Shaking the Throne

by Caroline Angus Baker

  ‘Idle talk, surely.’

  ‘It harms Edward’s chances of rising at court, with Sir John out of royal favour. A decent man, by all accounts. But no longer.’

  ‘As if King Henry cares for men being faithful,’ Nicòla scoffed.

  ‘We need Queen Anne pregnant before Henry finds himself a mistress. That is all we need to worry about for now.’

  ‘Such is the glory of ruling England,’ Nicòla replied.

  Cromwell took Nicòla’s hand again, and she looked at his reddened knuckles, a sign of interrogating people in the Tower. ‘We shall rule together, you shall see.’

  C

  Chapter 2 – November 1533

  lyes can be formd from trouths, but trouths cannot be formd from lyes

  Westminster Abbey, London

  If it were possible to feel pity for King Henry, now would be the moment. There he sat, under his golden cloth of estate, his new queen by his side. There were to one side of the altar in the Abbey while Archbishop Cranmer praised everyone. The nobility gathered for Henry Fitzroy’s wedding, Henry’s beloved illegitimate son to the Duke of Norfolk’s only surviving daughter, Lady Mary. The bride and groom, both aged fourteen years, looked equally solemn, young Fitzroy nervous, Mary almost fearful. Rare late November sunshine streamed into the Abbey, illuminating the beautiful occasion. It reflected off the groom’s dukedom coronet and hurt Cromwell’s eyes for a moment.

  Cromwell, sitting straight and stiff in the front row of guests, flicked his golden eyes away from the ceremony to Nicòla beside him. She sat perfectly still, her face without expression as she listened to Cranmer’s words. Further along, the Duke of Norfolk sat with his hands clasped over his enormous waistline, fingering the livery collar of the Order of the Garter which hung from his shoulders. His thick legs moved his widespread feet, a huge man uncomfortably dressed in his best, sweat running down his neck onto his white ermine coat.

  But it was the groom’s father which took Cromwell’s attention. Henry sat there, one elbow on his throne, leaning forward as Cranmer spoke. His bastard son would be a husband. His precious child born of Elizabeth Blount, Henry’s one-time mistress. The intelligent and likeable son could never be his father’s heir and it hurt the King. The boy was laden with honours, tutored well, charming, diplomatic, corresponded with the Scots King and met the French King in person. Perchance it was worth making Fitzroy legitimate through the law if the Church would not recognise him. With Queen Anne failing to produce a son, perchance Cromwell should have hitched his wagon to the Fitzroy cause, not the Boleyn movement. Fitzroy’s only problem was his cough, which followed him everywhere. Some said he coughed just like Henry’s brother, Prince Arthur.

  The King looked so happy as he leaned forward to not miss a word from the Archbishop, nor the words of his son and the bride. The King adored the boy, kept away from his father so often. He had lived in the royal nursery with Lady Margaret Bryan after Princess Mary grew up, and now Princess Elizabeth had taken Fitzroy’s place in the nursery. Fitzroy bore his mother’s looks; pale, blonde, thin, so unlike Henry himself. The King bore so much pride in seeing his son married while young Fitzroy looked terrified at the prospect.

  Queen Anne was the reason Cromwell felt pity for the King. Anne could not have appeared more angered at the idea of a public wedding in Westminster Abbey. She herself married Henry in a tiny secret ceremony, no lavish event for her grand day. Few enjoyed her beautiful coronation. Now, with a daughter in the cradle, Anne had to endure her husband’s bastard receiving a royal wedding. Anne’s dark eyes frowned at the altar, the bride her maternal cousin, her jealousy there for the court to witness.

  Cromwell’s attention snapped back as everyone bowed their heads in prayer. An English prayer, for English men. They had completed a wedding in Westminster Abbey without a Catholic Mass. The change was coming to England, and Cromwell knew he had the power to control all.

  ‘I f-f-feel certain you are most p-p-proud of this occasion, Crowmell,’ said stuttering Norfolk as he watched his daughter get into a litter with her new husband, to travel to Whitehall Palace for the wedding celebrations.

  ‘Cromwell.’ All these years and Norfolk still pronounced his name wrong. ‘And yes, as Steward of Westminster Abbey, I am most proud to host a wedding for the King’s son.’

  ‘Bastard son,’ Norfolk sniffed.

  ‘If the Duke of Richmond was good enough to marry your daughter, surely you have respect for the boy,’ Cromwell replied as Nicòla appeared at his side, one step back in deference to her master.

