The Scarlet Peacock

by Field, David

  ‘I would have you tell him that he shall have England’s support in return for his co-operation in the matter of an annulment of my marriage to Katherine. I wish to wed elsewhere, and that while my loins still generate offspring, preferably male.’

  ‘I will certainly raise the matter with the French king,’ Thomas assured him, ‘and through him we may acquire the Pope’s indulgence in your matter.’

  ‘See that you do, Thomas. I will not take kindly to another failure like the last one.’

  *

  ‘It is a bad humour brought on by your incessant labours in the royal service,’ the physician assured him. ‘I can of course bleed you to rid you of that humour, but you must also rest, and foreswear rich foods. And you do not require the services of a physician to tell you that you carry too much in the way of bodily flesh.’

  ‘Am I well enough to travel?’ Thomas enquired. The physician gave him a disapproving look.

  ‘Did I not just advise you that you must rest? If you choose to travel within the next month, you may seek the services of another physician, since I will not hazard a guess as to the likely outcome, given your current state of health.’

  ‘And the occasional vomiting?’ Thomas inquired.

  ‘Simply your body seeking to rid itself of the bad humour. It is a good sign.’

  Thomas was not the sort of man to be held back from prestigious work in the King’s service by a mere stomach malady, and two days later his massive entourage held up the traffic on London Bridge by a full twenty minutes as it wove its way south, via Dover and across the Channel, to Calais, and from there down into Picardy, where they were met by a large escort of armed French soldiers, in case Charles of Spain had retained any of his German mercenary contingents on the Alsace border between their two nations.

  Everywhere Thomas went, he was hailed like visiting royalty. The mayors of every town of any size, and the abbots of every monastic house of any importance, insisted on halting his progress while a laudatory ovation was read out, usually in Latin, for Thomas to graciously answer in Latin of his own. He finally met up with Francis and his mother Louise in Amiens, where they spent two weeks in mutual protestations of love and affection, accompanied by feasts the like of which would have caused apoplexy to Thomas’s physician. Then it was on to the Castle of Compiegne, where the real business of the treaty was hammered out between Thomas and the Chancellor of France, concluding with an invitation by Thomas for the King, together with the cream of his nobility, to visit England in order that their rich hospitality might be returned upon the formal signing of the treaty.

  This created a temporary dilemma. When Thomas returned with what should have been the good news, there was consternation regarding how so many visiting foreign dignitaries might be accommodated. Unseasonal rain had flooded the areas adjoining the river, and the cesspits that served the royal palace at Westminster had overflowed, causing a most appalling stench that was still assailing sensitive royal nostrils for weeks after the ‘gong’ itself had been cleared away by gangs of workmen. York Place was too small, even though massive by normal standards, and Queen Katherine blankly refused to allow her favourite palace at Richmond to play host to the leaders of a nation that she regarded as the sworn enemy of Spain. This left only Hampton Court, and Thomas graciously agreed that it could be used, pointing out that since he had been the honoured guest ‘over there’, it was only appropriate that he return the honour in his own residence.

  For weeks beforehand, carpenters, painters, masons and roof tilers were a constant sight in and around by far the most impressive building for miles around, and once they had departed, George Cavendish and his team were sent in with cartloads of the finest gold plate, bed linens, wall hangings and table ornaments. The total number of guest beds exceeded two hundred and fifty, and the finest suite of rooms was set aside for the visiting King and his mother, fumigated with fresh-smelling herbs every day for a month prior to the huge casement windows being opened to allow in fresh air. Gong farmers took cart loads from the privies and dumped them downstream near Mortlake, to the extreme inconvenience and annoyance of those who had country houses on the river bank. Fishmongers, bakers, butchers and poulterers received massive orders that some of them were hard pressed to fill, and French wines were imported upstream from Tilbury by the barge-load.

  The guests began arriving two weeks before the grand banquet planned to celebrate the actual treaty signing, and at least a month after Cromwell and his team had created the final version on which would go the royal hands. Finally it was the turn of King Francis and his mother, accommodated in the grand suite of staterooms that had been created and furnished specially for the occasion. It was in these rooms that Henry once more embraced the man who had bested him in a wrestling match in the mud of Calais seven years previously, and assured him that despite their differences in the past, England and France were now joined in a lasting friendship that time would never erode.

