The old king’s advisers, he thinks, knew trade and the law. Bray died in his bed. But his protégés, Empson and Dudley, were arrested before they knew the old king’s soul had passed. They were haled out of their houses and dragged through the April dawn along Candlewick Street and Eastcheap and so to prison. They were charged with the crime of massing troops in the capital, plotting to seize the person of the young Henry. It was an unlikely charge. They fell because the people hated them. They were the old king’s bad angels, but God he knows, they kept him in funds.
There are moments when as he goes about his duties he feels a fierce exultation – he, Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal. But he would never admit it to any person: they would lecture him about the mutability of fortune. Look at his life: does he need a reminder? He says to Rafe, vanity compels us to to pretend we plan every step. But when the cardinal came down I stood before the lords of England like a naked child waiting for the whip. I sent you oiling to Norfolk, ‘Can Master Cromwell have a seat in the Parliament house, he will do much good for your lordship?’ Christ, yes, Rafe says, I thought he would have kicked me to Ipswich.
There is a time to be silent. There is a time to talk for your life. He saw Henry’s need and he filled it, but you must never let a prince know he needs you; he does not like to think he has incurred a debt to a subject. Like the old king’s ministers, he labours day and night for his prince’s increase. The Italian Niccolò says that when a prince has such a servant, he should treat him with respect and kindness, advance him to honours and promote his fortune. Perhaps when the book is put into English our prince will read it.
In Sienna you may see a fresco, where Good Government is set out on the wall, so that everyone can see what peace looks like. Peace is a woman: she is a blonde; her hair is braided, and her head leans upon her hand, which is turned so that you see the tender white skin of her inner arm. Her dress is of a fabric so fine that, when it falls away from her breasts, it skims the length of her body and drifts into graceful pleats and folds, into an area of mystery between her relaxed, parted legs. Her feet are bare: they look intelligent, like hands.
On the opposite wall, Bad Government has taken Peace by the hair. She is panicked, screaming, jerked to her knees.
He remembers the great jars in Florence, their cool curve under his hand; they seemed to him to be speaking to each other, edging closer so their sides touched and chimed. Oil and wine, in jars with sounding depths; bread and wine, God’s body; the torn manchet loaves at the tables of the rich, fine white bread while the poor eat barley, rye. At Windsor in the king’s chamber a gentleman brings in more tapers; the light flutters across the ceiling like an influx of cherubim. The king consults the songbook. He sings that he burns without surcease: a mountain girl, unloved, a maid from Estremadura.
He and Rafe exchange glances. Rafe, who knows the Spanish tongue well, looks as baffled as he is. Henry says, ‘Crumb, have you talked to my daughter? You know the French have offered for her?’
‘I find their approaches tepid. Not to mention offensive. They assume your Majesty will not have a son, when all likelihood is that you will.’
‘Write to Gardiner,’ Henry says. ‘He can tell François we are not interested.’ He bends his head over his lute again. ‘Though perhaps we should get Mary wed before her bloom fades entirely. She is not like her mother. Katherine was a beautiful creature, at her age.’
Call-Me says, ‘The French must have a spy among the queen’s women. I swear they know when she has her courses.’
‘That will be Jane Rochford,’ he says.
‘You know that, sir?’
‘No,’ Rafe says. ‘But Lord Cromwell is a gambling man.’
Their supper tonight was lamprey pies and whiting and Suffolk cheese, and pheasants killed with their own hawks. You rise from table and it is as if you have been invited to a feast by a magician in a tale. You think you have been in the king’s chamber two hours but when you step outside, seven centuries have passed.
As October enters its third week, Lord Darcy surrenders Pontefract Castle to the rebels. The distinguished men who have sheltered there – among them Sir William Gascoigne, Sir Robert Constable, and Edmund Lee, Archbishop of York – are compelled to take the Pilgrim oath.
He has channels open, across the Narrow Sea. Among the French councillors are those who urge the Pope to sieze the moment and publish his bull of excommunication. Once it is public, all Henry’s subjects will be loosed to join the rebellion. He says to Rafe, ‘Put the word out to the gentlemen in the privy chamber, and let them spread it among their friends – if I find any have written to Rome, I shall take it as proof of treason without further enquiry.’ He says, ‘Our hope now is that the Bishop of Rome will not act because he cannot understand what is happening in the north country. How should he? We hardly know ourselves. And if Pole is advising him, he can scarcely know Pontefract from the kingdom of Cockaigne.’
The king sends Lancaster Herald to Pontefract with a proclamation. Robert Aske refuses to let him read out his message, but civilly offers him safe conduct out of the castle and town. He and his Pilgrims will stay true to their cause, they say, and will march on London.
Norfolk has proceeded from his home at Kenninghall to Cambridge, from Cambridge to the north. He claims he is grieved to the heart at the actions of Lord Darcy, who by blood or marriage is related to the greatest families of the north, and who appears to have declared for the Pilgrims. Surely there is a misunderstanding? Space must be left around this magnate, so later he can claim he has been misunderstood.
Darcy sets himself up as the bluff old soldier, but his nature is double. The cardinal was good to him; Darcy betrayed the cardinal, drawing up the indictment that fed the king’s anger. He swears great oaths that he is true, but these three years past he has been talking to Chapuys, enquiring as to the chances of troops from the Emperor.
Garlanded by praise for his fidelity from the Lord Privy Seal, the aged Lord Talbot is ordered to march towards Doncaster. Now the fightback has begun: though the prescription is to avoid any actual fighting, swerve engagement where possible. What is essential is to secure the bridges and the main highways, pen the Pilgrims north of Trent. At Windsor he sits by the king, working out what terms will entice the foe. It is for him, the vile Cromwell, to make the king’s language emollient. Offer what you must, to induce the bands to disperse. Corrupt them from within. Set gentleman against servant, rustic against monk. They have no common bond but their banner, and what is it? Painted cloth.
Norfolk writes he neither eats nor sleeps, except in the saddle. For an hour he gets his head down and he is roused three times, each time by fools bringing in messages that contradict each other. ‘Take in good part whatever promises I shall make unto the rebels … for surely I shall observe no part thereof …’
I will, the duke indicates, lie for England. Send me approved lies by the next courier. Send them by your fastest horse.
Near Doncaster, the Pilgrims halt their army. The duke halts his puny forces. His heart is broken, he complains, at having to talk to these traitors, instead of plough them under; all the same, he meets their leaders, listens to their complaints. Norfolk gives a safe-conduct to two Pilgrims, gentlemen, to take a petition to the king.
Truce, then. Temporary, conditional … But I believe, he tells his boys, Aske’s nerve has failed. The heart within his breast, which is no soldier’s heart, quakes at the bloodshed in prospect. Once they sit to talk, the Pilgrims lose the impulsion that has brought them so far, their confidence in their own crude strength. The winds of November will bluster through their tents; where they camp, the district will grow hostile; food will grow scarce for man and horse; their water pails will ice over in the night; boots will crack: good order will break down, disease break out. Our pockets are deeper, after all, our arguments more baffling, and we have better guns. We will temporise, and winter will come, and it will be over.