by Anne Stevens
“I thank you for the correction,” Norfolk says. “Does a Smith outrank a butcher of sheep? Will you be bringing your mistress?”
“And spoil a damned good drinking session?” the Duke of Surrey replies. “No, I shall take along Master Rich.”
“Ah!” The Duke of Norfolk simply cannot contain his pleasure at this. “Your new pet. I hear you two often swive the same doxies?”
“What is that to you, sir?” Surrey replies. “I know all about the sluts you keep about the county.”
“Do you now?” Thomas Howard, most eminent lord in the realm, is shaking with suppressed laughter. “Then you will know that they are free of the pox … unlike Master Rich!”
“That is a scandalous remark, sir,” Surrey says, but he still feels a coldness in his stomach. “Where is your evidence?”
“God’s teeth, my boy, the man is clapped, on the word of your own cousin, Mary Boleyn. She let this particular cat out of the bag yesterday, and has a certain knowledge of these things. You have gone ashen, sir. Perhaps a visit to the court physician is called for?” Norfolk grins, as his son almost runs in search of medical help.
He will attend Cromwell’s feast, if only to further irk his ungrateful son. There is the slight problem of finding a guest to take, as he believes men hold him in such high esteem that they stand back, in awe. The truth, that he is a loud and obnoxious bully, disliked by all, will never cross his aristocratic mind.
Then it comes to him. Tom Wyatt, the saucy writer of love poetry is back from France. He will do nicely, and shall earn his dinner by spouting off a few ribald rhymes.
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk will attend, and has no shortage of friends to take along. He is a weak man, prone to many vices, and this seems to engender deep affection in other men’s hearts. Even Thomas Cromwell, he fancies, has a soft spot for him.
“Who, by Jesus’ Cross, is this Sainted Eustace fellow, Roger?” he asks, showing the invitation to his dice partner.
“Patron saint of buggers, drinkers and fornicators, with any luck,” Roger De Crecy replies. “Shall I join you, Charles? I fancy a good meal, and Cromwell knows how to entertain. His cook used to work for Cardinal Wolsey.”
“Almost all his servants did,” Suffolk says. “Master Cromwell is a decent sort of man, and did not want them to suffer for their master’s stiff necked disobedience of Henry.”
“Come, sir. You are as a brother to the king, so tell me true. They say he was about to forgive the man.”
“Yes, that is so. He told me even as the cardinal was being marched back by Harry Percy. The king near wept when news came of the old man’s death.”
“He blames Percy yet, does he not?”
“When he is in a black mood, he curses the man, and says he was given poor council.”
“Which is why he favours Cromwell so much, I wager?”
“Then you would lose your bet, sir,” the Duke of Suffolk responds, heatedly. “Master Cromwell has the sharpest wits in England… perhaps Europe. He gives sound advice, and has progressed the matter of Henry’s separation from Katherine far more than the Lord Chancellor.”
There. Charles Brandon’s duty is done. He is wholly owned by Thomas Cromwell, and must honour his name at every opportunity. One day, he will be debt free, and able to become his own man again, he thinks. It is a childish dream, and deep inside, he knows this. There will ever be a Cromwell to contend with.
“An urgent communication from Privy Councillor Cromwell, My Lord Chancellor.” The herald bows, and places the note on the desk before him. He turns to leave, and is not surprised to see the king studying Sir Thomas More’s amazing map of the world. A second, deeper bow, and he is gone.
Henry shakes his head, and comes to join More at the large desk. He is considering the map, and wishes to ask something.
“Is my kingdom so small, Sir Thomas?” he asks. “It is but a thumb’s length, and is dwarfed by the mass of this New World.”
“Ah, the Spanish lands, sire.” Thomas More steeples his fingers, as he does when about to impart some profound piece of knowledge. “It is rich in gold, and savages. My agents say the Emperor Charles has three thousand men there, just to keep the peace.”
“Still, sir, I am informed that it brings in a great deal of wealth,” Henry replies. “Thomas Cromwell says we should be building ships to explore its length and breadth, for our own ends.”
