Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,64
them to his satisfaction.
On Christmas Day, the court gathered at Greenwich, where we heard the king’s chapel. The music, composed by Thomas Tallis, put us all in a reflective mood, but not a downcast one, and even John seemed in good spirits. As we proceeded into the hall to enjoy the evening’s entertainments, he squeezed my hand in a way I knew meant we would have a happy night together in my bedchamber.
“Today is the day Misrule will make his appearance,” the king said with an eagerness that made him appear suddenly younger than his fourteen years. “Yesterday, he sent an embassy to us to announce his coming. It should be splendid!”
“I have every hope that it will be, Your Majesty,” said John. “Sir George has been laboring mightily.”
“We don’t know how Misrule will appear,” the king confessed. “We asked purposely not to be told of any of his plans for his entrance.”
Will Somers, the king’s fool—still spry despite his advanced years—juggled and jested, then let out a fart of such resonance that the king jumped in his seat before breaking into enthusiastic applause. This was followed by a procession of men and boys dressed up as the Pope, bishops, and priests—I recognized my younger sons, Guildford and Hal, among them—who paraded through the hall, bearing a tabernacle in a shape that made the men in the hall roar with laughter and the ladies blush. The French ambassador passed a hand over his eyes, and the Venetian ambassador shook his head grimly and muttered something in a tone that made me grateful I did not understand Italian.
The Pope bowed to the king and the court. “The body of the Lord,” he announced and opened the tabernacle with a flourish to reveal a monstrance, shaped similarly to the tabernacle, containing a bright red Host. The Duke of Suffolk roared with laughter, and even his bookish daughter, the lady Jane, let out a squeal of delight. Only the Duchess of Suffolk appeared not to be amused. She was, I remembered, on the friendliest of terms with the lady Mary, who fortunately had stayed away from court.
Another bishop stepped up and gave an exaggerated sniff. “Your Holiness,” he announced. “The Lord’s body stinks.”
The priests and bishops gasped and held their noses. The king clapped.
“What can we do, Your Grace?” wailed Guildford in his acting debut. (I could not help but give motherly applause here.)
The Pope pondered while the other players strutted around him, similarly in deep thought. Then two courtiers, dripping with jewels and wearing doublets with sleeves that hung so low they almost tripped them up, minced into the room. “When my lady love tells me I stink—”
The younger of the two courtiers asked, “Your lady love tells you that you stink?”
The players murmured behind their hands, then went up to sniff the older courtier. “He stinks,” they announced.
“My lady love never tells me that I stink,” said the younger courtier. He held up a perfume decanter. “Generous applications of this elixir keep me smelling sweet, so much so that the ladies cannot stay away from me. In fact—”
Three boys, dressed as young ladies, rushed into the room and to the side of the younger courtier. One dropped at the courtier’s feet and gazed up at him worshipfully, while the other two each draped herself over the courtier’s shoulders and glared at her rival.
The Pope stared thoughtfully at the perfume bottle, then at the monstrance. After an interval of staring back and forth, he raised his finger in triumph. “I have found a solution!” he proclaimed. “May I, good sir?”
The young courtier, occupied with his three women, nodded in boredom and allowed the Pope to take the perfume. Accompanied by chanting in Latin, the Pope bore the perfume to the monstrance, then took the wafer from the monstrance and solemnly dipped it in the perfume. To the sound of trumpets, he held the wafer aloft and sniffed it. “Perfection!” he pronounced.
The bishops and priests turned from the audience, dropped on their knees, and began worshipping the wafer drenched with perfume. Then the young ladies abandoned the courtier, giving him a parting kick of contempt. Pushing their way into the ring of bishops and priests, they arranged themselves into a trio by the monstrance in the same adoring pose in which they had surrounded the courtier. “The body of the Lord! And what a body!”
The king clapped wildly, and the rest of us followed suit.