The King's Commoner: The rise and fall of Cardinal Wolsey (The Tudor Saga Series Book 2)

by David Field

  ‘Delighted to have been of service,’ Thomas replied. ‘Now, if you would excuse me, the King requires my presence at Richmond ere nightfall. Your brother-in-law Boleyn may well find that matters diplomatic have been transferred to France.’

  Thomas climbed out of the barge alongside the Royal Architect, and they both ascended the steps cut into the grass slope in order to survey the old Hospitaller farm building, from whose decaying roof rafters the crows took off in noisy protest as they walked closer. Thomas frowned as he surveyed the modesty of the edifice.

  ‘Knock it all down and begin again, my Lord?’ the architect enquired.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Thomas replied as he visualised the finished product in his imagination. ‘I have in mind a grand courtyard entrance, with guest chambers all around it in a quadrangle, like our finest university halls. A flight of steps at the far end of the courtyard, with stables to one side, and the steps leading up to a grand corridor, from which may be accessed the largest banqueting hall you have ever constructed.’

  ‘And your private quarters? Shall they run along the upper level at the front, to command a grand view of the river?’

  Thomas sniffed in disapproval. ‘You and I have just had the misfortune to travel along that river, Sir Henry. It is, as your nose will have detected should it be as sensitive as mine, little more than a flowing guard-robe of other people’s shit. I do not wish to throw open my casement in order to smell that when the wind blows from the south. My apartments shall be towards the back, and the vista shall be that of ornamental gardens, with perhaps a maze. Here at the front, more gardens, planted with herbs and flowers that will detract the more sensitive noble noses from the pestilence of what flows past lower down.’

  ‘And the cost? Does your Lordship wish to restrict the expense to a particular amount?’

  ‘No, his Lordship does not,’ Thomas replied emphatically. ‘Fear not for the cost, Master Architect, simply apply to my steward when you have need of more money, and it shall be forthcoming. How soon shall it all be ready?’

  The architect thought for a moment, then replied uncertainly, ‘It will depend upon the weather, my Lord. We are at present blessed with a warm dry summer, but once the Autumn returns, with its gales and rain...’

  ‘All the more reason to make a swift start, then,’ Thomas retorted. ‘I wish my new residence here at Hampton to be ready by this time next year, and once the roof is in place the internal fittings may commence regardless of the weather. Make this your first priority or the King shall hear of it, since it is my intention to entertain the entire Court here at Midsummer’s Eve. Now, who is this that disturbs our business?’

  While they had been talking, they had become aware of three horsemen pounding down the grass slope towards them. They slid to a halt, and a tall, heavily bearded giant of a man leapt from his mount and strode purposefully towards Thomas, gesturing the architect aside with an imperious wave of the hand.

  ‘My Lord of Suffolk,’ the architect muttered deferentially as he bowed away backwards. Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, slightly out of breath from his urgent ride, strode away down the slope, calling to Thomas as he did so.

  ‘Walk with me a pace, Thomas,’ he all but commanded, ‘for we must talk privily.’

  Thomas looked Brandon up and down with a slight air of disapproval once he caught up with him. ‘I bid you call on me at Bridewell,’ Thomas reminded him. ‘As you can see, I am presently engaged in detailed discussion with the King’s Architect regarding my new country residence. Can your matter not wait?’

  ‘Can any affair of the heart wait, Thomas? Nothing you are presently engaged in can possibly compare with the sickness that my soul suffers as the result of your meddling.’

  ‘And what meddling would that be, precisely?’ Thomas enquired guardedly, although there could be no doubt what Suffolk was referring to.

  Charles had been awarded his title — one of only three dukedoms in the nation — as the result of his father’s bravery. William Brandon had been the standard bearer to Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth, and had paid with his life when he became one of only two men standing between the terrified Henry and a berserk, axe-wielding Richard of Gloucester. The newly crowned Henry VII had not forgotten what he owed to the Brandon family, and William’s orphaned son Charles had been raised in the royal nurseries at Eltham and Westminster alongside Prince Arthur, and after Arthur’s untimely death Charles became a natural companion to the boisterous Prince of Wales, now King Henry VIII, seven years his junior.

