But he was overruled. They beat the drum for their intentions: and now look! The king at Windsor wants familar faces about him. His boys are edged onto benches where the great magnates of the realm are used to sit. When the archbishop comes in, dusty from the road, they are at a loss to find an episcopal sort of chair.
‘Why are you here?’ he asks: politely enough. ‘You were not looked for.’
‘Because of the songs,’ Cranmer says. ‘Crum and Cram and Cramuel. Do they think there is you, my lord, and me, and then some third person compounded of both?’
‘It is a mystery. Like the Trinity.’
It seems the trouble is not confined to a distant shire. Cranmer says, ‘There are placards hung through Lambeth. I am not safe in my house. Hugh Latimer has been threatened. I hear in Lincolnshire they have attacked Bishop Longland’s servants.’
John Longland is a cautious, rigid, unsmiling man, who helped the king to get free from his first marriage: not popular on that account, in his own see or through the realm. The upset is worse than Cranmer knows. In Horncastle – it is well-witnessed – one of Longland’s men has been bludgeoned to death, the parish clergy cheering as he gasped his life out; and a man who calls himself Captain Cobbler is strutting with the victim’s coat on his back.
‘My lord archbishop, you should know that I am in the songs too,’ Richard Riche says. ‘I hear my name is reviled.’
‘It would be,’ Richard Cromwell says. ‘It’s a fine name for a rhyme. Flitch, pitch, ditch.’
He says to Cranmer, ‘Perhaps withdraw to the country for a week or two?’
‘Well, if the country were safe,’ Cranmer murmurs. ‘I am afraid there are papists in my own household. If they travel about with me, where shall I go? But London is your business, my lord. If this contagion is spreading, you must look to it.’
‘Switch, twitch, hitch,’ Richard says.
‘Hush,’ Fitzwilliam says. ‘The king is here.’
Mr Wriothesley is a pace behind the king; he has a new doublet of sea-green satin, in which he glows like a Venetian, and delicately he edges aside the quills and penknives of smaller men, to mark out a place for himself. Rafe Sadler, harassed in his old grey riding coat, nudges himself onto a bench end.
‘My lord archbishop!’ the king says. ‘No, do not kneel! It is I should kneel to you.’
‘Why?’ Richard Cromwell whispers. ‘What sin has he done now?’
He suppresses a smile. King and prelate tussle; Cranmer is set on his feet. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ the king says, ‘the news is poor hearing. I would incline to mercy if this brawl were to end now, with no further harm to gentlemen’s property nor insult to the crown.’ He sighs: Henry the Well-Beloved. ‘They fear the winter, poor devils. Reassure them that should there be scarcities, no one will profit from their distress. Proclaim a fixed price for grain if you must. Set up a commission to investigate hoarding. My lord Privy Seal knows what to do, he will remember how the cardinal used to deal with such matters in his day. Offer the malcontents a free pardon, but only if they disperse now.’
‘I counsel you against leniency,’ Fitzwilliam says. ‘If this should spread to Yorkshire, and north to the border, we are all in peril.’
He leans forward. ‘May I alert my lord of Norfolk? He could turn out his tenants and quiet the eastern shires.’
‘Keep Thomas Howard away from me,’ the king says.
Riche says, ‘With respect, Majesty, it is towards the rebels we would send him. Not towards your sacred person.’
The king is annoyed. ‘I think I can rely on my officers in those parts. If need be, my lord of Suffolk has a sufficient power.’
Wriothesley holds up a dispatch. ‘It is stated here that wherever they gather they are chanting, “Bread or Blood”. They have sworn oaths. What oaths,’ he consults his papers, ‘we await advisement.’
Fitzwilliam says, ‘Saving your Majesty, the reason for these riots – it is not just about filling their bellies. They want their monks back.’
‘Their monks are not gone,’ Richard Riche says. ‘I wish to God they were, and the revenue from the great houses free to use.’
Under the table, he – Lord Cromwell – kicks Riche’s ankle.
Fitzwilliam says, ‘They ask for the old worship to be restored. The Pope to have his primacy.’
