C. Sansom - Lamentation

I looked out and saw a little courtyard covered with flagstones. Two of the sturdy, black-robed Gentlemen Pensioners were helping an immense figure, clad in a billowing yellow silk caftan with a collar of light fur, to walk along, supporting him under the arms. I saw with a shock that it was the King. I had seen him close to twice before — during his Great Progress to York in 1541, when he had been a magnificent-looking figure; and again on his entry to Portsmouth last year. I had been shocked then at his deterioration; he had become hugely fat, and had looked worn with pain. But the man I saw now was the very wreck of a human being. His huge legs, made larger still by swathes of bandages, were splayed out like a gigantic child’s as he took each slow and painful step. Every movement sent his immense body wobbling and juddering beneath the caftan. His face was a great mass of fat, the little mouth and tiny eyes almost hidden in its folds, the once beaky nose full and fleshy. He was bare-headed and, I saw, almost bald; his remaining hair, like his sparse beard, was quite grey. His face, though, was brick-red and sweating from the effort of walking round the little courtyard. As I watched, the King suddenly thrust up his arms in an impatient gesture, making me jump back instinctively. Lord Parr frowned and put a finger to his lips. I glanced out again as the King spoke, in that strangely squeaky voice I remembered from York: ‘Let me go! I can make my own way to the door, God rot you!’ The guards stepped aside and the King took a few clumsy steps. Then he stopped, exclaiming, ‘My leg! My ulcer! Hold me, you clods!’ His face had gone ashen with pain. He gasped with relief as the men once again took him under the arms, supporting him.

Lord Parr stepped aside, gesturing me to follow. Quietly, in a strangely toneless voice, he said, ‘There he is. The great Henry. I never thought the day would come when I would pity him.’

‘Cannot he walk unaided at all?’ I whispered.

‘A mere few paces. A little more on a good day. His legs are a mass of ulcers and swollen veins. He rots as he goes. He has to be carried round the palace in a wheeled chair sometimes.’

‘What do his doctors say?’ I spoke nervously, remembering it was treason to foretell the death of the King.

‘He was very ill in March, the doctors thought he would die, and yet, somehow, he survived. But they say another fever, or the closing of his large ulcer — ’ Lord Parr looked round. ‘The King is dying. His doctors know it. So does everyone at court. And so does he. Though of course he will not admit it.’

‘Dear God.’

‘He is in near-constant pain, his eyes are bad, and he will not moderate his appetite; he says he is always hungry. Eating is the only pleasure he has left.’ He gave me a direct look. ‘The only pleasure,’ he repeated. ‘It has been for some time. Apart from a little riding, and that grows more difficult.’ Still speaking softly, and watching lest someone come, he said, ‘And Prince Edward is not yet nine. The council think of only one thing — who will have the rule when the time comes? The kites are circling, Serjeant Shardlake. That you should know. Now come, before someone sees us by this window.’

He led me on, round a little bend to another guarded door. A low hubbub of voices could be heard from within. From behind, through that open window, I heard a little cry of pain.

The guard on duty recognized Lord Parr and opened the door for him. I knew that the Royal Apartments were organized on the same principle in each palace: a series of chambers, with access to each more and more restricted as one approached the King’s and Queen’s personal rooms at the heart. The King’s Presence Chamber was the most colourfully extravagant room yet in its decoration; one wall was covered with a tapestry of the Annunciation of the Virgin, in which all the figures were dressed in Roman costume, the colours so bright they almost hurt my eyes.

The room was full of young courtiers, as Parr had predicted. They stood talking in groups, leaning against the walls; some even sat at a trestle table playing cards. Having got this far through bribery or connections, they would probably stay all day. They looked up at us, their satin sleeves shimmering in the bright light from the windows. A little man dressed in a green hooded gown entered behind me and crossed the room. Small, sad-faced, and hunchbacked like me, I recognized the King’s fool, Will Somers, from the painting in the Guard Chamber. His little monkey sat on his shoulder, picking nits from its master’s brown hair. The courtiers watched as he walked confidently across to one of two inner doors and was allowed through.

‘Sent for to cheer the King with his jests when he returns from that painful walk, no doubt,’ Lord Parr said sadly. ‘We go through the other door, to the Queen’s Presence Chamber.’

One of the young men detached himself from the wall and approached us, removing his cap and bowing deeply. ‘My Lord Parr, I am related to the Queen’s cousins, the Throckmortons. I wondered if there may be a place for my sister as a maid of honour-’

‘Not now.’ Lord Parr waved him away brusquely, as we approached the door to the Queen’s Presence Chamber. Again the guard allowed us through with a bow.

We were in another, slightly smaller version of the Presence Chamber, a group of tapestries representing the birth of Christ decorating the walls. There were only a few young would-be courtiers here, and several Yeomen of the Guard, all wearing the Queen’s badge. The supplicants turned eagerly when Lord Parr came in, but he frowned and shook his head.

He led me to a group of half a dozen richly dressed ladies playing cards at a table in a large window-bay, and we bowed to them. All were expensively made-up, their faces white with ceruse, red spots on their cheeks. All wore silken farthingales, the fronts open to show the brightly embroidered foreparts and huge detachable sleeves, richly embroidered in contrasting colours. Each gown would have cost hundreds of pounds in labour and material, and I considered how uncomfortable such attire must be on a hot summer’s day. A spaniel wandered around, hoping for scraps from the dishes of sweetmeats on tables beside them as they conversed. I sensed tension in the air.

‘Sir Thomas Seymour was at Whitehall the other day,’ one of the ladies said. ‘He looks more handsome than ever.’

‘Did you hear how he routed those pirates in the Channel in May?’ another asked.

A small, pretty woman in her thirties tapped the table to gain the dog’s attention. ‘Heel, Gardiner,’ she called. It trotted over, panting at her expectantly. She looked at the other women and smiled roguishly. ‘Now, little Gardiner, nothing for you today. Lie down and be quiet.’ The dog was named for Bishop Gardiner, I realized; an act of mockery. The other women did not laugh, but rather looked anxious. One, older than the others, shook her head. ‘Duchess Frances, is it meet to mock a man of the cloth so?’

‘If he deserves it, Lady Carew.’ I looked at the older woman. This must be the wife of Admiral Carew, who had died with so many others on the Mary Rose . She had seen the ship go down while standing on shore with the King.

‘But is it safe?’ I saw the speaker was the Queen’s cousin, Lady Lane, whom Cecil had pointed out to me in the courtyard.

‘Well asked, daughter,’ Lord Parr said brusquely.

One of the other ladies gave me a haughty look. She turned to Lord Parr. ‘Is the Queen to have her own hunchback fool now, like his majesty? I thought she was content with Jane. Is this why we ladies have been sent out of the Privy Chamber?’

‘Now, my Lady Hertford,’ Lord Parr chided. He bowed to the ladies and led me towards the door the servant had passed through. ‘Malaperts,’ he muttered. ‘Were it not for the loose tongues of the Queen’s ladies we might not be in this trouble.’ The guard stood to attention. Parr spoke to him in a low voice. ‘No one else in the Queen’s Privy Chamber till we finish our business.’ The man bowed, opened the door and Lord Parr ushered me in.