by David Field
Jane smiled across at Richard. ‘My sister was much taken with the handsome young clerk she encountered in the kitchen this morning.’
‘Bess?’ Richard asked with a returning smile.
‘How many more of my sisters were in the kitchen?’ Jane teased him.
Richard blushed. ‘She is quite one of the most naturally beautiful women I have ever encountered,’ he mumbled, but Jane was still in a playful mood.
‘You must wonder how she ever came to have a sister as plain as me.’
‘A sister who has caught the King’s eye,’ he reminded her, and her face reflected her uncertainty.
‘Do you really believe that he has an eye for me with a view to marriage, or simply as another of his mistresses?’
‘The King does not confide in me on such matters, my lady, or indeed any matters at all. You must ask my master that question, although I do not believe that even Master Secretary is privy to his infidelities.’
‘I do not think I could bear it if he were to prove unfaithful,’ Jane mumbled as she looked down at the grass.
‘You are minded to marry him, then?’ Richard pressed her.
She nodded. ‘Would you be prepared to do me the kindness to attend upon me in the afternoons, when I am Queen? I so enjoyed your visits when I served Anne, and few Courtiers other than you regarded me as suitable for conversation.’
‘As I recall, those conversations consisted largely of me trying to coax you into saying something. You were very shy in those days.’
‘In truth, some of us dared not so much as open our mouths in that company, since we knew not what humour the Queen was in from day to day, or indeed from hour to hour. Then, when she began to suspect that Henry had an eye for me, she took every opportunity to belittle and demean me in the eyes of her hangers-on. There was only Lady Rochford who dared stand up to her. It was being rumoured, ere I departed the Court, that you and she have — well, shall we say, an “understanding”?’
‘If we do, then it is all in her imagination,’ Richard said in his own defence, horrified in case Jane Rochford had boasted of their antics, both in the side bed chamber and in Cromwell’s private quarters.
‘She would not be the only one with fantasies in your direction,’ Jane told him, then blushed. ‘I do not, of course, refer to myself, but there were other comments passed on those days when you had been in our company and departed that suggested that more than one lady would welcome the opportunity. Even Anne, in my hearing, on one occasion.’
‘Do not add me to the list of those condemned to the Tower!’ Richard replied in mock horror. Then it occurred to him that a change of subject might be in order. ‘Is it true that we journey, not to Whitehall, but to Placentia Palace at Greenwich?’
‘Yes. Word came from Edward just before we left this morning. He and his wife have been allocated a suite of rooms there that will be large enough to accommodate me as well. He added that they were convenient for Henry to visit us all.’
‘I suspect that the main object of Henry’s visits will be you, My Lady.’
‘You are probably correct in that. Isn’t it all so romantic? But I shall hold you to your promise to make frequent visits also.’
XIII
In the absence of the Master Secretary and his Senior Clerk, much had been happening. Those accused and marked for trial were already lodged in the Tower, and there was a message awaiting Cromwell that his attendance was urgently sought there by Sir William Kingston, its constable.
‘I require you to accompany me at all times, from now on,’ Cromwell insisted to Richard over breakfast on the morning after their return from Wulfhall. ‘There is much clerking to be done, and I believe that it would be expedient to have a witness to my every conversation as the matter proceeds to its conclusion.’
‘Its foregone conclusion?’ Richard asked cynically, but Cromwell’s only response was a hard stare.
‘Smeaton is still here,’ Kingston told them an hour later over wine and wafers, ‘since I have been advised that a charge of treason has been added to his account.’
‘By whom?’ Cromwell demanded.
‘By whom was I advised, or by whom has he been accused?’
‘Both, although I wager that Norris was the one who paid him back with the treason charge.’
‘You are correct in that. But it was my lord of Norfolk who conveyed the instruction to keep him close confined. He also wished him tortured, but I declined to do so, and advised him of your instruction to me.’
‘How did Norfolk take that?’ Cromwell enquired with a grin.
