Anne Boleyn: A Novel (9 page)

He tried to stop her but she pretended not to hear.

“In ruining France to support his own glory and strengthen the Church, he wires the crossbow of the Emperor! Look at the power of the Emperor now, with France too weak to withstand him...And the folly of shedding English blood for the sake of Rome, Let’s see how the Pope shows his gratitude to Your Grace in this matter of the marriage! Let’s see the mighty Cardinal persuade him to divorce you from the Emperor’s aunt while the Emperor holds him prisoner!”

“But Nan, that’s why he’s gone to France, to summon the Cardinals and assume the Pope’s authority until he’s free,” the King protested. Her vehemence distressed him; he refuted her words, but he was unable to forget them afterward.

“He’s a good servant,” he insisted; “a poor priest, perhaps, but a good servant to me.”

“One poor priest among many,” Anne retorted. “Poor in virtue but mightily rich in the things of this world!”

Again the words were not her own; they were Suffolk’s, repeated to her by her father, who reported that the Duke was bitterly anticlerical. Suffolk’s views were quickly becoming Rochford’s as he copied the Duke’s dress and mannerisms and echoed his opinions, flattered because he was admitted to his counsels. Suffolk and Norfolk found him easier to influence than Anne.

Henry frowned.

“That’s Catherine’s complaint against him. I’ll admit some of his display is unseemly.”

He was thinking of that magnificent barge and the quasi-royal fanfare that preceded Wolsey’s arrivals and departures. And the liveried servants who overran York House. He thought of York House too. Wolsey had rebuilt on a lavish scale after giving Hampton Court to the King; his treasures of plate and jewels were reputed to be the finest in England.

“It’s unseemly in a servant to try to rival his master,” Anne said quietly. “God knows what impression he creates abroad.”

Henry didn’t answer; he sat there tipping his chair backward and forward, watching her and thinking.

All his life he had hated carping women; even his wife, whose opinion he respected and who never offended his pride by persisting in advice, even Catherine had never abused Wolsey like this. But then Catherine had never had the wit to see through him as Anne did, to recognize affronts to his dignity and resent them for his sake. Catherine only criticized because she disapproved of him as a Minister of Christ while Anne’s concern was for the honor of the King.

“I’ll see to these matters when he returns,” he said, “but spare me your complaints till then. I hear enough of them from my brother-in-law Suffolk and your good uncle and Christ’s wisdom knows who else! Enough of Wolsey now! I balance his mistakes against his twelve years’ service, and no one shall persuade me to do otherwise.”

“Your Grace mistakes mercy for justice,” Anne went on.

He raised his head and looked at her.

“Enough, I said,” he repeated quietly. She curtsied. “As you command,” she said softly. She went to him and sat on his knee, her arms round his neck.

“I beg you, don’t be angry,” she whispered. “It’s only my great love for you that speaks...”

The King’s chair came to rest on all four legs and stayed firmly on the floor. There was silence in the room.

Wolsey returned to England on the twenty-fourth of September and he arrived at Richmond Palace on the last day of the month. He came back to report failure, his mind ready with excuses and new plans. The Cardinals had refused to meet and arrogate the Papal authority to themselves; the Pope was negotiating with the Emperor for his freedom at the same time, and Wolsey had been forced to give up his plan. And at Compiegne he had met the King’s secretary Knight and found that Henry had decided to go straight to Rome over his head.

For the first time in his career Wolsey was uneasy when he came back to the court; new influences were at work and the King’s urgency for the divorce was out of all proportion to his proposed marriage to the French Princess.

Wolsey journeyed from Dover to London in three days, in spite of mud-logged roads and driving rain, and he hurried to his first audience with the King as soon as he was robed. He always saw the King in private and they talked informally. Informality was part of the secret of his influence with Henry and they were accustomed to sit and talk as two men together, while the Cardinal exercised his great gifts of flattery and persuasion uninterrupted. This time, he thought as he waited for word to come, this time he had a great deal to say, and a great deal to find out...Why had the King sent Knight to Rome behind his back? Why was he suddenly so impatient to get rid of Catherine?

