The Scarlet Peacock

by Field, David

  ‘You were asking earlier how you may ensure your popularity with your people. They are simple folk, Hal, and they require only peace, prosperity and security. Give them those, and they will hail your progress though the streets as a hero, a champion, almost a God. Peace and prosperity you can already give them, by putting down any rival claim to your throne, and by relaxing the burden of taxation upon them.’

  ‘And “security”, Thomas? What did you mean by that? A powerful army with which to repel foreign aggressors?’

  ‘That certainly. You must always demonstrate your ability and willingness to lead a strong army into battle. But there is also the certainty of succession.’

  ‘Meaning what, precisely?’

  ‘Forgive me, Hal, but it means siring heirs – legitimate male heirs, that is. Once the people are assured that the throne is not only secure for the present, but that its peaceful continuation is assured by the existence of a healthy male royal heir, then they will feel secure for the foreseeable future. That is why your father took so much care over your safe upbringing once your brother Arthur died.’

  Henry’s face set in resignation, although his jaws were still heavily engaged in battle with a thick slice of cold pork. Eventually he cleared his mouth and voiced his thought. ‘I needs must marry the Lady Katherine, say you?’

  Thomas nodded as he took a mouthful of wine. ‘That would be the most obvious policy at this time, sire. You were once betrothed to her anyway, although you renounced that, much to your father’s anguish, when you attained your fifteenth year. But she is still available, still anxious to be Queen of England, and richly connected to the house of Spain, with her sister Joanna ruling Castile alongside their father in his lands of Aragon.’

  ‘They say Joanna is mad,’ Henry pointed out.

  ‘Indeed they do, and with some justice, so I hear. But her father Ferdinand rules as her regent, which is another pertinent argument in favour of your marrying Katherine. She is not uncomely, she is pious and gracious, and she is no doubt highly fertile, in that way of devout Catholic women of all Southern European nations.’

  ‘Shall I need a dispensation from the Pope?’

  ‘Indeed you shall, but as ever your father thought of that too. It was granted some years ago, and it covers both possibilities regarding whether or not her marriage to your brother Arthur was consummated.’

  Henry sat deep in thought before announcing his decision. ‘It shall be as you advise. Presumably there will be no objection should I also take mistresses?’

  Thomas shrugged his shoulders. ‘As an ordained priest, I can hardly be heard agreeing to fornication outside of marriage. In any case, that were a question best put to your wife.’

  ‘Can you order a splendid ceremony, with the Archbishop of Canterbury presiding?’

  ‘Only you can order that, sire, although I can of course manage the finer details. But speak you of your wedding? If so, might I respectfully urge against it? The splendour should surely be reserved for the coronation, and any magnificent ceremony ahead of that would detract from the glory of the actual crowning. If I might suggest a quiet wedding, followed by the most glorious of joint coronations?’

  Henry nodded. ‘It shall be as you say, and as ever I shall rely on you to make it all happen.’

  ‘Very good, sire. And thank you for your trust in me.’

  ‘If I cannot trust you, Thomas, in whom can I trust? Will you consent to join my Council?’

  ‘In time perhaps, sire, but for the moment I would counsel that you make no changes in that regard. It is as well to retain those men in whom your father trusted, while sending a message to your people that these are worthy men, and that there are to be no great upheavals in government.’

  ‘Who were the most trusted?’

  ‘Bishop Foxe, most certainly. And Sir Thomas Lovell. In his last days, your father trusted none other than those two, although I would advise that you add others of high degree – trusted men who will do your bidding.’

  ‘Who would you recommend?’

  ‘The Archbishop perhaps? It is customary for him to also be appointed Chancellor, and from what I have learned William Warham is a biddable man, although he begins to feel his advanced years of late.’

  ‘None of those we have mentioned so far is a man of warfare, Thomas, save Lovell in his youth. What say you to Thomas Howard? He is loyal, his father the Earl of Surrey is a great military commander, and Thomas and I have shattered many a lance together in the tourney.’