“Cromwell is a dreamer, Your Majesty,” the Lord Chancellor explains. “The Emperor would see such an action as an insult. We would be faced with a war against Spain, and the rest of the Holy Roman Empire.”
“I see. Cromwell tells me that there is enough rich land to increase my kingdom a hundred fold.”
“No land can be that vast, sire,” More tells him. “The map maker has exaggerated the New World’s size to aggrandize the Emperor Charles. It is but the most easterly end of the Indies, and probably hemmed in by the vast lands of Cathay.”
“I must speak with Cromwell at greater length.” The king is restless. Lady Anne is indisposed, and her sister is suddenly coy, and less free with her favours. He is bored, and wishes a diversion. Even Brandon’s company is not what it was. He spouts on about Master Cromwell to excess. “What have you there? Is it a response to our letter to my Brother France?”
“It is not his seal, sire,” More says, throwing the note aside, unopened.
“Then whose?” More is cornered. He opens the note, and reads.
“It is an invitation to dinner, Your Majesty. From Master Cromwell. He says he is celebrating the feast day of St. Eustace.”
“Never heard of him,” Henry says. “I hear he sets a fine table, Lord Chancellor.”
“I have no use for fancy food, sire. Bread and a little gruel suffices to keep me alive. Cromwell seeks to far outdo your own kitchens.” It is a clever thing to say. Henry is jealous of his supremacy in all things, and will begrudge Cromwell’s culinary aspirations.
“Does he now?” Henry takes the invitation and reads it aloud. “You are to bring a guest, Sir Thomas. I have a mind to sample Master Cromwell’s feast. We shall go together.”
“My Lord!” More is flabbergasted. “You must not. Think of the danger to your person. There is not time to gather enough guards, and the food is untested.”
“I am sure Thomas Cromwell has his own tasters, my Lord Chancellor. Will you gainsay me my pleasures on so little account?”
“Of course not, sire. I will have my own people escort us to Austin Friars. As for the food… I will taste every dish, as a precaution.”
“A daring promise, Sir Thomas,” Henry says, laughing softly. “For Master Cromwell might well want to poison you!”
“I am glad to see Your Highnesses mood is lightened at the prospect of my doom. Let me write, and warn Cromwell, that he might ensure your perfect ease.”
“No, do not. Let us take him unawares, so I am not given any particular preference.”
“As you wish, sire.” Better still, More thinks. Let us see how Cromwell copes when caught off guard. The man is a master of forward planning, and might be thrown by Henry’s sudden appearance, to the extent of making a social blunder.
“Is the conversation good at Austin Friars?” Henry asks his Lord Chancellor. He never ventures out in such a way, and he is expecting wondrous things of the evening.
“Not good, Your Highness, but certainly very sharp, and interesting to an intelligent man. The talk is often about politics, religion, food, and diplomacy. Sometimes Cromwell allows a woman or two to attend. I fear that Chapuys will be there.”
“The Spanish ambassador?” Henry is taken aback, and wishes to know more. “ Cromwell has befriended him?”
“In the hope of being given a fine pension by the Emperor Charles, no doubt.” More cannot resist the jibe, but immediately regrets his words, for the French king sends him generous gifts of money, in the hope of winning him over to the French cause.
King François believes diplomacy and bribery are hors
es from the same stable. He secretly endows one of More’s precious colleges with six thousand silver marks a year, and sends gifts of jewels for his wife. In return, he wants the Lord Chancellor to sway Henry’s choice of any future bride. A French queen would suit François well, drawing the house of Tudor closer to the house of Valois, presenting a powerful front to the emperor.
More accepts the gifts, but writes to François, saying the matter is most delicate, and cannot be rushed. He writes the same thing to the Holy Roman Emperor, who has granted him a pension of ten thousand ducets a year, for life.
“Thomas Cromwell has no need of other rulers pensions,” Henry growls. “He must be making a most tidy sum of money from my patronage alone. And you, sir? Does your fortune grow apace?”
“I can present Your Majesty with a set of my accounts at a day’s notice,” More replies. “My entire fortune, for what it is, I would gladly put at your disposal.”
