Anne Boleyn: A Novel (16 page)

Wolsey was dead; he was the one man who might have persuaded Henry to abandon the divorce; he was the last strong link with Henry’s early years. She stood on tiptoe and caught him round the neck, drawing his head down till his mouth was level with her own. She kissed him slowly, till his powerful arms went round her, flattening her body against his, and his fierce urgency bruised her mouth. Deliberately she caressed him till he heaved and grunted with desire, and for the first time she responded genuinely, with a strange thread of love running through the fabric of her physical passion. He was hers, and he was the King. He was a man above all other men, as she had seen him that night, huge and splendid and virile, beside squat Kingston and wretched Henry Percy. He was going to get rid of Catherine and marry her and make her Queen of England; the struggle would soon be over and she could rest safely in the shade of his love.

“My love,” she said suddenly. “My own dear love.”

She was taken completely by surprise when he put her away from him. His face was hot and flushed with passion, but he pulled her arms gently but firmly from round his neck and shook his head.

“Don’t tempt me with sips, Nan, when you won’t let me drain the cup...It’s late, and I’ve a meeting with Master Cromwell. I’ll come and sup with you later, sweetheart.”

She caught his sleeve quickly as he turned to go.

“Harry, Harry, don’t leave me so; has something made you angry? You know I’d yield this moment if it were possible.”

That was true for the first time in three years; if they’d continued, she might well have done so. She was too feminine to see the logic in his refusal to go on, suddenly jealous that talks with Cromwell or anyone else should matter more to him than making love to her. Then a doubt struck her, and she paled.

“You regret Wolsey’s death!” she accused. “For all your high words you were still under his influence!”

The King looked down at her, and prized her fingers free of his sleeve. His expression was curiously blank, but his light eyes were steady and cruel and he stared at her for a moment without answering.

“For one who knows me well, you make many mistakes,” he said quietly. “The Cardinal betrayed me; his resisted my will. If I have a regret it’s that he didn’t live to feel the ax. And disabuse your mind of one thing. Nan, I’m under no man’s influence; and no woman’s either, unless I choose to be.”

He picked up his velvet cap from a chair and pulled it squarely on his head. Then he left her without kissing her or looking back.

She went to the fire and stood watching the flames playing about the sides of the logs. It was just as well he went, because her temper was rising to the point where it would have exploded in a furious quarrel, and in her heart she knew it wasn’t safe to quarrel with him now, that he couldn’t be treated to scenes like any ordinary man. She had taught him the value of his position, urging and insinuating that he was a being apart from humanity by reason of his kingship; too mighty to be thwarted by anyone, even the Vicar of Christ, much less a mere wife and a Cardinal Minister. Now her theories were rebounding on her own head. She laughed furiously, enraged with herself because in a moment of weakness she had expressed her love for him, and on an impulse she drew back her foot and kicked the logs. They toppled, and a shower of golden sparks flew up the chimney. Her embroidered velvet shoe was black and ruined. It didn’t matter; there were over two hundred pairs in her shoe chest.

And blue didn’t suit her, it was an anemic color, favored by the Queen.

She would give the dress away; and she would go and change it now, so that when Henry came back to her for supper, he shouldn’t be reminded of their disagreement. She was being clever, and she knew it; this was how she had caught and kept the King and made him want to marry her; not by shrieking like a fishwife, but by policy. When she was Queen of England, there would be no need. He had always treated Catherine well until the last year or so, and he would be more attentive and indulgent to her than he had ever been to his first wife, because he loved her. She was sure of that love, and her temper cooled; patience, patience, she counseled herself, and smiled because she sounded like her crafty father. All would be well when she was married.

When Henry supped with her that night, her fractious mood had been discarded with the magnificent blue dress, which already lay folded in her tirewoman’s chest, along with other gifts of clothes and gloves and little trinkets. Opulence had never made Anne mean. She was so gay during the meal that his spirits bounded; he roared with laughter and pulled her chair next to his so that he could hug her while he ate, and they shared each other’s glasses, till his eyes grew bloodshot with wine, and his hands began seeking for her under the table. It occurred to her then, as she parried him, laughing, and insisted on a game of dice, that she must see that the King was drunk on his wedding night. He was blind and violent in drink; he would never notice...