  ‘Perhaps, then, the Earl of Surrey himself, rather than his son, who is merely my age, and in my experience somewhat hot of temper.’

  Henry smiled. ‘Howard tells me that he once used to bully you at school. Do you still fear him?’

  ‘No, sire, I pity him. But I merely suggest that, should you wish an accomplished and current soldier to be a member of your Council, then his father Surrey would be more appropriate. It will also serve as a reward to a man upon whose skill in battle you may one day come to rely.’

  ‘Again, wise counsel. It shall be as you advise, Thomas. Shall we call for more wine, say you?’

  ‘For myself, sire, I have had sufficient, and must now, if you will excuse me, depart for my own house. It is some miles away, in Putney, as you may know, and I must needs take a wherry down to Fulham steps.’

  ‘Take the royal barge, Thomas. In fact, feel free to call upon a royal barge at any time that you are engaged on my business, which hopefully will soon be all the time. But we must find you a house closer to Westminster and the Tower. They tell me that Edmund Dudley has a fine house in St Brides, which he will no longer require once his head is separated from his body, so I would wish you to occupy it, Thomas. That way, you will be closer to hand. I am also, I am advised, in need of an Almoner – would you consent to accept the post?’

  Thomas suppressed the smirk of satisfaction, and did his best to look humble.

  ‘You do me great honour, sire, but I regret that such a position calls for a man much higher in the Church than I.’

  ‘How high?’

  ‘Traditionally, it is a post that has been occupied by a bishop, and sometimes an archbishop,’ Thomas mumbled back, hoping that he was not reaching too high at this early stage.

  ‘That is easily achieved, Thomas’, Henry smiled back. ‘The first bishopric that becomes vacant shall be yours. Then will you consent to be my Almoner?’

  ‘I have already consented, sire,’ Thomas beamed back at him. ‘It is simply that I did not wish so honourable a position to be in some way diminished by my lowly clerical rank.’

  ‘Consider yourself appointed, Thomas. And since I appreciate that you must depart forthwith, please attend upon me in the forenoon tomorrow, that I may take up the dull drudgery of learning once more at your hand. I am but a poor scholar, I acknowledge, and I must rapidly acquire more learning if I am to acquit myself on the stage of Europe. But there is one more matter, ere you take your leave.’

  ‘Sire?’

  ‘That. You call me “sire”, when I have let it be known that I prefer you to call me “Hal”. Do you presume to disobey me already?’

  Thomas smiled unctuously.

  ‘Forgive me, Hal. It is simply that you grow into kingship with such alacrity that your very bearing and demeanour demand regal respect. It would also not be fitting for me to call you “Hal” in the presence of those who must needs call you “sire”, and I would not wish it spoken abroad that I demean your royal dignity by being so forward in my address.’

  ‘We shall compromise, Thomas. You may call me “Hal” when we are alone, but “sire” whenever you deem it appropriate due to the company we keep. Would that suit?’

  ‘Admirably, Hal, and thank you once again for an excellent supper and such engaging company withal. I shall return at ten in the forenoon.’

  *

  In the days and weeks that followed, there were only two topics that engaged the King and his newly-appointed Almoner. The first was the complet
ion of Henry’s education in those areas of the Classics, the English language, Divinity and Science that were deemed – by Thomas – to be necessary. If Henry had been an indifferent pupil in the past, he now made up for it in his enthusiasm to grow rapidly into the role that heredity had destined him for, and Thomas noted that underneath the bluffness and the bravado was a perceptive mind eager for new knowledge, a fact that he tucked away for future exploitation.

  The second topic to dominate their daily meetings was the preparation for the wedding and the coronation. By consent, the wedding was to be conducted almost in secret, and Thomas had no difficulty in persuading the Abbot of the Franciscan Priory at Greenwich to conduct the low-key ceremony, attended only by close members of the family and a few selected nobles of the realm. The priory had been the object of royal patronage since its foundation in the years immediately before the fall of Richard of Gloucester, and Henry VII had proved particularly generous.

