Shaking the Throne

by Caroline Angus Baker

  ‘I have missed your fine company,’ Nicòla replied.

  ‘Close the door behind you,’ Cromwell instructed the servant without looking their direction. He knew it rude, but Cromwell was fixed on what was about to happen. ‘No one is to enter this room, regardless of any person’s opinion, is it clear?’

  The young boy bowed and closed the door, and Cromwell waited until he heard footsteps trail along the hallway again. ‘Thank you for coming, Mr. Smeaton, for I know you are most busy in preparations for tomorrow’s feast.’

  ‘I shall always play in your home, Secretary Cromwell, for I have done so many times, and always find it an honour to see close friends such as Nicòla and Ralph… all of you.’

  ‘You come upon us in such a grave state, I must say, Mr. Smeaton.’ Cromwell paused and looked at Nicòla, who fell into a dark expression. Cromwell never called him Mr. Smeaton, for he was Mark, a dear friend. ‘Mark,’ he added to keep things calm. ‘We were discussing important legal matters.’

  ‘Shall I leave? For I wish not to trouble you,’ Mark replied, his wide smile still splashed across his face.

  ‘I feel you can help us. You have eyes all over the court, Mark. I feel you could answer questions, questions which vex us all.’

  Ralph and Richard shared a look; for they understood. Rich and Wriothesley knew all about interrogating a criminal or witness; they leaned forward, their folded hands on the tabletop, as if leaning closer to the coming ruin. Nicòla said nothing, moved none, perchance she hoped she was wrong.

  Innocent Smeaton looked around the table at each of the faces turned in his direction. Cromwell noticed a sudden change in Smeaton’s stance. Fear threatened his usual cheery mood. ‘I am no legal mind, nor one of your most excellent spies, Secretary Cromwell.’

  ‘I need neither from you, Mark. Tell me, you dress most excellently. You seem to make a large sum of money for a talented, yet lowborn, musician.’

  ‘I feel praised by such an assertion,’ Smeaton replied. ‘For you, Secretary Cromwell, are of low birth and yet look as fine as any nobleman. All but Mr. Frescobaldi at this table are not of wealthy birth, and yet we sit in the rooms of kings.’

  ‘Tis true, Mark, yet I am the King’s Chief Minister, and you are a musician of the court.’

  ‘You brought me hither to see my clothing? Have I broken a court rule in what I wear, how I live my life?’ Smeaton frowned and looked at Nicòla.

  Cromwell had to act fast, so Nicòla did not rise to Smeaton’s defence. ‘Mark, I commend your finery, I do. It seems you have spent quite a sum in readiness for the festivities of May. I hear you have several servants in your employ now, to help you with your music, your clothing, your lodgings. Is this so?’

  ‘Yes, Secretary.’

  ‘Yet, as the Keeper of the Exchequer, I know that your court salary is but one hundred pounds a year.’

  ‘I earn fees for my music from courtiers, including yourself, Secretary Cromwell. Mr. Frescobaldi rewards me handsomely when I am in need.’

  Cromwell looked at Nicòla, who frowned in anger. ‘Indeed,’ she said to the group. ‘I have furnished Mark with items a great number of times, as a friend.’

  ‘May I ask why I am being questioned in such a manner?’ Smeaton asked Nicòla, ignoring all the others around the table.

  Cromwell rose from his seat and gathered the bag given to him on Smeaton’s arrival. He pulled out a rope filled with knots, and a wooden cudgel tied to one end. At once Smeaton jumped to his feet, his chair tumbling onto the floor behind him. Nicòla too jumped up at the sight of the simple torture device, not out of fear but out of defence of her friend. Cromwell had no choice, the only man he could torture in this case was Smeaton; common, lowborn, without safety or allies. They could touch no nobleman, and Smeaton was the only man allowed Anne’s presence who was not high born, other than Nicòla herself.

  Cromwell knew he could do this; for he had hurt, interrogated, killed even. But seeing Nicòla there, standing before Smeaton in defence of her gentle friend broke Cromwell’s confidence. He knew Nicòla would respond poorly. There Cromwell stood, taller than all the men in the room, now all on their feet against Smeaton, a slender man of delicate sensibilities, and Nicòla, who simply presented the form of a man, her heart and mind of a woman ready to stand up for one of the few at court who knew and trusted her for the creature she was.

