Corpus Christi is a miracle. It is a mystery. Once consecrated, the host contains your God, alive: the wine is his blood. You cannot hope to understand it but you must believe it. And if you fail to believe it you must keep quiet, because your failure can kill you.
The Germans do not enjoy their summer. They complain there are rats pounding across the floor of their lodgings, and where they sleep is next to the kitchen, so they are afraid their clothes smell of smoke and burnt fat. He could lodge them himself, but he would not go so far. He would not go far at all with Brother Martin. He is sending young men to study in Zürich, his mind drawn by the teaching of the learned doctors there. Hugh Latimer says the God of England worketh all, and under Him worketh Cromwell. But he keeps his eye on the prize: the English Bible. With this good book in your hands, God speaks to you as your father and mother spoke, as your nurse: and if you cannot read, others will read it for you, in this close, this loving, this familiar tongue.
The king has given permission for the Bible – what remains is to create and distribute it. He needs one to each parish, placed where the people have access. He needs copies by the thousand, not by the dozen. His friend the scholar Miles Coverdale takes charge of a revision, aiming to print in Paris. The French printers are the quickest in Europe. But the Inquisition operates there too.
Formerly he would have printed in Antwerp. But Charles is the master of those territories and Charles is in his killing vein. You sit down with his ambassadors, with Mendoza, with Chapuys; you pass a pleasant evening, you talk about books, you enjoy good food and a little music. But never forget: their regime buries women alive.
When the German doctors go home in September, it is with the king’s praise for their piety and learning. They should come back, Henry says; the door is open. That month he, the Vicegerent, makes new ordinances for the church. An end to pilgrimages. An end to the Angelus bell, which causes the people to kneel in the fields. No lights burning before statues or pictures. The images themselves remain, except the idols that the people furnish with oatcakes and ale; and the spangled, red-lipped Virgins who wear silver shoes when poor women go barefoot.
In autumn, too, he brings in a way of counting people. Each parish must start a register to record baptisms, marriages and burials. From now on his countrymen will know who they are and where they come from, who their cousins are and what their grandfather was called. Uncle Norfolk and his peers have heralds to tell them their lineage. The Poles, the Courtenays, the Veres and the Talbots, they have arms and devices. Their ancestors are buried beneath their own effigies, and even before noblemen learned to write, they had tame priests to record their lives. But the butcher or ploughman, the shepherd or shoemaker’s apprentice – for all he knows, he might have grown in a wood like a toadstool.
His friends ask: ‘What do you hear from Antwerp, from your lady daughter?’
He turns the conversation. He does not want to talk about Jenneke. He thinks, I may not be much of a father but she knows where to find me. If she sends a message it will reach me. Vaughan’s people will send it on the shortest route. But the Cromwell name is no protection to her, rather the reverse, and her faith – if she believes we are living through the last days – is a danger to him and to all her kin.
In high summer, he follows the king on his progress through Kent. At Dover they meet Lord Lisle, come over to importune the king about abbeys. ‘Talk to Riche,’ the king says, bored.
‘Riche?’ Lord Lisle says. ‘There never was such a dip-pocket as he! He wants a shilling to say good morning to you!’
‘He’s a lawyer,’ the king says, ‘how else do they make their shillings?’
The king is at his ease with Lisle, who was a kindly uncle to him when he was young. But Lisle’s hair of Plantagenet red has faded to russet and now to grey, and age has dimmed him. ‘Well, Cromwell,’ he says; and pats himself down, as if he were looking for a coin to offer. ‘I have your letters daily,’ he says, ‘but we do not often encounter, do we?’
‘Sadly not,’ he says. ‘I trust her ladyship is mended?’
Lisle manages a doleful smile. ‘Her belly is down at last. Poor soul, I never saw a lady more disappointed with her condition.’
‘I want to buy her land at Painswick,’ he says. ‘I will make her a good offer.’
Lisle is amused. ‘You think you could do with a slice of Gloucestershire, do you? Sussex does not satisfy your appetite? Majesty, is there no stopping these new men?’
‘I hope not,’ the king says. ‘I rely on them, sir.’
Lisle rocks back on his heels. ‘I don’t know that we’re selling.’
The king laughs like a boy. ‘Uncle, what a lot you don’t know!’
Henry is in an affable mood, though he is drawing up plans to build forts. I will talk to anyone, he says – talking is cheap, unless it involves the meeting of kings, and even that, he suggests to François, might be managed in a quiet way: why don’t we rendezvous outside Calais? He is still eager to inspect French brides. Perhaps François could bring a selection?
François, his tone dry, says that he sees no point in a meeting. Henry says, ‘Cromwell, François is in breach of his treaty obligations. He owes me four years’ pension. Tell the French that if they do not disburse I will invade them.’
The councillors, alarmed, scurry after him: ‘Cromwell, tell them no such thing!’
Another day, ‘Call Chapuys in,’ the king says. Multiple marriages are on the table: if Mary takes Dom Luis, not only will we throw in young Eliza as a makeweight, but Lady Margaret Douglas can wed some ally of the Emperor, perhaps in Italy. The king will also offer Mary Fitzroy, his dead son’s widow. Chapuys and Mendoza are invited to the palace at Richmond to spend a day with Lady Mary. Once again Mary performs on the lute. Chapuys reports, ‘She speaks fondly of her friend Cremuel.’ He adds in a low voice, smiling, ‘She seems confident you will save her from any unwanted bridegroom.’
With the visit, Mendoza’s mission is over. The king gives him a farewell banquet. ‘The Emperor has paid his London expenses,’ Chapuys says, sulking. ‘And no doubt rewarded him richly. Whereas months have gone by when I have not seen a penny, and am forced to take out loans.’
But now, the French and Imperial ambassadors are meeting and comparing notes, not just about the meanness of their princes but about the games played by the English king and his ministers. They say, our sovereigns are allies now, so why not we? ‘We are issued more news of the infant Edouard,’ Castillon says. ‘We are told he has four teeth. We are terrified, Cremuel.’
The king says, let the ambassadors know I mean to talk to the Duke of Cleves, about his sister. Let us stir them up a little, alarm them. Let them understand, Cromwell, that a match with Cleves has many advantages for me.
As our prince approaches twelve months of age, it is time to appoint his dry nurse. That done, with Mr Wriothesley and on a spare sheet of paper, he works out how to spend the king’s revenue. He wants twenty thousand marks for the repair of harbours and castles. For the comfort of the poor and sick, Henry will need to refound the hospitals that the monks used to run, and he will need ten thousand marks to get that under way. Then he plans to ask for five thousand marks for employing men without work to mend the highways.
‘You do not give up that notion,’ Wriothesley says.
He tried it before and Parliament would not support it. The king was more favourable. It becomes any prince to look after those without resources, and find them an honest life. Though probably, he says to Mr Wriothesley, King Arthur never occupied himself with such matters. In his day, castles repaired themselves, and all beggars were Christ in disguise.