  It was also Henry who also led the many hunts and other physical excursions from Hampton Court that were organised daily, sailing up-river each day from Richmond in a wonderfully gilded royal barge oared by men in the finest royal livery, changed each day. Queen Katherine studiously avoided any suggestion that she was acting as hostess for the occasion, and Henry therefore took the opportunity of placing the Lady Anne Boleyn in the role of interpreter and guide to Louise of Savoy. This did nothing to improve Katherine’s temper.

  On the night of the Grand Banquet it was also the Lady Anne, together with her father, who sat between Louise and Francis, translating when required, and glowing with the honour being bestowed upon her. Her normally grave face was alight with pleasure and sheer wonder at the English and French chivalry on display, the numerous masqued mummeries, dancing and acrobatic displays, and the splendid music from the royal musicians led by Mark Smeaton. The food was loaded so high on the tables that some feared that the boards might collapse under the strain, and many of those in attendance were well in their cups before the second of sixteen courses had been brought through from the kitchens by liveried pages and servers, following fanfares of trumpets and a loud Latin grace between courses by the man who had made all this possible, whose stomach was rebelling so much from the nervous strain of ensuring that nothing could possibly go awry that he could only manage to consume a modest portion of boiled lamprey and a cup of red wine diluted with water from a freshwater spring that it had taken five grooms a week to locate in the sandy soil of nearby Hanworth.

  Henry had all but exhausted his somewhat burgeoning frame by dancing three Galliards in a row with the Lady Anne, and sat perspiring freely while the lady herself made her excuses and slipped temporarily away on a sign from her father Thomas, who took the chair she had just vacated. As the musicians struck up a more sedate Pavane, Thomas Boleyn leaned sideways to speak in Henry’s ear above the squeal of the instruments and the shuffling of feet and swirling gowns across the floor.

  ‘A very fine celebration indeed, Hal. Wolsey is to be congratulated on having been able to finance such a rich display that does much for the prestige of our nation.’

  Henry looked puzzled.

  ‘He has paid for all this himself, say you?’

  ‘Indeed he has, as I can vouch in my honoured role as Treasurer of the Household. Not a groat has been commissioned from the royal accounts, and we are indeed fortunate that our Chancellor is so rich personally that he can afford to host a night such as this, worthy of two royal monarchs.’

  ‘From whence comes this wealth?’ Henry enquired suspiciously.

  ‘From the Church, obviously,’ Boleyn replied, ‘although it is rumoured by those not well disposed towards him that he grows rich from, shall we say, ‘considerations’ from suitors at his court.’

  ‘Bribes, say you?’

  ‘I say nothing, Hal, since I am not given to spreading rumour that may be false. But one would have to question how the Church alone could provide a man with such wealth as would rival a king. And
he is doubly fortunate to possess this fine palace in which we might entertain a foreign monarch, given that your own was, in the event, inadequate to the task.’

  ‘This is not yet a palace, Thomas,’ Henry reminded him testily. ‘Nor will it become so. You might wish to cause enquiry to be made as to whence comes all the Cardinal’s wealth.’

  ‘It would be both an honour and a duty, Hal. Now, if you would excuse me, all this rich food demands that I avail myself of a closed stool.’

  As Henry waved his hand dismissively and began to think deeply regarding the conversation that had just taken place, Boleyn gave the slightest of hand signals to Norfolk, who had been standing along the back wall, awaiting his opportunity. As the two men passed each other, Boleyn muttered ‘Your turn’ out of the corner of his mouth, and Norfolk took the seat he had recently vacated.

  ‘May I rest here a moment, sire?’ Norfolk requested. ‘Regrettably I have not your Majesty’s seeming inexhaustible energy, and that last dance with the Countess has left me short of breath.’

  ‘That will be the day, when you lack breath for angry discourse, Norfolk,’ Henry joked.

