“In the name of the saints,” Katharine laughed, “call you Privy Seal’s a simple nature?”
He answered imperturbably:
“Call you Cato’s a complex one? He who for days and days and years and years said always one thing alone: ‘Carthage must be destroyed!’ ”
“But this man is no noble Roman,” Katharine cried indignantly.
“There was never a nature more Roman,” Throckmorton mocked at her. “For if Cato cried for years: Delenda est Carthago, Cromwell hath contrived for years: Floreat rex meus. Cato stuck at no means. Privy Seal hath stuck at none. Madam Howard: Privy Seal wrote to the King in his first letter, when he was but a simple servant of the Cardinal, ‘I, Thomas Cromwell, if you will give ear to me, will make your Grace the richest and most puissant king ever there was.’ So he wrote ten years agone; so he hath said and written daily for all those years. This it is to have a simple nature. …”
“But the vile deeds!” Katharine said.
“Madam Howard,” Throckmorton laughed, “I would ask you how many broken treaties, how many deeds of treachery, went to the making of the Roman state, since Sinon a traitor brought about the fall of Troy, since Aeneas betrayed Queen Dido and brought the Romans into Italy, until Sylla played false with Marius, Caesar with the friends of Sylla, Brutus with Caesar, Antony with Brutus, Octavius with Antony—aye, and until the Blessed Constantine played false to Rome herself.”
“Foul man, ye blaspheme,” Katharine cried.
“God keep me from that sin,” he answered gravely.
“—And of all these traitors,” she continued, “not one but fell.”
“Aye, by another traitor,” he caught her up. “It was then as now. Men fell, but treachery prospered—aye, and Rome prospered. So may this realm of England prosper exceedingly. For it is very certain that Cromwell hath brought it to a great pitch, yet Cromwell made himself by betraying the great Cardinal.”
Katharine protested too ardently to let him continue. The land was brought to a low and vile estate. And it was known that Cromwell had been, before all things, and to his own peril, faithful to the great Cardinal’s cause.
Throckmorton shrugged his shoulders.
“Without doubt you know these histories better than I,” he answered. “But judge them how you will, it is very certain that the King, who loveth simple natures, loveth Privy Seal.”
“Yet you have said that he lay under a great shadow,” Katharine convicted him.
“Well,” he said composedly, “the balance is down against him. This league with Cleves hath brought him into disfavour. But well he knoweth that, and it will be but a short time ere he will work again, and many years shall pass ere again he shall misjudge. Such mistakes hath he made before this. But there hath never been one to strike at him in the right way and at the right time. Here then is an opening.”
Katharine regarded him with a curiosity that was friendly and awakened: he caught her expression and laughed.
“Why, you begin to learn,” he said.
“When you speak clearly I can take your meaning,” she answered.
“Then believe me,” he said earnestly. “Tell all with whom you may come together. And you may come to your uncle very easily. Tell him that if he may find France and Spain embroiled within this five months, Privy Seal and Cleves may fall together. But, if he delay till Privy Seal hath shaken him clear of Cleves, Cromwell shall be our over-king for twenty years.”
He paused and then continued:
“Believe me again. Every word that is spoken against Privy Seal shall tell its tale—until he hath shaken himself clear of this Cleves coil. His Highness shall rave, but the words will rankle. His Highness shall threaten you—but he shall not strike—for he will doubt. It is by his doubts that you may take him.”
“God help me,” Katharine said. “What is this of ‘you’ to me?”
He did not heed her, but continued:
“You may speak what you will against Privy Seal—but speak never a word against the glory of the land. It is when you do call this realm the Fortunate Land that at once you make his Highness incline towards you—and doubt. ‘Island of the Blest,’ say you. This his Highness rejoices, saying to himself: ‘My governing appeareth Fortunate to the World.’ But his Highness knoweth full well the flaws that be in his Fortunate Island. And specially will he set himself to redress wrongs, assuage tears, set up chantries, and make his peace with God. But if you come to him saying: ‘This land is torn with dissent. Here heresies breed and despair stalks abroad’; if you say all is not well, his Highness getteth enraged. ‘All is well,’ he will swear. ‘All is well, for I made it’—and he would throw his cap into the face of Almighty God rather than change one jot of his work. In short, if you will praise him you make him humble, for at bottom the man is humble; if you will blame him you will render him rigid as steel and more proud than the lightning. For, before the world’s eyes, this man must be proud, else he would die.”
Katharine had her hand upon her cheek. She said musingly:
“His Highness did threaten me with a gaol. But you say he will not strike. If I should pray him to restore the Church of God, would he not strike then?”
“Child,” Throckmorton answered, “it will lie with the way you ask it. If you say: ‘This land is heathen, your Grace hath so made it,’