“I am glad to hear it, Tom,” the king says, showing by this unusual familiarity that he trusts the man’s word. “Now I must summon my Master of the King’s Wardrobe, and change into my best finery!”
“Oh, Sweet Jesu on his Cross,” Harry Percy, Duke of Northumberland moans. Life is becoming more intolerable with each passing hour. “The man is a complete monster. Why does he bid me come to dinner?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, my pet.” The willing tavern girl says, emerging from beneath the bed covers. “Mayhap he wants to feed you up.”
“Quiet, you trollop,” Percy says. He racks his brains, wondering what Cromwell’s game is. The man is his Nemesis, and brings him nothing but ill fortune. “Am I to be hounded for ever because of one old, fat, priest?”
Percy had Cardinal Wolsey under arrest for treason four months past, and the man died of an ill humour picked up on the road to London. Henry now uses the event to punish him, transferring his own guilt to Northumberland, and Cromwell shows him nothing but disdain.
“I care not what his motives are,” Percy declares to the girl, who is trying to rekindle his passion. “Two may play at that little game. I shall make him look a fool in front of all his guests.”
“How so?” the girl asks, trying to slip her tongue into his ear. He shrugs her off and starts to look for his clothes.
“Get your clothes on,” he demands. “For I will fit you out in a silken gown, and present you as my dear friend. At the height of the evening, I will reveal you to be nothing but a low born jade, who is any man’s for a shilling.”
“Will you pay me?”
“Two shillings.”
“Five, and I get to keep the gown.”
“Such a gown might cost me ten pounds,” Percy snaps.
“It shall be worth it,” the girl tells him. “I shall play my part well, sir.”
“Very well. What is your name, by the way?”
“Purity.” Harry Percy throws his head back, and laughs.
“Remove your hose, My Lord Surrey.”
“Is that necessary?”
The court doctor sighs. It is ever this way with the aristocratic ones. They believe they have special rights when it comes to illness.
“Yes, it is. I must examine your… the affected part, sir.”
“My friends say the sickness rots you away,” young Howard says. He is, despite his philandering, still only a young boy.
“Your friends are correct,” the doctor replies. He stoops, and examines the exposed member closely. “Though it is not something for you to worry about, sir.”
“What say you?”
“There is no discharge, My Lord, and a distinct lack of other symptoms. Why do you think you are diseased?”
“Richard Rich and I have shared ladies favours.”
“And Master Rich is infected?”
“So it is rumoured, about the court,” Howard replies.
“Has he confirmed this to you?” the doctor asks. He is beginning to sense some misunderstanding. “If he is infected, there is a wonderful new cure. It combines leaches to draw away the bad vapours, and mercury, which is injected into the pintle.”
“Dear God, it sounds most painful,” Surrey crosses his legs, subconsciously.
“Very.” The doctor starts to pack away his instruments. “I doubt it is a treatment Master Rich can afford. Where shall I send my account, sir?”
“To my father,” Surrey says, maliciously. He has caused the consultation. “Double charge the old goat, doctor, and I will vouchsafe it!”
The young earl is relieved. The idea of mercury coming into contact with his private parts is horrifying. It will not stop him enjoying his nights out though, and he is looking forward to the Feast of St. Eustace that evening.
He lacks even a rudimentary education, and does not know his saints days, else he would wonder why the feast was being celebrated seven months early.
“Ah, Rich,” he cries, swaggering back into the great outer chamber of Henry’s court. “You will come with me to Cromwell’s feast tonight… health willing.”
“You are sick, sir?” Richard Rich asks. He does not want to lose so wealthy a friend, and the sweating sickness is abroad again.
“Not I,” Surrey says. “Though it is rumoured that you are.”
“Of what, sir?”
“The clap.”
“Sweet Jesus!” Rich is horrified. If such a tale gets about, he will be hard pressed to find a willing bed mate, and his father, a God fearing sort, will cut his already meagre allowance. “Where do you have this from?”
“Norfolk,” Surrey says, “and he has it from Lady Mary Boleyn. She swears it to be true.”
