Henry says, ‘It appears to me our friendship with the German states would be greatly strengthened if we made this match.’
There is silence. The king half-smiles. He has always prided himself on the surprises he gives his councillors. ‘If I can sacrifice myself for England, why not my daughter? If I must breed for my nation, why cannot she? I am assured by Cromwell she will be conformable. He always gives me that assurance, and yet nothing ever comes of it. Bishop Sampson, perhaps you would go to her, and prepare her for marriage?’
Sampson compresses his lips. He can barely force a nod.
He, Thomas Cromwell, says, ‘In Europe they are claiming the marriage is already made, and against the lady’s will. Vaughan says Antwerp is talking about it. Marillac believes it, or pretends to. The word has gone out to François.’
Henry says, ‘They think I would enforce her?’
‘Yes.’
Henry stares at him. ‘And?’
‘And so I think, your Majesty not offended, you had better reverse your intentions, disappoint the duke, and bid him a swift journey home. Otherwise you will be doing exactly what your foes expect. Which is never good policy.’
Edward Seymour covers his mouth. Mirth escapes.
Henry is silent, mouth pursed. Then he says, ‘Very well. I shall do something else for Philip. The Garter, perhaps.’ He rubs the bridge of his nose. ‘You had better not close off his hopes. Tell him he may return. Tell him I shall always be glad to see him, at some date not yet decided.’
‘Majesty, your daughter will never marry,’ Norfolk says. ‘Cromwell breaks every match proposed for her.’
The king gets up. He rubs his chest with one hand, steadies himself with the other. They are all on their feet, ready to kneeclass="underline" sometimes he exacts it, sometimes not. Norfolk offers, ‘My arm, Majesty?’
‘What use is that?’ Henry says. ‘I could better hold you up, Thomas Howard, than you me.’
The door is flung wide for the king’s exit. Call-Me falters in, and hovers. Only then do they notice that the Duke of Suffolk is still seated at the council board. He rocks to and fro on his stool. ‘Poor Harry, poor Harry,’ he moans. Tears course down his cheeks.
On 7 January the king sleeps alone, as his doctors have advised. For the next two nights, his gentlemen escort him to the queen’s rooms.
Dr Butts comes to him. ‘Lord Cromwell, it is all naught. I have told his Majesty not to enforce himself.’
‘In case injury comes to his royal person,’ Chambers says.
‘He says he will still go to her suite every other night,’ Dr Butts says. ‘So it will give rise to no talk.’
Chambers says, ‘He claims she has displeasant airs about her. You might talk to her chamberwomen. See if they are washing her well enough.’
He says, ‘You go to them if you like.’ He pictures them sousing and soaping Anna, scrubbing her in the Thames and beating her on stones; hauling her up and wringing her. ‘I would stake my life she is a virgin.’
‘He seems to have dropped that line of talk,’ Chambers says. ‘Now he only says she disgusts him. But he claims he is capable of the act itself. Or capable of emission, at least. Which will be a relief to you to know, if you have to take him to market again.’
Dr Butts whispers: ‘He has experienced … you understand us … duas pollutiones nocturnas in somne.’
‘So he thinks he could do it with another woman,’ Chambers says.
‘Has he anyone in mind?’ He thinks, I am like Charles Brandon: I am ashamed to hold such conversation.
At the next council meeting the Lord Chancellor says, ‘If the king and queen are civil to each other by day, it will help counter the rumours. And I think we can rely on them for that.’
‘When he was with the other one,’ Fitz says, ‘and he couldn’t tup her, he blamed witches.’
‘Superstition,’ Cranmer says. ‘He knows better now.’
Norfolk says, ‘Well, Cromwell? What to do?’
He says, ‘I have done nothing, but for his safety and happiness.’
He overhears a young courtier – it is a Howard of course, the young Culpeper: ‘If the king cannot manage it with the new queen, Cromwell will do it for him. Why not? He does everything else.’
His friend laughs. What alarms him is not their mockery. It is that they take no care to keep their voices low.
When the council meets they should, he feels, put down sand to soak up the blood. It is like the champ clos for a tournament, sturdily fenced to stop the spectators getting in or the combatants getting out. The king stands in a watchtower, judging every move.
That night he writes to Stephen Vaughan. He tells him what he tells everyone abroad: the king and queen are merry, and all here believe the marriage a great success.
I am lying even to Vaughan, he thinks.
Richard Riche asks him, ‘What do you hear from your daughter in Antwerp?’
‘Nothing,’ he says.
Riche says, ‘It may be as well. The king has a sharp nose for heresy. Of course, my lord, since you have been such a traveller in this world, you may have other offspring, unknown to you. Do you ever think of that?’
‘Yes, Wolsey mentioned it a time or two.’ He thinks, if Jenneke made a claim on me now, I don’t know if I could meet it. He ushers Riche out as Wriothesley comes in. Clearly he has been eavesdropping on Riche, because his face is flushed. He says, ‘That man has no feeling at all. He is a tissue of ambition.’
He thinks, but that is what Riche tells me about you. But while I rule, you do your best for me, and your best is very good. I must place my trust, even if I have misgivings. I cannot work alone. The Seymour boys have their own interests at heart, why would they not? In these strange times Suffolk is my well-wisher, but Suffolk is stupid. I cannot count on Fitzwilliam for support, he is busy defending his own position, and blames me because he is blamed. Cranmer is frightened, he is always frightened. Latimer is disgraced. Robert Barnes I would not trust with his own life, let alone mine. Manuals of advice tell us you should fear weak men more than strong men. But we are all weak, in the presence of the king. Even Thomas Wyatt, who can face down a lion.
A realm’s chief councillor should have a grand plan. But now he’s pushing through, hour to hour, not raising his head from his business. The city is full of Germans – official, unofficial – who believe that he will make the king a fit ally for Luther. Lord Cromwell, they coax, we know that it is you who day by day softens the force of last summer’s laws. ‘We know in your heart you wish a more perfect reformation. You believe what we believe.’
He indicates the king, standing at a distance: ‘I believe what he believes.’
At Austin Friars he goes out to see his leopard. Dick Purser knows the beast’s habits, her sullen whims, her episodes of dangerous friskiness. ‘Dick,’ he says, ‘you mustn’t think you can get friendly with her. You mustn’t think you can let her out.’
He looks at the brute and she looks back at him. Her golden eyes blink. She yawns, but all the time she is thinking of murder. She gives herself away by the twitching of her tail.
Dick says, ‘What would she say if she could speak?’
‘Nothing we would understand.’
‘I never thought I would be keeper of such a beast, that day you came to get me from More’s house.’
He puts his arm around the boy’s shoulders. Dick Purser is an orphan; it was More and Bishop Stokesley who hunted and hounded his father, setting him in the pillory and shaming him as a heretic, and it was their ill-treatment, he is sure, that killed him. More wanted credit for taking in the boy; and credit again, for whipping heresy out of him. Sir Thomas bragged he had never struck his own children, not even with a feather. But he did not extend the courtesy to the children of others.
He himself had turned up, dry-mouthed with rage, on More’s doorstep. He would not send a servant to do it, nor would he wait in the outer hall for More to be at leisure. ‘I’ve come for Purser’s son. Give him to me, or I’ll lay a complaint against you for assault.’