‘They ask for all things to be as they were in times past,’ Wriothesley says. ‘And God knows, even my lord cardinal would have found that outwith his powers, to make time flow backwards.’
‘But their saints are eternal,’ Fitzwilliam says, ‘or so they think. They want them back, those our injunctions have taken away. They are asking for St Wilfred. They want Crispin and Crispianus, and the virgin Agatha. They want Giles and Swithin, and all the harvest saints. They would rather have a holiday than get the crops in, and they would rather parade with banners than set the winter wheat.’ He says, ‘They believe that if you harvest on saints’ days, your hands drop off. The fruits of learning may one day be seen in England, but let me advertise you, they are not seen yet.’
Cranmer says, ‘I understand they are burning books.’
‘Poor men do not rise without leaders,’ he says. ‘Let no man tell me they do.’
Letters come in. The seals are broken. The king tosses the papers down as he reads: ‘Here, Wriothesley. Give my lord Cromwell sight of this.’
Call-Me is reading over the king’s shoulder. ‘As you say, Lord Cromwell, certain gentlemen are leading the canaille. We have names.’
‘But the gentlemen protest they are enforced?’
‘Haled out of bed in the middle of the night,’ Wriothesley says. ‘Nightcaps on their heads.’
‘One has heard of it before,’ he says. Their wives screaming, and country folk with torches aloft in their hands, threatening to fire the barns unless the gentlemen saddle up and lead them to the king. These broils begin the same, and from age to age they end the same. The gentry pardoned, and the poor dangling from trees.
He says, ‘I will send a message up-country to Lord Talbot. Tell him to turn out his people and get himself to Nottingham with the strongest company he can find. Hold the castle, and from there he can move either by Mansfield towards Lincoln, or up to Yorkshire if –’
The king says, ‘Sadler, send to Greenwich for my armour.’
There is a babble of protest: no, sire, do not risk your sacred person! For Lincolnshire? God forbid.
‘If the common folk are saying I am dead, what choice have I?’
Cranmer says, ‘The malcontents aim at your councillors, not your Majesty’s person. To whom they declare themselves loyal – but such rebels always do. I know what they intend for me. If they come south I shall be burned.’
‘Lord Cromwell’s head is their chief demand,’ Wriothesley says. ‘They believe my lord has practised some device or sorcery on the king. As the cardinal did before him.’
He says, ‘I am offended for my prince, that they deem him no more than a child to be led.’
‘By God, I am offended too,’ Henry says. He has read all the news that comes in, but only now does he seem to take it in – flushed, his fist thumping the table. ‘I take it ill to be instructed by the folk of Lincolnshire, which is one of the most brute and beastly shires in the realm. How do they presume to dictate what men I keep about me? Let them understand this. When I choose a humble man for my councillor, HE IS NO MORE HUMBLE. Who will advise me, when Lord Cromwell is put down? Will these rebels do it? Colin Clump and Peter Pisspiddle, and old Grandpa Gaphead and his goat?’
‘No, they will not,’ the archbishop murmurs.
‘Will Robin Ragbag raise the revenues?’ the king asks.
‘Or Simple Simon draft a law?’ Riche pipes up as if he cannot help himself. Henry glares at the interruption. His voice rises. ‘I made my minister, and by God I will maintain him. If I say Cromw
ell is a lord, he is a lord. And if I say Cromwell’s heirs are to follow me and rule England, by God they will do it, or I shall come out of my grave and want to know why.’
There is a silence.
The king rises. ‘Keep me informed.’
Master Wriothesley steps out of the king’s way, watching him with solemn eyes.
‘I go to shoot,’ Henry says. He rolls away with his gentlemen, to the archery butts below the royal apartments. ‘Keep my eye in,’ he calls. His voice trails after him, and is lost in the afternoon.
The council disperses, except the archbishop: except Fitzwilliam, and except Richard Riche, who sticks at the table, frowning and leafing through his papers, and Wriothesley, who leans over him, whispering. It is settled that Charles Brandon will stop whatever he is doing, take men and restore order in Lincolnshire. Charles is a brisk man for this sort of thing, and we rely on him not to be too heavy-handed with the poorer sort. Lord Chancellor Audley, now on his way to Windsor, should be sent back to his own parts, in case any spark blown south should start a fire in Essex.
