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)

by Hilary Mantel

  ‘We should not be discouraged,’ the Bishop of Durham suggests. ‘Allow a little time. Nature will take its course.’

  Norfolk looks puzzled; surely Tunstall is no friend to Germans? Tunstall says, ‘I find no fault with the lady. Whatever her brother may be, she is not herself a Lutheran. And perhaps it is time, for England’s sake, to reconcile our differences, through her person.’

  Norfolk says, ‘If Henry could take some air in the day it might go better at night. Skulking by the fire with a book will not help him.’

  Fitzwilliam says, ‘Unless a book of bawdy. That might.’

  Edward Seymour says, ‘He never had trouble in my sister’s day.’

  ‘Not that you know of,’ Norfolk says.

  ‘But he loved her,’ Cranmer says, his voice low.

  Norfolk snorts. Seymour says, ‘True. That match was for love, this for policy. But I agree with Bishop Tunstall. I see nothing wrong with her.’

  Riche says, ‘There is nothing. Except his dislike.’

  Bishop Sampson says, ‘The king being as he is, you took a gamble, Lord Cromwell.’

  He says coldly, ‘I acted for good and sufficient reason. If I promoted the match, it was with his full permission and encouragement.’

  Cranmer says, ‘It may be … and it is only my own opinion …’

  ‘Do not make us drag it from you,’ Fitzwilliam says.

  ‘… there are those who believe every act of copulation a sin –’

  ‘I did not think the king was among them,’ Tunstall says pleasantly.

  ‘– though a sin that, of necessity, God will forgive – yet one must come to the act, not only with intent to engender –’

  ‘Which the king surely does,’ Lord Audley says.

  ‘– but also with the object of a pure merging of heart and soul, arising from a free consent –’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ Suffolk says.

  ‘So if he, or she, were to have any reservation, in mind or in heart – then to the scrupulous, an impediment might appear –’

  Audley cuts him off. ‘What impediment? You mean the pre-contract?’

  Cranmer whispers, ‘The king has read a great deal in the Church Fathers.’

  ‘And later commentators,’ Bishop Sampson says. ‘Who are not always helpful, tending to dispute how men sin and in which way, when they are abed. But sin they do.’

  ‘Even with their wives?’ Suffolk looks stricken.

  Sampson says, with dry malice, ‘That is possible.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Norfolk says. ‘Cromwell, is that in the scriptures?’

  ‘Why doesn’t your lordship try reading them?’

  Audley clears his throat. All the councillors turn in his direction. ‘Just be clear. His incapacity –’

  ‘Or unwillingness –’ Cranmer adds.

  ‘– or unwillingness – is it anything to do with the papers from Cleves, or not?’

  Cranmer will not commit. ‘Scruples are of various sorts.’

  ‘So will it be helped by getting the papers?’ Riche asks.

  ‘It couldn’t hurt, could it?’ Bishop Sampson says. ‘Of course by then it will be Lent. And he will not sleep with her in Lent.’

  ‘We shouldn’t be talking like this.’ Suffolk looks stern. ‘We are men, not gossiping housewives. We lack respect for our sovereign lord.’

  Fitzwilliam slaps the table. ‘You know it is me he blames? He says I should have stopped her at Calais. I wrote to him she was like a princess, and she is. Nothing else was in question. Is it for me to feel her duckies and write home my opinion, and send it by post horse and boat?’

  The door opens. It is Call-Me. He looks as if he is walking on hot pebbles. ‘Get out!’ Norfolk bellows. ‘Interrupting the council!’

  Call-Me says, ‘The king. He is coming this way.’

  They stand, with a scraping of stools. Henry’s eyes pass over them. ‘Squabbling?’

  ‘Yes,’ Brandon says sadly.

  He cuts in: ‘Your Majesty values concord, and rightly. But I cannot and never will come into concord with those who give wrong advice.’

  Charles Brandon says, ‘But it is very good of you to join us, sir. We did not look for you. We hardly expected you. We rejoice to see you. We –’

  ‘Yes, enough, Charles,’ Henry says. ‘It is time we talked about the Duke of Bavaria, his suit to my lady daughter.’

