Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies - the RSC Stage Adaptation

by Mike Poulton

  THOMAS (a real blow). Gardiner! Oh God – no!

  MORE. Wolsey’s richest diocese. Stephen will be in a position to do much good.

  THOMAS. Yes – for himself. You once called yourself Wolsey’s friend – can’t you see how much we need him back? Speak for him to the King –

  MORE. I am his friend. Only I could never stomach the greed he has for ruling over men – I warned him against it. (Smiles.) That’s true friendship – to speak hard truths.

  THOMAS. A true friend wouldn’t slander him to the King –

  MORE. I slander no man – I do no man harm –

  THOMAS. Then how did you come by this chain of his? Eh? (Flicking it.)

  MORE. I never wanted it.

  THOMAS. By accident then?

  MORE (losing it). God has thrown Wolsey down from all his pomp and power and I give thanks for it! I rejoice that I had a hand in his destruction. (Exit.)

  RAFE. Is it good policy to bait a Lord Chancellor?

  THOMAS. He enjoys it. If he wakes up in the morning and finds himself cheerful, he goes along to the Charterhouse to beg a flogging from the monks. Pain and insults are his idea of fun.

  RAFE. Sir… Don’t you think it’s time… you let the Cardinal go?

  THOMAS. No. I want him back at the King’s side.

  Scene Fourteen

  York Place. ANNE beating up JANE SEYMOUR. THOMAS CRANMER looks upset, GEORGE angry, MARY BOLEYN disgusted, MARK amused.

  ANNE. I needed you, Cremuel – where have you been?

  THOMAS. I had business with the King.

  GEORGE. You! What business?

  THOMAS. Matters concerning the Cardinal –

  ANNE. One day there’ll be a great reckoning for him – but don’t blame me for it – let him blame his own pride –

  CRANMER (gently). A little charity, madam? The Cardinal needs our prayers.

  ANNE. You know Dr Cranmer, my chaplain? He’s just returned from Rome.

  THOMAS (they embrace). The Cardinal was very sorry you would not come to his college in Oxford. He’d have made you very comfortable.

  CRANMER. Oh well, you know… I was very comfortable in Cambridge.

  GEORGE. Wolsey is going about York like a rebellious prince with eight hundred men at his back –

  THOMAS. Not true.

  ANNE. He is exchanging letters with Katherine – they’re plotting with the Pope – they mean to force the King to banish me from Court –

  THOMAS. Slanders.

  CRANMER. Can we be sure? It would be a mistake on the Pope’s part to interfere –

  ANNE. The King will not be forced! Is Henry a mere parish clerk? A child? This could never happen in France. There, churchmen bow to their king’s commands – ‘One king, one law, is God’s ordinance in every realm!’

  CRANMER. That is Master Tyndale’s view, Lady – unfortunately Tyndale is a heretic. Discretion, madam –

  ANNE. ‘The subject must obey his king as he would his God!’ I have read this – the King has read it!

  THOMAS. Heavens! Does Sir Thomas More know?

  ANNE. The Pope shall learn his place – I am the woman to show him what his place is! Wait! I’ve something to show you –

  MARY BOLEYN. Oh, sister – do not give it currency.

  ANNE throws a book at MARY BOLEYN.

  ANNE. Fetch it! – to me. Give it!

  JANE SEYMOUR, in tears, brings the drawing. ANNE smacks her.

  This milk-faced creeper found it in my bed when she turned down the sheet. Look! That is Katherine – this is Henry in the middle –

  THOMAS. I supposed so from the crown –

  ANNE. And this is me – with no head! Read. ‘Anne sans tête.’

  CRANMER. Give it to me – I’ll destroy it.

  ANNE. But never mind who grudges me – I mean to have him.

  GEORGE. My sister always –

  ANNE. I shall be Queen! And I shall punish who has done this thing.

  CRANMER. Madam, I beg you – be calm. A piece of paper cannot harm you.

  ANNE (suddenly afraid). How can they come in my own chamber, Cremuel – with all my servants here watching? It was Katherine’s people – that much I know. I am not safe – not even here.

  She whirls away – all but CRANMER, THOMAS and JANE SEYMOUR following.

  JANE SEYMOUR. Oh dear. I fear this may be a long winter.

  THOMAS. For you, Jane.

