The King's Secret Matter

by Виктория Холт

  He was even pleased with Katharine on this occasion. She had played her part in bringing about the Spanish alliance; for there was no doubt that the Emperor was more ready to enter into alliance with an England whose Queen was his aunt than he would otherwise have been.

  Henry caught the brooding eye of his Cardinal fixed on the pale young man.

  Ha! he thought, Wolsey is uncertain. He is not enamored of our nephew. He looks for treachery in all who are not English. ’Tis not a bad trait in a Chancellor.

  He thought of how Wolsey had bargained when they had made the treaty. A good servant, he mused, and one devoted to the interests of his King and country.

  Enough of solemnity, he decided, and clapped his hands. “Music!” he cried. “Let there be music.”

  So the minstrels played, and later Mary sat at the virginals and showed her fiancé how skilful she was.

  “Is it possible that she is but six years old!” cried Charles.

  And the King roared his delight.

  “I think,” said the Emperor, “that with one so advanced it should not be necessary for me to wait six years for her. Let me take her with me. I promise you she shall have all the care at my court that you could give her at yours.”

  Katharine cried in alarm: “No, no. She is too young to leave her home. Six years is not so long, nephew. You must wait six years.”

  Charles gave her his slow, kindly smile. “I am in your hands,” he said.

  Mary who had been listening to this conversation had grown numb with terror. Six years was a lifetime, but he wanted to take her now. This young man no longer seemed so kindly; he represented a danger. For the first time in her life she became aware that she might be taken from her mother’s side.

  Katharine, who was watching her, noticed her alarm and knew the cause. She said: “It is past the Princess’s bed time. The excitement of Your Excellency’s visit has exhausted her. I ask your leave for her to retire to her apartments.”

  Charles bowed his head and Henry murmured: “Let her women take her to bed, and we will show our nephew some of our English dances.”

  So Mary was taken away while the royal party went into the ballroom; and soon the King was dancing and leaping to the admiration of all.

  Katharine slipped away when the revelry was at its height and went to her daughter’s apartment, where she found Mary lying in her bed, her cheeks still flushed, her eyes wide open.

  “Still awake, my darling?” Katharine gently reproved.

  “Oh, Mother, I knew you would come.”

  Katharine laid a hand on the flushed forehead. “You are afraid you will be sent away.”

  Mary did not answer but her small body had begun to tremble.

  “It shall not be, my little one,” went on the Queen. “The Emperor said…”

  “He meant it not. It was to compliment you that he spoke those words. It is what is called diplomacy. Have no fear, you shall not leave me for a long, long time…not until you are old enough to want to go.”

  “Mother, how could I ever want to go from you?”

  Katharine lifted the little hand and kissed it.

  “When you grow up you will love others better than your Mother.”

  “I never shall. I swear I never shall.”

  “You are too young to swear eternal love, my darling. But I am here now I slipped away from the ball because I knew you would be fretting.”

  Katharine lay on the bed and held the child in her arms.

  “Oh Mother, you love me, do you not?”

  “With all my heart, sweeting.”

  “And I love you with all of mine. I never want to go away from England, Mother…unless you come with me.”

  “Hush, my sweetheart. All will be well. You will see.”

  “And you will not let the Emperor take me away?”

  “No…not for years and years…”

  The child was reassured; and the Queen lay still holding her daughter fondly in her arms, thinking of a young girl in Spain who had been afraid and had told her mother that she wished to stay with her forever.

  This is the fate of royal children, she told herself.

  The comfort of her mother’s arms soothed Mary and soon she slept. Then Katharine gently disengaged herself; the Queen must not stay too long from the ball.

  * * *

  THE KING was momentarily contented. He was at war with France and he dreamed of being one day crowned in Rheims. His temper was good. He spent more time than he ever had engaged on matters of state, and the Cardinal, seated beside him, explaining when the need arose to do so, was feeling certain twinges of uneasiness.

  He had been forced to support the war somewhat against his wishes; yet he was too wily to let anyone know that he was against it. The King wished it and Wolsey had no intention of arousing Henry’s anger by seeming lukewarm about a project which so pleased the King.

  Henry had inherited the wealth which his miserly father had so carefully accumulated; but he had spent lavishly and already the treasury was alarmingly depleted.

  “Nothing,” said the Cardinal, “absorbs wealth as quickly as war. We shall need money if we are to succeed in France.”

  The King waved a plump hand. “Then I am sure there is no one who can raise it more ably than my good Chancellor.”

  So be it, thought Wolsey. But the levying of taxes was a delicate matter and he suspected that the people who were obliged to pay them would blame, not their glittering charming King, but his apparently mean and grasping Chancellor.

  There was talk of the King’s going to France with his army, but although Henry declared his eagerness to do this, nothing came of it. His adventures abroad with his armies in the earlier years of his reign had not been distinguished although he had thought they had at the time. Much as Henry would have enjoyed riding through the streets of Paris, a conqueror, and even more so returning home to England as the King who had brought France to the English dominions, he was now wise enough to realize that even hardened campaigners did not always succeed in battle, and that he was a novice at the game of war. Failure was something he could not bear to contemplate. Therefore he felt it was safer to wage war on the enemy with a strip of channel between himself and the armies.

