THE CARDINAL, brooding on his affairs in his private apartments at York Place, was interrupted by the arrival of a man who asked permission to speak with him on a private matter.
Wolsey received the man at once, for he was one of his spies in the Queen’s household.
“Your Eminence,” said the man, “Francisco Felipez disappeared from the Queen’s household yesterday. I have made one or two enquiries and it seems he was seen riding hard on the road to the coast.”
Wolsey rose and his eyes glowed with anger.
So the Queen, for all her outward resignation, was putting up a fight. Her man must not reach the Emperor, as the King’s hopes of procuring a divorce could well depend on that brief. He would not rest—nor would the King—until it was in their hands.
Felipez must be stopped before he reached Madrid.
THE QUEEN was seated with a few women while she worked with her needle and one of them read aloud. She was anxious that there should be no change in her routine.
Yet she was not listening to the reader; her thoughts were with her nephew. Felipez would have reached him by now; he would be explaining all that was happening to the Emperor’s aunt in England, and the urgent need for Charles to hold that brief in safe keeping, so that it could be shown to the Pope if there were any attempt to declare her marriage invalid.
Charles was a man of honor; he had the utmost respect for family ties, and he would see that to treat her as Henry was planning to do was an insult to Spain. He would understand, as soon as Felipez explained to him, that the King’s ministers were not to be trusted. She blamed the King’s ministers—chief of them Wolsey. She could never for long see Henry as the monster he sometimes appeared to be. He had been led astray, she believed. He was young in heart and spirit; he was lusty and sensual and she had never greatly pleased him physically; she was too religiously minded and the sexual act to her was only tolerable as the necessary prelude to childbearing. Henry had always seemed to her like a boy; those childish games which he had once played at every masque, when he had disguised himself and expected all to be so surprised when the disguise was removed, were symbolic. He had not grown up; he was easily led astray. He was still the chivalrous knight who had rescued her from humiliation when he was eighteen years old. Never would she forget those early days of their marriage; always she would remember that he it was who had rescued her. At this time he was in the thrall of the wicked minister, Wolsey, and he was bemused by the black-eyed witch named Anne Boleyn.
If she could live through these troublous days, if she could bring Henry to a sense of duty, she was sure that they would settle down happily together. This was what she prayed for.
But in the meantime she must continue the fight against the machinations of those about him and the inclinations of his own youthful desires.
There was a commotion below her window and, setting aside her work, she went to it and looking out, saw a man limping into the Palace; his arm was bandaged and it was clear that he had recently met with an accident.
She stood very still, clenching her hands, for she had recognized the man as Francisco Felipez, who should at this time be in Spain.
She turned to the group of women and said: “I think that one of my servants has met with an accident. One of you must go below and bring him to me at once. I would hear what has befallen him.”
One of them obeyed and Katharine said to the others: “Put away the work for today and leave me.”
When Francisco Felipez came to her her first emotion was relief to see that he was not seriously hurt.
“You have been involved in an accident?” she asked.
His expression was apologetic. “I was riding through France, Your Grace, and in the town of Abbeville I was set upon by footpads. They knocked me unconscious and rifled my pockets.” He grinned ruefully. “They found nothing to interest them there, Your Grace. So they left me with a broken arm which meant that I was unable to ride my horse. A merchant bound it for me and helped me to return to England.”
“My poor Francisco,” said the Queen, “you are in pain.”
“It is nothing, Your Grace. I can only regret that I had to delay so long before returning to you, and that I was unable to continue my journey because of my inability to ride.”
“I will send you to my physician. Your arm needs attention.”
“And Your Grace has no further commission for me?”
Katharine shook her head. She understood that he had been seen to leave England, that the nature of his mission had been guessed, that he had been incapacitated by the Cardinal’s men, and that the hope of conveying an understanding of her peril to the Emperor was now slight.
THE CARDINAL sat with his head buried in his hands. He had been reading dispatches from Rome, and had learned that Clement, after seeming near to death, was making a remarkable recovery. The position at the Vatican was more hopeful and it seemed as though the Pope had taken a new grip on life. It followed that the chances of a Conclave in the near future were gradually but certainly fading; and the Cardinal’s position in England had worsened.
Each day the King viewed him with more disfavor after listening to the complaints of Anne Boleyn. Continually Henry chafed against the delay. Had there ever, he asked himself, been such procrastination over such a simple matter? Other Kings, when they needed to rid themselves of unwanted wives, procured a dispensation and the matter was done with. But he, Henry Tudor, who had always until now, taken what he wanted, was balked at every turn.
And what could his faithful servant do to hasten the decision when Campeggio had clearly been advised by the Pope to avoid a trial of the case if possible, and if not to use every means to delay bringing matters to a head! Wolsey was powerless to work without Campeggio; and the Pope and the King were pulling in opposite directions.
One of his most trusted servants entered the apartment, and the Cardinal, startled, withdrew his hands.
“I suffer from a headache,” Wolsey explained.
“A pressure of work, Your Eminence,” was the answer.
“Can it be so? I have suffered from a pressure of work, Cromwell, for as long as I can remember.”
Thomas Cromwell sighed sympathetically and laid some documents before the Cardinal. In a lesser degree Thomas Cromwell shared his master’s uneasiness, for people in the Court and in the City were beginning to show their dislike of him, which was entirely due to the fact that he was the Cardinal’s man.
He thought of himself as a parasite feeding on the abundance of the Cardinal; and if Wolsey fell, what would happen to Cromwell?
Could Wolsey stand out against all the powers that fought against him? There could not be a man in England who had more enemies. Norfolk and Suffolk were watching like vultures; so was Lord Darcy; and the Boleyn faction, which was daily growing stronger, was standing by eagerly waiting for the kill.
The King? The King was Wolsey’s only hope. Henry still admired the cleverness of his minister and was loath to part with his favorite. That was Wolsey’s hope…and Thomas Cromwell’s.
Now suppose the Lady Anne lost a little of her influence over the King; suppose she gave way to his pleadings and became his mistress; suppose Henry made the natural discovery that Anne was very little different from other women…then Wolsey might yet retain his hold on the King. That was if the French alliance provided all that Wolsey and Henry hoped for. But François was an unreliable ally—even as Charles had been.
So many suppositions, thought Thomas Cromwell, for a Cardinal’s fate to depend on, and the fate of his lawyer who had risen because he was in his service hung with that of his master.