  This had rendered him something of a hero figure, and childhood romantic fantasy, to the royal princesses, and in particular the youngest and most beautiful of them all, the Princess Mary, who was now in her eighteenth year and about to be shipped off to France like a consignment of trade goods. It was no secret that the tall, dashing, muscular adventurer and the radiant and headstrong girl with the long and characteristic red-gold Tudor hair had been mutually attracted for several years, and that the development of their passion had only been restrained by the fact that Brandon was not of noble birth, while Mary was the most negotiable princess in Europe.

  Suffolk was now beside himself with anxiety. ‘You have traded the Lady Mary for some perceived advantage at the Court of France.’

  ‘I have done no such thing,’ Thomas told him cautiously. Brandon was still a royal favourite and confidante, and it was as well not to incur his displeasure, although in this matter it had been the will of the vastly more powerful Henry that had officially prevailed.

  ‘Spare me the honeyed shit, Thomas,’ Brandon glared back at him. ‘Hal does whatever you tell him, everyone knows that.’

  ‘I am certainly fortunate that His Majesty is graciously disposed to follow my counsel in some matters,’ Thomas oozed, ‘but it is hardly for a mere Bishop and King’s Almoner to determine the destiny of the most eligible princess in England. Particularly not one who is such a favourite of the King.’

  ‘She is also a favourite of mine, Thomas, as you must know, and you do me no favour by wrenching her from my side to marry that old man who has a face like a pitted pear, who is plagued with the gout, and who is three times her age.’

  It was time for Thomas to strike back, albeit diplomatically. ‘Would you wish to marry her yourself, Charles? Do you therefore not still grieve for your late wife in Westhorpe?’

  Brandon flushed with anger at the reproof, since his matrimonial escapades were the talk of the Court. He had first proposed marriage to Anne Browne, daughter of the Governor of Calais and his wife, a descendant of the once powerful Neville family. He had also got Anne pregnant before the nuptials could be celebrated, and had then thrown her over in favour of her aunt, the wealthy Margaret Mortimer. His marriage to Margaret was annulled at the instigation of the indignant Browne family, and Brandon and Anne Browne had finally tied the knot in a very public ceremony attended by King Henry himself. This was hardly the perfect track record for a romantic troubadour seeking the hand of a beautiful princess, and Brandon knew it, even though Anne Browne had died of the sweating sickness four years previously.

  ‘You do me wrong to remind me of the impetuosity of my youth,’ Brandon complained. ‘My heart has ever belonged to the Lady Mary — is there nothing that can be done to change Henry’s mind?’

  ‘The preparations are well advanced,’ Thomas advised him. ‘She will sail from Dover on a favourable Autumn tide, under the protection of my Lord of Norfolk and accompanied by two of his granddaughters as ladies-in-waiting. She is already ceremonially wed to Louis, through the good offices of the Duc de Longueville, and it wants only the final bedding across the Channel.’

  Brandon shuddered. ‘The mere thought of my beautiful Mary being pawed by that ugly old man, and I could run a sword through his innards! Does Henry care nothing for her, that he sends her to be violated by a scrofulous old goat?’

  ‘Patience, my dear Charles,’ Thomas urged him. ‘King Louis will not live forever, and I am advised
by one of Lady Mary’s attendants that she has wrought from King Henry a promise that when Louis is no longer, she may then marry the man of her choice. She did not name you in that regard, but everyone knows where her true heart lies.’

  ‘Truly, Thomas?’ Brandon enquired breathlessly. ‘This is not merely another of your honeyed reassurances, designed to deflect the arrows of displeasure?’

  ‘Truly, Charles. It is, of course, little more than rumour through the mouth of a menial Court servant, but I had it from him while negotiating a mild penance in punishment for his lying with his cousin while drunk.’

  Brandon placed a heavy mailed riding glove on Thomas’s shoulder, and stooped in order to look him firmly in the eye. ‘Thomas, I am, as ever, in your debt. If I might prevail upon our friendship further, and should Hal say anything more regarding the true alignment of Lady Mary’s heart, do you remember me kindly to her brother.’