‘He blasphemed horribly, and all but demolished yon door on his hasty departure.’
‘Little wonder,’ Cromwell gloated. ‘He must be shitting himself copiously with the fall of his queen piece on the chessboard of Court politics.’
‘He treated her very roughly when they brought her downriver, and we were receiving her at the river steps,’ Kingston told them both. ‘As she set foot on land, she fell to her knees. At first we thought she had merely lost her footing after being on water all the way down from Whitehall, but then she threw herself flat on her face, and began such a wailing and kicking that I feared that she had lost her wits. Norfolk grabbed her by the back of her neck, hauled her to her feet, slapped her around the head and told her that she was no niece of his. She fell silent after that.’
‘Who wouldn’t?’ Cromwell replied. ‘Norfolk has the capacity to silence thunder when the fancy so takes him. How has Anne been since?’
Kingston shook his head from side to side in a gesture of uncertainty. ‘She behaves like someone who cannot believe what has happened, then at other times she seems resigned to her fate. My wife attends her, as you commanded, but she is constantly demanding the attendance of her other Ladies, who she asserts must be concerned for her welfare.’
‘If only she knew,’ Cromwell replied with a grimace. ‘There is not one of them left who would wish to be associated with her — except perhaps Lady Rochford, and then only to gloat.’
‘But Lady Kingston cannot shoulder the burden of her company for twenty-four hours in every day. Anne must have other ladies attend her.’
‘Perhaps Lady Shelton? The aunt, that is, not the cousin.’
‘As you command,’ Kingston confirmed.
‘The boy Smeaton — has he asked to see me?’ Cromwell enquired.
Kingston nodded. ‘Every hour of every day.’
‘Tell him I am dead,’ Cromwell replied as he made to leave, gesturing for Richard to follow him. ‘As indeed I am, to him.’
The trials began less than a week later, and Cromwell and Richard were forced to take men with halberds with them to fight their way through the multitude clamouring for admission to Westminster Hall, many of whom had been queuing since noon the previous day. It was almost as chaotic inside, as the cream of England’s nobility mingled uneasily with the senior judges of the King’s Bench to form the most unlikely, and certainly the largest, jury that English common law had ever known.
Norfolk glowered as he came over. ‘Was it really necessary to have me as judge?’ he thundered.
‘Did you wish someone else to take from you the baton of Lord High Steward, or are you fearful that the substitute thus chosen might prove more worthy than you? I could understand why being bested by a goat-herd might prove galling.’
‘Fuck off, Cromwell.’
‘He is to sit in judgement over his own niece?’ Richard asked, horror-stricken, as Norfolk stormed away in a cloud of blasphemy.
Cromwell grinned. ‘The jury will have the yes or no of the matter. As for any family sentiment that Norfolk might retain for his errant niece, that came apart when her legs did. She has let down the Howards and the Boleyns, whose titles and preferments will now take off like startled crows.’
‘But the Queen is not for trial today?’
‘No. Today we fry the first dish. Smeaton and the non-ennobled.’
‘How are they pleading to the charges
?’
‘They haven’t heard them yet. They will be read out, and then they will be asked how they plead.’
‘Then the court adjourns while they prepare their defences?’
‘No, we proceed straight into our accusations.’
‘In what order will you call the witnesses?’
‘No need. We have their sworn statements.’
‘But defence witnesses?’
‘If they have any, they will be heard.’
‘Is this how the common law courts normally conduct their business?’
‘Of course not. If they did, there would be popular clamour and allegations of breach of Magna Carta. But for the trial of a Queen and her alleged conspirators on charges of treason there is no procedural precedent.’
‘So you are making it up as you go along?’
‘Precisely. That is why I was asked to prosecute. As the man at the head of the Court of Chancery, I am accustomed to being inventive.’
