London

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Anne Boleyn.

  When, after two decades of affectionate marriage to his Spanish wife, Katherine, Henry still had no legitimate heir except his sickly daughter Mary, he was understandably alarmed. What would become of the Tudor dynasty? No woman had ever ruled England: wouldn’t it dissolve into chaos, like the Wars of the Roses? Nor was it surprising if, as a loyal son of the Church, he finally began to ask himself: why? Why was he being denied the male heir his country needed? What had he done wrong?

  One possibility existed. Had not Katherine, however briefly, been his elder brother’s wife? For before the poor boy’s untimely death, Arthur, the then heir had first been married to the Spanish princess. So wasn’t Henry’s union forbidden? At this juncture he had met Anne Boleyn.

  She was an English rose. The Boleyns were a London family; Anne’s grandfather had been Lord Mayor. But two brilliant marriages had allied the former merchant family with the upper aristocracy, and a stay at the French court had given her an elegance and wit that were captivating. Soon Henry was in love; before long he was wondering whether this bewitching young woman could provide a healthy heir. And so it was that, impelled by desire as well as the needs of state, he decided: “My marriage to Katherine has been cursed. I shall ask the Pope for an annulment.”

  It was not as shocking as it seemed; indeed, Henry had every reason to assume it would be granted. The Church was not without mercy. Grounds were sometimes found to release couples trapped in impossible marriages. The laity manipulated the rules too: an aristocrat might marry a cousin within the forbidden degree of relationship, knowing the marriage could be annulled; some even made deliberate mistakes in their wedding vows, leaving a loophole to have them declared invalid. But all this aside, the Pope had a clear desire and responsibility to help England’s loyal king create an orderly succession if he could.

  It was therefore amazingly bad luck that, just as Henry appealed for help, the Pope himself should have been virtually taken prisoner by another, even more powerful Catholic monarch: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, and head of the mighty Habsburg dynasty, whose aunt was none other than Katherine. “The Habsburgs would be insulted by an annulment,” he declared; and as Henry’s messengers arrived, the Pope was told: “Say no.”

  The ensuing negotiations were part tragedy, part farce. Henry’s minister, the great Cardinal Wolsey, was broken by them. As Henry pressed, the poor Pope prevaricated. Everything was tried. Even Europe’s universities were canvassed for their opinions. Earthy Luther laughed: “Let him commit bigamy.” The Pope himself discreetly suggested that Henry should divorce and remarry without his sanction – presumably hoping to regularize it later. “But that would be no use,” Henry pointed out. “The marriage, and the heirs, must be clearly legitimate.” To frighten the Pope, Henry even commanded the English Church to subject their courts to him and stopped their taxes going to Rome. But still the pontiff was helpless, clamped in the iron Habsburg jaws.

  Then, in January 1533, time ran out: Anne was pregnant.

  With a new archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, who believed his case was good, Henry acted. On the authority of the English Church alone, Cranmer annulled the marriage to Katherine and married the king and Boleyn.

  Many protested. Old Bishop Fisher of Rochester refused to sanction it. Thomas More, the former chancellor, was disapprovingly silent. A religious fanatic, the Holy Maid of Kent, prophesied that the wicked king would die, and was arrested for treason. But the embarrassed Pope himself, who had confirmed Cranmer in office, still hesitated to say whether he agreed with the new marriage or not.

  What were a pious and educated couple like Rowland and Susan Bull to think? Their devout Catholic king had fallen out with the Pope. Such things had happened before. They understood the politics of the situation. The faith, as such, was not really affected. “He may have acted wrongly, but he is doing his best for England,” Susan said. “It will all be resolved in the end,” Rowland hopefully declared. And especially, he thought, as he walked through the arch with Thomas Meredith, after the wonderful news that day.

  The astrologers had predicted it; Anne herself, sitting inside the palace with her ladies making smocks for the poor, admitted that she felt sure; and that very morning the doctors had unequivocally declared that the unborn child was a boy. England at last was going to have an heir. And who, devout or not, Pope or not, was sensibly going to quarrel with that?