  Rich took the rope from Cromwell’s hands. ‘Allow me, Secretary,’ he said, wrapping the rope around his hands.

  Smeaton bolted for the door like a frightened horse, but Ralph and Richard blocked his way. Wriothesley, the widest of all the learned men in the room, grabbed Smeaton by the shoulders and forced him to the ground, which allowed Rich to knell over him. Despite Smeaton’s flailing, Rich got the rope around Smeaton’s head, one knot placed over his right eye.

  ‘Fermare tutto questo ora!’ Nicòla screamed.

  Cromwell thought not of her cries as Smeaton’s struggles and pitying wails began. Rich held the rope around his head while Wriothesley held the musician’s kicking legs, Ralph and Richard each holding one of his arms.

  ‘Turn the rope,’ Cromwell instructed.

  Rich pulled the rope and twisted it around the small cudgel. Instantly the knot dug into Smeaton’s eye, causing terrified screams.

  ‘Where did you get the money from, Smeaton?’ Cromwell asked as he stood over the fighting group.

  ‘I swear,’ Smeaton screamed, ‘I swear to you that I got it for services rendered!’

  Nicòla grabbed Cromwell by the arm, but he set his resolve; his stiff stance was too much for Nicòla to move.

  ‘I can check financial records,’ Nicòla pleaded. ‘I can see his accounts, I can decide where the money came from, Tom.’

  Cromwell licked his lips and thought not of her request. ‘Did the Queen give you money?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Smeaton whimpered.

  Cromwell gestured to Rich to lessen his grip, which allowed Smeaton to catch his breath.

  ‘Why does the Queen give you money?’

  ‘She gives favour to all in her apartments,’ Smeaton whimpered. ‘I saw her give £100 to Lady Worcester just last week, even though she is one of the King’s mistresses!’

  ‘Elizabeth Somerset,’ Cromwell said, and Nicòla nodded. ‘Henry Somerset’s wife, and sister to William Fitzwilliam. Ralph, set forth a message at once; we shall need to seek with Fitzwilliam today. He must come hither with all urgency.’

  Ralph got to his feet, and Smeaton had an arm free, which he used to move the rope from his eyes, but Rich held him tightly, and Richard held the frail arm by the wrist.

  Cromwell waited until Ralph closed the door again and then crouched low to Smeaton. ‘Tell me more, Smeaton.’

  ‘Lady Worcester is with child and close to her time,’ Nicòla said in a flurry of words. ‘That will explain the payment.’

  ‘Lady Elizabeth is wife to the Earl of Worcester. She needs no money,’ Cromwell argued. ‘Perchance Lady Elizabeth received the money as a bribe, to hide certain details about Her Majesty.’

  ‘I know not what you mean,’ Smeaton replied, as he moved his head, trying to work out where everyone was around him, like a blind mouse.

  ‘There are rumours, Mr. Smeaton, that the Queen has lovers about her chambers. Are you one of them?’ Cromwell asked. He had a surge of confidence all at once, having reached the point of the meeting.

  ‘What? No! Never on my life!’

  Cromwell nodded to Rich, who turned the rope again around Smeaton’s eyes and his shrieking grew louder by the moment.

  ‘Come hai potuto fare questo? Mark è nostro amico!’ Nicòla cried over Smeaton’s screams of pain. The knots dotted around Mark’s head dug in all the way around, including right into his eye.

  Cromwell grabbed Nicòla by the shoulders and shoved her across the room away from the scene. ‘I know he is our friend. I know we welcomed him into our home. How did you think this would end, Nicò? We are bringing down a qu
een.’

  ‘Torture? Are we to be this base? Mark was not even on the list of suspects I created! Now, without even a request or hint, you have Rich trying to kill the man over nothing!’

  Cromwell let Nicòla go and returned to the scene. Sweat ran along his hairline, fearing the wrath of Nicòla more than the guilt over hurting poor Smeaton.

  ‘Are you the Queen’s lover?’ Cromwell yelled to the screaming man at his feet.

  ‘No, I swear before God!’ Smeaton wailed.

  ‘Do not slander God in my home, Smeaton,’ Cromwell sighed as he bent down to the screaming musician once more. ‘You have received monies from the Queen as you are her lover. Perchance Lady Worcester knows and was paid to be quiet.’

  ‘The Queen never paid me for anything but music.’

  ‘Again.’