  ‘I meant you m-m-must be proud b-b-because you have made sure the King d-d-does not marry his s-s-son in the Catholic faith. My d-d-daughter has been dis-dis-disrespected today.’

  ‘I serve at the King’s pleasure, Your Grace,’ Cromwell replied and looked out at those of the court as they left Abbey’s main entrance. ‘We all serve at the King’s pleasure, and he wanted a reformed ceremony for his only son. We are not bound to Rome any longer.’

  Norfolk looked around the black-clad Cromwell to Nicòla. ‘Your little Waif is h-h-hither as a guest at my daughter’s w-w-wedding,’ he scowled.

  ‘We have married your daughter before God today, Your Grace,’ Nicòla replied as she bowed in respect for the wide duke. ‘A fine match for a duke’s daughter. If we named Fitzroy as legitimate, it would make your daughter the future Queen of England. You know this; we all know. Master Cromwella would be the man to make sure such a law change could aid your daughter.’

  Norfolk looked to Nicòla and back to Cromwell; they all knew the details. Norfolk had been living away from court at his palace in Kenninghall, with his young mistress Bess Holland, away from her role as Queen Anne’s lady-in-waiting. Norfolk despised Cromwell and Cromwell adored it.

  ‘I n-n-need your help,’ Norfolk muttered as the crowd dispersed from the Abbey, the King’s guards keeping the public well away from the nobles. ‘But n-n-now is not the day for such discussions.’

  ‘No indeed, the wedding of your daughter is not the occasion in which to discuss you banishing your wife,’ Cromwell muttered with a smile. ‘The entire court knows your wife, aunt to the Queen herself, detests you.’

  ‘At least I have a wife, and a m-m-mistress. You seem unable to do your duty b-b-by a woman.’

  Cromwell just shook his head and smiled over the surrounding lords.

  ‘B-b-but,’ Norfolk continued, ‘there is always the Waif’s bastard niece in your h-h-house. The child of the Frescobaldi daughter. How is your s-s-sister in Florence, Waif?’

  ‘The Duchess is well, living outside of Florence at a Medici country estate,’ Nicòla lied. Cromwell noticed how much she lowered her tone when talking of her “sister” in Italy. No one else would ever know Nicòla and Nicòletta were the same person.

  ‘If your s-s-sister is such a powerful woman in Florence, married to a Medici d-d-duke, why can she not raise her b-b-bastard in her own household?’ Norfolk continued, already knowing all the details.

  ‘The Duchess chose not to keep her daughter with her when she married the Duke of Florence,’ Cromwell answered for Nicòla and shuffled slightly to shield her from Norfolk’s gaze. ‘Master Frescobaldi brought the child to England.’

  ‘Because you are the father, Crowmell?’

  ‘Cromwell! And I do not have time to travel to Florence to even see the Duchess. I am too valuable to the King.’

  ‘Mayhap you are n-n-now, but you were not always so valuable, not v-v-visible at court,’ Norfolk mumbled. ‘And “Master” Frescobaldi? Master of what?’

  ‘A new estate we are building at Dewhurst.’

  ‘I thought that t-t-to be one of your n-n-new acquisitions,’ Norfolk frowned. ‘Surely the Waif-creature has n-n-not amassed so much favour, not as a foreigner. Though, you admire f-f-foreigners, do you not? I h-h-hear you have a German nurse in the h-h-household of your adopted bastard.’

  Damned Norfolk had a spy in Austin Friars again and watching Jane’s nursery no less.
Cranmer’s wife in the nursery would need to move again, for her protection. ‘What sort of villain does it take,’ Cromwell said through his gritted teeth, hidden behind a cold smile, ‘to place a spy in my household to watch the wards I adopt? We all take in wards, Norfolk. I am Master of the Wards at His Majesty’s pleasure. I have a child in living in my house, and you place spies among the staff I use in my nursery? That sounds like a man of lewd appetites.’

  Norfolk’s face fell in pure horror at the accusations, and he waddled away in a moment. Cromwell felt Nicòla’s hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Worry not, Tomassito,’ she uttered.

  ‘I shall have to search through the staff at Austin Friars with haste. And remove Margarete from the nursery. She can stay with Richard at Stepney.’

  ‘Now is not the time to discuss such,’ Nicòla replied and frowned her green eyes in the sunlight behind Cromwell. ‘But yes, your nephew would take good care of Margarete.’

