It was Wolsey who set up a household for the infant, who found the new mother an honourable marriage, who filtered the funds through – the land grants and honours. Perhaps he looked after Bessie too well. Ten years on, with his power slipping away, his enemies unlocked their chest brimming with slights and derelictions, and out crawled a musty slander. They alleged that – taking their pattern from Bessie Blount – all the maids in England wished to become concubines. Harlots had flocked to the king’s vicinity, they said, hoping for rich rewards.
It appears, the cardinal had said dryly, I must add to my crimes the degradation of the married state, the corruption of virgins and the valorisation of pimps everywhere.
It is not, and never has been, the custom of the kings of England to attend the burials of their sons or their wives. At the death of Prince Arthur, the chief mourner was the Duke of Norfolk’s forebear, so word comes from the king that it would be fitting to follow custom, and for the rites to be arranged by the Howard that is now. And since Fitzroy was under the guardianship of the present duke, and married to his daughter, it seems proper that he should lie at Thetford, among the duke’s own ancestors. Instructions are that the removal is to be in a closed cart, the whole matter handled in silence.
‘What is Henry doing?’ Chapuys says. ‘He cannot hope to conceal that his son has died, can he?’
He says, ‘Eustache, I cannot tell you about the king’s state of mind. I am employed to make laws and mind the treasury. For the rest he has the archbishop.’
‘That dubious fellow.’
He looks at him sharply to see what he knows. ‘Heretic,’ Chapuys says. Oh, only that, he thinks. He is relieved. The ambassador turns back for a parting shot. ‘Richmond’s death is not a bad thing for the interests of the Princess Mary.’ He smirks. ‘Your bride-to-be.’
His familars gather at the Rolls House. Call-Me says, ‘My lord Privy Seal … you recall that day you went over to St James’s with Richard Riche? When Fitzroy was first taken ill? You sent Riche out of the sickroom, he told me. What happened? May I ask?’
He thinks, the son spoke treason against the father. But it doesn’t matter now.
Wriothesley says, ‘Richmond feared he had been poisoned. I heard him say so.’
‘For God’s sake, don’t start that up,’ Rafe Sadler says. ‘Or I’ll give you a slap.’
‘And so you could, little man, if you stood on a box.’ Call-Me decides to take it in good part; he is too interested in plots to be diverted. ‘If Richmond had been named in the succession bill, there would have been grounds for suspicion against Mary’s people. And even as it is, knowing Mary’s nature …’
Rafe says, ‘Never mind her nature. The king is reconciled with her. It cost our master no little trouble.’
‘Reconciled?’ Wriothesley snorts. ‘She has been forced to bow her knee. Do you think she will forgive? I do not.’
Gregory begs, ‘Boys, don’t fight. No one is poisoned. Surely.’
He says to Wriothesley, ‘Think what you like, but don’t go dragging this rumour around the Inns of Court. Or wherever it is you go.’
‘Or the brothels of Southwark,’ Rafe says under his breath.
‘Do you?’ Gregory is interested.
Rafe asks, ‘What are we going to say to Henry?’
It is the only question left. He must get down to Kent, and say something. Forty-five years on this earth, twenty-seven of them as King of England – and all he has to show for it are three bastard children, one of them now a corpse.
He goes to the Tower to see Meg Douglas, in his pocket a recent example of her verse. ‘Shall I read to you?’
Recognising her handwriting, she is startled. ‘How did you get that?’
‘Now may I mourn as one of late
Driven by force from my delight
And cannot see my lonely mate
To whom forever my heart is plight.’
‘I think you still don’t understand,’ he says. ‘There was no plighting. You can’t afford plighting. Your state was grave last week, my lady, but this week it is worse.’
‘Because Richmond is dead.’ She looks up. ‘That takes me nearer the throne. He is no longer in my way.’
God help her, she supposes that gives her some greater leverage. He says, ‘Can you imagine the king’s doleful state? They say he cannot speak for sorrow. He has been struck dumb for two days.’
She says nothing. He throws the paper down in front of her. She has written her name under the verse, what she thinks is her name now: Margaret Howard. ‘I have told the king how you were beguiled and misled. But now your eyes are opened and you are heartily sorry for what you have done. You repudiate Lord Thomas Howard, and you wish never to see him or speak to him again.’
‘But that is not true.’
‘It will be true, in time.’
‘I cannot live without Lord Thomas.’
‘You will find you can.’
‘You don’t know,’ she says.
He wants to ask her, what did you think would come out of this? That you would sit in a turret, and Tom Truth come riding over the hills, his lyre slung behind his saddle? And you at the high window, letting down your strawberry tresses? When Mary Fitzroy stood guard outside the door, did you know how your beau would secure you, with a brutal thrust that made you bleed? Did you know how he would use and spoil you?
She says, ‘My lady mother has written to me from Scotland. She says I must obey my uncle the king in all things. If I do not she will disown me.’
‘She is the king’s own sister, she understands him. After the summer we have passed, do you not think he is sensitive to his honour? You have chosen an evil hour to fall in love.’
He thinks, you have no notion how hard I am working for you. Neither had the Lady Mary. She ought to marry me, really, out of gratitude. So should you.
Constable Kingston is waiting for him outside. ‘Sir William,’ he tells him, ‘I still have hopes Jane will be crowned this summer. So move Lady Meg to the Garden Tower. She must live in apprehension till I can frame the king’s mind to mercy, and that will not be a while yet.’
‘Myself,’ Kingston says, ‘I would stop these letters going between. But I am told it is your pleasure your man Martin should act Cupid. Why encourage it, if you are trying to stop the king proceeding against her?’
‘I want their verses for the book.’
Perhaps Kingston thinks he means the statute book. Or a prayer book. ‘The book of poems,’ he says. The burning sighs. The frozen heart. Better the frozen heart than the perils of the thaw.
Kingston says, ‘Lord Thomas is a harmless young man in himself.’ There is something almost timid in Kingston’s bearing: this man of singular experience, fishing for some inkling of what comes next. ‘Pray God the archbishop can console the king in this last blow of fate. They fall so fast, I do not know how he endures it.’
It is dusk when he arrives at the Palace of St James, and at the news of his arrival, servants gather in whispering assemblies, hushing each other. The officers already wear mourning. The menials, in their livery of yellow and blue, have tied black bands about their sleeves. But all colours are fading to subfusc, the yellow bruised, the blue deepening to indigo. A man begs him, ‘Sir, my lord of Surrey is in the stableyard. He is picking the best horses for himself, and we are afraid we will be blamed.’
He quickens his step. The servant speeds along with him. ‘What will happen to us? To the household?’
‘I will take as many as I can. The king will be good to you.’
He feels no confidence in the latter. The king’s response to his son’s death, so far as one can understand it, is not sorrow but a jealous rage, as if he had been cheated of something. Norfolk has applied to him for better instructions: ‘Cromwell, what am I to do here? Closed cart? What does that imply? Shall I have to build a monument at my own expense? Or does Henry want me to shovel the boy into some common pit, like a churl who wears homespun and dines on a boiled onion?’