  A radiant, glowing and somewhat surprised Lady Katherine had been ‘humbly’ advised by Thomas that it was the young King’s wish to honour his marriage pledge to the Spanish Infanta who had been living in somewhat genteel poverty until her concerned father Ferdinand had improved her status above that of an honoured political prisoner by making her the Spanish Ambassador. Thomas subtly suggested that the marriage had come about through his diplomatic intervention with Henry, thereby ensuring that he was highly regarded by both King and Queen, and in the years immediately ahead he could always rely on the good offices of Queen Katherine, with whose cause he would, unfortunately, be forever associated.

  King Henry also had a surprise awaiting him. The ‘Spanish Pudding’, as he had dubbed her, proved to be an eager and energetic bed partner, and had exchanged the aroma of olive oil for that of rosewater by the time that they celebrated their nuptials. She fell pregnant almost instantly, and was already carrying the royal seed in her womb when the happy couple alighted, on Midsummer’s Day 1509, at the edge of the long carpet that had been laid for their slow procession into the cool stonework of Westminster Abbey under a canopy proudly held above their heads by selected dignitaries in order to protect them from the sun that beamed down, portentously, on the occasion of their joint coronation.

  As the royal feet progressed sedately down the carpet, it was, in accordance with established tradition, torn up behind them and cut up into lengths by an ecstatic crowd for both souvenir and sale. Archbishop William Warham anointed and crowned each of them in turn, in the presence of every prelate within the realm who was in sufficiently good health to attend, and as Thomas beamed and nodded from the front row of the nave, he was mentally accounting for those who were missing, and whose dioceses he might therefore anticipate inheriting upon their deaths.

  Thomas was also watching on from the side of the White Chamber in Westminster Palace in which the wedding feast was to be held as a herald blew a fanfare for the entry of the Earl Marshall of England, Thomas Howard Senior, the Earl of Surrey. Several places further up the side wall from Thomas, his old adversary Thomas Howard, Surrey’s son, sneered back at him as his father, proudly bearing his staff of office, announced the order of seating at the dozens of trestle boards that lay under their crisp white damask coverings.

  The meal that followed was a culinary extravagance the like of which had not been witnessed for an entire generation, and the only dampener on Thomas’s elation that all his meticulous planning had come to fruition was the presence opposite him at board of a very drunken Thomas Howard, who loudly announced, more than once, that he was listed in the first tourney scheduled for the following morning, and equally loudly invited Thomas to bless his horse for the occasion.

  Thomas was sorely tempted to agree to this if Howard would kiss his arse, but his ecclesiastical dress was hardly appropriate for such a riposte.

  CHAPTER 4

  Affairs both foreign and domestic

  ‘The Dean of Lincoln, your Highness.’

  The usher held the door wide for Thomas as he swept into the Queen’s Presence Chamber with his customary smile and his characteristic enthusiasm for the task in hand, a leather-bound English Grammar text under his arm. He bowed deeply towards Katherine, who sat with her feet resting on a footstool for her comfort as the royal belly swelled proudly out in front of her. She had a shawl draped across her shoulders, since her latest fashion lemon gown was thin and it was late October. As the other ladies in waiting glided away on cue, only Bess Blount remained, slipping the shawl more securely over her mistress’s shoulders before retreating demurely into a corner, as protocol demanded, and picking up her needlepoint.

  ‘I trust you are well, Highness,’ Thomas oozed, ‘and that these late Autumn gales are not allowed to penetrate your chambers here at Richmond.’

  ‘I am most well, thank you Tomaz, and the only sickness that ails me is the need to understand this language of my new country. Why is it so – so complicado?’

  ‘“Complicated”, madam. The word is similar – parecido – to yours. There are many examples of these similarities between the language of your birth and the language of your marriage.’

  ‘Yet it has many strangenesses about it,’ Katherine insisted as she waved Thomas into the chair beside hers and called for wine. ‘For example, it is more direct to say “I did go to Westminster, yet I am told I must say “I went to Westminster”. Why do you make your way of speech so much challenge to someone like me?’