  ‘Not angry, your Majesty. Not today, at least, although yesterday I was greatly incensed to learn that your Chancellor had somewhat overstepped the grandeur while in France, and that some of those ignorant peasants who pose as nobles mistook him for yourself. It is a fine insult from a nation that would be our friend.’

  ‘Of what do you speak, Norfolk?’ Henry enquired grumpily, as he looked behind him for any sign of the return of the Lady Anne.

  ‘Forgive me, sire, but I was speaking to the Duc de D’eauville during yesterday’s chase, and he thought it great jest to confess that until he actually saw your Majesty at the head of the royal pack he had wondered why the King of England was also a Cardinal of the Church of Rome.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘Truly, sire, although of course these French are known for their perverse sense of humour, and it may well have been merely another example of that. Nonetheless, it angered me greatly to hear that a fat priest had been mistaken for yourself.’

  While Henry was taking all this in, Norfolk gave a nod behind him to Boleyn, who waved his hand for the Lady Anne to re-emerge through a side door and rejoin Henry. As she reached the table, Norfolk made his excuses and left, and Henry had a question for Anne.

  ‘Think you that anyone could mistake me for our host this evening?’

  ‘That ugly fat slug? Most certainly not, Henry. How could that possibly be?’

  ‘It seems that some in France mistook him for the King of England.’

  ‘Then they must be fools, Henry. Unless, of course, he made that claim himself. I do not like that man, and I do not trust him. He grows fat on the nation’s wealth, and I suspect that he is no more loved by God than I am. He certainly has no regard for me, to judge by past cruelties.’

  ‘Fear not, Anne,’ Henry said as he grasped her hand warmly. ‘You are loved by the true King of England, howsoever that posturing prelate may regard you. And perhaps he reaches too far.’

  CHAPTER 14

  The King’s great matter

  Thomas stepped cautiously off the wherry onto the landing steps of Richmond Palace, prior to making his way slowly through the gardens. Ahead of him were Roger and Giles Wakely, not in their usual clerical robes, but each armed with a sword and a heavy staff. They were there as a precaution, since one could not be too careful these days.

  The note had been delivered by a page and handed to Thomas Cromwell with instructions that it be passed on, seal unbroken, to the Chancellor in person. Thomas had opened it, and although he could not identify the hand, it was clearly that of an educated and clear-headed individual, perhaps a woman, given the somewhat elaborate lettering. It simply read.

  Please attend at Richmond Palace at noon tomorrow. Approach by way of the river walk.

  He began to walk through the ornate garden, remembering a day now long past when he had encountered Thomas Howard and his royal wife on one of these very avenues between the yew hedges. Ahead of him the Wakely brothers scoured the approaches, occasionally employing a wooden staff to prod through a hedge for a possible assassin. As they turned onto the first of the rose walks, they stopped and stared ahead, as if unsure whether or not to proceed. Roger inclined his head in a sign for Thomas to join them and look for himself. He did so, and there at the end of the Rose Walk was the Queen, with several of her ladies.

  Katherine smiled encouragingly, and said something to her ladies, who fell back and allowed the Queen to continue towards Thomas unaccompanied. The Wakely brothers lowered their weapons out of respect, and bowed deeply as she came within earshot. Katherine appeared to be amused as she looked directly at Thomas.

  ‘Well met, my lord Archbishop. Walk with me a pace, although without your handsome bodyguards, who might perhaps prefer to escort my ladies back to the river terrace.’

  As a chorus of feminine giggles confirmed that they had obeyed the royal command, Katherine turned a sterner eye towards Thomas.

  ‘Have things reached such a pass between us that you need an armed escort to walk with me in a palace garden?’ Thomas smiled faintly before replying.

  ‘I had no idea who had sent the note, and I no longer recognise your hand, which I may say has improved somewhat since those days when you were mastering our quaint language. It was you who sent the note, was it not?’

  ‘It is true that I had it sent, but the actual hand was that of Lady Norreys. I did not wish it attributed to me, should it be intercepted; I also wished our meeting to appear accidental.’