  François Premier was a King who rode into battle recklessly; but then François was a reckless fellow. He might win his successes, but he also had to face his defeats.

  So Henry put aside the plans for a personal visit to the battlefields. But war was an exciting game played from a distance, and Wolsey must find the money to continue it.

  * * *

  THESE WERE HAPPY DAYS for the Queen. Her husband and her nephew were allies and they stood together against the King of France whom she believed to be more of a menace to Christianity than the Turk. François, already notorious for his lecherous way of life, must surely come to disaster; and since her serious-minded nephew had the power of England beside him she was certain that Charles was invincible.

  She had her daughter under the same roof with her and she herself supervised her lessons.

  Mary was docile and happy as long as her mother was with her. The King left Katharine alone, it was true, but she believed that even he had ceased to fret for a son, and accepted the fact that their daughter Mary was heir to the throne; and one day when she married Charles she would be the Empress of Austria and the Queen of Spain as well as the Queen of England. That matter was happily settled.

  She was constantly seeking the best method of teaching her daughter, and one day she summoned Thomas More to her that she might discuss with him the manner in which his own daughters were educated.

  As usual she found great pleasure in his company. She talked a little about the war but she saw that the subject was distressing to him—which was to be expected, for he was a man to whom violence was abhorrent—so she turned the conversation to his family, which she knew could not fail to please him.

  She told him of her desire that the Princess Mary should receive the best ed
ucation in all subjects which would be of use to her, and Thomas said: “Has your Grace thought of consulting Juan Luis Vives?”

  “I had not until this moment,” she said, “but now that you mention him I believe he is the man who could help me in the education of the Princess. I pray you, bring him with you and come to see me at this hour tomorrow.” When Thomas had left her she wondered why she had not thought of Vives before. He had so much to recommend him. In the first place he was one of her own countrymen and she felt that, as her daughter was after all half Spanish and would be the wife of the King of Spain, there must be a Spanish angle to her education.

  Both Erasmus and Sir Thomas More had called her attention to Juan Luis Vives, and those two were men whose intellectual abilities had won the admiration of the world. Vives was a man, said Thomas, forced by poverty to hide his light under a bushel. He was living at Bruges in obscurity; he had published very little of his writings and few people had ever heard of him. Erasmus would bear him out, for Vives had studied Greek with him at Louvain. It was Thomas’s opinion that Vives should be brought to England and encouraged by the Court, for there was little his native Valencia or the city of Bruges could offer him.

  Katharine, out of her great admiration for Thomas, had immediately sent money to Vives with a letter in which she explained her interest in his work. It had not been difficult to persuade Henry—with the help of Thomas More—that Vives would be an ornament to the English Court; and Henry, who, when he was not masking or engaged in sport, liked occasionally to have conversation with men of intellect (François Premier boasted that his Court was the most intellectual in Europe and Henry was eager to rival it) very willingly agreed that Vives should be given a yearly pension.

  Thus in gratitude Vives dedicated his book, Commentaries on Saint Augustine to Henry, which so delighted the King that he called him to England to lecture at the college which Wolsey had recently founded at Oxford.

  This had happened some years before, but Vives made a point of spending a certain part of each year in England with his friends and patrons; and it so happened that he was in London at this time. So the very next day he arrived in the company of Thomas More for an interview with the Queen regarding her daughter’s education.

  Katharine received them in her private apartment and they sat together at the window overlooking the Palace gardens as they talked.

  “You know, Master Vives, why I have commanded you to come to me?” asked Katharine.

  “My friend has given me some idea of what Your Grace desires,” Vives answered.

  “My daughter’s education is a matter which is of the utmost importance to me. Tell me how you think this should be arranged.”

  “Sir Thomas and I are of one opinion on the education of young people,” said Vives.

  “It is true,” added Thomas. “We both believe that it is folly to presume that a girl’s education is of less importance than that of a boy.”

  “It is but natural,” went on Vives, “that an intelligent girl may come to a better understanding of Latin and Greek than a boy who is not possessed of the same intelligence.”

  “I would have my daughter educated in scholarly subjects, but at the same time I wish her to learn the feminine arts,” answered Katharine.

  “In that I am in full agreement with Your Grace,” said Vives.

  “What more charming sight,” mused Thomas, “than a girl at her embroidery?”

  “Or even at the spinning wheel working on wool and flax,” added Vives. “These are excellent accomplishments, but Your Grace has not summoned me to discuss them.”

  “I am going to appoint you my daughter’s tutor,” the Queen told Vives, “and I wish you immediately to draw up a list of books for her to read.”

  Vives bowed his head. “I will go to my task with the utmost pleasure, and I can immediately say that I think the Princess should read the New Testament both night and morning, and also certain selected portions of the Old Testament. She must become fully conversant with the gospels. She should, I believe also study Plutarch’s Enchiridion, Seneca’s Maxims, and of course Plato and Cicero.” He glanced at his friend. “I suggest that Sir Thomas More’s Utopia would provide good reading.”