  Rich pulled the rope tighter and the screaming only increased. Cromwell glanced at Nicòla, but she was missing. The screaming was so loud that Nicòla had exited the room with no one noticing. It would be for the best; her female disposition could not cope.

  ‘You shall lose that eye should you not give me the answer I need,’ Cromwell sighed to Smeaton.

  ‘Sir Secretary, no more, I will tell you the truth!’

  Rich let go of the cudgel and the rope loosened around Smeaton’s head. One of Smeaton’s eyes was so squeezed and swollen he may never see again. Nicòla would be furious.

  ‘Do you use our queen like a whore, Smeaton? Does she pay you for services rendered in her bed?’

  ‘Let me disclose all,’ Smeaton moaned.

  ‘Who else is in bed with the Queen? How vile have you been, Smeaton? What sins have you committed against God and our king?’

  ‘I love Her Majesty,’ Smeaton replied as blood dripped from his eye.

  ‘So, you admit it?’ Cromwell asked.

  ‘No, I admire Her Majesty.’ Smeaton paused as he coughed, the screaming, the struggle for air, the pain all taking their toll. ‘I would never touch Queen Anne!’

  ‘Rich, please put the rope back on,’ Cromwell said and stood up again.

  Smeaton let out a horrific scream as he fought to stop Rich getting the rope around his head again. The noise had become so extreme the children would hear the events.

  ‘Stop,’ Cromwell commanded. ‘We need to move him into a cell in the Tower where he can be interrogated properly.’

  ‘Please,’ Smeaton gasped through his own blood, ‘please, no more, sir. I will tell you everything.’

  ‘Most excellent. But we shall still move Smeaton to the Tower as I wish not to have this mess in my home where my children live. I need details before the King by midnight.’

  Wriothesley stood up from holding Smeaton’s legs and rubbed his forehead against his sleeve. ‘Smeaton committed the adultery, did he not?’

  ‘Let us hope so, or we shall all go to hell,’ Rich added.

  ‘I shall attend the Tower with Smeaton.’ Cromwell looked at the crying wretch lying on the carpets, clutching at his bloodied face. The plan to attaint people and have them imprisoned had already gone wrong.

  F

  Chapter 41 – May 1536

  thyngs fall apart easily if they are held togyther with lyes

  Greenwich, outer London

  Nicòla tapped her gloved fingers against the back of her other hand. She stood, fixed upon the spot, both hands resting on her right hip, as her father taught her when first becoming a man. Her silver doublet and hose glistened in the late spring sunshine, but her heart felt frozen. Cromwell was gone, at the Tower, where poor precious Mark was tortured for a confession. Mark would be the first to confess to a crime never committed. Cromwell mentioned no use of torture, never any use of Mark, whose desires never seemed to grace men or women. But he got close to Queen Anne and was low born, and no one would come to his defence. Even Nicòla had to admit she did not fight for him, rather stood in the background as Mark got loaded into a carriage and taken to London like a beast caught in the King’s forest. Cromwell had a plan, and nothing could stop him now.

  ‘Mr. Frescobaldi.’

  Nicòla turned to the unfamiliar voice to find William Fitzwilliam, one of the King’s most popular courtiers, and Treasurer of the Royal Household.

  ‘Sir William,’ Nicòla replied and bowed a little in deference. Fitzwilliam had once worked under Wolsey with Cromwell, before betraying the old cardinal at the first opportunity. Nicòla knew Fitzwilliam was not to be trusted, so Cromwell seldom worked alongside him until now.

  ‘I read the letter you gave me from Secretary Cromwell, instructing me to aid you in bringing ladies of the Queen’s court to London.’

  Nicòla nodded and looked out at the noisy scene before her. The first day of the May Day tournaments, and hither in the grand arena set up in the grounds of the palace, Henry sat with Anne on the royal viewing platform, the pair resting on their high-backed thrones, surrounded by their closest friends, all the nobles dressed in their finery. Cromwell begged Henry not to joust this time, not after January’s accident, and the King had relented to the request. Jane Seymour sat below Anne, only a few seats along from the Queen, no doubt to be close to the King.

  ‘You spy on Mistress Seymour,’ Fitzwilliam replied as he towered above Nicòla. ‘I heard she gave the King a favour for today, even if he does not plan to joust.’

  ‘I fear for Mistress Seymour,’ Nicòla sighed. ‘But I also fear for the King.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Women can appear demure but be deadly.’

