Justice for the Cardinal Read online

  ‘The good nature that has led three nobles of the realm, a talented young musician and a Queen of England to the scaffold! Who’s next? No, let me hazard a guess: Norfolk.’

  ‘Norfolk swims too deeply for the line that I threw out to catch the Boleyn whore. I doubt that her father will remain Lord Privy Seal for much longer, but Norfolk will no doubt retain his titles as a reward for ridding Henry of the niece he threw at him in the first place. If I am to be revenged on Norfolk, I have much work yet to do.’

  ‘Which is no doubt why you seek to retain my services?’ Richard asked, still angry but slightly mollified. ‘Forget such an idea — my conscience has suffered enough already.’

  ‘But you will remain in my service? I must own that your hand is neater than most of my clerks.’

  ‘If I do, to what may I look forward?’

  ‘Who knows? You seem to enjoy a natural friendship with our next Queen, not to mention her younger sister, by all accounts, and then there is still Lady Rochford.’

  ‘What will happen to her?’

  ‘Who is to know, at this stage? She will of course be seeking a new husband, and her father Lord Morley still has the wealth to acquire her another one. If she is allowed by what remains of the Boleyns to retain her title, she will be a reasonable prospect until her looks fade. In the meantime, you may no doubt continue to take your pleasures there. You might even persuade her into marriage.’

  ‘I have no remaining interest in her,’ Richard asserted with more volume than conviction.

  ‘She has a cunny, and she is eager,’ Cromwell observed unfeelingly. ‘Should you continue to have to do with her, you will have no need to engage whores — at least, not common ones — and there will be no risk of disease.’

  ‘You disgust me!’ Richard spat as he rose from the table. ‘Even women exist in your rancid mind simply in order to be of service in your perception of life. There is one I would know better, and it is not Jane Rochford. But I will not name her, since your response to that disclosure might be such that I would be obliged to strike you at your own table!’

  ‘Assuming that you can do so before I slit your throat, or ram this knife into your unarmoured gut? I fought in France and Italy, remember.’

  ‘Did you stab your foes in the back?’ Richard demanded, before storming off to his chamber.

  Cromwell followed his retreating figure with his eyes, and shook his head. ‘He has much yet to learn,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Still, he has a worthy tutor.’

  XIV

  ‘I would really rather be somewhere else,’ Cromwell told William Kingston as he sat sharing an excellent Burgundy in the main hall of Kingston’s grace and favour residence at the Tower. In the corner sat Kingston’s wife with her needlework, while from the room beyond could be heard the occasional shriek among the loudly intoned prayers.

  ‘I would not have called upon you otherwise,’ Kingston replied, ‘but I need to know what are the King’s intentions towards our very special prisoner next door. Do I prepare the usual scaffold, and if so is it to be on the Green out there, or on Tower Hill? Or, God forbid, does he intend to have her dragged to Smithfield for the pyre to be lit under her? The local populace complain of the smell every time we do a burning.’

  ‘Rest easy, Master Constable,’ Cromwell assured him. ‘It will be here on the Green, but you will need no block.’

  ‘She is to be hanged like a common criminal?’

  ‘No, beheaded. But with a sword, not the axe. That was the King’s instruction to me but an hour ago.’

  ‘Have we such a swordsman, and how is it done?’

  ‘Henry has sent to Calais for a specialist in such matters. The lady will kneel upright, and he will take her head with one swift sweep of the blade — it is to be hoped.’

  ‘And the others — they are not to be quartered?”

  ‘No, since they were all in the royal service at the time that they serviced the Queen.’

  ‘Your black humour will be your downfall one day, Master Cromwell. So, the axe?’

  ‘Yes, but on the Hill, not the Green. The public must have their entertainment.’

  ‘Will you speak with the prisoner next door?’

  ‘If I must. But leave the door open. I do not wish to be added to the list of those who are accused of having seen what Henry no longer desires.’

  ‘Will Henry be merciful?’ Anne asked pleadingly before Cromwell was barely through the door to the chamber that served as both her living quarters and her chapel.