  So it was with his heart full of happiness that Rowland Bull hurried out to find his wife that August afternoon.

  There were red and white roses in the garden. It seemed very quiet as Susan Bull stepped in.

  She had gone several paces when she saw the man and the woman. They were to her right, in an arbour, and they were looking at her.

  She did not know the woman – a lady of the court, clearly. Her blue silk dress was raised above her waist. Her white stockings were down to just below her knees. Her slippers were still on, but her pale, slim legs were clasping the haunches of a large man who held her. The man remained fully dressed except in one particular: the brightly coloured flap of his cod-piece had been undone. It was a convenient aspect of that part of masculine attire.

  King Henry VIII of England had found it so this afternoon. It was a pity that, surprised in the act, he had automatically disengaged, with the result that now, to her astonishment, and hardly aware of what she was doing, Susan Bull found herself staring at the king in his nakedness. And he at her.

  For several seconds she was so shocked that she did not move, but stood there staring idiotically. The woman who, expecting her to retire discreetly, had not altered her position, with a look of annoyance now lowered her feet to the ground while King Henry, to her amazement, calmly turned to face her.

  What should she do? It seemed too late to run. Unaware that she was even doing so, she put her hand up to the cross she was wearing. How was one supposed to behave? Should she curtsy? Her body seemed paralysed. And then King Henry spoke.

  “So, Mistress: you have seen the king today.”

  She realized: it was her cue. This was the moment to say something amusing, to make the business pass off lightly. She racked her brains. Nothing came. Worse: without thinking, she had allowed her eyes to wander.

  She couldn’t help it. She might have been taken aback by the sight of Henry, but now, as her gaze travelled down and she remembered the king’s reputation as a lover, she found herself thinking: he is no different from my husband. Rather less in fact. She also noticed something else. The shirt that Henry was wearing had come partly undone. The splendid figure she remembered lifting her up as a child was still recognizable, but time had taken its toll upon Henry; the thirty-four-inch waist of his prime had swelled to almost fifty-four, and the great, hairy, overhanging gut of which she caught a glimpse did not seem very appealing. She looked up to his face.

  And Henry smirked.

  That was what did it. She had seen that look before. Most princes had mistresses: it was to be expected. But this was different. After all the difficulties – the putting aside of a loyal wife, the problem with the Pope, the marriage to Anne – now with the all-important heir almost born and his new queen probably not a hundred yards away, this overweight king was casually indulging himself in a garden where anyone might see. That look said it all: guilty but triumphant, it was the greedy grin of the lecher. The heroic and pious king she had revered was suddenly a shadow; in the flesh, under the harsh light of the sun, she saw he was merely vulgar. She felt disgust.

  Henry saw it. Very coolly, he fastened the cod-piece back in place while the lady, with practised swiftness, rearranged her dress. By the time he looked up again, the grin had vanished. “Methinks this lady has a sullen look.” The voice was quiet, and dangerous. He addressed the words to his companion, who gave a little shrug. He stared at Susan. “We do not know this lady,” he said with deliberate evenness; and then, loudly: “But we like her not!” And suddenly, remembering his power, Susan felt herself go cold
.

  “What is your name?”

  Dear God. Had she just ruined her husband’s career before it had even begun? Her heart sank.

  “Susan Bull, sire.” She saw him frown. His memory, as every courtier knew, was formidable, but it seemed the name of Bull meant nothing. “Your name before marriage?” he abruptly demanded.

  “Meredith, sire.” Had she destroyed her brother too?

  But there was a just perceptible change. His brow seemed to clear a little.

  “Your brother is Thomas Meredith?”

  She nodded. He looked thoughtful.

  “Your father was our friend.” He gazed at her carefully now. “Are you our friend?”

  He was offering her a chance, for her father’s sake. She knew she must take it. “Kings,” Thomas had once said, “have only friends or enemies.” Whatever her private feelings at his behaviour, she could not let her family down. She made her deepest curtsy.

