Chapter Westminster Palace, Autumn 1536
Westminster Palace, Autumn
THE SOUR MOOD of the pilgrims on the road to Canterbury rumbles through the country like a late summer storm.
All the lords report that the workers on their lands and the tenants on their farms are surly, saying that the church, their own parish church, their mother church is under attack.
They have given their halfpennies and farthings to the church for feast days and candles for centuries and won’t allow their treasures to be stolen and their windows smashed out.
Each village demands that its own abbey or monastery or convent is spared, whatever happens a country mile away.
Even the poorest people hear of the king’s excommunication and there are terrifying rumours that the pope is going to move against the king in a crusade, and Reginald Pole will lead a holy army to invade and restore England to the true faith.
At court the Poles, especially Lady Margaret’s youngest son Sir Geoffrey, are ostentatiously loyal.
They are never seen together, never even speaking to each other, so I am certain they are organising and the tenants on their vast lands – almost the whole of the west of England – are ready to rise in rebellion the moment that their favoured son, Reginald, lands at the head of a crusade.
Lord Cromwell brings the two princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, to join us behind the walls of Westminster Palace and musters men and goods and weapons ready for a siege of London.
Lady Mary stalks into the queen’s rooms, wearing royal purple, and curtseys to Jane Seymour.
The angle of her head under the jewelled hood is exactly right for a blood-royal princess to a queen by marriage.
Jane, who wisely persists in knowing nothing, jumps up from her throne and kisses her stepdaughter, and Lady Margaret Pole, who escorted her protégé back to her place at court, steps back and smiles at me.
The victory of getting Lady Mary to an honoured place at court has been accomplished almost unnoticed – the luck is running with the Spanish party again.
I go to the royal nursery to greet my niece Lady Elizabeth and find an imperious little girl who hides her fear at the strange surroundings by demanding one thing after another from her harassed governess.
She is instantly recognisable as Anne’s daughter, though she has the king’s colouring.
The look she throws me under sandy eyelashes is as swift and calculating as Anne.
Already, aged only three, she knows to hide her emotion; the chubby cheeks of babyhood are her mask.
I take her hand. ‘I think you’re going to be the greatest courtier of all.’
‘I’m not,’ she disagrees instantly. ‘I was Princess Elizabeth, but now it is Lady Elizabeth.’ She has the slightest infant lisp, but there is nothing childish in her dignity.
‘I am Lady Rochford,’ I tell her. ‘I am your aunt.’
‘Tudor?’ she asks keenly.
‘Boleyn,’ I say.
She turns away – the tilt of her little copper head is in an exact copy of Anne’s disdain.
‘Good day, Lady Elizabeth,’ I say.
THE KING’S DAUGHTERS take refuge behind the great walls of Westminster Palace, safe inside the walled City of London, because the men and women of Lincoln and then Yorkshire and then, one after another, all the great counties of the north, declare they will not have their faith destroyed and their beautiful churches emptied of treasure.
Every day, news comes in – from one lord or another – of rebels who call themselves pilgrims, marching under banners that show the five wounds of Christ. It is the old crusader banner: a call to all faithful; no Christian will raise a sword against them.
Of course, my uncle the Duke of Norfolk is immediately forgiven any offence.
Nothing matters when the king needs a reliable killer.
He is ordered to raise his army and go to Yorkshire.
He rides out, ready to kill a couple of hundred peasants armed with staves; but finds himself surrounded by fifty thousand men, led by mounted armed gentry, determined that the houses of religion founded by their forefathers and serving their people, shall not be slandered by Cromwell’s inspectors and swallowed by the king’s treasury.
My uncle, outnumbered five to one, takes in his desperate situation and pledges his empty honour to be their friend.
He swears to the rebels that the king only needs to know their grievances to set everything right.
All these changes – heretical changes – are the fault of the king’s wicked advisor, Lord Cromwell.
Thomas Howard kills two birds with one stone: buying time against the rebels and turning them against his greatest rival – Cromwell.
He guarantees that the king will reopen closed monasteries, repay all the stolen treasure, and reunite with the pope.
He offers a free and complete pardon to every man, praises them for doing God’s work in protecting the Church against the infidel Cromwell.
My uncle is St Paul – he has seen the light.
I imagine him gritting his teeth as he smiles at them and sends panic-stricken messages demanding help to the frightened court at Westminster.
‘Pardon them!’ Jane drops to her knees in a flurry of pale silk and lifts her earnest face, framed in the ugly square hood. ‘Mercy!’
There is a stunned silence in the privy chamber. It could not be more awkward. Lord Cromwell pauses in the middle of reading aloud a grovelling letter from the Duke of Norfolk listing the endless reforms he has had to promise in order to save the king’s army from being butchered.
Nobody is talking about a real pardon. Nobody would ever talk about a real pardon, only Jane would think that it could be a real pardon.
I glance around for help in getting Jane out of the way of the royal temper. Nobody responds. Lady Mary, the pilgrims’ princess, is too wise to make any move forward or back. She folds her hands in her sleeves like a nun and looks down at Jane, kneeling at the king’s feet.
‘Pardon them? Pardon them?’ The king repeats Jane’s words in a mocking falsetto voice. ‘Madam, you would do better to get an heir to the throne than advise me to throw it down.’
It is a shocking insult to a new wife in honeymoon days.
I glance over at Cromwell and see that he will make no move to rescue Jane, who is now frozen on her knees, condemned as a fool before the entire court, and a barren fool at that.
Jane’s brothers coached her to do this queenly ritual; but they could not have been more mistaken.
This is not Katherine of Aragon asking pardon for a dozen rowdy apprentices, condemned to death and snivelling.
These are powerful rebels with the Spanish party, the Church, the old royal family and most of the lords of the north on their side.
They speak with one coherent voice – the king does not want to hear them.
They are calling for the death of Cromwell – he’s not going to offer a pardon.
The two men let Jane kneel; it is the fool who saves her.
‘Pardon them!’ Will squeaks, throwing himself to his knees and putting his hands together in mimicry of the queen.
‘Pardon them! And get their leaders to London and execute them when you’ve got them here!
That’s what I meant to say. Not pardon them and forgive them and put the abbeys up again.
And certainly don’t give the lands back.
And don’t repay the money! Quite the opposite! Take more!’
Jane, completely baffled, turns her head to stare at Will, kneeling beside her, and then the king roars with laughter, and everyone throws back their heads and laughs, too.
I shake my head at the fool’s cynicism, and laughing loudly, I step forward and haul Jane to her feet, my hand under her elbow. She is white-faced and near to tears. I give her a little pinch on her inner arm.
‘What?’ she gasps.
‘Laugh,’ I order, and she manages a little squawk.
‘I’m damned if I don’t!’ the king bellows. He turns on Cromwell. ‘This fool is a better advisor than you! And a better soldier than Thomas Howard!’
‘Almost everyone is a better soldier than Thomas Howard,’ Cromwell agrees, smiling. ‘And if the fool’s strategy captures Robert Aske, the rebel leader, then the royal fool will meet the pilgrim’s fool!’
The king narrows his eyes into little blue slits. ‘Will they trust my word? Will they come to London for talks if I offer them safe passage? Will they halt the rebellion?’
‘They’re on a pilgrimage,’ Lord Cromwell observes. ‘They believe in miracles.’