  ‘You have not been informed?’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘It will take place outside on the Green, and Henry has sent for a swordsman from France specially skilled in such matters. There will be no axe, no block, and very few in attendance.’

  Anne placed her hands around her own throat. ‘I should supply him with little difficulty, since I have such a small neck. Will you be there?’

  ‘The King commands it, madam.’

  With terrifying suddenness, Anne’s mood changed as her black eyes flashed. ‘This is all about that wretched Cardinal, isn’t it?’

  ‘Madam?’

  ‘Wolsey, that fat, self-satisfied friend of Katherine’s who would not let Henry marry me.’

  ‘There was rather more to it than that, madam,’ Cromwell bristled. ‘For one thing, it was the Pope who stood out against the annulment of the Kings’ marriage to Queen Katherine that stood in the way of your ambition.’

  ‘I had no ambition but my love for Henry, but Wolsey was the Pope’s man, and hoped, by ingratiating himself with Katherine’s nephew Charles of Spain, to become Pope himself.’

  ‘You believe that it was within my master’s power to move the Pope? He did all within his power to fulfil Henry’s wishes. As for the lie that he was in league with Emperor Charles, you can thank your uncle Norfolk for that; I found the forged papers, but it was too late for the Cardinal, whose heart was broken.’

  ‘Is Uncle Norfolk on your list as well?’

  ‘What list, madam?’

  ‘Spare me the shit, Master Cromwell. You and I both know that I am to die because you blame me for the Cardinal’s disgrace and death, when in truth he brought about his own downfall. It is only to be regretted that others will also die as the result of the tissue of lies that you wove concerning my alleged adulteries with men who I would not tolerate to even touch me, let alone paw my body. But from what you say, you hold Uncle Norfolk equally to blame for the Cardinal’s downfall, and you are probably correct. The two of them were enemies from childhood, whereas I came only recently from my existence in France. Would that I had never left, but as for my uncle, he is too powerful even for your lies to bring down.’

  ‘I know not to what you allude, madam, but it would be my best wager that he will bring himself down by his own arrogance. He believes himself to be beyond any possible disfavour of Henry’s, as you once did, but he will learn in the fullness of time that there are some actions that cannot withstand a king’s ire.’

  ‘You are wrong on both counts, Master Cromwell. Henry will quickly realise that despite what I am alleged to have done, he still loves me. Then I will be freed from here, and God help you when I take my revenge! Now leave me!’

  ‘Madam,’ Cromwell muttered as he gave a barely perceptible bow in Anne’s direction and moved towards the door.

  ‘Your Majesty!’ she screamed after him. ‘When I am freed from here I will force you to crawl naked across the floor of my Presence Chamber, in front of the entire Court, and lick my feet! Liar! Perjurer! Spawn of Satan! When next we meet it shall be your head that is in peril!’

  She was still screaming at the top of her lungs as Cromwell closed the door to her incarceration chamber and looked across at Lady Kingston, who had put down her needlepoint in anticipation.

  ‘See to your prisoner,’ he instructed her as he nodded his farewell to Sir William and hurried outside, slightly paler in the face than when he had arrived.

  XV

>   Cromwell deemed it unsafe to attend the executions of the lesser nobles accused of adultery with Anne when they were dispatched by the axeman — with varying degrees of competence — on Tower Hill on the morning of 17 May 1536. It was unsafe, not because of the risk that the intrigue in which he had engaged would somehow come unravelled, but because the mob that always gathered to scream their appreciation of such entertainment had a tendency to get out of hand and seek further bloodshed.

  There would be no-one more appropriate to pick on than the King’s most senior officer, and the person blamed for bringing God’s wrath down on the nation in the form of successive poor harvests, occasional outbreaks of the Plague, and worsening trading terms with the Low Countries. It was either Cromwell or the Boleyn witch, or possibly both, and since the former Queen was already marked for death in two days’ time — in comparative privacy on Tower Green — Cromwell would have to do instead. But they were denied this pleasure when the man himself made an excuse of religious ordinances over which he was labouring with Archbishop Cranmer and stayed closely confined in Chancery until it was all over bar the removal of the remains to within the Tower precincts.