“Then I am undone,” Rich groans. He cannot call the Duke of Norfolk, or his niece, liars. “I might as well leave court at once, and go home to my father’s dreary farm.”
“Not so fast,” Surrey says. “Their humorous prank has caused me some upset, Richard. We will look for a chance to bait my father this evening.”
“And Lady Boleyn?”
“I shall pay her a visit,” Surrey replies. “I shall remind my cousin how she favoured me two years ago, whilst still married.”
“Favoured you?” Richard Rich smiles. Here is a piece of gossip to throw back at her. “How so?”
“In a way that the ladies of the French court favour, for it keeps them free of childbirth.”
“You are too knowing for a fifteen year old, my friend,” Rich tells him. “Still it will make for ribald conversation this evening!”
14 The Feast of St. Eustace
“Our first guests are arriving, Master Cromwell,” Rafe Sadler reports. “The ambassador is here , as is the cocksure Richard Rich. He is with Norfolk’s brat.”
“Keep Surrey and Norfolk apart at the tables,” Cromwell replies. “With two long tables set parallel, there should be no quibbling over who has seating precedence.”
“Assuredly not,” Will Draper says, hurrying into the library. “The Lord Chancellor is even now in the courtyard, and he has brought a surprise guest.”
“Ah, then Henry has come,” Cromwell says. “I rather hoped he would. My invitation was delivered in his presence, and he has a healthy curiosity.”
“You knew?” Rafe makes a mental note to bring out the very best silver.
“I hoped.” Cromwell picks up a pen, and makes a couple of alterations to the table plan on his desk. “There, that will do. We might yet find a king next to a commoner, but it will only serve to make the conversation more piquant.”
Rafe scoops up the plan, and hurries off to arrange matters. The cook is still being awkward over disclosing his menu, as he hopes for a last minute delivery of truffles from Kent. The ground has been hard, and the pigs have struggled to find the delicacies, so early in the season.
Sadler is torn between greeting the king properly, and his kitchen duty, but is saved by Chapuys, who springs forward, and bows to Henry, almost before he is in the door.
“God save Your Majesty,” the slightly built Savoyard says, bowing low. He is primed
not to mention anything to upset the king. “Saving my own lord, you are the only monarch in Europe who is so loved, that he may walk freely amongst his subjects, as you now do.”
“Yes, Chapuys,” Henry replies, patting him heavily on the shoulder. “My people hold me in the greatest esteem, which is only fitting. I am told that Master Cromwell keeps a better table than mine. Can that be true, sir?”
“I have eaten at the finest tables in Europe, sire,” Chapuys replies, “and am well placed to give a truthful reply. I find Master Cromwell’s fare to be wholesome, and filling, but in comparison to your own, it lacks that certain … je ne sais quoi.”
“Ah! Exactly what I said to the Lord Chancellor,” Henry declares. He is delighted with this answer which serves to bolster his unchecked ego. “You know More, I take it, Señor Chapuys?”
Chapuys bows to Sir Thomas, and the three men pass pleasantries as to the opulence of Cromwell’s great dining hall. It is large enough to accommodate thirty guests, and has been panelled with a dark stained oak.
“Good timber,” Henry declares. “My ship builders would have use of this quality.”
“Then Your Majesty is building more warships?” Chapuys asks, ingenuously. The Lord Chancellor leaps in, to minimise the damage done.
“The king has commissioned three merchant ships, Ambassador Chapuys,” he says, casting a warning look at his master.
“Of course… merchantmen,“ Henry agrees, stumbling over the clumsy lie.
“Then your foundry in Cheapside is casting nothing but church bells?” Chapuys cannot resist a gentle goading of the king, and his chief minister. “There will not be a cathedral in England without a fresh peal.”
Rafe is safely in the kitchen, and has finally extracted an idea of the evening’s menu from the cook. There is a thin vegetable soup to start, followed by cold lamb in vinegar sauce, roasted venison with a medley of pot roast beets, and other, broiled root vegetables. Then there is a dish of hare, stewed in red wine, and a selection of hot mutton, beef, or game pies.
