So, if you could spare the time to go through your files yet again, in order to find someone else for me, I'd be very grateful.
Your King
Henry.
P.S. Ideally I'd like an eager young virgin who's waited all of her life for a handsome King to wave his magic wand at her, as they say in all the fairy stories. See what you can do, eh.
Dear Find-A-Wife Dating Agency
I write to inform you that (once again) your work has come to nothing and that it's a very bad end to a very enjoyable, energetic wand-waving start.
Catherine was absolutely gorgeous, but I did actually think she'd realize that there was a bit more to being a Queen than just swanning about looking beautiful. It would have helped if she'd had a little experience of life in general. When I requested a virgin, I didn't think you'd take me literally. I'm also a little curious as to how you knew she was one. And where you found her. And if there are any more of them. Not that it really mattered at the time, for despite this very short-lived handicap of hers, she turned out to be an extremely quick learner and this Tudor rose frequently.
For a while, anyway.
I suppose I should have known something was wrong when she kept going into the stables, only to reappear a few hours later, covered from head to toe in straw. I honestly had no idea what she was up to. I thought she was doing a course on equestrian vetinary techniques or something. How foolish I was to trust her.
Go ahead and think me naive if you wish, but how was I to know that her insistence that all stable boys be well-endowed men of Jamaican extraction actually masked an ulterior motive?
Some, I know, would have questioned her request for stable-wear to be nothing more than a flimsy piece of gauze, but she cunningly allayed my suspicions by toying with my vanity and then asking for said gauze to be dyed in the Royal colours.
Anyway, during a random stable inspection one afternoon, I found her indulging in some very un-queen-like activities and I immediately sent her to the tower. Up she went and that was that - Howard's end, as someone or other will no doubt say in the future.
So, if you could find me someone who is a cross between my beloved Jane and this most recent Catherine, then I'll be forever in your debt. I think I should point out here and now that it's no bad thing to have the supreme ruler of the nation owing you a favour. Who knows, if you play your cards right, there might even be a Royal appointment in it for you.
Your King
Henry.
P.S. Please find enclosed some written details about four recently unemployed Jamaican stable boys. You might care to add their details to your files, just in case they should happen to measure up to any of your client's requirements.
Dear Find-A-Wife Dating Agency
Oh no! Not another bloody Catherine!
If history has taught you anything, then I'd have thought that my experiences with the other two would have given you some indication that I am not particularly well suited to women who bear that name.
However, not being a superstitious man, I'm quite prepared to overlook this one small detail and give her a chance. After all, as they say, what's in a name?
Quite a lot, I'd say. She's a bit of a dragon, always moaning about the odd drop of gin I quaff and she shows no interest in either leatherwear or my collection of classic nude statues and portraits (all of which I have arranged around my bed - purely for aesthetic and academic reasons, of course). I am, after all, a patron of the arts and, as you may have heard, I do take all of my positions very seriously.
Mind you, to be perfectly fair, this latest Catherine does turn a blind eye when I occasionally chase (in all innocence) my naked serving girls from one chamber to another, so I suppose she's not all bad. Not on a par with my dear ex-wife Jane, but good enough in her own way.
The real bane of my life isn't Catherine at all. It's Kildare, my doctor. He keeps going on about how too much excitement is bad for my heart - especially now that I'm in "the autumn of my life", as he so quaintly puts it.
Mind you, I soon put the cheeky little bastard straight. I told him that if I was going to go, then I was going to go in style. I also told him that if he kept going on at me, I'd take him to the tower and show him my own patented cure for a headache. That shut him up.
As far as Catherine's concerned, it does look as though I have at last found my true soul mate, even though (for some reason I can't quite fathom) her bedchamber is in the east wing and mine is in the west.
Your King
Henry.
P.S. Please don't call off your search for my ideal woman just yet. After all, no one can really be sure what's going to happen in the future, can they?