The sun of the great statesman Thomas Wolsey had sunk and been extinguished. His benefices were distributed, his wealth went to his enemies, and all that remained of his glory was the palace at Hampton, and the reforms he had instituted during his brief stay at York, where he lavished on his neglected priesthood the energies that had been so long expended on politics and self-aggrandizement. The Cardinal’s sun had vanished, but another star was rising. A less brilliant star, and as yet small, but it burned with a fierce concentration of cunning and ambition. The star was his old secretary Thomas Cromwell.

It was the measure of his skill that he managed to avoid the fate of his master by parceling out Wolsey’s possessions to his enemies, and gaining the patronage of Norfolk himself, while he worked quietly to save the Cardinal from the sentence which finally overtook him. He was loyal, while there was any hope, but by the time Northumberland rode out to take the Cardinal prisoner, Cromwell had entered the King’s service, ironically, on Norfolk’s recommendation. He was obsequious and efficient, and the Duke thought he might be useful among the King’s officials. He was firmly entrenched in his position before the Duke realized exactly what he had done.

He was unremarkable, where Wolsey’s ostentation had offended everyone, and he anticipated the King’s wishes with a humility that fitted perfectly into the pattern of monarchial tyranny which was just emerging. And he protected himself and revealed himself at the same time by attaching himself to the service of Anne.

Catherine was doomed. Wolsey had said that once, and Cromwell had never forgotten. And unlike Wolsey, the woman had no grudge against him, and the King no pride to salve at his expense. He was the perfect servant, ready to propose measures which might have degraded the dignity of the King, and to carry them out by methods which it suited Henry to ignore. Tireless and tactful, he asked for nothing but the chance to get Henry and Anne what they wanted; and he knew that the rewards would follow the success.

He was a dull, sexless man, and when he came to Anne and offered to work in her interests, she recognized the motive and knew it could be trusted. He wanted power and favor with the King; she held the key to both. He hated the court faction which she knew opposed her: the Duke of Suffolk, recalled from his banishment by Henry, in spite of her protests; the Comptroller Guildford; the Marquis of Exeter; and the Chancellor, that irritating, righteous man that Henry liked. Sir Thomas More.

The Council had turned against her after Wolsey’s death; the truce of self-preservation was broken when he died at Leicester, and they were fighting her openly. She knew that it was only a matter of time before her Uncle Norfolk abandoned his pretense and sided with her opponents, and to make matters worse, the Pope was temporizing and holding out hopes of reconciliation to the King if he would only give her up. The opening of the divorce case at Rome was delayed on one pretext after another, while the Papal nuncio appealed to Henry, and the French King promised to do his best to influence Clement on his English ally’s behalf.

Her father went to France, where the King redoubled his promises of friendship to England, and yet managed to avoid offending either Clement or the Emperor Charles. The nations were at peace, and peace was essential to Francis, who had been soundly defeated in the last conflict. The Imperial armies were on his threshold in the Low Countries, and they were the protectors of Rome in Italy. The infidel Turks were threatening an invasion of Christendom, and the Pope paused in his attempts to unite the Christian Princess, to issue an order forbidding the discussion of the English King’s marriage among ecclesiastical or lay faculties until the case opened in Rome. It was an effort to stop Henry’s agents from bribing the universities, and it partially succeeded, but the arbitrariness infuriated England and incensed the King. And Cromwell was at his elbow with a suggestion which he thought might avenge the insult and prevent the recurrence of foreign interference with the wishes of his master.

Working in his little closet, often until the middle hours of the night, the drab, ugly figure drew the threads of a tremendous social revolution through his fingers, testing the strength and fiber of each factor, weaving and twisting until the strands became a pattern of law.

When he went to the King with the finished design, he called it the Act of Supremacy.

