“By Christ!” cried the King. “Here is a merry state of affairs! I would take the fool and burn him at the stake, were he not such a young fool. How dare he think to contract himself without our consent!”
“Your Majesty, I fear I am in ignorance...”
“Young Percy!” roared His Majesty. “Fool! Dolt that he is! He has, an it please you, decided he will marry Anne Boleyn!”
Inwardly the Cardinal could smile. This was a mere outbreak of royal jealousy. I will deal with this, thought the Cardinal, and deplored that his wit, his diplomacy must be squandered to mend a lover’s troubles.
“Impertinent young fool!” soothed the Cardinal. “As he is one of my young men, Your Majesty must allow me to deal with him. I will castigate him. I will make him aware of his youthful...nay, criminal folly, since he has offended Your Majesty. He is indeed a dolt to think Northumberland can mate with the daughter of a knight!”
Through the King’s anger beamed his gratitude to Wolsey. Dear Thomas, who made the way easy! That was the reason, he told his conscience—Northumberland cannot mate with a mere knight’s daughter!
“’Twere an affront to us!” growled mollified Henry. “We gave our consent to the match with Shrewsbury’s girl.”
“And a fitting match indeed!” murmured the Cardinal.
“A deal more fitting than that he should marry Boleyn’s girl. My dear Wolsey, I should hold myself responsible to Shrewsbury and his poor child if anything went amiss....”
“Your Grace was ever full of conscience. You must not blame your royal self for the follies of your subjects.”
“I do, Thomas...I do! After all, ’twas I who brought the wench to court.”
Wolsey murmured: “Your Majesty...? Why, I thought ’twas I who talked to Boleyn of his younger daughter....”
“No matter!” said the King, his eyes beaming with affection. “I thought I mentioned the girl to you. No matter!”
“I spoke to Boleyn, Your Grace, I remember well.”
The King’s hand patted the red-clad shoulder.
“I know this matter can be trusted to you.”
“Your Majesty knows well that I shall settle it most expeditiously.”
“They shall both be banished from the court. I will not be flouted by these young people!”
Wolsey bowed.
“The Shrewsbury marriage can be hastened,” said the King.
Greatly daring, Wolsey asked: “And the girl, Your Majesty? There was talk of a marriage...the Ormond estates were the issue...Perhaps Your Majesty does not remember.”
The brows contracted; the little eyes seemed swallowed up in puffy flesh. The King’s voice cracked out impatiently: “That matter is not settled. I like not these Irish. Suffice it that we banish the girl.”
“Your Majesty may trust me to deal with the matter in accordance with your royal wishes.”
“And, Thomas...let the rebuke come from you. I would not have these young people know that I have their welfare so much at heart; methinks they already have too high a conceit of themselves.”
After Wolsey retired, the King continued to pace up and down. Let her return to Hever. She should be punished for daring to fall in love with that paltry boy. How was she in love? Tender? It was difficult to imagine that. Eager? Ah! Eager with a wretched boy! Haughty enough she had been with her lord the King! To test that eagerness he would have given the brightest jewel in his crown, but she would refuse her favors like a queen. And in a brief acquaintance, she had twice offended him; let her see that even she could not do that with impunity!
So she should be exiled to Hever, whither he would ride one day. She should be humble; he would be stern...just at first.
He threw himself into a chair, legs apart, hands on knees, thinking of a reconciliation in the rose garden at Hever.
His anger had passed away.
Immediately on his return to his house at Westminster, Wolsey sent for Lord Percy.
The young man came promptly, and there in the presence of several of his higher servants Wolsey began to upbraid him, marveling, he said, at his folly in thinking he might enter into an engagement with a foolish girl at the court. Did the young fool not realize that on his father’s death he would inherit and enjoy one of the noblest earldoms in the kingdom? How then could he marry without the consent of his father? Did Percy think, he thundered, that either his father or the King would consent to his matching himself with such a one? Moreover, continued the Cardinal, working himself up to a fine frenzy of indignation such as struck terror into the heart of the boy, he would have Percy know that the King had at great trouble prepared a suitable match for Anne Boleyn. Would he flout the King’s pleasure!
Lord Percy was no more timid than most, but he knew the ways of the court well enough to quail before the meaning he read into Wolsey’s words. Men had been committed to the Tower for refusing to obey the King’s command, and Wolsey clearly had the King behind him in this matter. Committed to the Tower! Though the dread Cardinal did not speak the words, Percy knew they were there ready to be pronounced at any moment. Men went to the Tower and were heard of no more. Dread happenings there were in the underground chambers of the Tower of London. Men were incarcerated, and never heard of again. And Percy had offended the King!
“Sir,” he said, trembling, “I knew not the King’s pleasure, and am sorry for it. I consider I am of good years, and thought myself able to provide me a convenient wife as my fancy should please me, not doubting that my lord and father would have been well content. Though she be but a simple maid and her father a knight, yet she is descended of noble parentage, for her mother is of high Norfolk blood and her father descended from the Earl of