  JANE SEYMOUR. Silk thread! Thank you –

  THOMAS. From Venice –

  JANE SEYMOUR. I expect Lady Anne will take it from me. We’re embroidering initials on everything she owns. ‘H’ and ‘A’ intertwined.

  CRANMER. Isn’t that a little premature?

  JANE SEYMOUR. ‘H’ and ‘A’ – so it says ‘Ha ha!’ – all over her undergarments. Unfortunate, don’t you think?

  CRANMER. You’re old John Seymour’s daughter – from Wolf Hall?

  JANE SEYMOUR. One of them, sir.

  CRANMER. I thought the Seymour girls were with Queen Katherine.

  JANE SEYMOUR. I was happy to serve her. But I must go where my family tell me. Thank you, Master Cromwell. (Exit.)

  CRANMER. Gifts to Court ladies, Thomas?

  THOMAS. I feel sorry for Jane, that’s all. Would you ask Lady Anne to stop slapping her about?

  CRANMER. You must make some allowance for My Lady – she’s very fragile. I believe she’s a little afraid of what she’s begun – but her faith in the Gospel is firm. She will bring Henry to it, and that would bring grace to England, would it not? But the old families are against her – and most of Henry’s friends – pulling him and pulling him away from her, when she is so near. She feels alone.

  THOMAS. Who does not feel alone?

  CRANMER. The King has asked me to consult the universities of Europe on the legality of his marriage. I look at the men about him – his advisers – all able men no doubt – but it seems to me they are utterly lacking in any sympathy for his situation. Nor is there any kindness in them – no charity – no love.

  THOMAS. I know. That’s what the Cardinal was for.

  Scene Fifteen

  Impressive procession. WOLSEY, in full regalia, is rehearsing. He ascends the throne. HARRY PERCY, terrified, enters at the head of a band of SOLDIERS.

  WOLSEY. Harry Percy! Welcome to Cawood, Harry. Have you come for my investiture? It’s tomorrow, you know, in the Minster – this is a rehearsal. I fear you’ve missed dinner. Had I known you were coming, I’d have waited for you.

  HARRY PERCY (trembling). My Lord – I arrest you for high treason.

  WOLSEY. Do you now?

  Scene transforms into a nightmare masque at Court. The masque is brightly lit, the ‘audience’ in semi-darkness. The effect is hellish. WOLSEY is tormented by DEVILS.

  DEMON FOUR (FRANCIS WESTON). Come, Wolsey – we must fetch you to Hell! Beelzebub, our master, is waiting supper for you.

  DEMONS prod WOLSEY with forks.

  NORFOLK. Good, isn’t it!

  WOLSEY (MARK). No! No! No! Wait, though. Did you say supper? What wine does he serve? I’ll have no English wine – none of that cats’ piss My Lord of Norfolk lays on.

  ANNE shrieks with laughter and points at NORFOLK. KING HENRY sits horrified by her side.

  NORFOLK. What? What? What did he say?

  DEMON TWO (NORRIS). No, Beelzebub has wines of the very best. Had you not heard? The devil is a Frenchman!

  Catcalls, boos, anti-French jeering. Stage business.

  WOLSEY (MARK). Stand back! Now by the devil’s arse! I am sore troubled with the flux! And the wind!

  DEMON THREE (GEORGE). Hang him up! Hang him and bowel him for a traitor! Is there a butcher in the Court?

  ALL DEMONS. Not any more!

  WOLSEY (MARK). Good devils, handle me gently! And when I am Pope you shall all be made Cardinals!

  Farts. Then ‘WOLSEY’ is hanged and drawn – lengths of crimson cloth and sausages.

  NORFOLK. There! Do you see! I always said my niece wou
ld have his guts!

  WYATT. Shame! Shame on you, Norfolk! Shame!

  NORFOLK (afraid, clutching his relics). Who said that?

  DEMONS (SIR WILLIAM BRERETON, pronounced ‘Bretton’, NORRIS, GEORGE, and FRANCIS WESTON). Down! Down! Down to Hell with him!

  They drag ‘WOLSEY’ kicking, screaming, and farting, through Hell’s Mouth. Four DEMONS come back for their bow. Scene shifts ‘backstage’. ANNE and her LADIES laugh with brother GEORGE and others. MARK keeps apart. THOMAS, RAFE and GREGORY watch.

  NORFOLK (lurching up). These young men who hang around with women! Harry Norris, I thought better of him – talk-talk-talking. You don’t talk to women do you, Cromwell? I mean, what would be the topic? What’d you find to say? (Exit.)