By the end of the day’s proceedings, as the condemned men were escorted back outside to the waiting barge that would return them to the Tower, and whatever form of death awaited them, Richard had abandoned any belief he might have harboured regarding justice in any cause that involved a monarch. Smeaton had pleaded guilty, with many tearful pleas that he might be dispatched quickly and mercifully, while the remainder had defiantly denied any guilt, but then steadfastly refrained from offering any evidence in their defence.
Cromwell, in his role as prosecutor in the King’s name, had solemnly read out, without any trace of hesitation, embarrassment or shame, all the accusations that he had spent days carefully wording, and Smeaton, Norris, Brereton and Weston had bowed their heads when Norfolk had thundered out their death sentences above the boos, hisses and catcalls of the mob that heaved and pressed around the public spaces below the special platforms constructed for the occasion for the comfort and safety of the jury.
‘Why did they not defend themselves?’ Richard asked in shaking tones of disbelief as the Hall slowly cleared of ghoulish spectators, and Cromwell rolled up his vellums with a satisfied smile.
Cromwell looked sideways at Richard as he explained, ‘They were doomed to conviction anyway, as they all knew — with the possible exception of poor Smeaton. The only remaining question in each of their minds was the manner of their deaths, and the possibility of the attainder of their estates. Henry enjoys absolute power over both, and had they sought to justify their actions, or denied in any way what it suited Henry to have proved against them, they faced the gruesome end awaiting all traitors — hanging, drawing and quartering. But the King has the power to order a more merciful death by axe on the block, and may even decree that it be done privately on Tower Green, rather than in front of a screaming mob on Tower Hill. Remember that lesson, should you still entertain any wild dreams of asserting your title to Henry’s throne.’
‘And their estates?’ Richard enquired in a voice all but stilled by the horror of what he had just learned.
‘Likewise,’ Cromwell replied as he tucked the scrolls under his arm and prepared to depart. ‘The King may, in his mercy, allow something for the families they leave behind, who will starve otherwise. Poor Mark Smeaton has nothing to lose in that, of course, but Norris leaves three children and a vast estate, Weston has a wife and child, and Brereton has much land on the Welsh Marches that he must preserve for his wife and two sons.’
‘So they will plead guilty to something they have not done, rather than hazard all by defying the allegations?’
‘They were to all intents guilty once charged,’ Cromwell explained with a quizzical stare at Richard. ‘Do you not yet understand how these things are done?’
‘God forbid that I ever displease Henry,’ Richard shuddered. ‘But what of the Queen and Viscount Rochford? Surely they will make a braver display of proving their innocence?’
‘The higher they come, the harder they fall,’ Cromwell muttered as he began to make his way through the almost deserted Hall. He stopped and turned back to address Richard. ‘Are you coming with me, or will you remain here and pray for the lives of those who are effectively dead already?’
Richard stepped down the Hall behind him, sick to the stomach.
Three days later Richard followed Cromwell with considerable dread and foreboding into the Great Hall of the Tower, where the jury of twenty-seven peers of the realm awaited their instructions from Norfolk, who — with apparent enthusiasm, as he demonstrated once the proceedings commenced — was to preside over the trial, first of Anne herself, and then her brother. Since they were of noble birth, they could not have been tried alongside the commoners who had preceded them, but the evidence that had already been heard in the previous trial, and most notably the lack of any defence offered by any of them to charges that directly implicated Anne, would not do Anne’s cause any good.
Anne appeared regally defiant until the very end. She had taken considerable care over her appearance, as if fully aware that her final public performance would be far less romantic, and her scarlet and black gown was topped off with a black and white feathered hat that wavered slightly in the breeze.
Norfolk maintained order in the only manner of which he was capable, namely yelling at anyone who made a noise that was not part of the proceedings. His face became more and more murderous as the disgraceful, unedifying, and at times disgusting allegations were put to Anne, specifying dates, times and bodily actions that owed more to the latent playwright that lurked inside Cromwell than any vestige of truth. She denied each and every vile charge, but like those who had gone before her, she offered no defence, either in the form of witnesses or by way of testimony of her own. When asked if she had anything to say she shook her head, and when advised by her uncle Norfolk that her response was required in verbal form, she shouted, ‘No! None of it! I have more self-respect than to do any of that!’, then fell silent.