‘So, Crumb, how does it feel?’ Fitzwilliam asks him. ‘To be the heir presumptive to England?’
He waves the joke away. ‘But he proclaimed you!’ Fitz says. ‘Sir Richard Riche, you are witness.’
A non-committal grunt from Riche, head low over his notes. Fitz says, ‘The king by himself can appoint you, since he made his new law for the succession. Certainly Parliament can make you king – what think you, Riche?’
Suppose Parliament were to pass an act saying that I, Richard Riche, should be king? If Riche hears an echo from Thomas More’s day, it does not distract him. ‘Riche will not look up,’ Fitz says. ‘I must be wrong. I am no lawyer, am I? Still, my ears did not deceive me. He named you next king, Crumb. And I have thought that, of late, young Gregory had a very princely air about him.’
‘It is since he came back from Kenninghall,’ he says. ‘He enjoyed his summer with Norfolk.’
‘If this business spreads,’ Fitz says, ‘we will have to unleash Uncle Norfolk, whether Harry wants him or no. He has the forces in the east, and he is a power in the north.’
Riche says, not pausing in his scribbling, ‘Anyone you can pull back from Ireland?’
‘We’re barely holding the Pale,’ he says. ‘I would abandon the wretched place, except it would let our enemies in Europe set up camp on our doorstep. My lord archbishop,’ he turns to Cranmer, ‘you must take your lady out of London. Keep her safe at some small house of yours –’
The archbishop emits a shriek – muffled, like Jonah’s inside the whale.
Riche cuts him off. ‘Oh, peace, my lord archbishop. We all know you have married a wife.’
Fitz says, ‘We all know.’
‘No one here would betray you,’ Riche says. ‘The king holds you in high esteem, and if he does not choose to know, we do not choose to tell him.’
‘I pray God to move his heart,’ the archbishop says, ‘so he relents, and understands matrimony as a blessing no man should be denied.’
‘He likes it himself,’ Fitzwilliam says. ‘You would think he would like it for others.’
‘Give him time,’ he says. ‘And Riche, I know you are keen for work, you Augmentations men, and I am sorry I kicked you under the table, but I do not want the king to say we pushed him or led him where he did not want to go.’
‘But we have a plan?’ Riche says. ‘For the great houses to be dissolved?’
‘Oh, we always have a plan.’
Call-Me straightens up from his conference with Riche’s papers: glimpsing himself in the window, he studies his wavering shape and adjusts the angle of his cap. ‘My lord archbishop, you should comfort your lady that all will be well. I hear she does not speak our language. That must make her start at shadows. The rebels will not come here.’
‘No?’ Cranmer says. ‘You will not talk it away, Wriothesley. It is no light matter and I believe we are ill-prepared. I do not believe this is the action of a few malcontent men. You will find the Emperor’s finger in the pie. You will find certain familiars of his Majesty, who look to a future without him. They will proclaim Mary if they can get her, and then we shall have war. You need not mince matters with me, Mr Wriothesley. I have seen the worst men can do, to their fellow men and to women. In Germany I have seen a battlefield. I have not spent all my life at Cambridge.’
He turns his back on the archbishop and walks to the window. He can see the king and his gentlemen at their sport, in a haze of late sunshine. On the opposite bank, out of sight through the trees, the scholars of Eton are conning their book, and filing to oratory and chapel to pray for their founder, King Henry VI of blessed memory.
Riche has joined him, silent at his elbow. Far below them, he sees a shifting glitter, like salmon skin, against the afternoon: it is the queen in a dress of silver grey, brought out to watch the sport. ‘She looks – cushioned,’ Riche says.
‘She is a great doer at the table, that is all. She is not with child. Lady Rochford tells me when her courses come. No husband more anxious than I.’
‘The other one was skin and bone at the last. A thin old woman.’
The king looks up, as if he knows he is being watched. He turns and waves: Lord Cromwell, come out to play?
He holds up a letter, just arrived: scratches his head to show he is busy making sense of it. The sunshine has faded, and the river light is green; the king, swimming in it, thrusts out his lip to mimic a sulky child. Then he plucks off his hat and points with it towards Datchet: I shall come in when the light fails.
