The Taming of the Queen

We make our way back to London in slow stages. The journey, which set out as a summer’s jaunt to see the fleet in triumph, crawls home with a king stunned by disappointment, through a fearful countryside. The fields of dark gold wheat and the springing green of the second growth in the hayfields bring us no pleasure as we look at the prosperous manor houses and the little villages and think they are impossible to defend.

We go to Greenwich, where the waves that slap at the stone pier before the palace remind us of the unforgiving waters of the Solent and the sinking of the king’s pride to its dark depths. Thomas stays at his post in Portsmouth, repairing and rebuilding the houses that were fired by the invading French, overseeing the refitting of the ships that were damaged in battle, sending down swimmers to see if they can salvage anything from the warship as she settles into her last berth. He cannot come to court; I don’t hope to see him. He writes privately to the king and Henry shows no-one the letter.

People think that the king is ill again, that perhaps his leg has opened up or the fever that shakes him four times a year has come back. But I know what is wrong: he is sick to his heart. He has seen a defeat, an undeniable defeat, and he cannot bear it.

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.’