  ‘You speak as a man recently out of courtly love,’ Fitzwilliam jested. ‘I wondered if you ever dallied with women.’

  ‘I have had my share of dalliances, Sir William, and I am certain you know what trouble that brings.’

  Fitzwilliam slapped Nicòla on the shoulder, a gesture of manly friendship. ‘Good for you, Frescobaldi. What are women for if not to be played with and enjoyed?’

  Nicòla held her tongue for a moment. ‘Your sister, Lady Worcester, needs to be removed to London as soon as the King leaves Greenwich.’

  ‘I am ready on Cromwell’s orders, but why my sister? Is she to be the King’s whore again? What of Lady Jane?’

  ‘We need your sister for services other than those on her back, Sir William. You know which other ladies you must escort?’

  ‘Lady Cobham, Lady Shelton, Lady Horsman and Lady Rochford. Why would old Cromwell need so many women? He is the man who arrests other men for vice yet does not commit sins.’

  ‘You have not been invited to gambling in the Cromwell Chambers then,’ Nicòla scoffed.

  The sound of the trumpets heralding the next joust quietened the conversation. With a polite nod, Fitzwilliam left Nicòla where she stood far back from the joust, to join other courtiers partaking in the entertainment.

  Queen Anne sat in her seat beside the King, no idea that precious Mark had been arrested and taken away. Cromwell himself had travelled to the Tower to see to the prisoner. Nicòla had no wish to speak to Cromwell, perchance never trust him again after seeing how all the men in the room turned on an innocent man. Yet if Nicòla lost Cromwell’s favour, those same men who turned against Mark would turn on the creature that was Nicòla.

  Henry, for his part, having seen a message written by Cromwell the night before, hinting at Anne’s adultery, seemed to enjoy himself, his wife by his side. Richard went to the King before he retired to bed, giving him a note suspecting Mark of receiving monies from Anne as a secret lover. Henry seemed content to lie, to pretend all was fine, to prepare for further evidence of such a heinous crime. How people could lie; yet Nicòla was no innocent when it came to lies. She once suffocated a cardinal and pretended he died of sickness, so her soul would be beside the English court in hell.

  Joust after joust continued, with men from different teams sparring against each other, but Nicòla cared not, she could not even stand still. People came and went, beautifully designed flags waved, women threw favours, men cheered between bouts, but Nicòla on
ly woke herself from her thoughts when she spotted Cromwell, in the far distance across the arena. He stood with several of his personal guards, all in riding clothes, standing to attention. In a sea of bright clothing and levity, Cromwell stood in his usual black, like death come to a party. From his spot across the jousting, he beckoned Nicòla, easy to spot wearing silver shining in the sun.

  As she moved through the crowds behind the seating areas, Nicòla’s heart pounded. Two things could happen – the plan could work, and the world would change forever. Ruin could strike and leave them trying to explain why a musician disappeared. No one seemed to notice Mark was not at the joust, despite spending on the event.

  Nicòla stopped; between rows of seating, she watched Cromwell climb the few stairs of the royal viewing platform. Few could do so, and it was the first time he had seen the King since their fight. But time had passed since the argument over the Imperial alliance, and the King leaned as Cromwell bent to whisper in Henry’s ear. The King’s blue eyes continued to watch the joust while Cromwell spoke, the King’s expression not changing. Anne appeared not to notice Cromwell’s presence at all.

  Nicòla continued fighting between the crowds, past the tents and servants rushing to attend their masters when the crowd fell silent and rose to their feet. The King was on the move. Nicòla pushed all the way to the royal platform where Henry appeared, Cromwell right behind him. Nicòla fell into a deep bow as Henry rushed past and Cromwell pulled her upright by the shoulder.

  ‘We are leaving for the Tower. Have you discussed all with Fitzwilliam?’

  ‘Yes, a barge will wait for him and his charges as soon as he can get them to the river,’ she replied. Fitzwilliam was probably in a bluster at this moment, no doubt realising something serious was occurring.

  ‘I shall travel with the King. Take my barge back to London. Guards shall escort you.’

  ‘Why would I need guards to escort me?’ Nicòla frowned. ‘I shall take Fitzwilliam and the ladies-in-waiting with me.’

  ‘Protection, Nicò,’ Cromwell said as he rested his hand on her shoulder, a strange display of affection for a public setting.