthy girl to be so barren. One daughter! One pretended pregnancy! His lips curled. How she had fooled him! How she continued to fool him! How, when he was thinking he would be better without her, she would lure him and tempt him, so that instead of occupying his mind with plans to rid himself of her, he found himself making love to her.
His counsellors shook their heads at the suggestion of a second divorce. There were points beyond which even the most docile men could not go, and the most despotic of kings could not carry them with him. Perhaps these men were thinking of Sir Thomas More and John Fisher, awaiting death stoically in the Tower; perhaps they were thinking that the people were murmuring against the doings of the King.
Divorce Anne he might, his counsellors thought, but only on condition that he took Katharine back.
Katharine! That made the King roar like a wounded animal. Katharine back! Anne angered him, Anne plagued him, but at least she excited him. Let matters rest. Not for anything would be have Katharine back.
These matters all tended to arouse the wrath of the King. The new Pope aggravated him still further, by raising John Fisher—a man who was in prison for treason—to cardinal’s rank. When Henry heard the news, he foamed with rage.
“I’ll send the head to Rome for the cap!” he cried fiercely. He had had enough. Fisher was executed. Sir Thomas More was to follow. Nor were these the only traitors; those monks of the Charterhouse who had refused to acknowledge him Supreme Head of the Church were to be punished with the utmost severity. This should be a sign to the people that all those who would not do the will of Henry the Eighth of England should suffer thus. He would have the people heartily aware of this. There should be public executions; there should be hangings; there should be burnt flesh offerings to the supremacy of the King. Murder was in the King’s heart; he murdered now with a greater ferocity than when he had murdered men like Empson, Dudley, and Buckingham; the murders of these men were calculated, cold-blooded; now he murdered in revenge and anger. The instruments of torture in those gloomy dungeons of pain beneath the gray buildings of the Tower should be worked night and day. The King was intent on the complete subjugation of all who raised a voice against him.
A pall of smoke hung over London. The people huddled together, watching the mutilation, listening to the shrieks and groans of martyrs.
The Continent was aghast at the news of the death of Fisher and More; the Church infuriated by the murder of Fisher, the political world shocked beyond expression by that of More. The Vatican found its voice, and sent forth vituperation against the monster of England. The Emperor, astonished at the stupidity of a king who could rid himself of the ablest man in the country, said: “Had we been master of such a servant, we would rather have lost the fairest city in our dominion than such a counsellor.”
Europe mourned wise men, but London mourned its martyrs, and the King was shaken, afraid. But his blood was up; he was shrewd enough to know that any sign of weakness would not help him now; he had gone too far to retrace his steps. When More had said that a man who cannot restrain his passions is essentially cruel, he spoke the truth. The real Henry emerged from behind the fair, flushed, good-tempered hail-fellow-well-met personality which his people—as good Englishmen—had admired so long. The cold, cruel, implacable, relentless egoist was exposed.