  ‘Bless him,’ Charles Brandon says: as if the young duke were sick.

  ‘My lord Privy Seal,’ the king says, ‘you and Bavaria went up to see the Lady Mary, did you not? And then of course, she was fetched to Baynard’s Castle, and she and the duke were permitted some discourse. That would have been about Christmas Eve?’

  The king talks as if there is some mystery, and he is trying to penetrate it. He bows his assent: yes, all that is true. Philip had wished to present Mary with a great cross of diamonds, but the councillors had deterred him. If the match were not to go ahead, would a present of such value need to be returned? It is a sticky point of protocol. Word went out to the goldsmiths, and a cross of lesser value was found.

  The Lady Mary had walked with Duke Philip in a bare winter garden at Westminster, where life was shrunk to its roots. They had spoken: partly through an interpreter, partly in Latin.

  When the cross was presented, Mary had kissed it. And kissed Philip. On the cheek. ‘Which is a good sign, by God,’ Brandon says. ‘For she never kissed any of us.’

  ‘You have not the rank,’ the king says. ‘That traitor Exeter was the last who did. Being her cousin.’

  Bishop Sampson leans forward, frowning. ‘Philip is not her cousin, is he? Or if he is, in what degree?’ He jots a note to himself.

  Henry says, ‘It appears to me our friendship with the German states would be greatly strengthened if we made this match.’

  There is silence. The king half-smiles. He has always prided himself on the surprises he gives his councillors. ‘If I can sacrifice myself for England, why not my daughter? If I must breed for my nation, why cannot she? I am assured by Cromwell she will be conformable. He always gives me that assurance, and yet nothing ever comes of it. Bishop Sampson, perhaps you would go to her, and prepare her for marriage?’

  Sampson compresses his lips. He can barely force a nod.

  He, Thomas Cromwell, says, ‘In Europe they are claiming the marriage is already made, and against the lady’s will. Vaughan says Antwerp is talking about it. Marillac believes it, or pretends to. The word has gone out to François.’

  Henry says, ‘They think I would enforce her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Henry stares at him. ‘And?’

  ‘And so I think, your Majesty not offended, you had better reverse your intentions, disappoint the duke, and bid him a swift journey home. Otherwise you will be doing exactly what your foes expect. Which is never good policy.’

  Edward Seymour covers his mouth. Mirth escapes.

  Henry is silent, mouth pursed. Then he says, ‘Very well. I shall do something else for Philip. The Garter, perhaps.’ He rubs the bridge of his nose. ‘You had better not close off his hopes. Tell him he may return. Tell him I shall always be glad to see him, at some date not yet decided.’

  ‘Majesty, your daughter will never marry,’ Norfolk says. ‘Cromwell breaks every match proposed for her.’

  The king gets up. He rubs his chest with one hand, steadies himself with the other. They are all on their feet, ready to kneel: sometimes he exacts it, sometimes not. Norfolk offers, ‘My arm, Majesty?’

  ‘What use is that?’ Henry says. ‘I could better hold you up, Thomas Howard, than you me.’

  The door is flung wide for the king’s exit. Call-Me falters in, and hovers. Only then do they notice that the Duke of Suffolk is still seated at the council board. He rocks to and fro on his stool. ‘Poor H
arry, poor Harry,’ he moans. Tears course down his cheeks.

  On 7 January the king sleeps alone, as his doctors have advised. For the next two nights, his gentlemen escort him to the queen’s rooms.

  Dr Butts comes to him. ‘Lord Cromwell, it is all naught. I have told his Majesty not to enforce himself.’

  ‘In case injury comes to his royal person,’ Chambers says.

  ‘He says he will still go to her suite every other night,’ Dr Butts says. ‘So it will give rise to no talk.’

  Chambers says, ‘He claims she has displeasant airs about her. You might talk to her chamberwomen. See if they are washing her well enough.’

  He says, ‘You go to them if you like.’ He pictures them sousing and soaping Anna, scrubbing her in the Thames and beating her on stones; hauling her up and wringing her. ‘I would stake my life she is a virgin.’