  ‘Spies we have in Norfolk’s household suggest he locks up his wife and deprives her of her household, jewels, clothes, even food some days,’ Cromwell continued.

  ‘Stop letting that man anger your humours,’ Nicòla cautioned.

  Cromwell sighed, but to his left appeared Charles Brandon, the pompous Duke of Suffolk. Another wide-waisted man with his pristine ermine furs and over-confident demeanour. Beside the man of fifty years stood his wife, who was soon to celebrate her fifteenth year. The sweet young girl gave a gentle smile to Nicòla but did not dare to look at Cromwell.

  ‘Ah, common Cromwell,’ Suffolk said in his deep voice, his greying beard, as usual, filled with breadcrumbs. Perchance his child bride was too frightened to brush it clean. ‘You sat with us at the front of the proceedings today.’

  ‘At His Majesty’s request,’ Cromwell replied. ‘You are looking well, Your Grace, so soon after the death of your wife.’

  Suffolk’s mouth puckered with anger and he patted Catherine’s hand on his arm. ‘Have you met Lady Catherine Willoughby, daughter to Baron Willoughby de Eresby and Maria de Salinas, lady-in-waiting to the former Queen? Catherine is the new Duchess of Suffolk.’

  Duchess Catherine curtsied a little without looking up to Cromwell. ‘A pleasure, Mr. Cromwell.’

  ‘Bow not to Cromwell!’ Suffolk snorted.

  ‘Un placer conoscerti, Duquesa Catherine,’ Nicòla uttered and bowed. The young girl looked up at hearing Spanish, her mother’s language.

  ‘Cromwell’s Waif-creature is the brother to the Duchess of Florence,’ Suffolk told his wife. ‘He is such a futile little thing.’

  ‘I met your mother, several times when Queen Katherine still lived at court,’ Nicòla told Catherine.

  ‘Lady Katherine, Dowager Princess of Wales,’ Cromwell reminded Nicòla. No one could call the mighty Katherine a queen now, not with Anne Boleyn on the throne.

  ‘The former Queen Katherine is my godmother,’ Catherine said in such a meek tone that Cromwell almost had to lean down to hear.

  ‘My son, Henry, is most ill,’ Suffolk added. ‘It is fortunate we have a competent nursemaid in Catherine’s mother, after all her years as a lady to Queen Katherine. Tis sad that Queen Katherine cannot have her closest advisor and friend with her any longer.’

  ‘Lady Katherine, Dowager Princess of Wales,’ Cromwell repeated.

  ‘If you say so, common Cromwell.’

  ‘Mr. Cromwell…’ Duchess Catherine pleaded.

  ‘No, there is no sense in petitioning Cromwell for a favour, my dear,’ Suffolk interrupted his wife. ‘For he only serves himself.’

  ‘Do you speak Spanish, Your Grace?’ Nicòla asked him, and Suffolk shook his heavy head. ‘Escribe,’ she said to young Catherine, who nodded as Suffolk pulled her away from the pair.

  ‘What did you say?’ Cromwell muttered to Nicòla. ‘For her to write to you?’

  ‘We may not have to help her in what she needs, but I feel sorry for a child linked to that fat old man, old enough to be her grandfather. Remember, any idle rumour we can gain is a help to us.’

  Cromwell gazed up again, to see people forming around him; any time he stopped moving, people gathered, hoping to have a moment in his ear. Many were clutching notes; they had come prepared to push a request to Cromwell. He nudged Nicòla with his elbow and she promptly moved into the crowd to collect requests on his behalf. But there stood his longtime friend and enemy, Stephen Gardiner, whom he beckoned forward with joy.

  ‘Bishop Gardiner,’ Cromwell said, and bowed deeply, knowing Gardiner understood him to be mocking his position. ‘Such a shame you were not asked to officiate this lavish occasion.’

  ‘The marriage of a bastard son to a weak Howard girl, cousin to an over-reaching queen?’ Gardiner replied. ‘Why would I debase myself for such an occasion?’

  ‘You came as a guest, so I can presume you are now as debased as the rest of us.’

  Gardiner waved a dismissive hand at the Abbey beside them as if none mattered to him. ‘Do you know what tomorrow is, Thomas?’

  November 29. ‘Of course, I could hardly forget.’

