This is a man so sharp with pride that he cannot hear contradiction. This is a man who will play both sides at once to make sure that he wins. This is a man who from a boy has never been refused. And, in addition to all of this – here is a man who cannot see himself as anything but perfect. He has to be the very best. King Francis of France was his only rival; but now Francis and all of Europe are laughing at the English navy, which was supposed to be so mighty, and at our famous flagship, which sank as soon as she set sail. They are saying that the king piled so many guns on her that she was as fat and as clumsy as he is.
‘It wasn’t that,’ he says to me shortly. ‘Don’t think that.’
‘No, of course,’ I say.
‘Of course it was not.’
He is like an animal in a trap, twisting and turning against his own pain. He grieves more for his hurt pride than for the drowned men. He has to rescue his self-regard. Nothing is more important than that; no-one is more important than that. The ship can sink into the silt of the Solent as long as the king’s pride can be salvaged.
‘There was nothing wrong with the ship,’ he says another night. ‘It was the fools of the gunners. They left the gunports open after firing.’
‘Oh, was that what happened?’
‘Probably,’ he says. ‘I should have left Thomas Seymour in command. I am glad that fool Carew paid with his life.’
I swallow a protest against this harsh judgement. ‘God save his soul,’ I say, thinking of his widow who saw her husband drown.
‘God forgive him,’ Henry says heavily. ‘For I never will.’
The king talks to me every night about his ship. He cannot sleep without persuading me that it was the fault of others, fools or villains. He can do no other work. Most of the Privy Council go back to Westminster ahead of us, and Charles Brandon, Henry’s old friend, asks permission to go quietly home with his wife, Catherine.
‘He should have warned me,’ Henry says. ‘Of all the people in the world Charles should have warned me.’
‘How could he know?’ I ask.
‘He should never have let her sail if she was overloaded with men,’ Henry bursts out in sudden anger, his face blazing, a vein in his temple bulging like a thick worm under his skin. ‘Why would he not know that she was overloaded? He must have been careless. I shall call him back to court to explain himself. He was commander on land and sea: he has to take responsibility. It was not my plans that were at fault, it was his failure to execute them. I have forgiven him everything, all my life, but I cannot forgive him this.’
But before the messenger summoning Charles back has even left the palace, we hear from the Brandon household that he is ill, and then a horseman thunders up the London road from Guildford and says that he is dead. The king’s greatest and longest-surviving friend is dead.
It is the last blow of a terrible summer. The king is inconsolable. He locks himself into his room and refuses all service. He even refuses to eat. ‘Is he sick?’ I ask Doctor Butts when they tell me that the monstrous dinner has been sent back.
He shakes his head. ‘Not in his body, God keep him. But this is a great loss to him. Charles Brandon is the last of his old friends, the only friend from his childhood. It is like losing a brother.’
That night, even though my bedroom is three rooms away from the king’s chamber, I hear a terrible noise. It is a scream like a vixen makes at night, a howl so unearthly that I forget that I despise empty ritual, and I cross myself, and kiss my thumbnail and say, ‘God bless and keep me!’ There is another and another, and I jump out of my bed, snap, ‘Stay there!’ to my companion, and run into my empty presence chamber, through the king’s presence chamber, his privy chamber, his inner chamber, to his bedroom door, where the guard stands impassive. But behind the door I can hear heartbroken sobbing.
I hesitate. I don’t know whether to go forward or back. I don’t even know if I should tell the guard to knock for me, or try the door to see if it is locked from the inside. I don’t know if it is my duty to go to him and remind him that Charles Brandon will have died in his faith and will be waiting in purgatory, certain of his ascent to heaven on the uplifting vapour of expensive Masses, or whether I should leave the king to his monstrous grief. He is sobbing like a heartbroken child, like an orphan. The sound of it is terrible.
I step forward and I try the handle. The guard, his face completely blank as if his master is not blubbering only yards away, steps to one side. The handle turns but the door does not yield. He has locked himself in. He wants to be alone in the churning ocean of his grief. I don’t know what I should do and, judging by the blank face of the yeoman of the guard, he does not know either.
I go back to my own room, close the door and pull the covers over my head, but nothing can muffle the loud wailing. The king screams out his heartbreak all night long, and none of us, not in his rooms or mine, can sleep for his grief.
In the morning I dress in a dark gown and go to chapel. I am going to pray for the soul of Charles Brandon and for wisdom to help my husband, who has broken under this last loss. I take my place on the queen’s side and look across to the royal throne. To my surprise Henry is already there, in his usual place, signing papers for business, looking over petitions. Only his strained red-rimmed eyes betray his emotional vigil. Indeed, of the two of us, I show more signs of sleeplessness, with heavy eyes and a pale face. It is as if he burned away all his grief and fear in one night. As we finish the prayers and say ‘Amen’ he beckons to me. I go round to his side with my ladies following and we leave the chapel together, walking across the courtyard towards the main hall, my hand tucked under his arm, as he leans heavily on a yeoman of the guard on his other side.
‘I will give him a hero’s burial,’ he says. ‘And I shall pay for it all.’
I cannot hide my surprise at his calmness, but he takes it as delight in his generosity.
‘I will,’ he repeats proudly. ‘And little Catherine Brandon need not fear for their sons’ inheritance. I shall leave them both in her keeping. I will not take them as my wards. They can inherit their father’s estate entire. I will even let her manage it till they are men. I will take nothing from them.’
He is cheered by his own munificence. ‘She will be glad,’ he announces. ‘She will be thrilled. She can come to me and thank me personally as soon as she returns to court.’
‘She’ll be in mourning,’ I point out. ‘She may not want to serve in my rooms any more. She may not want to come to court. Her loss . . .’
He shakes his head. ‘Of course she will come,’ he says certainly. ‘She would never leave me. She has lived in my keeping since she was a girl.’
I say nothing in reply to this. I can hardly tell the king that a widow might prefer to spend the very first days of her widowhood in prayer, rather than entertaining him. Usually, a widow keeps to her house for the first three months, and Catherine will want to be with her fatherless boys. But then I realise: he will not know this. Nobody told him to wait before summoning me on the death of my husband. He would not imagine that anyone might not want to be at court. He has never lived anywhere but court, he has no idea of a private life or tender feelings that are not watched by the world. Within days of the death of my husband, he commanded me to court to play cards with him and flirt with him. Only I can stop him putting this burden on Catherine.
‘Perhaps she would rather stay at her home, at Guildford Palace.’
‘No, she would not.’
Nan comes to me one evening, long after dinner, when the court is closed down for the night and I am ready for bed. She nods to my lady-in-waiting, dismissing her from my bedroom, and takes a seat by the fireside.