Ailie was right. Ailie had been born with that special knowledge.
“Margaret,” went on Will, “I… I am not so alarmed by you as I once was, for there are times when you seem to me like a very young girl.” He turned to her smiling. “You know what my feelings are for you, Margaret?”
“Why yes, Will. You like me … you like Father … you like us all.”
“But I like you better than any of them.”
“Not better than Father!”
“Oh sweet Meg, one of the things I love so much in you is your love for your father. I admire him more than any man I know; but Margaret—do not be shocked—I admire his daughter more.”
She laughed to hide her embarrassment. “That sounds like one of Fathers puns.”
“I must tell it to him.”
“Nay, if you do … he will know …”
“Oh Meg, dost think he does not know already?”
“But… why should he?”
“I think I must have made my feelings clear to all except you, so it is high time that you began to understand me. Margaret, I want you to marry me.”
“But… I am not going to marry.”
“You are young yet. I doubt your father would think it seemly for us to marry for a while. But you are fourteen…. Perhaps in a year or so …”
“But, Will, I had decided I should never marry. And you have disturbed me. It seems now that I shall not be able to think of you as I do of the others, like John Clement and Giles Allington.”
“But I do not wish you to think of me as you think of them. Oh, Margaret, you have not grown up yet. You have been so busy being a scholar that you have not yet become a woman. You could be both. That is what I wish, Meg: for you to be both. Say no more now. Think of this matter—but not too much so that it oppresses you. Become accustomed to the idea of marriage. Think of it, Meg. It is not that I wish to take you from your father. I do not. I would never take you from him, because I have seen that love which is between you, and it is a rare love. I know that. Nay. I am sure he would wish us to live under this roof… here as we do now You would be my wife. That would be the only difference. I beg of you, think of this matter. Promise me you will think of it, Margaret.”
“I… I will…. But I do not think I shall want to marry.”
They walked back to the house slowly and thoughtfully.
THE YEAR 1521 provided a turning point in the lives of Margaret and her father.
Thomas was drawn more and more into Court business. To Margaret, from whom he hid nothing, he said: “I feel like a fly in a web. Mayhap at one time I might have made a mighty effort… I might have escaped… but now the sticky threads hold me fast.”
“But the King is fond of you. He and the Cardinal find you useful.”
“You are right, Margaret, and I will say to you what I would say to no other: Both the King and the Cardinal are only fond of those who can be useful to them, and only so long as they are useful. A man can grow out of his usefulness.”
There was one matter which shocked Thomas deeply. It concerned both King and Cardinal, and taught him much concerning these men; yet when he looked back he realized that it had taught him little that he had not known before—rather it had confirmed his opinion.
The Cardinal had drawn closer to Thomas in those years during which they worked together. To Thomas he was sometimes frank, and when he was sure they were quite alone he would discuss the King in such a manner that, if it were known, might have cost him his head. Such was the measure of his trust in Thomas.
There was in the Cardinal an overweening pride. He believed himself indispensable to the King; and indeed it seemed that this might be so. The King made few decisions without his chief minister beside him. The King was content to amuse himself, knowing that matters of state rested in the capable hands of Thomas Wolsey.
There was no one—apart from the King and Lady Tailbois— who, in the first place, had been more delighted than the Cardinal when the King's natural son had been born to that lady. This had happened some four years ago, a year after the birth of the Princess Mary.
Now, in the year 1521, when the Queen had failed to give the King a son to follow Mary, the Cardinal was faintly disturbed by the affair and he opened his heart to Thomas.
“Why, Master More, when the boy was born, His Grace was like a child with the finest toy that has ever been given to him. He had a son—and for years he had been longing for a son. The Queens abortive attempts at child bearing have worried him considerably, for, as you know, he sets great store upon his manhood; and although it is His Graces custom to blame his partner in an adventure if blame should be necessary, there has been in him a slight fear that he may not be able to get him a son. Elizabeth Blount—or Lady Tailbois, if you wish—has proved him capable of getting a son; and little Henry Fitzroy is the apple of his eye. I was delighted in His Grace's delight. But the years have passed and there is still no male heir to the throne—nor even another girl. Master More, the King is restive, and the Queen does not grow younger: If she were not such a great Princess, and if I did not fear to offend the Spaniards I would suggest the marriage should be dissolved and another Princess found for him—one who could give him sons as Elizabeth Blount has shown that she can do.”
“But there could be no honorable reason for dissolving the marriage,” argued Thomas. “The Queen is the most virtuous of ladies and … she is not past bearing children.”
“You have a fondness for Her Grace, I know; and she favors you. I, myself, have the utmost respect for the lady. But a Queens piety is one thing, her usefulness to her King and country is another. The main object of a royal marriage is to get heirs, and that she has not done with any marked success.”
“These matters are surely in the hands of God.”
The Cardinal smiled his slow, cynical smile. “My friend, if God is slow to act, then it is sometimes necessary for a King's ministers to act without Him. Ah, would the lady had not such powerful relatives! Imagine … a new Queen. A French princess or a protégée of the Emperor Charles of Spain? Think what I could do … keeping them in suspense … having them both in fear that I should ally England with the other. A French princess, I think, would at this time hold the balance of power to greater advantage.”
“My lord Cardinal,” said Thomas, “the gown you wear proclaims you to be a man of God, but the words you speak …”
But Wolsey interrupted: “The words I speak betray me as the Lord Chancellor, the Prime Minister of England. I serve England, which I believe it is my duty to do.”
Nay, thought Thomas, you serve neither God nor England; you serve Thomas Wolsey.
Yet Thomas More understood Thomas Wolsey; he understood that the humble scholar, the tradesman's son, finding himself possessed of a quick brain and great wisdom, together with a quality which could charm a King, could not but rejoice in these possessions. Wolsey was not, by nature, a bad man, but a man made bad by an overwhelming ambition; he was a man who enjoyed his wealth and delighted in it more because he had earned it.
It was all very well for such as Norfolk, Suffolk or Buckingham lightly to assume the honors which they had inherited by their birth; but the man who had inherited no such glory, who by his quick and clever cunning had created honors for himself, naturally prized them the more highly. And how great Wolsey's pride must have been when he considered those noblemen, and could reasonably believe that had they been born the sons of Ipswich merchants, they would doubtless have remained Ipswich merchants for the whole of their lives.
Nay, Wolsey was not entirely bad, for he was kind to his servants and they loved him. All he asked of them was that they should pay homage to his greatness; then he would be the benevolent father to them, caring for them, feeding them and, in his way, loving them.