  “I have been Your Majesty’s friend all my life,” she said. And then, with a smile: “When I was a little girl, Your Majesty held me in his arms.” It was, she hoped, everything it should be: friendly yet submissive.

  Henry watched carefully. He was an expert in submission. “See to it that you remain so,” he said quietly, and motioned that she should withdraw. But then, with one of those astonishing transformations that are the prerogative of kings, he suddenly decided to continue.

  “You did wrong to come upon us in such a way,” he remarked gravely. It was a gentle, but firm rebuke. She bowed her head. From this moment, she instantly realized, in the royal mind, the incident would be marked down as her fault, and in no way his. It was always so with Henry. Any courtier could have told her. She began to withdraw.

  Just as she reached the entrance to the garden, she turned and, thinking to reassure him of her loyalty blurted out: “I saw nothing, sire, when I was here.”

  And the instant she said it, she realized her terrible mistake. By her thoughtless words she had just implied that he had something to hide, that, even for a moment, she had enjoyed a moral superiority over him. It was an impertinence. It was dangerous. He scowled and waved her to be gone; and so, miserably confused, she backed away, wishing that the ground of Hampton Court would open up and swallow her.

  As she came away, she was trembling, not so much at the threat to herself and her family but because she had discovered in that horrible moment that in the innermost heart of the kingdom, stripped of the pomp and pious façade, lay a hideous corruption.

  Dan Dogget waited and tried to look calm; but it was not easy, under the circumstances.

  It was a cloudy September day; a sharp wind was passing across the waterfront at Greenwich and the grey-green Thames waters were choppy.

  Nothing had altered in the last few weeks. Margaret and the children had settled in well enough at Hampton Court, but he still hadn’t found a berth for his truculent old father.

  It was six weeks since he had first rowed Meredith, with two of his family, from Hampton Court one August evening; but straight away he had judged he was a coming man. At journey’s end, he had offered his services again, and before long had become Meredith’s regular boatman, picking him up whenever required. He had even put a fresh coat of paint on the boat and made sure he was cleanly turned out on each occasion; and the young man seemed to like the arrangement. In doing this, the waterman had no definite plan, but as his father would say: “Get on the right side of a gentleman and he may do you some good.” A week ago, an opening had come. Meredith had casually remarked that he was surprised such a fine-looking fellow was not working on one of the smarter barges. During the trip, from Chelsea to the city, Dan had explained his predicament. Meredith had said nothing, but two days later, on his way to Westminster from Greenwich he had remarked: “And if I could help you, good fellow, how would you serve me?”

  “Why sir,” Dan had eagerly replied, “I’d do whatever you ask. But I think,” he added regretfully, “that you cannot help me get a barge.”

  The young courtier had smiled. “My master,” he said quietly, “is Secretary Cromwell.” Square-jawed, surly-eyed, a man so compact he was like a boulder: everyone knew that, since the fall of Wolsey, it was Thomas Cromwell who ruled England for the king. Dan had not realized how well connected the young man was.

  So when, just as he left him that morning, Meredith had casually remarked “I may have news for you today”, he had left the waterman in an agitated state.

  When Dan Dogget considered the two great Tudor palaces on the Thames between which he plied his trade, they always seemed like two different worlds. Hampton, nearly twenty miles away upstream, amidst its lush meadows and woods, felt as though it was deep inland. But as soon as he passed the Tower, and entered the river’s great eastern loop, his heart began to beat with a different pulse. He would take a deep breath, and think he smelt a salty breeze; the sky seemed somehow wider; he was on his way to the open sea where everything was possible.

  The palace of Greenwich shared this bracing air. Beside the old hamlet, its brown brick walls and turrets stretched right along the waterfront. It had a great tiltyard – for though, since the Wars of the Roses, improved firearms had made heavy armour out of date, Henry loved the dangerous sport and pageantry of the joust, in which he took an active part himself. There was a huge armoury on the eastern side of the palace, and a short distance upstream lay the Tudors’ new dockyard of Deptford, where seagoing vessels were fitted out and the air was redolent of tar.

