Now if this little script was to be believed, Queen Katherine of Aragon was seeking to return to those bloody days to stop the annulment of her marriage. It seemed to Ned a desperately risky move. What could she be hoping to achieve? Well the collapse of the petition for one thing, but what else? Queen Katherine had fulfilled all the duties expected of a Royal wife, except one, the most important for the King’s Majesty and the kingdom-providing a living son.
Ned wasn’t some naive simpleton. He understood that politics ruled the manners and fashions of his lords and masters. However except in a very few cases, it wasn’t cold calculation that balanced the scales of action. Frequently it was the fiery passions of life; love, lust, thwarted desire, envy and rancour that drove alliances and separations. The King’s Grace may be the Lord’s anointed monarch of England. However in spite of that, he was still a man. A fragment of Ned’s brief classical education came to mind. When the Ancient Romans were honouring their victors with a triumph, didn’t a slave ride in the chariot with the general reminding him that he was still a man? Past all the honour, ceremony and God’s anointing, wasn’t their Sovereign Majesty the same as that Roman general, even the renowned Julius Caesar?
Ned suddenly blinked in surprise and quickly gave the kitchen a furtive survey. No, not a soul there had noticed his thoughts straying into deepest heresy. Shakily he rubbed his face with a suddenly damp hand and explored the possibility of a king being the same as any other son of Adam.
If that was the case, then His Majesty could act like many a common husband or father who lacked sons. Of course Ned had seen a few marriages like that, the boy children dying early or having only girls. Most had managed well enough, but often he wondered what the father felt, knowing his name would be submerged and vanish, the work of a lifetime given over to a son-in-law. He’d seen the steady flow of cases and petitions for inheritance through the courts. A man without sons could be very vulnerable to the chill winds of chance. For those other cases, where desperation for the future outweighed the pledge of the marriage vows, was it despair or rancour that caused good women to be put away or cast off? All because they couldn’t provide the vital requirement of family inheritance-a son. It was sad and tragic that a marriage had been cursed so. However it had been ordained by the Lord and not even the humblest petitions of the mighty could sway that highest judgement. As the alchemists put it, ‘so as above so as below’, what was true for a farmer was equally true for a king.
However for kingdoms such an event was a calamity. As a man was naturally expected to lead the family, the King was the father of the kingdom and so he must have a male heir to succeed. The other perilous solution left few options.
If you had a daughter like young Princess Mary, then she could be married off to an eligible suitor. However, according to the laws and customs of the realm, her husband became King and that temptation was a heady tonic for any of the kingdom’s nobles. So it was best if the suitor was of royal lineage from across the water and if that were so, only one family came to mind-the Hapsburgs.
According to some learned men at the Inns, opportune marriages made the Hapsburgs the modern power of our world. Emperor Charles would naturally advance the suit of any of his family so that by rights, in the fullness of time, the Kingdom of England would be added as an inheritance to his already vast domains. That was worrying. Of course a worse fate beckoned. The Princess Royal could be married to a Valois of France, as had been bruited about a few years ago.
That was a very chilling thought and upset the natural order of the past. The link with the House of Hapsburg was a generation strong, not always to the advantage of England, but it had served as the usual counter to the French. This base treachery now changed that, for only a fool would not see that it was to the Emperor’s advantage to frustrate the moves of their most mighty and puissant Sovereign. The longer the annulment was dragged out then the better chance that Princess Mary would be the only legitimate heir, and when you considered the evidence, the Queen obviously now felt her duty towards her Hapsburg kin was stronger than her anointed pledge as consort.
Ned stilled another quiver of fear and apprehension. It would be best not to let Emma see how terrified this scrap of parchment made him. Its treacherous import was almost too great to handle. This was the sort of conspiracy that men like Norfolk and Cromwell consorted with every day, so why couldn’t he just pass it on? Wasn’t this the sort of situation that you would expect reported by their coteries of informers and pursuivants?
For a brief span of time, as Ned sat there staring blankly at the incriminating scrap, he really considered racing over to Westminster and throwing it into the lap of his good lord. For a while he wavered, until he recalled the session with his uncle this morning. Realistically that was the sort of reception he could expect-a written report, then only watchful anticipation as the calculation of advantage began. Thus worked the practiced court habits of the Privy Council. Ned quailed at the prospect, but as his angel reminded him, this was his city and no matter which way this projected mayhem worked out, it was certain that he and his friends would suffer.
That certain knowledge transformed his wavering into a swelling anger and drove him to the decision. If the great wouldn’t act to halt this, then he would! His daemon twitched an idea out of the shadows of his thoughts. Yes…yes…it was a possible plan. It could be made to work. Letting it coalesce into a solid form he seized another parchment, and with quill clutched purposefully, he began a series of messages. Yes he was certain. A deliberate spirit had seized his hand as the quill raced across the page and he remembered a doggerel line his nurse used to hum-‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was the gentleman?’
He would show Queen Katherine and the treacherous Staffords what loyalty lay in the hearts of Englishmen!
***
Chapter 19. Oranges and Arguments, To the Ruyter, Evening to Night, 8th June
Ned strode purposefully through the busy streets of the city with his impromptu retinue stomping and growling along behind. Menace was no longer just hinted at. Ned gave a savage grin at the clatter caused by his wake. He’d abruptly dragged his reluctant retainers from their repast of pease pudding and beef, roasted in bacon fat, and it made for an ill mood. Ouze had kept them at their business with a few meaningful nudges from his cudgel. The last complaints had disappeared when Ned had promised to pay for an evening’s carousel and feast at the Bee Skep after this Sunday. He wanted them at their best for his journey to Smarts Key even at the price of further draining of his famished purse. At the end of this dismal affair the treasurer of the Company of the Cardinal’s Angels had better be forthcoming, or he would have a serious falling out with her.
Except for his passage, it was a very quiet and subdued traverse to the river. Despite the crowds and the influx for the law term, the city was in a sombre mood and the sweat of anxiety spread through alley and lane. Whether it was caused by the agitation of the friars, the raids of More’s pursuivants or the constant fear of a summer outbreak of pestilence, he couldn’t tell but the city was in a breathless pause of nervous anticipation.
And he’d done his bit in stirring it up. His retinue’s score stood at eight friars set upon and roughed up before they’d hit St Katherine’s Coleman by Seething Lane. After that the word was spreading and friars suddenly became scarce. Ned had smiled grimly as they traversed Beer Lane, nary a friar in sight for a whole parish-excellent!