I look at a picture framed in gold which hangs on the wall on the other side of my room. A fair replica of me in my golden youth. Will Shakespeare once asked me to describe myself.
‘I was a hungry, lean-faced villain,' I replied. ‘A mountebank, a threadbare juggler, a hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch.'
Will thanked me for it and, as always, used it in one of his plays. You'll find the same description in his Comedy of Errors, a subtle humorous piece which I sponsored with my gold.
Ah, well, no more dalliance or asides. The curtains are drawn so let the bloody drama begin. I will exorcise the ghosts in my mind. Purge the demons from my soul and order them to go back to hell and tell the Lord Satan I sent them there. (Oh, by the way, you'll find this same phrase in one of Will Shakespeare's plays. He borrowed that as well!)
Chapter 1
After we returned from France in the summer of 1521, my master Benjamin Daunbey was left untroubled by his uncle, the great Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Old Tom had other things on his mind as we later discovered. You see, the fat Cardinal had one great nightmare: how to control the King. He used a magic ring, so they say, to call up demons, and hired the chief of witches, a harlot known as Mabel Brigge, to go on a Satanic fast in order to keep the King's mind firmly in his grasp.
Old Wolsey was a fool. I told him so when he lay dying in Leicester Abbey, cursing all princes and Henry in particular.
Now Henry VIII, that limb of Satan, had his brains firmly in his codpiece whilst his soul was a storm of emotions. He was a great Catholic yet he attacked the Mass. A learned scholar but he killed poor Tom More. A fervent friend until he tired of you. And, above all, a loving husband until someone more young and buxom caught his eye.
You may have read how Henry wanted a male heir and rejected both his daughters.