But the council says, if a king makes a love-match once in his life, count him lucky. He can’t expect to do it again and again.
Since the king cannot have a wife he occupies himself in building. A new palace is to arise in Surrey, not far from Hampton Court. It is designed to create hunting grounds stretching many miles. At first it seems that a modest lodge will do, but then the king decides it will be one of the wonders of the world. He indents for Italian craftsmen and fetches in all the building stone from the demolition of Merton Abbey. He clears the manor house that stands already, with its farms, barns and stables, and knocks down the ancient parish church. He buys up tracts of adjacent manors. He orders a thousand loads of timber and begins building brick kilns.
Thomas Lord Cromwell, Vicegerent and Privy Seal, no longer has time to oversee the king’s building. He is able to advise on the choice of Italians, but the king is pleased to place Rafe Sadler in charge of the project. Anything Cromwell does for the king, Sadler and Thomas Wriothesley will be able to do: in time, and between them. He has trained them, encouraged them, written them as versions of himself: Rafe as the plain text, and Mr Wriothesley in cipher.
The building of the marvel goes on through the summer of 1538. When the king has a new wife he will place her in it, as a jewel in its setting. Meanwhile, separated from us by the Narrow Sea, the ladies of Europe watch the misty land through crystal mirrors; down the winding flowery path the messengers of the king advance, on high-stepping white steeds. In the old stories, princesses are never too old or too young or too papist. They wait patiently for the prince seven years and more, while he does his valiant deeds, and they spin out their fates from a single thread, growing the while their long golden hair.
Sometimes the king weeps for his late wife. Where shall we find a lady so benign, so meek, and so comely as Jane? As he cannot he amuses himself with the creation of the new palace, the rarest ever seen: and the name of the palace is Nonsuch.
II
Corpus Christi
June–December 1538
Wyatt has followed the Emperor from the shores of Spain to Nice, where Charles has disembarked to meet the Pope and the King of France. Their meeting is like some ill-starred conjunction in the heavens, which we could forecast but not prevent. Early June, Wyatt is in England, pacing a room at St James’s. The Lord Privy Seal, sitting in a splash of weak sun, follows him with his eyes.
‘I saw Farnese,’ Wyatt says. ‘Close enough to spit. With Polo leaning on his shoulder, conspiring in his papal ear. I should have spitted him on my dagger, and carried home his collops.’
Wherever the Emperor goes, Wyatt jolts after him, with his household of twenty or so young gallants: all armed, all poets, all lovers, all dicers. From Nice, Charles has sent him home with an enticement. If Lady Mary will marry Dom Luis, he will settle the duchy of Milan on them: Milan, his greatest prize, over which he and François have fought for years.
‘But he will never give up Milan,’ Wyatt says. ‘Not this side of the Last Judgement. And they are asking for an outrageous sum with Mary. The king should offer two-thirds.’
Always a good rule of thumb: knock a third off, see what answer you get. Wyatt says, ‘But then I don’t know if the king intends to let Mary go. Or if he even intends to marry himself, or is just playing a game with them all, and keeping Hans employed.’
He shrugs: I do not know anything.
‘I hate Spain,’ Wyatt says. ‘I would prefer the lowest cell in Newgate. And I cannot understand the Emperor. I cannot read him in any language. I hear the words he says, but nothing that lies between them. His face never changes. Sometimes he admits me every day. Sometimes I arrive and his servants shut me out. I think, have I committed some breach of manners? Is it reasonable to stand outside his presence chamber two days, or three, or until they sweep me out with the rushes? If I am told to quit his realm, do I pay my bills and leave my compliments, or do I run in the clothes I stand up in?’
‘It is prince’s tricks,’ he says. ‘Three days in a row Henry gives the French a private audience. Then he ignores them for a week.’
‘When he shuts me out I write my dispatches. I translate Seneca. I keep no company with women, whatever you hear, but with a skin of bad wine and the gospel. In Spain the women are cloistered. Husbands kill you on suspicion. If the Earl of Worcester were Spanish, you and his wife would be skewered and mouldy in your graves.’
‘I never had to do with Worcester’s wife,’ he says. ‘But it is just as when I say “I am not a Lutheran.” Nobody believes me.’
‘The Inquisitors in Toledo think all Englishmen are Lutherans. They have tried to put spies in my house. They offered money to my servants. Letters were stolen.’
‘I have warned you, lock up what you write. Prose or verse.’
Wyatt looks uneasy. ‘At first I thought it was you.’
He would not deny it; he has a man with Wyatt, as he has men with Gardiner in France. He sighs: ‘It is as much for your protection as anything else. My agents would not steal your letters, only read them at your desk. I am surprised at the freedom the Emperor gives the Inquisitors. Do not provoke them. You should show your face at Mass.’
‘No greater beadsman,’ Wyatt says. ‘I can mop and mow to an altar with the best of them.’
Heresy knows no borders, the Inquisitors declare. No traveller of any nation is exempt from our enquiries. And what could the King of England do, if they threw his envoy in a dungeon? He could make representations; but meanwhile, they could have bored a needle through our envoy’s tongue, or pulled out his fingernails.
A clerk comes in with a sheaf of papers. ‘From Sir Richard Riche, my lord. He said, never hesitate, but go straight in. This will rejoice Lord Cromwell, he said.’
He says to Wyatt, ‘I am augmented. I am to have the priory at Michelham. Gregory and I are writing our names on the chalk hills of Sussex. You too will have your reward.’ Even if posthumously, he thinks.
Wyatt watches the clerk out. He sits down. ‘Last year in France – Henry does not know this – Pole approached me. He sent presents. And a letter, wrapped around a flask of good wine.’
‘And?’
‘I read the letter. Francis Bryan drank the wine.’
‘Ah, Francis. How did he take to Nice?’
‘He gambled,’ Wyatt says, ‘as ever. The town stank like Hell, it was crammed to the rafters with papists, but Francis thrives on it. He plays for high stakes with the chancellors of great men, their familiar creatures, and he sleeps with their women. I could not prosper without him. I would learn nothing.’ Wyatt hesitates. ‘It seems to me I could approach our man Pole. I could contrive a meeting.’
He nods. ‘But remember no one has authorised you to make contact. I have not. The king has not.’
Wyatt curses. ‘When I am face to face with my opportunity, must I refuse it? What am I to do – send back to Westminster for instructions? Has Henry no faith in my judgement? If he wants an envoy, he should send who he trusts, and trust who he sends. And if he wants words and no deeds, let him choose some other man. I would kill Pole as soon as look at him.’
‘Well, that would terminate your embassy, for sure.’ He averts his face. ‘As it is, Henry will send you back, no matter how you squall.’
‘Then do one thing for me,’ Wyatt says. ‘Call home that runt Edmund Bonner. He has trotted after me from Spain into France and I swear the next time we take ship I will overboard him.’
The fat little priest is newly popular with the king. ‘We sent Bonner to help you against the theologians. We thought he would strengthen your embassy. We meant well, I swear it.’
‘I would rather live in a rats’ nest than lodge with him. I have never met a man so quick to take offence, and so quick to give it. He makes me sweat with shame. I do not understand why either you or the king would promote such a ball of tallow.’