‘October already!’ people say. ‘Where did the summer go?’
Helen has sewn another kerchief, in place of that he carried to Shaftesbury. She has sewn the laurel, which lives for ever, and the ivy, continual in its green.
An order goes to the London guilds to muster men and arm them. Beacons set by the rebels are seen across the river Humber. It is certain Yorkshire will rise. ‘Rely on my lord Cromwell to placate them,’ Fitzwilliam says, smiling. ‘In Yorkshire they treasure his good word.’
The king raises an eyebrow. He must explain – an activity he dislikes. ‘In former times, Majesty, they used to threaten my life.’
Mr Wriothesley adds, ‘My lord Privy Seal was detested, for his service to the cardinal.’
‘Sir,’ Riche says, ‘had we not better heed the archbishop’s words, and secure the person of the Lady Mary?’
‘What do you suggest?’ he asks Riche. ‘Chaining her up?’
The king looks uneasy. ‘I would not for the world that rebels use my daughter against me. Keep watch on her, will you?’
He says, ‘She’s watched.’
In London they halt all large gatherings, including Sunday games. Horses are requisitioned, the garrison at the Tower reinforced. Let merchants buy up stocks of wool and finished cloth and keep the outworkers of Essex employed, as well as apprentices in the city: we know about idle hands. Masters should look well to their servants. All the priests and friars should deliver up any arms they possess to the city – save they may keep a knife for cutting their meat at table.
Wriothesley comes to him: you need to go to the Tower and get the king’s gold plate and start turning it into coin. Then back here to Windsor, quick as you can.
He says, I am going to see Chapuys.
It is said that a servant of his called Bellowe, a trusted clerk, has been captured and blinded. They have skinned a new-dead bull, sewn Bellowe in its hide, then loosed dogs.
He pictures Bellowe, as he was. Presumably his own father would not know him now. Only God will recognise him, restoring his features at the general resurrection.
He thinks, how can they know the dogs are hungry enough? Do they whip them into pens and starve them? Even his own watchdogs would not eat a living man.
The ambassador says, ‘I understand the
Duke of Norferk is in London, and in a fever to see you. Alack, where is Cremuel? One would think the duke is in love.’
‘He wants me to put him back in credit with the king.’
‘Henry thinks he has disrespected the corpse of the poor little Fitzroy,’ the ambassador says. ‘The king asked for no pomp, so the duke tips his dead bastard in a wagon.’
‘It gives you something to amuse the Emperor with. In your dispatches.’
‘I myself think Norferk was angry with the boy for dying. What about Madame Jane, is Henry tired of her yet?’
‘You see, this is how my master is traduced,’ he says. ‘Fickleness is not his vice – even you must allow that. He was with Katherine twenty years. He waited seven years for Boleyn.’
‘There were concubines, of course. Although, what king is without them? There was Richmond’s mother. And the Boleyn sister who he bedded before Anne. The court is speculating who will come next. They say Norferk will put his daughter forward. He must get use out of her, and perhaps it would pique Henry’s appetite, to penetrate the widow of his dead son.’
‘Eustache …’ he says.
‘I see you are out of humour.’
‘It’s the scent of treason in the air. It makes my eyes water. It sets my teeth on edge.’
Grievous, Chapuys murmurs.
‘If your master means to send aid to our rebels, he has left it late in the year.’
‘Ah, you call them rebels. I thought it was merely a few turnips, sodden with drink? What interest could my master have in their proceedings?’
‘None. Unless he has received bad advice. Through your usual bad sources.’
He imagines upending Lord Montague and other Poles, and smacking the soles of their feet till their secrets spill out of their mouths. He imagines laying a clasp-knife to the heart of Nicholas Carew, prising it open like an oyster. He imagines shaking Gertrude Courtenay, till treason drops from her like falling leaves. Slicing the cranium of her husband, the Marquis of Exeter, and stirring a forefinger in the murk of his intentions.
The Mirror and the Light: 2020’s highly anticipated conclusion to the best selling, award winning Wolf Hall series (The Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book 3) Page 34