  The two men stood eye to eye; once two common men, bound by a third. November 29 marked the third anniversary of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s death. Once, Cromwell was Wolsey’s lawyer, Gardiner his secretary. Now Gardiner was a bishop and the King’s Chief Secretary, Cromwell the King’s Chief Minister and controller of the country’s parliament and finances. One a fervent Catholic, the other a devout reformist; never again would Gardiner and Cromwell sit on the same side of an argument.

  ‘What do you suppose Wolsey would have made of all your changes, Thomas?’ Gardiner asked.

  ‘What would have Wolsey made of your lack of ability to stop my changes?’ Cromwell countered.

  Both men continued to stare at one another. They both abandoned their master, their patron, their friend at his moment of humiliation in different ways. Cromwell felt every man in England knew of his hurt, his embarrassment at doing so. Gardiner seemed to walk away without a scratch on him.

  Gardiner glanced around others in the crowd, who had given them a moment to talk in private, Nicòla holding back petitioners with her charm and swift words. ‘You are being played as a fool by the King, Thomas,’ Gardiner continued. ‘The country will not turn away from the Catholic faith. The King will not. He used you and Cranmer for his own ends. Henry still believes in all the meanings and virtues of being a Catholic, just using Protestant lies to abandon his wife in favour of his whore.’

  Cromwell steadied his anger; he closed his hands together and set his feet apart a little. He looked to Gardiner in his white robes, his black fur hat slipped forward on his large forehead. ‘Stephen, several months from now, I shall introduce a bill into parliament, and by law, they shall arrest you for treason for speaking in such a way about our Queen Anne.’

  ‘Anne is your queen, Thomas, not mine.’

  ‘Indeed, Queen Anne is my queen. And soon, if you do not swear she is your queen, you shall live in the Tower.’

  ‘Will I be tortured, like poor Elizabeth Barton? I hear you interrogate her, Thomas.’

  Cromwell narrowed his eyes. ‘Perchance you should resign your post as Chief Secretary, Stephen. Perchance it is time we sent you on a diplomatic mission to France.’

  ‘And who would take my place at the King’s side?’

  ‘I would; for I have been doing your work for months.’

  ‘If you were to hold the title of Chief Minister, Secretary of State, Chancellor positions in the Exchequer, the Chancery and the Hanaper, the Jewel House, the King’s Woods, sit on the Privy Council… am I forgetting any titles?’

  ‘Many.’

  ‘If you were to hold so many titles, you would rule the country, and place Henry away from wise counsel.’

  ‘I am the wise counsel, Stephen. I get the King whatever he likes.’

  ‘And what favour do you get in return?’

  Cromwell looked at Nicòla, conversing with Queen Anne’s brother, George. Her
safety and his own reputation would get destroyed in a heartbeat if Henry so desired.

  ‘I get to reform the souls of England,’ Cromwell replied.

  Gardiner scoffed, his waistline jumping with his laughter. ‘You change laws, Thomas, not religious views. You may have the illusion of power over religion, but I know, when souls come daily, to hear the true words of God in Latin, as God and the Pope demand, that men like I hold real control over the people. Nothing will defeat the Catholic faith.’

  ‘It shall be defeated, in parliament.’

  ‘Not in the souls of the faithful,’ Gardiner grinned. ‘I believe men are calling for your head.’

  ‘Peasants perchance.’

  ‘Of course, and you are now so high in favour you care not for peasants.’

  ‘Shall we take this conversation to the palace?’ Cromwell offered.

  ‘Certainly, for I am sure the wedding celebrations shall be as dull as most court occasions, so at least we can debate. We cannot even put the groom to bed with his bride.’

  Cromwell nodded as he watched Nicòla speaking with a woman he did not recognise; a rare event. ‘Fitzroy is a delicate son, and Henry does not want him to exert himself in the marriage bed. Henry believes this behaviour weakened his brother, Prince Arthur, and thus he could not survive the sweating sickness.’

  ‘Oh, Prince Arthur, God bless his heavenly soul, was a sickly boy. He had a cough that followed him from cradle to grave, as if he was followed by a demon of coughing. Poor Fitzroy has the same. Are we to believe all royal sons shall die if they enjoy carnal relations when young? Our king survived just fine.’

  ‘Henry does not carry the cough. The King can deny marital bed activities for his son and his wife if he so desires,’ Cromwell countered.

  ‘I heard a rumour, that King Henry is in wonderment with Anne Boleyn in the bedroom. It seems she learned far more than French manners in her youth.’