“Never will I give it up, Anne. You would have to steal it back.”
She moved towards him. He ran, she after him; and running across the enclosed pond garden, trying to retrieve that which he had stolen, was poignantly reminiscent of happy childhood days at Allington and Hever.
The Cardinal rode through the crowds, passing ceremoniously over London Bridge and out of the capital on his way to France, whither he had been bidden to go by the King. Great numbers of his attendants went before him and followed after him; there were gentlemen in black velvet with gold chains about their necks, and with them their servants in their tawny livery. The Cardinal himself rode on a mule whose trappings were of crimson velvet, and his stirrups were of copper and gold. Before him were borne his two crosses of silver, two pillars of silver, the Great Seal of England, his Cardinal’s hat.
The people regarded him sullenly, for it was now whispered, even beyond the court, of that which had come to be known as the King’s Secret Matter; and the people blamed the Cardinal, whispering that he had put these ideas into the King’s head. Whither went he now, but to France? Mayhap he would find a new wife to replace the King’s lawful one, their own beloved Queen Katharine. They found new loyalty towards their quiet Queen, for they pictured her as a poor, wronged woman, and the London crowd was a sentimental crowd ever ready to support the wronged.
In the crowd was whispered the little ditty which malicious Skelton had written, and which the public had taken up, liking its simple implication, liking its cutting allusions to a Cardinal who kept state like a king.
He was well hated, as only the successful man can be hated by the unsuccessful. That he had risen from humble circumstances made the hatred stronger. “
The Cardinal was brooding on the secret matter of the King’s. It was for him to smooth the way for his master, to get him what he desired at the earliest possible moment; and he who had piloted his state ship past many dangerous rocks was now dismayed. Well he could agree with His Majesty that the marriages of kings and queens depend for their success on the male issue, and what had his King and Queen to show for years of marriage but one daughter! The Cardinal’s true religion was statecraft; thus most frequently he chose to forget that as Cardinal he owed allegiance to the Church. When he had first been aware of the King’s passion for Mistress Anne Boleyn, many fetes had he given at his great houses, that the King and this lady might meet. Adultery was a sin in the eyes of Holy Church; not so in the liberal mind of Thomas Wolsey. The adultery of the King was as necessary as the jousts and tourneys he himself arranged for His Majesty’s diversion. And though he was ever ready to give the King opportunities for meeting this lady, he gave but slight thought to the amorous adventures of His Majesty. This affair seemed to him but one of many; to absorb, to offer satiety; that was inevitable. And then...the next. So when this idea of divorce had been passed to him by the King, glorious possibilities of advancing England’s interests through an advantageous marriage began to take hold of the Cardinal’s mind.
Should England decide to ally herself with France against the Emperor Charles, what better foundation for such an alliance could there be than marriage! Already he had put out feelers for Francis’s widowed sister, Marguerite of Alencon, but her brother, uncertain of Henry who still had an undivorced wife—and she none other than the aunt of the Emperor Charles himself—had dallied over negotiations, and married his sister to the King of Navarre. There was, however, Renee of France, sister to the late Queen Claude, and Wolsey’s heart glowed at the prospect of such a marriage. Had not Claude borne Francis many children? Why, therefore, should Renee not bear Henry many sons? And to make the bargain complete, why not contract the King’s daughter Mary to Francis’s son, the Duke of Orleans? Of these matters had Wolsey spoken to the King, and craftily the King appeared to consider them, and whilst considering them he was thinking of none but Anne Boleyn, so did he yearn towards her; and so had her reluctance inflamed his passion that already he was toying with the idea of throwing away Wolsey’s plans for a marriage which would be good for England; he was planning to defy his subjects’ disapproval, to throw tradition to the wind, to satisfy his desires only and marry Anne Boleyn. He knew his Chancellor; wily, crafty, diplomatic; let Wolsey consider this divorce to be a state affair, and all his genius for statecraft would go into bringing it about; let him think it was but to satisfy his master’s overwhelming desire for a humble gentlewoman of his court—who persistently and obstinately refused to become his mistress—and could Wolsey’s genius then be counted on to work as well? The King thought not; so he listened to Wolsey’s plans with feigned interest and approval, but unknown to the Cardinal, he dispatched his own secretary as messenger to the Pope, for he wished to appease his conscience regarding a certain matter which worried him a little. This was his love affair with Mary Boleyn, which he feared must create an affinity between himself and Anne, though he had determined it should be of small consequence should his secretary fail to obtain the Pope’s consent to remove the impediment.
Riding on to Dartford, the Cardinal was busily thinking. There was within him a deep apprehension, for he was aware that this matter of the divorce was to be a delicate one and one less suited to his genius, which loved best to involve itself in the intricacies of diplomacy and was perhaps less qualified to deal with petty domesticities. Of Anne Boleyn he thought little. To him the King’s affair with this foolish girl was a matter quite separate from the divorce, and unworthy of much thought. It appeared to him that Anne was a light o’ love, a younger version of her sister Mary, a comely creature much prone to giving herself airs. He smiled on her, for, while not attaching over-much importance to the King’s favorites whose influence had ever been transient, it was well not to anger them. Vaguely he remembered some affair with Percy; the Cardinal smiled faintly at that. Could it be then that the King had remained faithful so long?
He fixed his eyes on his Cardinal’s hat being borne before him, and that symbol of his power, the Great Seal of England; and his mind was busy and much disturbed, recent events having complicated the matter of divorce. He thought of the three men of consequence in Europe—Henry, Charles and Francis. Francis—even enfeebled as he was just now—had the enviable role of looker-on, sly and secret, waiting to see advantage and leap on it; Henry and Charles must take more active parts in the drama, for Henry’s wife was Charles’s aunt, and it was unlikely that Charles would stand calmly by to see Henry humiliate Spain through such a near relation. Between these two the Pope, a vacillating man, was most sorely perplexed; he dared not offend Henry; he dared not offend Charles. He had granted a divorce to Henry’s sister Margaret on the flimsiest of grounds, but that had proved simple; there was no mighty potentate to be offended by such a divorce. Henry, ranting, fuming, urgently wanting what, it seemed to him, others conspired to keep from him, was a dangerous man; and to whom should he look to gratify his whims but Wolsey? And on whom would he vent his wrath, were his desires frustrated?
This sorry situation had been vastly aggravated by a recent event in Europe; the most unexpected, horrible and sacriligious event the Cardinal could conceive, and the most disastrous to the divorce. This was the sack of Rome by the Duke of Bourbon’s forces in the name of the Empire.
Over the last few years Wolsey had juggled dexterously in Europe; and now, riding on to Dartford, he must wonder whether out of his cunning had not grown this most difficult situation. For long Wolsey had known of the discord which existed between Francis and one of the most powerful nobles of France, the mighty Duke of Bourbon.