  ‘Rest assured, Charles,’ Thomas replied, as he wriggled out from under the heavy hand, ‘you are forever at the forefront of my thoughts, and I will ever work for your happy advancement, as I feel sure I may also rely upon your good offices.’

  ‘Indeed you may, Thomas, indeed you may,’ Charles reassured him as he walked back to his companions and remounted his courser.

  The doors to the Queen’s Presence Chamber swung inwards, and Thomas walked serenely into the presence, dressed in his bishop’s regalia and doing his best to look unconcerned. Since he was no longer tutoring the Queen in English, there was no obvious reason for the summons he had received via one of her grooms, but his spies told him that Katherine was in a foul humour of late, and he believed he knew precisely why.

  Katherine sat in a high chair, her needlepoint on her lap, piercing Thomas with a steely glare as he walked towards her and bowed obsequiously. The Queen’s ladies slid away on cue, and Thomas raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  Katherine gestured for him to take the chair beside her. ‘And take off that ridiculous hat, Tomas — you are not here to say Mass.’

  Thomas dutifully removed his mitre, glad to be rid of its weight, and laid it ceremoniously on the floor beside his chair.

  ‘Why are you conspiring against me, Tomas?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you. And do not reply to my questions with questions of your own.’

  ‘In what way does Your Majesty consider that I am conspiring against you?’

  Katherine ‘humphed’ loudly, unimpressed by Thomas’s attempt at evasion. ‘The Lady Mary was intended as a bride for my nephew Charles — to marry her to Louis was an insult to my family.’

  ‘That was your husband’s decision, Your Majesty, not mine.’

  ‘No doubt under your guidance as ever, Tomas. Why do you persuade my husband to so insult my royal family?’

  ‘I did not persuade him, Katherine — he persuaded himself. And on the subject of insults, it ill pleased him that your father failed to come to his banner — twice.’

  ‘So he punishes my father by taking away his grandson’s bride — is that how diplomacy is conducted in this country, by playing upon matters of the heart?’

  ‘You forget that English troops under your direction took the life of James of Scotland, the beloved husband of the Princess Margaret.’

  ‘That is not the same thing, Tomas. James chose to take the field of battle. And I will not have my mind diverted by your skilled tongue. Answer me truly if you love me, Tomas, has the King taken a mistress?’

  The directness of the question left Thomas with his mind reeling. So far as his information gatherers at Court were to be believed, Henry had not once strayed from his marriage bed, which for a leading courtier in those times was a remarkable sign of respect and affection. Thomas lowered his eyes as if scandalised by the mere suggestion. ‘Has His Majesty given you grounds for believing that his affections have been wandering?’

  ‘His affections may wander where they will, Tomas — it is where his hands wander that I would wish to know.’

  ‘And again I must ask, with the deepest respect due unto your royal person, whether or not you have grounds for such suspicion?’

  Katherine stared him out, and gestured towards the Privy Chamber with a slight jerk of her head. ‘I have seen how he looks at my lady-in-waiting, Mistress Blount. Have you heard ought regarding her and the King?’

  ‘Nothing, madam — I swear on my immortal soul,’ Thomas protested.

  ‘Talking of souls, is it true that those who marry within the forbidden degrees are condemned to be childless?’

  Thomas thought carefully before he answered. ‘If you refer to the Book of Leviticus, it is certainly therein written that those who lie with the wives of their brothers shall not have issue. But I am bound to add that the books of the Bible were not written by physicians, and that the failure to have issue is a burden borne only by those whose former marriages were consummated. I do not presume to enquire of Your Majesty whether or not...’

  ‘I went to my marriage bed with Henry a pure maid!’ Katherine yelled back at him, then turned fearfully towards the Privy Chamber doorway in case she might have been overheard. She seemed to bring herself under control as she continued. ‘Henry knows this full well.’

  ‘If it is as you say, then you need fear nothing by way of God’s retribution.’

  ‘Then why do I only bear dead babies, Tomas?’

  ‘I am no physician, Katherine. I tend only to souls.’

