The Mirror and the Light

The men around our king live by what they call honour: skill in arms, prowess on the battlefield. Their appetite is not slaked by the cutting up of northern rebels, or the attrition of border feuding. Norfolk calls war business. ‘If we have business with the French,’ he says, or ‘Should some business with Charles ensue …’ Now church bells are cast into cannon, ploughshares beaten into swords, the cross of Christ becomes a bludgeon, a club to beat out the brains of the opposition. What’s ink in Whitehall is blood in the borderlands, what’s a quibble in the law courts is a stabbing in the streets. Mild monkish blessings are turned to curses, and the giggling of courtiers tails off into an uneasy hush. Each man is watching the other, for signs of treason, signs of weakness. You cannot greet the world in the morning with anything less than ferocity, or by evening you will be destroyed.

It is not our custom in England to maintain a standing army. Using former church revenues, we could raise one. But then Henry would want to use it, as monarchs do, to carry war beyond the seas: which, Master Secretary says, is a thing I will never permit. For our defence we can mobilise swiftly. Ready cash oils the wheels. The best men are appointed in every region, to draw up muster rolls, build beacons, recruit gunners, captain ordnance. Can our friends in Cleves, the king asks, send a hundred expert cannoneers?

The king’s ships stand in the Thames: the Jesus and the John Baptist, the Peter, the Minion, the Primrose and the Sweepstake, the Lyon, the Trinity, the Valentine; the Mary Rose and the Mary Boleyn. The king’s tabletop is papered with charts and plans. He draws forts and blockhouses, and he, Cromwell, sends out surveyors to map the coastline. All the maps are to be sent to the king. He dreams of laying them out in Westminster Hall, a pattern of these islands.

The message to the world is: we can withstand a sudden invasion, and we can sustain a long war. He, Cromwell, writes letters into Europe, explaining the recent executions. Every prince will understand that the dead men were dynasts; Henry is keeping his line safe. Within a year our country will be a giant fortress, guns trained on the sea lanes: more like a castle than a realm.

A castle is a world in little. Everyone inside it must work together. If it falls it is because it is betrayed from within. The Duke of Norfolk rides north, to stamp out sedition where the king’s writ is weakest: a querulous old man, taking to the winter roads. ‘Take your time,’ he advises: he, Lord Cromwell.

‘I’ve no choice, have I?’ Norfolk snarls. But then he turns, relenting: ‘Look here. When you write to me, you need not address me as “your Grace”. It doesn’t seem fitting these days. You being what you are.’

He bows. Perhaps Norfolk has received a prompt from the king? ‘Most humbly I acknowledge your lordship’s condescension.’

But, he thinks, I won’t start calling you Tom. He never sees the duke with a sword at his side, without imagining himself run through: ‘Beg pardon, Lord Cromwell, was that your heart?’

The king says, ‘Ask the German princes what they will do for us, if we find ourselves under attack. Ask them to send engineers. If they must send more scholars, naturally we will receive them, but our need is for fighting men.’

You can hire soldiers, of course. The king’s father hired the army that knocked the throne from under Crookback. They will fight as long as they are paid or rewarded with plunder, but they will not stir one foot unless they hear the chink of coin. He, Cromwell, puts out scouts through Germany and Italy. He is not interested in a poxy rabble of Irishmen or Scots, only in proven captains from nations where war is a science.

This winter the council sits every day. The king presides, except when he rides off in person to inspect the Channel ports. The exigency has given him a new briskness, a vigour. ‘My lords, I am weary of reading long letters. You must digest them for me. Unless they come from my brother kings, when I shall read them entire.’

The King of Scotland sends his compliments, and asks for a lion. A lion! ‘The temerity of the man!’ the councillors exclaim. ‘The presumption!’

‘I have plenty of lions, I suppose,’ the king says mildly, ‘in the cages at the Tower. I would not refuse to do him pleasure. My lord Cromwell, will you see to that?’

Someone laughs, and stifles the laugh. Any odd tasks, the king always says they are Cromwell business. And they always are.