  ANNE sees THOMAS – her smile fades – she leaves.

  BRERETON. Ah, here’s the fat butcher! How did you like our play, Cromwell?

  WESTON. Keep up, Brereton. Wolsey was ‘the fat butcher’. Cromwell’s the grim blacksmith.

  THOMAS. Quite right, Francis Weston! Born in a stable raised in a carpenter’s shop – or was it born in an alehouse raised in a smithy? I forget.

  WESTON. I can’t see it makes a difference. Your father was an Irishman they say.

  THOMAS. First I’ve heard of it.

  BRERETON. No – he was a moneylending Jew.

  WESTON. The Irish are violent people, aren’t they? Lady Anne says you had to flee England at the age of fourteen after escaping from prison.

  THOMAS. Now that is true.

  NORRIS. How did you escape?

  THOMAS. An angel struck off my chains.

  WESTON (believing it). Really?

  GEORGE (unmasking). It’s like the shirt of Nessus. I was roasted alive.

  THOMAS. George Boleyn. You make a fine devil!

  BRERETON. You’re lucky we left you out, Cromwell. We should have dragged you to Hell along with your master. But don’t worry – the devil will come for you. And if he doesn’t, I will!

  THOMAS. Well done, Norris – I’d imagined you were old enough to know better. Put your mask back on – it’s the more honest of your two faces.

  GEORGE. Go away, Cromwell – there must be horses in need of shoeing somewhere.

  THOMAS. Oh, very witty, George! But who was our Lord Cardinal.

  He removes ‘WOLSEY’s mask. It’s MARK, looking sheepish.

  MARK. It was like being on the rack. You’ve sprained my wrist – how am I going to play my instrument?

  BRERETON. You don’t need both hands to wank with, do you?

  WESTON. Not that I’ve heard.

  MARK (to THOMAS). Why are you looking at me like that? It was only a play. Lady Anne made us do it.

  THOMAS takes a step towards MARK who flinches. MASQUERS swarm off. A movement in the dark. THOMAS is suddenly on guard.

  THOMAS. Who’s there? Come out of the shadows – stand where I can see you. Tom?

  WYATT emerges, slightly drunk.

  WYATT. Master Cromwell.

  THOMAS. Tom Wyatt. What are you doing here?

  WYATT. Keeping out of trouble. Trying not to disappoint you.

  THOMAS. It was you, wasn’t it? Who called out ‘shame’?

  WYATT. Yes. I’m sorry. It is – a shame.

  THOMAS. Then there are two of us who think so. You’ve not disappointed me, Tom.

  WYATT. All this cruelty – why the cruelty? The one they chose to arrest him was Harry Percy.

  THOMAS. There was certainly malice in that – but not Harry Percy’s malice.

  WYATT. Who then? Who would…?

  THOMAS gives him a hard look.

  Of course – of course it was.

  THOMAS. She hated him.

  WYATT. He gave his whole life for the King.

  THOMAS. When he was arrested, the people knelt in the road and wept. Crowds stood in the dark with lighted candles – praying for him. His friends kept on telling him, he’d come before the King and clear his name.

  WYATT. And he could have done so – I’m certain of it.

  THOMAS. Do you think they’d have ever let him? No, he knew –

  WOLSEY’S GHOST. You are leading me in a fool’s paradise. I know what they have provided for me – what death they have prepared for me.

  WYATT. Had the King been forced to look him in the face he’d have pardoned him.

  THOMAS. They’d got as far as Leicester Abbey – they were setting the wax lights on the cupboard –

  WOLSEY’S GHOST. Whose shadow is that that leaps along the wall? Where is Tom Cromwell – why isn’t he here?

  THOMAS. God forgive them – they told him I was on the way – I’d be with him by nightfall –

  WOLSEY’S GHOST. The roads are treacherous – but if Tom says he’ll be here, he will be here…

  THOMAS. He was bleeding for eight days –

  WOLSEY’S GHOST. Believe me, death is at the end of this…

  THOMAS. So his servants washed him and laid him out for burial.

  WOLSEY’S GHOST. There wasn’t even a coffin.

  WOLSEY’S GHOST fades away.

  THOMAS. The monks knocked together a box of unplaned boards… Look… He sent me his ring.

  WYATT. Anne, Anne, Anne!

  THOMAS. She’s the King’s now. Stay away from her.