  ‘So much of a challenge, madam,’ Thomas corrected her. ‘Another of our strange ways of speaking. Do you wish perhaps to continue with conversation today, rather than discover more horrors of our language in this book I have brought for your further study?’

  ‘Yes, that would be best, I think,’ the Queen replied with a relieved smile. ‘I must be able to speak correctly with the many lords and ladies of the royal Court, but the work it is very hard.’

  ‘Think of it this way,’ Thomas offered by way of consolation. ‘They cannot speak a word of Spanish, and yet you already amaze them all with your grasp of English.’

  ‘Pah, Tomaz, more of what my dear husband calls your “words of honey”. And it is not true – you speak excellent Spanish.’

  ‘I am an ambassador of your husband’s country, madam, in which capacity I visit nations such as France, the Netherlands and Germany. It is necessary that I speak their languages, else I could not seek to be received beyond the front gates of their palaces.’

  For some time now, Thomas had been tutoring Queen Katherine in English. She had proved to be an eager student, and King Henry was delighted with her progress, which was her real reward. Despite the misgivings of his early youth, Henry had rapidly warmed towards the marriage born out of diplomacy, and there was a deepening affection between the royal couple that Thomas chose to exploit to the full. By tutoring the Queen in the language of her adopted country, he ingratiated himself with her while earning the ongoing gratitude of the King, and the bonus was his constant attendance at Richmond and Westminster, or wherever else the Court might be.

  ‘Tell me, Tomaz,’ Katherine began by way of a conversation opener for their English language lesson, ‘how is your new house?’

  ‘Very comfortable, madam. As usual, your husband the King has been most generous, and since he allowed me not only the house but also its furnishings, it was simply a matter of transferring my servants and my existing furnishings from Putney to Bridewell. But since my new house is larger, I shall of course require more servants.’

  Thomas had moved into the house across The Fleet, and outside the city walls, several weeks previously, and it certainly had advantages in keeping close to the royal couple, either by means of a short wherry trip upriver to Westminster, or one further upstream to Richmond.

  ‘Has your chaplain yet returned?’ Katherine enquired. Thomas smiled reassuringly.

  ‘I expect him back daily, but his absence is no hardship. I can conduct my own Mass, and as for confession, I am fortunate to be able to amass my sins as the roy
al gardeners at Richmond in Autumn wait until there are enough leaves to make it worth their while to sweep them away. Once Thomas Larke returns from his father’s funeral there will be sins enough to occupy him, although they will all be in the same sack. What I lack in lust I make up for in gluttony. I am fortunate to be able to afford to eat well.’

  ‘I have never understood,’ Katherine said with a furrowed brow, ‘how you men of God remain so wealthy, when you have all taken vows of poverty.’

  ‘That is for monks, madam,’ Thomas replied a little frostily. ‘Those of us in the mainstream Church must ensure that the glory of God is ever on show for the inspiration of those who worship in our churches and cathedrals. And it would only demean the image of God in this world were His servants to go around resembling stable hands or kitchen scullions.’

  ‘But from where comes this wealth of the Church?’ Katherine persisted. ‘Everywhere I go, the bishops and archbishops, not to mention lowly priests, seem always to be well fed and dressed in rich clothing, like high nobles. Comes it all from pious donations?’

  ‘Not all of it, madam,’ Thomas explained. ‘In the same way that the nobles of the land enjoy their wealth from the rents and other dues paid to them by those who occupy land on their estates, so the Church, too, owns much land, which tenants pay for their right to occupy. It is by these means that the glory of God is displayed in the arches, high ceilings and rich hangings of our greatest cathedrals.’

  ‘And on the backs of God’s servants,’ Katherine observed slyly, glancing at Thomas’s soutane.

  There was a rush of action in the chamber doorway, and King Henry blustered in before the usher could even announce his arrival. He strode swiftly across the rich carpet, kissed Katherine full on the lips, playfully rubbed her protruding stomach, and called for more wine and an extra goblet. Then he spotted Thomas, who had slid from his chair to his knees, and had his head down in supplication.