The Mirror and the Light

He strides out. The king looks after him: wistful, as if the duke were going on a journey. ‘Harry,’ he repeats. His own name is tender in his mouth. ‘Suffolk forgets himself. But I will always be a boy to him. I cannot persuade him that neither of us is young any more.’ His hand steals out, furtive, and caresses the books, their soft scarlet covers. ‘Do you know that Jane has no books of her own? None except a girdle book with a jewel, and that is of little worth. I am giving her these.’

‘That will give her much pleasure, sir.’

‘They were Katherine’s. They are devotional in nature. Jane prays a great deal.’ The king is restless; he looks as if prayers are his best hope. ‘Crumb, what if some accident befalls? I could die tomorrow. I cannot leave my kingdom to my daughters, the one truculent and half-Spanish, the other an infant – and neither of them born in wedlock. My next heir would be the Queen of Scotland’s daughter, but my sister being what she is,’ he sighs, ‘we cannot be wholly sure Meg was born in wedlock either. And I ask you – a woman, weak in body, weak in will – can she rule, with all the frailty of her sex? No matter if she is blest with firmness, with nimble wit – still the day comes when she must marry, and bring in a foreigner to share her throne – or else exalt a subject, and who can she trust? A woman ruler, it is only storing up trouble – you may stave it off for ten years, twenty, but trouble will come. There is only one way. We will have to bring young Richmond forward as my heir. So I put it to you – how will Parliament take it?’

Very ill, he thinks. ‘I believe they will urge your Majesty to trust in God and use your best endeavours to get a son of your marriage. In the interim, we can make an instrument that allows your Majesty to name a successor at your pleasure. And you need not reveal your choice. Any such person might be too much emboldened.’

Henry appears to be only half-listening; which means he is listening hard. ‘I had her library inventoried.’ The late Anne, he means. ‘There was seditious matter, and much that bordered on heresy. And in her brother’s books, too.’

Those fine French volumes: the names of George and Anne set side by side, with the Rochfords’ sable lion and the falcon crowned: his traces darkly inked, This book is mine, George Rochford. He waits. The king is quieting his conscience: he is assuring himself that the Boleyns and their friends were enemies of God. He doubts any book of theirs would be objectionable to him; or to Henry either, if his mind were more resolute. The king picks up one of the scarlet volumes. He glances into it, while he broaches his real concern: ‘The Commons will say to me, the crown is not yours to dispose of.’ A small hiccupping laugh: ‘They will put me in my place, Crumb.’

‘True.’ He smiles. ‘They may even call you Harry. But I have ways around them, sir.’

‘Who is Mr Speaker this session?’

‘Richard Riche.’

‘I see,’ Henry says. ‘Do you sleep at nights, Crumb?’

The question is not barbed: the king means no more than he says. ‘Only,’ Henry adds, ‘the Privy Seal is a great office of state, and as you are my deputy in church affairs, and the bishops meet soon in Convocation – and if you remain Master Secretary, as I am pleased you should – it is a burden of work no man has carried before. But then, you are like the cardinal, you can do the work of ten. I often wonder where you come from.’

‘Putney, Majesty.’

‘I know that. I mean, I don’t know what makes you as you are. God’s mystery, I suppose,’ Henry says, and leaves it at that.

In the guard chamber, Charles Brandon is waiting for him. ‘Look here, Crumb, I know you’re angry with me. It’s because I didn’t kneel when that whore’s head was smitten off.’

He holds up a hand, but you can no more stop Charles than you can stop a charging bull. ‘Bear in mind how she persecuted me!’ the duke roars. ‘She accused me of swiving my own daughter!’

Every head in the crowded hall turns. His mind ranges over Charles’s offspring, born in and out of wedlock.

‘As if it were Wolf Hall!’ Charles shouts. ‘Not,’ he adds in haste, ‘that I believe those slanders about Old Sir John. It was Anne Boleyn said he was tupping his own daughter-in-law. She only said it to draw attention from her own sin with her brother.’

‘Possibly, my lord, but do you wonder that she had a grievance against you? You told the king she had to do with Tom Wyatt.’