A Groom of the Chamber’s Religion in Henry VIII’s Time (published 1618)
One of King Henry’s favorites began
To move the King one day to take a man
Whom of his chamber he might make a Groom.
“Soft,” said the King, “before I grant that room,
It is a question not to be neglected,
How he in his religion stands affected.”
“For his religion,” answered then the minion,
“I do not certain know what’s his opinion;
But sure he may, talking with men of learning,
Conform himself in less than ten days’ warning.”
Sir John Harington (bap. 1560, d. 1612) was the “saucy Godson” of Elizabeth I and, perhaps even more impressively, the inventor of the flushing toilet, a prototype for which was installed at Richmond Palace. In this short satirical piece he lampoons the religious and political uncertainty of the times in which his father served in Henry VIII’s court. A Groom of the Bedchamber holds a position of trust in the Royal Household, dealing daily with the monarch’s affairs.
By the time his poem was published, Henry was long deceased; Marian rule and the Counter-Reformation were over. Now Elizabeth presided, who sought “not [to] open windows into men’s souls” – that is, she would not force Catholics to become Protestant and, as long as Catholics were discreet in their beliefs and loyal to her, she would not question their religion. In the early years of Elizabeth’s reign, England was liberal enough to produce poets like Harington who could tackle such radical – and dangerous – subjects as the Reformation in cheeky heroic couplets.
