Aske must be conveyed promptly, with the king’s offer of a general pardon, in order to quash rumours that on the one hand he has been hanged, and on the other hand promoted to high office. No loyal subject could turn down Christmas with his king. But the visit has compromised him: it will be easy for the Yorkshiremen to say the court has bought him. In any event, it is futile to believe Aske alone can command the towns and shires. The banner of the Five Wounds has even been seen in Cornwall, where they say it was brought back by some real pilgrims, who had walked right across the country to the shrine at Walsingham in Norfolk.
Does this not show the nature of the pilgrim trade? In my lord Privy Seal’s view, nothing comes of trailing from shire to shire to pray. You can pray at home. It costs you less, you don’t get robbed on the road, and you don’t spread diseases or carry them back to your native country. Besides, Walsingham is useless, the king says. ‘I went there to pray for my son I had with Katherine, but he only lived two months. Still, Jane wanted to go. Women are fanciful and set store by shrines. She prayed for her womb to quicken but … There you are,’ the king says. ‘Nothing’s happened yet.’
As part of his peace offer, the king has committed himself to a progress through the north. At Whitsuntide in York he will open a parliament and crown Jane: or Michaelmas, at the latest. Convocation will sit in York too, so the northern church can have its say in how we worship God, instead of being quashed by Canterbury and told what to think and how to pray. Ahead of the king’s coming, the Duke of Norfolk will arrive to guarantee order, and deal out justice to anyone who breaches the newly-established peace. Norfolk will have the title of the King’s Lieutenant, and he will not come with an army, but only his ducal train. Meanwhile those gentlemen who have taken part with the rabble, voluntarily or not, are required to get themselves into the king’s presence to make their explanations and receive their pardons man to man.
But when the north empties of its chief leaders, every tanner and butcher pushes to the fore, inscribing rebel proclamations and nailing them to church doors. The Earl of Cumberland writes it is dangerous for a messenger to be taken with a letter addressed to Cromwell – whatever the content, he will be murdered. The wars are bitter, in pulpit and in print, in guildhall and market square: name-calling, placarding, brawling. Royal couriers and even the heralds are attacked on the roads, their office not respected. Since they meet the Pilgrims’ immediate demands, the king’s offers are enough to buy a truce. But with regard to their request to turn time backwards, nothing is done and nothing can be done.
The crown is anxious about its income this year; he, the Lord Privy Seal, meets with the treasury to plumb the depths of the deficit from the north, where taxes due last September are still unpaid. Rafe Sadler leaves mid-January on a mission to Scotland – he is meeting our king’s sister Margaret, who is seeking to annul her third marriage. On the road he sees how uneasy is the king’s peace. At Darlington, forty men with clubs come and stand outside his inn, with no good intent. ‘So Rafe is having a dangerous time after all,’ says my lord Privy Seal. ‘He thought his life was too quiet.’
Rafe talks down the Darlington men, addressing them from the window of his inn, shivering as the wind slices: out of sight below the sill he grips a dagger. Lucky they don’t know Rafe is like a son to Cromwell, or they would haul him out and make short work of him. Worse is ahead, he fears, from the Scots. Besides, experience assists him: forty armed Yorkshiremen do not equal Henry on a bad day.
‘Wait till the king gets among them,’ my lord Privy Seal says with relish. But only part of him believes the king will go.
We are all concerned about our friends in the north. When Lord Latimer set out for London, to give an account of his conduct in last year’s broils, a rebel host entered Snape Castle and took his wife Kate hostage. There is eye-rolling and elbowing among the young clerks at the Rolls and at Austin Friars: ‘Our master will ride to her rescue – he must, she is his bride-elect.’
According to the northerners, it is the king’s niece Margaret Douglas who is his bride-elect, and he is aiming to be named the king’s heir.
He says, ‘This Douglas marriage, is this instead of the Princess Mary, or as well? The rebels think I am a heretic, but surely they know I am not an infidel, to have a wife in every house?’
Gregory says, ‘I think I should have some choice in my stepmother, but nobody asks me what I think. These ladies are none of them much my senior. And anyway,’ he says, puzzled, ‘why do people think my lord father will outlive Henry, to reign after him? It does not say much for Dr Butts and his art.’