  Dan Dogget had always loved the place. He wondered if it would be lucky for him today.

  Thomas Meredith’s career was progressing well. Thanks to a friendship recently formed with the new and still youthful Archbishop Cranmer, he had been allowed a privileged place at the christening of the new royal baby in the chapel in Greenwich Palace today. The baby had been wrapped in a purple mantle with an ermine train. With several other courtiers, Thomas had stood with a towel to receive the baby naked from the font. Cranmer had been godfather. They had given the baby a resounding and royal name: Elizabeth.

  The birth of the eagerly awaited heir had turned out to be an unpleasant surprise: it was a girl. Queen Anne Boleyn was embarrassed; the court, considering all the king had been through, was shocked; Henry himself put the best face on it he could. The baby was healthy. There would be others. For the time being therefore, in the eyes of the English Church, the baby was heiress to the throne since, by annulling the king’s first marriage, Cranmer had made Princess Mary, technically, illegitimate. As for the view from the Vatican, it was impossible to say, since the Pope had still not given his decision between the king’s two marriages.

  As he approached the wherry, Meredith smiled to himself. Here was his waterman, looking expectant. He took his seat without a word. Dogget cast off. Deciding to keep the fellow in suspense a few more minutes, Meredith waited until they were opposite the Deptford docks before he spoke. “Well, fellow, do you still seek a barge?”

  “Aye, sir. But what barge?”

  He saw the courtier smile. “Why, the king’s barge, fellow,” he quietly replied.

  For a moment, Dogget was so astonished that he forgot to make his stroke. He stared open mouthed at Meredith. He was not sure exactly how much these lucky aristocrats of his trade were paid, but probably double what anyone else got. The king was also constantly moving up and down river, with Greenwich as his favourite residence, and with less frequent trips to Richmond and Hampton Court. He began to stammer his thanks, but Meredith raised his hands.

  “It may be that I can find a lodging for your father too,” he continued, and seeing Dan gasp, he smiled again.

  If asked why he, a young man already making friends with the greatest men in the kingdom, should concern himself with a humble waterman, Thomas Meredith would have had no trouble explaining himself. It was the courtier’s instinct – the same instinct that made him find Rowland his place with the chancellor – that you cannot have too many friends. Who could gues
s what service, at some future date, this fellow could do him in return? The art was to have dozens of such people, in every place imaginable, upon whom you could call.

  “I am much in your debt, sir,” the awestruck Dogget said.

  A week later, Meredith was as good as his word.

  Perhaps in all London at this time, no place was more respected than the large grey-walled monastery that lay a short distance east of old St Bartholomew’s Hospital just outside the city wall. As well as the communal buildings, its chief feature was a large courtyard surrounded by little houses, each with its own tiny garden; and each of these was the cell of an individual monk. Its inhabitants, the Carthusians, were not the most ancient of orders; but unlike most others, no word of scandal had ever been whispered about them. Their rule was strict. Silence was maintained except on Sundays. The monks did not go out without the prior’s permission. They were above reproach. This was the Charterhouse.

  A curious little procession formed outside its gateway that sunny day. At its head was Thomas Meredith. Behind him came a couple who had, until shortly before, been tending their stall in the street nearby – a profitable little venture selling crucifixes, rosaries and a splendid collection of brightly painted plaster figures. The man, whose name was Fleming, was of medium height, with a rather concave face; his wife as tall as he and stout, had for some minutes already been heaping praises upon the courtier, and the monks, for their wonderful kindness to her father: which was no doubt in order since she herself, for more than five years, had refused to take any interest in the old man. And bringing up the rear, his arm firmly held by Daniel who was now splendidly dressed in the livery of the king’s watermen, came Will Dogget.

  He was somewhat stooped now, or he would have been as tall as his son. Though dressed in a clean shirt and tunic, and with his long grey beard freshly brushed, there was something vaguely disreputable about the old man’s walk which suggested that, after a lifetime of cheerfully doing as he liked, he was liable at any second to veer off in pursuit of pleasure. But now he had come to live in the Charterhouse.