  ‘He seems to have dropped that line of talk,’ Chambers says. ‘Now he only says she disgusts him. But he claims he is capable of the act itself. Or capable of emission, at least. Which will be a relief to you to know, if you have to take him to market again.’

  Dr Butts whispers: ‘He has experienced … you understand us … duas pollutiones nocturnas in somne.’

  ‘So he thinks he could do it with another woman,’ Chambers says.

  ‘Has he anyone in mind?’ He thinks, I am like Charles Brandon: I am ashamed to hold such conversation.

  At the next council meeting the Lord Chancellor says, ‘If the king and queen are civil to each other by day, it will help counter the rumours. And I think we can rely on them for that.’

  ‘When he was with the other one,’ Fitz says, ‘and he couldn’t tup her, he blamed witches.’

  ‘Superstition,’ Cranmer says. ‘He knows better now.’

  Norfolk says, ‘Well, Cromwell? What to do?’

  He says, ‘I have done nothing, but for his safety and happiness.’

  He overhears a young courtier – it is a Howard of course, the young Culpeper: ‘If the king cannot manage it with the new queen, Cromwell will do it for him. Why not? He does everything else.’

  His friend laughs. What alarms him is not their mockery. It is that they take no care to keep their voices low.

  When the council meets they should, he feels, put down sand to soak up the blood. It is like the champ clos for a tournament, sturdily fenced to stop the spectators getting in or the combatants getting out. The king stands in a watchtower, judging every move.

  That night he writes to Stephen Vaughan. He tells him what he tells everyone abroad: the king and queen are merry, and all here believe the marriage a great success.

  I am lying even to Vaughan, he thinks.

  Richard Riche asks him, ‘What do you hear from your daughter in Antwerp?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he says.

  Riche says, ‘It may be as well. The king has a sharp nose for heresy. Of course, my lord, since you have been such a traveller in this world, you may have other offspring, unknown to you. Do you ever think of that?’

  ‘Yes, Wolsey mentioned it a time or two.’ He thinks, if Jenneke made a claim on me now, I don’t know if I could meet it. He ushers Riche out as Wriothesley comes in. Clearly he has been eavesdropping on Riche, because his face is flushed. He says, ‘That man has no feeling at all. He is a tissue of ambition.’

  He thinks, but that is what Riche tells me about you. But while I rule, you do your best for me, and your best is very good. I must place my trust, even if I have misgivings. I cannot work alone. The Seymour boys have their own interests at heart, why would they not? In these strange times Suffolk is my well-wisher, but Suffolk is stupid. I cannot count on Fitzwilliam for support, he is busy defending his own position, and blames me because he is blamed. Cranmer is frightened, he is always frightened. Latimer is disgraced. Robert Barnes I would not trust with his own life, let alone mine. Manuals of advice tell us you should fear weak men more than strong men. But we are all weak, in the presence of the king. Even Thomas Wyatt, who can face down a lion.

  A realm’s chief councillor should have a grand plan. But now he’s pushing through, hour to hour, not raising his head from his business. The city is full of Germans – official, unofficial – who believe that he will make the king a fit ally for Luther. Lord Cromwell, they coax, we know that it is you who day by day softens the force of last summer’s laws. ‘We know in your heart you wish a more perfect reformation. You believe what we believe.’

  He indicates the king, standing at a distance: ‘I believe what he believes.’

  At Austin Friars he goes out to see his leopard. Dick Purser knows the beast’s habits, her sullen whims, her episodes of dangerous friskiness. ‘Dick,’ he says, ‘you mustn’t think you can get friendly with her. You mustn’t think you can let her out.’

  He looks at the brute and she looks back at him. Her golden eyes blink. She yawns, but all the time she is thinking of murder. She gives herself away by the twitching of her tail.

  Dick says, ‘What would she say if she could speak?’

  ‘Nothing we would understand.’

  ‘I never thought I would be keeper of such a beast, that day you came to get me from More’s house.’