It was very simple, this lever with which to overthrow the authority of the Pope in England. It was a law proclaiming the King Head of the Church in England and requiring the bishops to take an oath of obedience to him in that capacity. He explained it carefully in his quiet voice, while the huge figure of Henry towered over him, and the small eyes watched him, till Cromwell had to look away. They were alone in the King’s room at Windsor, a cold, stone chamber in spite of the tapestries and the thick candles standing in tall metal sconces on the floor, which had to be lighted even in the day, because the narrow windows gave such a poor light. It was a medieval room, and the January sun filtered weakly through the talc casement. Unlike the elegant apartments at York Palace and Hampton, the floor was thickly spread with scented rushes. One of the King’s hunting dogs had crept close to the crude fireplace and lay snoring, nose between its paws, one eye occasionally opening to watch the movements of its master.

“The device is simple,” Cromwell explained. “The late Cardinal was under a charge of treason when he died; all those bishops appointed by him shall be summoned under a nominal charge and ordered to clear themselves by swearing obedience to you and acknowledging your supreme authority. Most of the bishops are Wolsey’s nominees; the few who aren’t are too old to offer any resistance.”

Henry looked at him, frowning. “The Commons will support the measure, but what of the Lords?”

Cromwell’s round face turned up to him.

“The Lords may be less willing, Sire, once they recognize how much your power will be increased. The Lords have always resented the authority of the King, and tried to limit it. My late master once said to me that the union of the Church and the Monarchy was the best safeguard against the ambitions and disloyalty of the nobles; he was right in his day, but no longer. The Church has dared to set itself above you, and the time has come to bring it into subjection before it has time to ally itself with the Lords. Wolsey believed that the King needed the Church in order to restrain his nobility. I believe the King can reduce both.”

“The Cardinal was a wise man, before he became a traitor,” Henry remarked. “But I am wiser; I know the temper of the Lords well enough, but the Lord’s don’t yet know mine. They think because Wolsey fell that his power shall be distributed among them. They’re mistaken, Tom; that power is mine, was always mine, as he discovered when he went against me. My Church must learn Wolsey’s lesson, and the first thing we must do is involve the Lords in teaching it, before they see too clearly that after the bishops the Act will be applied to them. I shall discuss the matter with Norfolk and my brother Suffolk; they shall come into my confidence, Tom, and be entrusted with my plans until they can never withdraw. The first thing they shall do is go to the Queen and advise her to submit and recall her appeal to the Pope.”

Cromwell’s mind was racing parallel with the King’s as he listened; he was amazed at the cunning of the suggestion. Acting as Henry’s official emissaries, a body of the great English nobles were to declare themselves partisans of the divorce by exerting pressure on the Queen; the opportunity was tempting, for it appeared that he was delegating his authority to them, by asking them to bully Catherine on his behalf.

“As regards their feeling toward the bishops and this new Act,” Henry continued slowly, “I suggest that a question be put to Lord Dacre. Let him be asked whether he agrees that matrimonial disputes should be within the jurisdiction of the civil courts rather than the ecclesiastical.”

“A very fair question,” Cromwell smiled. “As Lord Dacre is no partisan of the Lady Anne’s, his reply should let us know what attitude the Lords will take.”

Immediately the King turned to him, his thin red brows drawn down and that tight mouth pursed till it was almost invisible; Cromwell knew that expression and his smile quickly disappeared.

“It’s no longer a question of who champions the Lady Anne,” Henry said flatly, “The Lady Anne has no significance beyond the fact that she pleases me and I wish to make her my wife. This is no trifling love affair in which men side with one woman or another. The matter has gone beyond that, Master Cromwell. I don’t deny it began in earnest with my love for the lady; that love remains as steadfast as ever, but now my right as King is at stake. I’m no lovesick fool to set empires battling because of a woman; that’s the malice of my enemies. I tell you this,” and he leaned over Cromwell, one heavy hand flat on his shoulder, “my conscience tells me Catherine’s not my lawful wife, and my conscience doesn’t lie. My honor also tells me that Henry, King of England, shan’t go to his grave without a son to follow him! I know my will now, by God, and I’ve seen men try to thwart it, as they thwarted other Kings.”