  ‘And why would that be, your Majesty?’

  ‘Today we are “Tomaz” and “Katherine”.’

  ‘My question remains,’ Thomas insisted. Katherine looked furtively behind her, then took Thomas’s arm and steered him further down the path.

  ‘I wish you to tell me why my husband has sent William Knight to Rome.’

  Thomas was temporarily taken aback by the news. For once, his network of agents throughout the Court had failed him, and he was now being informed that the King’s Secretary, the somewhat ageing Archdeacon of Huntingdon, and Henry’s frequent choice of ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles since Thomas had come down so firmly in favour of the alliance with France, had been sent on a diplomatic mission to the Pope.

  He was perhaps an obvious choice, given that Pope Clement was now the virtual prisoner of his own Emperor. The previous year, to Charles’s considerable embarrassment, some of the wilder German elements of his mercenary troops in Italy, being staunch followers of the heretic Luther, and owed arrears of pay, had stormed Rome and sacked it, medieval style. Clement had been wise enough to remove most of his most precious possessions in advance, as Thomas had witnessed personally, and had managed to escape to his fortress of Castel Sant’Angelo on the bank of the Tiber. Although Charles had publically condemned what his troops had done, the fact remained that Pope Clement was effectively his prisoner, and would be even less inclined to grant an annulment of Henry’s marriage to Charles’s aunt.

  Thomas was not so much concerned that Knight had been sent to Rome instead of him as the fact that he had not been consulted, and did not know why – although he could guess.

  Katherine tutted in that way of hers.

  ‘Come, Tomaz, this is Katherine you are talking with. Do not pretend that Henry does not consult you before taking any action.’

  ‘Regrettably, he seems to have done so on this occasion, Katherine.’

  ‘Mierda. Admit it, Tomaz – he has been sent to secure a divorce in order that Henry may marry that Boleyn baggage.’

  ‘She is already married, is she not?’

  ‘You should know, Tomaz, since it was you who arranged it. She is also about to give birth to her second child – please God that it is not another royal bastard. I was not referring to Mary Boleyn anyway, since her bargaining piece became old currency many years ago. I speak of her sister, and my tr
eacherous attendant, the Lady Anne.’

  ‘And what of her, say you?’ Thomas enquired ingenuously, earning himself a disdainful snort from Katherine.

  ‘I was clearly wrong to hope that our old friendship might be prevailed upon to enable you to confide in the former girl to whom you showed such kindness when she was all alone in a Court that was foreign to her. I will ask you straight one more time, then leave you to admire the many fine blooms in this palace garden. Does Henry wish to put me aside and marry the Lady Anne?’

  ‘As you have just had cause to observe,’ Thomas replied diplomatically, ‘his Majesty does not consult me in all things, least of all matters of the heart.’

  ‘But matters of God?’ Katherine persisted. ‘I recall that we have had this conversation on a previous occasion some years ago now, but cannot the Bible be employed to argue that a marriage between a man and his sister’s widow is a sin before God, and no marriage at all?’

  ‘That depends, madame.’

  ‘You may dissemble to “madame” if you choose, Thomas, but tell “Katherine” truly – if I went to Henry’s bed a maid, would that make the marriage a true one in God’s sight?’

  ‘You must understand, Katherine, that there are differences of opinion even among learned clergymen as to how portions of the Bible are to be interpreted …’

  ‘Good day, my lord Archbishop,’ Katherine hissed as she turned smartly on her heel and walked swiftly back up the Rose Walk calling for her ladies.

  It was not to be anticipated that this conversation had gone unreported, and the following morning Thomas looked up from his Chancery ledgers for the cause of the loud disturbance in the outer chamber. He barely had time to rise to his feet to investigate before the door was flung open, and Henry stormed in, slamming the door behind him. He glared at Thomas, who bowed politely and awaited the storm.

  ‘Why were you meeting with the Queen, Wolsey?’ Henry demanded, red in the face. Thomas noted the ominous sign, and wondered which of the Queen’s Ladies had reported the encounter. They had clearly been wise to make their meeting seem accidental.