Both his questions were answered that night. Not in private, conversing with the King, but by a command to appear before Henry in the great hall at Richmond and be received in public for the first time in twelve years. He knew then that his friendship with the King was finished. And when he reached the dais he knew why Knight had gone to Rome and why Henry wanted the divorce. He knew it suddenly and finally, as he saw the King’s eyes, pale and unsmiling while they watched him, and as he saw Anne Boleyn, her neck and head blazing with diamonds, standing by the King’s chair of state with her hand on Henry’s arm.

“I should never have left England for so long,” Wolsey said. It was unlike him to repeat himself, but he had said the same thing over and over again that morning. He was living in York House, trying to work on the state papers as usual, and he had sent for a member of his staff to assist him. But they had done little work; instead, the Cardinal pushed the documents aside and sat hunched in his chair, waving his secretary to be seated with him. The secretary had not been long in his service, and Wolsey had chosen him because his abilities as a lawyer had come to his notice. He was a short, ugly man with flat plebeian features and an unexpected gift of oratory. Like his master, he was of humble origin but unlike Wolsey, he made no attempt in dress or manner to disguise it. His name was Thomas Cromwell.

“Her influence with the King is all-powerful now,” he remarked. “She can say and do no wrong in his eyes.”

Wolsey struck the arm of his chair with his fist.

“I must have been blind not to see it! But Christ’s death, I thought I knew the King. I’ve lived in his shadow and served him for nearly thirteen years and I’d have staked my head that no woman would bring him to this pass...”

“No man ever knows the King, my Lord.”

“You’re a shrewd fellow, Thomas, too shrewd for your years,” Wolsey said slowly. “I think well of your opinion. Now listen to me. I’ve had audience of the King since that night at Richmond; he’s been putting his arm round my neck and calling me Thomas, but I know he cares nothing for me anymore. Once he did and now he’s friendly to me from habit, or because he’s not quite ready to throw me to my enemies. And that woman is the cause. I tried him out the other day when we were alone talking of Europe and the Emperor, and he was listening to me in the way that he has when he mistrusts the words and the speaker. So I spoke of Mistress Anne. I praised her, Thomas, I said what a fair and worthy lady she was and how devoted to His Grace. And before God, his face lit up and his tongue wagged like a lovesick boy’s, bragging about her wit and her musicianship and her virtue. Her great virtue, he said.” Wolsey snorted. “Virtue! I longed to remind him that she was Wyatt’s strumpet before he took her for himself. I sat there and listened and I knew before he blurted it out to me that he was mad to marry her.”

“What did you say to the proposal?” Gromwell questioned.

Wolsey raised his head; under the line of his scarlet skullcap his face was terribly gray.

“There was no proposal. The King who once said, ‘Thomas, I’ve a mind to do this or that, what do you think?...’ is gone forever. No, he looked at me with his mouth drawn so tight it nearly vanished in his beard, and said it was his will to marry the lady, and to secure his divorce as soon as possible. I was bidden to make haste about it.”

“If I may suggest something, my Lord,” Cromwell interposed, and Wolsey nodded. “It seems the King’s been won away from you. Even though you bend immediately to his will, you’ll get no thanks for that, and probably little mercy in the end. Don’t try to win the King back; win the woman instead.”

“Wise words,” the Cardinal answered. “I’ve already told them to myself. Doubtless I’m expected to oppose the marriage, to argue with the King and anger him further. There’s more than Anne Boleyn involved in this, my friend for behind her are my real enemies, Norfolk, Suffolk and the rest. And behind them are Parliament, and the lawyers and men like Thomas More.”

“More is very able,” Cromwell conceded. “But he’s not of the stamp of the others you mention. More is devoutly religious; Lord Suffolk and many of the nobles are not; as for the Parliament, you know how fiercely they resent some of the Church’s privileges. The attack is not only upon you, but upon the power of the Church itself.”

Wolsey watched him; some of the despair had left his face, he was alert again, his mind darting and twisting ahead, exploring possibilities.

“As a layman and a lawyer with experience in Parliament,” Cromwell continued, “I can speak with assurance of the temper of the professional classes. It is essential that you make your peace with the King, and not only to save yourself, but to prevent an attack on the security of the Church itself.”

