hated and who hated him, he thought of the Cardinal’s face and the stern words that he had used. “Thou foolish boy . . .” Would he never forget the bitter humiliation? No, he never would; and because he would never cease to reproach himself for his own misery, knowing full well that had he shown sufficient courage he might have made a fight for his happiness, he hated this man with a violent hatred. He stood before him, trembling with rage, for well he knew that
Northumberland laid his hand on Wolsey’s arm. “My lord, I arrest you of High Treason!”
The Earl was smiling courteously, but with malice; the Cardinal began to tremble.
Revenge was a satisfying emotion, thought the Earl. He who had made others to suffer, must now himself suffer.
“We shall travel towards London at the earliest possible moment,” he said.
This they did; and, trembling with his desire for vengeance, the Earl caused the Cardinal’s legs to be bound to the stirrups of his mule; thus did he proclaim to the world: “This man, who was once great, is now naught but a common malefactor!”
About Cawood the people saw the Cardinal go; they wept; they called curses on his enemies. He left Cawood with their cries ringing in his ears. “God save Your Grace! The foul evil take them that have taken you from us! We pray God that a very vengeance may light upon them!”
The Cardinal smiled sadly. Of late weeks, here in York, he had led that life which it would have become him as a churchman to have led before. Alms had he given to the people at his gates; his table had been over-flowing with food and wine, and at Cawood Castle had he entertained the beggars and the needy to whom he had given scarcely a thought at Hampton Court and York House; for Wolsey, who had once sought to placate his sense of inferiority, to establish his social standing, now sought a place in Heaven by his good deeds. He smiled at himself as he rode down to Leicester; his body was sick, and he doubted whether it would—indeed be prayed that it would not—last the journey to London. But he smiled, for he saw himself a man who has climbed high and has fallen low. Pride was my enemy, he said, as bitter an enemy as ever was the Lady Anne.
The rejoicing of the Boleyn faction at the death of Wolsey was shameless. None would have believed a year before that the greatest man in England could be brought so low. Wolsey, it was said, had died of a flux, but all knew he had died of a broken heart, for melancholy was as sure a disease as any other; and having lost all that he cared to live for, why should the Cardinal live? He to be taken to the Tower! He, who had loved his master, to be tried for High Treason!
Here was triumph for Anne. People sought her more than ever, flattered her, feted her. To be favored by Anne was to be favored by the King. She enjoyed her triumph and gave special revels to commemorate the defeat of her enemy. She was led into the bad taste of having a play enacted which treated the great Cardinal as a figure of fun.
George was as recklessly glad about Wolsey’s fall as she was. “While that man lived, I trembled for you,” he said. He laughed shortly. “I hear that near his end he told Kingston that had he served God as diligently as he had served the King, he would not have been given over in his gray hairs. I would say that had he served his God as diligently as he served himself, he would have gone to the scaffold long ere this!” People hearing this remark took it up and laughed over it.
The King did not attend these revels of the Boleyns. Having given the order for the arrest of Wolsey, he wished to shut the matter from his mind. He was torn between remorse and gladness. Wolsey had left much wealth, and into whose hands should this fall but the King’s!
Henry prayed: “O Lord, thou knowest I loved that man. I would I had seen him. I would I had not let his enemies keep him from me. Did I not send him tokens of my regard? Did I not say I would not lose the fellow for twenty thousand pounds?”
But he could not stop his thoughts straying to the Cardinal’s possessions. There was more yet that he must get his hands upon. Hampton Court was his; York House was his, for he had never given it back after Anne went to Suffolk House, liking it too well.
But he wept for the old days of friendship; he wept for Wolsey; and he was able to deplore his death whilst considering how much more there was in gold to come to him.
Soon after this there were two matters which caused Anne some misgiving. The first came in the form of a letter which the Countess of Northumberland had written to her father, the Earl of Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury had thought it wise to show this letter to the Duke of Norfolk, who had brought it to his niece with all speed.
Anne read the letter. There was no doubt of its meaning. Mary of Northumberland was leaving her husband; she told her father that in one of their more violent quarrels her husband had told her that he was not really married to her, being previously contracted to Anne Boleyn.
Anne’s heart beat fast. Here was yet another plot to discredit her in the eyes of the King. She had been his mistress for nearly two years, and it seemed to her that she was no nearer becoming Queen than she had been on that first night in Suffolk House. She was becoming anxious, wondering how long she could expect to keep the King her obedient slave. For a long time she had watched for some lessening of his affection; she had found none; she studied herself carefully for some deterioration of her beauty; if she were older, a little drawn, there were many more gorgeous clothes and priceless jewels to set against that. But she was worried, and though she told herself that she longed for a peaceful life and would have been happy had she married Percy or Wyatt she knew that the spark of ambition inside her had been fanned into a great consuming fire; and when she had said to Anne Saville that she would marry the King, no matter what happened to herself, she meant that. She was quite sure that, once she was Queen, she would give the King sons, that not only could she delight him as his mistress, but as mother of the future Tudor King of England. Having tasted power, how could she ever relinquish it! And this was at the root of her fear. The delay of the divorce, the awareness of powerful enemies all about her—this was what had made her nervous, imperious, hysterical, haughty, frightened.
Therefore she trembled when she read this letter.
“Give it to me,” she commanded.
“What will you do with it?” asked her uncle. She was unsure. He said: “You should show it to the King.”
She studied him curiously. Cold, hard, completely without sentiment, he despised these families which had sprung up, allied to his own house simply because the Norfolk fortunes were in decline at Henry the Seventh’s accession on account of the mistake his family had made in backing Richard the Third. She weighed his words. He was no friend of hers; yet was he an enemy? It would be more advantageous to see his niece on the throne of England than another’s niece.