  ‘And will you pray for this soul?’

  ‘I do so nightly, Katherine. Yours and Henry’s, that you may gift England with an heir to the throne that you both grace.’

  ‘You may leave me now.’

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Thomas mumbled as he bowed low before her, before reaching the chamber door that an usher was waiting to open for him. Since the usher had been stationed outside the door, Thomas wondered whether or not their conversation had been overheard, a possibility that seemed to be confirmed when the usher gave him a lascivious grin.

  IX

  ‘You are late, Thomas,’ Norfolk complained. ‘Are the children disturbing your sleep?’

  Thomas glared back at the Duke, reminding himself that he detested the man as much as he did his son, but for different reasons. If anyone at Court could outmanoeuvre Thomas in the matter of acquired intelligence — the tittle-tattle of the kitchens and backstairs — it was Thomas Howard Senior, the Duke of Norfolk, recently glowing in the halo of his military success and restored to his father’s attainted title. And this particular piece of intelligence had probably come from within Thomas’s own growing household.

  His affair with Joan Larke had borne the inevitable fruit of the enthusiasm with which it had been conducted, and Thomas now had a five-year-old son named John, and a daughter Dorothy who had achieved her third birthday only days before this meeting of the Council. Not only did this make any priest of the Church of Rome vulnerable to the obvious jibes regarding the rigour with which he obeyed the vows he imposed on others, but it was particularly inconvenient for a Bishop who was also a member of the King’s Council, seeking to impose moral imperatives on lesser men.

  ‘His Majesty advises that he will not be attending Council today,’ Thomas responded, ignoring the personal jibe, ‘but he has asked me to advise the members that the matter of the betrothal of the Princess Mary is beyond any further discussion.’

  ‘More’s the pity,’ Foxe muttered, glaring across the table at Thomas as he took his seat. ‘We should be siding with Spain and the Empire, if we are to preserve the Pope from the French incursions into Italy.’

  ‘If rumour be correct,’ Archbishop Warham added in a tired voice full of resignation, ‘we are doing that as well. Not only does Master Almoner possess a filed tongue, but also a forked one, it would seem.’

  ‘Master Almoner is now My Lord Bishop of Lincoln,’ Thomas growled back, hoping to provoke an argument with Warham that would divert attention from his latest advice to Henry, namely to keep open the back door to negotiat
ions with the Emperor Maximilian, through whom Thomas was anxious to secure preferment from the Pope.

  ‘His Majesty has certainly made some strange decisions of late,’ Warham sneered with a sidelong glance at Norfolk, clearly intending to fall out badly with every other member of the Council. ‘It must be the prospect of becoming a father at last.’

  This last piece of vitriol verged on the treasonous, and it was as if the Archbishop and Chancellor was determined to be stripped of both offices at once, along with his head. Thomas committed this particular indiscretion to his copious memory, and comforted himself with the thought that during their recent audience, Katherine must, whether she knew it or not, have been in the early stages of pregnancy, which would account for the alarming nature of her confidences towards Thomas.

  ‘If we may not debate the marriage with France,’ Norfolk enquired, ‘what may we take first on our agenda?’

  ‘There is the matter of the ancient privileges of the burgesses of Canterbury,’ Foxe threw in mischievously. ‘His Majesty has asked that we deal with it, and since his Grace of Canterbury is with us today, and clearly in a mood to express his opinions, perhaps we might get that over with before his Grace falls asleep as usual.’

  ‘They are claiming revenues that have belonged to Canterbury for as long as there have been records kept!’ Warham protested.

  ‘Records kept by the diocese itself,’ Foxe reminded the Council. ‘As the head of a diocese myself, I must express my uncertainty regarding their reliability.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that the office of the most venerable see in the land keeps forged records?’ Warham spat back. ‘If so, then His Majesty shall have my resignation!’

  ‘Don’t tempt us, my Lord Archbishop.’ Norfolk grinned at the assembled company, most of whom smirked at the table in response. Warham was so easy to provoke these days that it was almost a shame to indulge in it. Thomas could see what was coming, and did not wish his name mentioned when it did.