  But Cromwell was ordered by Henry to attend two days later when it was the turn of Anne to meet her end on Tower Green.

  Cromwell returned from the event whistling softly to himself, to be met by the disapproving face of Richard Ashton as he breezed into the Great Hall of Austin Friars and ordered that wine be brought in.

  ‘You found the morning’s entertainment to your liking?’ Richard sneered. ‘Did she plead for mercy, call down a blessing on Henry’s head, or curse you to your grave?’

  ‘The Bible says “Judge not, less ye be judged”, and I was simply obeying a royal command to attend, in order to see the sentence carried out as the final act in a process that I had co-ordinated.’

  ‘A process that you invented!’ Richard reminded him in a voice rising in anger. ‘An innocent woman went to her death in order that you might avenge another death that you allege was also unjust. Is this what our nation has become? A land in which big dogs eat little dogs?’

  ‘It was never any different,’ Cromwell argued, ‘and have a care how you employ your tongue, young man. I am not in the mood for a moral lecture from someone who fornicates with the wife of a man who fucked his own sister.’

  ‘And how dare you cite the Bible at me?’ Richard continued, uncaring of what might follow. ‘You are a heretic!’

  ‘Enough, if you are to avoid being run through where you sit in the shit of your pious hypocrisy! You believe that by mumbling a few “Hail Marys” and donating money to be passed on by your confessor to his next whore, you will somehow be afforded a seat in Heaven? If you had followed me around some of the so-called “holy houses”, and learned of the wickedness that they practise in there, you would have no lingering faith in the grace allegedly granted to those ordained to intercede between you and God. How can the sin of, say, pride, be expiated through the agency of a man who fucks his fellow man up the arse in the dormitory, drinks until he pukes, eats until his stomach is like to explode in gluttony, and sells pieces of wood from the local forest as relics of the Cross on which Christ died?’

  ‘All creatures of God have their weaknesses, it is true,’ Richard conceded, ‘but that is merely to demonstrate how we are less perfect than God. Those whom God has ordained to intercede on our behalf when we seek forgiveness for our sins are, thanks to you and your conspirators, being cast out into the hedgerows and moorlands simply in order that King Henry may add another wing to this palace or that.’

  ‘If I were to report those words,’ Cromwell replied, ‘I would soon be in need of a new Senior Clerk. Even Anne believed that the time had come to listen to the condemnation of preachers such as Luther, regarding the cesspit into which the Christian faith has fallen thanks to the influence of Rome. We seek to hear the word of God more directly, and what is more, in English, and not that hocus pocus mumbo jumbo they call Latin. There was no great demand for the Latin and Greek where I grew up in Putney — would you therefore argue that we were less deserving of God’s grace?’

  ‘I know not how matters lie in Putney,’ Richard acknowledged, ‘but it is said that you learned your statecraft in Italy, where even an invitation to dinner may conceal the risk of death by poison. But tell me, how went the death of your queenly victim?’

  ‘Middling well,’ Cromwell replied. ‘She made no great speech that could be heard, due to the clamour of the small crowd, the incessant wind blowing across Tower Green, and the fear in her tiny voice. The swordsman earned his fee without any botch, and Sir William suffered a moment of discomfort when he realised that he had not ordered a coffin. But an arrow casket proved a suitable alternative, and she lies now in the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, inside the Tower keep. England shall shortly have a new Queen, and tomorrow we are invited to the betrothal of Henry to Jane Seymour in her quarters at Greenwich.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Well, me anyway. But “the Queen that soon will be” asked that you be invited along also, since for some reason or other she seems to regard you as a friend.’

  ‘I talked to her when others would not, that is all,’ Richard explained. ‘On those afternoons when I attended upon the Queen that you executed but a few hours since.’

  ‘Will you come with me?’