Richard almost fainted when, following the guilty finding against her, it was announced grimly by Norfolk that she would be taken to Smithfield and burned at the stake, as the only prescribed penalty for a female adjudged to have committed treason. Cromwell saw the colour draining from Richard’s face, and reached out to pinch his wrist. The sudden pain seemed to prevent him from passing out, but the reassurance from Cromwell that the lady would almost certainly be spared the flames sounded as if it was coming from a great distance away.
‘When will they try her brother?’ Richard asked, ashen-faced.
‘Once they have taken Anne out,’ Cromwell replied. ‘It would not do for them to collide in the doorway.’
The afternoon’s proceedings were far more entertaining. Rochford had accepted that he was as good as dead, and being the flamboyant show-off that he was, he milked every opportunity to play to the crowd. He was not concerned to preserve his estate for any family, since he had never had any regard for the wife his father had bought for him, he was being brought down simply because he was a Boleyn, and his uncle on the Howard side of the family was determined to see him to the scaffold. He could therefore have this last bit of fun.
He laughed when it was put to him that he had carnally known his sister, adding for good measure: ‘Since she has been found guilty of going to it with so many others, when would she have found the time for me?’ Norfolk then asked him if he knew of any reason why Anne would engage with so many men, and he replied jocularly, ‘Why should she not, if they were available? It is well known that Harry Tudor can’t get it up any more.’
‘He just lost any chance of a merciful end,’ Cromwell said with a sideways smirk at Richard.
As the sun began to sink towards the river at far distant Mortlake, it was all over, and George Boleyn’s name had been added to William Kingston’s ‘to do’ list.
‘You seem to have lost your appetite,’ Cromwell observed over the meats that evening, as Richard stared at the roast that was still oozing some blood onto the salver, converting itself in his imagination into the severed head of a
disgraced queen.
‘I wonder that you can eat,’ Richard countered. ‘At the risk of being accused of treason, as is everyone who displeases you, it would seem, I am bound to observe that when you first approached me, at Fyfield, with the promise of righting an injustice, and the prospect of claiming my rightful place on the throne of England, you were as guilty of as much falsehood and guile as when drawing up those false charges regarding the Queen and her alleged lovers.’
‘Have a care, boy,’ Cromwell growled. ‘I have a knife in my hand, remember.’
‘Then plunge it into my heart, just as readily as you have used me to gain revenge for the Cardinal. It was my work that led to your knowing where to strike, and with what. Even my few moments of pleasure with Lady Rochford were allowed me solely in order that you might further your schemes to bring down half the nobility of England. Have you done yet?’
‘Such ingratitude does you no credit,’ Cromwell muttered as he excised a slice from the pork. ‘When we first met, you were the resident failure of an impoverished estate whose only friend was a dying grandmother. Through me you have enjoyed the life of well-fed Courtier, surrounded by high-born ladies who lusted after your loins, one of whom has sampled them. You have also learned a few invaluable lessons in statecraft.’
‘What I have learned,’ Richard replied in mounting anger, ‘is that to perform any act that displeases the Tudor usurper of a throne that will never be mine is to sign one’s own death warrant. You filled me with hopes and aspirations that can never be fulfilled, and now that you have fully drained me of such value as I represented towards the achievement of your venomous ambitions, you will no doubt show me the door, leaving me much worse off than I began. At least before I met you I had no awareness of how fully Fate has shat on me.’
‘Self-pity doesn’t become you,’ Cromwell replied quietly, ‘but did you really believe that I would abandon you now? You are welcome to remain as my Senior Clerk for as long as it suits you — and never lose sight of the fact that for all I may have used you, you never foreswore to take all the advantages I placed at your disposal. I might equally argue that you saw your main chance with me, and exploited my good nature.’