  WYATT. I have stayed away. I stayed away for a year. How much staying away can a man do? I’m a hopeless case.

  THOMAS. Tom, I promised the Cardinal I’d keep you out of trouble. I can pay your debts, but I can’t keep you sober, and it seems I can’t keep you away from Anne Boleyn. Listen to me. Your enemies are whispering to the King that you’ve slipped in before him –

  WYATT. Ha! Suffolk told him she was soiled goods and was banished from Court for saying so. Look… you know I’m no liar. If Anne is no virgin it’s none of my doing.

  THOMAS. I believe you.

  WYATT. For two years I was sick to my soul at the thought of another man touching her. But what had I to offer? I’m not a duke or the prince she was fishing for. Yes – she liked me… I think. She liked to keep me in thrall. Some days she’d not even let me kiss her… But that’s Anne’s tactic, you see? She says, ‘Yes, yes, yes…’ And then she says ‘no’.

  THOMAS. Yes, yes, yes – no…

  WYATT. But the hardest thing to bear is her hinting – her boasting almost – that she says ‘no’ to me, but to others she says: ‘No, no, no – yes.’ So I was forever asking myself why I’d fallen short – why I could never please her… Why she’d never give me the chance.

  THOMAS. Well, you write better poems than the King, Tom. You can take comfort there. And Harry Percy can hardly write his own name.

  WYATT. God! That song of the King’s ‘Pastime with Good Company’ – whenever I hear it something like a little dog gets inside me desperate to howl!

  THOMAS. How many lovers do you think Anne’s had?

  WYATT. A dozen? A hundred? None? Half the Court swears it was me who took her maidenhead, the other half swears it was Harry Percy. But nobody knows the truth. And only I can safely swear I did not. You’re the cleverest man in England now the Cardinal’s dead. What’s your opinion?

  THOMAS. Any woman who can say no to the King of England, and keep on saying it, has the wit to refuse any number of men – including you, Harry Percy, or anybody else she chooses to torment for her sport. She’s made a fool of you, Tom.

  WYATT. That’s meant to console me?

  THOMAS. Had you really been lovers I’d tremble for you. The King’s jealousy will make him very dangerous once they’re married.

  WYATT. Will they be married?

  THOMAS. I think I can get him his annulment. Cranmer and I have been busy.

  WYATT. What if you get him excommunicated?

  THOMAS. It’s a risk. Thomas More says in the old days, when King John and all England was excommunicated, the cattle didn’t breed, the corn wouldn’t ripen, the grass stopped growing, and birds fell out of the air… If that starts to happen we can always rethi
nk our policy.

  Scene Sixteen

  Windsor. THOMAS kept waiting. In her chamber, KATHERINE prepares to receive him. MARY, frail, stands.

  KATHERINE. Remember, this man is nothing – a lawyer. You are England’s heir.

  SERVANTS show THOMAS in.

  THOMAS. Madam, your daughter should sit.

  Placing a stool for MARY. She holds on to KATHERINE’s chair. He bows.

  Madam.

  KATHERINE. Cromwell was a moneylender, Mary. Now he finds he has a talent for legislation – and the laws he writes are written against the Church. He will induce the King your father to call himself Head of the Church in England.

  MARY. Whereas the Pope is Head of the Church everywhere. From the throne of St Peter flows the lawfulness of all government. And from no other source.

  THOMAS. Yes, but won’t you sit, Lady Mary?

  She looks at her mother.

  You say ‘induced’, madam… Your Highness above anyone knows the King cannot be led.

  KATHERINE. He may be enticed. Master Cromwell would sever England from Rome. I fear he will sever us from the grace of God.

  MARY looks at the stool.

  You are a princess – So stand up.

  THOMAS. I mean only to clarify, or define, for the King, a position previously held – one that ancient precedents –

  KATHERINE. Ancient precedents? You and Cranmer are still drafting them – the ink’s not yet dry.

  MARY. What has been defined can be redefined.

  Hunting horns.

  Is my father leaving?

  KATHERINE. Why did the King not come to say goodbye to us?

  THOMAS. His Majesty is going to Chertsey – to hunt for a few days.

  MARY. Father always comes to say goodbye… Is the person with him? The concubine?

  THOMAS. He’ll ride by way of Guildford to visit Lord Sandys – he wants to see his handsome new gallery at the Vyne.

  KATHERINE. I am to follow? When?

  THOMAS. He will return in a fortnight.