11 June, 1509
6:00 a.m. Get up, hit pipe, ride to hounds, marry that first one, my brother’s widow, can’t remember her name, Anne something, No! Catherine! Aragon! Arrogant Aragon! Hooooo! Compose “Greensleeves.” Do Sunday Crossword in 16 seconds: agtoahoinfbp!! Invent new name for armpits: “quollymumbles”! I’m the King, I’m the King!
6:20 Divorce Aragon, quash dissent, quashity quashity! Arrest Empson and Dudley for high treason! “Ichory stickery plop / Their heads fell off the top!” Ha!
7:00 Clean kitchen, improve relations with France. Pipe, pipe! Has anyone ever really noticed spiders?
7:35 Invade France. Greeting Card to new Pope: “Que les bon temps roulez!” Roulez like your head, you miter-begozzled spavined cruci-fixated eunuch! Can’t hold France; let it go, marry the Boleyn girl. “Any porthole in a storm!”
8:25 Anne pregnant! Also, 2 ladies-in-waiting, and the cat. Grrroowrr! Sign Acts of Succession, Supremacy and Restraint of Appeals. Put penis in an owl.
9:00 Excommunicated, wheee! Sell Winchester Castle for more crack, more crack!
Marry Jane Seymour, I think.
9:45 BUY AND EXECUTE A LOT OF GOLDFISH. New strings for lute. Sign Second Act of Succession. Great pen! Annex Wales. Become Welshik? Walesish? Welshish? Walloompish?
10:15 Prince Edward born! Jane dies. “Merry go round / swings…” Marry Anne of Cleves. “Anne of Cleves / Wore no Sleeves / One could see / Down to her beaves!” Ha! Design new shelf paper for kitchen: me with one foot in Wales, one foot on Cardinal Wolsey, shooting hole-in-one while jousting and painting cathedral ceiling. Kitchen, kitchen, kitchen! Pipe, pipe!
11:00 Divorce Catherine, no she was the first one: divorce Anne. Marry Catherine. Really, another Catherine? Shrug my big square shoulders and a throw a half-eaten chicken leg over them! EFFICIENCY IDEA: heretics must fill own pockets with dried paper and coal! Think up 15 new names for dogs: hondulet! quaduwoofer! Bow-wow-crotch-thingummy!
12:00 p.m. catch Catherine with Francis Dereham. Two heads better than one, swish! swish! plop! plop! Console self in hunting. Bag two plover and a Scot.
12:15 Execute everyone I know named Thomas. Try to execute Thomas à Becket; he’s already dead. Desecrate shrine. New kettles for kitchen? Maybe copper! Enter Italian War. BASTA!
1:00 Re-invade France, bankrupt England. Whoops! Ha! Sell Archbishop of Canterbury for more crack. Marry nearest Catherine. So: Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne, Catherine, Catherine! Almost palindromic! Palin-doomic! How’d that Jane get in there? Wheeee! Gout! Yow!
1:30 I am bigger, better, stronger, thinkier, leaner, faster –
1:45 Died, buried.
2:30
….
3:00 I’M STILL HERE! Pipe! Pipe! Who’s got a deck of cards? C-minor, allegro! “The unencumbered tumbrel / All the faster speeds, / Its rider to his fate resigned / As ink in water bleeds.” Genius! Get me a pen, get me a Catherine. How’s that kitchen coming? Ante up! Wolsey deals! I what?