  He puts his arm around the boy’s shoulders. Dick Purser is an orphan; it was More and Bishop Stokesley who hunted and hounded his father, setting him in the pillory and shaming him as a heretic, and it was their ill-treatment, he is sure, that killed him. More wanted credit for taking in the boy; and credit again, for whipping heresy out of him. Sir Thomas bragged he had never struck his own children, not even with a feather. But he did not extend the courtesy to the children of others.

  He himself had turned up, dry-mouthed with rage, on More’s doorstep. He would not send a servant to do it, nor would he wait in the outer hall for More to be at leisure. ‘I’ve come for Purser’s son. Give him to me, or I’ll lay a complaint against you for assault.’

  ‘What?’ More said. ‘For correcting a child of the house? People will laugh at you, Master Cromwell. Anyway, the rascal has vanished. Fortunately he took only what he stood up in. Or charges would lie.’

  ‘I hear he took your blessing. You could see the marks.’

  ‘He’s probably run to your house,’ More said. ‘Where would he seek shelter, but a heretic roof?’

  ‘Beware an action for slander,’ he said: one lawyer to another.

  ‘Bring one,’ More said. ‘The facts would be aired. Your book trade connections. Your dubious associates. Antwerp, all that. No … you go home, you’ll find the wretch at your gate. Where else would he go?’

  To the wharves, he thinks, to the docks. To take ship. To do what I did. He could do worse. Or then again perhaps he couldn’t.

  Now he pays Dick Purser twelve pounds a year. He gets fourpence daily for the leopard’s keep.

  He goes to see Lord Rutland, Chamberlain of the Queen’s Household. Their conversation is circumlocutory, but Lord Rutland is clear that he does not meddle in bedroom matters.

  He will speak to his wife, he offers. Lady Rutland speaks to the senior lady among the Germans. Next day Anna leaves off her bonnet and appears in a French hood, the oval framing her face and showing off her pretty fair hair.

  He says to Jane Rochford, ‘Is there a colour that would make her skin look fresher? The king keeps mentioning Jane.’

  ‘Jane was not fresh,’ Rochford says, ‘she was pallid. She looked as if she lived under an altar cloth. Not that she was so holy. She spent her time frightening Anne Boleyn.’

  Mary Fitzroy says, ‘You cannot expect the queen to glow, my lord. She hears the king is unhappy, and the more English she learns, the more explanation she will require.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think she will,’ the child Katherine Howard says. ‘She has heard that the king’s first wife was divorced because she kept asking God to pardon him, using a loud voice in Latin. And
that he killed Anne Boleyn because she gossiped and shrieked. And that his third wife was beloved because she hardly talked at all. Therefore she aims to imitate Jane. Only not die.’

  Rochford says, ‘Perhaps you’d like to come in yourself, my lord, and wash and dress her? We’ll stand her naked before you, and you can do the rest.’

  He says, ‘If she confides in you, come to me.’

  Through the interpreters he learns what Anna expects of marriage. Her parents did not marry for love, but love followed. They wrote poems for each other. She understands the king has written verses in his time, and wonders when he will write one for her.

  The ambassadors of Cleves ask, ‘This long while past, when your king was without a wife, did he take mistresses?’

  ‘Our king is virtuous,’ he says.

  ‘We do not doubt it,’ the ambassadors say. ‘Though there could be other reasons.’

  He says to Fitzwilliam, ‘Advise the king to make some public demonstration of his affection.’

  ‘You do it,’ Fitz says.

  ‘No, you.’

  Fitz groans.

  Later that day, before his assembled court and the Germans, Henry calls for the queen, takes her by the hand. ‘Come, dear madam.’ He looks around his councillors – their faces, willing him on.

  He grapples her to him. Anna’s forehead rests against his gem-studded breast. As if she might struggle, the king holds her fast. As if she might escape, he tightens his grip.

  Anna’s body is rigid, flattened. Her mouth is buried in his furs. She attempts to twist sideways, so she can breathe. Her hand, bunching up her skirts, contracts into a fist. Her head strains backwards. She emits a gasp. Then, her back to the witnesses, she is silent.