The Mirror and the Light

Ascension Day

Spring–Summer 1539

‘Call-Me wants a picture of the king,’ Rafe says. ‘We must get one on the first boat. He needs to show it to Christina.’

Does Call-Me know his business? It seems perilous, to open a gap between a young girl’s fantasy and a man who is past his prime. But then, she must have heard Henry described, by those whose pleasure it is to rip up her dreams.

He sits with Rafe and goes through a sheaf of drawings. Sometimes a child emerges from behind the king’s eyes: an alert little boy, who expects the world to do him pleasure. Henry owns more than a hundred looking-glasses. If they had a memory, we could send one that reflected the prince as he was at Christina’s age: tumbling curls, broad shoulders, damask skin.

Henry rides up to Waltham to see his little prince. Edward’s limbs are firm and sturdy. No spells or conjurations have withered him. His pallor he gets from his mother, his shy blue eyes and pointed chin. His coats are of tawny and crimson, his winter gowns lined with miniver and trimmed with ermine. He makes full use of his Christmas present from the old Earl of Essex – a rattle combined with a bell. The Earl of Essex is stone deaf.

Every dispatch from Wriothesley reassures us that yes, he knows his business. He visits Christina in her chambers hung with damask and black velvet. The atmosphere is hushed: our handsome envoy whispers to her, enticing. The king’s character, he tells her, is naturally benevolent. In all his reign, few have heard angry words fall from his lips.

Christina’s colour rises, Call-Me says. She looks as if someone has tickled her.

Majesty, he advises, take her on any terms: you cannot do better.

But Call-Me is chagrined that the courtiers in Brussels do not understand his lineage. They imply that anyone who serves Cromwell must be of base degree himself. He assures them that he is proud to walk behind the Lord Privy Seal, carrying his pen, ink and paper. He doesn’t mind their aspersions, he says.

Rafe says, ‘He does mind, really.’ Call-Me has always been touchy, quick to take offence; easily rattled, and proud of his good blood. But the new year has begun well for him, because he has laid hands on that coveted master-spy, Harry Phillips.

How did this happen? Phillips has simply walked into our embassy and handed himself over. He craves Henry’s pardon for anything he has done or seemed to do against England and Englishmen. Now he is ready to tell the truth about his life, and is able to lead us straight to Master Traitor Pole. And then, Wriothesley believes, Phillips can be interrogated and turned, sent back into Europe to work our will – drawing the king’s enemies gradually towards him, then spilling them into the hands of the executioner.

Call-Me’s dispatch has scarcely been read at Westminster when he is obliged to write a follow-up. Though placed under guard, Harry Phillips has absconded in the night, taking with him a bag of money belonging to our English delegation.

Call-Me has spent four futile months standing in anterooms and absorbing insults, and now a trickster has gulled him. He is eaten up with humiliation, gnawed with anxiety till he knows if the king and council blame him. He should bear the blame, of course. But his fellow envoys write home on his behalf: for God’s sake, comfort him, my lord Cromwell – he will be ill if you do not give him a good word. Never was son so anxious to please his father, as Mr Wriothesley is to please you.

Perhaps it will be a lesson to him, Rafe says, not to think he has the most penetrating wit in Europe: to realise he can be as big a fool as the rest of us.

It is a cold winter. No sooner have floods abated than the first snows blanket us. In the warmth of Toledo, the Emperor and the King of France ratify their treaty. They mean this concord to last their lifetimes, they say, and they swear to make no agreement with England – marital, military – without the support of the other. Which will not, of course, forthcome. Who can deal with an excommunicate king? No Christian man can give him bread if he is starving – let alone provide him with a wife.

Henry’s subjects are now released from their obedience to him. The Pope reminds the faithful that for sectaries and schismatics, the normal rules are suspended. You may break your contracts with them and seize their goods. All Englishmen abroad, whether students, merchants or ambassadors, are at risk of arrest. It is true there has been no formal declaration of hostilities. But it feels like war. The King of Scots is preening himself; he thinks that if France invades, they will partition the kingdom and give him the north, if not the whole.