CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: THE TRUE(ISH) TALE OF THE KING'S WIFE

A brief excursion to Tudor times where we re-write a brutal piece of history

Before we zoom ever onwards to find our what happened to Griselda next it's time for a history lesson.

You, of course, may suggest that it's not history at all, but I would like to remind you that history has a few long forgotten little quirks and cul-de-sacs that might seem more akin to the thrustings of an over-active imagination rather than actual truth, but who can tell which is which and why and wherefore and stuff like that? Can you? Can I?

I thought not. So let me continue with a history lesson.

As has already been noted, Scrumblenose University was established centuries before the events in this story. It was given its very existence by an English king who was embarrassed by a surplus of wives. His interest had more to do with those wives than it had to do with the world of fine arts and learning, mostly because he had few options when it came to replacing them. In fact, he could either divorce them or lop their heads off. Murder in the night did cross his mind, but murder required a trusted murderer, and he had fallen out with just about all likely candidates and had inadvertently had their heads lopped off already for no particularly good reason other that the afore mentioned falling our. As for himself, he couldn't stand the sight of female blood.

So he opted for the head lopping on account of her inability to produce a male heir, which, had she realised it, was a cardinal sin. Kings who are trying to be the head of a dynasty need male heirs more than they need breakfasts. It is like a driving force within their very souls, which is a little odd seeing as the longest serving Tudor monarch was a daughter of his rather than a son.

Anne Boleyn was the queen who was failing him, and although they were only married for the famous thousand days he felt the need to get rid of her. She was widely considered to be a beauty, and he was well aware that beauty is something that is precious on a world filled with ugly sores. Back in Tudor times there was a rare collection of common diseases that caused ugliness on the fairest of faces, and his fair wife had none of those. But she wouldn't or couldn't conceive a son for him, so she just had to go.

All sorts of trumped up charges were dreamed into being against her, many of them easily disprovable had anyone gone to the trouble to try and disprove them (like the need for her to be in two different places at the same time whilst being simultaneously heavily pregnant.) But examination of facts in order to determine the truth of matters went against the best interests of those who served the King, so they didn't do it.

It is told in history texts how she was taken for her head lopping on 19th May 1536, and that's the official version of events of all those centuries ago. But I am privy(ish) to another version in which she did not die. Forgive me if I bore you, but the following events are pertinent to the saga of Griselda Entwhistle, so they need to be recounted here. Anyway, it makes the mind boggle, so all is well!

A few days before Anne Boleyn was supposed to have her head removed via the gift of an axe the King (a not too kindly man, by all accounts) had second thoughts. The thing is, not even a king can spend delicious hours in the boudoir with his lady without forming more than a merely casual affection for her, and Anne Boleyn, besides being a clever little minx, was quite a beauty, as has already been observed.

The main consequence of this was the simple fact that he had second thoughts. He recalled some of the nights he'd spent ravishing her (and being ravished by her in return, which had been even more fun) and they gnawed at his brain like a mongrel gnawing at a bone. He found that he couldn't sleep properly. The minx of his passions was going to be killed and he was bright enough to know that the charges against her were largely fictitious and merely there to satisfy future historians. He knew that he had to do something or his guilt would condemn him before his god when the day of judgement came. He really did believe gobbledegook like that!

So he rode out into the country one unrecorded day and came upon a building that had been deserted by a brotherhood of monks during one of the assaults on the church by royal forces. It was a monastery and was already showing signs of neglect, the same signs that were to characterise a lot of religious buildings over ensuing centuries.

It gave him an idea, so he went into the monastery to explore further.

In one of the bare and inhospitable cells was the unmistakable signs of life. A creature of indeterminate age but bearded, which suggested he might be male, was stirring a huge pot or cauldron from which a bright green steam curled into the air.

“What are you doing?” demanded that overweight monarch, “and why are you still here on the king's property?”

“I'm still here because I am waiting,” replied the strange and somewhat diminutive bearded man. “I have a great deal of ancient lore in my bones, and I am expecting the king you mentioned to come along and establish something glorious in this ancient monastery. For the king, besides being an old soak with syphilis, has a fondness for a certain lady who is about to lose her head and may yet see a way to save her without losing face himself.”

The king blinked several times and thought, then he spoke: “How might he do that?” he asked. “For a king to lose face is a dreadful thing, but for a queen to lose her head is possibly worse. So how can it be? And how do you know about his pox?”

The monk jumped up and down a couple of times, his feet clearly leaving the floor in his excitement. “That's easy!” he squawked. “In this very cauldron I have a herbal spell that causes wonders beyond measure! It is a draft of immortality! It is something that, when sipped in tiny quantities, will cause he or she who drinks it to live almost for ever. Just you look at me! Who would believe that I was above a hundred years old and still growing? And as for how I know about his pox, it's common knowledge in these parts. Even the swineherd knows!”

“Damned the infernal troubadours spreading false news!” snapped King Henry. Then he calmed down and sighed. “You have indeed a lot of growing to do before you attain the height of a normal man,” he murmured, “but you are above a hundred years of age, you say? There's only one thing I can say to that! Give me a draft of it, on pain of your life, for I am the king you speak of and I needs must live for ever! Think of all the ladies I could woo in all that time, all the sons I could sire, all the maidens I could deflower! Come to think of it, daughters would do as well as sons if I'm going to sit on the throne for ever! Yippee!”

“I knew who you are, you sot!” snarled the little man. “Here, take this flagon and sip of it and you will gain immortality, but drink too much, swallow above the smallest amount, and you will bloat up like a pig's bladder and pop, and you will never gain anything remotely like immortality! It is the tincture that gives both good and bad according to the greed of the taker! But in return you must do one thing or nothing will work.”

“Whatever you say,” gabbled the king.

“Then I wish to establish a place of learning on this very spot. I wish you to give it your kingly blessing and name it Scrumblenose University, and I want you to bring the queen who is to be beheaded to this place where I will care for her and let her share my tincture. In return, I know an old pox-ridden prostitute who is a dead ringer for her. Take her and lop her head off in the good queen's place! She's no good to man nor beast and spreads all manner of genital warts wherever she goes. Even my dog got them and had to be eased out of this life into the sleep everlasting! You may teach her a pretty speech before she pops her clogs at the executioner's block! Do that, and the tincture is yours and your name will go down in history because you will be the king who lives for ever!”

“Agreed!” shouted the king.

“But remember what I said about the tincture. That flagon contains enough to last you above a hundred years. Drink it sparingly and you will be the king to outlive all kings. Be greedy and … well, you'll bloat up and eventually pop.”

But his words fell on deaf ears, because the king swallowed the entire contents of the stone flagon before he reached his castle.

But he was as good as his word. Anne Boleyn was taken in secret to the fledgling Scrumblenose University where she delighted in the learning of deep magic whilst wearing her very favourite outfit, which was a black leotard with pretty little beads stitched on the inside, to tickle her when she was feeling bored.

And so the years passed. Lots of them. The king bloated up and died instead of living for ever, the little old man called himself Professor Stroggleoff and ruled supreme over his house of learning and eventually Griselda Entwhistle arrived with enough magic in her little finger to challenge his supremacy.

And there she was, collapsing to the floor with a young woman in a black leotard scowling and leering and being very Tudor at her.