  ‘Who else will be attending?’

  ‘Her brother and sister, obviously. Edward because they are his apartments also, and Bess because she is breaking her journey back north to Yorkshire, and will probably delay here until the wedding, which will be by the end of this month, as I calculate. Henry is eager to test his new seed bed.’

  ‘If Bess will be there, then I shall attend.’

  ‘You have taken quite a shine to her, have you not? But she is perhaps somewhat above your station in life, remember, should you be entertaining thoughts of marriage to her.’

  ‘I merely, at this stage, admire her natural beauty, and would get to know her better,’ Richard explained, ‘but since we live in an age in which the son of an Ipswich butcher can become Chancellor of England, while a blacksmith and publican’s son from Putney can rise to become Master of the Rolls, there may yet be hope for me. And do not forget that, as you yourself advised me, I am the rightful King of England.’

  Cromwell burst out laughing. ‘Shall I so advise Henry, or shall I leave that task to you while he is in such a mood for removing the heads of traitors?

  ‘I was referring to my lineage, rather than my immediate prospects,’ Richard explained angrily. ‘And most days I wish you had left me alone in my ignorance.’

  ‘We have recently had a similar conversation,’ Cromwell reminded him, ‘and I demonstrated to you how much you had gained from being in my service. Tomorrow you will have that further demonstrated when you attend upon Henry of England, whose arse is so firmly on the throne you covet that not even one of his jousting horses could remove him.’

  ‘I may not always choose to remain in your service,’ Richard warned him, to which Cromwell smiled in reply.

  ‘The outside door lies but a few paces behind you, and you are not my prisoner. In the meantime, should you wish to earn your supper, Your Pretended Majesty will find papers on my study table that require to be copied.’

  ‘It will not always be this way,’ Richard threatened him as he walked towards the stairs in the corner.

  XVI

  ‘Why are there no guards on the door?’ Cromwell asked Edward Seymour, the next morning, as they stood together with Edward’s wife in the largest room of the Seymour quarters at Greenwich, awaiting Henry’s arrival.

  Edward smiled and nodded to a door cut into the wall adjacent to the fireplace.

  ‘Henry comes to us through a private passage that leads from his Withdrawing Chamber. It is said that he has used it many times in the past.’

  ‘I do not doubt it,’ Cromwell smirked, ‘in which case this room must have witnessed many a liaison
.’

  ‘Undoubtedly, but do not make reference to that, if you value your head. Even poor innocent Jane believes that it was constructed simply for her benefit. See how she blooms these days, even though she is currently engaged with your lackey.’

  He nodded towards a group in the corner, consisting of Richard and the two Seymour sisters. Richard was making a considerable effort to engage Jane in conversation, while covertly admiring, at close quarters, the flawless simple beauty of her younger sister Bess, and hoping that she was interested in what he had to say.

  ‘The Lady Mary has recently been sent to reside with her sister the Princess Elizabeth at Hatfield Palace,’ Richard told them in the hope of conveying the impression to Bess that he was privy to great State secrets.

  ‘It is so sad that Mary was declared a bastard and rejected by her father,’ Jane chimed in. ‘It must be a heartbreak for her — I know how I would feel if my own father did that to me. I hope to prevail upon Henry to reconcile with her.’

  ‘Have a care, madam,’ Richard warned her. ‘Henry does not like to be told what to do, as the death of Queen Anne demonstrated to the entire world. Rather move sideways to the point, and let the King believe that whatever you seek was his idea in the first place.’

  ‘I did not realise that you had become the king’s confidante,’ Bess said sarcastically. ‘I thought that dangerous task was allocated to your master.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Richard corrected himself, ‘and it is from him that I learn of these matters.’

  ‘Do you wish some day to be the master of your own destiny?’ Bess asked, just as the door to the side of the fireplace opened to reveal a lone royal guard with a halberd who stood to one side as Henry bustled in, walked straight across to their group, took both of Jane’s hands in his, kissed her chastely on the cheek and smiled.