‘Did they? Well, I am shocked. We cannot have it said of Henry that he is not a man.’
‘A man’ – and Fitzwilliam stresses the word – ‘a man should be governor of his passions. Henry shows much force of will but little wisdom. It harms him. She harms him. The harm will go on.’
It seems he will not name her, Anna Bolena, La Ana, the concubine. So, if she harms the king, would it be the act of a good Englishman to remove her? The possibility lies between them, approached but still unexplored. It is treason, of course, to speak against the present queen and her heirs; a treason from which the king alone is exempt, for he could not violate his own interest. He reminds Fitzwilliam of this: he adds, even if Henry speaks against her, do not be drawn.
‘But what do we look for in a queen?’ Fitzwilliam asks. ‘She should have all the virtues of an ordinary woman, but she must have them to a high degree. She must be more modest, more humble, more discreet and more obedient even than they: so that she sets an example. There are those who ask themselves, is Anne Boleyn any of these things?’
He looks at Master Treasurer: go on.
‘I think I can speak frankly to you, Cromwell,’ Fitz says: and (after checking at the door once again) he does. ‘A queen should be mild and pitiful. She should move the king to mercy – not drive him on to harshness.’
‘You have some particular case in mind?’
Fitz was in Wolsey’s household as a young man. No one knows what part Anne played in the fall of the cardinal; her hand was hidden in her sleeve. Wolsey knew he could hope for no mercy from her, and he received none. But Fitz seems to brush away the cardinal. He says, ‘I hold no brief for Thomas More. He was not the adept in affairs of state that he thought he was. He thought he could sway the king, he thought he could control him, he thought that Henry was still a sweet young prince he could lead by the hand. But Henry is a king and he will be obeyed.’
‘Yes, and?’
‘And I wish that with More it could have ended another way. A scholar, a man who was Lord Chancellor, to drag him out in the rain and cut off his head…’
He says, ‘You know, sometimes I forget he’s gone. There is some piece of news and I think, what will More say to this?’
Fitz glances up. ‘You don’t talk to him, do you?’
He laughs. ‘I don’t go to him for advice.’ Though I do, of course, consult the cardinal: in the privacy of my short hours of sleep.
Fitz says, ‘Thomas More scuttled his chances with Anne when he would not come to see her crowned. She would have seen him dead a year before it happened, if she could have proved treason on him.’
‘But More was a clever lawyer. Amongst the other things he was.’
‘The Princess Mary – the Lady Mary, I should say – she is no lawyer. A friendless girl.’
‘Oh, I would think that her cousin the Emperor counts as her friend. And a very good friend to have, too.’
Fitz looks irritated. ‘The Emperor is a great idol, set up in another country. Day by day, she needs a more proximate defender. She needs someone to push forward her interests. Stop this, Crumb – this dancing around the point.’
‘Mary just needs to keep breathing,’ he says. ‘I am not often accused of dancing.’
Fitzwilliam stands up. ‘Well now. A word to the wise.’
The feeling is that something is wrong in England and must be set right. It’s not the laws that are wrong or the customs. It’s something deeper.
Fitzwilliam leaves the room, then he comes back in. Says abruptly, ‘If it is old Seymour’s daughter next, there will be some jealousy among those who think their own noble house should be preferred – but after all, the Seymours are an ancient family, and he won’t have this trouble with her. I mean, men running after her like dogs after a – well…You just look at her, Seymour’s little girl, and you know that nobody’s ever pulled her skirts up.’ This time he does go; but giving him, Cromwell, a sort of mock salute, a flourish in the direction of his hat.
Sir Nicholas Carew comes to see him. The very fibres of his beard are bristling with conspiracy. He half-expects the knight to wink as he sits down.
When it comes to it, Carew is surprisingly brisk. ‘We want the concubine ousted. We know you want it too.’
‘We?’
Carew looks up at him, from beneath bristling brows; like a man who has shot off his one crossbow bolt, he must now plod over the terrain, seeking friend or foe or just a place to hide for the night. Ponderously, he clarifies. ‘My friends in this matter do comprise a good part of the ancient nobility of this nation, those of honourable lineage, and…’ He sees Cromwell’s face and hurries on. ‘I speak of those very near the throne, those in the line of old King Edward. Lord Exeter, the Courtenay family. Also Lord Montague and his brother Geoffrey Pole. Lady Margaret Pole, who as you know was governor to the Princess Mary.’
He casts up his eyes. ‘Lady Mary.’
‘If you must. We call her the princess.’
He nods. ‘We will not let that stop us discussing her.’
‘Those I have named,’ Carew says, ‘are the principal persons on whose behalf I speak, but as you will be aware, the most part of England would rejoice to see the king free of her.’
‘I don’t think the most part of England knows or cares.’ Carew means, of course, the most part of
He says, ‘I suppose Exeter’s wife Gertrude is active in this matter.’
