‘Amen to that,’ Mr Wriothesley says. The courtiers clasp their hands together – they would applaud, if the king gave the nod. The Lord Chancellor murmurs, ‘Eloquence, sir.’ There is a rumble of appreciation from Sampson, Bishop of Chichester; the Earl of Oxford, who is Lord Chamberlain, sighs like a farm-girl in a feather bed.
The king says, ‘We are willing to consider all lawful petitions. Willing to spare any ceremony or image, if it is not baneful. However.’ He lifts his eyes, and positions his gaze deliberately above the head of his wife. ‘When you are fruitful, that will be the time we give ear to your complaint.’
As the women draw Jane away, ‘Follow,’ he says curtly, to Rafe, to Call-Me. He wants this crowd dispersed. It is like when a cart overturns in the street. ‘Pass along,’ the constables shout. ‘Nothing to see, pass on.’
Wriothesley catches his arm. ‘Has Carew been with her? Or the Courtenays?’
‘Perhaps,’ he says, ‘it proceeds from her own misled and gentle heart. She lacks good companions. I wish her sister Bess Oughtred might be got from the north.’
Rafe slaps his arm to alert him: Lady Rochford at sword’s length. She says, ‘I hope you don’t blame
He says, ‘It hadn’t occurred to me. But now that you mention it …’
He thinks, you have destroyed one queen, is one enough?
Richard Cromwell writes from the town of Lincoln, which has now been seized back for the king. The gentlemen are disappointed that the foe has melted away. They went out to shed blood, not to parlay. Richard feels cheated himself, it is clear. The work he does, doorkeeper to his uncle, is not warlike enough for his nature.
Charles Brandon, to pin Lincolnshire down, will need to reserve a force and keep it in the field for the duration. ‘What is Charles doing?’ the king says. ‘I hope he is not too lenient. He should make an example of these beasts. Their women will creep to him, I suppose, and sue for pardon. Charles cannot abide to see a woman weep.’
‘We are none of us indifferent to it,’ he says. Henry stares at him.
It has never been possible to count the king’s subjects – not with certainty. Only the angels know how many are baptised and how many buried. We have the muster rolls of years past to see what each district can marshal: what archers, pikemen, how many horse and foot; how many helmets and coats of mail, what spears, war hammers, poll axes, swords; what gentlemen they have to lead them, whether novices or veterans. But we do not have windows into hearts, to say who is true. There is no single enemy, there is no one place he is; when one head is cut off then, Hydra-like, he grows another. They are rising in Cumberland and Westmorland and as far south as Derbyshire. In the towns of north Yorkshire they gather ten thousand strong. From Durham they descend with the banner of St Cuthbert, streaming silks of crimson and white. In Cumberland, four captains go in procession with relics before them. They have trumpeters, and heralds crying out their names: Captains Pity and Charity, Poverty and Faith.
He has their true names: Rob Mounsey and Tom Burbeck, Gilbert Whelpdale, John Beck. Captain Cobbler, the great traitor of Louth, is a shoemaker by trade, as his name may well attest: under his real name, Nicholas Melton, he will answer when the day comes. Meanwhile we can guess, from reports reliable and unreliable, that in the north fifty thousand men are in the field. There is no army the king can command or deploy that can meet, outmanoeuvre or halt such a force.
So: talking must hold the rebels back. But by now the king hardly wants to talk. He does not ask if the rebels’ demands are reasonable. He says he is their sovereign and they have no right to make any demands at all.
At his palace in Kenninghall, the Duke of Norfolk chafes and fumes, igniting himself like one of the rebel beacons, firing off several letters a day. He burns to fight: release him to go north; he will go tonight, by God, he will not be stayed! He will even serve under Brandon, he pleads. In Windsor young men pass the duke’s letters around, smirking: they are all Lord Cromwell’s servants, his
The weather is not fit to hunt, so the grooms who keep the king’s outer apartments do not stir much before six. They rise by custom, by regulation, for unless he is sick or at the chase the king’s mornings are the same. The grooms rouse the esquires of the body, who take up their pallets, wash and dress themselves and carry in the king’s under-linen. It is they who hear the king’s first words each day, his first prayers, and report any special requests he has, so Lord Cromwell may see them on their way to fulfilment. One day Henry says, his voice sleepy, ‘Could you fetch Norris?’