  The Queen smiled to see the look of pride on Thomas’s face thinking that his few vanities made him human, and therein lay the secret of his lovable nature.

  “And what of the Paraphrase of Erasmus?” asked Thomas quickly.

  “That also,” agreed Vives. “And I think the Princess should not waste her time on books of chivalry and romance. Any stories she might wish to read for her entertainment should either be sacred or historical, so that her time is not wasted in idleness. The only exception I would make is the story of Griselda, which contains such an excellent example of patience that the Princess might profit from it.”

  Katharine said: “I can see that you will be an excellent tutor, but we must remember that she is but a child. Her life must not be all study. There must be some pleasure.”

  Vives looked surprised; to him the greatest pleasure was in study, and he believed the Princess to be the most fortunate of children, having such a plan of study made for her.

  Thomas laughed. “I’ll swear the Lady Mary, who so loves her music, will find time to escape to it from her books now and then. I know my own daughters….” (Katharine noticed the look of pride when he spoke of his daughters, which was even more marked than when he spoke of his books) “…are proficient in Greek and Latin but they find time to be merry.”

  “Yours is a merry household,” answered the Queen.

  And she found that she was comparing the King and Thomas More—two fathers who could not be more unlike. She had seen Thomas in company with his eldest daughter, Margaret, had seen them walk, their arms entwined, had heard the girl’s unrepressed laughter ringing out as she scolded her father in an affectionate way. It was impossible to imagine Mary and Henry thus.

  What a fortunate man, this Thomas More; what a fortunate family!

  “There is much merriment at Court,” answered Thomas gravely.

  But he understood of course—he was a man who would always understand—and a great tenderness touched his face; the Queen knew that it expressed the compassion he felt for her little daughter, who would study alone—not as Thomas’s family did—and would be taught by the somewhat stern though excellent Vives instead of merry Thomas.

  Somewhere from the grounds she heard the sound of laughter, and glancing down saw a group of young people. They made a charming picture on the grass in their brightly colored clothes and there was one girl among them who appeared to be the center of attraction. She was dark-haired, dark-eyed, somewhat sallow of complexion and, although not a beauty, certainly striking. She seemed to have more vitality than any other member of the group and was quite clearly taking the attention of the young men from the other girls who were present.

  “A high-spirited party,” said the Queen; and Vives and Thomas More glanced out of the window. “That girl seems familiar but I do not recall who she is. Surely that is Thomas Wyatt with her—and Henry Percy.”

  “The girl is Thomas Boleyn’s daughter, Your Grace,” Thomas told her.

  Then Katharine knew of whom the girl reminded her. It was Mary Boleyn. The resemblance was slight, otherwise she would have realized immediately. This girl had an air of dignity and assurance, and pride too—all qualities in which Mary had been dismally lacking.

  “This is the second girl, I believe,” said the Queen.

  “Recently home from France on account of the war,” explained Thomas.

  “Doubtless her father is looking for a place at Court for her,” said the Queen.

  “He will find it,” replied Thomas, “not only for Anne but for his George also.”

  “I trust,” said the Queen, “that this Anne is not like her sister in her morals, and that George does not bear too strong a resemblance to his father.”

  “From what I have seen of them,” Thomas answered,
“I should say they are a dazzling pair.”

  “Well then, I suppose we must resign ourselves,” said the Queen with a smile, “for it seems the Boleyns have come to Court.”

  * * *

  THE CARDINAL had shut himself in his private apartments at Hampton Court; seated at the window from which he could see the river, he was waiting for a message which was all-important to him, for it would tell him whether his greatest ambition was realized or not.

  The pale November sun shone wanly on the river. He thought: I shall miss Hampton Court; I shall miss England.

  He would miss his family too; but he would find means of seeing them. He would have young Thomas in Rome with him, because he would very quickly overcome all difficulties. He thought of Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander VI, who, while living in the Vatican, had yet arranged to have his children with him; for a Pope was as powerful as a King; and once he was supreme in the Vatican, the frowns of unpredictable Henry would be of little moment to him.

  Yet, he mused, I shall not forget my own country, and it will be a good day for England when an Englishman takes the Papal Crown.

  How long the waiting seemed! He would see nobody. He had told his secretaries that he was to be disturbed only by messengers from abroad because he was working on important matters of state.

  But soon the messenger must come.

  He began to pace the apartment because he could no longer bear to stare at the river.

  His chances were good. On the death of Leo X when Adrian VI had been elected, his hopes had been slender. Why should the Cardinals have elected a comparative newcomer to their ranks, an Englishman who had not previously worked closely with the Vatican? That election had taken place at the beginning of the year, and Adrian’s tenure of the Papacy had indeed been a short one for in September news had come to England of his death, and for the next two months the Cardinal had given less thought to affairs in England; his mind was on what would happen at the next conclave.