Whitehall Palace, Spring 1539
Whitehall Palace, Spring
NICHOLAS CAREW IS tried and beheaded in the spring for the crime of questioning the arrest of the Pole family. Since he dies for asking a question, no one dares to inquire about him. I think someone should speak out for him; but he was no friend of mine nor friend to my husband, so I don’t speak.
In May, Lord Cromwell brings the case of his old enemy Lady Margaret Pole before parliament, as if it were another May Day joust. He shows the House a silk tunic found in the bottom of an old trunk at her home, embroidered with the five wounds of Christ – the old crusader badge that the pilgrim rebels wore when the north rose up.
There is nothing to connect the banner with the rebellion; there is nothing to prove that the old lady even sewed it, that it was not laid away by an old crusader’s wife, years before.
But a single silk banner is enough for this cowed parliament to condemn her to death without trial.
Nobody dares to defend a disgraced princess – we have three of them already, silent at court.
Nobody is going to speak up for the mother of a cardinal.
The old lady waits for her death in the Tower of London, where her son Henry and his kinsman were killed.
Her twelve-year-old grandson Harry, Gertrude Courtenay, and her son Edward visit her in her cell.
‘But she won’t be executed?’ I ask Lord Cromwell. ‘You said she would not be executed?’
‘No,’ he reassures me. ‘In time, she’ll be released, but she’ll never again have the power to raise the north or kill a queen, your sister, or your husband. It is the end of the Poles and the Spanish party, as I promised.’
We exchange a smile. This is our revenge.