“Suffolk would do it,” the Cardinal muttered quickly. “He’d have the support of the nobility; they’ve long resented a priest holding the first place in the governing of the country after the King. Office has always been their privilege; so has civil war. Norfolk feels the same; it’s too long since one of the great Lords had the chance to play Warwick the Kingmaker again, and they blame me for that. And they’re right!”

He raised himself on the crossed arms of his oak chair and stood up, a short heavy figure in his scarlet cassock, the gold and diamond cross hung round his neck gleaming in the light as he moved. He turned to Cromwell, still sitting, small and ungainly in his black doublet and hose, almost blending with the oak paneling and black shadows.

“I’ve curbed their power whenever I could,” Wolsey said fiercely. “I’ve known them for what they were, ruthless and self-seeking, without love for their land or their King. I made them disband their private armies, so that the game of marching on the sovereign couldn’t be played at the first whim...I’ve devised taxes for them and taught the King to keep them at court under his eye rather than let them live like monarchs on their estates and pass the time plotting against the Crown! We’ve suffered enough in England through the great lords and their ways; for thirty years in the Wars of the Roses, one house sworn against another, bloodshed and pillage and murder up and down the country...The first Tudor put an end to that, and I’ve lived and worked to build up the power of his son Henry. The power of the Church, you say—how well that sounds, Master Cromwell...No, rather the power of the King, for King and Church are one in England; one against the nobility, and the Parliament and its parent, the City of London!”

Cromwell crossed one thick leg over the other.

“The King and the Church may be one as you say, my Lord. But will they remain so, if the divorce is not granted?”

Wolsey stepped toward him. “It will be granted,” he said, “it must, for I’ll tell the Pope what you’ve told me; the safety of the Church itself depends upon my keeping the good will of the King. The Pope values England; he values Henry’s friendship and wishes him well, I know that. And when he hears of the situation he’ll give his decision in the King’s favor. And none but I can approach him properly, as even that black strumpet must realize!”

He was calmer now, biting his lower lip and talking fast as he thought aloud.

“I’ve confidence, Tom, however evil things appear. They need me to get the divorce for them, and once Madame sees that without me her hopes of marrying the King will come to nothing, then I feel she’ll abandon her Uncle Norfolk and the rest of the conspirators. She’ll accept me as her ally. And if I’ve got to destroy the plan for a matrimonial alliance with France, then God’s death, I’ll destroy it but I’ll keep my place with the King!”

“One point,” Cromwell interrupted quietly. “You’re presuming on the lady’s gratitude, my Lord.”

The Cardinal looked at him. “On what else can I rely?”

“Nothing,” Cromwell shook his head, “and she should be grateful if you bring the marriage about. She should turn the King toward you as she turned him away; she should side with you against her own kin when she’s Queen, forgetting everything but the great debt she owes you...”

“You’ve little faith in human nature,” Wolsey said slowly.

Cromwell smiled amiably.

“I have none at all,” he answered. “So I beg you to proceed in her interests for as long as they coincide with yours, my Lord. If you can gain her over, you have won the King. Then it may be that you’ll regain the influence you lost during that trip to France.

Forgive me if I quibble, but it’s a failing with lawyers. All the same, don’t rely too much on the gratitude of women.”

“She’s not as clever as you think,” Wolsey said. “I’ve watched her carefully in the last weeks, and if the King tires of her before they marry, it’ll go hard with her as well as me. She’s dealing with dangerous men, Tom; men like Suffolk and her uncle at the top and many others not less powerful. It’s taken all my skill to keep my heel on them for nearly thirteen years, and I’ve never antagonized them openly as she does. She’s clever with the King, but she’s a fool with them, by God! I’ve heard her insult Suffolk and make a mock of him in front of the whole court, and she snubs her Aunt Norfolk and great ladies as if she were already Queen. Such people have long memories, Tom, and no mercy; at this pace she’ll have no one to befriend her but the King and the day may come when he abandons her as he’s abandoned me.”

“I’ve heard many comparing her with the Queen,” Cromwell remarked. “And she’s made more partisans for Catherine in her trouble than the Queen ever had when she was safe at Henry’s side.

“Catherine is doomed,” Wolsey said. “That at least is certain. Those who cling to that barque will certainly sink with it, whoever sails in her place. Come, Tom, take your pens and paper; when this morning’s business is finished, I’m going to pay my respects to Mistress Anne.”